A Birthday Blessing

It’s my birthday today. Technically it was yesterday but since the pandemic and lockdown I feel quite free to play fast and loose with the space-time continuum. So we’ll pretend it’s the 4th February.

It’s been a great day, despite lockdown. I’ve had loads of messages wishing me love and a Happy Birthday. There have been cards and flowers and cakes and a very cool new friend called Alexa…unexpected joy.

I received a blessing for my birthday today. A lovely friend of mine sent me words by John O’Donohue…A Blessing on Your Birthday from his book of Blessings, Benedictus. He wrote this blessing for his god daughter, also named Heather…

For Your Birthday

Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day

The blueprint of your life

Would begin to glow on earth, 

Illuminating all the faces and voices

That would arrive to invite

Your soul to growth.

Praised be your father and mother,

Who loved you before you were,

And trusted to call you here

With no idea who you would be.

Blessed be those who have loved you

Into becoming who you were meant to be,

Blessed be those who have crossed your life

With dark gifts of hurt and loss

That have helped to school your mind

In the art of disappointment.

When desolation surrounded you,

Blessed be those who looked for you

And found you, their kind hands

Urgent to open a blue window

In the gray wall formed around you.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice,

Your health, eyes to behold the world,

Thoughts to countenance the unknown,

Memory to harvest vanished days,

Your heart to feel the world's waves,

Your breath to breathe the nourishment

Of distance made intimate by earth.

On this echoing-day of your birth,

May you open the gift of solitude

In order to receive your soul;

Enter the generosity of silence

To hear your hidden heart;

Know the serenity of stillness

To be enfolded anew

By the miracle of your being.

-John O'Donohue

To Bless the Space Between Us, A Book of Blessings

I’ve been particularly touched by these lines

‘Blessed are those who have loved you

Into becoming who you were meant to be

Blessed be those who have crossed your life

With dark gifts of hurt and loss…

When desolation surrounded you

Blessed be those who looked for you

And found you, their kind hands

Urgent to open a blue window

In the grey wall formed around you’

Today, I’m remembering my chief ‘looker’…my Richard…he opened a blue window on my life and celebrated me wildly on my birthday…he loved me into becoming who I was meant to be…my best self. I have the experience of having lost some of that self…maybe this is the year to look for it for myself…

Sometimes the gray wall seems to rebuild itself…the blue becomes only a splinter of light and hope. Other times, on days like today, the grey seems to recede and light and hope come in the faces and voices of friends sending cards and good wishes. They make the loss of Richard, and of me, the missing, easier to bear.

I am thankful for them…blessings on them…

The Only Christmas Kiss

 This story has been waiting a long time to be posted. Not really sure what happened but the effect was that any confidence I had about having anything to say just up and slithered out under the door. It's taken a few weeks to come back, with lots of encouragement from friends and not a little shame and embarrassment at my famous inability to stick at anything...
Anyway, here I am, having another go. The story that follows turned out to be the highlight of my locked-down COVID Christmas

The Only Christmas Kiss

On the eve of Christmas Eve, I decided that I would head out late to do some food shopping in my local M&S store (it wasn't just any food...)
I reckoned that if I headed over there for about 9pm it wouldn't be horribly busy and I would be able to pick up the few things remaining on my list without having to queue to get in. I wasn't in a great mood as I set off. Christmas has been bleak since Rick died. It was made even bleaker by the new restrictions we were facing so I was pretty grumpy about it all. However, the shopping fairies smiled on me; parking was easy and the store was fairly quiet. 

When I got into the store I noticed a couple who were standing together, engaged in a quite intense conversation. The woman wore a mask and she looked pretty classy, wrapped up against the cold, wearing a scarf with the careless nonchalance of someone comfortable with their style. 

The man with her was maskless but it wasn't the first thing I noticed about him. He had what I would describe as 'catalogue looks' - he seemed fairly young. He was dark and handsome and looked like he should have been on an M&S website wearing a denim shirt and chinos with a sweater, the sleeves of said sweater draped casually around his shoulders and tied in front of him - the sweater would have been a silk and cashmere blend. 

He caught my eye.

I heard the woman ask him what they needed to buy and he said they needed apples. Something about the way he spoke pricked up my ears and then the woman sent him off to find some apples. Her tone was...oh, I don't know what it was...but I heard something that intrigued me. 

(As I type this my little Google icon is telling me that the tone of my writing is anxious and I think that's what I heard in the woman's voice)

By this time I had sauntered around to the fruit and veg and was looking to buy some apples for myself. So many varieties to choose from and I was thinking about whether I just wanted two Pink Lady apples or should I get 4 when I became aware that the young man was standing beside me. He was crowding me a bit but nothing that concerned or impeded me but the woman with him saw what was happening said that he 'shouldn't crowd the lady' and as she said this he peered right into my face, up close and personal and whispered 'Santa's coming!'. His face was split from ear to ear with a smile. I asked him if he was excited. He whispered a breathless yes and then leaned over and ever so gently planted a gossamer kiss on my cheek. The woman was horrified...'Oh no, you can't do that' and she quickly ushered him away with apologies to me and words of reminder for him...'You know you shouldn't do that'...'Don't do it again'...

I was OK about it but likely if I'd been the woman I would have been the same. I am guessing that she was either his support worker or his Mother...I think probably his Mother. I wasn't sure what her concern was...was it COVID or the invasion of someone's personal space or the inappropriate touch? Whatever her concern I wanted to let her know that it was OK. I wasn't shocked or violated. I wasn't attacked. I was just...surprised and, if truth were told, that wee moment was joyous for me. 

I've wished that I could find the woman and tell her that. 

Tell her that in this time of lockdown, with the virus ripping through our communities, as people ache for a kind touch, a warm hug, a great big smoochy kiss...as people gathered at Christmas around quieter tables oftentimes with empty chairs and exchanged presents but not hugs...

I wanted to tell her that, as the yearning for connection deepens, that young man gave me a gift that I've carried with me into January and if I close my eyes I can still feel it...

My only Christmas kiss...

'Kisses, even to the air, are beautiful'

Drew Barrymore

The Royal Train Tour

 OK...I'll just say this from the get-go...I don't have much time for the Royal Family. Don't have anything in particular against William and Kate. I like the frocks and will freely admit that I bought Hello magazine after both William and Harry's weddings...in fact, had a bit of a morning tea here for Harry's wedding. But it's the frocks that I like. 

I find it a nonsense to imagine myself 'subject' to the Queen...I don't object to the money as such unless I really start to think about it. 

(although I did blow a bit of a gasket when Meghan and Harry were in discussions about who should pay for their security detail when they decided they were packing it all in and also when they got arsey about when we could see photographs of the Princelet...)

What I really object to is the IDEA of them...the Divine right...the specialness...the kow-towing...the forelock tugging...the 'Your Majesty'-ing. Can't do it...

Anyway...clear enough...I don't really have time for them but I'm sure they are perfectly nice people. So I state this to prepare the way for what is to come...

Yesterday, I read in my Twitter feed good old Val McDairmid saying 'WTActualF' is going on with a Royal Train Tour at this time of restriction, sickness, loss and grief...really...WTActualF. 

I completely agree with her...when the message to all of the unwashed is that they should wash and keep washing...they should stay home...Kate and William are touring the country in the horribly expensive royal train...maybe £20000 for the train, plus security...thank goodness Kate wore a coat she's worn 4 times before...

Are they magic? Does the virus just slide off them or wouldn't dare go near them? I thought we were not supposed to travel. There are people who have not seen family for months and are looking into a quiet Christmas and possibly a lonely New Year. But William and Kate set off on a Royal Train Tour...how bizarre.

Anyway, I read Val and I thought in a kind of mean and growly way, what a freaking carry on...

But it gets worse...I read this on Twitter...

Apologies it's a bit fuzzy...

It is suggesting that the Government requested that they take the trip to raise our morale...cheer us up...

This is where I really start to part company with the whole endeavour because I am incensed that a bunch of Tory Posh Boys are sitting around thinking that this will cheer us up...Johnson, Gove, Rees Mogg, Hancock. Raab...that they all sit braying around the same table thinking about how distract us from the utter shambles of these current times: Corona virus; Brexit...'Oh, I know, let's let them touch the hem of the garment of the blessed Kate and we're safe for another few months'. 

That the specific targets of this cheering up are the people who have risked their lives and knocked their pan in to look after the people who are sick or need some support looking after themselves is, in my view, cynical in the extreme. Having starved them out of society over that long period of austerity they are finding different ways to rub salt into their broken hearts, tired bones and fragile psyches.  

Tories

And then, just when I thought that it couldn't get worse it just did.

Facebook provided me with this little nugget...

The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) is the regulator for the Social Service Workforce in Scotland. Over 200 000 people working in social services in Scotland: social care workers, social workers, students in a range of settings such as residential and day care, community facilities as well as in people's homes. There is not a single one of them unaffected by this pandemic. They will have bravely and consistently put themselves on the line to ensure that the people they work for get the support they need. 

They are the people who have been at the bedside of people dying of COVID-19 in nursing homes. They are the people who have altered the rhythm and routine of their lives to minimise the numbers of people going into someone's house and cut down the risk of spreading the virus. They have worried and cried and sweated in PPE and got rashes on their faces wearing masks. They've queued at supermarkets and been passed over in favour of NHS workers. They've clapped for NHS workers until their efforts were finally recognised and someone included them in the acknowledgment. And they've done it for £9.30 an hour...sometimes even less. 

The SSSC knows all of that. And the SSSC thinks it is lovely that Prince William and Catherine are visiting frontline workers to pass on the nation's thanks for their work over these past months. 

It's somehow easier to take that from the politicians and the royals. We've come to expect this from them - although the bare faced cheek of this bunch of Tory posh boys does take the breath away.

It's just disappointing from the SSSC. I sort of thought they were on our side. That they got the complexity of the situations we work in. That as the regulator the SSSC was bothered that it was done right. 

Disappointing

I wonder if there's something else that the SSSC might be saying on behalf of the social care workers in Scotland.

 

Might they be saying that really...a flying visit to some carefully chosen people in some carefully chosen setting is not going to mean very much to the bulk of the 200 000 workforce. 

Might they be saying 'Stop trying to distract us with the sleight of hand that is Kate's coat and hairstyle and join with us to say that enough is enough...that there is no more fat to trim...that quality care does come at a price and it would be bloody marvellous your royal highness if you could tell Boris and his pals to stop treating us like we're daft and instead make some of the changes needed to assist the people we work for to live better lives'

But, it is lovely, lovely...it's all lovely...the travelling...the foolishness...the cynicism...

Seriously SSSC...Are you having a laugh?

The Fabulous Richard Hill

 I said yesterday that in the 5 years or so since I last wrote a piece for the blog I've experienced all of the major life events but really, there is only one event. 

Not so much an event...more a person...Richard Lawrence Hill. 

When I was leaving my job at C-Change and was wondering what on earth I was going to do my lovely friend Rhona Ferrier encouraged me to write. And to write about Rick. 

I'd shied away from it because I couldn't imagine how I could write about him without it being maudlin and self-indulgent. I didn't want a pity party and anyway, I had no idea about what to say...my husband died and...? I wasn't sure about the 'and'...and what?

My husband died and I was sad.

My husband died and I had to move house and...I was sad.

My husband died and I had to move house and then decided to move to another country and...I was sad.

My husband died 5 years ago and you know what?

I am still sad.

(The little Google icon has appeared in the corner and is telling me that my text may sound sad and gloomy to the reader. That's not at all how I want this to sound because life with Richard was never that. And honestly, you don't have to worry.)

While living without Richard is undeniably sad my life with him was as far from sad as you can imagine. It was frustrating, challenging, infuriating, complicated, intense, scrutinised, commented on, exhausting, joyous, safe, funny, kind, loving...there was passion, gentleness, kindness...
It was real life. It was a good life.

And Richard died. Because that's how life is...

You only hope that people get the opportunity to live that good life and I saw Richard do that. I saw him wring every last drop out of living. And I saw him live it BIG. He lived every one of his almost 55 years to the full...he lived it big and brave.
It was a marvellous force to be around...magnetic and vibrant...

Never appreciated as it should have been but...that's life.

And Richard died. Because that's how life is. 

When I started writing this I thought I was going to write some happy little story of how we met. And then I thought I could tell you something about how we lived and then maybe I would write later on about when he died. 

But it seems that this might be the thing that's been waiting to be said for 5 years.

My husband died 5 years ago and I am sad. But I'm so happy that he loved me.

Let's just see what happens...

It has been a very long time since I've posted on this blog. A lot has happened between now and then. Almost all of the big 'life events' have been experienced and as that's been happening I've been swept up in the turmoil of it all and have found myself in a place that sure isn't Kansas.

And there has been this year. This Corona/COVID-19 year. 

This is the year I became 60! I managed to sneak all of the celebrations in just before lockdown began and so I was lucky to celebrate and share it all with family and friends. February was a glorious month of meet-ups and gifts and afternoon teas and gifts and karaoke, balloons and cake...

Then March came along and somehow things slipped away over the lockdown. Work was done differently. Friendships were done differently. Our rituals for celebration and grief became impossible to perform. We communicated remotely through screens and on-line and assembled, masked, and distantly. Everything was different.

Now it's December. And things have changed again. I've thought a lot about what I was doing and after three years at C-Change I've left my job. I'm not really sure what's next but I've got this thing about stories and finding ways to tell them...so I think it involves more writing. 

Maybe some on-line work with some people in Perth?

Maybe some things that I have not even imagined and have yet to discover? Who knows? 

I'm going to try and write about what I notice and learn as I go along. I'm going to write every day as we head into the new year. After that, who knows?

If you're kind enough to read this my hope is that we'll share some common experiences. If it turns out not to be your cup of tea then that's OK...as I said in the very first intro, just close the door quietly behind and come back anytime you like.

And let's just see what happens...

'I'm about going about into the world and noticing 

stuff, and going home and writing it down, and putting

it next to other stuff I've noticed and 

seeing what happens'

Pam Houston

 

Hard times, Come again no more...

Late afternoon on Sunday. Sitting in my car...chatting on the phone to my friend...beautiful Perth winter afternoon, bright as bright could be...blue as blue could be...and warm in the sun.
I'm parked outside Nandos, Subway, Wok in a Box, Pasta Cup and Liquorland. Hungry Jack's is about 100 metres away. I'm joking with my friend about whether or not I could eat a meatball sub while driving and not get it all over my front and give the game away.
My window is down.  A man sees me and comes right up to the window and tells me that he's trying to get some food...could I help him? My Rick will tell you that I'm like the Queen in as much as neither of us carry cash. But today I have a $10 note and so I give it to him...he kisses my hand and God Blesses me and I tell him to never mind that, just go and eat. And that's exactly what he did. 

I don't want to make a drama out of it but I have to say that he and his situation has stayed with me. 

A comfortable suburb in the richest state in the Lucky Country. 

And a man finds himself in the situation where he has to rely on a stranger in order to eat. 

Before I jump to conclusions about how he lived I think it's likely that he didn't ever have enough cash to do what he needed to do in the first place. And I have to confess that I watched carefully to see that he did buy food with the $10 ($10!!! The princely sum...). The story I was telling myself about him was all about drink and drugs.

And he was hungry. 

To be honest with you, I'm not really that fussed about what the circumstances were that brought him to that point...I don't really care if he drinks or uses drugs or just squanders his cash. But I am bothered that, in the midst of all our excess, someone is hungry. And I'm troubled that the solution he finds for his hunger only serves to stigmatise him.

I hear my friends and family in the UK talk about how things are there. How tight it is with families relying on food banks for basic provisions. I hear all the stuff that's been said here about how we all have to share the pain that will result from the last Budget. But I know that we won't all share that pain...it will be the people on the edges who'll feel it most...the people who are already feeling pretty stretched and threadbare. That makes me angry and sad.

You won't be surprised to know that I don't have any answers, but here's a song that expresses my thoughts and concerns. Those of us not yet suffering might think on...

http://youtu.be/OKRYMZFwuzY

Where DO all the B'stards work? - R.I.P. Rik Mayall

A few thoughts that seem to have a connection for me...what anyone who reads this will make of them...well, that's for them to decide...

Last week I was doing some training. The group were lovely. Really lovely people, all of them working in services. All of them committed to doing the best job they can to support the people they work with. At the end of the 3 days, one of the participants remarked on what a great group of people they were. He went on to say that he keeps meeting really nice people who work in the disability sector AND he keeps hearing all these stories of bad things that happen in services. 
He asked the question, 'Where do all the bastards work?'

Today I watched one of the videos that regularly appear on my Facebook page  from Upworthy. This particular video had been shared by my friend Heather Anderson, a good woman upon whose instincts and judgements I would stake my life. I was thinking that if she was recommending this video it was definitely worth having a look. Although the talk is given by an actress playing a marketing consultant to the food industry, the facts about the produce and the marketing are 100% real. She talks about the tricks of the marketing trade and then lets us in to the great big secret weapon that marketers rely upon. Turns out that their greatest secret is us and our propensity to simply ignore what we won't or can't face. We just don't think about it. She calls it 'wilful ignorance'
The video articulates our unwillingness to confront the horror of factory farming and to change our behaviours in the face of unspeakable cruelty to the animals who end up on our supermarket shelves.  It ends with a damning quote, describing what occurs as 'systemised cruelty on a massive scale, and we only get away with it because we're prepared to look  the other way.'

If you changed the context and thought people and not pigs or chickens... and instead of factory farms thought institutions and group homes and day centres...and then asked yourself what you're prepared to turn from and look the other way...

And then later today my friend and colleague Margy Meath shares a post on Facebook...a quote by Jane Addams

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life'

Jane Addams

I think there's a thread runs through these ideas. At least, there is for me. Knowing what I know...what will I do differently?

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer...

This is for all the people with lived experience of mental health or disability or just plain outright exclusion who give up their precious time to go along to conferences and workshops and consultations and whatever and are willing to participate in the debate...

Who hear eminent this, that and the next things talking about whatever it is they talk about while all the time missing the people at the heart of their curiousity...dismissing the evidence of their pain and frustration...pursuing models of science, neurobiology and medicine...losing sight of the humanity that their models impact upon...

For those who give up their time and their energy and, on an almost daily basis, experience their heart being ripped from their chest and squeezed tightly in the hope that it will bring about some change.

I know that it must be a temptation.
I know that you must feel that you cannot bear to hear another word,
I can see how it must must push you to the edge to experience the arrogance...the dismissals...the sneering...the patronising...

And I want to find a way to stand alongside you...
But I beg you to keep on going...to remember the stars...

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide and measure them,  When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander' d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

My own self...but not by myself...

These are interesting times that we live in. 
So many ideas...so little understanding.

I was working with a team staff and we were trying to figure out the service response to ideas like self determination, personalisation and individualised services. This team works for an organisation that is committed to striving to provide excellent services. They wanted to wrestle with the gap between some of the rhetoric that's around and the failure of most services to deliver on what they say they do. So, self determination came in for some discussion and we were trying to figure out what it means. We started with ourselves...what does it look like for us and then moved on to thinking about who or what supports us to be self- determining. 
There was a long list...partners...family...colleagues...faith...experiences, good and bad...some money...work...to list but a few.
So we recognised that this self-determination thing actually hinged on relationship and experiences and was rarely a solitary act. Major decisions are frequently made in consultation with others. Advice is frequently sought and given and, depending on the relationship, it is sometimes given without being asked for.
It seems that we come to know ourselves best in relationship to others. We figure ourselves out in the conversations and the interactions and the falling outs and the making ups and the whispers and the shouting and the tough talk and the gentle whispers. They mould and shape us.
It seems too that knowing what we want for our lives and deciding the course we will take involves being out there and trying things out and letting things go and adventuring and sitting still and wondering and taking action.
It is hardly ever about being left to your own devices. Sinking or swimming. Waving or drowning. 
There's a delicate and gentle balance in being who you are in your own way and remaining connected and influenced and watched over.
It can never be enough to say to someone in a potentially tricky position, 'That's your choice.'

Choice. Control. Self-Determination. Self Direction. 

They often take a bit of practice. They often require just enough support.
They always need relationships and experience.

'You can't make positive choices for the rest of your life without an environment that makes those choices easy, natural, and enjoyable'

Deepak Chopra

For Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day today. At least in Australia and the USA it's Mother's Day. Not sure about anywhere else in the world. 

Truth to tell, it would be pretty hard to miss the fact. The great commercial machine revved up and got going. The Sentimental Fairy came and threw magic dust in our eyes so that we could only see mothers through a golden light and only speak of them with honey in our mouths. 

It's all good...Mothers deserve all the slippers and scented candles we can shower upon them. It's a job I was never up for. Too hard. Far too hard.
Sure...there is joy. At the same time, and with the best Mothers, there can be a complex tangle of conflicting emotions. Sometimes difficult to sustain. Often hard to do without.

My own Mum passed away almost 6 years ago. She'd been ill for a few months and I left for Australia knowing that it would likely be the last time I saw her.
Six months later I was on a plane flying back to Scotland, hoping that I would have a chance to see her again before she passed. It was one of those journeys that always seems very grown up and somehow romantic when you see it in the movies but is the worst kind of awfulness in real life. I touched down in Glasgow at 12.30pm. I immediately phoned my sister from the plane to hear that Mum had slipped away at about 8 o'clock that morning. The whole world blew apart for me. I was on a plane, in the middle of a few hundred people who were busily retrieving their carry on luggage and duty free. And I had just heard that my Mother had died. It seemed the loneliest moment of my life. I was 48 years old and my first conscious thought was, 'Who's going to look after me now?'.

After the funeral I came back to Australia. No-one here knew my Mum. No-one else was missing her here. No-one else was sad. I wasn't aware of being any more tearful than usual. Apart from a few days, I didn't even really feel that sad and anyway...life goes on...

There have been a few things that have happened when I swear I have heard her voice. One day, after boiling eggs to make egg sandwiches and trying hard to boil and peel the eggs without getting that horrible black ring around the yolk (one of Mum's pet hates) I sliced open the first egg, delighted to find that I'd managed, not only to avoid the black ring but to keep the yolk just sllghtly on the creamy side and I heard her voice in my right ear saying 'Perfect'.

And then there was the weirdly inexplicable text on our wedding day...

Lots of people really liked our Mum. They talked about how kind and generous she was. Lots of people had loads of really good memories of her. Whenever I think about her, or her outstanding feature, I think about her hands. She never really liked them. She said they were too thick, too broad, too coarse. There was nothing elegant or refined about them.

In a way she was right. Her fingers were short and the veins on the backs of her hands stood out. Her palms were lined. She said that her hands were gnarled. They were not pale, white hands. Years of scalding hot water - 'How do you expect to get anything clean? That water's freezing...we'll all get polio!!' - had given her red, asbestos hands. 

Mum's hands were strong, working hands...washing...wringing out cloths and mops...cooking...cleaning...baking...ironing...working...
Her hands didn't do anything fancy. She didn't sew or knit...nothing fiddly or fancy...unless you count changing babies' nappies on your lap with one hand holding their wriggling legs out of the way and the other expertly wiping, folding, pinning or taping...without dropping a single one.
Good, honest, straightforward, hardworking.

All the ways her hands were described spoke of work. Our Grannie Ritchie used to talk about her Number 9 shovels when she was giving us a clip. She definitely subscribed to the adage that if you spared the rod you spoiled the child and she was always proud of the fact that there were 5 children in her family and she could have taken us anywhere! Mostly, her hands did acts of kindness as she looked after my Dad and the 5 of us.

As time went by her hands became a bit arthritic ...the joints knobbly and painful...she said that she had an old woman's hands and yet, I'm here writing this and she never really got to be an old woman.

I came to love her hands. I quite envied them. No-one would look at my hands and say that I've worked hard. 

You can see her in our hands...I've got the arthritic lumps and bumps...Elaine has the shape of Mum's hands and some of the characteristics. My niece Niamh has also inherited them and perhaps in time she'll wish that she had Irene's long, tapering, slim, white hands or Lorraine's smooth skin and shapely fingers.

Hands - they are like a visual aid of what's in your heart. 

Our Mum thought that you shouldn't have to tell people that you love them you should just show them. I don't agree with her...she wouldn't be surprised to know that...I believe that people need to hear that they are loved...and that it needs to be said to them often otherwise it can be just too difficult to believe.

But I've come to believe this...if your hands are a visual aid of what is in your heart then I have been well loved.

It's Mother's Day today. I wish she was here.

"Thanks for everything that you have done for me, and all that you are still doing."

What does good look like?

There's a word on my mind. An old-fashioned, Biblical word that I don't seem to hear much these days. It occupies a huge space in my mind because it denotes a quality I always aspired to and frequently failed to demonstrate. I admired the people who were thought to have it. It seemed a mark of maturity. A grown-up, careful, serious word which also carried with it a touch of mystery. 

The word is discernment.

As I've been thinking about the word and this post I've engaged in the time-honoured practice of googling for definitions. At least 90% of the definitions I've found relate discernment to faith and the religious life. I'm particularly struck by this definition,

'Discernment is the trait or process of exhibiting keen insight and good judgment...it is the ability to see, find and recognize the truth and then know what to do with it. A lack of it has resulted in continuous amounts of false teaching, foolish fads, experiential thrill seeking and distracting doctrine... '

I like the point that it makes about doing something with the truth when you see, find and recognise it; understanding translated to action.

So, why am I thinking so much about discernment?

I just got back from a trip to San Diego where I was invited to be a key note speaker at the annual conference of the Californian Supported Living Network. It was a big deal for me, not just because it's like, totes amazing, man, to have the opportunity to travel as part of my work but to travel there...to California...to the place that, early in my career was the pioneering place...a massive honour and opportunity for me. Like, super far out...
I stayed with the gorgeous Beth Gallagher and her family and completely appreciated their generous hospitality and kindness. Meeting her team at Lifeworks was encouraging. It was so great to see a team trying to put into practice all the things they talk about; celebrating what goes well and sucking all the learning out of the things that don't go according to plan.

I've never been to the USA before...Canada but not America. I was looking forward to the experience and it didn't let me down in anyway. San Diego is a beautiful city. It reminds me of Perth: all the advantages of a big city but still feeling liveable. Beautiful place...wonderful weather...different enough to be interesting but not so different that I was lost and overwhelmed. 

There's something about West Coast people I really like. Sweeping generalisation coming up, I know, but there's an attitude on the West Coast. It's laid back, relaxed, gentle, open. It's one of the things that drew me to Perth. I really liked the people I was meeting. The same thing was true in San Diego, perhaps even more so. For all the 'have a nice day!'s I was hearing, and expecting to find phoney, I just never caught that hollow ring. I met all sorts of people; encountered all kinds of family configurations; celebrated diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, religious and political affiliation. I was struck by a genuine openness and acceptance. I'm sure everyone has their prejudices but  the desire to be open and accepting was there. Everything was cool...everyone was awesome.

The presentations came and went at the conference. Everyone like totally hit it out of the park...they were awesome and we loved them. Everyone. All good. All awesome. Every comment and appreciation heartfelt. The love was real.

And now I'm thinking about discernment. Because, at the risk of sounding...whatever it is I sound...it wasn't all awesome. In fact, lots of it was completely average and some of it was garbage...there...I've said it...
And not just in San Diego...not just at the conference but here in Perth and around Australia...I hear it in the UK as well...
(I'm not going to post a list here but come and talk to me and I'll give you examples of what I mean)

I would love to just surrender to the power of awesome and not have to think so hard about some of the stuff that passes as good...in life and work...(is there a difference?)

I want to absolutely appreciate people's efforts and commitment...their outputs are often astonishing...their outcomes lead me to suspect that people are working on the brick...

I keep finding myself in situations where people have no filter or framework for measuring one thing against another and deciding if it's good. They seem to have nothing external they can refer to to act as a guide - or maybe they do have it but don't feel like they have permission to use it.

In our work we have people who have all sorts of experiences - the people being supported and the supporters. Not all of them good, positive, healthy experiences. People are acting them out and people are working them out...except it's the same thing really, just one group get paid for it. When all of that woundedness and hurt and anger and frustration and lack of love and understanding and poor choices...when all of that swirls around then you can be sure that it can be hard to think straight, to know which way is up, to know the right thing to do. 
The more I write about this the more there is to write...and I might have a go at some of that in subsequent blogs when I've given it a bit more thought and maybe heard from some people about what they think of this...
I truly believe that there are times when we need something outside of ourselves to give us clues about what to do next. Something that has some heft, that's stood the test of time and practice. Not some abstract theory, full of big words but something infinitely practical...not simple but certainly clear. Something that's not a guarantee of doing the right thing but which, if we apply it, might make it more likely that a right and good thing happens and less likely that we simply repeat our old patterns of oppression and discrimination.

I believe that there are some ideas around that really fit the bill...Wolfensberger's ideas...not necessarily his writing because, on occasion, what my Dad would have called a 'Philadelphia Lawyer' is required to understand what's going on...John O'Brien's 5 Service Accomplishments and the 5 Valued Experiences and anything else John O'Brien thinks about or writes - you may not see the application immediately but if you live with the words and ideas they will bear fruit...anything written by Michael Kendrick, John Armstrong and Kristjana Kristiansen...Simon Duffy writing about Citizenship...the Values of Inclusion are useful too ( I didn't write them so I feel OK about mentioning them here). There are lots of other people that I find helpful but without these folks I would have no content in what I do.

So...enough of this...I started talking about discernment - 'the ability to see, find and recognise truth...'. It's not the same as some sort of magical thinking. Awareness, knowledge and understanding lead to discernment. If we stop learning, if we fall asleep, we're in trouble...

I feel that it's time to go back to our books...not simply doing in order to justify our wages...but thinking...discerning as we go...adding value to our work.

And a final thought...

To think is excellent;

To pray is better;

To love is everything

Elisabeth Leseur

There's more to life than this...

I did some exciting work to day. 

There have been some changes around funding for young people moving from school into adult life. Decisions about funding will be influenced by the young person having a plan for their future.With this in mind and with the young people from the leaving classes of 2 or 3 of the local schools and a group of Local Area Co-ordinators from the Northern Suburbs of Perth we embarked on a planning process called 'Moving On'. 

The idea was to build up a picture of the participants; learn something about how they saw themselves; pay attention to their gifts and dreams and gather some clues about the kinds of things we needed to work on to prepare them for leaving school. We would then take time to work on some of the practical details of what it would take for the young person to experience the good things of life.

We did this in 2 sessions with a fortnight in between the sessions to give the young people time to think between sessions. On the 2nd day we invited their parents to join us  and think about how they could help to support their son or daughter's aspirations for the future.

The first session was just a joy to be part of. The young people were making bold and audacious statements about how they saw themselves, free of the limitations that the label of 'disability' imposed on their lives. They thought about their identity, their gifts, their dreams for a good life. They were spectacular; throwing themselves into the tasks with gusto and imagining fabulously ordinary, teenage things for their lives...

Homes. Jobs. Relationships. 

It was great to be part of it. 

I also did some deeply upsetting work today.

Their families came along on for the next session which was today.

I had very intentionally made a place for families. I believe in the natural authority of families...I believe that no-one gets through life on their own and that it makes more sense to work within the system that is the family than to treat families as some kind of irrelevance to a person's situation. I believe that, by and large, no-one loves more than a family...that families are in for the long haul...that families 'know stuff' about people that it would take a well-meaning human services professional years to learn...I. Believe. In. Families.

AND AT THE SAME TIME...

I know that living in a family can be difficult. I know that it is often difficult for family members to give up having their say in people's lives and letting them live the life they choose. I know that being different from everyone else in your family can be tricky ( and I'm also sure that it is tricky to live with other people's differences). I know that it can be hard to escape from your family's experiences and perceptions of you - a clean slate is not often a gift shared by family members.

I believe that there is nowhere quite like a family for being loved...and being misunderstood.

When families came along to the session today I saw all of the above being played out. The young people got shy and reluctant to share what they were thinking. Families got into command and control mode and insisted on appropriate behaviour. They declared that there were no second chances for children who could not behave appropriately (really?). They argued for special and segregated and the merits of being with their own kind. They embarrassed, emasculated and infantilised young men who were in 'showing off to the ladies' form. They burst the bubbles of young women who dreamed of modelling careers or a lifetime at the beck and call of a boy band. 

They seemed to have lost sight of their own teenage hopes and dreams and had forgotten that there was more to life than clean bedrooms, appropriate behaviour and staying at home with Mum and Dad.

I don't believe that they did it out of malice. I don't think that they take their young people seriously enough as people to think that there was a problem.

I think that many of their reactions spring from that complex place of love and fear...

Huge love for this young man or woman...heartbreakingly intense, terrifying in its vulnerability...profound in its joy... 

And at the same time...

Visceral, sweaty, heart pounding, screaming, animal fear...too frightening to face...fed daily by stories and experiences that confirm the dangerous nature of the world we live in and the communities we inhabit. Petrifying fear for the future; turning opportunities to stone and eventually constricting hearts so that they can only beat but cannot feel.

Maybe I'm being melodramatic here, but it felt today as if there was a great battle going on. It felt Narnian...as if the young people were destined to live where it was always Winter but never Christmas, unless someone understood that there was some deeper magic that could be worked and believed that it might be possible to unwrap the gifts that these young people are and make a celebration of them in our lives and communities.

My strong belief is that the deeper magic is Inclusion...'the means by which we set the stage for people to be successful together' (Kendrick)...'People being at ease in the presence of difference' (Ritchie)

I'm not sure about how to go forward with families except maybe slowly and kindly...I don't know what to think about it...

I just can't shake the feeling that we've got to do better...I've got to do better.

We've got to do better...we have wasted too much money...too much time...and we are wasting too many lives...

Just make sure that you have something to say...

To Be of Use...

In my youth, and for my sins, I trained as a Deaconess of the Church of Scotland. Hard to believe now, but I did.

It was an experience given to me when I was too young to really appreciate it. I was an earnest, bible believing, conservative evangelical Christian. I actually fancied myself as a bit of a martyr as I, armed only with the sword of truth, cut a swathe through the heinous wishy washy liberalism that beset the Church. I revelled in the good wishes of the people in my home congregation who prayed earnestly for me as I battled Satan on a daily basis to defend the faith.

I wanted to become a Deaconess because I didn't believe that women should be preachers. To my extreme embarrassment now, I saw the Diaconate as a way of 'freeing up' the minister to get on with the important work of praying and preparation for preaching the Word while the humble Deaconess mopped up the mess of the Parish.

Anyway...all of that is ancient history and probably best discussed over several bottles of wine. For a long time I was tempted to just write it off as a major disaster in my life but as time has passed I can see that I learned some major lesson there. 

On a practical level, the course was quite prophetic...it asked the questions posed by Eric Schumacher in 'Small is Beautiful'; wondering what would be the future of our planet. We pondered what technological and medical advances would mean for the population in the 21st century. We thought about liberation theology and we welcomed Robert Mugabe. 

Lots of the issues I rudely dismissed have come home to roost in the past 10-15 years. But at that time I was utterly convinced that it was all rubbish...what a clown I was. If ever I needed someone to tell me to wind my neck in it was then...

One of the great things was the teaching method...I thought it was rubbish at the time...

Every Monday morning we would have a briefing session where the topic for the week was introduced. We would then be divvied up into groups and each group would have an area of the topic to explore for the remainder of the week and to present back on the Friday morning, as creatively as we liked. Each group would meet, decide on a course of action, divvy up the tasks and then meet again on Thursday to put our presentation together. Invariably, I would have thought that the question was rubbish or would have found some narrow theological area to object to...'can't do that because it will require you to eat oranges on a Wednesday and it is expressly forbidden to eat citrus fruit on a day that has a 'w' in it...and so essentially I would do nothing and then wing it on the Friday morning with the little bit I did know. I really thought that I was getting away with it until one of the tutors, after a particularly vacuous presentation said, ' You're a good communicator, just make sure you have something to say...'

OOps...rumbled...found out as a fraud and a charlatan...all smoke and mirrors.

A yawning chasm of an integrity gap...

When what she's said really dawned on me I was gutted. All that stuff from my childhood...being called a hypocrite...'empty vessels make most noise'...clanging cymbals...all of that... It has had a profound effect on me and I sort of laugh at it but I do feel deeply embarrassed.
I am terrified of just entertaining people and having nothing to say. Telling me that you thought I was great or funny means absolutely nothing to me. It just means that I've entertained you for an hour. What I really want to ask you is to tell me what you've learned...what made you think...what do you disagree with and why...and can we work it out?

I've spent the day today talking. I've spent the past 20 years talking and I wonder what anyone has learned. They probably know lots about me and how I like my washing to be hung out but what has anyone learned that has made a single bit of difference to how they work? How has anything that I've said improved the experience or the conditions of anyone who uses services?

Tomorrow I'm going to spend the day talking to people about how they should talk to other people and I can't quite believe I'm doing it. I cannot help but worry that some little kid somewhere is going to announce that we are all naked and that the work we've done up until now has really only served to blind up to our true predicament. Because, really...what has changed?

I'm asking the question not because I want people to rush to reassure me. I'd like to talk to other people who share the question.

I want to find work that is useful. Work that makes a day to day difference to the people in our communities who are excluded and marginalised. Whose difference means that they are less than the rest of us.
It's hard to come by because most of our efforts seem to be directed at organisations in  the hope that it will 'trickle down'...and we've all seen the cartoons about what really trickles down.

To be of use...What a joy!

 To be of use 

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge 

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest 

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

30 days hath...April!

April...come she will

Only who would have believed 

that she would come around so quickly. 

It feels like she just turned up on my doorstep; 

an unexpected guest, taking me by surprise. 

Truth to tell, 

I was only just dusting February out of the door, 

planning on turning the mattress and airing the bed

and here's April

with her best bonnet on, beautiful in the sunlight, 

trailing a gentle breeze 

to quieten the roaring exit of March. 

I am glad to see March go. 

Too hot. Too soon. Too busy. Too long. 

No Good Friday to make a pause for sadness and contemplation. 

No Easter to raise the spirit and encourage hopefulness in the midst of...March. 

I had plans for March but they evaporated with the steaming hot days. 

Here in the Southern Hemisphere it isn't August that has the monopoly on wickedness but March.

To be endured, sweated through...

To make way for April.

Now that I am over my surprise I am glad to greet her. The cooler air has brought some clarity and energy in its wake and so I welcome April...all 30 days of her.

It seems that April is NaPoWriMo...National Poetry Writing Month. The challenge is 30 poems in 30 days...
I am no poet but I'm going to pick up the challenge and write 30 entries in the blog in 30 days...
I need to write because I'm not sure what I'm thinking these days. Maybe seeing the words on the page will help me know. 

Miss April, you are welcome here. 

Take off your bonnet, stay awhile.

Some of us could use your beauty.

photograph by the amazing Diane Lowrie

http://www.australianpoetry.org/2013/11/22/vic-napowrimo-poetry-prompts-the-moat/

http://youtu.be/V_fK1riKv8g