Henry wishes the New Year would bring a few changes

I live in a rather unremarkable cupboard in the house this blogger lives in.  I share it with random bits and pieces, a polisher, lots of electric bits, bulbs, batteries and wires and to be honest, it isn't a great place to spend a life.  I hear things going on and especially at this time of year because the Christmas Tree is right outside the door of my cupboard.  I heard Sebastian moving the parcels around, making sure that they were in the right piles for the right people, I heard him showing all the other children where their piles were.  I saw the lights on the Christmas tree coming on and going off and heard all the merry sounds of children opening presents BUT nothing happened for me, not during the whole of a  long Christmas Day.  Nobody needs a Henry on Christmas Day so nobody got me out at all, not even to watch the Queen's Christmas message.  In fact nobody thought about me until I was finally pulled out on Boxing Day to hoover up all the leftovers.   This was my moment, this was when  I decided to get myself noticed.  The way I did this was to refuse to go round corners.  She, the blogger is in a hurry so she really notices when I stick on the chest in the hall and she has to come back and call me.  I can tell she that she is finding my smile irritating but after a few tugs from her and a few more refusals from me, she comes back and looks at me with a new eye.  I can tell my actions have caught her attention and and that maybe she has realised that my life and particularly my diet aren't all that great.  After all, my meals over Christmas have been crumbs from the pudding mixed with little bits of paper from the crackers and dog hair!  I hate dog hair, it is so indigestible.  There isn't much that she can do about that but she knows that she needs me and has promised to put me in her blog which goes some way towards easing my feeling of neglect.  What I would like her to do on the blog is to create a movement to change my name.  Dave or Charlie would be better than having the same name as every other hoover which looks like me but in this new world of transgender possibility, I would really like to be reassigned and called Cecily.  Go blogger Go!  And Happy New Year to everyone!

Happy Christmas may not be Merry Christmas

Everyone is heading somewhere for Christmas. There is definitely something afoot which is moving us to clear our larders and cupboards, polish the polishable, make lists of people to give presents to, plan the journeys to the shops, to the pantomine, to Legoland or the office Christmas party.  Some people are packing salopettes and ski boots, some are packing bikinis and shorts and taking off for hotter climes and some people are not.  Some people have stepped aside from the movement, some by choice and some because they don't have the choice.  Perhaps you are somewhere between  the choosers and the not choosers.  Spending time with one of my favourite not choosers who can't  now choose to go out is a blessed way of stepping aside for just enough time to recharge  and rethink my Christmas planning.  Stepping aside in this way is like stepping out into the fresh air and feeling the beauty which can easily be missed when you are head down, collecting the crackers and stuffing the turkey.   

Our morning starts early, we, he, Mary and I   meditate as dawn breaks and then catch up on his current reading from St Luke.  No easy Christianity here, this is tough stuff: Woe, says our Christ about to be reborn in just under a week, Woe, he says to the Pharisees and lawyers and all hypocrites everywhere.  This is not comfortable stuff because lost in the sentimental side of Christmas and the Victorian trees and baubles, we forget and forget and forget that Christmas celebrates the arrival of a radical thinker and teacher who offered Himself to help us be free from the illusion that our lives were our own and were all there was and would never end.  It is a good time to examine the inner hypocrite lurking in our own set up!

After this visit I am left thinking how it may be possible to give the best Christmas present, not just the lego and the Christmas paper and the turkey and stuffing, but just a little touch of the patient invitation to choose to practice being still amongst it all.  One day it will probably be forced upon us and we should learn to know how to handle it.  My old friend, who is a real lover of life is now slowed down to chair and bed but he has practiced meditation over years, has studied the map of reality and not only manages to find space to be still but gives me, who sits alongside one morning each week, the best Christmas present there is.  The real Christmas present is Wisdom.  If I could give a present, it would be to help make stillness as lovely as Legoland will be today.  Not easy I think

marmite, meditation and moving forward

from this teeny hand

That teeny tiny baby who spent the first few weeks of life in a spaceship incubator is now very nearly one year old.  Life has moved on, her mother is now back at work 3 days a week and to my utter joy, I get little windows of time with her.  On the downside, Grandpa and I trip over the baby walker and the legs of the high chair and we knock into toys which repeatedly play Row, Row, Row your boat as you struggle to keep your balance.  On the upside, we spend hours, she and I looking out of the window and as she is enchanted by the trees and the birds, I am enchanted by the simplicity of life through her eyes.  I have noticed that Grandpa has suddenly come into play, he plays hide and seek with her when she is in our bed in the mornings and never passes her without having a conversation.  

To these bigger ones

This interplay of people in her life is the way life works best, the interweaving of generations is a blessing to everyone.  The hard-working parent gets a little help from the retired grandparent, the retired grandparent gets down on its knees and crawls round the bedroom floor playing all the old games.  Grandpa walks the dogs, I fiddle about in the kitchen with the baby, picking her up, putting her down, helping her stand, offering her toys and apples and bits of toast and marmite.  Meditation in the early mornings has taken a bit of a hit but I find that I can sit on the window seat and circle her with my hand holding on to the back of her dungarees and dip in and out of little bits of meditation.  She twirls round and rests her head on me and that doesn't disturb me a bit, not a bit.

But I love it when her mother comes home and so does she.  I love to be able to tidy up the surfaces and spaces and put the wretched toy which sings at us, right at the bottom of the toy box!  And of course, having a proper uninterrupted 30 minutes of meditation at the end of the day is a bonus.

How lucky are we!

You Can DO this magic yourself

Father Laurence Freeman OSB

Here is my first Advent wish for you.  This is Father Laurence Freeman speaking about making the change we most wish for, the change of mind which lets us become free from ..... past, future, from stress, from pointless imaginings, from Christmas wrapping, from worry about your children.  You will be free from concern about politics, from worrying about Grandpa travelling back from Dubai on his own, from worry about getting flu, thinking about who will win Strictly, worrying about being spiritual enough or not at all, worrying that you don't have the power to transcend the things which tie you down.  You are about to realise that it is in your own power to do small acts of kindness and prepare yourself for your own magic transformation.  Just click on his picture and he will be right there on your screen, speaking to you and making sure you know YOU are the ONE who CAN.