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Where the magic happens

2/26/2019

Jim Darling photography

It's the traffic jam when you’re rushing to an appointment, the retrenchment when you’ve just discovered you’re pregnant and there’s a hefty mortgage, and it's the Parkinson’s disease diagnosis when you’re a young mum with three small children.

Obstacles, those things that come with a multitude of emotions, frustration, anger, fear, despair, depression, and most often, stress. Mostly we try to find away around obstacles; but that's the problem.

I remember years ago taking a missionary friend to the airport and about 30 minutes from the airport we struck the worst traffic jam I’ve every encountered. It was absolute gridlock. She became stressed that she’d miss her plane and I swung into action, taking the first turn and heading for the backblocks. I knew the area well and each time we struck another block, I went a different way until I finally realised that all the other ‘backblockers’ had managed to jam those too. It took 2 hours to drive the 30-minute trip and she missed her plane, as did most of the other people heading to the airport that morning.

Photo: Robo Bastarache

My friend, Rachel, has a saying, “Obstacles are where the magic happens”.
She’s a larger than life character, a live-life-to-the-full lady. One of her passions is roller skating, one that she attributes to changing her attitude to obstacles.

"Before I started park skating, I never thought of obstacles as something "fun.” they were something to "overcome." As a park skater, I know obstacles. Skate parks are filled with them: boxes, stairs, ramps, rails, and bowls. The point is to go skate them, not avoid them! Even though I've skated for a couple of years, I still get afraid at parks but park skating has taught me there's more to obstacles than "overcoming" them. Obstacles are where the magic happens when I get past my fear and just go for it anyway."

In an earlier post I mentioned a friend of mine, a young mum with three young children who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease; that’s an obstacle of epidemic proportions. But she’s a fighter and has been determined to do all she can to stay as fit, active, and mobile as possible for as long as she can, especially for the children.

Her daughter has been learning gymnastics and Christine began to wonder if she could do the same. With the help of her daughter’s trainer, she began with a goal to one day be able to handstand. Not only did she recently achieve her goal, but she’s made a video clip, in the hope that others with Parkinson’s disease will be encouraged to challenge the obstacles of the disease.

We can see obstacles as a deterrent or a barrier to where we want to go, what we want to do or who we want to be or we can let them challenge us. Buried in the obstacle is an opportunity to discover things about ourselves that we might never have thought possible. They can become the building blocks of courage, perseverance, endurance, patience and often, sweet success.

Obstacles encourage us to risk failure and try again. I love these two women who've refused fear and defeat and discovered that through sheer determination and a good dash of courage, anything is possible.

Christine says, "Thank you to God who guides me, this weak vessel, in paths unknown". He uses the obstacles we face to grow us, just as surely as he uses the moments when he leads us in green pastures and beside still waters. To avoid them is to be less than we can be.

A glimpse into Christine's journey and triumph.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1B6kUgN6WQ&feature=share

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No words

2/19/2019

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This post arose out of the heartbreak I felt as I looked at images of the devastation caused by fires in NSW this week and the horrific consequences of floods in Queensland.

To see people returning to the charred remains of their home, their memories, and all they possessed, gone forever, tore at my heart. Nothing could stop the fury of the fire, which someone described as having cyclonic force, engulfing everything in its path, and nothing could prepare people for the force of emotions that would overcome them, as they stood staring at the ashes of what was once their life.

And in Queensland, lives turned upside down by the ravages of flood. Farmers, who have somehow survived seven years of drought, now facing the loss of what little they had left, swept away by the sheer force of water. Twenty-eight inches of rain in seven days, and most of that fell in four. The cattle couldn’t get to feed and trying to wade through the mud, driving rain and icy winds, left them completely exhausted. They huddled together trying to keep warm and there they perished.

This week I allowed the reality of that to sink in as I saw Jacqueline Curley’s photos of that loss. Jacqueline and her family have a cattle station in Cloncurry in the midst of it all. She captured the raw, agonising emotion in images that brought me to tears. I wept as I imagined discovering most of your beautiful cattle wiped out by flood and those that did survive, but were too weak to recover, had to be shot. For Jacqueline and her family and many others like her, what seemed like welcome rain which might break the drought, turned into a disaster of epidemic proportions.

At times like this there are no words.

Most of us will never face that level of devastation but all of us sooner or later will know our own tsunami … death of a loved one, cancer diagnosis, life-altering accident, disfigurement, financial ruin.

What do you say when someone faces that level of grief? Words seem inadequate, empty, even trite.

Jacqueline's family's cattle before the flood.

Some months ago I read the story of a woman who had just received a phone call to say that her sister, brother-in-law and their children had all been killed in a road accident.

She described something of the numbness that hit her in that moment. She couldn’t think or feel, she couldn’t cry, she sat staring into space and then walked around in ever widening circles, incapable of doing anything. Her husband swung into action booking flights to take them to be with her family and attend the funeral. He rang friends to let them know what had happened.

The flight would leave in less than 24 hours and yet she was incapable of packing, feeding the family or organising anything. Then there was a knock on the door. She opened it to find her friend’s husband standing there with a small box.

“I’ve come to clean the shoes”, he said. She looked at him blankly, “What shoes?” He knew there was packing to do and shoes would be needed for the trip, especially for the funeral, so he came to get them ready.

Somehow she rummaged through the house, under the kids beds, from all corners of the house, and returned with her arms full of muddy, scuffed and much-in-need-of-cleaning shoes, enough for all five of them.

He was a quiet and gently man, not given to conversation, and for the next two hours he cleaned and polished until every shoe shone, then silently let himself out. When she came to pack the shoes that evening she realised he had even scrubbed the soles so they wouldn’t soil anything in the case.

She said his kindness and gentle demeanour somehow allowed a remnant of normality to return, enough to let her thrown some clothes in a bag and begin to prepare for the agonising trip ahead.

So often when we don’t know what to say to people who are experiencing deep grief we resort to “Let me know if there is anything I can do”. This dear man didn’t ask; he cleaned the shoes.

I wish I could "clean the shoes" for Jacqueline and others doing it so tough right now. I can only share these images, with her kind permission, to help more people appreciate the agony so many people are suffering right now. While governments squabble and strut, refusing to deal with the real issues at stake in this country, people suffer in a way they should not.

Please pray for all those who are having to pick up the pieces right now, trying to find the strength and determination to rebuild out of the ashes and erosion of their lives.

All Jacquie's photos and commentary by Kate Hunter:
www.facebook.com/photo.phpfbid=2307654272592686&set=a.2304320376259409&type=3&theater

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A place to call home

2/12/2019

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“ Just as people shape a place, the place shapes us.”

My father grew up in the mining village of Cwmcarn, in South Wales. The Pit was the centre of town. Generations of men made their way underground each morning and returned to the pithead each evening blackened with soot. That’s what men did. The Pit was the lifeblood of the town.

The house where my father was born stood in a row of miner’s cottages built on the edge of a stream called, Millbrook, not far from the pithead. The town was shrouded in coal dust and surrounded by slag heaps but to my father it was home. He never mentioned the coal dust or the slag heaps, he talked about climbing the mountains above the town, of picking wimberries when they were in season and his mother making wimberry pies and wimberry jam. He talked about learning to catch trout by hand in the mountain streams by tickling their tummy. He did what boys did, while he waited in line to be the next generation to make their way underground to dig coal and earn a living.

Cwmcan mountain stream 1984

Up on the mountaintops in 1984

Cwmcarn village set in the valley, 1984

Cwmcarn became as much a part of who he was as the blood pulsing through his veins. The harsh and brutal valley life shaped the boy into the man who emerged, courageous, adventurous and determined. I have no doubt that while he embraced life in Australia, he left a significant part of his heart in that small Welsh valley.

His roots were there, grown deep into the soil of a mining community who understood hardship, tragedy and mateship. Someone said, “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul.”

People in my father's village had a relationship with place in a way few of us do today, especially if we dwell in cities. Place was essential for their survival as they relied on the ground for their existence. So often today place is a mere background to our busy lives.

All of our stories happen somewhere. Every memory involves a place … your first day at school, your first kiss and the time you broke your arm, bought a boat or met your best friend. Place shapes us, it is an integral part of our history.

Just last week, I was heading into Coles to buy some groceries when a woman coming towards me spoke my name. I was surprised she recognised me, I hadn’t seen her for about 35 years. She was my neighbour when I was a young mum, raising my family. Within minutes we were back in that place, chatting as we had done over the fence all those years ago. A place we’d once shared united us again as the past collided with the present. In that beautiful serendipitous moment I was reminded that we may move on in life but the past places of our existence will always remain part of who we are.

It makes me realise that where I am at this moment is precious. This place is not some incidental to my life but an intrinsic part of it. God has a purpose for me in this place and I want to embrace it, savour it, share it and make it the best it can be. I want to build memories in this place and know it with more than a cursory acquaintance, I want to know it with my heart.

I hope you'll take a moment to gaze at your place with fresh eyes, discover its uniqueness, find a sense of place right there where you are.

Take a few minutes to watch this delightful video clip -
A Sense of Place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YMwRe6YkiI

Footnote: Photos. Sixty years after my father left Cwmcarn, I had the joy of going to see where he had grown up. There was no coal dust or slag heaps, just a green, green valley. Millbrook still flowed from the mountainside but the miner’s cottages were long gone and a memorial marked the spot where once the Pit had been. The mountaintops, once denuded to build and maintain the mines, had been reforested and the wimberries were coming into flower in anticipation of a summer harvest.

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Chipped and dented

2/5/2019

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It had been a long, tiring trip and a welcoming hug and a cup of tea was just what I needed. I hadn’t seen my friend for a long time and there was lots of catching up to do but I was itching to explore the garden. It was a vast, north-facing space, filled with things I’ve always dreamed of growing … three huge orange trees heavy with fruit, quince, fig, olive and apricot trees, a veggie patch and a rose garden. Climbing roses framed the front of the house and the fragrance of lavender and rosemary hung on the air, as I brushed passed.

I was totally entranced and barely conscious of my friend’s apologies for the weeds and the neglected corners, for all the work that needed doing and the unfinished projects.

It struck me as we returned to the house that we’d both walked the same path, seen the same garden, but with very different eyes. We all do that don’t we, view things through the lens of shame. We are far more conscious of the dust on the shelf than the way the light shines through the window and highlights the beauty of the books.

Shame robs me of so much joy. It points the finger at all my failings and blinds me to the good and the beautiful. It crouches in the untidy corners and much-in-need-of-cleaning windows that I suddenly see with magnified clarity when I know guests are coming. It has me rushing around tidying and scrubbing, not wanting anyone to think me messy or even worse, lazy!

The irony of it all is that shame is our judgement of ourselves. When I have the courage to welcome my friends into whatever muddle might be around me at the time, they don’t seem to even notice the dust on the shelf or the untidy corners, in fact its quite the opposite. Sometimes I get to glimpse my house or garden through someone else’s eyes and it always takes me by surprise. There’s that wonderful warm feeling of “Wow! I hadn’t seen it like that”. I’ve been so busy noticing all I haven’t done that I’ve totally missed enjoying what I have achieved. Somehow their way of seeing clears my vision too.

I can look beyond the dust and enjoy all that I have with new appreciation and fresh gratitude. I’ve spent a good deal of my life chasing perfection and the latter part of my life realising it doesn’t exist, that we are all a little chipped and dented in a gloriously humbling sort of way … that of shared humanity … the universality of imperfection.

I still love order and organised spaces but I don’t feel pressured by them any more. Now I take time to read the books on the coffee table and weep as I read the inscription in one, “My dear friend, you are to God and to me the aroma of Christ… the fragrance of life.” 2 Cor 2:15,16. I weep as I realise that someone glimpses something in me that I cannot see in myself, that God is answering my prayers. I weep that I could have missed that moment if I’d been too busy tidying the coffee table to take time to read the book.

How many of those glimpses of beauty and wonder have I already missed?
Every day I’m surrounded by them … sunrises and sunsets, the fragrance of a single gardenia on my windowsill, treasures that remind me of the giver and their love, and that ray of sunlight on my favourite books. I don’t want to miss any of them. I want to choose friendship over tidiness. I want to invite people into my life without excuses and most of all I want to make space in every day to notice and capture the glimpses of sheer joy around me and I want to be able to value the chips and dents that have made me who I am.

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Where the magic happens

No words

A place to call home

Chipped and dented

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