blogging

Peep!

canach7 Comments

I’m feeling a bit bruised. Last week, I tried to tweet, but as a newcomer to twitter it was more of a peep or cheep.

Nobody seemed to hear me. I squawked into the ether and the world of twitter went on as if I didn’t exist.

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I stared at the little heart button beneath the tweets and thought how nice it would be if even one person would click on it. Just one, that’s all I asked. My feeble tweets had cost me a lot of nerves, and I felt that I was owed a wee bit of encouragement.

Technology overtook me around the time that my first kid was born. All I could do was keep up with the feeds and the nappy changes, or rushing babies to and from childcare. Meanwhile, people began to connect with texts followed by smartphones which made them available at all hours of day and night. I didn’t want any part of it, especially since I was already available around the clock to several small people.

Okay, so it took a lot to cheep into the big, busy world of the internet. Maybe I was expecting too much if I thought anyone was going to take notice. Certainly that little heart symbol which remained stubbornly empty came to take on too much significance.

Just because the big, bad internet didn’t give me a thumbs-up, I began to think that maybe I was no good: an unemployed, middle-aged mum who can’t get the hang of this new way of communicating.

I felt like I was talking in a crowded station where no-one had time to stop and listen. When I realised how insignificant my little cheep was, I felt small and unimportant and it was hard to remember that this isn’t a measure of my value. Maybe God loves me despite or even because of my smallness.

I’m no good at networking, either in-person or online, so I think I’ll have to just accept that tweeting is not for me.

The other day, I read that even popularity is for sale. if your product or page isn’t getting enough likes, you can buy fake likes on the internet. However, I’ll give it a miss.  

Rather than tweeting or bellowing or lowing or howling or braying any more words into the ether, I think I’ll take time to listen and try to visit the pages of every person who’s been interested enough to follow or like my blog.

And please let me know in the comments line if there’s anything you would especially like to be read. 

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What should we do with gifts?

canach2 Comments

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A homemade gift
I was the kind of kid who not only watched the BBC childrens’ programme Blue Peter, but also tried to make the things that they showed. One time, they showed how to make a pen pot and letter holder out of a toilet roll tube and a cardboard box. Of course, their version looked wonderful, because they brought out ‘Here’s the one I prepared earlier’, covered with a slick, glossy paint.

Well, I followed all the instructions. I covered the cardboard box and the tube with paper, painted them and stuck them together. So far, so good. I thought it would make a really good Christmas present for my parents. However, things went wrong when I tried to paint it. I chose brown and navy blue as I thought that they would give me a sophisticated, office sort of colour, but my cheap paint blocks produced a hideous, streaky colour which wasn’t quite what I had in mind.
I wrapped it up in Christmas paper and presented it to my Dad. I had to explain its function, and hoped that he’d be able to use it even if it didn’t look like the Blue Peter version.

A few months later, I was going through my Mum’s bottom drawer where she kept tights and socks (no idea why) and I came across my pen pot, broken into two pieces and clearly unused. I put it back so that my parents would never realise I had seen it, but I carried away a feeling of hurt. It wasn’t the best pen pot, but I’d put so much into it, and it would have been nice if it had been used.

What should we do with gifts?

I am not telling this story, because to complain about my parents or air some unhealed wound from childhood. I have been through the same thing many times as a mother: ‘what a beautiful pot!’, to the hideous item in coiled clay which will be displayed for a while before being quietly cleared out.

The reason I remembered this incident is that I have been thinking about gifts, and come to the conclusion that the most hurtful thing we can do is refuse to use a gift. Even my dog gets depressed when I don’t accept her sometimes over-zealous protection (barking at almost every dog which crosses our path).

The parable of the three servants

I was set off on this train of thought by the weekend Mass reading on the parable about the master who leaves his three servants money (Matthew 25:14-30). One was given five talents, one was given two and the other one. The servants with the greater gifts traded with them and made more money. The servant who had the smaller gift just dug a hole in the ground and buried it.

The priest’s homily was all about how we’re reluctant to use the gifts God gives us, maybe out of fear, or maybe because we don’t want to appear vain.
What he said hit me right between the eyes. I cried all the way through Mass. It was one of those occasions when the presence of Christ in the Eucharist got under my skin into my deepest self and showed me my faults and my fears. I think that some of this goes on at a subconscious level, so it is something difficult to put into words.

Barriers to using gifts

Part of the reason I cried is because I don’t have a job and I don’t quite know what if anything to do about that. At times I can almost convince myself that because I don’t have a job, I don’t have anything to offer, no gifts to share. I’ve taken a few steps to try to get some occasional work, and now I just have to wait.

I need to pray not just for myself, but for others who are unable to work and find it difficult to share their gifts: mothers who struggle to find work after taking time to look after children, those who’ve lost their jobs and are unemployed, those with health problems, young people who don’t believe that they have any gifts.

Suppressing gifts

The other thing I cried about is that I know suppress one of my gifts out of fear of rejection or fear of it just being about my ego. That gift is my desire to write. The Presbyterian part of my mind has, at times, almost convinced me that wanting to write is sinful and that I should stop it altogether. When I write, even if I write a blog about faith, I do it sneakily, hoping that God isn’t looking.

Some time ago, I had actually convinced myself that God wanted me to stop writing and went to Mass to hand myself over to God, but I had to rethink; the reading was this parable about the three servants and their talents.

I even took this to confession and told a priest that I was worried that writing was a sin and that I was prepared to give it up. After a long pause, the priest told me that writing was a gift God had given me and that I should use it as long as I didn’t write something which would harm anyone else.
So I’ve decided to stop being afraid of rejection and try to get some of the stories I write published.

Even if my gift is only worth one talent rather than five or even two, it’s not an excuse for burying it. I might think that my talent isn’t good enough in comparison with others, but God has given it to me for a reason.

It’s my part to do what I can to use and share my gift. What happens then is in God’s hands, whether I have many or few blog followers, or whether people want to publish or read my stories. I just have to try my best and trust and try not to let that spiky thing called the ego come into it.

This week I came across a quote by the Scottish writer Muriel Spark, famous for ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’. She was brought up Presbyterian, but became Catholic in mid-life. When asked what she had achieved as a writer, she said:

‘I have achieved myself. I have expressed something I brought into the world with me…’

I hope that we can aim to build a society where every person has the opportunity and confidence to express what is uniquely them; the gift they brought into the world with them.

A final word

I have been thinking a lot about Nazanin Radcliffe, the mother of a small child who was living and working in Britain, but was jailed when she returned to visit her family in Iran. She is currently being held without charge in solitary confinement. I’d like to share a petition for her release Free Nazanin Radcliffe

Bread and blogging

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I am thinking today about what a humble thing it is for Jesus to say that He is the bread of life. He could have said that he was the caviar of life or the chocolate truffles or the sirloin steak, and He might have got more adulation and attention.

Bread might not seem very exciting, but we need it every day. Sometimes I might vary it and have pitta bread or gluten-free toast or corn crackers, but I’ll eat bread in some form.

I wonder sometimes if Christ gets fed up of me coming to Him asking for help with the same old problems and sins and failings, with a few new ones added from time to time for good measure. I always seem to be needy. I don’t seem to get things right on my own.

If I keep fresh bread for longer than twenty-four hours, it will go hard and stale. Grace is like bread. I have to accept it at the time and ask for more the next day. I can’t store it up and hope that I can skim along for the next few days without turning to God.

When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ It took me quite a while to get my head around the fact that Mass isn’t just a Sunday thing. The Eucharist is celebrated every day.

Once I began to understand that the Eucharist is our daily bread, it made sense that Mass is celebrated every day. If other commitments allow, I like to go to mid-week Mass. Sometimes I worry that I am being greedy if I go to Mass more often. If Jesus was the chocolate or the cream or the cake of life, then maybe I would be greedy to want the Eucharist more than once a week. However, He is the bread of life. I need to seek His presence every day.

Jesus didn’t say He was the sirloin steak or the chocolate gateau of life. He doesn’t bring perks and special treats to His followers. He simply is the way, the truth and the life. I am still seeking this way through Him.

I think of the bakers who make the bread, knowing that what they make will be eaten. There will soon be nothing left of it but a wrapper and a pile of stale crumbs. Their job is quite different from a carpenter who makes a chair or a table that may last a lifetime, or a builder who makes a house that may last centuries.

When I write blog posts, I think that I am more like a baker than a carpenter or a builder. Unlike the baker, I don’t write this blog every day, but when I post something, I am creating something ephemeral. I’m not making a book which will be printed on paper or even writing letter which might be saved and re-read a few times.

I put down the thoughts I’m having at the moment. Sometimes they are a little heavy, like German rye bread or Scottish oatcakes, but at other times they are light and fluffy like the inside of a freshly baked baguette. They will shimmer in the virtual world for a short while and appear in a few people’s WordPress readers and a day or two later they will be forgotten.

My thoughts spill over and need to go somewhere and so I write them down. Maybe they will be a moment of encouragement or a bite of bread for someone else, just as other peoples’ words have encouraged me.