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The hidden wisdom of the Melaleuca

7/30/2019

As a recovering perfectionist I love the Melaleuca tree, it speaks my language. It's a never-ending source of encouragement.

Where other trees hide their core behind a hard outer shell, the Melaleuca tree stands gallantly exposed, all its layers hanging out in plain view. It's a mess and it doesn’t seem to care. In fact it seems to have made an art form out of its chaos.

Art galleries of the world hang many paintings not nearly as beautiful or emotive as its inner soul.

Its fine delicate layers are exquisite in themselves and the colours they generate are breathtaking. Every Melaleuca tree has its unique mess, just like you and me.

Yes, somewhere in all our lives we have our own glorious mess. Maybe you’ve been like me and kept order in the outside world, the one place you can largely control, unlike some of the inner mess that defies all efforts to be subdued.

My mess shines brightest in my laundry which has become the go to place for anything that doesn’t have a home, including all my gardening bits and bobs. It's pretty chaotic.

But like the layers of the Melaleuca, mess and muddle are woven through every part of my life. The ways I bumbled through motherhood, being a daughter, a wife and a friend, and yet all those failures are gloriously mixed with the good and the beautiful things that have been a part of all those roles. They are the paint splashes and brushstrokes of my life.

It's the whole picture that tells the story. Yet it's so easy to focus on all my failings or only on the things I’m proud of but we are a precious mixture of ‘glory and grime’. There’s something wonderfully freeing about accepting that truth.

I’ve been rereading Anne of Green Gables, not from a child's perspective as in the past, but from a lifetime of experience.

I've been struck by how Lucy Maud Montgomery depicts brilliantly most of the people we meet in the course of our life. Rachel Lynde, the gossip and lady who prides herself on speaking her mind, Matthew Cuthbert who has a love as deep as the ocean but has no idea how to express it. Anne, whose temper always gets the better of her, Marilla, whose refusal to forgive left her without the love and family she longed for and Katherine Brooks, whose bitterness and hate fractured every relationship. Yet hidden amongst all the prickles and distasteful traits are the tender, beautiful, endearing parts of their soul that shine through in the way they care for each other.

I’d always thought of it as a wonderfully romantic story of love and loss but now I see it as the story of each of us as we struggle to live and love in the midst of our shared brokenness. It's the commonality of our mess that connects us most deeply if we allow it.

It only takes a crisis or a deep upheaval to make me realise that my togetherness is only a frail facade, that at the core I'm way more complex than that. Perfectionism is the safe option, you can't get into too much trouble if you get everything right but its an illusion that's more destructive than helpful.

I remember the day a friend told me that while she knew I didn't have expectations of her, she felt she could never measure up because I set the bar so high. I felt shattered by her honesty but loved her for it.

It was the beginning of a long journey of learning to shed the shackles of perfectionism and it hasn't finished yet. Living with my mess and muddle exposed takes courage but it leads to a connection that will never be possible through layers of togetherness.

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Breaking down the walls

7/23/2019

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Muriel Pilkington lived two doors from the house where I grew up. She was a tall woman with jet-black hair pulled back from her face and twisted tightly into a bun. She was one of those women you could always count on be it for a cup of sugar or a medical emergency.

She and my mother could quite often be found chatting about the troubles of life over hot tea and rock cakes. They navigated the ups and downs of life together.

The house in between was home to an elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Hearne. They’d turned their back yard into a wonderful vegetable garden and would hand us homegrown vegetables over the back fence. We kept an eye out for them as they became more frail and needed help. I still remember the night Mr Hearne die, hearing the death rattle for the first time in my life and feeling terribly afraid.

Our doors were always open and we looked out for one another. Neighbourliness was the love and compassion that ebbed and flowed from house to house bringing with it a quiet sense of security that someone cared and would always be there if you needed them.

And so it is with my current neighbour whose big kitchen table is confidant to the secrets of both our hearts. We share life, warts and all and are there for each other through thick and thin. We laugh together, weep together and are a witness to each other’s lives.

But Jesus made it very clear that neighbourliness has little to do with geography. When a despised Samaritan showed compassion for a badly beaten up Jew, Jesus took a razor-sharp axe to geographical and cultural boundaries and fences.

The victims ‘countrymen’ were either too busy, too fearful or just didn’t want to get involved and beat a hasty retreat. The Samaritan obviously had places to go and things to do too. He said to the innkeeper, “On my way back I will pay you whatever I owe”, yet in that moment helping this desperately needy man became his priority.

Today we seem to have reconstructed the fences.

Many of us are too busy juggling the balls in our lives to be on more than nodding terms with those living around us. We might say good morning or even bring in their garbage bin occasionally but there's not time to share our lives with them.

We live in an era that fosters distance. We are bombarded with reasons to be fearful or suspicious, warned to guard our privacy and the walls between us grow at an exponential rate.

Do you ever sit in a train and feel completely disconnected? No eye contact, no smiles, no friendly greeting the way folk used to do. It's that disconnection that seems to drive an unwillingness to get involved, to be inconvenienced or to face the ugliness of life that involvement might entail.

The dictionary definition of neighbour is "a person living next door to our close by", but with one short story Jesus radically changed the definition. My neighbour is the homeless, the lonely, the one battered and bruised by life, the single mum struggling to raise three children, that super stressed business executive who doesn't know how much longer he can go on, the man next door who is dying or that woman across the table pouring out her heart over hot tea and rock cakes.

We break down the fences one kindness at a time, a word of encouragement, a bed for the night, a meal for someone in need or by carving out time and space to share my life with someone in need.

Last week I went to the funeral of a man whose life opitomized neighbourliness. He was a pastor who was more at home beyond church walls, in the byways and amidst the brokenness of life we all navigate. He poured out his life into those who were hurting and doing it tough. He had been through some deep waters himself but those experiences only made him more compassionate.

Like the Lord he served, he was not embarrassed to care for anyone, irrespective of their situation. His love broke down all walls. It didn't matter whether you were rich or poor, Muslim, atheist, Christian, Lebanese, Iranian or fair dinkum Aussie, his love knew no bounds.

He was a very ordinary man, gifted with great humility, joy and grace that flowed from his deep love for Jesus. He touched the lives of a countless number of people in his lifetime. The 500-600 people who attended his funeral were a testament to the reach of his love.

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The road not taken

7/16/2019

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It seemed an anomaly. I must have looked at him strangely. He smiled. I guess gym trainers become used to shocking people but I wanted to know more. He’d just told me to avoid becoming cautious at all costs, “It's the shortest route to ageing”, he insisted.

Of course there’s a place for wise caution in the presence of clear and present danger or when your gut is screaming 'be careful' but it can so easily become a way of life and we develop a just-to-be-on-the-safe-side mentality. We gradually lose confidence, limit what we will do and where we’ll go and the walls of our world begin to shrink.

What he said made complete sense. The temptation to hold the rail when going down stairs or not walking on uneven ground in case I fall will limit my independence, strength and physical fitness. And my brain too it seems.

When I stick to flat, safe surfaces, my brain can take a break. My feet know how to put one in front of the other, but when I encounter stony ground or protruding tree roots, my brain is on constant alert, getting a good workout. Now I never walk on footpaths but head for uneven ground because my brain can do with all the exercise it can get.

In fact caution can wriggle its way into every crevice of our existence. Cautious artists don’t make great art and cautious musicians rarely surprise us because risk and boldness are prerequisites for creativity.

It's been the risk takers that have made medical breakthroughs, invented new ways of doing things and changed the world. It’s those wonderful people who won’t believe it can’t be done.

When my daughter was just three, her favourite pink teddy bear was loved just a little too much and his ear disintegrated. When her grandmother and I assured her it couldn’t be fixed she found a needle and cotton and somehow managed to attach the severely chewed ear and pink ted was whole once more. It was that determination to do whatever it took that has shaped so much of her life as an adult.

It seems counter cultural because we seem to have become a wrapped-in-cotton-wool society. Children are often denied the adventurous childhood I had, climbing trees, making mud pies and exploring the bush.

We sanitise them, train them to avoid risks and in essence teach them to become cautious individuals. It’s a childhood that doesn’t let them develop the skills to face danger safely and wisely when it arises throughout life.

I don’t want caution to make decisions for me. I want to choose freedom over fear.

I don’t want to live a life defined by the "What if's", most of which will never happen. If they do, I will become more resilient by navigating my way through the problem and at least I won't die wondering what could have been down that road I didn’t explore.

I’m convinced that the opposite of caution is not recklessness or rashness but boldness and courage. Courage to take the unknown path, to tread the rocky ground and refuse to cling to safety and security or let fear or anxiety rob me of an abundant life or to hastening old age!

“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.” Tacitus

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The winter of discontent

7/9/2019

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It was minus five degrees and the landscape was airbrushed in shimmering white. I ventured outdoors wrapped in more layers than the proverbial onion, determined not to miss a minute of the transforming wonder of the overnight frost.

My breath seemed to freeze as it hit the icy air. The monochromatic scene before me had a silent stillness, a feeling of suspended animation as if time had ceased.

I shifted my focus from the wide, white pasture to the ground beneath my feet where discarded leaves lay huddling in the gutter. Discarded may be, but encrusted with icy patterns they took on a new beauty. Even broken twigs and seedpods, weeds and grass sparkled like diamonds, as the first rays of sun hit their icy shards.

Nearby, roses glowed with a fresh loveliness, their almost spend blooms hanging on long enough to be highlighted by winter’s beauty, like a final curtain call before the theatre lights were turned out.

It was an hour of unimagined beauty, a miracle few would see or take time to enjoy.

As the sun rose in the sky the scene quickly faded, the huddling leaves once more looked old and discarded and the roses looked tired and at their end; the magic gone.

How fleeting the moment.

I headed home, frozen to the core, with arching hands and no feeling in my feet. I pondered on all the joy packed into that one hour, the glimpse into a wonderland I could easily have missed if I’d chosen the warmth of a cosy bed instead. I thought about all the times I pass up opportunities and settle for comfort, and miss the best.

I thought about my struggle to be content with winter. I find myself frequently counting the days until spring or dreaming of summer instead of enjoying the wintery moment I've been given. Yet I want to be as grateful for the cold wind that blows and the heavy leaden skies as I am for the cherry blossom or the long summer days stretching into night, because contentment should be all encompassing, content in any and all circumstances.

It’s so easy to equate contentment with comfort. Sometimes we just have to get ‘out of the warm bed’ of comfort to find the beauty buried in the winter of our lives. Sometimes it will mean aching to the core and searching with great intent among the discarded leaves of the season in which we find ourselves.

Common thistle leaf transformed into a thing of beauty

But at its core, contentment requires gratitude, gratitude for where I am and what I have in this present moment. Gratitude for the opportunities it brings or the lessons it has to teach even if they are hard learned.

I don’t find that easy or desirable yet as I look at these etchings of nature, I’m confronted with the reality that often we are most beautified through the often bitter and harsh moments of our existence. The ones that chip and chisel and file away my rough edges, the ones that take me where I don’t want to go.

In 1861, Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote, "How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose if there were no winters in our year", and indeed, in our lives.

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The canary

7/2/2019

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image:Roy Buri

My grandfather was a safety officer at Cwmcarn Pit, South Wales. Each day he would join his fellow miners descending into the depths of the earth to mine coal. Among other things it was his responsibility to make sure no carbon monoxide or methane was present to endanger lives and in those days a canary in a cage was used to detect the odourless gases.

A canary needs much greater amounts of oxygen than other animals. In order to fly to heights that would make people altitude sick, birds require immense quantities of oxygen so their anatomy allows them to take in oxygen as they inhale and again as they exhale. Because of the extra air intake and small frame, the poisonous gas will effect it very quickly and give enough warning for the miners to evacuate.

But the canary wasn’t just a warning signal, its cheerful whistle broke up the darkness and monotony of the miner’s day. They would whistle along with the bird and bring music and joy into their otherwise bleak underground experience.

This all came flooding back to me this week when I read a quote from Andrew Denton, “Laughter is the canary in the coal mine of any relationship”. What a beautiful and telling image.

Laughter brings music and joy into a relationship. it lightens our spirit and connects us to each other in a unique way. And if tensions, stress or anxiety rise, laughter can defuse the situation in healthy ways; its a rich gift. If it ceases, its more than likely a warning sign.

I wonder if there is any greater joy than spending time with people who knows how to laugh. There are few things that feel so great as a good belly laugh, to laugh till you cry, till your chest hurts and your tummy aches and all your stress evaporates. To share that with someone else is healing and life-giving.

That’s another memory I treasure of my grandfather, he had the most hearty, joyous laugh. I would sit on his lap as a small child and listen to his stories, to his glorious voice as he sang me Welsh ditties and laugh with him as he caught me up in his enthusiasm for life.

How does one maintain that joie de vie day after day in the darkness of the pit? I’ve descended into one of those coal mines and it is the darkest place I have ever encountered. And yet those miners were a jolly lot.

Sadly, I have very few photos of my grandfather. This one taken when my father enlisted for WW11. He looks serious here in a way I rarely saw but I guess it was another difficult time seeing your son head off to war.

As if to recompense for the harshness of life, nature bestowed on them a gift beyond measure, the gift of music. Singing was the sunshine of their lives. They sang together as they wandered home each night, each man turning off to his house as they came to it. I would love to have been there as those blackened men, oil lamps in hand, weaved their way through the narrow streets, singing in their magnificent harmonies; what a sound it must have been.

My grandfather taught me so much about life. He lived very simply, didn't have a lot of what this world now considered necessary but he was content and had a zest for life, he was always whistling or singing, and laughter almost seemed his language. He had a jovial heart and he loved well.

His life had been harsh, losing two daughters in infancy and a son in war, yet he was never bitter or in anyway defined by the scars of life. He was a man who knew the depths of darkness in ways few of us will and yet he found a way to live light and hold it out for others.

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The hidden wisdom of the Melaleuca

Breaking down the walls

The road not taken

The winter of discontent

The canary

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