Nonsense!

In a world primarily focussed on binary opposites it is understood that the contradictory position of sense is nonsense.

Nonsense is meaningless gibberish (isn't it?) – whether communicated in words or signs. This leads to incoherence (doesn't it?). Just look at how Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland progress and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

There are times when all that once seemed sensible and logical no longer appears that way. It all becomes nonsense.

This is a great opportunity to use your imagination; to see things another way. It’s a risk, that’s true, but it’s one that is worth taking I think.

Imagination hold so many possibilities – ask any child at play, they’ll show you how. What at first seems like nonsense may highlight certain previously undiscovered ideas. I plan to embrace nonsense!

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities.”

Theodore Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss)

On Whose Authority?

I think Christianity has some excellent points. I also think many of them get lost behind the religiosity of many organisations.

This recent Sabbath I was sitting in church between Sabbath School and Divine Service and the room was unusually quiet. This is a time when people spent their moments in reflective thoughts or prayer or join in rousing hymns of praise together: neither seemed to be occurring this week.

As a fellow member walked past, I asked him if he would lead the singing. He is both a vocalist and an instrument player. He declined, saying, “I’m just a visitor, I need to be asked.” I laughed and said, “Well I’m asking you.”

His response shocked me. “You have no authority here,” was his immediate retort, “you can’t ask me.” 

Now, I know that he is an official member at the other local church and my church membership is held in a different county but it made me wonder how much praise was regulated by officialdom.

“I get my authority from God,” was my instant reply.

This drew laughter from him but he still did not feel able to go against the forms and customs of the local congregation and so went back to his seat with a smile.

Does God have to wait for the deacons, elders and pastors to regulate His praise before it can commence?

I was left wondering on whose authority Christianity was being regulated. It appears God is not front and centre any more.

Sleep is a true love ...

I love to sleep. I don’t do it enough, but I plan to do more of it because it makes me feel ... happy.

When I am sad ... I like to sleep.

When I am mad ... I like to sleep.

When I cry and don’t always know why ... I like to sleep.

When I can’t think ... I need to sleep.

I curl up and wrap myself with the covers and my arms until sleep gently rocks me into bliss. I sometimes dream, but often I just float and release all the worries away from my peaceful slumber. Sleep is a medicine of unknown ingredients that always seem to work for all my ailments. It heals me, soothes me, wraps me in its arms and cradles me back to a place where I can feel again, and to that place where I know I can think, smile, dance, and love without borders.

I love sleep. Sleep loves me.

Embarrassing technology

Now before you get all excited, it’s probably not what you are thinking about! Good. Now that we’ve cleared that up, this is what happened to me the other day. It was embarrassing ...

As a recent owner of a Blackberry phone I was more than pleased that the company decided to give free applications following some downtime in their service. I browsed the gifts and selected ones I thought I could use. Strangely, because they were free they felt ‘different’ than if I had to pay for them, I don’t think I was quite as selective and careful with the instructions as I could have been.

Anyway, I had this particular application installed and after playing around with it for a while I promptly forgot it. This was my biggest error.

It just sat there on my phone waiting for the appropriate time to behave like a UXB. Well, that’s how I treated it later ...

I was sat with a year 3 child going through grammar and other literacy points when the phone made itself known from the depths of my coat pocket.

I scrambled to get it, the more flustered I became the harder it was to get the phone out, to remember where the controls were and to turn the volume down.

What happened? I hear you ask. Well, I had installed a Drive Safely application that reads your emails and messages to you as you are paying attention to the road. Alas, when I got out of the car that morning I had neglected to turn either the application or the phone on to silent.

The message that came through?

Well, I can’t really divulge that here, all I will say is that it was not suitable for the ears of a year 3 pupil! I mean, although they sometimes have difficulty in their reading skills, their listening and comprehension faculties work very well!

Her eyes were wide open as I eventually made the phone harmless.

I haven’t blushed like that for a while, but I guess hearing that my profile on some long forgotten site has be matched with  Anonymous Blond Curvaceous and that notifications have been sent is not conducive to a calm demeanour in front of sponge-like children!

Thanks for the free embarrassment Blackberry! 

Listen again

How can I discussion about women’s rights versus business survival get me incandescent with rage? When one of the speakers compares slavery to a good business model, that’s how.

So I decided to write about it. I decided to write to the speaker as well. I obtained her email address and set about constructing my argument. This is when I began to listen again.

I could not download the programme so I painstakingly listened to it all over again, transcribing it as I went. And this is the conclusion I have reached: I was wrong. I had a listening error.

You see, I have spent hours analysing and listening to this 9 minute 6 second segment and I now realise that my initial reaction was not based on facts. I responded to what I thought I heard, not what was actually said.

After transcribing the entire thing and going over it numerous times I now believe Dr Hobbs is saying that business growth, albeit valuable and important, cannot be achieved at any cost. Business has to contribute to a stronger society because there are psychological and moral costs of business growth as well. I’m glad I was wrong.

Her only error, I feel, was to attribute the blame of the August riots to unhappy families when she said “The cost of having unhappy families can also literally mean physical damage to business ... We all suffer the consequences of a society with broken families in it.”

Her last sentence, however, is still true.

I guess that sometimes it does pay to listen again.

Pay attention

I’m a walker and I’m a driver. I think sometimes I get the two mixed up.

The other day I was walking and I came up to some pedestrian crossing lights. I waited on the pavement with other pedestrians. You see, I was obeying the signal that told me when it was safe to cross the road and when it was not.

Imagine my surprise when, as the light turned green and I stepped into the road, that an old woman’s hand grabbed my left sleeve and pulled me back onto the pavement.

“But it’s green!” My protests became weak as a car swung in front of me just missing me by inches as it rounded the corner.

“He must have gone through a red light!” I exclaimed, as I started to walk across the road in the company of my new saviour.

“I just couldn’t manage if I saw someone have a bad accident in front of me,” The kind grey-haired woman continued to shake her head as she walked to the opposite pavement with me. We were both glancing over our shoulders and shaking our heads as we turned in unison to watch the errant car continue to speed off into the distance.

“I know the light was green,” I said, “green for us to walk, not for the car.”

It was then that I thought of my own experience as a driver and the times when I had driven through amber-turning-red lights. Then I was convinced that I was perfectly safe and in  control of all variables.

As I walked further into town I realised that I nearly got run over because I forgot what I sometimes do as a driver!

This incident makes me wonder why it often takes serious incidents to see things from a different perspective before we really commit to changing our behaviour.

I’m worried ...

Something strange has been happening in my house over the past few weeks and I’m worried.

Things are changing. And it’s not just confined to one room.

I first noticed it when the food from the cupboards started disappearing. Then there was a problem with the washing machine. The clothes looked OK. Even when I ironed them they looked fine. It was just when I put them on that I noticed something odd: they were shrinking.

This is particularly strange because it has affected even my coats. Because of the warm weather I haven’t been wearing them, but the late autumnal change has brought cold winds and cloud-filled skies.

I think the heat from the summer has shrunk the clothes or the temperature dial on the washing machine has been set to high. Because something is desperately wrong.

At first I thought it was a mouse and even considered a mouse trap but these particular visitors are not leaving the usual traces of their visits.

Then I realised that it was indeed something else. Something that needed a bigger trap to catch it.

So, if you don’t see me for a while it’s because I am busy fighting this new-fangled contraption that is called a ‘free-will trap’: I know it’s the cause of all the strange happenings. I may set up a video camera and record my findings to post here at a later stage.

Things are indeed changing.

Running to a lie

Yesterday I wrote in my notebook that it was the end of another month. A quarter of the year has already gone into history. I am looking back into my history and I see repeated patterns of behaviour.

I have a long history of running away from things – there are many, many examples of this. In contrast I have a single history of running towards something – what does that tell me?

The running away is comfortable and easy; it is a familiar lie. The running towards was my truth. No matter what the future brings, that will always remain true.

“Every relationship is reciprocal ... when you touch something it touches you."

Fringe, season 3, episode 11.

Confused?

We all look for understanding from others but sometimes they are not willing to even try to understand us.

It’s at times like this that I remember what a counsellor once said to me, “It’s not your confusion, it’s theirs. It’s best to leave them with their confusion.”

And you know what? It really works! Try it for yourself.

This one’s on me.

Self sabotage

Sometimes it is possible to sabotage yourself by being too busy.

If you are too busy you cannot fit everything you want to do in the time that you have and you know that you will fail – it all – because nothing will ever be done to any degree of satisfaction.

This thought has been in my mind repeatedly as I go about my tasks over the past few days.

At times it seemed as though I was trying to fit five minutes of effort and achievement into a single minute: it would never work. I started one task and on the way to finishing it I concluded that before I did so I would just ... yes, I used those words in my head, ‘I would just...’ a fatal combination of words that mean the task in hand is going to be delayed while another one takes the priority slot.

This continued for about half an hour until I realised that I was standing with several things in my hand, unwilling to put any of them down, because they were all on their way to somewhere else. I had picked up small distractions on my way to the completion of my first job and now I was unable to finish the first job. In fact, to be fair and honest about it all, I barely remembered what I had started out with the intention of achieving.

I was stood with an odd assortment of things in my hand, wedged into my pockets and under my free arm.

After repeating this crazy procedure for three days I have realised that I need to set myself small tasks to complete and do them without distraction. One task done well is much better than five tasks all done badly.

I have taken off the mindset that directed me into sabotage overload and, with my blinkers on, I will focus on the task at hand. Sleep.

Goodnight.

(Did you get distracted reading this? ...)

Anglian Water gives me a husband

I answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mrs Morgan?”

“Ms Morgan,” I reply.

“Sorry? Mrs Morgan?” The caller queries again, “This is Anglian Water.”

“OK,” I reply giving up the desire to insist on my Ms-terious status title, I pause and wait for the caller to explain the reason for the call.

“I’m calling about the order your husband placed for the plumber service...”

“I don’t have a husband.” I reply - rather too forcefully I think.

“We have the details here,” I hear clicking in the background, “Mr Morgan contacted us regarding our water efficiency service...”

“I don’t have a husband,” I repeat.

The silence from the other end of the line conveys confusion. Then there is a low mumble.

“I think,” I start to speak at the same time as the caller does a uncomfortable throat clearance so I hesitate and start again after taking a deep breath of resignation, “I think that maybe you have put the name down incorrectly.”

“Excuse me?”

“I made the order myself,” I explain “and I definitely did not put anybody else’s name down.”

“Oh! The information we have says ‘Mr Morgan’.,. I just thought it was your husband who ordered the plumber.”

“No,” I am now trying my hardest to stay calm as this caller, who is distressingly a woman, seems intent on giving me a husband, “I contacted you via your website yesterday and left my details.”

“Will you please correct the information that you have?” I ask.

She does not reply directly instead she tells me when the plumber will be in the area and asks if I (or my husband?) will be around on that date.

I wish she could have seen me shaking my head in exasperation.

I don’t need (or want) a husband I only want a plumber!

Aaargh!