Around the world in 80 gardens

I have found myself regularly sitting down on Tuesday night to watch a man called Monty Don travelling around the world to look at gardens (ABC1 Tues. 8:30pm). It sounds relatively low key, but it is a visual feast and really interesting commentary about the gardens and their links to historical, cultural and spiritual aspects of the societies which formed them.

The TV critic from the London Times hammered Monty last year (when the show was on BBC) for being populist, boring and lacking a script. He obviously has groups of die-hard fans and staunch detractors in the UK as a regular garden show presenter. I have no experience and talent in landscape design and only a skerrick more in gardening. So, I have learnt heaps from Monty's comments about each garden, it's style and construction. I'm looking forward to the last 4 episodes over the next few weeks.

Reflecting about the Tao and Zen concepts which have influenced the gardens of China and Japan, has made me think about my own spirituality and how it might be reflected in my relationship with nature and the garden. I can see how the beauty of our natural surroundings can lead us to worship - either the nature or its creator. It is natural that we would be in awe of both. Nature can be so beautiful, so powerful, even so destructive. Consequently, though, anyone who could make the world we live in, and make it from nothing, must be beyond our imaginings in power.

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. 

So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.  Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.  And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 3:10-23)

Perhaps gardens are one of our attempts to subvert and control nature. Then again they may be part of our expression of love for the world which God made for us to tend, and know and enjoy. For me, gardens, especially beautiful, peaceful ones, allow me to calm my mind and be ready to praise and thank God for his love and goodness. They create space to stop and listen for the touch of divine beauty, to enjoy time with the people I love.

Gardening

In April, I planted some seeds in our vegetable garden beds, looking forward to a crop of root vegies, spinach and oniony things. In the first week after the initial sowing, the chooks managed to jump the fence and scratch around in the bed. Now I have a variegated array of plants emerging and it is quite exciting to see what will pop up where, next.

One thing I have noticed is that English Spinach either didn't get scratched up much or it has a unique homing quality for its sibling seeds. 

I have managed to get some gardening gloves to save having to dig the dirt out from under my fingernails prior to cooking dinner. Unfortunately, I seem to wander up the backyard and leave them sitting on the shelf in the garage, more often than not. Perhaps my gardening habits are a little haphazard. Anyway, I'm still scrubbing under my nails more often than I would wish, but I'm also enjoying being outside and watching green things grow.

Yes, I went to a parenting course

Children value themselves to the degree they have been valued.

No child can see themselves directly, they see themselves from the reflection of others.

We hold the key to other people's self-image, especially our kids.

(Suzy from Centacare).

It is confronting to reflect on what my children see reflected in me. Somehow they are present for all those little moments when I react first, think later. I really wish that I could keep my best moments for them, rather than them seeing my selfishness so often. The pity is that they cannot see it for what it really is - MY selfishness. Instead it lays itself upon their pictures of themselves.

Thankfully, there are times when I am able to reflect love and acceptance, patience and enjoyment.

Therapists talk about the 'gleam in the mother's eye' or mirror transference which help us to develop a coherent self. A bible college lecturer I knew used to love to talk about Martin Buber's description of the I-Thou encounter between God and us, in which we are fully known and fully accepted.

Practically, I want to spend more time cherishing my children and accepting them. Much of what is going on in their minds is actually a mystery to me. (Its for another time, to ponder how much is mine to discover and how much is theirs to guard and protect).

My 6 year old and I talked today about being taught to 'Stop...Think...Do' in her kindergarten class. I could take a lesson from her teacher about that, please. And then practice it the next time something is spilled, broken, drawn on, forgotten or just not where its supposed to be.

Mothers Day 2009

Mothers' Day has always been an opportunity to tell my mum that I love her, that her presence in my life is precious. I'm priveliged to be someone who is able to look back on growing up as a time encouraged and supported by my mother, a strong, determined woman who loved me and my siblings enough to serve us and not expect in return. Not only that, I admire my mum, she completed a tertiary degree while caring for 3 schoolchildren and started working in a technically demanding job when I was a teenager.

I'm aware that my mum is not perfect, but she is someone I can trust and depend on. She is the one that I ring up regularly when I just need to hear a friendly voice on the other end of the phone. Just this week she came over and cooked our family dinner while I took the kids to soccer training.

So today was my opportunity to let her know that I appreciate what she gives to me. And I did do that, along with being richly blessed with loving gifts and cuddles from my own children. But I was reminded of the complicated nature of motherhood in a number of ways today, too. 

Today I talked with a friend whose mum has died, and listened as she recalled some precious memories of her mother - calling her 'darling' as no-one else could and watching their favourite TV show together. Bittersweet feelings, being reminded of a precious but interrupted relationship.

I also thought today about friends who have not been unconditionally cared for by their mothers. Friends whose mothers have failed to give them the acceptance, support or encouragement that they needed in their formation as people. For some, Mothers Day is a reminder that they would rather not experience.

Then, today, I sat with someone close to me who yearns to be a mother but has been struggling with infertility. Her life and marriage have been overwhelmed with the cost - both emotional and financial - of IVF. She has experienced sorrow, loss, disappointment made sharper and more bitter on Mothers' Day. She has had 2 close friends have children in the past month, and I, myself, sit beside her with my 3 month old, 4th child. This is a woman who likes to plan and loves to serve and care for people. Yet, here she is, totally helpless to make the deepest desire of her heart happen. And I know that she struggles to delight in others' children because of the deep disappointment they remind her of.

Parenting/mothering is a deep human desire, and so totally out of our control. We are especially reminded of that when we cannot have a child despite our own desire and effort. Only God can bring a human life into being, and we sometimes forget that when our 'plans' for parenting go smoothly. 

Sometimes I need to  be reminded of just how much I have to be thankful for - a positive, present mother of my own, and the chance to mother my own children. And I pray for comfort and hope for those who find Mother's Day painful or confronting for any number of reasons.

Praise be to our God, who can encompass both joy and pain comfortably, who walks beside us, knows us intimately and loves us deeply. 

And thanks Mum.

My experiment

The more I read the blogs of regular and established bloggers the more I am paralysed in my own efforts. It's a mixture of 

• admiration for the thoughts that other people so eloquently express, 
  
• other people's ideas seeming a infinitely more original than my own (let's face it I've never thought them before),
  
• a fear of being trivial,
  
• a fear of being self-obsessed,
  
• the knowledge that no-one actually reads what I have written.

I am going to conduct an experiment. I will post 10 times before the end of May and see if I just lack discipline, rather than inspiration. Is it just a good expressive apperient that I need?

A restless night

Last night I paced the floors with a restless, febrile(? - temp measured by mum's hand on brow rather than use of a thermometer) six week old. At this moment I expect I should be cuddled up in bed sleeping, but I have finally meandered back into the vicinity of blogspot. Gestating is over and I have some space to sit and think (and pontificate?)

My wish for the next 3 months is that I can enjoy the pleasures of a little baby - the tiny silky limbs, the gaping, gooing smiles, the quietness of 3am streetlight in the loungeroom window, DJ with a tiny body perched along his arm. The last time for the first times. This gift - yearned for, undeserved, just a fraction out of my league. Some days I think I cannot be enough or do enough and must rely on the touch or hand of someone else.

Keep me thankful, with an eye for the joy and pleasure. I have fear I will not savour it. Different from the piercing dread that his distress last night might have been serious illness, more a nagging sense that I might be distracted by busyness and not lay down strong enough memories of this moment.

Stay or go? Safest to have no choice.

It's time for me to move from my current job. I've been part of a team for the past twelve months, where I have felt welcome and valued and I have had opportunities to work with children and their families who are struggling in a variety of ways.

Limited terms and "college requirements" are one of the drawbacks of a training job. Broad experience and contact with lots of different teams is really valuable, but fitting into a team, just in time to leave it can be disappointing. What also makes me sad is the fact that the team I am leaving is bruised and broken, having lost a number of staff recently. People have moved on hurt by their time there and there has not been much effort to bring healing. Processes have been started to work out where things went wrong, but I don't know whether this will ever be able to create a better place, where people have learned and grown from the experience. Instead we let people creep away wounded, by finding another job, we don't actually offer them a process for resolution or change.

Part of me is regretful that people don't stick it out to let the process work and be part of improving and changing the place. But who am I to complain? I always knew I was only here for a season. Maybe that gives me a detachment which makes me courageous on other people's behalf? Would I stay if my job was permanent? Would I stay if had been subjected to ridicule or innuendo, or if I had been spurned when the idealisation was over? Perhaps my limited appointment is a convenient excuse which means I don't need to actually live out my principles of participating in difficult change.

Leaving to start another term gives me convenient way out, and is forcing me to look ahead to what I will be doing next. The only inconvenience is having to face those cases where I have to decide the best way to move on for the patient. Some of them are not getting better the way I planned. I am faced with my own inadequacies as therapist as a parting gift. I am having to keep my hand plastered to my chin in order to keep it up. The more I write, the more I see this is fodder for supervision tomorrow. Bring it on...

To the team I leave behind... thank you for your support and what I have learnt from you all. For the team you will become as you grow again (and I know you will), you will be in my prayers, and I know that what you have seen and endured will build you stronger.