Comfort in rainclouds

I took a long walk up and around a nature reserve in my city this afternoon, after realising that even though it’s been pouring with rain, I really needed some ‘outside time’. I need to get near trees and open spaces every so often, and being surrounded by the sounds of nature as opposed to the city, always frees me up a little. As a teenager, I spent a lot of time sitting down by the river in my home town when I needed to escape home for a while, even sleeping there on occasions (unnoticed by family). Being in the outdoors is quite a spiritual thing for me, and makes me feel more connected to both the environment around me, and mankind – I think about all the people who have walked the same steps I have over the years, and seen what I have seen, and wondered what I have wondered. I think about the trees that have lived through so much and had so many people sitting under them for shelter and shade. I think about the rivers, and how Heroclitus said that you can never step in the same river twice, as both you and the river are always changing. Two years ago, I had just started going to church, and was at that stage of deciding whether to stick with it, and investigate further, or leave it as something that just wasn’t for me. I was on a trip to the Scottish Highlands to present some research I’d done, and when I couldn’t sleep, got up and sat looking out at the Loch, watching the sun rise, the mountains a perfect reflection in the water. It was then, in that true peacefulness, that I felt a sense of God that I hadn’t had before, and a feeling that church was just what I needed to be doing. It’s when you’re faced with something so big and beautiful, and lasting, that your own transience and frailty resounds so strongly. I am so human, and when I look out at scenes like that, I know, I know that there is something else out there who exceeds me in every way, and this is who I call my God. When I got back from that trip, I emailed the student worker at church (I’d been too scared to before, despite the fact that she was one of those people you know is completely lovely before you even meet them), and that was when things started rolling. Things have come a long way in two years.

I’ve avoided this particular route for a few months now, as it’s where I went when I was thinking some of my darkest thoughts – I stayed away, afraid that maybe going back would bring those things to the surface again. It’s been raining enough that for a whole two hours, I didn’t see a single other person. I sat on top of the tallest hill and looked out at the skyline, and the clouds chasing in from the sea – storm watching. I sat and looked out at the vastness and thought about God, and how I am such a small part of such a great whole. It’s times like this that I feel so very young, so incompetent and unequipped. So often, I feel like a fragile leaf tossed in the storms, so very small, with such a quiet voice that barely carries. So inadequate, so easy to pass over and forget. It was strange, going back and retracing my steps. There were a few times I was up there before when I was in such a state that had things been just that little bit different, I might have died up there, either through cold exposure, or more deliberate means, and that’s a hard thing to let go of. Retracing what felt like last steps at the time, is a strange thing to do. Back then, I lived everything as though it was the last time I’d do it, I was living on my own marked time, and didn’t care, I just felt relieved. Today, I spent a while praying, in the way I like the most – just sitting, and talking to God, open and intimately, as someone I don’t need to explain my words and metaphors to. I am mostly so grateful that I am still here, still living. I’ve had a lot of near misses. It could have been so different.

I find it much easier to pray for others than for myself. At the moment, my one promise to God is that no matter what, no matter how hard it gets, or how isolated I’m feeling, or how painful it becomes,  I’ll keep going to church. I know I need it, though when I’m low, it’s often the hardest place to be.  Being surrounded by celebration when I am drowning in depression, can be so very suffocating.  I have so much to learn, so many spaces to fill. I have so far to go, so high to reach. I wish I could say that my church has gathered round me and been there, supporting me through this, but I can’t, as by the time I was ready to fling myself into church life, this depression had me my the hand, and I started running from, rather than throwing myself into the community, and as a fairly quiet person, no-one noticed. I wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Nevertheless, the House of God is where I go to learn and remember, and let down my barriers. It’s where I can drop my defences, and in the silences, know that God is moving through the pews, and sitting beside me, just as He did that first time I went, alone and afraid. I need something to ground me each week and can’t trust myself to be strict with my own schedule of Bible studies at the moment. I need God, so need church.

So this afternoon, I spread my arms and let the rain fall down on me, soaking to the skin, and made a promise that I won’t stop going, and trying, and praying. I’m adopting the house of God, as a house of my own. I won’t be driven out. This isn’t all that in line with what I should be praying for at Easter, but a prayer off the mark is better than no prayer at all, I like to think. Making that promise, feels like a comfort. God, I’ll keep going. I’m still going. I’m moving, albeit slowly, forward and away from the last few months. Comfort in rain – I couldn’t be more British if I tried…..

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Different Hallelujahs

In our last concert, my choir sang an arrangement of ‘Hallelujah’, originally by Leonard Cohen. The song has really done the rounds in the last few years, and I think it’s interesting that it seems to have touched so many people in secular society, given that so many of the lyrics refer to Biblical characters, and essentially, at least when I listen to it, the closeness to God that comes from prayer when feeling brokenhearted. I like the fact that it’s a song that (disregarding Jeff Buckley’s more radical interpretation of meaning….) spans from spiritual to secular, and that we sometimes treat our relationships with each other, as we do our relationship with God, wishing we could outshoot and outrun, when the going gets tough and we feel the need for space. When you love someone, you carry the burden of also knowing how to hurt them, and the promise that you will not do so, when voices are raised and opinions are opposed, and this is something I hear in this song, too. I remember first hearing it when I watched the film ‘Shrek’ years ago, before we had internet, and learning the lyrics by replaying and rewinding the same two minute segment, then bashing it out on my piano.  When I listen to it, I think about the different ‘hallelujahs’ I give up to God, as I go about my daily life, and wonder how He hears them in all their manifestations.

Hallelujah is a word with many voices but only one meaning. When I walked back recently from a meeting with the manager of the hospital I’m trying to source a patient library for, I felt more alive than I have done for a while – this is a project near to my heart, and seeing it grow whilst, a lot of the time, everything else seems to be collapsing round my ears, has really given me something to lean on. I was walking home in the sunshine, talking to God, thanking him for all the emails that had been replied to, the willingness of the hospital to hear me out, the patients who’d given me the idea in the first place, the shops who have given generously to us, all these things – excited enough that no doubt, if God (or actually, anyone, for that matter) had been standing beside me, there would have been some serious high-fiving going on, maybe even with the occasional whoop for joy. It’s these little positves that make me feel more hopeful that there is a life for me beyond this depression, and I am grateful that God gives me these reminders and promises that one day, the heaviness will leave me and I will feel myself again. Joyful Hallelujahs, voiced in mental capital letters (for me, at least) and at top speed and volume must be wonderful to hear, but perhaps, also a reminder to God (not He needs reminders like the rest of us…) that so often, we, I, am a fair-weather friend. It is easy to be thankful for the things God sends our way that feel so positive and meaningful. It’s harder to get down on our knees and be grateful for adversity.

There’s a line in a verse of the song not often included in more populist recordings that goes, ‘yet even now it’s all gone wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue, but Hallelujah’ which made me think that although we are told time and again that God hears all prayers, whether the sky feels full of Him, or empty, that perhaps it is the prayers that come in moments of desperation and utmost futility, that He cherishes the most; the prayers we say when we’ve given up belief that anyone’s even listening; the prayers we use as  flares in the night when we are drowning. Praising the Lord from the bottom of a dark well of seemingly endless hopelessness, is a tough thing to do. So often in the last few months, I’ve felt a lot more like quitting church, chucking out my Bible, burning journals, and forgetting the God I have come to follow, than getting down in the dirt and being thankful for lessons and learning. When I’m empty, I’ve felt a lot more like being angry and indignant, and giving up altogether, than remembering, in the cold black of depression, to continue to praise, continue to pray. Yet when I do (aside from the highly acute weeks when my grip on reality wasn’t exactly firm) I do feel close, and sometimes, comforted. It’s the smashed-up and broken-down hallelujahs, the end-of-the-road and bottom-of-the-mountain hallelujahs, that make me lean and learn. It’s when I don’t have a song in my heart to sing, or eyes sharp enough to glimpse the dawn, or hope strong enough even to get me through till morning, that those hallelujahs come into their own. It’s the whispered, not the shouted, hallelujahs, that I think God loves the most.

I’ve felt in the last few weeks that my mood is slipping down again, and am getting afraid – the more I came out of the depths of my depression, the more I’ve come to realise just how serious it really was, and that if things had been just a little different, I really might have not made it through. The thought of going back there is terrifying, and it’s hard to know how to best manage this feeling of unsteady ground. It feels kind of like standing and watching the sun go down, and being powerless to stop it – like watching a clock, and knowing, that time will continue to tick by, no matter what I do. I’m feeling numbed again, and cut-off, detached from the people around me, and hollow. Hollow – it doesn’t sound like it would be that bad a feeling, does it? And yet, the feeling of empty, unfilled, stifling space is so treacherous. When you’re so full of empty, there are few words left, except Hallelujah.

My favourite cover is by the London Community Gospel Choir, but that’s not on Youtube (though it is on spotify)- but this is a good standard one too, just incase you’ve somehow managed to miss the song (no judgement, if slight bemusement)

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Turnabout Prayers

It’s true that this blog is mostly about working out my own path at the moment – but, although all of us need to be inward focussed sometimes, there’s also moments when it becomes so apparent that we are such small parts of a whole, and that just maybe, our prayer life, or inner life, should reflect this, at least for a moment.  I mentally call these ‘turnabout prayers’ – because often, it’s when I’m thinking deeply about something going on in my own life, that I become aware of context and that there are an awful lot of people in much direr situations than I am in.

I wrote about storm imagery yesterday and have been continuing to think about psalm 46 (be still, Char, be still!)- and today, realised that although there is a place for metaphor, unfortunately, some people don’t even need the imagery as they have the real thing to deal with. Christians bang on a lot about spiritual journeys, hardships, persecution, and battle, and I think in between all those analogies that aim to ground our experiences in something concrete everyone can identify with, we forget that across our world, people are experiencing all these things in heartbreaking reality. Comparing the persecution of Christians in this country for example, falls more than a bit flat when we compare it to the situation in the Middle East or Asia, or the persecution of other faiths and groups in so many countries. This is what I mean by a turnabout prayer – something that stops you in your tracks going inward, and refocusses you outwards on the big picture. Something that makes you think ‘WHOAH’ and swings you round by 180 degrees so you see things cast in a different light and from a different angle. We have these moments in both spiritual and secular life – we’ve all experienced something catching on our heart and forcing us to re-evaluate our current preoccupations and stance.

The people of Japan are facing pretty real and dangerous storms at the moment. Some of them no doubt will have actually fallen into the sea. Many have lost their lives. Psalm 46 to them, at this moment, is not an expression of God keeping us safe in the storms of everyday life – it’s reality, and they have every reason to be afraid. As I write this, it’s true that my mood is low, my heart is aching, and I am anxious about the next few weeks. But it is also true that I am safe and dry, warm and sheltered. My family and friends are safe. A lot of Japan are facing problems with those things thanks to the earthquakes and tsunamis. My heart is hurting for them, and I’m praying for them – please pray, too.

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A tall order from Psalm 46

I called this blog ‘Learning to be still’ because Psalm 46 is one of my favourites, although it’s also quite an unusual psalm in some ways. I love the natural imagery of the storms coming and waves crashing – we often use metaphors of thunder and winds for times of trouble, and to make the contrast with the peace that follows all the clearer. I sometimes feel like I’m in the middle of some tornado, the rain in my face, blocking my eyes, flailing my arms for something to hold on to, and aware in my blindness that I’m standing on the top of a cliff, close to the edge, and that one foot wrong will send me tumbling. But this psalm says, we shall not be afraid – the environment will not scare us into submission. The rivers are not too deep, the mountains are not too high. The next part talks about the city of God, which I always understand (and am possibly wrong in this) as being like the church – God is within the church, it’s people and community. He’s there, when we rise to greet the morning and can only see clouds coming our way. He’s there, at the start of each day, each task, each chance. He’s there. He challenges the status quo and rings the changes. He shakes us up. He doesn’t let go. This is what I want to believe.

In the middle of this battlefield we call life, He stops the fighting and the bloodshed and puts himself between the opposing troops. He shuts down the chaos by holding up his hand and forcing us to disarm, to lay down our weapons so we are once again defenceless. He says:

“Be still and know that I am God”

Be still and know that I am God – it sounds easy, doesn’t it? Maybe just shut your eyes and think ‘do I know who God is? Omnipotent? Check. Omniscient? Yup. Omnipresent? Indeed. Loving? I hope so……”

Did it work? Are you just reeling off the characteristics of God you learnt as a child, or do you know them in your heart – are they written inside you, Jeremiah 31:33 style?

(NB if you’re not religious, sorry for that. But without evangelising…..maybe thinking about who God is, is something you need anyway? And if you’re not sure who He is, there’s always wikipedia, or, more prosaically, Psalms 23 and 139 are good starting points).

Maybe you find it easy, but I certainly don’t. I am well known amongst friends, peers and acquaintances as someone who lives at 100 mph – and although this is mostly just because I like being busy and getting things done, it can also be my downfall.  It’s when I start to falter that I deal with my heartaches by taking on something new to push it out of my mind, or find something to preoccupy myself with that isn’t quite as important in the long run as I convince myself it is. I am not good at being still. If you came to my church and watched me praying with my head down, you would be able to see me physically squirming to get away from the peace and the still small voice that it suddenly reveals. It’s in the silence that everything floods me out and threatens to drown me. It’s when my internal to-do list is told to shut up that all my fears and worries are given the centre stage.  I am not good at being still.

Recently, I came into a new project relating to my patient volunteering society, and I’m loving it. We’re trying to source a patient library for one of the less well equipped  hospitals.  It’s making me feel more alive than I have for a while, and I love getting stuck into something, juggling lists of tasks, networking and pulling people in to help who were on the periphery. But I also have to question, is this just something else I am doing to push my issues further out of the way? Is this just another way to put off facing up? Am I doing enough of being still and knowing? The answer to that last question for my entire life will almost probably be a resounding NO. I’ve given up a lot of things recently to take the load off, and have hated it. I (wrongly) get a lot of my self worth from the things I do and my achievements, and so at the moment, a lot of the time I feel quite surplus to requirements, quite useless. If I give up this too, I’m afraid that I’ll slip down again and lose the little self esteem I’m managing to hang on to. So, I’m trying to work out what God is telling me about this, and whether I should keep it up. I’m trying to listen (for once) and to learn to just be, still, with God. To pray, with my heart open and my weaknesses and fears exposed and know that God is there, that He could see them before I learned to show them to Him, and that He will guide me. I try to keep knowing and not forgetting  that it’s in the quiet that Jesus will show put a hand on my shoulder and show me the safest path, the way to healing.

There are plenty of stories and verses in the Bible about people being given pretty clear directions from God and going galavanting off on their own regardless like an average Duke of Edinburgh expedition (though the extent to which the Israelites galavanted should probably be questioned…). I’m praying at the moment that if I just leave myself open, God will guide me, and I will follow, that He will help me decide what to carry forward and what to leave behind. That He will put clear signposts, in languages I understand, in my way, and keep my road clear. If you are also a person who struggles with being still, I’m praying for you to find some quiet too, and not to fear it. I’m praying that you’ll have a restful week (several have prayed this for me, it is yet to happen) and that you’ll really hear God’s voice and feel his touch. xxchar48.

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