Another troubling dream…

Just recording this, whilst the details are fresh in my mind, and I mull it over looking for “meaning”…

I was sitting on the wooden floorboards, legs stretched out in front of me, back against the wall, quite relaxed & talking to someone, probably my elder daughter. I could see a cricket pitch and a line of willows, probably a riverbank, through the open door. Suddenly a fairly large snake glided through the door. I wasn’t much alarmed; somehow I knew it wasn’t poisonous. But then another snake, larger, faster and more agressive, slithered in after it, clearly in hot pursuit. It attacked the first snake; I watched in horrified fascination as they lashed about. I knew the bigger snake was venomous as well as vicious…

The smaller snake dived up my trouser leg, trying to escape, but the venomous snake followed it up there. I was now frozen in horror, but the other people in the room seemed quite unaware that there was anything untoward going on, and were chattering away quite normally behind me. I could feel the snakes slithering over my skin, the smaller snake trying frantcially to escape the larger’s deadly coils & strikes. I knew I mustn’t move a muscle; I tried to scream, but nothing would come out; I’m not sure I could even open my mouth. I felt one of the snakes strike, and felt burning fangs sink into my thigh; I didn’t know which snake… at last the scream came, and I woke up screaming, “Help!” bolt upright, heart pounding.

*** Edited to add: Oh my goodness, I’ve just re-read the last few words of the last post I made here. That wasn’t quite what I meant… ***

Matthew 11:28…

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

He probably didn’t aim it specifically at mothers of twins sitting GCSEs, but it felt like that last night. Or to put it another way, before I went to Meeting I felt a bit like a mug of scummy, lukewarm, oversweet coffee. After an hour of waiting in the Silence and the Light, I had mysteriously transformed into a cool, clear glass of fresh water. As I walked home I felt the little gnats of busyness start to swarm around my head again, but now I had the strength of spirit just to wave them away, and I slept much better and arose with my ability to get things done restored.

I think I’ll have to give up my job, so that I can start to go to Meeting weekly and “feel the good” in me “raised up!”

All that glisters…

So many things – and people, and situations - are not what they seem. Yet we cling onto our first impressions, reluctant to call our judgement into question…

For some reason, I was thinking about a few of the defining moments of my life earlier today. One stood out as a classic. Aged 16 and completely innocent, I was at a Christian youth camp and had been swimming in the sea. I stopped on the way back up to camp to wash the salt out of my hair under the waterfall, where a cold North Devon stream plunged over a low cliff. Suddenly strong arms encircled my waist from behind, and warm lips caressed my neck… time stopped, just for a second. Then he released me. I knew who it was, and whirled round, eyes wide with shock. He winked, and grinned at me, every inch the Alpha male, and sauntered off down to the beach where his beautiful Norwegian fiancee awaited him…

For many years I carried that moment with me, knowing that one theology student, a camp leader, a potential pastor, was not what he seemed, or that others believed him to be, and that maybe I wasn’t all that I’d wanted to be, either. He was, without doubt, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and he had seen something in me that responded to him; I did not scream and try to get away, as virtually every other girl there would have… Not long ago, I saw his face and name again, grinning up from the newspaper. He had just been sentenced to something like 12 consecutive life sentences for drug dealing and worse. And for years I’d thought of him, if at all, with a wistful, “I wonder what would have happened, if things had been different?” I’ve had my answer…

I also thought of a highly-respectable elderly lady I know, a veritable pillar of polite society, who casually let slip the astonishing fact that for nearly 30 years, until very recently, she’d been conducting a passionate affair with someone I know to be 25 years her junior. I do not doubt her for one minute; she’s as sharp & bright as a new pin to this day, not given to fantasy or exaggeration. And I rather think that her erstwhile lover is desperately missing her kindness, wit and sparkling humour. And whose business is it anyway? Neither of them was married to anyone else, and she steadfastly refused to marry him in case he met someone his own age. But I wonder what her whiter-than-white colleagues and constituents would have said if they’d known?! Sadly I suspect they would have torn her limb from limb, but she has been – still is – a huge force for good in our community.

And when people congratulate me on my well-behaved offspring – well, enough said! None of us know what’s going on behind closed doors, or behind other people’s eyes…

Complicated thing, simplicity…

For many years, I have felt an urge to try to simplify my life. It would be very easy to point out that it never had to get this complicated in the first place, but the person who could have kept it simpler just isn’t me. So now I feel I am reaching a turning point; my 5 kids are growing up fast, I have recognised that my marriage will never be like other marriages, I have drifted away from my old church and found safe haven elsewhere, and my worries about the state & future of the world around me have reached the point where inaction is no longer an option. At the same time, however, I’ve re-entered the workaday world & lost my allotment, both of which have cost me dear in terms of serenity. In order to regain that serenity, & have the time & energy to make a difference in the world, I need to restore some simplicity to my manic life.

 It seems to me that simplicity means working out what really matters to me, concentrating on those things and “letting go” of as many of the other drains on my time & energy as I reasonably can. There is any amount of advice out there about how to achieve physical simplicity; books & websites on decluttering abound. But empty, easily-cleaned rooms & wardrobes (which I’m still very far from achieving!) would mean nothing to me without spiritual simplicity, which is not quite so easily attained.

So I’ve been attending the local meeting of the Quakers, properly known as the Religious Society of Friends of the Truth, for a year now. Although I have some Quaker ancestry, I was born and raised a CofE Christian, and found my own way into the Good Shepherd’s sheltering arms after years of teenage & twenty-something rebellion & spiritual blundering in the dark. But after years of unquestioning Church membership, increasingly I’ve found myself wincing through services & sermons, wondering how people could think, sing & say some of the things they did in the name of the Prince of Peace & the God of Love. So the simple silence of Friends’ meetings, where we become still and “wait upon the Lord” seemed like a refreshing homecoming, and has given me the internal space & tranquility, away from the noise & bustle of the world, to start to let the Light shine inside me and cast my chaotic life & thoughts into stark relief. This has not been a comfortable process! This is a part of it; the way my mind works, I need to write out my thoughts, which forces me to put them into some kind of logical order, and possibly have some feedback on them, if anyone can be bothered. So I shall post this, then follow up with posts on the individual topics that seem important for me to think through properly, living my life where & how I do.

 Angie