Postcard from holiday

It is post-wedding - ‘Life after wedding’. What sort of life is ‘life after’? My daughter has gone; left father and mother and cleaved to a husband – united to him for life, for better for worse, richer or poorer. It is a strange time of life. I feel suddenly very old and quite, quite sorry for myself.

I am up in the Friuli Mountains, Tarcento, NE Italy. Sandy and I have been given the use of a small cottage for a week with our youngest, Hannah, by dear friends. We have been awed by the spectacular peaks and sublime (Hannah’s word) vistas. Jagged, toothed, glaciated walls many hundreds of metres high that feel ready to collapse at any time and wipe us out. The area bears the hallmarks of the terrible earthquake of 1976 that killed hundreds and destroyed its medieval buildings. It is good to be awed now and again. To be humbled and to recognise something far, far bigger and more majestic then my ego and small insignificant life which too often is all consuming and important beyond words. They say we spend 90% of our time thinking about ourselves. Narcissism. This landscape stirs my spirit and lifts my head up out of a spiral downwards towards some inner abyss.

I have also just finished reading ‘The Shack’, by William P Young. Or, rather, it finished reading me! I was sat next to Hannah, with tears coursing down my cheeks, and hoping that she wouldn’t notice these, or the sniffs that punctuated the silence.

A true holiday; being exposed to thoughts and experiences that slowly percolate through the tough, blocked passages of my life, furred up and calcified by a hundred disappointments, crises and conflicts – without and within – that need their grip shifting and loosening. I am relaxing and even ‘doing nothing’!

I am facing the thought of return to Uganda, and a strange concoction of unknown and familiar sounds sights and smells infuse my thoughts. I thought that I would be joyous, such is my love of the life, work and activity out there, but I find that instead I am tormented by doubts and fears. A sickness lurks in the pit of my stomach. Instead of triumphs and successes I can only think of my failures and the difficulties. I am worrying about my legacy there. I am constantly saddened and ashamed of things I have done and feelings that I have had. I so longed to make a good start and to travel a good road. I had a picture of a medieval Franciscan monk walking along communing with his God, in harmony with nature, and blessing each person he meets. But I realise that I have taken the same ‘me’ into Uganda, and what needs to change is not the surroundings but my internal landscape. I can’t change the past. I can’t even change ‘me’. But I can allow Truth to work its effects within me and to walk the road less travelled – and that means more conscious of God by my side, redeeming each situation that seems to be a ‘Snake and Ladders’ slide back into past failures.

So, I realise the wedding has been a milestone. It has reminded me of a point reached, beyond which it is too late to change the past. We are here and not there.

The danger is that I now will start to feel sad and sorry for myself, and be overwhelmed with morose thoughts, instead of grasping with a sense of elation the possibility of being different and having the opportunity to be renewed within.

I am resolved to walk forwards and into Cherish. I will cherish each day. I will cherish each person. I will cherish each opportunity to be a blessing. I will cherish each small dying of ‘me’ and each new shoot of life that bursts out.

Because I am beginning to realise just how much I am cherished.