Recalibrating

So, God.

Something occurred to me the other day and made me smile. 

It was such an obvious analogy that I thought you must be having a bit of a joke.

I went to visit a friend who has recently moved house and I don't really know the way to her new place yet, even though I've been once before. So, being the technologically-minded person I am, I used my phone to direct me. I fed in her address, pressed a button labelled, 'Start from current location' and pressed 'Go'.

I went. 

I followed all the instructions until a junction where the man on the phone told me to turn left, but I thought I remembered it from last time and I was sure I should turn right.

I turned right. 

I was wrong.

The road I chose took me through an industrial estate, some strange and claustrophobic backstreets and onto a one-way system that took me way out of my way. 

The man on the phone stayed calm. He wasn't annoyed.

The screen said, 'Recalibrating'.

He recalibrated remarkably quickly, because he started directing me through the maze of streets and roads that I shouldn't have needed to negotiate at all. Eventually I realised we were working our way to my friend's house via a different route. This time I took his gentle advice and turned left when he told me to. 

A short time later I pulled up outside her house. I explained why I was a little late and she asked where I'd gone wrong. When I told her she frowned and said, 'Oh, you'd have had no end of trouble if you'd gone that way'. 

Tell me about it. 

So, the (glaringly obvious) moral of this story is: Follow The Instructions. 

The man on the phone had the map. He knew. I didn't, but I thought I was right. Famous last words. 

You've given me instructions, too. Sometimes, I follow them. Then, I get to a junction and you calmly tell me to go left, but no! Right looks familiar. Right looks interesting. Right it is then. And then down the Right/Wrong road I find myself confused and lost. Lonely. Out on a limb. On a complicated one-way system without a map. Meeting dead-ends and road works and 'not suitable for vehicles' signs. So what do I do then? I pick up the instructions.

What do you do? Do you shut down and let me sort it out myself? I made my own mess, now I should clear it up? No. You're still there. Watching, waiting, ready to help. Even though it was my own fault.

Recalibrating. 

Finding a new route, because I turned away from the old one. 

The man on the phone doesn't always take me where I need to by the most direct route because he factors in traffic, road works and any other considerations I ask him to take into account. You, too; you don't always take me on the most direct route, but I can trust you to get me there. 'There' is the destination that you choose - not me. If I chose where to go as well as how to get there I'd either be driving forever or I'd run out of road before I got there and I'd end up in the sea. We are an island, you know. 

So. Your route might not be the prettiest, the longest, the shortest, the most interesting, convoluted or exhilarating, but it'll be the right one. Even if it doesn't look like the right way to me, I've found that it's best to trust and keep going. I know that even when it looks as if you're leading me down a dead end, there'll be a way through that I didn't see, and at that darkest and scariest corner where the road is bumpy and there's a steep drop nearby - that's when there's often beautiful treasure that I never would have found if I'd turned off onto the well-lit road with plenty of lay-bys when I wanted to.

Whether it's a huge motorway or a dual carriageway or a narrow country lane, I know that you'll get me where you want me to go. Even if I keep taking short cuts that turn out disastrous and you need to keep recalibrating. 

Thank you, Lord, for your patience and gentleness. Thank you that, like the man on the phone, you didn't make me pull over so that you could shout, 'Where do you think you're going, you halfwit?' You didn't draw my attention to the price of petrol, or the road sign that I missed, or the fact that I just plain did the opposite to the instruction.

You recalibrate. You don't abandon me. When I'm lost and I admit that I need you once again, you still get me back to where I should be. It might be that the route I take after my diversion misses some of the spectacular views you wanted to show me, but that's down to me. 

Thank you. Whatever road you want me to drive down, Lord, I want you to navigate.

I'll never get there on my own.

Languishing in lost property

Aaaagh.  It's happened again, and on my watch, too. 

Lord, why didn't you tell me that we were leaving Scruffy Barney behind in the changing rooms after Katy's swimming lesson this morning? Why didn't you send a vast neon finger to point at him, or give me some subtle intimation that I should retrace my steps before we climbed in the car? If ever there was a moment when a touch of the supernatural might have helped, this was it, surely?

Why, when you are all-seeing and all-knowing, do you watch with interest to see what will happen instead of preventing such catastrophes from taking place in the first place? 

I am sure that you've been asked that question a time or two, and in situations very much more disastrous than the mislaying of Katy's Special Thing. It's just that (she protests) it would make my life sooo much easier if we could just stop losing the stupid stuffed purple one. I could claim back hours of my life spent searching high and low for him. Lots of phone minutes trying to discern who saw him last and if anyone handed him in. 

As bedtime approaches I find myself getting more and more apprehensive.  I was out this afternoon with my Mum and an ominous text beeped from my phone. 

'Is Scruffy in the car?'

Oh no. Of course he wasn't. I knew instantly where he was and I was the last one out of the changing rooms this morning so it was my fault. Well, of course, he belongs to Katy, and she insisted in bringing him to swimming against advice, so I could try pointing the finger at her, but I'd be wasting your time. She just looks at me with big eyes and a trembling chin and I blame myself instantly. Again.

Sigh. So Scruffy is languishing in the lost property box on the other side of town when he should be waiting on Kate's pillow, floppy and grubby and less-than-fragrant, completely taken for granted but very, very much loved. 

Poor little Katy. Will it teach her a lesson about looking after her things? Will she now hold onto Barney more tightly and remember to check she's got him?  Who am I kidding?  Do life's little disasters teach me much about taking care/paying attention/anything else? How many times do you have to remind me about the most basic of things?  How many simple things do I mess up over and over again? I suppose being four years old is much more of an excuse for not learning from one's mistakes. Being forty-one less so.

How many times have we chased Scruffy Barney about? From how many places has he been retrieved? How many times have we said to a wobbly-chinned Katy, 'It looks as if you've really lost him this time', only to discover him in the gutter/up a tree/in the supermarket/garden centre/car park/fridge? (He was lost but now is found)...

We've had tears. Big, tear-filled eyes, mournful expression and a whole-body sort of sadness that breaks your heart. Oh dear. 

So it's nearly bath time. Katy has had extra chocolate to compensate her for the shock of realising that Barney is Not Coming Home Tonight, and she's had an exciting half hour in the garden with Daddy and his telescope looking at the stars in subzero conditions. (This was apparently going well until Elizabeth borrowed a torch from Grandma and thought it would be a good idea to shine it through the other end of the telescope thus temporarily blinding Daddy and putting an end to any chance of spotting a minor constellation for a while. Rumour has it that he couldn't find his way to the back door, let alone Cassiopeia, but that's by the way.)

So we've distracted her and cajoled her and she'll be in the bath in a minute and she always loves her bath. Then it's story time and snuggle time and it'll be then that we grind to a halt and face up to the absence of Scruffy.

Pop in then, would you, Father God? Just fill the little gap that there'll be in Katy's left hand, next to her face, while she sucks the thumb on her right hand. Send your Holy Spirit, because I reckon it's just the job for him. Take away her sadness and give her your peace. Keep her company, hold her close and when she wakes in the night cuddle her back to sleep, please. 

Help me to stop feeling so guilty. 

And finally, Lord, I know where the lost property box is. It's in the foyer near the door and (ahem) Scruffy Barney's going to be a bit cold tonight. Keep him warm, will you? 

And tell him that we'll be coming for him first thing on Monday. 

He was lost but now is found...

Lord, you knew that Scruffy Barney was hiding underneath the little step that the children use to reach the washbowl in the downstairs cloakroom, didn't you?  You knew all along because you are All Knowing. I'm just wondering, after an hour and a half of turning the house upside down, whether there might have been a tiny chance that you might just have let me know before Katy was beside herself with grief, devastated at the prospect of a night without her favourite cuddly.

Can't say I was that excited at the idea that Kate would wake up repeatedly in the night wanting him either, and it would be my job to remind her that the search would resume with dogs at first light, but nothing could be done in the hours of darkness... I could do with some sleep tonight after a couple of nights of other miscellaneous nocturnal palaver.  

Scruffy Barney. King of the soft toys

So could you not have tipped me the wink an hour earlier?

Hmm?

How often do we lift that stupid step up?  Why would anyone think that there was anything nestling underneath?  We just sort of skate it around with a foot. Barney would have skated imperceptibly with it. Why would anyone put anything under there, except a three year old?

Grant me, O Lord, just a minute inside her beautiful, complex, infuriating, endlessly fascinating little head.  Less than that. I'm sure that just a glimpse would help me understand a bit more what it's like to be three.  Why on earth you'd put your favourite thing in all the world underneath a plastic Ikea step in the downstairs loo and then forget about him.

So, was it character-building, then?  An exercise in self control? Persistence?

Seek and ye shall find? 

Katy was so happy to see the scruffy little object back that she hugged him tight and wouldn't stop kissing him, tears still wet on her cheeks from the previous hour and a half which had been peppered with Mummy and Daddy's dire pronouncements, such as, 'We can't think of anywhere else to look, Katy', and 'You'll have to manage tonight with Posh Barney, Scruffy has a really good hiding place this time'. 

Sigh.

(A note for the uninitiated: Barney is Katy's favourite toy and constant companion. He came from a nearly new sale and had already been, shall we say, loved. He was once lost (you won't be surprised to hear) for about five months, during which time he was replaced, by another, identical Barney shipped in from the States specially. Then he was found (this occasion behind Grandma's chest of drawers) and he looked so bedraggled next to Pristine Barney that they were christened 'Posh Barney' and 'Scruffy Barney'.  Since then Scruffy has got scruffier, and Posh is pretty much as he was then, because he just gets to lounge around on Katy's bed all day.)

Other places Scruffy Barney has been lost:

Chatsworth Garden Centre (overnight)

Morrisons supermarket (so many times they know me on Customer Services)

Sainsbury's supermarket (finally located in frozen foods)
On top of a very high display of rolled carpets in a flooring shop. (Required a ladder and game shop assistant to retrieve him)

In the library (retrieved eventually from the outsize section)

Marks and Spencer cafe (for about half an hour, by which time we'd walked back to the car park)

In the garden (found in the playhouse, in a bucket of sand, in the greenhouse underneath a tomato plant, in a welly, in a forsythia bush, in the gutter on the back of the house...need I go on?)

I love the idea that each time he was lost, you knew where he was. I do know that for many of the crises listed above, brief but heartfelt arrow prayers have been offered your way, and the fact that Scruffy is around to be lost again is testament to those answered prayers.

Do you love him too?

So, I'm reaching for a spiritual parallel here. I'm wondering if there's some Life Application that leaves me able to go to bed having learned something profound from the lost hour and a half of my life that I spent scouring the place for Scruffy.  I'm going to have a moment's silence right now so that you could gently suggest one, if you feel so moved, Lord...

***

Nope. Aside from the obvious, which is that I love my daughters so much that I would turn over the house to get back their best thing for them so that they could sleep - self interest aside. Poor little Katy thought she'd lost her Scruffy. That must have been awful from her perspective. My little love. Maybe that's it.  And she went so quiet so quickly I think she must have worn herself out. 

I know I did.

Have a good sleep, my little Kate.

Scruffy Barney is back.  Hallelujah.

*********************************************************************************

So, it's the following day, and I have the following insights:

1.  Allegory:  Barney is The Pearl of Great Price, and the fact that an exhausted Mummy and Daddy turned the house upside down to find him demonstrates how precious he is (to Kate). Hmm.

2.  Parallel: Barney is the Lost Sheep -  we love Katy so much that we didn't rest until we had found Barney so that she wouldn't be bereft at bedtime.  I love Katy (and Lizzie) so much that at times it feels as if my heart will explode, so to reflect that you love me so much more than that is something so enormous that I can't get my head round it.

3.  Conviction:  Gentle reminder that I need to work more on my stores of patience, calm, perseverance, self control, etc etc.

4.  There is no particular Message From Above:  Barney got lost, Barney got found. Barney is a stuffed toy beloved by a small girl. I am a parent.  These things happen. Quite often, actually.

Whichever it is, or isn't, thankyou Lord that Katy and Scruffy have been reunited. For now.

Here's to next time.