The parable of the slippery slope

(Please note - no humans were injured in this story. However, a wall and a tree were innocent victims, and a motor vehicle and some human pride were dented!)

We live on a hill, which a friend of ours used to call 'Perth's ski slope'. We also live on a corner site.

A couple of weeks ago it snowed - quite a lot in a short period of time.

A man was driving down the hill - following a snow plough. He realised that the brakes of his vehicle were having no effect as an icy crust had formed over the snow.

At the foot of the hill there is a main road.

The man - correctly in my view - decided that it would be unwise to reach the main road, without effective brakes. So he decided to turn left, into a less hilly road to avoid probable catastrophe and to regain control over his vehicle.

The turning manoeuvre was not completely successful...

The moral of this story - sometimes in life we need to change course or take evasive action to avoid catastrophe. This may lead to some damage, bruises, dents but this is preferable to the alternative route. Even when we think that we are following a safe option (e.g. behind a snow plough), we may not have the control that we would like.

Sometimes wise choices may be painful, but we recover more readily from minor bruises than from major crashes.

To add to the interest of the story - the driver of the car was Dolly D's English teacher (we expect some good marks from now on!)

Pilot House

Yesterday’s photo was of the Pilot House in Irvine Harbour. The Pilot House stands at the entrance to the harbour, and provided vessels with an indication of the state of the tide – and therefore, the depth of water in the channel in to the harbour. The idea was that a serious of ‘globes’ were raised and lowered automatically according to the state of the tide.

I can remember the pilot house working when I was a child, but – sadly – it has been out of action and in a state of disrepair for many years now. The globes are lying around the building, slowly rusting away.

I don’t know if the pilot house was unique. However, it is indicative of a once thriving harbour, which is not well used nowadays.

It strikes me that our lives could use a pilot house system – indicating when we are operating at capacity, when we are fully charged, when we need an injection of something to get us back on track etc, etc. Unfortunately the indicators for our well-being are not as obvious as globes rising up a mast outside a building. So we need to find other ways of assessing how we’re doing. This is part of ‘developing daily discipline’, which I’ll write about another time – and maybe in another place.

Durham windows

Another of my Durham observations was church windows - from the outside. At the time my interest mainly related to the shapes and patterns that could be seen.

St Nic's in the Market Place

The wonderfully named "Our Lady of Mercy and St Godric's"

This one is from the Cathedral - and when Dolly D saw it she remarked, "It looks different from the outside". It strikes me that this statement could equally apply to churches ancient and modern.

The window that I like most was the one below - from Elvet Methodist with the late afternoon sun catching the simply pattern.

The analogy that springs to mind - let your light shine before men. How much light do our churches actually emit?

The perils of interpretation

I was in Brechin for a meeting today, and after it had finished I went for a wee walk around the cathedral there. It was a beautiful day and a lovely spot.

Amongst other things, one gravestone caught my eye and attention.

If you can't read it, the inscription says:

1812

Erected by Ann Rose

in memory of her husband

George McBain

late of the Swan Inn

Brechin

My initial assumption was that George was the landlord or owner of the Swan Inn. But then I started to wonder if maybe Ann was making a posthumous point about where George had spent much of his time while he was alive!

The moral of this tale? Even simple things can be more complicated than they seem - but a little bit of research would probably clear things up.

on bald patches and new growth

No - I'm not getting treatment for the top of my head. I like it the way it is - as long as I've got a warm bunnet close at hand at all times (especially when the wind is coming in from the North Sea!)

Anyway, I was in the garden for a while today and after cutting the grass, I spent five minutes raking out the moss and thatch from a wee square in the middle of the garden. The lack of any actual grass growing is quite scary. It's also very frustrating, since it seems to grow very well where it's not wanted - in the flower beds, veg beds and in the gaps between paving slabs!

Tonight as I was reading Lins' entry about his voice diagnosis and Fiona's entry on Head Space, I realised that there are times when we need to take some radical action to sort things out. Whether it's decapitating Mr Potato Head, getting steamin' every night, or decimating your front lawn, maybe we all need to take time to identify the things that prevent us from doing the best that we can.

Think about my old back from time to time as I set about sorting out the grass (or lack of it) in the garden - and also the metaphorical thatch in my 'tattie heid'.

When will winter end?

This is not a plaintive cry about grey skies and chill winds.

It’s actually a question that I have asked myself round about this time every year. We grow autumn-fruiting raspberries, and they need to be pruned in late winter. But just when is that? Well, it’s before there’s any new growth – defining things by the absence of something is not entirely helpful. Anyway, pruned they must be.

There’s a logic that says, ‘These are tough plants, you won’t do any harm’. But there’s an equally logical position that says, ‘This is Scotland! You can get snow in late April, so it makes no sense to cut them now’. But if you leave it too late, you run the risk of damaging the new growth.

So why am I boring you with this (assuming anyone’s still reading at this stage)? Well, as I spent a very productive morning sorting out my raspberries, I thought that there were various metaphors and parables emerging.

Sometimes we need to prune things in an apparently harsh way for them to be fruitful – even when this seems counter-intuitive. Acting too late can do more damage than being a wee bit premature.

Pruning alone will probably lead to a decent crop of berries in the late summer/ autumn; but if you also weed thoroughly and provide a mulch of compost, you’re more likely to get a fantastic crop.

Since we garden organically, there’s a real pleasure in mulching with home produced compost, and knowing that the pruned raspberry canes will be shredded and used to mulch our other fruit bushes (blueberry, blackcurrant and bramble) is quite satisfying.

Then there’s the promise of fruitfulness in place of dry, dead canes – albeit with a healthy dose of faith needed.

Finally there’s the benefit of being out in the fresh air for a couple of hours – and feeling physically and spiritually refreshed as a result.

Here’s hoping for a bumper crop from the raspberries and the thoughts that emerged this morning.

A parable in the leaden sky

Even on a morning of leaden grey skies, the sun is ever present - but sometimes we need a chink of light to break through to remind us of what we always know.

Small acts, big impact

On the way home from work yesterday, I stopped in town to do some shopping. My first port of call was a high street chain shop. They had what I was looking for, but only in a pre-packaged set that included stuff that I didn’t really want. Nobody asked if they could help or offered any form of assistance – even though the shop was fairly quiet and there were at least two members of staff hanging around, apparently doing nothing. I left… dissatisfied and without making a purchase.

Then I went to a small specialist shop (where I should have gone in the first place!). There were a few people in the shop, and only one person serving, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter. There was a nice, relaxed atmosphere and no sense of hurry – each customer got the level of attention that they required.

The customers before me – a mother and her daughter of about 11 – paid for their goods and went away, leaving me as the only customer in the shop. I asked the woman who was serving for some advice, and as she started to explain the options, the mother came rushing back in with her daughter. Full of apologies she explained that her daughter had lifted a small article, and shortly after leaving the shop had reminded her mother that they hadn’t paid for it. There was clearly no intention to steal the item, just an absent-minded moment. I was heartened that the girl herself had spotted the mistake and was honest enough to draw it to her mother’s attention. The shop assistant dealt with it calmly and efficiently, without any sense of annoyance.

Then I had her undivided attention. She explained the options, suggested that I should avoid the more expensive articles, and highlighted the most suitable bargains. She didn’t show any impatience with my daft questions. As I was paying she went off to get a leaflet for me, explaining the range of products that were available if I wanted to make any further purchases in the future.

The result – a happy customer, who will go back there as the first choice in the future.

Small acts, making a big impact. There’s a lesson for the high street shop if they can be bothered and there’s also a parable in there waiting to get out!

Dreams come true - a parable

Question - What do you do if you're a talented Aussie cricketer unable to train with your team as a result of disciplinary action?

Answer - You make your international debut!

In a "Roy of the Rovers" tale, Luke Pomersbach turned up to watch a cricket match as a paying spectator, and was parking his car when the Aussie manager phoned and asked him to play for his country. One of the team was injured (putting on his trousers!) and Luke was called up. I loved this story when I heard it first of all - in an interview he seemed totally gob-smacked and nervously excited. Later on I discovered why he was available on the day - and I liked his reaction:

"I've made a couple of bad decisions and I just want to play cricket," he said.
"I am so glad I have had a little taste at this level and it is the best day of my life."

By the way, he did play quite well (though he didn't score the winning goal - unlike Roy).

Driving around today (a lot), I was thinking about this and how it could be turned into a parable. It has lots of ingredients and several endings. Care to make a suggestion?

And when did Roy of the Rovers get a website?

Web

Shafts of light in an imperfect but connected web.

The memory of place

During the summer (?) we were on holiday in York - good, relaxing break, mixed weather, met some friends, made some new temporary friends (embarrassing Dad thing that I do). And visited quite a few churches - well I did anyway.

Of course we went to the Minster and I enjoyed it more than my previous visit - somehow it felt more like a place of worship this time around. By contrast, went to a service at another church that we've been to before, and while the music and the 'up front bits' were good, there was no feeling of welcome - despite the church being packed. In fact, when the congregation was asked to say hello to the person next to them, no-one spoke to us. It wasn't that we were smelly or anything - they simply turned to the people that were sitting next to them, and who clearly sit next to them every week, and had a good old chinwag. Maybe we were causing offence by sitting in someone else's seat!

More positively, while the women in my life were shopping, I wandered off and visited some of the smaller churches dotted around the centre of York. (Actually I spent quite a lot of time doing this - because they spent quite a lot of time shopping!) This is where the link to my current thinking on church and vision - and increasingly worship - comes in. There are a number of church buildings in York that serve different purposes, and maybe they will offer a way to expand my thinking - almost acting as parables.

St Mary's Church is actually de-commissioned (is that the right word?), and is now used by York Museums Trust as a venue for art stuff. While we were in York, there was an installation called The memory of place by Keiko Mukaide. This will feature in future blogs - both as a narrative reflection, but also through the use of some of the photos that I took (starting with the one above).

Revenge of the ugly duckling

This would have been a somewhat different outcome for Hans Christian Andersen! The story is from “The Courier” (it’s like a newspaper) - http://www.thecourier.co.uk/output/2007/07/12/newsstory9983686t0.asp.

Big male swan kills almost all of the ducklings in the pond that they share. OK, so it’s not the nicest story in the world. But it strikes me that it could be a modern-day parable in the mould of Nathan rebuking David (2 Samuel 12).

I’ve often wondered where Jesus drew the inspiration for his parables from. I imagine him racking his brains to try to find ways to explain his message to the disciples and crowds.

"Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message."
Malcolm Muggeridge

So what is the message of the killer swan parable?

Well, maybe it’s about ‘nimby-ism’. Those with power don’t want others getting in the way of their environment. Think about asylum seekers, refugees (with numbers at record levels), care in the community… Just think about it!