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.