Sense

Just checking in here one last time, though I'm fairly finished with the blog, methinks! I'm awfully busy, in any case, what with working with the Club on Friday and facilitating the picnic on Saturday. I have to do a bit more work this week; Lucy did herself an injury a bit back, and so I've been looking after her two children some as well. I've been working on pamphlets and the like as well, trying to get the good word out, you know?

I really like it here, this lovely little town. Such history, such nice people, so clean. Everything has its place, and the like. I don't know why I didn't retire from the city sooner!

And the eyes; the constant watching, the unsung, screaming eyes, staring out from the shadows! How jolly they are. The arms covering all the bad (for a lack of a better word) things, the songs that constantly drown out the rest of the world, it's all so cozy and close! And I know I'll be safe here, there's no way I can't be, not with our friend in the shadows! For the first time in my life, my faith has been confirmed, you see! I always had doubt; we tried to save children in the African savannahs and so many still died, I held dead men in my arms and prayed for them, and I prayed for my son as he was taken to the hospital. Each time, nothing.

Now, though, now I have a physical god to worship, one whose actions I can see. I do not have to have faith in him; I know he is here. God personified, on Earth, with all his strength intact and for us. He is kind, and he accepts us, and we can see it. He punishes the wicked, and casts them out. He allows only his chosen to be with him, and when the end comes, he will keep us close. He is grace; he is kindness; we are better for worshiping him, not some invisible fantasy. He does not bleed, but he sings to us. He will bring the end down upon all those who oppose him. He will keep us safe.

I welcome him to me.

Thingamajigs

On this day, Penny told me she didn't believe in God, but she wanted to go to the Coptic-ish church in town. I asked her-- didn't they believe in God? Pen told me that the god that they believed in was better than our one, and would fight and win in every fight, even against Godzilla. I'm not sure what to do about this-- I suppose I should encourage her to follow her own spiritual path, and find her own way to enlightenment, but still... I'm not sure. The church makes me feel a wee bit nervous, though people should worship as they see fit.

Yasamin is a Muslim, and she told me that her brother thought the Coptic church was interesting. Her family was going to go for the Christmas service, just to see what all the fuss was about. I said if Penny was still going through her phase by the time Christmas came around she could go with them. We joked about giving her coal for Christmas. Yasamin said she wanted to give Tom coal for Christmas anyway, since he wrote in her journal. The kids played around the woods and made towers out of the stones they found.

Penny's drawings are interesting-- they seem to all involve the "god" of sorts that the Coptic church believes in. She says he watches over her and keeps her safe, more than our God does. I don't know, he seems sort of intimidating to me! Penny told me she wants a god that actually does something from time to time. I'm really not sure what to do about all this-- I'm not the most modern of people, but I really want Penny to grow into a freethinking individual. I suppose I should encourage this? Or maybe it's my fault for encouraging her to go to the church youth programmes. She does enjoy them so. I don't think that being spiritual in a different way is a bad thing, honestly. I just worry about Penny's future. Yasamin says that the in town Church is addictive, and that people who join it don't ever want to leave. This town is nice and safe, though-- I can see why you'd never want to leave!

Fatuity

I've said before, in my old age I do need some spritely young people around to cheer myself up! My current aide in this area is Yasamin, and I've asked her to introduce herself here.
Hello? I'm really not sure how to introduce myself here, haha. My name is Yasamin, and I'm Edward's aide. Edward tells me to tell more about myself, but he also thinks I should be "more positive" and the two don't really mesh. I've lived here since I was eleven and it's not been the most enjoyable experience. They're very old fashioned up here. I'm working because I've been trying to earn money to move to London. I've done nurse training so I like to think I'm okay at helping people.

Mostly Edward seems to want someone to make a cup of tea for, and I'm okay with that! We talk a lot about philosophy and religion, and he's pretty knowledgable about Islam for an old Christian pastor. I also spend a lot of time playing with Penny and painting her fingernails. She gets along with my brother a bit better though, they have the same interest in elves and goblins and faeries, though Penny tells me she doesn't believe in them at all, not for one minute. Tom is a lot more-- is gullible the word? He's got a bit of an imagination on him, is all.

And I don't have anything else to say, so I'll just hand this back over to Edward.

The kids went on a trip to the church today, I think to learn about Anglicanism and religion and the like. Hopefully not in an indoctrinating way. I would hate to think that the children are being molded by the school-- but from what Penny says, they're very nice. She told me that they have a lot of good, caring teachers and a guy who makes sure they're safe at playtime. So she's a lot better than she was over the summer. Not sure if she's made any friends in-school yet, other than Tom, but we'll see!

Mumbo Jumbo

We went to church the other day in the town two over, and it was quite impressive how small it was! A lovely old steeple too, more's the pity that it's not being used! The people there are quite nice, and asked me to maybe do a guest sermon at some point. Well, I don't see why not! They told me a lot of people have been moving over to that strange Orthodox church recently. Anyway, the Anglican church we went to was simply lovely. Penny and I went and had a cream tea before we caught the bus back to Malkirk. The towns in this area are precariously laid out, but quite nice to be honest! Pen and I managed to avoid burning a Sunday lunch, and had a grand old time.

I walked her to the youth club at the Orthodox church and they went apple picking. There are mountains of apples in our house at the moment! Penny has made me promise to help her make apple pies! I haven't got a clue how to cook, but I suppose that's something that I can ask Yasamin... Oh yes! I haven't talked about Yasamin yet! She's my aid, and a nice young lady. Her family moved up here to get away from the city, and her parents seem to love it. She's saving up to try and get away though. Yasamin has a younger brother called Thomas, and we've set him and Penny up on one of those 'play date's that happen quite a bit in fiction as far as I'm aware.

So I'd say we're settling in well! I'll try and get Yasamin to introduce herself next time!

Bananas

A couple of days ago, I was buying a banana flavoured ice cream for my granddaughter (she loves the stuff, but I can’t quite stomach it), when I was reminded about the second Great War. It seems an odd connection to make, doesn’t it? But really, it isn’t. I barely saw hide or hair of a banana even before the war began, and by the time I was in the countryside working the farms there were even fewer, if you can believe it. A world without bananas was of course not only a world without bananas; it was a world without pineapples and rubber and milk that was fresh. What the world did have was sugared almonds, sunsets, hard work, and Polly. Polly was an inspiration, but I wouldn’t have met her were it not for the grace of God above. I’ve always believed in the right to live every man has at the fundament, life breathed into them, their spirits created out of the ether of the spirits. Humanity itself is based on the fundamental human life, each one, small, large, evil or good. And so I knew that the deaths of millions could not be avenged by more deaths, and in protest, I signed up to help on the home front.

I dug potatoes. I dug potatoes and helped the middle class townfolk do the hard work that their husbands and brothers and cousins had done before them. Of course, many of them being the tough old country folk that they were knew exactly what they were doing and resented a daft young city lad coming in and trying to show them which end was which. So it was really more for myself that I worked, and I did my best to help in what capacities I knew, as a young lad does. I stayed most nights in a small farmhouse, not the one that I was working on, since their rafters were already stocked to the gills, but one about half a mile away. It was a tiny little house, garden in need of weeding, itself in need of a good repainting and a bit of carpentry. Both the sons and the father had heeded the call of the country and queen and marched off to war, leaving the mother and three daughters in charge of the acre strong farm. It was there I met Polly.

Her mother was a voracious woman, and reminded me of a Valkyrie in size and personality. She was really the fullest woman I’ve ever met, stout minded and stout hearted. You can picture her pretty well in her mind, a short thick woman with a red face and red hair, strong, and wore mostly blue. She had small eyes that wrinkled with a smile or a frown at the first opportunity given, and that was the one thing my Polly inherited. Polly’s two younger sisters were interchangeable redheads in personality and appearance, fourteen year old twins with a, shall we say, “playful” demeanor. Freckled, unreliable little daemons they were. Now Polly, well, she was a brunette, much like her dad—he must have been a rather feminine man because she had a sweet, heart of a face and round lips so unlike her mother’s. She was a lot more rounded and muscular than you see in a lot of girls today, but she had to be, out of bed at 4 as she was. She had to have the pigs fed and breakfast ready before anyone else was even awake.

I met her because of God, and this is something I believe in vehemently.

Quintessence

I’m visiting my granddaughter tomorrow, and that reminded me of this blog which I, in absent minded old age, appear to have forgotten about in its entirety. Oh dear. What to write, what to write. Well, that’s the spirit of the thing isn’t it; the heart of the matter, the tale we are telling is the centre of it all. I would be hard pressed to find the centre of my own story, that one revolving event for which my life was created. I’d probably have to say that my faith is the centre of my existence, to see God and to love God and to serve God. I know it isn’t very P.C, but I did serve as a missionary for a time, mostly in Africa but in South America for a while also.  I did most of my service in the slums of cities that were both poor in money but rich in people, a difficult contrast to say the least. I tried my best to be more a teacher of methods than a Bible thumping converter, my job description being in my mind to teach and show a path instead of forcing down my one, which is only one of many. I wanted to show these people, these children the force of my God’s love. Of course, it’s easy to show people that love exists, but harder to prove that it’s for them as well.

If I was that word, then my wife was the action, the movement that made all I said viable, that love and worship and relationship were all intertwined integrally as the most important things the soul needs. My wife fed them, you see. Over her life, she fostered over forty children, and dozens more stayed with us for a day, two days, as long as we needed. She never closed a door, never kicked someone out, and she managed to rear all three of our own children well on top of that. She was sweet, and kind, and gentle, and forgave all mistakes. She worked and volunteered all she could wherever she could, and prayed for those she could not help directly. She was the grace of God personified in my mind.

Sometimes I wonder where she is now. But thanks to the certainty blind religious faith allows me, and yes, I do know my faith is blind and stumbling, but that does not mean it is without thought, and in any case thanks to it I am able to think of my wife as safe in the hands of the Lord I love and that both of us served throughout our lives. He has her in his arms, and he knows her goodness, just as he knows the light that is in the soul of all living people, the life and greatness one person has. She is in a good place now, a place of that light.

Irrationality

When it comes to spirituality, I love God- but I have less of a fondness for the religious institutions he comes packaged with. I know this seems hypocritical of me as a former preacher, but even as a reverend I was never as much about the church as I was about the message, and the God. It’s why I’ve always been one for people forging their own paths around these things, and finding their own way to the God of their choice. You’ve got to have choice about these things, otherwise you aren’t believing, you’re being forced to do something you don’t want to do. And that’s not the right relationship.

You see, everything comes down to relationships, in the end. Religion is nothing if you don't have a relationship with it, or to it; it's all about that relationship, that love, that companionship. It's about how you view your relationship with the planet, with the people on the planet, with your family, with your surroundings. In the end, religion comes down to that fundamental relationship. Christianity, at it's core, is about relationships as well. This works no matter how you view the Bible; through a literary lens, or an anthropological one, or through a religious one (like myself). Translated well, the first relationship between Adam and Eve was one of egalitarianism; one only needs to be around a woman to know she's at least equal or superior to a man! The relationship between humans and God is not the omniscient angry power sending forth the outcast weaklings, but of the father offering freedom to his children. I personally believe that, though the science is incorrect, there is meaning in the version offered by the Bible. There is also meaning in the creation stories of Buddhism, of the Hindu, of the Native Americans. Because all of these stories speak of relationships. Even Atheism is a statement of relationship, in a way-- a relationship to the tangible, to the solid of the Earth. 

I suppose what I have to say is in the end it doesn't matter what you believe, just that you have faith in something. I myself believe that God began the ticking of the Earth; that he gave us freedom to do as we wish; that he has a plan for each and every one of us; that each of us must attempt to love others, forgive them for hurting us, and avoid violence as much as possible; respect other people's cultures; respect other people's beliefs; that He gave His son to keep us free; that my God is strong enough to support anyone; and that my God is love. He loves you, whether you care about Him or not, and I love you, whether you know it or not. I'd really say that this was mostly learnt from my dear wife, who was wiser at the age of 16 (when we met) than I will ever be in all my years. Bless her.