Episode 136 - The Winnowing Oar

I have always loved Greek mythology. Probably because I’ve always loved stories and Greek mythology has some great ones of adventures to worlds that can only be imagined. One of the most famous is Homer’s Odyssey. It’s unusual in mythology because we know who wrote it. Well I say wrote it, Homer actually spoke it, someone else would have recorded his story because it was never intended to be read, but to be heard. This is probably the reason that the Odyssey has a special place in my heart, you may have noticed that most of the time I write like I speak and I have always found something more natural about spoken word than written.

The Odyssey is a tale about a man; Odysseus. It continues from where the Iliad ends and tells the story of Odysseus’ ten year journey to get back to the thing that he wants more than anything; to get home and be with his family. On his way he consults with a seer for help to get back home. Odysseus receives the help he needs but it comes at a cost. He has to promise that once he has returned home and spent some time with his family, he must then continue his journey and leave everything he has ever known or cared about behind. He must travel to a land so far removed from the life he has known that he must take an oar from his boat and travel inland until he has journeyed so far that the people in the land don’t recognise his oar, but mistake it for a winnowing fork used to thresh grain. Only then will his journey have reached it’s end and that place is to become his new home.

Jars of Clay wrote a song about this. It’s a song that means a lot to me. It compares this last unwritten part of Odysseus’ journey with that of the journey of the Christian getting to know God more. It often feels that the more we trust and follow God, the more unfamiliar our lives become, and sometimes we have to chose to let go of things in order to continue that journey. It often takes a lot of trust to continue the journey, but the more faith we place in God, the more we see how faithful He is. These present times are particularly unfamiliar, but I believe this is all part of an opportunity to trust Him more. This song has always been a big encouragement to me and I hope it might be to you too, so I’ll just leave a link to it here…

Episode 135 - Stay Safe

Working as an engineer in a hospital, PPE (personal protective equipment) is something I often have to wear, whether it's a face mask to prevent the spread of germs, safety boots to protect my toes from falling objects or UV glasses to protect my eyes from harmful light that they can't see. I'm pretty good at recognising what can hurt me physically and at taking measures to protect myself from possible harm. I wonder if I'm so good when it comes to dangers that aren't physical.

Whether its negative comments and other people's expectations that lower my self esteem, or worries and distractions that take my mind away from what I want to focus on, or even grudges and offence I hold that cause broken relationships, there are many dangers that my mind faces everyday that on the whole I often treat with a careless disregard. I wonder if it's a resignation to the inevitability of such things which cause me not to try to stop them and a bewilderment as to how to protect myself that causes me to ignore that there's even a potential problem at all. As I think about it now, I realise that the best thing I can do to protect myself is not to avoid the danger or to shield myself from it, but to look inside myself. True resilience to such things comes from really knowing myself, knowing who I want (and choose) to be, and accepting and being happy in those things. And for me, that comes from knowing God; knowing who God made me to be, knowing who I am in and through Him, and knowing that He loves me even when I fall short.

Episode 134 - A Trail of Perfume

As I was walking to work one day this week, I noticed a smell. A pleasant smell. As I walked along I looked into the hedgerow to see if it was the flowers, but as I continued walking the smell was still there as strong as before and it continued long after I had passed the hedgerows and flowers. This remained a mystery for a while until I noticed a woman in the distance who had been walking ahead of me all the while. I had seen her right from the beginning of my journey, I just hadn’t noticed her. The smell must have been her perfume! I find it funny that someone I had never met, someone whose face I’ve never seen, someone who I wouldn’t be able to recognise, had made such an impact on my journey, and had done so without realising or ever finding out.

It made me think of all the colleagues I had in my life with whom I never worked with directly but whose work effected my ability to do my job. Whether it be previous engineers who maintained the machines I now look after before I joined the department, or the people who brought the spare parts up from the service yard, or the countless other people who unknowingly impact me every day. And I thought about how what they do and have done can really make my life much easier or much harder, much better or much worse. It’s amazing that we all share this planet together and that my journey is intertwined with so many people who I will never know or meet, but whose life I will change in some small way for better or worse without either of us knowing. I wonder whether or not I leave a sweet smell behind me.

Episode 133 - Not Such a Great Deal

Today I came across an incredible deal. A free mouse (of the computer variety not the mammal kind) for every customer. You didn't even have to make any other purchase, all you had to do was pay for postage and packaging. This worked out at about $15 for a $80 mouse. It was a very good mouse. As mice go, this was the bee's knees. Anything you could want from a mouse it could do. And several things you probably wouldn't want a mouse to be able to do too. This was a great deal. And I was very tempted to buy it. There was just one problem. I don't actually need a new mouse. I already have one, and I can't really use two at the same time now can I?

Not only did I not need a new mouse, but actually I didn't want a new mouse either. Yes this mouse is newer than my mouse. Yes this mouse is worth more than my mouse despite costing less. Yes it has excellent reviews. Yes it has more features than my mouse. Yes it can do things that I didn't even know mice could do. But I like my mouse. I know it. I'm used to it. It's comfortable. It does everything I've ever wanted a mouse to do (mainly move a cursor around…). So why was I seriously considering buying a new one? Was it just because it was new? Was it because mine is going to break at some point so it's good to get one ready while there's a good deal just in case? Or was it simply because it was such a bargain? Because the thing is, a great deal is only a great deal if you actually want what you're buying.

I wonder how much I'm guilty of this in life. Not just when it comes to shopping, but when it comes to the way I live my life, the decisions I make and the things I live for and spend my time doing. How often do I get distracted from the things I have or the things I have dedicated myself to pursuing, for something new? Something that looks attractive but actually adds no value but just incurs a cost no matter how greatly reduced that cost is. Why is it that I can be so easily tempted by these things and what can I do to remind myself of the true value of what I already hold dear?

Episode 132 -Nothing but Silence

With social isolation hanging over us all, I’ve been thinking a lot about silence. Not as in the absence of sound, but the absence of communication. When we don’t hear from someone, or when we don’t get answers to our questions. Humans aren’t very good at dealing with the unknown. It’s why we search for scientific discoveries and philosophise over moral quandaries. When there are uncertainties in our life, it’s our tendency to imagine every possible situation and drive ourselves mad. With God we don’t need to do that. I all too easily ask God for the answers, and then if I don’t hear the clarity I’m looking for proceed to tie myself up in knots imagining everything possible. What I should do is to wait for an answer and if God choses not give me the clarity I desire, then to trust Him in that. To choose to accept the unknown and to trust that all my life known and unknown is safe in His hands.

Still this is something I struggle with, even once I’ve made the conscious choice to let it go and trust God, my unconscious mind wanders easily from my choice and drags my heart and soul with it. It’s a short blog post this week as I accidently got distracted and wrote a poem while I was wrestling with all these thoughts and feel that I should share it with you. Hopefully it will mean something to one of you reading this…

Nothing but Silence

Your silence is deafening

It speaks so loudly

That I can’t hear a thing

It says so much

That I have no understanding

Of who you are

Or how you feel

My empty mind

Is forced to steal

An imagining

It has to fabricate

Of your overall

General mental state

It creates you angry and sad

And happy and free

Every possible face that could be hidden

Underneath your vanity

In and out of control

Up and down

Lost and found

With smile, with frown

Strong and weak

Kind and mean

At war, at peace

And everything in-between

And it all leads me to believe both

That you’re on your way home

And that you’re never coming back

The nothing that you speak leaves me feeling everything

Spinning me around

Filling up my head

Feeding my emotions

With the words you never said

All these mixed emotions

From what I speculate

Feeling loved, unloved

In love and in hate

Angry and sad

And happy and free

Jumping from one to the next

Drives my insanity

I know that we can never have

What we had back

But it doesn’t mean we have to give up everything

To get from the red to the black

Giving up what we had

Doesn’t mean having nothing at all

So please silence this emptiness

And let your words fall

We could build something better

Something even stronger this time

Or if not that then something different

Of a completely new design

Or if it at worst that this is how it must always be

Then let your words remove all other possibility

Because right now

Everything is possible, but nothing remains

There’s still not a day I don’t think about you

From sunrise to sunrise

Your silence fills my ears

And it fills my eyes

Without speaking you remain everything to me

And as you fade away on the wind

To you I become nothing