Love Latvia

This week I am on a physical and spiritual journey. I am staying in Riga, Latvia with four of my closest christian friends, spending time together and visiting a charity here. The charity works with children who live with poverty and the issues that come hand in hand with severe poverty.

We arrived yesterday morning (suprisingly someone managed to coax me out of bed with a cold and onto a flight. It's amazinv what a cup of tea can do). After finding our backpackers hostel in Old Riga and changing rooms three times we settled in and Kat took us down to the children's centre.

Riga itself is a strange mix of new city and old, East and West. Cosmopolitan and commercialised. Just a ten minute tram ride into the housing area tells the story of a different Riga- (as it does in our UK cities.) Tired looking houses, broken doors and people with tired clothes. Graffiti on the walls. I have been here before in many cities- and it makes me wonder- which city is the real city?
The children's centre is almost unmarked from the buildings around it, down a dark stairwell with broken metal post boxes and damaged concrete stairs and walls.
Inside couldn't be more different. Exploding with laughter and busy-ness and colour. The children have their own slippers here, they are at home.
They put on a play for us- much laughing. We play dodgeball and board games. They have food at the centre.
We listen as one of then says grace.
We play with A and V, sisters with beautiful dark hair and eyes who thrive of adult attention.

The children have such joy, they light the place. They have a trust in Tom and Diaga who run the centre that shows.
I want to speak their languages- some speak a little English, some Russian some Latvian. I want to talk to them and find out about their hopes and dreams.
For now we play. Mainly spinning A, she loves physical games.
They remind me of children in Mayville. Durban. Having very little, but great joy and a great need for relationships.
Very keen to help and get to know you.
They come from the area around the centre. It is run down and we know they need many things the centre provides. Clothes, food and security. The nuturing relationship they have with Tom and Diaga.
I wonder what their stories are and what their stories will be.

&think we need more people like Tom and Diaga who can love and support children in difficult circumstances and bring joy to tired places and situations.
Bring love, where sometimes it's hard to breakthrough, teach trust where it's been hurt.

We went to bed early- and I realise how much I miss living with Jenni and Kat, having someone to pray with and write with.
Community is a blessing.
I wonder: what are your communities?
Where would you travel and what would you do if you could go anywhere?

Service to be resumed shortly

Sorry for the radio silence. I have been more than a little overwhelmed the past month or so.
I have been doing many things, and much sleeping, much studying. Much hoping, and much playing with N- the little one I support at school.
I have just finished (literally) my final exams for my postgraduate course & the coursework part of my ABA therapy qualification. Three exams and an oral defense, followed by an interview if i wish to progress to the Masters. (I am crazy, but am thinking about continuing next year.)
Exams were okay I think, mainly I am so, so glad to finish. I have not have enough energy to do much more than finish my assignments, study and sleep after work.
&boy have I needed sleep.
My total lack of energy and feel-like-death /just am not recovering from glandular fever has been caused by a very severe vitamin d deficiency.
Levels should be 50-75. Mine were 9.
My bones really were aching- I had (have) partial fractures and a partially fractured rib. Calcium levels and bone strength- dire. I am very easily damaged. This is not so great working with little ones with autism and down's syndrome but we have survived!
Good part is I am easily fixed. Super strength vitamin d- sunshine in tablet form- and I will feel much better in about 6 months. I feel a lot better already- am so thankful my GP insisted on the tests and worked out why i felt so awful.
Now my exams are over I hope to regain some balance and some time-out to recover.
First- celebration meal with J and my parents (who are driving me back from Wales- where my exams were)
Second- knitting. Lots and lots of kniting whilst listening to music.
Third- thinking up some new games and activities for N and some of the class- he's not really been getting any additional fun from me the last few weeks.

Then - it's time to put plan Latvia in to action :)

But absolutely first- so thankful my examd and courses are all finished.
& s l e e p.

Lent

 

{This is the time of tension between dying and birth/ The place of solitude where three dreams cross

-T.S.Eliot, Ash Wednesday }

Being a lapsed (recovering?) Anglican in a baptist church I find Lent a strange time. It isn't really corporately marked in the baptist church, and I find I miss the definite change of season, and the ritual and liturgy. I think I miss the stillness and the focus of a High Anglican Lent. It's a little like homesickness at times. Part of me (probably the gothic part) yearns for the poetry of the liturgy and the sombre atmosphere of Anglican church services at Lent.  I have realised I also feel displaced, having left the anglican church abruptly, in grief and with bitterness. The sense of displacement hasn't been helped by physically moving several times either. Whilst I have been in my current church a little over two years,  I have come to realise that often I still feel anglican in a denomination that is not my own. I guess traditions really do die hard. 

Personally Lent has usually been a time I give something up (normally alcohol) and make sure that I fast once a week to realign my life and focus on God and to grow on a spiritual journey of 40 days towards Easter. 

This Lent it isn't wise for me to fast/give up food groups as I am underweight, struggling to get to a healthy weight and eat sensibly. Giving myself an excuse not to eat and skip meals would be foolish. I hardly drink alcohol so it would be no sacrifice to give that up, it wouldn't signify anything.  There's no point  giving something up just for the sake of tradition, that would be to completely negate the purpose of Lent. However, it feels strange to me not being able to continue my own personal rituals of Lent, and I have to keep reminding myself they are only outward tools and symbols of an inner journey. 

Lately my life has been so full and busy I have hardly had time to rest enough and to just be. 

I certainly have not given God enough time.  Prayer is still hard for me, I have been struggling for years.

I feel often that God is distant from me, and as if there is a wall around my heart. This has become easier over the last few months, but I still find prayer an effort, and I don't have the routines and discipline in place any more to make it a habit. Sometimes I feel as if I'm just going through the motions, saying words but they go nowhere, and don't really mean anything. Other times lines of communication are open.. It is hard to try to pray for any length of time when all I feel is distant and a litle lost.  I have been better with daily bible study, but sometimes it is simply study/word reading, not really getting to grips with God/truth in a way I need to. 

This Lent I need to create daily routines and balance to make time to spend with God. 

I need to learn to pray again even when it feels hard, and as if my prayers bounce off the ceiling.
I also need to make time to journal and write, as this is the main way I grow and learn and process things.

Those are my aims for Lent. I don't really know what the new routine will look like completely yet, I need to make decisions about what I can realistically keep doing, how much sleep I need and rest. At the moment I am recovering from glandular fever, and probably have post-viral fatigue syndrome am struggling to work/keep my job in the day. I have had almost no energy to even cook when I return home, let alone manage my postgraduate study. It probably isn't realistic at the moment for me to try getting up earlier to pray and write (as I usually used to throughout university/when I worked with a church) Ideally I will eventually re-establish space in the morning before work, as I thrived on the stillness and the focus of starting my day with quiet and with God.

To recap Lent aims - establish daily/weekly routines so I can

-spend at least half an hour in prayer a day
-daily bible reading
- get plenty of rest  - bed by 9pm
-at least an hour before bed (hopefully *in* bed)of totally free time to write/knit/be.

Craft Challenge 3/26

Finally I have managed to create some things and kick off my craft challenge. The scale of the big bad baby blanket(s) has meant I've been crafting away but seemingly getting nowhere near finished. Rather demoralising, especially when I look at all the other wonderful things people have been making. I am trying to be easy on myself, as lately I have been so, so tired and barely coping with work/postgrad study/daily living let alone anything extra. Most nights I am in bed by 9pm. The doctor is pretty sure I have glandular fever (apparently children under five are prime carriers for the virus). That would explain why I am so tired and poorly feeling. So whilst it seems a small start to my challenge, and mostly cooking gifts, I still feel accomplished!

1/26: Valentine's Day Card - very sparkly!

2/26: heart-shaped shortbreads dipped in chocolate
for James and to post to a lovely friend

3/26: Ginger & Cranberry Fudge
(waiting to set & be wrapped in cellophane.)
for James & also for post-packages.

In progress: I have clearly taken leave of my senses.
This is Big Bad Baby Blanket no2. Raspberry ripple edition.
It is coming along a lot faster than BBBB 1 did. Mainly due to less colours
and less tangling. I am trying not to think about how many rows I have
left to go. Just knit, knit, knit wherever and whenever I get a chance.
Big Bad Baby Blanket 1 needs more wool before I can finish it
but it is so nearly there! Hurrah! Did I mention finishing
it is going to mean I throw a party?

Grace

"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life..... It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!" If that happens to us, we experience grace."

Paul Tillich.

In the shelter of each other, we will live

The pyschology of the soul turns out to be about people in relationship.' ::Jungian psychotherapist Andrew Samuels::

amen.

Monday Musing

"We worry about what a child may become tomorrow....yet we forget that he is someone today." 

{{unknown blogger}}

The never ending baby blanket

This is my first project in my craft challenge. It is the big bad baby blanket, from Deb Stoller's Stitch and Bitch. I won't tell you when I started it, or how old the first baby I started knitting it for is now. Suffice to say it is more like the never-ending baby blanket, as it has taken me forever to get this far. As it is huge, on circular needles and requires 4 balls of wool, it ges readily tangled and even with the aid of my wool balls in food bags I still spend an inordinate amount of time untangling every other time I turn. It is also not very portable.
This coupled with me getting bored and frustrated of untangling rather than knitting, giving up and knitting other things instead, has led to the blanket being on it's third baby now. Luckily I have obliging friends who keep having babies!
It is very pretty, but I would never try one in different colours quite like this again. I do plan to knit another one, one colour only (I may consider a contrasting border. Depends how much sanity I have left. I'm thinking not enough.) I am about 80 rows off finishing, which doesn't seem a lot, but experience tells me that with so many stitches in a row it is actually further off than I'd like to think .
I sincerely hope that I can finish it soon, although I have become quite accustomed to just picking it up and knitting some rows and may well miss it like a familar friend. I think that with some very intentional knitting and realistic assessment of all the other myriad things I have to do I can be finished within two to three weeks.
When I do, I am throwing a goodbye party for it <-- seriously.

"Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words."  Jane - Jane Eyre

{{&this is why I do what I do, with the ABA therapy & in learning to be a child & adolescent counsellor. To help children who need to have a voice have a voice. To let them know it's okay that they feel &often feel with a strength that scares them.}}



I have started the Victorian Literature Challenge by re-reading Jane Eyre.  I first read Jane Eyre at about ten, and whilst I didn't really understand the adult Jane, I responded to the child that Jane is, her isolation and feeling of difference and misunderstanding of the adults and people around her as to her true nature. Also her inability to express herself in the way she wants to, having the thoughts but not the words nor anyone to say them to. Now, having just finished the first year of my child&adolescent psychotherapy training, and concentrating on my case study/written assignments what children think and feel, and the struggles they have in expressing it are very much at the forefront of my mind. To read this in Jane Eyre  was as if I was reading it for the first time with truly adult understanding.  How hard it is for little ones to tell us what they feel! And how much they often need to.  How much they often just need an adult to hold them and take the time to listen to what they try to say, however they express it.



Dispatches



 - I have been quite busy this week. Doing some extra bank shifts at the supported living unit I used to work full time at.  I have discovered a day at school, with little break (my 1:1 child needs specialist support at lunchtime and every break)  driving straight to the unit and staying on my feet until 10pm is more than I can realistically physically manage.  Also certain aspects of working there are not so good. I was so frustrated I got into the car at the end of my shift and just cried. & crying is still quite unusual for me at the moment. I am thinking that I may need to leave completely. Part of me still doesn't want to leave, I would feel as if I was walking out on people and I do need the extra money but I'm no good to anyone frazzled and so tired I'm just functioning, not doing well at any of my jobs.



- It was my birthday last Sunday, and I had such a lovely time.
J came to stay on Saturday night we had pizza and time to sit and talk. Sunday morning he bought me waffles in bed with cream and strawberries in bed.
He painted me a canvas painting that will remind me of him & me always and is in such gorgeous rich colours. I am so thankful for him. We went to morning and evening church, I wore my corset and felt pretty all day, I got away without church singing happy birthday to me (just),  I cooked yummy risotto and we watched Erin Brockovich  on the projector whilst in bed and it was wonderful.  Also I did no studying. Nada.



- I am hopefully getting some shiny technology to help me hear in the classroom/meetings. (For those of you who don't know me in the real world, I am profoundly deaf.) I had an access to work assessment from the government and it looks hopeful I will get full funding for radio/personal loop aid system. I got to try out some different ones, and see how helpful each was. I do hope it comes quickly. I felt a lot better after talking to the assessor who was a teacher of the deaf. He seemed amazed I made it this far without much specialist help,and none in school. It was also good to have someone understand that I get so tired from listening in the classroom environment each day, and really struggle.



- I got my hearing aids fixed! I managed to get an appointment at super-speed and full moulds back, which has made everything sound louder and so much easier for me to hear. I can hear my child , J sounds like he should and church was much easier this morning. I am hoping it hasn't screwed up music for me and hearing in groups is easier. Class is loud, but it is going to take my brain a while to get used to so much sound again.
I can hear rain. I can hear birds. Birds are really rather loud and very prettyful.



Now, church again, then more Case Studying. I have so much more I want to say and I have been thinking about. Hopefully next week I will be organised enough to find time to write some of it.
I hope you are all having a relaxing and peaceful weekend.

'To make an end is to make a beginning'

I need to find time to write a New Years' post/embrace the year but so far the theme of my year is just 'busy.'
&I am loathe to make resolutions that will just make me 'busier', but I have learnt some space for doing me things, that I enjoy and making those very intentional is a very good thing.
I have always known this but not always done it.
Between two postgraduate level courses, crazy jobs last year (including the insane night/day shift combos) and (still) the high intensity/level of lateral&emotional thinking my job requires (not to mention the part where I have to be happy, bouncy and goofy and keep up with six year olds)  I have had little time or organisation to do other things I enjoy.
&I need to change this,or something in me will literally wither and die back.
I don't normally make new years resolutions in the strictest sense, though I hope to change some things in the year always.

In my head I still see November, the start of advent as being a New Year a New Beginning.  It is also the start of the Celtic new year, when the old year is at the end of productivity.
(The night is far spent, the day is at hand)
The nights draw in, and at the darkest point,light comes and breaks through and day starts dawning earlier and earlier.

So in my heart I make resolutions (especially spiritual hopes and dreams at the start of the christian church year, advent - looking forward to the Daybreak.)
In a way this post is a month late for me, but I am inspired by others resolutions and hopes of change.

&I need concrete, manageable ways of achieving things.

I need to create. I need to read words, and feed my soul. I need to learn some music well enough that it *flows* from my soul and my mind can be still. (It rarely has been this year.)

So. With that in mind I am joining/jumping on Rachel's bandwagon (without apology, but not without reservation whether I can manage this) two challenges.
First the victorian literature challenge  which will feed my English Literature Major (oddly I didn't study victorian literature, unless it fell under modernism or American 19th C. Lit, so it remained a guilty pleasure, but with so much reading a neglected area for me.)  Encouraged by the fact this can also be poetry & short story I am aiming for Desperate Remedies - 15 + pieces of literature. This seems a small amount to part of my English Lit brain, 15+ items  = less than a term of reading for me in university. Although that was not in depth and was over half of my course. I now have masters level social science reading and full-time work. Still I need time to get lost in another realm, it's the way I'm made. So 15+ pieces of literature in a year doens't seem to daunting and a challenge may be just the thing I need to encourage me to be intentional about it.

The second challenge is a little vague and inspired by this.  Craft 50 things in 52 weeks, is too tall an order for me with the evening work and the study hours I need to do. But crafting keeps me sane. It is also an ambition of mine still to earn more money from making wedding invitations, and despite this I have not been crafting/creating regularly. Not even writing --> and that is like a death to me.

I'm a bit unsure how to formulate this challenge, as 50 things probably won't happen.  I would like to have 26 completed pieces by the end of 2011, so roughly 1 for every 2 weeks.
object/piece can be any of the following:
- crafts such as knitting, crochet, card making, sewing 
- finishing/altering anything/rehashing. So repairing items/revamping them from my growing pile of clothes/textiles to be dealt with.
- creative cooking (presents, new recipes etc.)
- imaginative/creative writing - poetry/story (not regular journal writing)
- music composition
- artistic photography

new wedding invitation designs (my part time, at the moment very part time business) count as crafting. Making old designs do not.


But I aim to spent at least some time once a week taking time to be purely creative, even if that is just chilling out and knitting. Big knitting projects/sewing can be broken down into
smaller tasks, the main thing is that at least once a week I have taken time to create something myself.

This is what I need this year. Reawakening. Creativeness.

Christmas dispatches

Christmas joys:
                 - James sneaking in to my house on Christmas Eve when I was delivering presents to a neighbour and stealth decorating it with black tinsel and his mini-pink Christmas tree &
                    putting our presents under it
                  -  Having waffles & coffee with cream in bed on Christmas morning and opening our presents alone together
                 -  New amazing sparkly purple nail varnish from James & glittery cranberry body lotion
                  -  Snow!
                  -  Being able to go to *my* church for Christmas Day. & church being happy and God-focused and joy-filled

                   - Lovely presents from people & at least four days of visiting people and opening presents = four christmas days!
                   - Wonderful talented friends who took the time to make me presents
                   - Cooking
                   - Having time to plot and make edible presents for people (some at church to say thank you, some for my parents to take home to Wales, some to send with a wing and a prayer in the post to some wonderful people)

                      - Spending time at my parents in Wales for the New Year
                      - Mountains!  (there is a distinct lack in East England)
                      - The conversations that happen on long-journeys
                      - A shiny New Year filled with hope and possibilities.

I am now quite tired and glad to be back in my own bed and own space for a long time again. I am glad there are no children at school tomorrow (really defies the point doesn't it and hoping I don't need to stay for the training all day)  I am very much buried in all the academic work I have to do this week and will be very grateful to have all major essays handed in before the weekend.  I am also thinking about the year just gone, and my hopes/aspirations for the new year - how I want to change and grow.

For now, there is my case study, self-examination, hot chocolate, ham rolls (thanks Mum) and soup and a lot of inspirational music to get me through the next few days of writing.
Welcome to 2011.
it seems a miracle to me that it will ever get finished on time - hot chocolate and music keeps me going!

Edit:  I just found out I do not have to go to school tomorrow as there is no training I need. A whole day off again, a whole day to write, hurrah!