Sunday, December 31, 2017

John Piper on Hebrews 10:32-36


This morning I listened to this message by John Piper 'The Plundering of Your Property and the Power of Hope'. You can listen to an audio version and access the full transcript here.

The Christian Church in America suffers from about 350 years of dominance and prosperity. What I mean by dominance is that in most of American history being Christian has been viewed by the wider culture as normal and good and patriotic and culturally acceptable and even beneficial. What I mean by prosperity is that being Christian has generally resulted in things going well  for us American Christians. Since the Christian ethos has been dominant, it has also been a pathway to success. And what I mean by suffering — that we are suffering from 350 years of dominance and prosperity — is that this has deeply ingrained in us a massively unbiblical mindset, namely, a mindset of at-homeness in this world and in this age. This has not been good for us. We are suffering from it, prosperous though we be.

We have been dominant and we have been prosperous, and therefore we have come to feel at home in this world, and have developed a deeply ingrained assumption that things should go well for us, and that this is our world and our age, that being a good Christian and being well thought of must go together, and that poverty and sickness and suffering and death is the worst thing that can happen in a land of Christian wealth and health and ease and upbeat, success-oriented vitality.

And so we have developed a form of Christianity to support this ingrained expectation of acceptance and comfort security and prosperity. This form of Christianity begins by focusing on our felt needs (not our eternal ones that we may not even be aware of), and it makes its appeal on the basis that Christianity will make life a lot better for us in this world. It has not been a call to suffer as an alien, but a call to prosper as a respected citizen — and to be very indignant and angry if someone reveals out Christianity as a liability and not an asset.

"Hebrews 10:32-36

Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised."

This text fills me with a longing to be free from domesticated, comfort-seeking, entertainment-addicted, prosperity-loving, security-craving, approval-pursuing Christianity, set free from this distorted, unbiblical, powerless Christianity by the power of hope. I hope it does the same for you.

The writer tells the church to “recall the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.” The word “enlightened” is used at least two ways in the New Testament: it can mean that the one enlightened sees more clearly or shines more clearly. For example, it can mean that light “goes on” in the heart and truth is seen clearly that once was dark (as when Paul prayed that the Ephesians would have the eyes of their hearts enlightened to know God — 1:18). Or it can mean that what is enlightened (doesn’t see more clearly but) shines more clearly (as when Paul says that Christ lightened life and immortality, that is, Christ brought them to light; he made them shine more clearly — 2 Timothy 1:10).

What does it mean here in Hebrews 10:32? It’s pretty clearly a reference to their conversion. And both meanings seem to be very relevant from what we know about that conversion. On the one hand to become a Christian means (from 2 Corinthians 4:6) that God says, “Let there be light,” in our hearts and “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” fills us with confidence of his reality and worth. So we are “enlightened” in the first sense — we see the glory of God and the reality of Christ more clearly. Lights go on in us.

But then the New Testament talks about how becoming a Christian means we also shine like lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse world (Philippians 2:15). We don’t just see the light of God’s glory more clearly, we begin to reflect it. God shines into us and we shine out to the world.

So I take Hebrews 10:32 to point to these two things. These Christians had come to see the light of the gospel of the glory of God as true and infinitely valuable; and they had then begun to shine in the world as a witness to this truth and value. The first experience set them free from the world and the second made them stand out from the world, and be useful as a witness to the world.

And the result was suffering. Verse 32: “But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings.” It is not unnatural for the world to see the shining of Christian truth and Christian love and hate it. Just before Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and give glory to your Father in heaven” (which sounds like a positive response), he also said, “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:16, 11). In other words, some are enlightened by your shining; others are incensed by your shining.

In the former days, after the Hebrew Christians started to see the glory of Christ and to shine with the glory of Christ, they also started to suffer for Christ. That’s what Christianity meant. Receive Christ and receive suffering. Evidently they thought things or said things or did things that were not politically correct in those days and the upshot was that some of them got arrested and some others got in trouble because they stood by those who got arrested.

Verses 33–34 explain the way they suffered: ““sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison.”“

So there were two ways that these early Christians suffered: one was that some of them got arrested and put in prison, and the other was that the other Christians were willing to share their suffering by showing public sympathy.

This sympathy cost them a lot. Their property was seized and plundered. Verse 34: “You had compassion on them in prison, and accepted joyfully the plundering of your property.” The scene evidently is that some were put in prison. Others had to decide whether to show their solidarity with them or not. They remembered the teachings of Jesus, perhaps, and went to the prison. Jesus said, “I was in prison and you came to me . . . inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:36, 40). Hebrew 13:3 says, “Remember those in prison as though in prison with them. Identifying with the offenders, those with culturally unacceptable views, cost them their possessions.”

(John Piper then draws corresponding examples to present day America:

- Reaching unreached people (eg. Ronnie Smith, killed a year ago in Libya)
- Slavery, human trafficking. (Eg. the End It Movement)
- Abortion (eg. Lecrae and Randy Alcorn)
- Race (eg. Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner, Selma)
- Marriage (eg. Calvin Cochran))

What is plain from this text is that the key to this kind of love, compassion, courage, and sacrifice is radical freedom from our love affair with our possessions and our popularity. Where does that freedom come from? The text is very clear in answer to that. It comes from an all-satisfying hope in the treasure God is beyond the grave. And the answer is not that it comes from some superior kind of grace given to saints and martyrs. It comes from cherishing the reward of heaven more than life on earth. This is the other aspect of being “enlightened” (verse 32). Their eyes were opened to see the glory and worth of their future reward. Verse 34b: “You accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, hope, which has a great reward.”

[...]

We are at home in this world. We love our possessions and our popularity. We love approval. But these early Christians were aliens and exiles whose true home was in heaven and in the age to come with Jesus. That world was so real to them and so precious that they did the unthinkable: they “joyfully accepted the seizure of their property.” It’s the joy that’s so jolting here. It’s the joy. This gives fresh meaning to the Old Testament word: “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).

There’s only one explanation for this joy: they really saw and really believed! They were “enlightened” by God to see it! They believed two things about their possession in heaven: one is that it is better (“you yourselves have a better possession” — verse 34) and the other is that this possession is abiding. In other words they really believed that this world is inferior and this world is temporary. The one to come is superior and the one to come is eternal.

These were not words; they were realities. They were so real that when the house and the furniture and the clothes and the books burned, and the horses were stolen, they knew (the word in verse 34 is “knowing”!) that God was actually preparing them for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. They said with Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:10 — we “have nothing yet we possess everything.”

The key to their joyfully accepting the plundering of their property in the midst of danger and loss was that they simply did not put much stock in this world. They had been transferred into the kingdom of God’s Son (Colossians 1:13). They had passed from death to life. Their lives were hid with Christ in God.

The two things that everybody wants they had found — but not in this world. Everybody wants the best happiness possible and the longest happiness possible. This is what the words “better and abiding” point to. They had a better possession and an abiding one. And the possession they had was a place at God’s side in glory. “In your presence is fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures for ever more.” Full and forever. Better and abiding.

If we are going to be courageous and fearless before our opponents, if we are going to live so that the worth of the gospel is manifest, if we are going to take the risks the early Christians took for Christ and his kingdom, if we are going to hope fully, then we are going to have to set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. We are going to have to focus our mind’s attention and our heart’s affection on the better and abiding worth of our reward in heaven — God.

(This term I've fallen in love multiple times with this life, and I thank God for it and for the joy He has given me daily. But often I've wondered if sometimes the joyful light of this world blinds me to the realities of hope in God's promise of eternal life. This world naturally feels so much more real. In a though experiment my Focus group leader did with us, she asked how we'd feel and what we'd do if we knew Jesus was coming on Friday (she asked us on a Tuesday). A lot of what I immediately thought to do included saying goodbye to this world - like visiting my family, kissing Jacob goodbye, going for a long long run, longer than ever, and savouring that final experience of finite tiredness, crying at a sad movie because in heaven there are no tears of sorrow or conflict. I wrote in my diary 'What I realise is that there is so much on earth that I haven't done that I want to do, and I don't know what I feel about God taking it away and making it new. I like the oldness, the funny, quirky, sometimes wonky ways of the earth. I'd love for suffering and injustice to be gone, but I also fear not having the life I long to experience with all its flaws and difficulties before I leave this place. I want to grow old, be married, have children, laugh till I cry, fall over, fall in love continuously, eat good food and bad food and forgettable food, swim in salty water and have it sting my eyes, cut my fingernails and pull sweaty socks off my feet and shiver the cold from my bones when I enter a warm house and... this life you know? I love this life.' Perhaps the answer lies in the italics - I love life, and God promises life to the full (John 10:10). It is silly of me to wonder if I'll be happy and satisfied in heaven, because experience is not detracted when sorrow dies, but a new experience of eternal joy is given. I just need to remember not to love this life but to love this life.

I think I've departed somewhat from John Piper's sermon, which also includes standing beside those who are suffering and enduring suffering and difficulty yourself. This is difficult anywhere, and in Cambridge some of the issues he mentioned, like abortion, race and marriage are topics of discussion and disagreement in some areas. There is a predominant and accepted stance for each of them, which is figured in a certain way and often the way God asks us to respond and live according to His word doesn't correspond to how society tells us to respond and live according to the world. For instance, in the case of abortion, someone I know who is the most kind and loving person is really passionate about pro-life, and has openly held discussions and prayer groups about it. These discussions are held in a really loving, non-judgmental way that does not condemn any group of people but earnestly seeks to protect unborn children and advocate against abortion. She has received so much criticism and anger from people who have not got to know her or tried to see where she is coming from or how she is approaching the issue, and it is heart breaking and also incredibly inspiring to see her continue to persevere in what she knows God has asked her to do. I hope that I will have the same God-given wisdom and perseverance to stand fast in what God says is right and true, despite the multiple and different ways of seeing the world around me. Give me light to lighten my mind, O Lord, that I might see with clarity your world and live it out in this one.)

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

26/12/2017



This morning I went for a slow run by the Cam, armed with my disposable camera because it was a beautiful bright day. I took a picture of a yarn bombing on the Lock, a beautiful yellow and pink sun and next to it the story of how a woman had contacted the artist saying her yarn art and the positive messages that accompany them had stopped her from jumping off that bridge. I took a picture of the little horse that reminds me of Scruffy from the Starhill Ponies, after feeding him a carrot that a family feeding them offered me. I took a picture of fen ditton in the sun, my happy place. So many families were out for walks, almost all with happy smiles on their faces, and I thought of how boxing day is a much more joyful day than Christmas day sometimes, when people can be happy rather than frenetic/perform happiness - as Alex said, Boxing Day is like Christmas Day except there's no pressure of an audience to perform to.

Today also marks the day I saw my first ever nudist, went for a river kayak, got rather wet and subsequently felt so cold I wondered as I sprint cycled back to my house if people were looking at me because my lips were a frostbitten purple (they weren't - I looked entirely normal and I suspect 'people looking at me' was simply a self-conscious imagination on my part a la Sasha from Good Morning Midnight)

In other words I have joined the riverbank club in Cambridge (costumes optional - hence the sighting of the nudist) which encourages wild swimming and owns its own kayaks and has a little garden perfect for reading in. It's a very peaceful, safe space, and the people there are so kind and easy going, and (as they repeatedly tell me acccompanied by much chuckling) 'all mad' - but then, all the best people are.

There is nothing better to warm one's self up, however, than a hot mug of cocoa and a maple cinnamon bun with coconut yogurt and almond butter. (Did I tell you I made my own coconut yogurt? Sadly I will be away for too long to use the current batch as a starter for another batch and so I'll have to buy more yogurt as a new starter but the success of this try has convinced me to make more next term.)

Easy Hot Chocolate (If this hot chocolate were a chocolate bar I'd say it would be about 85-90%, since I like my hot chocolate quite intense, but feel free to adjust ratios as you like)

3/4 mug soy milk
1 heaping tablespoon (basically almost 2 tablespoons) cocoa powder
1 less heaping tablespoon brown/coconut sugar

Heat the soy milk up in the microwave, spoon in the cocoa and sugar and stir it very vigorously with a whisk until the powder dissolves and the milk is all nice and frothy. Add more soy milk to cool it down. (I once had a cup of hot chocolate when I was just as cold after wandering around London, and it was made with coconut milk and tasted divine so I'm very much planning to try that as well!)

**The picture on this post is not of my hot chocolate! I don't photograph my drinks, just scarf them down.

Christmas



This was a quiet Christmas.

Last Christmas, I remember spending a lot of it in tears. Perhaps it was some sort of subconscious portentous mourning. More likely it was because Christmas is often such an intense time of people being together, trying to fold pre-conceived visions of happiness into quotidian existence rather than accepting the beauty in some of the most mundane things (like boiled broccoli), that it can all get a bit much. I remember particularly getting almost inconsolably anxious and tearful over a change of plans over Christmas Eve lunch, the sudden shift of yes-shepherds-pie to no-shepherd's-pie to some-people-will-have-shepherd's-pie-and-some-people-will-buy-something-from-somewhere-else causing my careful balance of 'ok this is what is going to happen' to crack and slice open the tears of anxious planning that had been damming themselves within me for a while. I remember refusing to eat with the family, desperately scrubbing the kitchen counters with a sponge as if making everything clean would help, and then collecting myself, returning to the imperfect fold of family (although I'm not sure if I did this at lunch or only at dinner), retreating to the double bedroom and calling Emily.

This year I had a shepherd's pie again, this time a better recipe and far more peaceful circumstances. I made it on Christmas Eve, talking to myself as if I were a cook on a television show 'right so now we're going to take our sweet potato and mash it - leave the skin on that's the most nutritious part'. Between the shepherd's pie being prepared and the shepherd's pie being baked I went on a windy walk under brumous clouds through muddy fields I had not walked before. Once I had got to a place where the noise of cars had faded, and my own thoughts took precedence finally - not my mediated thoughts of planning and organising and worrying but my feeling thoughts of responding and worshipping and experiencing - what happened was a beautiful, unstoppable outpouring of gratitude.

I spoke aloud to the God I know hears me anywhere, giving thanks for the precious space and time I was in which felt so healing, giving thanks for the joy he had filled me in this year and this term especially. I couldn't stop praising him for who he was, what he had done and how excited I am for what he is and will be doing. I thanked him for the people in my life, for the relationships he's sustained, strengthened, deepened, begun and ended. I thanked him for his creation, for the people fighting to protect it and steward it as commanded, for the beauty of hidden places. My words turned into song, going through classics like Dad's version of 'Amazing Grace', the 'Shepherd' song Luk Ching sent me, 'Grace upon Grace' which Hannah and I sung for offertory in summer.

On Christmas Day I woke up, and put on carols just as Dad and Mum always do at home. (I may have replayed Lo he comes with clouds descending and Of the Father's Love Begotten an obscene number of times but there was no one to annoy but myself) and then opened the lovely presents given and sent from people, including the much anticipated mysterious anonymous amazon package received a couple of days ago and left with my previously anonymous neighbour Stuart and the yellow envelope from Jacob. The former was from Alex, and was 'On the Verge of Insanity: Van Gogh and his Illness' which I was deeply pleased with, and the latter was a book Jacob had made (Made! Hand stitched! How does he do these things?) which he had titled (in his beautiful callography) 'A Poetry Anthology - Edited by Miriam Yeo (with contributions from Jacob Henstridge)'. The first page was Wild Geese, which I think of as my life poem and which I remember showing him on a bus in Rome (taking out from my purse the poem written on the back of a cut out tea box, the way I still carry it around with me). There was As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Hopkins which I read when Jacob brought it to the Englings gathering at the Laurence's. There was the You Come Too poem by Frost, those words which we said so much over Summer and which have manifested in an ever growing list of things we want to experience together. There was extracts from The Language of Love and Tea with Roasted Almonds by Yehuda Amichai which I nervously read out to him when we sat together on my bed - I've always loved the ninth stanza, which he wrote out in full, but my heart caught because he included a line from the first stanza which I never saw in its nakedness without the other words of the stanza 'That is to say: the two of us, that is to say: we.' Have I mentioned yet that I love this man?

In the afternoon I had time to do yoga and go for a cycle ride to Milton Country Park and decide to return there without my bicycle (or with a lock so I could relinquish my bike) and walk around its wandering ways. It was exciting to think I was following paths when I had no knowledge of their destinations. In the evening I finished 'Shame' by Salman Rushdie, which ended with terrifying anticipation, to complete a book of magic, gruesome twists, hilarious descriptions and cartoonish yet poignant characters. I had that feeling of close-to-physical exhaustion one gets from the mental and emotional intensity of a good novel, and felt rinsed with terror and pleasure.

Monday, December 18, 2017

Is a fish in water wet?


On the last weekend of term Bramina came to visit, and large parts of our conversation were dominated by the question -- is a fish in water wet?

Wet:

'Made moist or damp by dipping in, or sprinkling or smearing with, water or other liquid.'


Apparently a lot of people have considered this conundrum, and the related problem of defining what is wet (is water wet?)

I began by playing devil's advocate and offering the controversial position that no, a fish in water is not wet, against Bramina who staunchly believes a fish in water is wet - and then I became convinced of the position I'd been offering as a sort of joke. Alex, who was staying in my room as well, considered both sides and asked questions to probe both positions.

And when we brought the conversation to a pub, discussing it with Bramina's friend James who was in Cambridge as well, a man from the table beside us joined in, and then another man from the table behind us, and I could tell the four elderly people at the table on a diagonal from us had strong opinions on the subject but were choosing (perhaps wisely) not to get embroiled in the discussion.

A fish in water isn't wet - it is submerged in water but submersion is different from being wet. Being wet is a process of making or becoming, and a state of relative difference. You become wet, and can only be wet if you were previously dry. Wet exists only because of dry, and is a juxtaposition of dry and not-dry. So, when a fish is removed from water, that fish with water on it out of water is wet. However, when it was absolutely submerged it is not. (was my basic argument)

Hence - me going into the shower is me getting wet, because as I stand in the shower parts of my body remain touching air, juxtaposing themselves with the parts of my body which are under streams of warm water.

Me jumping into a pool is me getting wet - but the process of getting wet only completes itself when I emerge from under the water. When I am fully submerged I am not wet, when I break the surface the parts of me exposed to air are, having been made wet by falling in water, and when I climb out of the water completely I am wet from my head to my toes.

Oatmeal, by Galway Kinnell



I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it.
I eat it alone.
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that is better for your mental health
if somebody eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have
breakfast with.
Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary
companion.
Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal porridge,
as he called it with John Keats.
Keats said I was absolutely right to invite him:
due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness, hint of slime,
and unsual willingness to disintigrate, oatmeal should
not be eaten alone.
He said that in his opinion, however, it is perfectly OK to eat
it with an imaginary companion, and that he himself had
enjoyed memorable porridges with Edmund Spenser and John
Milton.
Even if eating oatmeal with an imaginary companion is not as
wholesome as Keats claims, still, you can learn something
from it.
Yesterday morning, for instance, Keats told me about writing the
"Ode to a Nightingale."
He had a heck of a time finishing it those were his words "Oi 'ad
a 'eck of a toime," he said, more or less, speaking through
his porridge.
He wrote it quickly, on scraps of paper, which he then stuck in his
pocket,
but when he got home he couldn't figure out the order of the stanzas,
and he and a friend spread the papers on a table, and they
made some sense of them, but he isn't sure to this day if
they got it right.
An entire stanza may have slipped into the lining of his jacket
through a hole in his pocket.
He still wonders about the occasional sense of drift between stanzas,
and the way here and there a line will go into the
configuration of a Moslem at prayer, then raise itself up
and peer about, and then lay \ itself down slightly off the mark,
causing the poem to move forward with a reckless, shining wobble.
He said someone told him that later in life Wordsworth heard about
the scraps of paper on the table, and tried shuffling some
stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
I would not have known any of this but for my reluctance to eat oatmeal
alone.
When breakfast was over, John recited "To Autumn."
He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words
lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
He didn't offer the story of writing "To Autumn," I doubt if there
is much of one.
But he did say the sight of a just-harvested oat field got him started
on it, and two of the lines, "For Summer has o'er-brimmed their
clammy cells" and "Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours,"
came to him while eating oatmeal alone.
I can see him drawing a spoon through the stuff, gazing into the glimmering
furrows, muttering.
Maybe there is no sublime; only the shining of the amnion's tatters.
For supper tonight I am going to have a baked potato left over from lunch.
I am aware that a leftover baked potato is damp, slippery, and simultaneaously
gummy and crumbly, and therefore I'm going to invite Patrick Kavanagh
to join me.

Galway Kinnell

(This is just to say I've just made granola, and also I can attest to the statement that eating oatmeal with someone else makes it better)

(J and I came across this poem in the fantastic poetry anthology 'Staying Alive' in Blackwells Bookshop in Oxford, and underneath it was a poem by Patrick Kavanagh because editors of poetry anthologies have a sense of humour too)

Saturday, December 2, 2017

3.30 am 2 am 5 am


Last week (and the first parts of this week) was comprised of

a series of late nights.

The first one was after a Sidney party - which was a turning point in more ways than one - where every dressed like the 1950s and we danced to cheesy tunes from Grease but also to the tunes of Flaurence and the Mad Scene and their mix of songs that go you're a sky full of stars/will you hold me tight and not let go/i want something just like this. (The Laurence half of Flaurence is a big fan of coldplay.)

After the magic of that night I cycled back partially in disbelief that I was awake (everything felt like a dream), a feeling compounded when I couldn't fall asleep for another hour and a half - people already asleep can't fall asleep so perhaps, I thought, it was a dream.

The next day I cycled down into town quickly under bright blue skies - someone was playing 'Wonderwall', and I arrived early enough to sit outside for a while and just bask and reply to people's messages. I felt like the pressure of the final essay and the masters application had lifted, I was just a girl on a bench in the sun, ready for breakfast.

The last essay of this whirlwind of a term was begun at 5 am the following day, the day it was due, which is never a good idea. It concluded that:

The characters of King Lear and The Remains of the Day highlight the relatable tragedy of interpersonal relations – that to love and be loved, one must first become vulnerable, a fearful state which often causes a rejection of relationship for the safe harbor of concealment. Yet, while a ship may be safe in harbor, that is not what ships are for, and the characters continue to exhibit a deep yearning for love. What they fail to understand is that love, although it does uncover and perceive every wrong, also covers a multitude of sins. Love is not love without grace within it, and to be loved, and seen for what is behind the pantomime role, in all its undignified, cruel and unworthy state, is also to be forgiven for all of that [...]

Which is something that being in love has taught me, and also something I've come to see as I learn more about the love of God and how me trying to prove myself better than I am to Him makes no sense when he sees the flawed being I am and loves me anyway.

The last 2am was that same day (or more accurately, that day bleeding into the early hours of the next) with choir christmas dinner and secret santa and games and good fun among people who have definitely become like family.

I'd been up almost 21 hours. A whole day almost, and yet I was still hungry for more hours. More hours and more days of this most joyful, magic term.

Friday, December 1, 2017

A result of saying sorry and grammar trips


On a Sunday during post-evensong formal, J noticed that it had been exactly four months since we decided to be together. That, along with the fact that I'd won a game between us in which we counted how many times we said sorry in one day (J - 12, 5 of which came from one moment where he dropped a fork, Miriam - 2 ish) with the person who said it more having to come up with a surprise for the other, meant that on Wednesday (22 Nov) after choir practice J took me out to dinner.

The feeling of being taken out on date is a strange one - I think the closest I've had is when I went for a movie/strings concert with a different J, when neither of us really knew whether we liked the person or not. This time, I knew I was going with someone I definitely like (and when I write 'like' I mean 'love') and I knew that he'd asked me because he likes me and wants to make me happy (and full of good food ha).

We went to Stem and Glory, had absolutely gorgeous food, laughed over the fantastic descriptions on the wine list, talked about so many things but for some reason one of the things that I remember most vividly is a conversation about a horse named bramble, which we decided would be more pony sized than horse sized, would have imperfect white socks of different heights and a rough sort of mane and would have a dark coat. For dessert he got a sticky toffee pudding - the one thing he's missed since going vegan - and the look of utter satisfaction and almost painful pleasure on his face was quite something to behold.

Afterwards back in my room I was rubbing his shoulders and talking about something inconsequential when he half turned with a laugh in his voice and said 'I don't mean to interrupt but you did just say 'my sister and I' about three times when it should have been 'my sister and me'.' which made me laugh as well and give up on the massage for a while.

If I had to describe our evening for a wine bottle it would be 'a straight-forward evening balanced with notes of laughter, surprise, pleasure with a warm finish'

(Perhaps you can tell I don't drink wine very often, and have no skill in the poetry that is wine descriptions, but that's the closest I can get)

Light through the window and bread on the floor


On a Sunday morning to end all Sunday mornings, Jacob came over bearing an already proofed but not yet baked loaf of bread. I'd got the oven warm, and we put it in immediately (after carefully putting a tray of water in the bottom of the oven to steam the bread while it's baking and give it a nice crust - Jacob doesn't make 'just any old bread')

We ate it with jam and peanut butter and banana and avocado and baked beans I'd made fresh that morning (not the Heinz kind that I despise and Jacob actually likes -- we have to agree to disagree on some things, although it is always me who is disagreeing since Jacob is so agreeable about everything.) and the sunlight came through the window and caught his clear eyes.

This was on a no-work Sunday, something Jacob does habitually and which I really respect and decided to try out during term. The first no-work Sunday that happened felt so wonderful and intentionally restful that I spent my rest doing things that filed me with joy - I went for a run, did laundry and hung it out inhaling the smell of fresh clean clothes, and baked maple tahini cookies. I woke up without an alarm, and felt no tiredness at all. I can't say it's perfect, because in subsequent weeks I've sometimes had too much work not to squeeze some in on Sunday, and other times I wonder if the no-work Sunday is truly something I offer to God or if sometimes I lapse into doing it just to challenge myself. But that morning, that breakfast, that breakfast bringer, that was a little moment of perfection.

The Florida Project and my feminist toolkit



This is the best movie I've watched, possibly all year. I watched it on an evening after a life-giving art workshop with Barby Asante, where we discussed our feminist toolkits and asked each other questions, answering with more questions.

This is the second in a series of workshops a few girls and I are doing with Barby, as she develops something for Medwards' art gallery. I remember on the evening of the first session, being late, I pedalled so quickly from choir at Sidney back to Medwards that I made it up that hill in 6 minutes -- a new record, possibly a WORLD record because that hill takes the wind out of any normal person.

In this second session we'd been asked to bring things that were our 'feminist toolkit', or more simply put, things that kept us alive (I'm not sure why it was feminist but I used that as a way of choosing from the many many things that keep me alive a few more specific things). One girl talked about her jewelry/piercings, bought or given at special times by special people. Another girl mentioned her journal and books of poetry. I brought along the 'What I Wish for Miriam by Emily' book that Em gave me when I first flew here, the one that reminds me of our invisible soul-glue bond and that almost always makes me cry when I read it. I talked about that, and the poem by Hannah, the Wyken Vineyard day card from Mum, the post-death birthday card from Auntie Sheila, and a birthday card from Grandma, all which are stuck up in places in my room so that the words from these wise, good, kind and strong female figures in my life surround me and build me up, reminding me who I am, where I've come from, how I'm loved and what I need to remember where ever I end up going.

The question game we played after that was wonderful - it entailed asking someone a question, and their 'answer' had to be a question directed at another person. The questions grew off each other, we asked about family, rituals, politics, emotions, religion... Personal and invasive and 'mattering' questions since no person was required to answer. And for each question you wondered about other people's answers and answered in your heart as well, which was probably more important, to know first what you think about the nature of God and love and safety before basing it off someone else's response. A sort of enforced self analysis.

After that I cycled down to watch  The Florida Project with Alex. Moonee and her friends running with the flip flop slapping, exhausted but inexhaustible run of childhood, or eating ice crema, taking turns to each have a lick, or taking joy in making the shaky noises the come from singing into a fan made me think so much of my own childhood, and miss it. The film was a huge nostalgia trip, and yet at the same time it was about circumstances entirely foreign to me, childhood in an environment of danger, desperation, violence, hatred and poverty. Alex said so aptly afterwards that you felt like someone had wrung out your insides by the end of the film.

When we came out of the theatre at midnight, a drunk girl was singing 'Wonderwall' along to the guitar accompaniment of a homeless man.