Yesterday I went to visit a family to discuss funeral arrangements for their elderly, widowed, aunt, who had vague connections with our church.  Trying to piece together her life story was far from easy as they really didn't know much at all about her - indeed they'd only discovered where she was born after her death.  They were pretty confident, however, that she'd been a land girl in the Second World War and thought, but were not sure, that she'd married in our church.   Returning home I hunted through our marriage records and found hers - and that she was a munitions worker; further her husband held a far lower naval rank than family lore dictates.

So much for theories that eyewitnesses unto the third generation are dependable; here we haven't even managed one with any degree of accuracy.  Of course, in the funeral I will not be debunking family myth, though may use some careful words to avoid belying the recorded facts.

A question that seems to arise from this is about the accuracy of any secondary sources, oral or written.  It is not that they are inauthentic or untrustworthy (in the sense of deliberately misleading) but that they perpetuate and almost undoubtedly extend inaccuracies.  I don't for one moment imagine that this family set out to deceive in the way they told and developed their family history, though as 'fishermen's tales' show us, the temptation to a little 'embroidery' is great.  (Did you ever see a carp with lazy daisy along its side?  I mix my metaphors as ever).

If, even with careful and engaged transmission, facts - or at least details - become distorted and meaning infused, how much more so when there is greater distance and less immediacy or commitment?

I will tell "Aunty's" story with a clear aim - to affirm and celebrate a life lived quietly in a semi-rural backwater.  It won't be an accurate account of events in her life, for few were recalled, but it will hopefully demonstrate that it had meaning, both for those who knew and loved her, and within the whole, holy, story of God's creation.

At least.

Last night the Girls' Brigade were beginning a project on 'listening' - an interesting topic for around twenty little girls who've been cooped all day - and all the last week - because it's been too wet to go outside to play at school.  The leader who was organising the session had some good activities and they'd had some fun.  Then she came to do her closing prayer - always rather 'horizontal' - such delights as 'Lord Jesus, please help us to remember it is church parade on Sunday' occur quite regularly.  Last night it was along the lines of 'please help us not to fidget or turn around when we're talking to you.'

After the prayers I was cast in ogre role issuing the telling off for messing about in prayers, and commented that it was very rude to mess about when we're praying because God is listening.  Quick as a flash one six year-old asked "how does God hear?"

One totally naff answer followed "God has very good hearing"

Any better suggestions?!

I came across this (unnamed) poem on a blog I visited today, and it seems to say a lot...

No revolution will come in time

To alter this man's life

Except the one surprise

Of being loved.

He has no interest in Civil Rights

New marxisim

Psychiatry

Or any kind if sex.

He has only twelve more hours to live

So never mind about

A cure for smoking, cancer, leprosy,

Or osteo arthritis.

Over this dead loss to society

Pour your precious ointment,

Call the bluff

And laugh at the

Fat and clock faced gravity

Of our economy.

You wash the feet that

Will not walk tomorrow.

Come levity of love,

Show him, show me

In this last step of time

Eternity, leaping and capering.

Sydney Carter, dedicated to Mother Theresa, quoted in Sheila Cassidy Good Friday People,  p 53-4

 

To Carter it speaks of Mother Theresa, to Cassidy it speaks of the work of hospices.  To me, it just speaks...

To what purpose this waste?  Love God, and love your neighbour as you love yourself...

This is not a totally 'duh' question honest.

I am going to start working loosely with the lectionary (RCL) at the start of February but have not bought a copy of Roots or Light, so I don't actually know which weeks are 'missed out' when Easter comes early.  Do I skip over early or late Epiphany Sundays or do I make a random selection?!  I'm sure there's a nice set of rule somewhere, but I don't know where - so can someone tell me?  And, for more interest, who decided what the rules are and how?

Week 2 of Catriona's new 2008 study regime, which means two half day slots a week, and it is already proving tricky, but doing better than I feared it might.

I have just spent four hours with real paper and a real pencil doing real writing.  Beginning to form some ideas for an article I have to write.  It is not a quick process, but I wrote about 2500 words and most of them make sense.  Not all will make it into the typed article but they have helped my thinking process along, not least because I wasn't constantly interrupted by checking bibliographic details or faffing around with Endnote, footnotes or formatting.  (Though I did note that they needed to be checked and added)

It was fun.  Not a better way of writing, just different.  A decade ago I had to learn how to think and type togther, nowadays it is a treat to think without typing!  Obviously I will have to type up some of what I wrote - and it will get edited and revised in the process.  Obviously I will need to tighten up the language - farewell to my lovely adjectives and non essential illustrations from real life - but at least I have something to show for my morning's endeavours: six sides of narrow lined A4 manuscript which, being in pencil, will not fade with time and, after today, cannot be successfully erased (don't ask me why, I don't know the chemistry or physics of it).

I am intrigued by the diffenrence in feel of the two approaches to 'writing' and their relative merits.  My handwritten spelling is infinitely better than the typed version, and I omit less words due to brain being faster than fingers.  My English often flows better on paper and is less 'report like' perhaps because of subconscious associations?  But the bottom line - of time and deadlines means that inevitably most stuff has to pass from brain to computer with its only 'mulling' being when I'm doing other things.  In the days when I had a real job, most of my 'work' was paper and pencil/pen and the only typing the formal write-ups.  It was only once I started writing essays the change took place.  Maybe I need to rediscover my analogue intelligence?