Looking back at 2021

 The last two years I've used some interesting and challenging questions to write this last post of the year, so I'm going to do it again.

David and me enjoying a pre-Christmas
date.

1. What makes this year unforgettable?

• Second year of the pandemic, what can I say...
• Personally we've had tragedy, ill-health, injury, despair, close encounters with suicide, exhaustion, a creative ending to a high school career, lack of clarity about the future, etc. Some, but not much of that was related to the pandemic. Altogether it's made for a very challenging year personally. I'm thankful for a fulfilling job that meant that even when I had no answers for the personal pain we faced, I found joy and purpose in my work, and of course God gave me hope.

2. What did I enjoy doing this year?

• Editing fiction in my spare time. I spent a couple of months early in the year editing a book by a friend of mine. First time to edit a book-length manuscript, first time to edit fiction. It was challenging in a good way and I hope I get another opportunity to do it again in the future (though it would be great if I could devote work-time, rather than spare-tie to such a project).
• Baking and reading: my two passions I've continued to love.
• Camping: we only made it out to two camping trips this year and one of those was shortened due to a typhoon. The pandemic made it difficult to book campsites across prefectural borders and we complicated things by trying to gather a larger group to do it.
• Walking after dinner: this has become one of my favourite things too, most of the time I love catching up with my husband during our 4–5 km walk, and I miss it when weather or work or other events mean we can't do it for a few days.
• Weekly video calls with our eldest son have been really great too. Often one or both of his brothers join and we usually end up playing online board/card games.

3. What/who is one thing/person you're grateful for?

• I'm grateful for a solid marriage, for a husband who is calm and committed to his family, and we've walked through a very hard year shoulder-to-shoulder. Many people don't have that. I'm ever so grateful I do.
• I'm also grateful to my friends. My daily-trio of friends as well as some other women who have emerged as even more precious than they were before.

4. What did you read/watch/listen to that made the most impact this year?

• Mmm. Hard question as usual. Looking at the books I've read (post on Dec 13), I would suggest the Bogel book about overthinking was probably the most impactful. I also have enjoyed listening sporadically to a podcast call Undeceptions, for example the episode about a same-sex-attracted Christian was eye opening and ultimately very encouraging, another episode I posted about here on Friendship was also excellent.

5. What did you worry about most and how did it turn out?

• This is something I can't share here due to protecting the privacy of my family. My worst fear didn't eventuate, but it still might, only God knows.

6. What's my biggest regret?

• Not being able to see my eldest son this year (it's been 2 ½ yrs now).
• I regret not being able to see any Olympics or Paralympics in person, despite living in the city where they were held.
• Not having the emotional energy to do some things that I used to do.

7. What's something that has changed about me?

• I think I've become a little less less zoned in on "what's next" for our boys. I've had a lot of my expectations for them stripped away (expectations I mostly didn't realise I held).
• I did more teaching this year than I've ever done (mostly in the first quarter of the year). I still don't think it's really my wheelhouse, but it was good to have the opportunity to help other adults learn new things.
• I've become even more discerning about who I bare my heart to.

8. What surprised you most this year?

• How many people are rejecting immunisation. Also I've been saddened by Australia's isolationist policy during this pandemic. There are times that it felt like us expats weren't welcome in our home country. And no, I don't wish to have a discussion about this here or on social media. I have steered clear of writing about these things on social media.
• I've also been happily surprised by some of the ways that I've seen my boys grow and change this year. As I wrote in this blog post, it's harder to anticipate when and what milestones older teens and young adults will achieve, but it's just as satisfying (or more) as when they  were learning to walk and talk.
• I was also surprised at how difficult it was to get used to being back in-person after many months of online meeting.

I'm going to add two more questions here: 

9. What Bible truths impacted you this year?

• "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46: 10) has been an ongoing theme since mid-2018. But I also spent several hours on an "accidental" retreat considering the whole of Psalm 46.
• Also I've returned again and again to Hebrews 12:1-3 and Isaiah 40. Both are worth looking up and pondering deeply.

10. What meta-themes have you thought about this year? (in no particular order)

• Efficiency isn't necessarily God's way or the best way.
• Letting go of control.
• Walking alongside older teens and young adults as a parent (of course all these first three are related!)
• Lily pads (see here)
• I got to ponder a wide variety topics courtesy of my work for example: pop culture in Japan, technology in ministry, history of the Japanese church, men in the church, the best uses of social media for mobilisation, rest, good editing practices, and macrons and other questions of the romanisation of Japanese (look it up, it'll either fascinate you or bore you).

Highlights:

• Two camping trips, including camping in a new prefecture.
• Several opportunities to spend time with family friends in-person for the day or evening.
• Immunisation against COVID-19 (yes, a highlight)
• Seeing the social media team that I lead continue to forge ahead producing excellent content.
• Editing a fiction book (as mentioned above)
• The new building and sports field at school. I've rarely been there and actually haven't set foot on the oval ("field" for Americans), but it's great to hear about how it's being used.

Lowlights:

• Aforementioned tragedy and ill-health
• Missed opportunities for good fellowship during online meetings, sometimes due to a lack of thinking-outside-the box by event organisers.
• Shortened winter holiday due to an unexpected and dramatic medical event
• Seeing my boys struggle
• Too many online meetings and not enough people-time some weeks.
• Church being online for most of the year.
• Not being able to get to Australia (which meant some thinking outside the box for a few items I'd rather buy in person there).

Other thoughts

Writing: I did plan to write a blog post every month based on a book called Come Closer by Jane Rubietta. I did it for four months, but then failed to finish the rest of the year. In fact this year I've only published 43 blog posts, that's an all time low (my highest output was in 2011 at 369). It's been a busy and stressful year and I've often been tired. I have written two or three articles for each of the four magazines we've published, plus various social media posts and a a couple of online articles for OMF. But really, my writing output has been very low, an indication of how the year has gone, really. There's lots been going on, but much that I can't share with a wider audience and a lack of energy to invest in writing as well. Contrary to that I've done a lot of editing and continue to enjoy working with other people and their writing.

Goals: these were my stated goals for 2021 (in my first blog post this year) and I think I've done okay at these. How we worked towards #1 looked surprising at times to some outside our household, but there were good reasons for what we did. Of course these aren't "SMART" goals, in that they aren't Measurable, but then I think that there is much that needs to be achieved in life that can't be measured easily and isn't short-term.

1. Looking after myself and my household as best I can
2. Taking care to look out for others who are within my circle of influence—keeping my eyes open for opportunities to serve them and others further afield, and
3. Working to the best of my ability in all the tasks that are mine to do.

I have pondered this blog post long enough and it's just getting longer the more I look at it, so it's time to release it into the wild. If you take up the challenge of answering these questions, I'd love to hear your thoughts (privately, if you wish).

Waiting with grace?

I started this blog post a couple of weeks, just after I sent out our latest prayer letter. Writing (mostly) monthly prayer letters is something I've been doing for over 23 years now. It's a useful time to reflect on the month past and look toward the month ahead. It would be a normal month when we look back at the calendar and say: "Wow, that only happened this month!" Of course at the end of the calendar year it's traditional to look back also, so I included this brief paragraph at the start of our letter:

For many, including us, this has been a hard year. There are many things that have happened differently to what we’d hoped or planned for. How are you coping? We’ve found comfort in doing the daily things that God’s given us to do and leaning hard on him in prayer about the things that we wish were different. As we come to the end of this year we know that God’s been with us the whole way, holding us and helping us. Let’s acknowledge the hard things, but also be quick to thank God for all he’s done and the hope he continues to give us.

This has been a year of disappointments and angst. Also waiting. That theme has continued to pop up for me in various places. How do we wait and do it with grace? Recently, a friend asked: How do we Christians do it with our hearts right with God, resting in his Sovereignty?

Waiting isn't new to me. I guess we all know about waiting, but somehow missionary life brings a different angle, maybe even a greater challenge to waiting. Just getting to Japan meant disappointment and waiting (we were turned down two, nearly three times for a lack of financial support in 2000). Every time we go on home assignment we wait to find accomodation and wheels, last time we left Japan without an address to go to in Australia. The last two times we've been on home assignment, we've waited for house sitters for this place in Tokyo too. With limited financial resources, we're thrown on the generosity of others more than perhaps we would have been if we had remained in Australia in higher paying jobs.

In some ways it's easier to describe what waiting badly looks like. A lot of times it's due to attitude. Waiting badly can look like complaining, it can look like frantic activity to fill the blank left or to distract ourselves. It can also look like scheming to "fix" the problem and manipulate the situation so that it "works". It can look like worry and even physical sickness that's induced by worry. It can look like insomnia or tears. And yes, I know this because I've got personal experience in waiting badly!

But of course you can't look at someone and easily determine if they are waiting well or badly! However, by talking to them, you might get a glimpse.

Good waiting, in my experience, is much more peaceful. There's a quiet trust in God that this too is in his plan. Waiting well doesn't mean inactivity, but rather seeking what is the right thing to do now. That's been a big challenge for us this year as we've waited, especially, to see how God would guide us for the next steps for our nearly-adult kids.

One key to waiting well is to find pleasure in the now. Find ways to enjoy your current situation. Don't forgo celebration, instead seek out reasons to celebrate, reasons to give thanks. Another key is to find ways to serve others, within our limits, of course. When you're waiting it's easy to turn inwards, to be selfish and self absorbed. But when we turn our thoughts upwards to God and outwards to others we gain a better perspective on our situation.

Some lights we often walk past at night. This
is a little unusual in Japan.

We're about to go away for our traditional pre-Christmas holiday. I've been waiting for this break for too long. I'm thankful God's given me the strength to make it through to now and that I'm not a messy heap on the floor. But I'm also glad he's given me things to do while I waited that kept my eyes off myself (most of the time).

I don't know what you're waiting for, but I do know the Lord who can help. Don't miss him in the midst of the wait.

If you're interested, here are three other blog posts I've written on waiting:

I told our waiting-to-come-to-Japan story is here (a summary, really).

The value of waiting for your prayers to be answered: http://mmuser.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-other-end-of-answered-prayer.html

Waiting expectantly, but like a jellyfish: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2021/04/waiting-expectantly.html

Top books I read in 2021

I mentioned last week in my blog post that I'd passed 100 books read during the year. A friend asked me for my top reads. This is really hard for me to judge, but I'll see if I can pull some out. As I said to her, much of my reading is for relaxation and I relax best with fiction, especially mystery/thriller/crime, but that isn't all I've read. I periodically have a work-related book that I read during some of my lunchtimes (given that I work from home and usually eat lunch on my own).

I keep track of my reading using an app called Goodreads.com, it's really helpful when you read a lot and don't like to re-read books, to have a record of what you've read so you don't accidentally pick up a book twice. It also makes it easier to find new books to read—you can easily look up authors, series, etc. When I've finished a book, I give it a star rating out of five. I've also created a "didn't finish" shelf in Goodreads, this year. Some of the books on that shelf I ditched after reading as many as 100 pages! All the books mentioned below I gave a five out of five rating. Most of these books I read on my Kindle and from a library. My reading is thus limited by what ebooks the library holds.

Here's a sample of the best of what I saw. I'll readily admit I am picky (I am an editor after all)—I discarded nearly two dozen books that I started. Part of that is because the elibrary app that I use unfortunately doesn't allow you to read sample portions of a book. Sometimes the author just couldn't make me care about the character or the plot, at other times they were poorly written, or a different genre than I was interested in.

Some of the books I've read that I gave a five star
rating to.

Fiction

I tend to read "by author" or "by series". So here are some authors I've enjoyed this year (though not all all books by all these authors, some found their way into my "books I didn't finish" list). Many of these are in my favourite genre:

J. A Jance. Joanna Brady series. I read up to #17 of this series. About half of that was 2021. This is about a sheriff who has real-life problems that make her very relatable. It's been great to read, not just about the murders and other mysteries she solves, but how she deals with the challenges in her daily life. Her J.P Beaumont series is also enjoyable.

Dee Henderson. At times this year I've felt delicate and exhausted emotionally. Dee Henderson writes about characters that make you feel safe. It's also been a year I've struggled with being isolated from others. Henderson's stories somehow helped to relieve some of that. I reread the O'Malley series as well as others including Full Disclosure, Traces of Guilt, and Undetected.

Lee Child. One of my sons like to talk about Jack Reacher, the main character in many of Child's books. I can't take too many of them in a short period, but they are a good, action-packed read.

Sue Grafton, the Kinsey Millhone series. I'd read more of these if they were in my elibrary. Alas I'm still waiting.

Fiona McIntosh. I've enjoyed a couple of her books, eg. Bye Bye Baby and Beautiful Death, both part of the Jack Hawksworth series. Many of her books are too romantic for me, though. I don't mind a little bit of realistic romance, but not as the main plot.

Christine Dillon and her Grace series. #6 is coming out this month, and I'm looking forward to it.

A couple of Australian authors I've enjoyed discovering: Sarah Bailey and Jane Harper.

Other authors I enjoyed: David Baldacci, James Patterson, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Kellerman, Jeffery Deaver, Mary Higgins Clark, and Elizabeth Breck.

A Most Clever Girl by Stephanie Thornton is a fictionalised story about a famous American spy during WW2.

Non-fiction

Anne Bogel, Don't Overthink it: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life. This easy-to-read book gave me plenty of food for thought.

Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Splendid book that shows the plight of Afghani women. Author of The Kite Runner. [This actually qualifies as creative non-fiction, the characters and situations are fiction, but it's all based on what real like is like in Afghanistan.]

Melissa Fleming, A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival. Wonderful true story that, like the one above, opens one's eyes to the issues that face refugees.

Carol Fisher Salter, The Subversive Copy Editor. Obviously related to my work, but I think that I'll get around to writing a whole blog post on it, because she has a lot of good advice for people who don't even think of themselves as editors.

Roger Lowther, Aroma of Beauty. A short book about the 2011 disaster in Japan. Moving and profound.

I hope that these are helpful thoughts for someone out there!

Lining up ducks

I haven’t written a blog post yet this week, mostly because it’s been a busy week away from my desk. Actually a very different looking week to what most of the year has looked like. I spent a lot of the week with other people! All day Monday I spent at a prayer meeting with other OMF missionaries. And travelling across the city in peak hour on trains to get there and back (total about three hours travel and six trains). It was something I hadn’t been looking forward to. Last year when I did this long day I ended up with a nasty headache and actually fairly distressed at wearing a mask (the pressure on my nose and ears when I have a headache is close to unbearable). However I’m more used to wearing masks now and I didn’t end up with the worst of headaches, so it wasn’t so bad.

Tuesday morning I did a quick couple of hours catching up on urgent computer tasks and email before replenishing the larder with a grocery shop and then shooting off downtown again. This time I spent the afternoon packing the latest issue of the magazine that I play a significant part in publishing.

Wednesday was a cold, rainy day, so I was glad I got to stay home and work at my desk. I made good progress that I was able to continue into Thursday morning. Then Thursday afternoon was consumed with online work meetings, specifically about planning for the weeks ahead, which are less-than-straightforward weeks. More about that later.

Friday morning I spent at a school prayer meeting and then a couple of hours with small fellowship group in a restaurant. Friday afternoon was another shopping trip and then seeing what I could salvage from the rest of the day at my desk, but a headache caught up with me and I didn’t last too long there.

In the middle of that has been a few other things:

• 
  Fudge making: last year I raised some money for the school by making and selling fudge to staff and local friends. I’m doing it again this year. I’ve made it a little easier by using a silicon mold, which means that the size of the pieces is much more consistent. So in between other things, I’ve been making fudge this week.

• Wrestling: our youngest (16 y.o.) has rejoined the wrestling team this year. Last week they had their first meet, a small affair between two schools. It was weird to be back in person at a sporting event, but also great. Unfortunately he got injured in his first match and hasn’t been able to get back into training this week while he recovers. But we did watch the rest of the team via a live video link on Thursday night.
• 
  Cricket: cricket fans that we are, we’ve been enjoying live cricket this week for the first time in several months. The English team is in Australia at the moment. The two countries are playing the famous Ashes series. We’ve been able to subscribe to the series (that has rarely been possible in the years we’ve been overseas) and it’s fun. Alas, most of the play happened during our work hours this week so we haven’t seen much, but it’s been fun, another interest David and I share.

• I also passed 100 books read for the year (I also started more than 20 more, but for one reason or another they ended up in the "I don't want to finish reading" list). I've got more than a dozen lined up for the next few weeks, I wonder how many of those I'll get read?

Monday and Friday would have looked quite different during most of 2021. I’m so grateful that, for the moment at least, we’re not living under so many restrictions. It’s weird to look at the cricket and see crowds of people without masks on, though. Masks are still being worn by 99.9% of people in public here.

The coming weeks are a mixture of relaxation and business. This time next week we’ll be up in the mountains taking a week’s holiday. Our traditional pre-Christmas holiday. With school on a three-week break, I anticipate that I’ll be taking things a little slower after Christmas also. Certainly we won’t be getting up at 6am.

In January I’m helping facilitate the same OMF course I helped with last year. This year it’s still online, but we’ve changed a few things so that hopefully it will be a little less arduous. However, I haven’t completely stepped away from my social media job, so I’ll be juggling a few more balls than I did last year. Plus, there's a variety of wrestling events on in January and February. We'll see how well I come out of that busy season. I didn't cope very well in January/February this year, but part of that was an unexpected and traumatic loss in mid-February.

Meanwhile, I prepare as best I can for what's to come. First of all is getting my "ducks lined up" so I can go away and not check email or open my computer for a week. Ah...the bliss. I've got fruit mince pies to make and books to read!

How's your December looked so far?

Not feeling festive?

How do you “do” Christmas when you’re not “feeling festive”? 

Now I understand that my life is really quite different to many of yours in this respect. I do not live near family and will not be celebrating Christmas with them. In fact I’ve celebrated very few Christmases with my family in the last 21 years! So I don’t really have much experience of all the pressure that families put on one another at this time of year.

I also live in a land where “Christmas” isn’t an overwhelming factor in life. I remember being surprised to see Christmas everywhere in Australia last time I was there in December (2018). The receptionist at the doctor was all decked out in Christmas gear. The pharmacy next door gave me my medication in a red paper bag covered in white stars and Christmas greetings. In Japan you have to work a bit harder to find such things, and mostly it’s in shops, churches, and of course in my own home. Before the pandemic we saw more at our school, with weekly concerts, decorated hallways, lights on the grounds etc. But I’m rarely at school these days and because I don’t have kids in music programs, I’m not invited to concerts.

People in church-based ministries (not our family) are usually very busy this time of year, as Christmas is the easiest time of the year in Japan to invite people to hear about Jesus, so there are lots of events. Not so much these last two years, though.

In fact in Japan, if you aren’t a self-starter, you might miss Christmas altogether. It can be a little lonely if you’re used to celebrating with family. But we’ve got our small family routines and traditions that mean it’s just a quiet, at-home affair.

But back to my first question: how do you deal with the season if you aren’t in the mood for festivity? 

A couple of weeks ago I struggled to get my head into the right place to come up with social media posts for our mission for December. I wasn’t feeling festive. I think, even beginning to feel a little jaded. I mentioned this to a couple of friends and one later shared this short article that helped: https://m.facebook.com/547967600/posts/10157506078937601/?d=n

It’s just a Facebook post, so I’m not sure if you can read it. To summarize. The author’s family was tasting grief and she went to a candlelight service at their church as she usually did. She writes: 

I felt like an imposter. I was a cloud of grief and darkness amidst a cheerful celebration. I felt guilty for dampening the time of rejoicing 

As I sat I found myself talking to Jesus. "I'm ruining your party," I told him. 

It was his response in that moment that changed Christmas for me forever. He told me, “Cassie I came to that manger as a baby not for those in celebration, but for those in mourning. I came for you. In this moment. Right here.”

She’s right. Jesus came, not to be celebrated with tinsel and shallow joy. He came because this world is in pain. We are hurting and needed him to come to comfort us, to save us.

So, I girded my loins and pushed on to do the usual things we do at this time of year. Not with a light heart, because it’s not been a light year. I continue to grieve the losses, to feel the sadness and confusion, the frustration and angst. But I also remember my Saviour who actually chose to enter this sad, confusing, painful world for me. He didn’t have to. I don’t know what kind of grief he felt leaving the fellowship of the Trinity for life in a human body. It’s beyond my understanding. But because he did, I choose to trust him and celebrate him.

I’m thankful that we don’t live in a place where we have to do lots of events just because it is December and that’s what you do. I’m glad for the quiet of the season that’s coming, when school finishes and we have a brief hiatus before the craziness of January begins. I’m hopeful that I can spend time resting in the love of Jesus, waiting on him.

(And I tried multiple times and ways to get a photo to load on this post, but could not. Sigh.)

Non-typical retreating

Considering spiritual retreats—I think that I've pretty much decided that I do better with an "active" or "creative" one, rather than a more traditional retreat that requires spends a lot of time alone in meditation or reflection. I think better while I'm riding my bike or walking. I think reflectively while I'm being creative too, like baking and cooking, taking photos and cross stitching. And, of course, writing, helps me to think and to solidify my thoughts. Writing retreats have been so energising to me in the last 10 or so years, and writing here has been a constant help to me as I've processed and pondered God's truths and reflected on what's be going on in my life.

Anyway, the other day I took a few hours to ride to the "big park" and a cafe, and it turned into something of a retreat: a time to ponder God's word, and reflect on life. I'm regretting not writing about it straight away, but here are some lingering thoughts from a few meagre notes I took.

I stopped here in the park. This was not a typical retreat.
Here I read a novel, not the Bible or a Christian non-
fiction book!

"Be still and know that I am God" 

This has been a phrase I've repeatedly been drawn to in the last couple of years. At the start of the day I happened upon a reflection and song by an acquaintance of mine based on Psalm 46 (see the reflection here and song here). She noted that though the psalm famously says "Be still, and know that I am God", it's not a psalm set in the middle of peace and quiet, it's actually a psalm about trouble and war. It was often referred to in the aftermath of the 2011 triple disaster in northern Japan. It refers to God being our fortress, that he is "with us" even through terrible things like nations being in an uproar and the earth melting! 

And indeed I can testify to God being with me through what rates as one of the most trying years of my life thus far, most of the details I've been unable to share with you. The mere fact that we're still standing and functioning fairly well is testimony to God's great graciousness.

Isaiah 40

I also reflected on Isaiah 40. It's the chapter I did a retreat on last year, and actually as I look back over this blog and see that this chapter has come up a number of times in the last five years. It's a great passage.

This time I noted the huge contrast between weak and strong. Humans are repeatedly described as weak—young, ordinary, and ones needing comfort. We're compared to grass and flowers that both quickly fade, like grasshoppers. Even rulers are described as weak and fragile compared to God's strength. And God is repeatedly described in powerful ways—that his word stands forever, as someone who can mark off the heavens with the breadth of his hand, who "weighs the islands as though they were fine dust", whose mere breath can sweep away rulers, the creator of the earth and heavens. And he doesn't get tired. His understanding has no limits.

The chapter ends with great hope: that the God who doesn't have limits, gives strength to those who trust in him, who put their hope in him. Though the gap between our capacity is so enormous it isn't measurable, God chooses to reach down and help us in our weakness. That's great news and one that we repeatedly need reminding of.

The Chosen

At the time we were watching the TV series The Chosen. It's a seven-season series about the life of Christ, and it's free. They've done the first two seasons and we've really enjoyed it so far. They don't pretend it is scripture, but they've tried to fill in some of the story around what we read in the gospels. It's so interesting to see what life then might have been like, to imagine what the disciples were like and how they experienced the journey with Jesus.

In one of the episodes, Peter comes to Jesus with ideas about creating some processes to smooth out the relationships between the disciples. Jesus said to him: Yes Peter, I can see you have leadership potential, but not now. Just wait. There will come a time" (my paraphrase). It was another way of saying "Be still". 

Waiting

Waiting is a meta-theme in the Bible. It comes up again and again, in individual lives, as well as in the wider context of the nation of Israel. So we shouldn't be surprised to find waiting is part of our every day experience of the Christian life either.

Here's a sample from the Bible:

"I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him” (Lamentations 3:10).

"I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope" (Psalm 130:5).

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" (Romans 8:25).

"While we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13).

Japanese has a brilliant phrase for this sort of waiting: machinozomu, which means "wait in eager expectation".

So, that was my ride-which-became-a-retreat. Remembering how God has called me to be still, even if everything around me is falling apart. And why can I be still in that context? Because he is God, he is much stronger, more wise and capable than I am. But also remembering that there is no magic solution that will appear at my whim, I have to wait. Because God is God and infinitely more wise than I am, what he's got in mind for my life I can't comprehend, nor can I bring it about—I must wait in hope. I must trust him.

Milestones for older kids

When kids are little we celebrate them being able to walk, to talk, to use a pencil, and to use the toilet on their own. As they grow they learn to take care of all their hygiene needs (my boys took way longer to achieve this than I thought it would, specifically, willingness to shower without prompting). 

An interesting perspective. Likewise, we
need perspective when we're parenting.

But gets blurrier as they get into the teen years. Walking is pretty clear cut for most kids, it's around 12 months (mine walked a full two months earlier!). But as they grow you gradually realise they are on a time schedule that you don't know much about. There's a lot of stuff that needs to slot into place for them to become fully independent adults, but that arrives at different times for different people and in different cultures and situations.

Higher level skills include time management and self-management. They learn to get themselves up on time and take themselves to bed, to get schoolwork done and find time to spend with friends outside of school. They learn to organise their things, to shop, and to get themselves places. They learn to advocate for themselves and ask for help, to seek medical care, and make appointments. They learn to manage their emotions and who to trust. They grow in willingness to do necessary tasks to maintain their living environment. They learn to plan ahead a longer distance and make big decisions about their lives. They also learn, sooner or later, how to act as an employee.

We adults all struggle with some of these things to one degree or another. But they are all skills important for living as an independent adult. But teaching them to our kids isn't necessarily easy. Some kids do pick up these things easily, but others struggle and as a parent you aren't always ready for that. I have to admit I kind of expected that these things would come naturally, but so far not all of these things have been natural for each of our boys. However there has been variation, just like there is for learning to walk and talk.

But no one really talks much about this. And you can bring to the parenting "table" the assumption that if your kids pick up these things quickly and easily, then you are a good parent. Indeed, perhaps, a better parent than others. Obviously, when I write it out in black and white here, it's a skewed view of self, but it sneaks into our thoughts about ourselves.

So, I'm here to say to you parents of older kids—stick at it. This is challenging, in different ways to when we were teaching them how to wipe their noses (which also took a long time for my kids, though I can no longer remember how long). And try to keep your eyes down, don't compare your kids to other kids. Don't equate your own "success" or "value" with your kids quickly achieving these milestones of independence.

Here are a couple of quotes from a book I read several years ago (and should probably read again): 

Parenting, like all tasks under the sun, is intended as an endeavor of love, risk, perseverance, and above all, faith. It is faith rather than formula, grace rather than guarantees, steadfastness rather than success that bridges the gap between our own parenting efforts, and what, by God's grace, our children grow up to become. (This actually comes from Leslie Leyland Fields, , "The Myth of the Perfect Parent," Christianity Today, January 2010, 27.)

And: 

No parent, no matter how dedicated, expert, present, and loving, can produce a perfectly healthy and happy adult. Such a feat is simply not within our power.

More thoughts on friendship

Recently I was searching for something to listen to while I washed dishes. I'm a restless person who struggles with just listening and doing nothing else, so I've been slow at getting into Podcasts (I also don't commute or drive regularly). But there's a few that I've enjoyed dipping my toes into occasionally, and Undeceptions is one. It's a thoughtful, professional presentation on various topics that are often misunderstood or forgotten. The presenter is John Dickson, a Christian who is unafraid to address hard topics. He's an Australian apologist and historian.

The episode I listened to recently (over several sittings) is called "On Friendship". If you've read many of my blog posts over the years you'll know that I think (and write) on this topic pretty frequently. Friends are really important to me. It was great to listen to different perspectives on the topic, and especially men, talking about friendship. Often this is something we mostly hear from women about, so to hear guys talk about male friendship was really good.

I'm reviewing the transcript as I write, to remind myself of what was said, and here are some gems. 

John's guest, Sam Allberry, points out a reference in John 15 where:

Jesus is actually making a distinction between the kind of relationship he's had with his disciples and where things have now progressed to. And when he . . . talks about, "Greater love hath no man for his friend than this, that he laid down his life for him." It's interesting that when he is talking about the greatest expression of love, Jesus reaches for the category of friendship. He doesn't, in that instance, reach for the category of spouse or marriage as we might expect him to. (Like all the quotes in this blog post, it's from the transcript).

They talk about how a dominant cultural narrative is that marriage and sexual or romantic relationships are deemed the most important relationships, the real way to find intimacy. And the church has followed suit on that. Sam says, 

We've made the focus Christian marriage, I think in a way that's become unhealthy. A, because we've downgraded other forms of relationship that actually all of us need, and B, by doing so, I think we've put pressures on marriage that they're not easily going to be able to bear. And as a consequence we've made churches lonelier for people who are not married, whether that's people who haven't yet got married, or people who are divorced, or widowed, or people like me who've never married. Sometimes it feels like it's very hard to fit into a church family, and we use that terminology, if you're not married and don't have your own nuclear family.

We've downgraded other relationships and also sexualised the concept of intimacy. To the point of close friendship often being assumed to be a sexual relationship.

And they talk about the concept of mateship that is an Australian tradition:

I wouldn't necessarily say it's a form of intimacy, because if intimacy is being really deeply known and accepted at the same time, actually that's quite a rare thing. And we can have a lot of friendships, even long term friendships where it's not necessarily on a heart to heart level, and where it can even become awkward if someone is trying to introduce that element. And so we need mateship, that's part of what makes the world go round, and it's a social lubricant. But I think we need more than that.

An old photo of me and a friend with whom 
I've gone deep.

Interesting thoughts, especially today, Remembrance Day (celebrated in many countries as the day the WW1 ended). The Australian stories from wars are full of mateship. It's interesting to ponder the difference between an average mate and one with whom you've formed a deep relationship with.

So many great quotes. They talked about how marriages need friendship:

I've seen marriages implode because they were looking just to the spouse to fulfill every relational and emotional need in their lives. And I think there's a complexity to us whereby actually one other person is not going to be enough. And it's no slight on a wonderful spouse to say, "Actually I need friends alongside my marriage, not in place of it, but alongside it to augment it."

This is definitely true in our marriage and has been made even more clear over the last 18 months as my social circles have narrowed. My husband is wonderful, but he needs me to have friends outside our marriage, and when I spend time with my friends, that actually makes me a better wife and mother.

John quotes also from CS Lewis' The Four Loves, including, that friendship "has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival."

Last night it was a real joy to have a close friend of one of my sons visit us last night. To listen to the two of them giggling over their dinner (they had a youth group meeting, which meant they ate later than us) was precious. Even more treasured because they've been separated for five months due to his friend being in the US with his parents. They've survived being apart, but being together again is especially precious.

John also talks about how, in close friendship, there is a beauty about being known through and through with no judgment. No need to pretend you are something different to what you actually are. No need to present yourself in any other way than what you are. I think that's what I'm looking for in close friends: the ability to just relax and not have to put on any kind of act, to feel nervous about being myself or worried that I'll overwhelm the other person.

I think that's one thing that makes me very tired when I've been around a lot of people—that I've had to work so hard to find the right thing to say. I'm quite an intense person (even if it doesn't seem that way when you meet me, I put a lot of energy into interfacing with people). This exhaustion has been even more noticeable after months of not interacting closely with people in person.

I want my friendships to be deep, to both feel safe and to make my friends feel safe as we do life together. I'm encouraged by the recognition that friendship is important, probably more important than our culture and churches tend to make us think. 

Friendship for an expat is even more complicated and challenging than most people experience, and that doesn't improve with age. It's good to be reminded that it's definitely worth putting effort into friendship, even though many of our friendships are short-term, rather than the long-term that we long for.

Answers to my longing for connection

 I was "craving connection" a month ago when I wrote a blog post by the same name. Thankfully October has been a month of connection. Let me count the ways:

Our Saturday BBQ with friends

All-day hang out with friends one Saturday with deep conversation and good food.

The start of a short-term Bible study with three people I've met, but had varying levels of connection to previously. We've all gone deeper. And yes, this is online, but a group of four is much more manageable, and because we're meeting regularly, we're building momentum.

We travelled with colleagues in our van for an hour to an in-person mission meeting. Conversation wasn't light and they heard some of the low points of our year.

Twice in the last six weeks we've had a video call with a couple we were close to in our young adults years. The wife and I have remained close, but it's been harder for the guys. Our calls have been really good and we're committed to calling as a foursome more regularly now.

My usual once-a-month video call with my daily-friends (trio). We text pretty much daily, but in 2021 have made it a point to get together monthly. They're in Australia, so it's always a video call.

Two coffee dates with local expat friends. Oh, the delight!

The big change in October was that at the start of the month, the state of emergency we've been living under practically all year was lifted. So some of the above reflects that. 

I'm good at reflection, but also aware that the difficulties of "now" and "soon" can overshadow what I should be thankful for in the past. So today I choose to be thankful for these connections. God's been filling up my love tank with deep and meaningful connections with friends.

Imposter syndrome

Have you heard of this term? It's "the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications—was first identified in 1978 by psychologists". (from https://time.com/5312483/how-to-deal-with-impostor-syndrome/)

It's something I struggle with a little, both professionally and personally. Though I've been editing and writing for over 10 years, I have no formal qualifications in either areas, and sometimes wonder "who am I to be making this decision". I've been asked to teach about writing on a few occasions and always wonder if I'm just "faking it".

I also feel like a bit of a fake as a missionary at times, especially when people in Australia assume that I'm a super evangelist or fluent in the language. When I'm with colleagues I feel like a fake because I am neither good at Japanese nor skilled in theology. Editing theological and deeply cultural articles I find really challenging.

A photo of me trying to "fake it" as a course
facilitator in January.

Though I've been a parent for over 22 years, I still wonder if I'm doing an okay job. This has been a tough parenting year and I admitted to a counsellor earlier in the year that I feared I was a failure as a parent. I've even had moments of feeling recently, that though I've been an adult for over 30 years, I don't feel up to the task at times.

I wouldn't classify myself as having significant self-esteem issues, nor am I especially a perfectionist. So I'm not sure why all the self-doubt. Maybe I'm just a realist and I understand my weaknesses all too well.

I went to a magazine editing course at the very start of my editing career. I remember these professional editors (think Christianity Today) saying something like editors know a little about a lot of things. And that's actually a pretty good description of me. Perhaps that's why I don't feel like an expert at anything?

However every now and then I'm surprised by my own competency. Like when I was interviewed by someone in our organisation a couple of months ago about the social media work I do with our mission. It was pretty apparent, even to me, that I knew a lot of stuff about it (an awful lot more than I knew five years ago). And early last year when I took some writers away for a retreat and offered one-on-one times for each one. They asked me hard questions about a whole range of writing matters and I actually came up with some answers that were maybe helpful.

Perhaps the older we get the more we feel like imposters because the more we realise how little we know? I look back at the "arrogance" of my youth, for example, as a new graduate at 21 years of age I was running an Occupational Therapy department that covered a large geographical area. I was the only member of the department, but still, that meant I had little supervision or people to ask advice from. It was a sign of the desperateness that they even employed me.

So, what am I to do with this? Perhaps remember who I am, first and foremost. My value is primarily as someone made in the image of God, and I can even claim that, as I am a child of God, I am loved by God. That's a pretty big claim and one that makes all the wondering if I'm a fake fade into the background. It doesn't matter, ultimately, whether I'm a fake or not. My value isn't in what I do, nor how well I do it. But my sieve-like mind has trouble retaining that and I need to remind myself often.

New adventure: Japanese driver's licence

Tomorrow our 19 y.o. starts on a journey that we know little about: getting a Japanese driver's licence from scratch. He's taking a gap year after high school and is not sure about what he wants to do after that. 

One thing he can do now to prepare for the future is get a driver's licence, and because Japan and Australia have a cosy mutual relationship over driver's licences, arriving back in Australia with a Japanese licence is a distinct advantage (especially when you don't have parents living in the same country as you). He'll be able to get an Australian licence without doing 100 hours of driving or taking a test. It'll mostly just be a paperwork challenge (translation of licence included).

However, getting a licence in Japan bears only a vague resemblance to what we've seen his older brother do in Australia. And so we walk alongside him and learn together. Here is the chart the school has given him. 

It seems as though most of the learning will happen at the school, we're unclear as to whether he'll do any "learner driving" with us at all. Having been a little bit involved with our eldest in "getting his driving hours in", I think this method, though expensive, will definitely be good for our stress levels (and probably our relationship with him too). 

An integral part of the process is 26 lectures, which is not something done in Australia. I guess it's good to learn these separately from the stress of actually driving? Perhaps safer?

The other advantage is that they coach you specifically for the test, so there is little chance of failure, apparently!

We're thankful for God's provision of the finances to do this, because we didn't budget for it and it definitely wouldn't fit in a usual missionary budget.

We really feel like, even after 22 years of this parenting journey, that we're still feeling our way along. There have been so many unexpected challenges and there's no map, especially within the missionary life. And even more so with transitioning young adults to independent post-school life. At times it's agonising and it certainly drives us to our knees pretty much on a daily basis.

The good and the bad, and joy in the midst of it all

I have a lot to be thankful for this week . . . maybe I'm learning how to have joy in the midst of pain?

On the one hand, I've been weary and overwhelmed, and I've struggled with headaches all week. 

Playing French cricket with our UK friends on Saturday was fun.
And the sky was magnificent viewing: all day! It's not often you
get so far from other people and buildings in the greater Tokyo area.

But on the other hand, we've had some great things happening. Last Saturday, despite being unable to do our planned camping trip, and having some last-minute hiccups, we were able to spend the day with friends/colleagues. I was able to have a long weekend—a quiet day of just relaxing at home on Tuesday was very unusual, but matched with my family's schedule (school's Fall Break) and was needed. 

And, after months of waiting, we're seeing some positive changes in the local situation. The number of new COVID-19 infections is the lowest it's been all year. This week three meetings that have been online for many months have been, or will be, in person: a prayer and fellowship meeting with our mission, a prayer meeting at school, and worship on Sunday at church. 

All good, but also a tad overwhelming in the suddenness that it's all changed. We've also seen forward movement on a couple of fronts for one of our guys, which is very encouraging, but has made my schedule next week a bit busier than I'd like.

Another unexpected thing I've been doing this month is a daily photo challenge with Taking Route, an online community for expat women. The challenge is #thisglobalwalkoutside. Using daily photo prompts, expat women around the world are taking photos outside and sharing them. I've not been interacting much with the community, but been simply enjoying taking the simple prompt and searching each day for a photo to take (or one that was taken earlier) and post, plus something to write about the prompt (I can't resist the writer-side of me). It was something I stumbled upon at the start of the month and I have to say the results have been unexpected. My reflections have surprised me (as have some of my photos).

I have to say also, that despite all that I've had going on, plus a headache, I've been remarkably productive in even this short week . . . but that reminds me that I must get back to my To Do list before this working week is over.

Craving connection

Deep connection. I think it's something I'm craving right now. I have a lot of contact with friends and colleagues via email, messaging, and even video calls, but I'm really missing face-to-face. Technology has easily adapted to meetings, to information-giving, and to "doing stuff". But not so easily to "hanging out", to the sorts of casual interactions that happen when a group gathers in one place. When you go to a physical meeting, there are interactions before, during, and after, that are life-giving and really hard to do unless you're very intentional about it online.

Photo of the new field and building at school.
Just like connecting with people online,
there is a barrier between the camera
and the scene. There, but not quite there.

The other day, in a small online chat group, I asked an acquaintance about how her new fridge was going. Weeks ago she'd asked advice about buying it and I wondered how it was going. If I'd asked that question in person it wouldn't have seemed strange, but in the middle of a chat, it did. That makes me sad.

I'm going to be bold and say that I'm also a little tired of being thrown together into small online groups of people who I've often only just met and being required to share personal things. It's for the purpose of prayer and is something missionaries engage in a fair bit. I've been going to prayer meetings like this for years, but at the moment it just seems overwhelming. 

Praying for one another is good. However, at these sorts of prayer meetings you are expected to share something personal for others to pray for you about. At the moment the most pressing things I want people to pray about are very personal and also complicated. So I'm struggling to know how to share that authentically as well as succinctly, and so that I am not too exposed with people I barely know. But also needing wisdom to know how to share in a way that others can understand enough without being overwhelmed.

Thankfully I've got a whole day of connection planned tomorrow with good friends. Friends who I know and trust. I hope that those hours will help soothe the irritation I'm feeling with these online prayer times. These are important meetings, but seem to me that at present many of them are only a shadow of true Christian fellowship.

Should we value efficiency as highly as we do?

In April, more than a year after this pandemic began to change our stories, and when we really started to ask: how much longer? I came across an article by Susan Narjala about inefficiency. Susan has worked (still works?) as a missionary in India. She talks about how she used to live a very efficient life, but how that changed when she got to India.

Indeed, missionary life does feel very inefficient at times: even in Japan. When you think about it God's idea of mission does seem a bit odd at times. And many a church has failed to support missionaries because of that simple thought: that it looks far more efficient and (is often) cheaper to support a local, than to send in a foreigner to spread the word about God's good news.

Just yesterday I received a blog post in my editorial inbox by two of the thirteen missionaries we have in OMF Japan who are "on the field" but not in Japan, because the borders have been shut to people seeking new religious workers visas for much of the last 18 months. The missionaries write about how they'd sold their house and bought aeroplane tickets, but gotten stuck where they were. That is but one story of many during this pandemic of frustrated plans (missionary and non-missionary alike).

In the Western world we value things like busy schedules, productivity, and high income. We tend not to talk so much about those times when things don't match that: when people lose their jobs, when there's down-time in a work schedule, when illness prevents people from living up to their "potential", and failure to jump through society’s hoops on an acceptable schedule (e.g. education). Indeed, I wonder if that is why artists and other creatives are often undervalued: they don't look productive and indeed the creative process is often slow and seems inefficient. We complain when our plans are disrupted and feel like we've failed or are somehow less valuable.

In many ways I count the opportunity to live life as a missionary as a privilege. We are under no illusion that we're earning our own living, that we're independent islands (dependency on our prayer supporters), or that we are functioning as efficiently as we could in our home countries. All these things keep us leaning hard on God and prevent us (mostly) from believing in our own strength. Hopefully they all help us grow more Christlike!

If we read God's Word carefully, I think it shows us that the value we place in efficiency is often  misplaced. In the Bible we see inefficiencies everywhere. Examples aren't hard to find. Here's a few that come to mind: Why did Abraham and Sarah have to wait until they were elderly to have their one child? Israel had to wait a long time before God called 80-year-old Moses to free them. Jesus certainly didn't live a life that reeked of modern-day efficiency. His schedule wasn't full. Obviously God's ways are different to ours. The aforementioned article quotes John Piper: 

"God almost never takes the shortest route between point A and point B. The reason is that such efficiency—the efficiency of speed and directness—is not what he's about. His purpose is to sanctify the traveler, not speed him between A and B. Frustrating human efficiency is one of God's primary (I say primary, not secondary) means of sanctifying grace."

A local flower, that is a native to Eastern Australia! 

 

 

Susan poses a scary question: "Am I normally so entrenched in efficiency that I don't desperately need God?"

It's a good question for any of us to ask. Especially when we find ourselves wondering about the inefficiencies that are thrown our way. The pandemic has given us all many. Personally, our family has thrown some extras too. Let's face it: parenting isn't really a picture of efficiency.

Martin Luther has some wise words when we're feeling a bit at a loss, when we're wondering if we're really doing the best we can:

 "What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow."

And John Piper again: 

"By all means, make your list of to-dos for the day. By all means, get as good at that as you can get. . . . Go ahead and read a book about it. Then walk in the peace and freedom that, when it shatters on the rocks of reality (which it will most days), you’re not being measured by God by how much you get done. You’re being measured by whether you trust the goodness and the wisdom and the sovereignty of God to work this new mess of inefficiency for his glory and the good of everyone involved, even when you can’t see how." quoted in the article first mentioned above.

This blog post is a study in inefficiency in itself. It was begun in April with a confluence of several things, along with various circumstances at the time: I read Susan's article, but also had recently written a blog post that included a metaphor about jellyfish, and then discovered this verse on my desk calendar:

"Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing." 2 Cor. 2:14-15 NKJV

But alas the blog post was never completed, until now!

Do you feel judged by others about how much you get done? Are you judging yourself or others too harshly? What if we sit back and remember that God's sense of efficiency isn't the same as ours? And that through these challenges we face, that he's working in us for his purposes.

In our prayer time together, I often pray with my husband that God would help us to do the things that day that he'd "prepared beforehand" for us to do. It comes from Ephesians 2: 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (vs. 8–10 ESV). 

I often forget that I've prayed that, but I think that it's a good way to start the day, nonetheless. Maybe one day I'll be less forgetful!

Feeling a bit buffetted

I think it's been nearly four months since I rode to the big park to the south of us. I made it there on Wednesday for a solo picnic. I’ve had a lot of Zoom time in the second half of this month. So when it dawned on me on Wednesday morning that I had a small window where I could escape from the house (and work), I seized it. 

Even though we’ve had some hot days this week, the season is definitely early autumn. Nights have cooled down. In the park some of the leaves are starting to change. And though Wednesday was a warm day, it was a tad cool in the shade at times. 

As I always do before going on a longer ride, I'd checked the weather and there was no forecast of rain. But as I got closer to the park, the sky got greyer and the wind stronger. Had the forecasters made a mistake? When I arrived, I pulled up my trusty weather app and looked at the radar. There was a small thunderstorm headed my way! So I parked myself at a table near a small non-ornate gazebo and ate lunch.

Thankfully it never did rain, though it looked like it could for quite some time. The sky eventually cleared to the white puffy clouds we’d started the day with.

If I'd hung around longer, I might have gotten
better captures of these two bugs who were
very intent on harvesting the remains of this
past-its-prime flower. I think they are Middle-east 
flower scarabs.

After I ate I read for a while and then took some time searching for photos, having been inspired by a nature photography seminar I participated in the day before. The seminar encouraged us to take our time, to breathe, to be renewed as we looked for things to photograph. I have for some years now been on the lookout for things to capture, often small or unusual things or angles, but mostly opportunistic things. That is, as I’m out and about doing other things. It was good to take a few minutes to change focus a little bit, to feel like it’s more than okay to do that. In the midst of so many video calls and intense interaction, it was very good to be out in the fresh air, and away from buildings and people.

But this morning, as I sat in my relaxing chair in our lounge room, rotating between various activities: Scrabble, game on phone, Japanese vocab and kanji (character) review, I’ve been reflecting on the last couple of weeks and wondering why I’m feeling a bit buffetted. I think it’s not just the busyness of those days, but also the emotional highs and lows. And a list is good to help explain that, so in the last two weeks I’ve—

Light was difficult for capturing this ant,
but I tried.

• Led nine hours of meetings with my magazine team over two days. This was an emotional high, but also a heavy responsibility that exhausts me.
• Sat through two days of online field conference, during which we farewelled ten colleagues who are retiring in the coming year and brought tears.
• Interacted in person, via text, and on video calls with a handful of friends and colleagues who wanted to know how I really was, and I got mixed responses. One of which really disappointed me and others that really lifted me up.
• Had to share briefly in a small group of OMF colleagues about the challenges of the last 18 months. I know none of these people well, and wasn’t sure how much to share. It turns out my brief summary was enough to make them feel like they had nothing significant to share :-( So I felt that perhaps I did have reason to be feeling a bit overwhelmed and tired, if other people, who hadn't heard most of the details, are taken aback.
• Made a small step forward in planning for the next few months for a member of our family. It was a small, but significant step that had me feeling elated.
• Low-key celebrations of a birthday and our wedding anniversary.
• Led a prayer meeting online for our mission. At night, which is a challenge for me.
• Had an article published in the US that was quite personal (it’s here). It was great to have a writing opportunity, but also emotional to get my thoughts out there.

That’s probably enough! Yes, I think there are a few reasons there to feel like I’m a bit depleted. So in retrospect I see that the couple of hours I was able to spend in the park on Wednesday was a real gift from God. As is this quiet weekend. And no, I’m not going to be an overachiever today. I think sitting quietly is really okay, otherwise I’m probably going to end up saying something to someone that I really will regret (a classic sign of exhaustion for me).

So, here are a few photos from my God-given time out.

• 

  Summer cypress

  
  

  

  Balloon flower.

  
  

  

  Not exactly where I sat to eat and read, but close by. You get the idea that this park has
  some lovely tall trees, and more than a few.

  
  

  

  A dahlia, I think, reaching for the sky.