How mouldy is too mouldy?

I'm really hungry. I am supposed to be making some long overdue dinner but the analogy in my kitchen won out...

I found some "smoked style cheese" in the fridge with a coupla patches of unexpected growth on it. Then my last soft oatmeal roll, I just now discovered, had a good few blue spots all over it's underside.

The first I chucked in an instant - I only bought it because there was an offer on and the other options were even worse sounding. Silly Kat(i)e. Everybody knows that "style" means "faked" and almost always tastes like "sh*t".

The second I picked off the bits and am about to turn into a smoked bacon and avocado sandwich. In general I strongly oppose waste (it's like death and apathy) and the value that this meal will bring me is more than worth the compromise. Hey, they make medicine out of mould don't they?

But, well, much more and I would have had to bin the bread too. There is only so much imperfection that one can deal with before something becomes unsalvageable. Before it stops being redeemable and just makes one sick. It's a sad fact and my hope is to save as much bread, and other decomposing goods, as possible from being wasted. The imminent destiny of that roll is so scrummy, how gutted would it be to get left too long and miss out on its bacony/avocadoey/wipe of mayo future...?!

The cheese was actually less affected than the bread and I know that, were it a good bit of cheddar, I would had done some scraping foe show. It's lack of quality that made me disinclined. To be honest, that white spot was all the motivation I needed to chuck out something I never really should have bought and definitely oughtn't eat.

I suppose it's a question of payoff. What is the quality/flaw ratio that determines if we seek to rescue or if we bin it and go food shopping? This question applies on many levels and in both directions - from the things we pursue in life, to the way we are pursued. Down here on the superficial 'food decision' base right up to the 'am I being what God/god/gods/other intended me to be' plane... and everything in between. When do we give up/get given up on? What is the qualitative measure and, with respect to this, how mouldy is too mouldy?

Then, as a corollary: how long till I becomes too mouldy? Tick tick tick. We choose our dinner and our destiny but even the best things have a use-by-date (sometimes the better/fresher something is the quicker it needs eating to not go stale). Use it or lose it - that's even in the bible (link)!

Enough of all this, I'm off for tea! In the evening-meal-in-England sense that is. Mmmmmmm, bacon...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to Fly?

I wrote a poem time ago, like January or something, and I nearly put it on my old blog. Don't quite remember why I didn't but a couple of months ago I was prompted when I saw this picture at my friend Claire's house:

I was delighted to hear that she had painted it and under some "God-inspiration" no less. The analogy for her was the idea of trust. She was stepping out and trusting that as she let go of the old swing the new one would be there to catch a hold of. (For those interested, her particular area of trust was the decision to following Jesus.) I saw this and was instantaneously reminded of flying and the poem I had written about it. Letting go and soaring through the air, believing, or perhaps rather hoping, that in that step of faith one will not fall but rather reach something new, exciting and quite brilliant. I decided then that the two went too well together not to make the match. Many weeks have since passed but I eventually got round to emailing her and now, tonight, I unexpectedly found this in my virtual mailbox and feel it is finally time to share them both.

I think the timing might be perfect too. I was talking about hope last time, I do believe, and have some more things to say about that when I get a minute. Hope has been on my heart a while actually, in part due to this verse:

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:31 NIV (link)

Hey, it even has running in there. Flying too! And walking, though I don't think I've analogised that yet... I will soon :-)

Do you want know an interesting thing about hope? A few of us were sharing thoughts about this passage one time and a lady who spoke Portuguese say that the verb actually meant trust as well. So I've been doing a bit of research and it turns out that in romance languages (as in those that descend from Latin, but we can talk about languages of love if you like the analogy!) this is indeed the case. The Latin root is sperare. For hope this becomes a transitive verb, which means you hope in a direct object - that is something specific that will happen. For trust it is intransitive, you Just Trust. Incidentally it can also mean waiting in both the transitive and intransitive sense...

So that hope we need to have for a brighter future - perhaps there is an element of non-specific trust? We imagine it as bright but the source of the brightness is unclear. When the details are not apparent, instead of being confused or impatient, Just Trust. This translation of the same verse actually uses trust instead:

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31 NLT (link)

To be fair though, I think the idea of hoping specifically in the LORD is basically the same thing as general trust, given how very unpredictable The Big Man can be! As for waiting being both particular and general: one thing I never do know is if I am waiting for what I think I am waiting for, so I reckon that might be quite apt!

Well. That was an interesting sidetrack, I hope you didn't get too bored! I'm not sure I have reached a particular conclusion mind, just thinking out loud. I've heard hope defined as "the joyful expectation of good things" and I like that. Good things: is that specific or vague? In my experience people tend to need particular desires to focus their heart on because we're not motivated to act by pure theory, indeed how can you act without a plan? That is what I take to mean "Imagine a Brighter Future" (see the Pants of Prophecy (link)) However, one never can be sure if what they put their hope into is the right thing and I suppose that is why it's good to stay pretty open minded too. Hmmmmm? Hope doesn't go just because our direct objects fail us. Those transient things may fade but the intransient will not.

I didn't do the poem yet did I! Here you go:

rigid
frigid
scared to be Explicit
loving
caring
just not too Daring
Wanting
Dreaming
but caught in reasoning
telling you to stay pristine
never breaking the routine
don’t need to be too Extreme

Deep down you’re Cool
Like “old school”
yet skins, they get tighter
What about the Radical?

it’s not that I despise you
I don’t want to divide you
But have you ever wondered what it would be like to Fly?

Funny. It absolutely doesn't seem to fit with the linguistical analysis of general hopeful waiting. Trust means we can relax and be confident of receiving good things but it also means we sometimes have to brace and leap and trust is that active place. It doesn't sound like waiting at all, and it doesn't sound non-specific. Is this another "both/and"?

Sometimes it's either choose to fly or choose to dangle on the old swing. If the momentum goes then we may never make it across to the other side. That's an analogy for being bold and courageous and not missing important opportunities - we were talking about that tonight incidentally, me and some friends. It seems everything everywhere is actually linked...

My heart at the moment is definitely inclined in the faith growing direction and I wonder how best to do that, faced with these two opposing choices. In some ways I reckon that trust, and also hope, can be a lot better demonstrated in the letting go rather than in the sitting and waiting in ambiguity. I've heard it said that faith is being sure of the things we hope for. How can I be sure unless I let go and have it proved to me?

Yet, well, I also think that as an impatiency-inclined, proactive person my trust is sometimes best exercised by not having or seeking the answers and being assured that that too is ok... In this case maybe I'm not even supposed to be up on the trapeze?

I reckon it depends both on character and specific situations and that there is no one strategy that can be applied. However, I think it is not really "both/and" and more just a case of "either/or". Do either this or that, but make the decision. How? I suppose that we Fly when we rise above our ground, base-instinct behaviour. Perhaps the approach is to examine each choice for what we would be inclined to do when we aren't really hoping or trusting... and then do the opposite... thus exceeding our mere humanity and soaring on wings like eagles.

DEATH the sequal: Jive for Joy

This is a response to what I wrote two weeks ago about DEATH. It is quite a long response, I warn you now, but there are lots of fabulous analogies with a few pics too... and I do actually have a point. The crux of which can be summed up in this bible verse:

The young women will dance for joy,
and the men—old and young—will join in the celebration.
I will turn their mourning into joy.
I will comfort them and exchange their sorrow for rejoicing.

I still wanna expand though. Partly because explaining the long way is my favourite and partly because I really like the story.

The last time I wrote about this I was sad that my dog Wendy had met an untimely end:
If you recall, she had turned vicious (would you believe it from the picture?) and had to be put down :-( I was angry and upset at the waste of life that it symbolised. It was strange, that night I mourned in a way I had not expected, at an intensity I'm not sure a dog deserves... and it felt like God was analogising my pain to His. I don't want to be flippant but I was incredibly aware, to some obviously limited degree, of all the terrible things in the world that He sees as a waste of life.

The next day I was very sad. The weather was too - very dark, rainy, heavy and just generally nasty. I was battling this depressive mood and I just didn't understand how any of the trivially good things in this life that made God glad were a patch on all the darkness. You see, a day or two before I had this image of God smiling on us through a ray of sunshine... but what was one ray of sunshine in all the storm? This weather analogy was reinforced by the art show I had seen the previous day (as I left my very bad exam and was reminded of the important things in the world). It is called the Hard Rain Project and is a photo collection of images that were taken to accompany a song by Bob Dylan. Very powerful. It was printed on weather proof plastic and displayed open air (if you are in Bristol and reading this then tomorrow (Fri 1st May) is the last day and you can find it in the uni royal fort gardens - well worth it). The project calls the song prophetic and, since the artist managed to take tons of images from around the world that very clearly illustrate the lyrics, it is hard not to agree.

"Where the hunger is ugly where souls are forgotten"

How is God not always crying?

Yet as I was in this place he pointed me towards one of my more ridiculous analogies. I rediscovered these in a drawer shortly after I became a Christian and was so delighted by the way I thought they had "prophecied over my life" that I framed them and put them up in my toilet. I call them the 'Pants of Power':

For those that can't see the writing, they say "imagine a brighter future" and there is a picture of a rainbow too!

This day of mourning I suddenly felt like I was being told to once more imagine this brighter future, not just for me but for everything dark. What is with that? Everything is so sad, so utterly sad. Yet, well, two things. Firstly: a rainbow comes when sun shines through clouds and if I think God is sun and there are all these stormy clouds then the result should be that bright rainbow, right? Secondly: well, the bible promises a hope and a future (and rainbows symbolise promises) and it also says that all things are possible if we believe. So, what, imagine it and it can happen?!? OK, granted, the God stuff is less compelling if you ain't a Christian but who doesn't want the crap in this world to be improved? And the notion of belief making things better, well, positive thinking is touted all the time as a means to improve circumstance - this is just that to the nth degree.

Still. I wasn't at all sure how to do this. I was still sad for one... and it still rained. I went out to a jazz bar that night with some good friends and it was OK. Sort of. Nice to be with people that cared anyway. Then towards the end I decided I had to dance the last couple of songs, even though I felt blah. So I stepped out onto the floor... and the song, would you believe it, was "It's the end of the world as we know it" (they were one of those funky country style bands that do amazing remixes). Then the last one was a fabulous mashup of "Seven Nation Army" with "Livin' La Vida Loca". So: this broken world is gonna be different, nothing can stop it, living life in all it's fullness!

It was like I claimed that on the dance floor. I still felt like Shi*t but I said yes to it. I suppose, really, I chose life. I imagined. And then what happened...?

The next day I went to a dance event. Not a pokey bar but an actual, very fabulous, jive night just down the track in Exeter. I got on the train (as opposed to missing it!) and as I traveled further south the sun came through the clouds and I knew everything was gonna be OK. And it was. I caught up with one good friend in the day and then introduced her to another good friend that night and we both made a load more friends! The whole weekend was just great but the dancing, oh boy was the dancing somin' else.

I love to dance and hadn't had the chance to in a while so when the (most excellent) band played for the freestyle set I really just had to go for it. It truly was dancing for joy. Not just with joy but actually for it. Claiming it, walking in it, twirling in it... choosing it with every part of my body. The moment they played "Shine" (with the genius incorporation of (if I remember correctly...?) "Hey Jude" - sad song, make it better?!) I knew that the brighter future was not just possible but, in that moment, it was there. Call it heaven, perfection, life, fullness, joy, happiness, eudaimonia (if you're poncy or an ancient Greek), bliss or the Kingdom of God... It was there in me. Hurrah!

And I think that actually "jiving for joy", or rather "living for joy", might just be what this is all about. I don't mean that it's never gonna be hard, or that we aren't on occasion in a time to grieve rather than dance, but in general we should not be at a place of mourning. The world is not dead yet. We ourselves are not dead yet. There is a hope for us all to escape a mediocre life and, if we imagine hard enough, for them out there to escape their proper actual suffering too. Everything, literally everything, can be changed for the better. So bring on the joy and let's get optimistic!

Since then it has more or less sun-shined non-stop. I have felt pretty chirpy these past two weeks too and it's the kind that don't get beaten by fluctuating dissertations or foxes. I think it might be His plan and it certainly feels like what life is supposed to be... but more on that another time because this is actually only half the post I was gonna write and it's already pretty long. The next installment is about what this brighter future, or "heaven on earth" looks like. It takes the form of a carrot at one point and, handily, there is also a formula for making it happen.

Oooh, just one more thing though. I recall something I said that Thursday night (before the sadness hit) about what I thought heaven would be like. It was one of those jokey this-is-what-I-like-now-so-I think-it's-that-all-the-time convos and I said that for me it would be dancing... Then the next two days with their little revelations happened... Then, as I got the bus home from the train station on Sunday in Brizzle, I got chatting to some girl and jiving came up. Randomly she goes every week and told me about her class on Monday nights! So I got home, saw Becca (my friend with whom I tried jiving (also in Exeter, I haven't analogised the dancing in Devon yet but it is curious!) two months ago and have since wanted to find a class together) almost straight away, and now we're excited to go just as soon as we can...!

So, well, if heaven is dancing then it seems I should be getting on with it asap. More generally, if life is about having heaven (or "heaven") now and dancing means joy, then maybe everyone should be getting on with it. After all, I think that living life in all its fullness might just be the point. Incidentally so did Jesus, but that's another story...


P.S. I'm not saying just switch on joy but rather to decide to actively look for it and then, if you find it, choose it. God helps if you've got Him. If not, well, you tell me...?!

Victory!

I saw three foxes running away from me tonight on my walk home. Yeah, that's right, one walked right up close but I glared at it and it turned and fled.

I reckon that the answer is in discipline. We can't expect to be constantly free of all challenges, that's not what character development is about. If we want to stare down our foxes we need to choose to stand our ground. I realise that "catching" isn't the same as "killing". They aren't gone... but they can be mastered and rendered powerless.

Someone in my "online-community" wrote a very useful list that helps remind me of ways to be disciplined. I don't really know if Rich minds being a link on my blog but he is and here it is:

A very useful list

Physical actions really make a difference, well it's all connected in't it: body mind and soul (and spirit!). Doing such things is a good way to choose to be alive.

So now that I've run out of productive energy I'm off to bed... and tomorrow I think I may just go for a run...!

Me: 1, Foxes: 0

:-D