Promise to tomorrow 33 #emancipation

A life free from bondage, where you are released and no longer held captive or held back by controlling forces brings responsibility, risk, reward. No longer bound by mores imposed by custom or design, liberation opens new possibilities. The freedoms that comes from moving away from home, being able to read, learning to drive, owning a home are all relative and may indeed lead to new forms of slavery.  What does it really mean to be free and free from what? Are you running away or running towards? Holding on or resting in? A gentle rain can be a torrent for an ant. A storm a blessing for cobwebs to be blown away.

Almost four decades ago I took a vow, a promise, to be faithful in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I promised to love and honour another all the days of my life.   The vow of a nineteen year old was a wild promise to tomorrow to be happily bound for eternity and in the binding was emancipation – a freedom to co-create a future together not yet written, still to unfold.  This unfolding continues even in these last days. We have never been to these shores before and all we have gathered along the way is being mined and harvested, because the rich vein and fruits are there to be mined and harvested. There is always more to discover when the gifts meet the furnace and the kitchen. Alchemy and feasts. Transfiguration and big magic.  The tiniest of seeds once sown in the dark produces gourmet delights. The reader is now read, the child a mother, the inquisitor finding awe and wonder beyond words. All liberated. All bound together never wanting to be separated from what holds them as a clutch of kin.

We are living in a time of a national conversation about same-sex marriage and for me there are no words – love is love. To have more people making vows to one another is a sign for me is way beyond holding each other to account and more like loving the other to be the best self they can be in partnership – what a challenge! I think we need more of that not less of it (and for the record I will be voting yes).

I am sad. My love is dying and our marriage is coming to an end in the form it has taken these past forty years. Much of the stuff that drew us together as wild kids has been eroded over the years and we mourn what we have lost – mostly they are physical and exteriors. We celebrate all that has been consecrated by what we have made together.

My promise to tomorrow is to know there is a cost in emancipation and not all freedoms are worth having. To know what it means to be bound is a freedom all of its own. Just as the jazz player learns the scales so they can be abandoned, so the gift of a vow enables a safety net to be yourself and brings its own security.  Traversing to new parts on this pilgrim journey each day is an invitation to new ways to know what it means to be emancipated and to be enslaved. There is more to be written on this …

FAWOHODIE
“independence”

symbol of independence, freedom, emancipation
“From the expression: Fawodhodie ene obre na enam.
Literal translation: “Independence comes with its responsibilities.”
– from Cloth As Metaphor by G.F. Kojo Arthur

 

Promises to tomorrow 32 #wildtimes

The wind, the hail, the rain, all came falling at once. A tree branch finds its way onto wires. The miracle of electricity comes to a sudden end and with its life threatening potential the night descends into darkness. A torch, a touch, a back up battery, plan B and then plan C are activated and a crisis averted. What wild times we live in where the simplest signs of the first world – energy at the flick of a switch – becomes a holy grail to worship and behold. These are wild times.

Untamed and uncultivated parts of my life are offering themselves up to be ordered, classified and placed in captivity and becalmed. These are wild times and I am not certain they should be or even could be domesticated – it would be unworthy of the sheer size of the phenomena of the storm – the wind, the hail, the rain, all come falling with no regard to what trees or branches might get in the way.

The lads work through the night on ladders and in hi-vis gear find the damage and make repairs in double quick time. I am deeply grateful for their skill and speed. These are wild times.

The wind will not stop blowing, even when it is at its most quiet she still makes a sound, a whisper, a whimper.  The hail melts when it hits the ground, solid ice finding its way from cold clouds producing pellets of pain designed to leave a lasting imprint. The rain, soaking, drenching, pouring itself into gutters until the last drip finds its way into a drain to seep into the aquifer, replenishing a hidden reservoir.

The wind, the hail and the rain make their own promises to tomorrow. They promise to come when not expected, even though the charts predict their arrival. They promise to come to an end and rest before they come again. They promise visceral experience and to be their wild selves and bring down power lines in the dark, on cold nights. They promise to remind you of what it means to live an elemental life, one forged with the seasons and this is the end of winter and the solstice is over.

There are signs of spring under the earth, not yet visible and the last days of this season are not yet over. These are wild times. I am wild and I am in these times. I will work on the power lines in the dark as swiftly as I can to restore energy so we can all last a little longer. One more charge in the power pack providing fuel for the onward journey in the dance of the elements and what it means to live on the frontier of being human. It is not negotiable in the deal, to live and to love, fully, there is a price to paid in tears and suffering.

The day is coming, the nights are here. The fourth horseman is galloping with the wind, the hail and the rain, at his back. A little child is at the gate and holds the only promise to tomorrow worth hanging onto in these wildest of times. The wolf and the lamb lie down together.

There are beginnings, endings and everything in between. I am making a promise to myself and to tomorrow: to be in all of the times, the storms, the black outs and the rainbows, of this season. And another promise, to look lovingly for signs of Aslan on the move.

 

 

Promises to tomorrow 31 #love

For so long I have gone to a beautiful piece of poetry to search for a way to describe the essence and potency of love. Rumi exhausted, I return to my roots and find Corinthians 13 waiting for me as always. I continue to find treasures and challenges in each line, and truths that need not be told as they are so universal there is a knowing beyond words.

In these days and nights there are precious moments. Priceless. Irreplaceable. Some are of harvest and others once-in-a-lifetime you need to be vigilant, so not to miss the fleeting nano gift arriving. Sentry duty becomes a practice to keep out unwanted and unwelcome distractions.

My promise to tomorrow is to give the sentry a little rest from time to time by putting in placeholders of poetry; to let the eyes fall when they need to, and to remember love will do her work even if I am not looking.

1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV)

13 If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I speak at all it is the language of breath and silence, each inspiration fills the lungs with the future and each expiration delivers memories to the universe. I am only love made mute.

² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I can forecast and bring mystery to each moment and make meaning from the depths of all knowing, yet cannot hold still the singular moment of joy, there is nothing.

³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

If I empty my shelves, my bank account, my body to make visible what I have accumulated, and humility has not made a home, there is nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love’s laws are fused in quiet spaces, expansive kisses, confident dreams, accidents and surprises: hidden and visible in equal measure. Salt, vinegar, nitrates, sulphur preservatives of love, build resilience, stave off fear, clean off the plaque and disappointment debts.

⁸ Love never fails.

Love comes through, time and time and time again and is all that there is when everything else is stripped away. Unplugged. Love remains.

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

There is no compass, no crystal ball, no stars to consult. Silence is the guide towards wholeness.

¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

What has been known in the dark, the light now reveals. Breath, bearing gifts carries love with optimism, trust, confidence.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Hands held in the great silence. The UniVerse: where love, the code and decoder become one.

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

Promises to tomorrow #30 #Litany

My promise to tomorrow is to spend time when I have some more tomorrows to give some very direct feedback to systems that aren’t working for me right now. I only have energy for litanies – supplications, invocations, recitals where the call goes out and the faintest response hangs in the air not quite landing into resolution.

The systems failure litany goes on an on: carelessness, lack of problem-solving. A piece of equipment essential for life failed this week and one out of four hospitals contacted offered a solution (an expensive one, but a solution to get us through to the next step), the provider of the piece of failed equipment fell at every single hurdle. First the technician was on a cruise and his Dad who knew how to service but not fix was unable the help, then the promise of a replacement arriving was not fulfilled in the timeline offered, failure to return call with correct information and we are now living in hope this new timeline might be able to be fulfilled in the next 24 hours … I have lost trust and confidence … so let’s wait and see. It is difficult, and in a first world system, I am struggling to see why it is so difficult. I would have thought at these times support, efforts to the edges would be standard and not above and beyond the call of duty. I get to the point when someone, just doing the job they are paid to do in a timely manner, makes me want to send them flowers and chocolates as they are shine out from the rest.

I started my professional life as a social worker in a psycho-geriatric team and there I learnt so many things about creativity, regular and reliable reviews, the relationship between pharmacology and well-being, how to listen and observe, how to be in a multi-disciplinary team, how to advocate, when to be pragmatic, what to let go of and what to hang on to. Every day I let those learnings rise up and wonder whatever happened to our health system and all the intersecting and moving parts? It was a terrible system then, but we all worked together as a professional team to challenge it, make it better, undermine it, conspired to get new rules … we never lost sight of the most vulnerable person at the centre. It was truly a great place to learn and to make a difference. The people who I served didn’t even know most of the time due to their cognitive state, so we worked hard to take their cues and look at their past life to guide our decision making, listen to old friends, neighbours or family members if they had any (which wasn’t often).

When under stress I make mistakes and I accept mistakes and imperfections, we are all human … but these compound fractures are unnecessary and cause more stress for those who are least able to have more at this time in their lives.

When my tomorrow comes I am going to spend some of the days offering up unsolicited fearless and frank advice with courage and compassion, and a hint of the memory of my worst self.

Litany of my worst self

For when I want the share price to drop for the company whose piece of equipment failed and then their support failed further.

Lord have mercy

For when I want the complaints department officer who didn’t return my three calls for further information to have to give evidence in a parliamentary enquiry and be chased by a TV crew down the road.

Christ have mercy

For when I want the staff member at a country Victorian hospital to be subjected to a black out and a failed generator at their most vulnerable moment.

Lord have mercy

For when I want the doctor who wasn’t brave enough to be honest to be faced with some hard truths at a medical tribunal hearing.

Christ have mercy

For when I want to leave my best self behind and embrace my energy zapping worst self.

Lord have mercy.

Litany to any worker in the health system

Do your job.

We beseech you

Know your role and accept your responsibilities.

We beseech you

Help enable the system to work.

We beseech you

Actively disable the system not working.

We beseech you

Ask yourself: Is there anything else I can do to help here?

We beseech you

Be kind.

We beseech you

Be patient.

We beseech you

Be compassionate.

We beseech you

Pick up the phone.

We beseech you

Return my call.

We beseech you

Read the signs.

We beseech you

Listen.

We beseech you