The Imagination of Trees: 2009-01-18

Thursday, 22 January 2009

Divine threads

oh dear, lagging behind on my promise to write once a week, so it is a good thing I didn't promise a daily enterprise. I have sent some articles to the Guardian magazine because Graham nagged me into it.
Yesterday I heard a profound phrase, two actually,
'all, in the end, is harvest'
and
'they' (an Aunt and her neighbour) had 'vacancies' for one another'

I thought 'all, in the end, is harvest' was brilliant. I find 'everything happens for a reason' hard to swallow, though many of my friends believe this, but 'all in the end is harvest' makes for an easier way of making sense of trauma without it seeming divinely intended. The awful things in my life have been rich in 'harvest' and that 'harvest' has been of good things. I don't believe God gave them to me or intended them, simply that he has harvested my experience of a real human life.

Someone suggested I was 'the divine thread in lots of people's lives' which made me squirm because anybody's response would be 'oh, no, not me' and nervous laughter, which is of course what I said and what i did. But I think we under-use 'divine' as a term for God. It is a good 'catch-all' way of talking about Holy things without them becoming set apart qualities which belong to Saints. When I think about it I see 'divine threads' in all of the people I love. It set me off thinking about how we are all 'threaded together' like a big woven cloth. So being 'a divine thread in lots of lives' isn't so improbable, it is just a question of looking for those threads in each other.

This leads nicely on to the second quote, which is about the same aspect of life. Our relationships are the harvests of our lives and the idea of having 'vacancies for each other' flies in the face of some negative associations of being needy for unhealthy motives. It occurred to me that being needy for something lacking which might be met in another human being is what makes our woven fabric in life. A red thread is needed to compliment a yellow one and they need each other to create a whole. The absence in the yellow thread's life of the red thread is simply a matter of fact and for the yellow thread to take her whole life saying just because a red thread is missing doesn't mean I should look for a red thread seems a bit wasted when a red thread is out there looking for a home.

So...a post for this week, that wasn't too painful.

My original introduction

This photo was taken by my husband Graham on Iona. It is important here because it represents the way in which my Mum's death and funeral offered me healing. It marks a point at which I have decided, as she did, to be fully myself and live every moment given to me as fruitfully as I can. As part of this I wanted to start a 'new thing' and start allowing people to see more of my writing and therefore live my life more openly.
This blog is a response to the insights so many shared at Mum's funeral. I discovered there that my Mum was so much more than simply my Mum. She was never a saint, had many flaws, she could be frustrating and difficult like me. But I realise that these things were tiny when balanced next to her capacity for living and for giving. What emerged from her funeral was an image of a woman whose appetite for life and for quality of life was remarkable. She was entirely herself with everyone, whatever the cost. She gave all that she had to the people she loved, she fed us, nurtured us and showed us that every detail of every day was a blessing.
I am giving you my writing as part of the fruits of my life and person in honour of her memory and continued presence in my life. It is a risk I am now willing to take. She has given me the courage to live my life boldly.
When my Mum was dying I went to the Cathedral and imagined her saying goodbye at the side of an expanse of water. In my imagination there was a boat waiting for her to depart. In my mind I urged her to get in her boat, turn her back on us all, never look back and hope for the light on the other side of the water.
The boat story of Jesus telling terrified disciples not to be afraid in the storm and calming the waves has always been comfort to me in the storms of my life. There are so many ways of looking at the symbolic meaning of a boat.
For me this photo speaks to me about a song called 'Lord you have come to the lakeside' and in it there is a line. 'Now my boat's left on the shoreline behind me; by your side, I will seek other seas.' It is a line which kept coming to me as a friend of mine sat at her Aunt's bedside in her final hours. I sang it for her and her partner as they said their goodbyes as a prayer for them, because I knew how much they liked it. I think it began to speak to me too. When I urged my Mum to the other shore it seemed that her boat was only her own and no one could be in it with her. In her death I do feel called to 'seek other seas' as a new beginning with which to honour her departing.

Books I'm reading & books I've just read

The New Black; Mourning and Melancholia by Daniel Leader
The Time Travellers Wife
Retribution by Maureen Duffy
The Summer Book by Tove Janson
Voice Over by Celine Curiol
Perfume by Patrick Siskund
Loads of Alan Bennett's writings
Writing Home by Alan Bennett
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Salmon Fishing in The Yemen
Engelby, Sebastian Faulks
The Lolipop Shoes; Joanne Harris
The Prospect of Heaven: Musings of an Enquiring Believer, Frederick Levison
The Courage to Connect; Becoming all we Can Be, Rosemary Lain-Priestley

About my Writing

My writing tends towards the poetic, it has also been described as filmic. It is intensely personal and seeped in Christian imagery and thinking. I think it is spiritual writing in that it is rooted in the belief that there is a God and that God is very real to us in this time and place on earth. I write because it is something I am unable to live without. I write because it is healing and therapeutic. I write out of instinct and because I am by nature 'a writer'. I write for myself and for others that I know and love. I write for specific occasions and for purposes as well as for its own sake. Writing is a pleasure for me.
I write sporadicallly and as the mood takes me, it is not a disciplined exercise but something which emerges from my soul when it needs to be created. I have been astonished to find that people around me need my writing. They ask for what I have written and they ask for more. This blog is an attempt to meet that demand, not because I feel pressured to do so, but because God has given me a gift and it is begging to be used. People are asking me to us this gift fruitfully.
I think my writing is healing in its nature, it is soulful and intimate, it reaches places within us which we do not understand and it sometimes moves people to tears. It doesn't seem that writing like this is a productive or lucrative affair. It is not a 'niche market', it is not designed for profit or thought through in any sense. This approach would disable it.

The Imagination of Trees