Name that tune...

I have been following this Advent Calendar challenge to name the Christmas tune hidden in Lego, and of course radios and shops have been going through the classic Christmas songs - good and bad.

'I'm dreaming of a white Christmas'
'All I want for Christmas is you'
'Last Christmas I gave you my heart'
'So here it is Merry Christmas'

A good proportion are about relationships and things going well or not and then of course there is  'Blue Christmas'.  Through the Ship of Fools discussion boards I have discovered that some churches offer a 'Blue Christmas service', some hold it on 21st Dec and call it a 'Longest Night service'.  The idea is to offer a space in the midst of hype and celebration for those who will find it a hard time for whatever reason. A time to be reassured that even in the darkest longest night God is with us. It is a bit late to plan it in for this year, but it seems like something the church should be offering, even for the one or two, to offer a space and sanctuary in a tinsel tossed world. 

Events in Sandy Hook School in Connecticut may highlight it, but every year there are people coming to terms with empty seats at the Christmas table - like the family of the woman I will lead a funeral for early in the new year.

And yet there is a wonder at Christmas, for the last couple of years I have acquired a new singing toy in time for carol or Christmas day services.  This year it is a penguin singing 'Winter wonderland' - cue for me to prepare my Christmas services around the theme of wonder, the wonder of a  God who was and is prepared to muck in with the messiness of human life.

Happy Stressmas...

What are we up to at Christmas? Or should I say Stressmas?

I suppose I will put some decorations up before 25^th, if I get around to it. Some people love their Christmas trimmings, others put them up with a sigh of duty, just another seasonal chore. We feel obliged to put on the seasonal smile and be cheery – even when we don’t feel like it, or have nothing to smile about. Getting a card has become not a joy but a reason for panic – have I sent them one? Parents are required to create costumes and props for their darling offspring for school events – whether the children are bothered or not. (And I confess to adding to this with another Christmas competition from the church, not next year – I am learning!)

How much stress do we live through for the sake of tradition, or expectations of others? That applies all year round but is massively multiplied at Christmas.  Even this year’s adverts all seem to be about the stresses of preparing for the ‘perfect Christmas’ – recognising the symptoms but still playing up to an ideal that is even less achievable than size 0 airbrushed models.

I remember being told a story of a couple, married for many years, and every Christmas dinner they had sprouts. He didn’t like sprouts but ate them to please his wife after she had gone to all the effort cooking dinner. She didn’t like sprouts and only cooked them because she thought her husband liked them – afterall he devoured them every year...  If only they would talk about it – then neither of them would have to eat what they didn’t like.

What if we took the chance to say ‘Sorry, I’d rather not eat sprouts’, wear the Christmas jumper, or whatever it is, what if we risked being called Scrooge and labelled a Humbug? Maybe we will find others are only too glad to downsize the best present and perfect turkey competitions too, and be relieved that someone had the courage to challenge ‘the way things should be’.

Maybe then we can have a celebration we can actually enjoy – and that would, I think, be truer to the meaning of Christmas where a manger was good enough and visitors came as they were whether shepherd or king.

So if you want the perfect Christmas this year, perhaps it’s worth taking a moment to decide what that actually looks like for you personally, as a family etc..

The deadly joke

It must have seemed a good idea at the time - try and kid your way into access to the the big royal baby story.  Not expecting to get through, and definitely not expecting a deadly result.

But the death of the nurse who answered the phone and put them through - Jacintha Saldanha - calls us all to take notice. In the track record of media pranks it was one of the milder ones, but what does it say about our society?

We are happy to tolerate jokes at others' expense but a prank on a friend who you know, and can assess how they might take it, is very different to invading the life of a stranger.  Had another nurse picked up the phone that day the whole story could be very different and without the tragedy. 

But we all need to be responsible for the power of our words, and that goes not just for the radio show but all who shared the story, all who added to the crowd pressure. It is one thing to feel humiliated about something that went wrong in work, another to know that people all around the world are talking about it.  It may have been an extra straw in a vulnerable life - but it was one big straw bale to land.

One of the biggest lies I was told as a child is 'Sticks and stones will break your bones but names can never harm you'. I have no idea who first told me this lie, but it was just there throughout my childhood of name calling and exclusion by classmates. But it was not anything to make a fuss about - it was only names after all, I wasn't being beaten up day by day so not really bullying....  Except it was, and the power of words to reach like lasers into the deepest parts of your soul and being is worse than the stratches of mere sticks and stones.  (Though they rarely come without the emotional abuse as well).

Any bully, and any who have been bullied, can know how even the apparently innocuous greeting can be imbued with layers of aggressive intimidation - but how do you report someone for saying hello to you?

Back to our radio prank, what seemed merely amusing to some, can have affects way beyond intentions - we cannot know the impact of our behaviour or words especially upon those whose lives we don't know.  So we all have responsibility to take care in how we interact.  We don't need to take the full responsibility for a lifetime's conditioning but we do have responsibility to keep a check on our own words and actions.

New start 101 - a week on....

An update on my attempted self-reboot

Well it has been a week, and I have used my tick sheet but not qualifying for many reward stickers.

Tablets - Gold star, but was already good on that
Breakfast - total failure, :-(


Lunch - managed a couple, though to be fair  Monday it was provided at my London meeting

Dinner - Silver star, all but Sunday and mostly 'real food'

And I did manage some exercise (walking in London for one) and even a couple of 20 min tidy ups.

So not straight to the top of the class, but some baby steps, and afterall a perfect first week would only leave downhill as an option.

As for sleep habits - well last night I slept so badly (between waking up and intense dreams) that I had a bad headache and have been even more dozy and useless all day.  Now I am awake and able to string a sentence together - and its midnight when I'm supposed to be asleep. 

Oh well, I have now done some of the things that I failed to do this morning (or yesterday morning I should say now). A useful sleep rather than a pretence would be good with church sales, Christmas Tree Festivals and Christingle services in  a non stop trail over the weekend...

When your normal isn’t and doesn’t need to be

When I did my local research in the area I found that some of the villages I work in had TV before water pipes to the homes.  That stopped me in my tracks, it didn’t fit that history book version of development, surely in 1960’s Britain it wasn’t normal to go and gather water from the village well? But it was normal here.

I have got used to my version of normal life – that includes low moods, fatigue and general sleepiness. It is just what being me is like, my normal even if different to yours.  But what if it doesn’t have to stay that way? What if I can change my normal – just as the village changed theirs when the water pipes reached them?

For years before I crashed and came under the doctors for my depression I lived with it in a coping, adapting, this is my normal so just have to get on with it attitude. On one level fine, but it was as if the pipes went past me but I didn’t tap into the running waters that could have given me a better quality of normal.

I think I may have been doing the same thing again.  I discuss my depression with the doctor, but never think to comment on my level of sleepiness.  It can be linked to depression, but also could be the old Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – which doctors have had little to offer and because I can cope and adapt, then don’t make a fuss.  Also it sounds like I am simply lazy so its something I haven’t discussed with anyone.

But it turns out that there is something known as Excessive Daytime Sleepiness – and there are ways to challenge it.  So maybe my normal doesn’t need to stay the norm?

I don’t fall asleep all the time – but I do feel that I spend all my time trying to be awake enough. I can know what I want to do and write etc but it takes forever to boot up my brain to do it even if simple and short tasks. Then curl up for recharge afterwards.    I have decided to discuss this with the doctor – maybe this is just my normal and I will continue to work around it, but what if another version of normal could be only a few honesty steps away?

101 - and a new start, well maybe?

The builders have moved out, I am beginning to create order, the spare room has become a studio, and I have reached 100 posts - all good reasons for determining to make a fresh start in my campaign for an ordered life.  But mostly because I have a urge to overcome the chaos in the house, my poor eating habits and bad bedtimes, and I don't know how long that motivation may last!

I seem to spend my life promising myself I WILL get organised....tomorrow! I have the luxury and the danger of enough space to leave piles of chaos and still function, and because I can I usually do.

Whether it is inspiration from the school visits this week, and the rewards and house points offered to encourage progress, I don't know but I have just drawn up my own version of a sticker chart. It does not ask for anything remarkable - just eating properly a couple of times a day, reasonable bedtime etc

Although more of a challenge is the aim to spend 20 mins tidying each day - in the hope that step by small step I can regain control.  Trying to zap it all in one go usually fails as it is all too much and I go and hide under the duvet instead, overwhelmed, feeling a failure and not wanting to try again for quite a while.

It may all last about 24 hours, but it is still worth a try, tonight I had a proper meal for the first time in 48 hours (instead of snacks and nibbles) and tidied the dumping end of the kitchen.  Balanced out with the fact that I slept from 9.30 - 2.30 ....  A long Thursday of being sociable on the market was probably a bad choice of day off activity for an introvert who tires easily, and my working days having been paying for it since!