Change Point

When I was 11, my teacher told my mother at a parent teacher interview that I should learn French, as it was a handy language to have in the future. Over the summer school holidays I picked up a second hand book with French in it and tried to practise reading it out loud (undoubtedly my pronounciation would have been awful). When I was 12 I started learning French, I continued it into high school, and when I changed to a school that didn’t teach French I learnt it by correspondence. As each year went by I would tell myself, just one more year, then I’ll stop, never intending it to continue past high school.

My mother always told me that she had taken French when she was young, but she couldn’t remember any more than a couple of phrases. I figured I would end up like that. However when it came time to pick uni subjects and I really had no idea what I wanted to study or where I wanted to end up, I discovered that my Uni had a specified program (one with no major) called Science International, where you could team up science subjects with any one language.

So French and chemistry were the basis of my further 3 ½ yrs learning at a tertiary institution. When I finished, I decided to go serve a mission for my church. I was hoping to get called somewhere where I would be able to speak French. September 11 happened just after I sent in my papers. Everyone told me I would get kept somewhere close to home (my sister was hoping for Wellington) so I was hoping for Tahiti. When my call came it was about the furthest place on the planet that it was possible to go, 11hrs time difference between here and Switzerland.

I loved Europe, once I got used to it. It did take some getting used to. When I got home I got a job at a lab in Tauranga, thanks to one of my old Chemistry professors. Then I got a job teaching Tahitian missionaries at the Training centre in Hamilton.

Then I started looking for a permanent job, and it just so happened that Air New Zealand was looking for French speaking check in agents, right at the time that I was looking for a job. I went for a group interview (one of the most nerve-wracking interviews I’ve ever experienced in my life) and came out the other side with a new job and a move to a new city. Then when I applied to transfer back home, the key factor in their decision to hire me was the experience that I’d already had in my job in Auckland.

My point to all this, is that one little decision when I was 11yrs old, has influenced so many things in my life up to this point that I find it hard to believe. I probably wouldn’t have the job that I have now, or even live where I live now. I’m sure I would have studied something entirely different at Uni (probably humanities, which was what I was also leaning towards).

Nearly everytime I go away on holiday, I run into people, who speak French. Usually they’re quite surprised to find someone who speaks their language so far from home. My life has been enriched in so many ways by the ability to speak a second language. It has also taught me about the huge impact that the little things can have on our life, further down the track. Who would’ve known that from such small and simple things, great things could come to pass?

On my mind

So I went two days on fruit smoothies and vegetable juice, then I went two days on water, and by the end of the water day I was over it. Well, actually what happened is my flatmates decided to have a delicious combined dinner and I was so hungry that I decided to finish my fast early. Talk about lack of will power.

I thought about it though, and I decided that four days is better than nothing. Also yesterday at church someone read out a quote about not fasting for thirty days, 24 hours is good enough, and the Lord will hear the prayers of a sincere heart. Technically I wasn’t doing it for revelation I was doing it for health purposes, but my clothes feel looser in any case which is quite nice.

I’m currently living in a 7 bedroom house, we did have 7 people, and we’re now down to 5. One is planning to move home soon so then we’ll be down to 4. The rent is going up to $450 next week which we’ve decided is too much, so we’re now looking for a more manageable 4 bedroom house in a decent area to move into. Definitely not Ham East coz that’s a dodgy area, especially around the Uni, houses are always getting ripped into around there.

We found a cute villa house in between the lake and town, haven’t seen the inside yet but it looks great from the outside. I’m guessing that its occupied by students who are leaving soon because the date its being made available is just as uni exams begin. I hope we can get it.

My nephew nearly drowned on Saturday at the pools, apparently I was meant to be watching him. I couldn’t see him though, owing to my short-sightedness, so I saw him heading over to the other side of the pool but couldn’t see him after he started descending down the steps into another pool (which was over his head and he can’t swim). Luckily the spirit yelled at my sister who was engrossed in an argument some people were having somewhere else “wheres your son?” which caused her to look around and see him under the water and go and yank him out before he started inhaling water into his lungs. Both of them got a big fright. I felt bad.

I’ve started doing pilates. Its making me a lot more flexible than I used to be. Also zumba, because my flatmate has the dvds. It feels nice to think onto paper/a computer screen occasionally. Then I can clearly see where my heads at.

My mini ephiphany

I had a mini epiphany yesterday. Sometimes with all the information in your head, there are lots of random facts, but then sometimes two unrelated separate ideas might come together in a particular way to provide enlightenment which is astonishing.

I was thinking about the 40 day water fast one of my friends recently completed. She originally intended it to be only two weeks, but then amidst priesthood blessings and prayer, felt to continue what she was doing, and 40 days later when she finished, she got a whole lot of revelation about what she was to do in her life.

I didn’t find out about it until after she’d finished (good move not telling people – they tend to not understand and make fruitless unhelpful comments). Her skin now looks really radiant, which is the thing that I noticed first about her, also she lost weight although that wasn’t her goal, her goals was to be healthier.

Anyway I was trying out a new green smoothie variation I hadn’t tried before – tamarillo, peach, banana and spinach (seriously delicious), when it hit me. Jesus was 30yrs old when he began his ministry which he preceeded with a 40 day fast. And I am also 30, therefore I’m the same age that Jesus was. It seems like a small thing, but it hit me really strongly. Do it. Do it now.

Emergency Preparedness

I was at a workmates wedding last Saturday when I first heard about the Christchurch earthquake – one of my other workmates mentioned that the airport was closed, and I had no idea what they were talking about (that seems to happen to me quite a bit.)

My first thought was for the people I know in Christchurch who would have all been affected by such a major event. I was in their city a few months ago, doing the tourist thing, taking lots and lots of photos and I wondered how different it would all look now, since all the news footage they have been showing looks like it has been taken from exactly the same spot.

My next thoughts were about how well prepared I would be in case of such a disaster. I have bits and pieces of a 72hr kit, but they’re not located in one place, and I have no idea how I would get to them in an emergency. One lady I know recommended making a poncho with lots of pockets filled with supplies which you could grab in case anything happened – a good idea if you’re likely to be carrying children or other things out of the house in a hurry.

Over the last few years I’ve been trying to declutter the things in my life, it doesn’t help that I have a tendency to hoard, but I have gradually been clearing things away. When I was young we didn’t have much and I got installed with the idea that people are more important than things. I have a small room at the moment, which helps me remember that I should get rid of all the things I don’t use on a regular basis – much easier said than done, since I have a lot of stuff that has been in storage for the last few months. I probably don’t need most of it, but I have an emotional attachment to it.

If it was all destroyed in a fire or earthquake, I don’t know that I would miss it, since I probably wouldn’t remember what was there. Really I should just get rid of it all. I don’t know whats stopping me.

My 10 favourite feelings

In no particular order:

The “aha!” moment
When your mind clicks and your heart resonates and you just know something is right, because you can feel it

The elusive, hard to describe soul-filling feeling akin to elation but not that. I myself have experienced it only twice in my life.

Peaceful calm – inner and outer, like when I was at my yoga retreat last year. We were in a beautiful wooden house and the lounge was shaped like a hexagon with windows all around four sides. The house was surrounded by bush with a view of the ocean, with no tv, no radios, no cellphone coverage, so quiet. We meditated a lot. It was bliss.

Wonder and delight at a new human being – watching them see the world for the first time, and finding joy in their experiences.

Laughing with friends at private jokes and secrets that nobody else understands

Feeling special and loved (my mission farewell, I never heard so many nice things about myself in my life).

Falling for someone.

Mass enthusiasm – the high of being surrounded by people who are happy and cheering. I figure being a spectator at a sporting event could be like that, but my most memorable experience of it was at a Tony Robbins conference in Sydney. At the beginning of each session they had dancers and music and do everything they can to get everyone hyped up, moving and feeling good. I’ve never seen or felt anything like it in my life. The excitement was infectious.

Inspiration
When you put pen to paper and feel like what you’re writing is not so much coming from you but through you, like an unseen being from an invisible world is guiding your creation.

Awe
Seeing something greater than myself that evokes humility and admiration.

Unrighteous Dominion

The scriptures tell us that we are both significant and insignificant, made in the image of God, his sons and daughters, while at the same time being lower than the dust of the earth, or even ‘a little lower than the angels.’ So where do we stand really in the scheme of things?

We are made to have dominion over the beasts of the earth. Does this mean that the beasts don’t matter? That they have no feelings and are insentient beings? Does ‘dominion’ mean domination, or something else, more akin to stewardship?

I was reading a magazine article this morning about how animals are more intelligent than we give them credit for – (really? How much credit to people give to animals?) - I thought it sounded really arrogant on the part of humans considering we really can’t see into the mind of animals, we can only guess based on their behaviour.

Apparently a lot of people cite “moral belief” as a major factor in becoming vegetarian, which I would take to mean the belief that its cruel to kill animals. The word of wisdom, depending on how you read the particular verse that relates to meat, either says ‘don’t eat meat except in times of famine,’ or as my friend said to me when we were having an argument about meat, “Read the word of wisdom. Meat is good.”

She wasn't listening to me when I told her about the famine part, then our other friend reminded us that they didn’t have fridges back in the day when the World of Wisdom came out, so they could only eat it in winter when it was cold and wouldn’t go rancid in the sun. She said that since we now have fridges its ok to eat meat all year round.

I can’t claim to be a vegetarian, but I don’t eat meat hardly ever, maybe a couple of times a week. The article talked about this primate, related to an orangutan but I can’t remember the exact name of the species, which can talk using pictures on flash cards. Can even form simple sentences using the words. Uses and understands past and future tenses. Was raised by humans and has used these cards since it was little. Uses the words ‘be’ and ‘happy.’

The “awareness of self” test, where the animal is shown a mirror and they either preen or touch themselves rather than reaching out to the creature in the mirror. Only monkeys, dolphins and elephants passed this test, suggesting that they have a higher level of intelligence than other creatures, such as cats, rats and houseflies.

There has been a lot over the last year or so, about cruelty to animals, inhumane murders of dogs and such and it got me thinking, about the unrighteous dominion exerted by humans over the entire animal kingdom, and whether or not our feelings of superiority over them are justified. I don’t believe it is.

One of my favourite stories

The Old Fisherman by Mary Bartels
Taken from the Instructor May 1968

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs room to outpatients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking old man. “Why he’s hardly taller than my eight year old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face – lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and theres no bus till morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. “I guess its my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…”

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me. “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.”

I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch meanwhile, Then I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take long to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body.

He told me that he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; every other sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.

At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the childrens room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little old man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favour, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have to have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit – I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.”

I told him he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought us a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so they would be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4am and wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this.

In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery: fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and how little money he had, made the gifts doubly precious.

When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next door neighbour made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away. You can lose roomers by putting up such people.” And maybe we did, once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him, from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers we came to the most beautiful one of all; a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old, dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, if this were my plant I’d put it in the loveliest container I had. My friend changed my mind.

“I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting in this old pail. Its just for a little while, til I can put it out in the garden.” She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the fisherman, “He won’t mind starting in this small body.” “But that’s behind now, long ago, and in Gods garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand!!”