Category: teacher

Is it possible to be kinder than God?

Somewhere along the way I have got confused about what love is and I have tried to be kinder than God! (@David Riddell)

I am a slow learner. I have to be reminded again and again how upside down and back to front I have got this loving thing. I have subconsciously believed that because I have tried very hard to ‘love’ others they should reciprocate. And when they do not, I am left believing I am unlovable; so, I try harder to love them back in the hope that they might love me. This ‘love’ comes from neediness rather than out of abundance.

This love is more a counterfeit love than akin to God’s love. God’s love is not a lopsided sentimental love; it is a love balanced with justice. It is a love that does not mean granting another their every desire and it is balanced with consequences.

Some of us in particular have a real problem with this. Many of us slip into this because we are women and have an innate maternal instinct. Others have said it is a post-feminist issue, where we as women over function in our relationships which in turn creates under functioning men. As a parent, we help create young princes and princesses. How we love impacts how we function in our marriages, as a parent, as a colleague and how we function in the community and our churches.

This does not mean we stop caring for others but the problem is when we repeatedly do for others what they should do for themselves! This is actually not loving. In doing so we may also be protecting others from the consequences of their own faulty choices. We can become a stumbling block to the other person’s maturity and unwittingly support their irresponsibility.

Over functioning can include mentally thinking for another by often reminding them of their functions and responsibilities. Physically we may decide it is just easier to do it yourself so we end up doing everything from chores, to meal planning, to banking, shopping, organising and making appointments and even waking them up. Emotionally, we are second guessing and counteracting in an effort to keep someone else from feeling a negative emotion.

When we do for others what they should really do for themselves we are over functioning or rescuing. As a result, we rob the other person of the responsibility of looking after themselves, the sense of accomplishment and competence they could hope to receive and the resulting sense of sufficiency and confidence.

Any wonder our loving feelings crumble and we become resentful and ignore our own hopes and dreams. None of these exemplify love. This is not a sustainable love. It is not a love that can last.

God’s love is a perfect love; it is a deep abiding love that is also just and right. If I; if we, are going to love out of abundance and not out of our own neediness, then we need to first let ourselves be loved by God. How do we do that? That is a question for another time.

Photo by Jez Timms.

This blog post was adapted from a speech I gave on Valentine’s Day several years ago.

I would like to acknowledge the following sources that influenced my message and this blog:

* Living Wisdom by David Riddell

June 17, 2017
Emerging from the shadow

Under great pressure in my job and marriage last year I was confronted by a side of myself that alienated me in my relationships with others, spilling over into unprofessional and unloving behaviour. I was shocked by the amount of resentment, frustration and impatience I discovered that I had towards myself and others when my expectations were not met. The perfectionist in me was devastated by my imperfections that had surfaced and seemed relentless with their internal pressure. The ‘good girl’ that I had tried to be for all of my life was not very good at all; in fact, she was ugly!

At my best, I have been known as wise, responsible and inspiring; but at my ugliest I am capable of being like a dog with a bone, self-righteous, intolerant and inflexible. None of these qualities I like in others so you can imagine how little I like them in myself.

During this stressful and messy time, I discovered that this ugliness of mine- my brokenness, had been there all along, hidden in the shadow. But that was not all that was hidden from me. Unrealised hopes and undeveloped talents were in the shadow too.

The shadow self is a psychological term and one that is also referred to by a profiling tool called the Enneagram. It is a great metaphor for the parts of ourselves that we are not consciously aware of; perhaps even in denial of or blind too. It is not just the ugly and the offensive that stays in the shadow but there is great stuff as well.

I am abundantly grateful that I belong to a loving God who sees all and knows all; including my shadow self. Filled with shame and self-loathing at my ugliness, I recall praying to Jesus confessing how I struggled to love this self and wondered how others could either? I believe that in my confession and shame Jesus reached down and grabbing hold of my hand he started drawing a shrivelled me from the shadow into his grace filled light.

The wholeness that I seek is impossible with so much of me still in the shadow. To emerge from the shadow, I am to face this unacceptable part that I have previously been blind to. Acknowledging the ugly is not excusing it nor does it endorse it. Trying harder is not the answer either; the more I strive to be responsible the more inflexible and resentful I end up becoming. What I need is the forgiving, healing and redeeming power of the cross; the gift of undeserved Grace and the Good News in Jesus Christ!

There could be many reasons for my underlying anger (yes, that is the word that sums up all those feelings). Sometimes my rights have been violated, other times my needs have not been adequately been met and other times it is a warning that I am doing too much. Harriet Lerner in her book The Dance of Anger says a woman learns to fear her anger because it brings disapproval. Anger exists for a reason and always deserves our respect and attention. I readily identified myself with her ‘nice lady syndrome’. I would rather stay silent, become tearful, be self-critical and hurt than be open to the possibility of conflict. Being ‘good’ is exhausting work. Life has already disclosed to me that I was an unhealthy peacekeeper and an avoid-er of conflict. What I did not know was that by ignoring my anger and shoving it down I had also compromised much of my self. Along the way I had lost the ability to know my own thoughts, feelings and dreams. I had put my energy into reading others reactions and keeping the peace. I was good at feeling guilty but evidently not that good at feeling my anger and dealing with it.

This road to wholeness and finding my voice requires courage and vulnerability to accept the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Grace is needed so I do not slip back into old patterns and beliefs. Even more grace is required to dare to be who God created me to be. It is time to find my voice-to speak up, learn to ask and to own my needs and boundaries. Through prayer and a huge measure of God’s love and grace I am trusting Him to lead me in a new season as I emerge from the shadow.

June 10, 2017
Stop Running!

I became a woman in the 1980’s when big hairdos, shoulder pads and power dressing was the vogue. I believed a lie that as a woman I could have it all: a career, a home, a family, health, beauty, wealth, and happiness. Falling for the lie was not all that difficult as I was running from my mother’s misery which I associated with a housewife’s lot in life with no financial means or identity of her own. I did not have a plan, nor did I really have a dream. The glossy women’s magazines of the day fed a vague hope and a lie.

At the age of twenty-seven, with two children under three, a failed business and little cash I was diagnosed with post-natal depression. As a part of getting well, I swapped the women’s magazines for self-help and motivational books of the 1990’s. I decided to get balance in my life so added exercise and church attendance to my family and business activities. Now I was full of vague dreams of wealth and success and a belief that all things were possible if I just tried harder.

In my thirties, my husband and I grew our business, built a grand home, leased new vehicles and hardly stopped to take a breath, let alone ‘smell the roses’. By 2000 I was exhausted and overwhelmed. We were in debt and were indebted to others to keep the treadmill of life and our lifestyle going. My body was running so fast my soul could not catch up.

I realised that in spite of all the trappings of success the thing I lacked the most was peace. I found that peace when I committed to follow Jesus. We sold almost all of our possessions, untangled ourselves from debt and packed our bags to live overseas and started to home-school our children. I gave up all ideas of having it all or being it all to enjoy the rhythm of family life and later Bible College.

In the early 2000’s I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and began a journey of addressing my poor physical health. Struggling to make a difference as I worked out at a local gym, I was overcome with grief wondering if I had brought this on myself as a result of the ridiculous pace of life I kept- trying to have it all and be all. For a while I relished the luxury of a slower pace of life and the healing that brings.

Another decade passed and as I look back on those years, I realise that the pace of life picked up very quickly. During these years our children became young adults and I became middle-aged. Looking in the rear vision mirror of life I realised I had started to run on that treadmill again. I still did not have a plan or a dream. Instead of a vague hope of doing more and being more for myself; I was doing more and being more for others and with a vague hope that I was making a difference in the world. At the end of last year, I was nearly at breaking point. I was no longer running from my mother’s misery but was instead running from my own.

Being busy, having a purpose or being on a mission has become a way of life for me; a bias if you like. Unfortunately, I have come to realise it is also a way I avoid my own pain and grief. As a result of running away from the things I fear I have also denied myself the opportunity to authentically dream, plan and hope for the things I love.

If I’m not striving to have it all or being all, what then? Perhaps it’s time for my soul to catch up with my body. Time to grieve for things lost, to heal from pain; time to dream dreams and plan for my future. Instead of the world making me something else, perhaps it’s time to be myself. And with the grace of God, that is enough.

What good will it be if someone gains the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? (Matthew 16:26)

June 3, 2017
Remembering my Dad and the days ordained

My Dad would have been 83 years old this week. He died over 3 years ago; five months short of his 80th birthday.

Dad once said to me that he had already lived three score year and ten and that “any more was a bonus”. Using this logic, he had nine bonus years.

The day Dad died, I saw his Ute filled with his rubbish bins pass by my house. I was at the kitchen window. I knew that I could expect him later for a cup of tea and instructions for the care of his place while he was away for a few days. Instead I had the police at the door advising me he had passed away suddenly and was found in his Ute, with his dog at his side parked at the face of the rubbish dump. His doctor had declared him dead from a list of possible old age conditions.

As sad as this was and still is, my thoughts go back to 2009; four and a half years earlier when I thought he would die. Dad had travelled with me to spend a week in a village on a remote island in Vanuatu with my family and our friends that lived there. He became seriously ill on his last day there.

Two nights before our flight off the island was due we were guests of honor at a banquet. I was fussing over him staying up late and he sent me off to bed telling me “I’m a big boy!” Less than twenty-four hours later, Dad was very pale and lay on a rough wooden bed inside the village hut’s guest bedroom. We did not know at the time, but his diabetes had complicated his body’s response to a tropical infection on his lower leg. Never before had I felt so aware of this small village’s isolation from medical care and faced with the possibility that my Dad could die.

My Dad survived this serious infection and enjoyed the attention of private medical care in Port Vila and two Australian public hospitals before his release six weeks later. Getting him there felt like an eternity though, as we painstakingly transported him on a thin mattress in the back of a utility nine kilometres up a steep and windy rain-forest dirt track to the airstrip one hundred and sixty metres above the village. Our luggage, our family, slabs of fresh fish plus many other Ni-Vans joined my Dad on the back of the utility, making the slow journey even slower as we chugged up the mountain in the island’s only vehicle.

Providentially this was our scheduled flight off the island although the only flight due that week. Intravenous insulin, saline solution and an overnight stay in the capital’s whitewashed private hospital cost him one thousand dollars and provided him with the medical release that allowed him to fly home on our scheduled flight the next day and into the care of the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

Not only did Dad survive this trip overseas but my sister and I accompanied him on a two-week guided tour of China, culminating in a visit to the Great Wall. Since that trip to Vanuatu, he struggled with circulation in his affected leg and had also had a stent placed in his heart. Towards the end of the holiday angina had hindered his steps and his feet were swollen. He survived a Chinese foot massage by a skimpily clad masseuse in tiny shorts and enormous heels; and hired a strong man from Tibet to push him in a wheel chair through Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City of Beijing. He did not quite manage to walk the Great Wall but he did step foot on it. Three months later he was gone.

Dad and I had spoken about death some years earlier. He believed that his days were numbered by God. It seems miraculous that he survived his illness in Vanuatu and yet he died doing a chore he routinely did for over 30 years.

As much as I miss him, I take comfort that he too believed as the psalmist did that “…all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16)

May 27, 2017
The importance of a name

As a pastoral care student, I visited a mortuary where bodies were sent for forensic autopsies. That meant that the people who ended up there often were a victim of crime or died a violent death. I did not see any bodies, but we did see the room where people went to view the body through a glass window. Our student group also spoke to a counsellor who was there to assist grieving families. What impacted me the most was the realisation that the staff who conducted the autopsies usually did not know the names of the cadaver. Instead, they used a number for identification. This helped them to become emotionally detached from the person and the story of the dead on the autopsy table.

In the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz in the 1940s, the living was numbered by a tattoo forcibly placed on their body. This was one of several intentional dehumanisation methods used on the Jewish (and non-Jewish) prisoners of war.

Whilst these two situations are not the same; they do raise the same issue. That is the importance of a name. When someone takes the time to call me by my name and to remember my name, I feel valued. And likewise, when I take the time to call someone by their name and I remember their name, I am valuing them as a person.

My husband travels overseas with a group to provide medical treatment to the poorest of the poor in several nations. The queue is long and the faces at the end of each day start to all look the same. These are people the medical staff will never see again. One thing he insists on doing is taking the time to find out each person’s name and to call them by it. They are more than a statistic or a queue to reduce; each person has a story and each person has a name.

I recall as a child having a favourite teacher in a little country primary school. He left our school one year and returned sometime later to visit. I was one of a number of students that crowded around him and greeted him by his name. He said hello to my friends and hello to my sister and he called her by her name. He did not remember mine nor even say hello. Whilst this was not dehumanising or intentional, it did make me feel invisible, insignificant and maybe a little immemorable.

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by my insignificance looking into the vastness of the heavens on a moonless night. I am amazed and reassured, that the same God that made the stars, is the same Creator God that formed me in my mother’s womb. He knows the number of hairs on my head; he knows my name and he knows my story.

Each of us has a name and a story. Some parents, more than others have invested a lot of thought into the name given to their child. My mother was going to call me Donna. Except on the day I was born in a little county hospital, Mrs Donna was buried in the cemetery across the road. My mum told me she looked down at her cherubic first born daughter and called me Angela.

Whilst I have answered to Ange, Angie, Angela and even Amanda; all of these are preferable to being overlooked or treated as just a number. I have become more sensitive to this as I have become older. Maybe it’s a result of living among strangers in a busy world? Whatever the reason, I have come to realise the importance of a name.

I confess that remembering names does not come easily to me. I usually remember faces before the name. And when I meet people out of the context I first met them, my brain scrambles to make the connection of the face to a name.   I have picked up a few tips on the way and I think I am doing better. I certainly am not suggesting I get it right. One thing I do know though is that my name, your name, everybody’s name is important.

“A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language,” (Dale Carnegie)

May 20, 2017
On loving a less than perfect mother on Mother’s Day

Today is Mother’s Day in Australia. The sentimental phrases about mothers started on Facebook about two weeks ago. Instead of warm and fuzzy feelings I felt a deep sadness settle over me. Not just for my loss through my mother’s death six years ago, but for my loss during her life. I am ashamed that I have so few good memories of my Mum; hurt and disappointment seem to have got in the way. I want to honor mum; as I should. After all good girls honor their parents. Why then am I struggling to do this?

Many people loved my mum; including my siblings and I. However, not everything was perfect behind closed doors. Mental and emotional health was not something that was talked about when we were growing up nor was the impact on the children often considered. Even now I struggle to confess that my mother suffered from mental health issues. I am still learning the impact this has had on my siblings and I.

Growing up as the eldest of four children born within four years, I took on an idealistic and unrealistic mantle of the responsible one; the good girl. I don’t know when I crossed the line and became responsible for my mother’s happiness and became the family’s peacekeeper? I believe it had something to do with my mother’s struggle with anxiety and depression, my temperament and the dislike for conflict. What child does not want their mum to be happy and their parents to stop arguing? As a teenager, I would often plead with her and retrieve a knife, a rifle or pills from her hands. I would also clean the house first thing on a Saturday morning, before she could yell at us kids. I did lots of things as an adult too to try to make my mum happy. It feels like I could never quite get there. No matter what I did, it was never enough.

At some stage I moved from wanting to make her happy to helping her to change and find happiness herself. At the wise age of twenty-seven, I thought that if I could make changes then mum could too. It was her GP that told me to let go of the mother I thought was inside and accept that this was my mother. Sadly, I do not think I ever did this. There was too much frustration in the way. I struggled all my adult life wanting my mum to be somebody else and failed to accept her for who she was, flaws and all. I think my sisters did this so much better than I.

I harboured frustrations, resentment and hurt for the loss of the mother that I would have liked to have had. Sometimes it felt like she had an uncanny way of throwing back my fears and flaws when it seemed I was not good or responsible enough. Shortly before her cancer diagnosis, Mum was unhappy with me because I had not spoken up in a family falling-out. She punished me by not wishing me a happy birthday. And she accused me of only doing my religious duty when several months later, I dropped off a gift and a card to her for Mother’s Day. I was trying so hard to please her and please my God by honouring her. It felt like I had failed.

I had put all my energy into pleasing her and others and pushed down or ignored my needs, my desires and my ideas. It took me years to discover and accept who I am when I am not being the responsible one or the good girl. This was and is not healthy for me or my relationships with others; including my mother. Forgiving my mum for not being perfect was essential to letting go. Finding my voice has been an important part of my healing journey.

Along the way, I have shed many tears in private and I have called out to Jesus to come and heal my very sore heart. I learnt to press into the pain, own my feelings and not stuff them down.   For someone that liked pleasing people; especially my mother, I had to get used to the feelings of being seen as the mean girl when I set boundaries; especially when I was used to the role of peacekeeper and one who usually rescues the situation.   That lesson did not come easily. Learning to express my needs requires honesty and can mean rejection; a feeling I have to downgrade.

Compassion and empathy for mum has come in waves. It came at unscheduled moments. It came while watching Sandra Bullock’s character wrestle with her relationship with her mother in the movie “Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood”. It comes when I recognise in myself similarities to mum as I age. It came when reading a Brene Brown book and accepting ‘What if she was doing the very best she could?’

When we found out mum was very sick, I dropped everything and loved my mum the only way I knew how; I did things for her. I drove her six hundred kilometres to admit her into hospital. I often visited with her; sometimes giving Dad the opportunity to return home for a break and look after their home. When she was released to come home to die, I drove to Brisbane to pick her up. For the last few months, she was in palliative care at home, I bathed her and changed her sheets. I visited her most mornings and every afternoon to check in on her. We never really talked about things she said. Somehow, they were not important anymore.

I am learning to live with the sadness of a mother gone. I am grateful for a loving God that is at work healing my sore heart and helping me to forgive and understand. My heart is encouraged knowing that mum loved each of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, as best she could. She loved being a mum. And I loved her.   Happy Mother’s Day Mum.

May 13, 2017
Who am I if not a mother?

Yesterday I considered adopting a child from overseas. Again! The day before that I was designing a kitchen table enterprise based around home and hearth. Today I cried when I reread a poem I had written seven years ago, when my son left home. (You can read that poem at the bottom of this post.) It occurs to me that maybe I have not come to terms with the end of a season of my life: mothering.

It is not that I will ever stop being a mother. I am just no longer mothering. I mean the stuff of home and hearth, and life’s reason and season being centred around motherhood.

Perhaps it coincides with menopause and the stopping of the biological clock. It certainly coincides with my feeling middle-aged and what I see in the mirror each day; and dare I say, passing my ‘useful’ date. Maybe if I had gone on to have more than two children I would still have a child at home?

Perhaps if my children had made me a grandmother by now I would not be thinking about these things either. But I have let that go. I am accepting that is God’s will and my children’s prerogative; not mine to request.

I seriously did think about adopting from overseas yesterday. Social media brought to my attention a single woman of fifty-three adopting from overseas. She is two years older than me. This was not a new thought as I had earnestly looked into this six years ago. At the time my husband and I felt led to foster and became the foster parents of a preteen later that year. For three and a half years I loved mothering another.

I have been mothering for twenty-five years in total. Even though both children left home the same year I managed to be involved in my children’s lives from a distance. These past six to seven years, I have watched and supported them finishing university, starting a business and finding permanent work; one has partnered up and they both have established their own lives away from me, my husband and the family home.

Motherhood is a comfortable and safe place for me. Perhaps not so twenty-five years ago when it first started. Sometimes I would count down the years until it was over when I felt the crushing responsibility of it. But, I did discover my rhythm and joy for this season of my life. I possibly hid behind it as I have served the family and have encouraged their hopes and dreams. Nothing or nobody has prepared me for the day when I am no longer actively mothering. I never planned for this.

My hopes and dreams that have been pushed aside for a long time, now have the chance to flourish. I no longer have parenting responsibilities. With the exceptions of genuine limits, there are new possibilities out there. And yet, I am struggling to overcome a strong pull to go back to doing what I have known for most of my adult life. The landscape is vast and yet my automatic response is to return to what is safe and comfortable: mothering.

What next? Who am I when I am not mothering? That is the big question? Ahead of me, God willing, is another 25 years. It is time for me to grieve the loss of my season of motherhood. It is time for me to take courage and dare to risk for my next season. We have a divine priority for life to risk and grow and yet our feelings are saying, be comfortable and safe. (© David J. Riddell, Living Wisdom)

What about you? Do you know who you are if you are not a mother? Are you like me and have this pull back to what is comfortable and safe? What does it look like to risk and grow: to dare to dream of what life is like after motherhood? Who are you when you are not a mother?

See Ya!

He left for the next chapter of his life with an uncomplicated “See Ya!”

Fresh places beckoned his passage of rite along with promise and fervour.

His Ute filled with luggage and golf clubs; the fuel tank full for the journey in front.

Without even a kiss or hugs, he left our home empty of his presence and stuff.

I had tried to get a life before the family spread, thinking I had it all considered.

Nothing could prepare my heart ahead; the emptiness too big to be covered.

It feels like the heartbeat has stopped in our family home, his absence tangibly evident.

Now barely a retreat for mum, dad and the two dogs, the house and my life-desolate.

Is there life after motherhood, when it seems as if one’s purpose has runs its course?

I wish these feelings away if I could, as few understand my unhappiness.

It’s easy to feel worthless when one’s apparent use has expired in a sense.

The future seems so pointless, when a home has lost its reason for existence.

Unprepared in spite of nine months warning; before there were only two of us.

As was his departure Tuesday morning his entrance was as raw and rushed.

Again only two of us, just as before; unprepared for each other’s company.

Conversation is now difficult and unsure. What do we have in common? Anything?

The lounge chair he plopped in each night is as free as the outside car park.

No books to trip over piled alongside, the stool vacant at the breakfast bar.

The house has never been cleaner or the grocery bill so small.

This is healthier for my demeanour as there’s nobody to nag or be anxious about at all.

He has been on loan to us for nineteen years; a gift from our Creator and Saviour.

He goes blessed and leaves with few cares; his future sealed with sovereign favour.

God made him like no other, unique and full of potential to be discovered.

Our job as father and mother was to prepare him for the destiny yet to be uncovered.

Its time to look backwards and rejoice in the highlights of the life of a son becoming a man.

His preschool stuttering voice outshone by the eloquent toastmaster he has become.

His home-schooled math a year behind and now he tutors others as its master.

And sieving gems in his uncle’s sapphire mine; a prelude to his mining future!

He was mobile at nine months although he did not learn how to fall on his rear.

He had a head full of bumps as he fell frontward onto the coffee table and floor.

Fast forward fifteen years; he seemed happy to fall for the game of rugby league.

This time grunts but no tears; as well as corked thighs, busted eyes and bumps on his knees!

I remember him as a gentle kid, not liking dad’s company and preferring mine.

He would rather stay inside he said, preferring quiet activities to his father’s life.

It started with football and progressed to fishing, before they took hold of diving gear.

Bungee jumping, paragliding and spear fishing, something they both shared without fear.

No partner for fishing, footy or diving; Dad will especially miss his best mate.

No more rivalry or card playing?  What will happen on Friday nights?

No socks or thongs to go missing, nor eskies left behind somewhere else.

Dad is going to miss him and the pain of his absence perhaps yet to be admitted to self.

We will miss his easy-going manner, his wry grin and peaceful presence;

And I am beginning to miss his clutter, his unwashed laundry and kitchen mess.

His room is ready and his bed sheets laundered, for whenever he returns for a weekend.

The kitchen’s clean and pantry replenished; almost ready for the messy gourmet again!

A text, an email or a phone call, should easily keep the family connected.

If only he liked to talk, however small, this mother would be glad for a few words said.

He’s so busy now and so grown up; we seldom see glimpses of the boy who used to be shy.

He is responsible and has stepped up; time to release the parent strings and let him fly.

We miss you son!  See Ya!

(©Angela May, January 2010)

May 7, 2017
My friend Mary

I met Mary in this village nearly seventeen years ago. We were a little family of four on a faith adventure in Vanuatu and she was working for her provincial government in partnership with an NGO. We found in common our faith, our love for the people of Vanuatu and an interest in enterprising solutions for the nation.

We kept in touch by sporadic emails. Mary’s internet service was ad hoc and dependent on her employment. Ours’ back home in Australia was brilliant in comparison. We spent a week with Mary and her husband in their home on the neighbouring island several years later and Mary visited our home in Brisbane. I met up with Mary again last year, when she was in Australia on a speaking tour with ActionAid. It was as if nothing had changed, and yet it had.

Mary was now a widow. I already knew that from her correspondence. We were both much older and so were our children. Mary was now a grandmother; me, not yet. I was in full employment and Mary was hopeful.

Mary has communicated with me-and with others, that she faced many challenges as a widow in her culture. She chose to do something about this. She found her voice.

Tanna Island, a large southern island of Vanuatu, is Mary’s home. Tourists know Tanna for its live volcano called Mt Yasur. I am a rather proud -and in hindsight a somewhat crazy, tourist who climbed it and eyeballed it’s molten depth! Mary’s home is on her husband’s family’s land but she is vulnerable to family pressures to relinquish it. In spite of being amongst family, I recall Mary’s anger when as an early widow, she was propositioned by some of the married men she knew.

In recent years, Mary has sought to speak up for women and especially widows in her region. She has many ideas, but little funding or support. One of her desires is to train the women in the provinces to help them package, preserve and sell their produce. She also wants to empower these women in leadership. As a part of her journey, Mary ran for provincial government.

Mary’s political journey started nine years ago when she sought endorsement to contest the provincial elections. Her article for the Pacific Institute of Public Policy called The Long Journey-Political Acceptance of Women, outlines the challenges she met as a possible candidate. I found it especially sobering to read of what happened to women who considered voting for her.

I love the women and men of Vanuatu. Our family counts amongst our closest friends ni-Van families that live in the Capital Port Vila, Erromango Island-where this photo was taken, and Tanna Island. Our first few visits to this tropical archipelago were as tourists. Our latter is simply to visit our friends. My husband, son and many male friends would add ‘and for the fishing’!

Recently, I have been confronted to read formal documents of support for our Pacific neighbours highlighting the sexual abuse against girls in Vanuatu as one of the highest in the world. The inequity in women’s leadership in this Pacific nation has not gone unnoticed either.

I thank God for women like Mary who won’t be silenced and is speaking up for the women of Vanuatu. My question and prayer is, what more can I do?

April 30, 2017
Waiting for the ducks to line up…

I am mad with myself tonight. My commitment to write this week was delayed as I attended to every matter of things except writing. Sure, there was a fair amount of social media scrolling going on, but it was mostly other good activities that stole my time. None were in vain, nor bad; but all were placed in front of the one thing I believe I am to make a priority each week; and that is to write.

Only a miracle can make time stand still. There will always be important and significant activities; planned or not, that will demand my time. As a result, I have less time available for my priorities. It is up to me to not get distracted.

I know we give social media bad press for wasting our time, but I actually think general busyness is a bigger problem. There is no end of good works, great ideas and opportunities available to get involved in. The problem for me is how to say no to most of them so I can say yes to the things that are important and the things I am called to do. My guess is there is a huge chunk of redundant planning, organising and worrying that also takes up my time.

This week I spent an unnecessary amount of time nesting. We have moved into a new home recently and there is still lots of bare walls, floors and windows to adorn. I spent a large slice of my time browsing the internet and local shops for ideas and bargains. As lovely as this is, I am not sure I needed to do this this week.

I remember being an undergraduate in university, studying for my final year exams. Our two-bedroom student unit never looked so clean nor the pot plants so healthy. I wrote a book in my head called “101 things to do instead of studying”. I realise this is straight out procrastination and I knew it! Unfortunately, as I have gotten older my schemes for sabotaging my priorities have become more subversive.

I have this tendency to want to put all my ‘ducks in a row’ before I do the very thing I feel is very important to me and my future. I feel the need to have everything in order before I can get to the things that are important to and for me. Of course, the little critters are destined to never be in a neat little row; so in essence I am doomed to never to get started.

I do not want another decade to go by and find once again I have not had the time to do the things I feel called to. I know that I must learn to live with loose ends and messiness. That is easier said than done some days. I must make friends with disappointing others. I also have to get used to feeling a little selfish in order to meet my goals and set my priorities in order.

Here’s to a new week and clear priorities. Irrespective of how tidily my ducks are lined up (or not) and in spite of the many other good things I could be doing; this week I will not be distracted!

April 23, 2017
Oh Mary, what must it have been like early this morning…

Oh Mary, what must it have been like for you early this morning to find his body missing from the tomb? I think you were so brave visiting the garden in the dark and by yourself. Only a few days before, your friend and teacher had been unfairly tried, publicly humiliated and crucified as a common criminal. How dreadful that another very close to him betrayed him to the very religious leaders who had been plotting to execute him.

I can only imagine how devastated you must have felt to arrive in the garden to discover that his body had now disappeared. How Mary did you manage to focus through all those tears to notice the two sitting inside the tomb where your friend’s body had previously lain? Where you frightened when the two-angels dressed in white, spoke to you? I am curious: why didn’t they appear to Peter also when he peered into the empty tomb?

I can only imagine the shock Mary when the presumed gardener turned out to be your very-much-alive teacher, friend, Lord and your God. I get goose bumps when I imagine what his voice must have sounded like when he greeted you by name. Mary, you were the first to see the resurrected Jesus Christ, with his nailed scarred hands and hole in his side. His suffering was not an aberration; neither was his presence this morning.

I can only imagine how afraid you were and how much joy you were filled with when you realised you had seen the risen Lord. What an amazing morning Mary.

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Today is Easter Sunday. Christian churches across the world celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection. The same God that created the world loved us so much that He gave his only Son to die (and rise) for us. Anyone who believes in Him will not die but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

The message of Easter is not restricted to a long weekend filled with chocolate bunnies and eggs. It is a message for all year and all of life. How wonderful that the same risen Lord Jesus Christ, that called Mary by her name, can be our friend, teacher, Lord and God as well.

April 15, 2017