Two Viewpoints

It occurred to me today that often we fall into one of two types of flawed behaviour, when it comes to how we live out our lives.

The first type are "the grass is always greener" crowd. People who follow this path, have little conviction when it comes to commitment and loyalty, if a better offer comes along... they are off to pastures new.

The second type are the "you made your own bed, lie in it" crowd. I know all about them! In the past, that is the group I have most closely associated with. These are people who value loyalty and commitment so highly that if they make the wrong choice, they stubbornly refuse to get out and instead try to make the best of a bad deal.

The sensible people are those who fall in between... but I wonder in reality, how many people that actually amounts to. It would come as no surprise to me if they were in the minority.

I have a problem with the first group I mentioned... I don't like it when people act like locusts, especially in matters of friendship and relationships. I find it unacceptable that a person can come along, strip mine another individual for all their goodness and then leave them when the next best thing comes along. It is wrong. How does a person justify such an attitude in their own heart? Of course the truth is that it probably never crosses their mind... and for that... if it weren't for the terrible damage they cause to others by their behaviour, perhaps they would have more of my pity.

However the second group, the one I have followed in the past... don't believe in hurting others, they don't understand that there are times when it is OK to get out... that sometimes staying is the wrong option. If you are slowly being devoured in body mind or spirit through a friendship or relationship... I think it is OK to escape.

True friendships and relationships are built on symbiosis (two or more separate individuals working together to benefit one another). Too often we can fall into the trap of parasitic relationships - where one party takes advantage of the other.

I strongly encourage you to think carefully before making a big decision either way about your relations with others. If you are thinking of walking out on someone, ask yourself why. Ask yourself is it really worth it. Ask yourself if you are thinking of what is best for both people, or if you are just trying to have your cake and eat it.

Similarly if you are on the receiving end, if you are in a relationship with someone where you feel obligated to helping them, ask yourself if you are really helping them by spoon feeding them. Are you losing sight of yourself, do you feel like you are slowly dying inside? Don't needlessly commit yourself down a path from which there is little or no escape.

Essentially all I'm asking you is if it is a two way thing. There is an old Korean parable of a soldier who dreams he dies and is shown Heaven and Hell. In Hell, he sees men and women wailing in despair because they are given impossibly long chopsticks with which to eat. In Heaven, the people have happy faces... and yet they have exactly the same chopsticks. the difference is in their attitude. In Hell, the people are trying to feed themselves... in Heaven they are feeding one another.

Are you getting fat off what other people feed you, whilst neglecting to return the favour?

Or are you being fed at all... or are you giving all your food away without receiving nourishment?

Please think about these questions, your long term future may one day depend on it.

Regards and blessings

Nick

The Eyes Have It.

It's been ages since I last had my eyesight checked.

To be fair though, the last time I showed up to arrange an appointment... the opticians sent me away on the basis that my dad didn't need glasses till he was in his mid to late 30's. Not very scientific, is it? That my friends is the trouble with living in a small town. Everybody older than you knows you, or at least likes to think they know you simply because they have watched you grow up from a distance. They still call me Nicholas - they don't know me as Nick, because they've never bothered to get to know me properly. You, who read all about me here... can call me Nick.

Recent events in the town, should teach these people to know better than to make assumptions about people on the basis of what they have seen from a distance ... but they don't learn, they never learn.

Anyway, I work with VDU's and heck I'm also on here often enough, so I really should get my eyes tested regularly... and my colleagues are concerned about me but the truth is I can't make my mind up where to go. If I go to my hometown optician, they have my long term records... but they are a private practice and may not have an extensive amount of equipment, not forgetting of course that they also sent me away on the basis of my parentage.

I could go to either Specsavers or Vision Express in Stratford, where I work.... but I always try and stay loyal to the people I'm already associated with. That is my nature.

I remember as a child, I had a rather uncaring, even Aryan attitude towards the idea of wearing glasses. I used to be terrified of eye check ups as a kid because I felt if I ended up wearing spectacles I'd be in some way inferior... and I felt inferior enough back then. As I've grown up, I've naturally shed that judgemental and silly attitude. Heck if I wore glasses, some people might actually make the mistake of considering me an intelligent life form.

So the questions:

1. Where should I go?
2. What would I look like wearing glasses?
3. What sort should I go for if I need them?

I think if I do need glasses I should get some oblong, minimal depth, frameless ones. I don't think oval will work with my head and I certainly don't want octagonal wired Gestapo glasses!

Laying Down an Old Burden

"It is the old wound king, my king. It has never healed" - Lancelot ("Excalibur", 1981)

I have carried something inside me for a long time, and recently I've been having dreams that have taken me back into my past... back to the very heart of the matter. I feel this is a prompt to talk about the subject and get it off my chest.

In all of Creation, there is one type of man that I cannot abide:

"They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires." 2 Timothy 3:6

I have never openly admitted why this such a bugbear with me... now I shall. I've held this in for some time because despite the wrong done to me, I value honour above many things... and I won't drag someone through the dirt on account of what they have said or done to me. That is why no names will be named... and only the people who really know me will understand.

I once dated someone - they were no good for me... I know that now. I tarried longer than I should because I felt I could be a force for good... they had seemingly lost faith in God, after a while into our relationship... as it was on "my watch" I felt a degree of responsibility - fool that I was. Every so often, the wiser part of me... the part that wanted out, would get fed up and a row would ensue. I'd go away and cool off and I'd eventually come round full circle.

There was this bus driver...

He befriended her. I was a little suspicious, but I told myself that I was allowing petty jealousy to get the better of me, so I put it to the back of my mind. That was until one day when we had a really big row. I disappeared for about a week. It was during that week that it happened (several times). He saw his opportunity and took it in both hands. I think you know what I'm talking about... it doesn't need saying.

The biggest mistake I ever made, was not seeing that one moment for what it was. So bewitched was I (like the Prince Rilian in C.S. Lewis' "The Silver Chair"), that I even did my best to forgive that. I reasoned that if I could demonstrate forgiveness to that level, maybe she'd understand how much God loved her (when I talk of forgiveness in this context, I wish to make it clear that I am talking in terms of continuing a relationship... not with regard to sin itself). All she cared about was getting her crutch back though. I carried my burden for some time after that... and when I think of how heavy that could of been in terms of consequences, I shudder... and thank God for the grace he showed me in helping me to awaken from my living nightmare.

While I have been healed of the experience, the memory of that time has always coloured my perception of male/female friendships. I do believe that platonic relationships between men and women are possible... in fact, I thrive on them... a couple of my best friends are women (easier to talk to). However, when somebody I am close to who is in a relationship, is approached by another man, I will always regard that man with suspicion. This is especially the case when a man lurks on the fringes of their social circle and when he "has their ear" too readily. I don't like players and seducers.

This has a lot to do with the road I have walked and I have two things to say to men:

1) I am sorry if I have regarded you unfairly because of my pain.

2) Please do not prove me correct in this matter... ever.

Me and this issue? We're done now.

The White Stuff!

For the past two days, it has been snowing in the land of Alcester.

It has been so long since snow has fallen in abundance in my town. Firstly, it's in the centre of a valley, so we only get a light dusting. Then of course we have climate change to contend with. If the people of Britain had any doubt the climate was changing, they only need look to the Mr Whippy vans that have been out in Stratford-upon-Avon serving ice cream from January.

So, substantial snowfall is rarer these days. I always remember with fondness, the time when there was a blizzard on Christmas Eve. I was a child at the time and we had to walk all the way to the midnight service at Arrow. That was many years ago, before the bypass was built... before the Elephant Tree was cut down. I dragged my handmade ply wood sled all the way up and back again. The snow was deep, so deep... and my sled was no use at all.

That was probably 25 years ago now... and yet people talk of snow, like it never happened over Christmas. Maybe they just haven't noticed winter gradually getting thrown out of whack.

Cold, snowy days like this always remind me of my childhood. The gentle crunch of virgin snow beneath the boot. The huddling of the family round the radio as we listened to BRMB (there was no Warwickshire radio station then), to find out if our school had been closed... and the exultant cheer that followed when we discovered it inevitably had.

The way I see it, when days like this come... you can either be extremely mature and sensible... and bemoan the delays in travel, as well as the disruption to adult life... or you can recapture your youth, get out there, have snowball fights and/or build a snowman or some other effigy.

Guess which way I jumped?

I ran out the door taking a few tender and gentle steps on the new covering of snow, and then I ran and jumped for joy in the street. Now at 7.15, this is not something that is in my nature... but the snow had energised me and I ran amok with excitement.

I walked to the High Street to await my lift for work. I got bored so I decided to build a snowman outside the Post Office. I only got halfway up the torso before I had to leave. Once at work, it quickly became apparent that not many others would make it and most people left once official word had been given. I stuck it out till 4, trusting in Rob's judgement.

Sadly when I got home, no trace of my snowman remained. He'd been kicked in. I had hoped someone would have understood what I was doing and finished it off. Unfortunately though, it seems a lot of people are more destructive in their nature than they are creative. We need less of that sort of human.

Today I have the day off from work... I haven't ventured out yet... but it is still snowing.

Truly there is beauty in all God's seasons.

Subtle Changes

I'm starting to believe it... I'm changing.

Had some news in the week, that clearly indicated a door had been closed to me. I could have moped on... "woe is me", with regard to my situation, goodness knows I've done that often enough. I surprised myself by being OK with it and taking it in my stride. My attitude towards closed doors has changed. In the past I'd be frustrated, that every door I tried would be firmly locked. A phrase keeps going through my head, that seems to be keeping me afloat:

Every decrease in possibilities brings about an increase in certainties.

I don't think I've read that anywhere, but it fits how I feel like a glove. You see chess master Nick Payne would be probing each one of those possibilities until the stars failed in the night sky.... but I'm learning that the things I don't need on my journey, won't take root within me. I don't have to second guess what might be or what might have been, because only that which is certain will come about.

The good thing about this, is that I'm not missing as many "moments". You know what I'm on about, the small things in life,... the little blessings from God, the things of beauty that just slip quietly by into the night if we are to busy to notice them.

Tonight I was walking from work, to meet up with my mate, it was about 5:35pm and the sun had not long set. About halfway down Henley Street, I heard birdsong. It was so loud, proud and beautifully clear that I tracked it to it's source. there atop a chimney stack, was the silhouette of a tiny bird. A tiny bird with such a loud and expressive voice. I just had to stop and take it in.

A slightly more disturbing twist in my new positivity, is that I'm singing a lot more at work... but I'm also a lot more relaxed and motivated, so even if my colleagues disapproved of my voice (which they don't), they have plenty of reasons to remain chipper.

I look in the mirror and my face doesn't seem as heavy... and I know I'm smiling a lot more.

Now for the crazy part. This next bit probably won't make sense to most of you.

I get the strangest feeling that the scar on my chest is a bit smaller... or at the very least thinner. I feel like I'm growing less conscious of it... and some form of healing is definitely under way. whether that is purely psychological, spiritual or also physical remains to be seen.

It doesn't matter, God is good and he is taking me into calmer waters. We'll have to see how this develops.

God bless


Nick

Every decrease in possibilities brings about an increase in certainties.