The valley of consolation ...

This evening on the eve of Maundy Thursday I have made a surprise discovery.
There is a place not very far from where we live up in the Jura mountains in the Franc-comtois called the "val de consolation" or the valley of consolation. Up in the Jura there are many strange and extremely beautiful geological formations and wonders but this is not one we have visited so far.
I try hard not to write too much on my blog about the total despair I sometimes feel, my inner pain, its complete pointlessness and uncommunicability. Silence is sometimes the only option. Yet in my own version of the dark night of the soul, I have been offered much solace, support and humour. The promise too that there is a way forwards, somehow - though at the worst I have sometimes felt as if the present was no longer attached to a future. I have been fortunate that my laughter has never completely left me - perhaps the most frightening time was when I began to take myself far too seriously. If you are British and this happens to you then you know that things are pretty bad!
Psalm 23 talks about the valley of the shadow of death but by pure chance this evening I dscovered the existence of the valley of consolation. So wonderful. Just knowing that people could be so inspired as to give a glorious green wooded valley such a wonderful name lifts my spirits. And the fact that it is not far away from where I live speaks to me too. See, something green and abundant and beautiful is already there - you just need to find it and it may be closer than you realise. Perhaps this all sounds too easy and rather too much like Chicken Soup for the Soul. Our need for consolation may indeed be insatiable, but that consolation may sometimes just be a google click away!
Christ risen from the dead promises the Spirit to his followers and friends, the comforter, the one who begins the work of consolation ...

Of tears, laughter and flowers ...

It is desperately hard to explain the personal pain one feels to someone else, and in some ways it is quite pointless yet of course entirely necessary. You can tell that one part of my reaction to the pain I myself feel comes from that British stiff upper lip school that doesn't let much hang out. The other part of me though speaks freely, perhaps too freely about how I feel. I can see how my pain shocks people, makes them step back and really - whatever their origins - hope that you will be well-mannered enough not to mention such distress again over the post lunch coffee. Hmmm ...
Today someone really saw my distress and didn't avoid it, he put his hands on my shoulders and showed compassion, he wasn't frightened by my pain. As that happened, I thought, thank God. It was quite a relief.
And then, as is the way of life, my stiff upper lip kicked in again and I decided I wouldn't write too much more about that side of things. Let's just say it's been a day when tears have threatened to dominate - even while I've been preparing budgets. It's a very strange state of affairs but oddly I've begun to realise too that just like when I have a cold I blow my nose, now too so long as I have enough hankies available, I can continue even if the computer screen looks a little blurry now and then.
Meanwhile, I also today heard a good and for me moving and invigorating sermon from my colleague Deenabandhu Manchala. Given that yesterday morning in church we had experienced one of the worst ever sermons, this morning really was a blessing. Bandhu spoke about how joy and the capacity to rejoice are signs both of resilience and of resistance. He preached on the text from Philipians 4.4 "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice"

To be able to rejoice, to smile and be hopeful amidst fear, loss and adversity is a gift, a sign of resilience and of profound inner spiritual strength. It asserts that the spirit of life has the final word over the forces of death.

Listening to Bandhu preaching about the power and resources of joy I felt myself smiling and I also felt something of the Easter promise burning through into our Lenten reflections. I have often preached on "Easter laughter" but I had never take Philippians as my text. Lost in the pointless pain of depression it is easy, far too easy to forget joy and laughter, and their restorative resurrection values. I have been fortunate that throughout my own pain I have continued to be able to laugh and be joyful at least to some extent.

We can only rejoice and be happy when we have no fear. When violence is caused by the fear of the powerful, let us not preach non-violence to the victims, but in obedience to God, let us preach non-violence to the structures and cultures and to the agents of death and destruction. Let us call them to repentance, telling them to ‘rejoice in the Lord’, and not to fear and act violently, to submit themselves to God's sovereignty and peace. Let us therefore attempt to bring hope in the lives of the threatened through a discipleship of resistance, and transformation. Let us strive for justice and wait for peace to sprout and flourish.

Meanwhile we had some surprise visitors on Saturday afternoon who brought us flowers from the mountain top. It was an act of spontaneous pleasure and joy at having found such a perfect meadow on their part and we were the first people they knew on their way home. It was a lovely moment to see them standing there at the door, holding out the pretty posy pictured here, and to know with a smile on my face and a slightly sinking heart, that I had 10 minutes earlier decided to put off tidying the house for a little while longer ... aie! However, many who have experienced the untidy houses I have lived in may think that my levels of embarassment have perhaps not quite reached the required level for ensuring a tidy place!
The flowers from the mountain top will have faded and wilted by the end of the week but their meaning for me, the memory of their fragility and the smiles with which they were offered will remain. "Say it with flowers" the adverts used to say ... yet there was much that was unspoken in this small bunch of colour we received and which I placed in our favourite jug. So the yellow daffodils and the purple vetch speak for all that cannot be, for those things which cannot be said, for the deisre for joy even when this seems far off, for the promise that fear will truly be overcome.
For such small fragile yet powerful signs I give profound thanks.

Beautiful sunny autumn days

As I walk across the garden to my office in the Ecumenical Centre Philip Potter Library, I walk past two beautiful Japanese Acers. They have been giving me enormous pleasure on a daily basis for many, many years. On the day this was take the "bise" was blowing strongly yet the leaves persist for a few more days their extraordinary changing colour heartening in the freezing of the encroaching dark of the autumn days. Bright sunshine and autumn colours are really part of the joy of recent days, alongside stunning sunrises and sunsets.
Every year another branch of these small but quite old trees dies back, as I wonder and rejoice at the colours I also worry that perhaps next year I will no longer be able to admire their wonderful leaves.

"Willows whiten, aspens quiver" - seeing details differently and having time ...

One of the great things about being on holiday is having the time to take things in and appreciate them differently. Opposite the back courtyard where we're staying there is a lovely mediterranean pine tree in the middle of a village garden. It gives me simple but deep pleasure on the late sunny evenings to simplysit and look at it, to watch the play of sun-setting light turning the bark red, to see how the wind makes the outline of the pine leaves move across the blue and darkening sky.
Looking at the bark of the plane trees in the market square or along the canal du midi; seeing the random pattern of the shells on the beach; wondering at the continually changing movement of waves on the sand; seeing the way the leaves of the olive trees move and how the shape of the varieties is different; seeing the asparagus gone to seed in people's gardens and taking pleasure in the way the garlic is plaited and the pumpkins are piled up on the market stalls; seeing the vines changing colour and liking the newly turned ground - all of these things made me think of my irascible English teacher Dan Plim. (Sadly the only online trace I can find of him is his history of Redditch golf club (!) and details on Friends Reunited of his death two years ago.)
I remember him twirling his reading glasses in his fingers and encouraging us to note the poet's eye for detail as we were reading Tennyson's The The Lady of Shallot. The leaves of different varieties of tree behave differently in the wind "Willows whiten, aspens quiver". I was lucky enough to have both a willow and an ash tree in the hedge of the garden at home and so could test what the poet and my English teacher said. And I still get irritated with Dr B for not knowing his oak trees from his willows - though after 20 years in France he can just about spot a plane tree.
There is beauty in majestic landscapes, broad brush strokes and the big picture, but there is also deep beauty in the small almost insignificant details. Artists of the word or brush may capture them for us, Caneletto for instance. But for me this holiday time blesses me with leisure to enjoy details and wide views, to be restored by both and to take that transformative pleasure back into my everyday life. Dramatic sunrises or sunsets, a beautiful autumn leaf or a scurrying lizard searching for fading warmth amongst the rocks, sun from behind the clouds, all help to add a different dimension making life more poetic, less mundane and taking me out of myself. so even when the holiday is over, it won't be over - the poetics of plaisir, loisir et désir will be able to continue. "Pleasure, leisure and desire" was the title of a brilliant Bible study on the Song of Solomon by Jacques Chauvin. Wonderful title and a great holiday ethic it seems to me, more on that theme later.