The Seat by the Window

I count it an amazing privilege that, during this time in N Ireland, I am able to sit each morning by the North Atlantic. It’s quite a unique blessing to experience. In having this place, and this morning -  'ritual' - if that is the right word, I recognise that something has developed in me over this past year of pandemic, since we moved to Greece.  

As I sit watching the movement of the waves, I think to myself - ‘this is exactly how it was in Athens’ - the chair on the balcony, the same hour, just as the sun is emerging, the same sense of finding that ‘place’ - what you might call ‘sacred space’ - where you encounter God. The only difference was the view. 

There, it was a hillside with trees rather than ocean, green rather than blue and grey, and amazingly, above all, there was the faintest outline of a cross at the top of the hill. At times, almost invisible, and yet, in that early morning hour, with the rising sun behind, the cross that would stand out clearly against the light. 

Those morning moments were very special - beginning to identify the calls of the birds, noticing the regular movements of our neighbours as they passed below exercising, or with their dogs, and meditating on the readings for the day. It became for me a place to engage with God. And now, in Portstewart, it has become easy to develop the same habit.

There’s nothing particularly mystical or magical about the idea of finding a ‘sacred space’. It doesn’t have to have an ocean or a mountain to make it special. It comes through the attitude of the heart. The expectancy, the anticipation of ‘my heart seeks after thee’ and that, here I will meet with God. Discovering a real encounter with the Divine through simply seeking after him. But it does help, to designate the space where you seek that meeting, and the time of your appointment. You mentally agree that this is where I will sit and wait. Obviously, some places are thus designated by faith communities as ‘sacred spaces’ - be they cathedrals, prayer rooms or shrines. But there is no reason why it can’t be a park bench at lunchtime, or the top deck of the number 10 bus on the way to work.  The important thing is not the place, or the fantastic view, but the encounter.

The "Seat by the Window" becomes my Cathedral.

The Side Road

My friend Manuel called me last week,

and asked me “How is your journey going?”

I thought for a while, and then I described it like this. 

It’s like I’ve been on a highway and now I’m on a side road. 

As I thought about that, the idea developed over the weekend

I have turned off the highway because the signs were clear. Turn right here, it said!

I'm on a very different path now.

Before, on the highway, all was reasonably straightforward

Life was busy. There was a lot going on. Lots of people travelling with you

There are places you can stop, and hang out for a while. 

Meet others. Exchange ideas. Do some business. And you keep moving on. 

You have a direction that you are heading in, and there’s a lot to do along the way.  

Yes, there’s some urgency, but basically, its a comfortable ride.

Now it’s different. The road is much smaller. Single track, in fact. Not many options to turn off. No short cuts. 

You have to concentrate hard to keep on the path. Don’t waver, or fall off the road. Moving slower now. And there are often delays. Obstacles on the road, and you have to wait for them to be cleared.

 Yes, it does seem to be moving in the same general direction as the highway, but you wonder, why this way. It’s uphill, and slow going. And then… you begin to realise something. It’s quieter on this road. There are less outside voices. Just you, and the clear air. In fact the clearest voice you hear is the voice of the One who directed you to make the turn in the first place. You are suddenly closer to the One who has been directing your journey through life than ever before.

And the other thing, as the road winds its way uphill, is that your vision changes. 

You see further into the distance. 

The view ahead is clear, though the far distance is covered in an early morning mist.

At the same time you become more intensely aware of the small things around you. The song of a bird perched on a gorse bush. Dewdrops glistening on a spiders web in the morning sun. And your heart lifts. Because you know that, even if it’s a side road, it is the right road. It is the road for you, for this season, for this walk you need to make. 

Sometime later, no doubt, you will rejoin the highway once more, but that's another story.

More on Memory

That comment about leaving something of ourselves behind when we leave a place…. 

That came home to us when Clive and Cath walked into our wee flat here in Portstewart last weekend. 

They were in N Ireland visiting their grown up kids who are now living near Lisburn. So we had arranged to meet up. 

Now the last time we had seen each other was in Murree, Pakistan, in July 1999. It was our Farewell Party, and we were about to leave Pakistan after eighteen years there. Clive was taking over from me as the leader of the SIM team. Still based in Pakistan, they have now gone beyond our 18 years there by a good stretch.

We looked at each other. “You haven’t changed a bit!” “Nor have you!” And it was so true. Oh, yes, a few more grey hairs here and there, and all that. 

Over the years, we had vaguely kept up with each other through newsletters and the occasional emails, but not much. But once we started talking, It seemed as though time had stood still, as though twenty two years had snapped by like yesterday.  We talked About colleagues and friends. Some had passed away, others had moved on, and yet others continuing and thriving in their work and ministry. And through all our chat, there was a sense of the flow of history between us. The way that our moving on back then, and their taking up the reins of leadership had enabled the whole work in Pakistan to develop in ways none of us could have foreseen 

But, the other thing that this little vignette served to remind me of, was how sometimes things in life have a tendency to come round full circle. Anna and I started off our married life in 1980 in Pakistan and the Urdu language. Since then, back in Ireland for 7 years, then immersing ourselves in Portuguese for the next 12, and now dipping into Greek, we find ourselves in 2021 back in an Urdu speaking context in Athens. When we started off, our organisation was SIM, now its ECM, but, along the way, here we are in Athens re-connecting with SIM in Athens through our new colleagues Al and Rachel.  Nothing’s lost with God. His plan keeps moving forward and, as we keep in step with him, he involves us in that plan, and we get a glimpse of the wonder of all that he’s doing in this world of ours.

Athens v Lisbon

 

A chance quote from a movie I watched recently  made me think a little about the power of memory, and that thing we sometimes call ‘nostalgia' ( the Portuguese word ‘saudade’ expresses it way better). It was ‘Night Train to Lisbon” (2013) - a story which was set during the time of the fascist dictatorship in Portugal. In the film the character says :

“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place. We stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there. We travel to ourselves when we go to a place.”

So it set me thinking about the two cities we have lived in during our last 20 years. How have they touched us? What have we left behind of ourselves in each? So here’s a wee comparison I’ve try to make. It will be highly subjective, of course, and in fact, it’s hardly even fair to compare the two, as we’ve lived in Athens only one year, whereas we had twelve years in Lisbon.

Antiquity - let’s start with the trick question - which one is older? Athens obviously, and yet, as capital cities, Athens only became Greece’s new capital as late as 1834 following independence from the Ottomans, whereas Lisbon has been the capital of Portugal since 1255. Whatever the case, when you walk about in either city, there is such a sense of history - Lisbon, perhaps more laidback and calm, Athens more brash and chaotic.

Flavours - Ah! Souvlaki! Feta cheese! Greek salad! There is a distinct sense of having shifted eastward through migrating from Portugal to Greece, and to be nearer the flavours of Middle East and Asia. But we won’t forget Lisbon’s annual sardine festival every June!

The Sea - Now there’s something important for me. To be within an hours drive of the ocean. Athens has its tranquil Aegean coastline, whereas the full on Atlantic waves of the ocean at the western end of Europe was always an exhilarating experience.

Sounds - Guitarra Portuguesa v Greek Bouzouki. The music of each city kind of goes along with the sea. Portugal’s 'fado' carries with it both the hopes and the pain of the angry sea and the lives it claimed - fishermen and mariners. There’s an uncanny similarity in the melancholic strains of the ‘rebetiko’ music of the bars of Athens, though there the pain it expresses is more from the experiences of war and violence and oppression. 

Painful histories - Each place carries a certain pain in its collective memories, but here I find the biggest contrast. Whereas Lisbon has suffered little disruption over the centuries from outside threats, Athens has experienced wave upon wave of painful violent histories - the Ottomans, the Nazis, with civil war, with economic disaster, with mass immigration, and on it goes. 

 

Finally, Jesus  - In both places where we’ve lived, we have seen the richness of the presence of Jesus bringing his unique healing power and peace. In Lisbon, two small Portuguese Churches that began since we first arrived continue to mature, and the beautiful downtown fellowship of Nepali immigrants which we watched God develop is also growing. Now, in Athens, together with wonderful Greek Christians we have come to know, we see many opportunities, to continue to bring that peace and healing

To the team of colleagues we left behind in Portugal (top picture) - wonderful memories, amazing people, resilient, generous, committed - and to our newly forming team ECM Greece, with whom we now belong, we wish God's richest blessing. It's a joy to live and serve alongside you and to recognise the reality of Jesus in each of your lives.

Filling in the Rabbit Holes

 

Now I’m not a gardener, but if I were, I imagine that rabbit holes would be my least favourite garden feature. Yesterday, an unseasonably warm and sunny September morning (my birthday, in fact) found us weaving our way down the path to the shore at White Park Bay. The meadow was pock marked with evidence of old rabbit holes. It put me in mind of some of the rabbit holes in our thinking, ever since beginning this adventure with cancer.

The whole suddenness of the thing, and its long term uncertainty is a recipe for thinking long thoughts. Long straggly thoughts that hurtle one after the other down into a warren of trails that in the end don’t really lead anywhere. Well, not anywhere positive. You’d think that, with our positive attitudes, with all the answers to prayer we’ve already seen, and  a lifetime in Christian missions, we’d be immune to wandering down rabbit holes. But no.

 

Here are some of our rabbit holes. 

Peter : How long is this for? They said the treatment would be 12 months plus. What does plus mean? After a year, will we get back to where we were? Or, is that just me hoping. Things change. People will have gone. Others come in to pick up our roles. Will there still be room for us? Yet, it all just seems so incomplete to have left when we did.

Anna : Will we ever get back to Greece? I miss our apartment there. Being able to make it home and somewhere I can feel I belong. But here we are now. Do I really fit in? Who’s in my network here? Will I ever fit into society in N Ireland?

 

There’s a punishing logic to rabbit holes. They lead you on, because, in their own way, they do make sense. 

“If this.. then that..” The logic goes. And before you know it, you find yourself in a dark place. Without a clear exit.

There’s also a certain security in rabbit holes. Presumably that’s why rabbits dig them. To keep their young safe. 

Sometimes there seems to be a security in letting those streams of thought draw you down the rabbit holes. 

Grasping for certainties But in the end, it’s a temporary security. The first heavy rains of winter flood them out. Or an enthusiastic terrier digs his way in. 

And, of course, they're not that good for the health of the garden either. 

So what do you do with rabbit holes then?

A bit of advice from Anna. “Fill them in with the word of God”

Let those earthy promises of God - 

  “He who began a good work in you, will carry it on to completion”

  “My presence will go with you .. I will give you rest.”

  “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”

  “They that hope in the Lord, will renew their strength

    They shall run and not be weary. They will walk and not faint”

Let those loamy clods of earth, that rich life-giving soil fill the holes in your understanding

Let them renew your thinking, because no matter how obvious and logical your reasoning seems, it doesn’t take into account the greatness, awesomeness and overwhelming love of a God who cares, and who is always there for us.

As Paul says “make all those thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor 10:5)

Let your thought life, be so captivated by the amazing, attractive, powerful personality of Jesus Christ, so that you are no longer losing yourself down the rational rabbit holes of your own mind. And then, believe me, it will all begin to make sense.

Sunday and the Herring Pond

The early morning air was calm.

The tide was in. The sea calm.

Just the time for a quick dip in the Herring Pond, 

Portstewart’s classic natural rock swimming pool 

The sea was lapping at the top rungs of 

the ladder going down into the sea.

The joy of yet another day in which 

to wake and value the life I’ve been given. 

The fresh chill of the water around me, the depth below, the swirling of seaweed.

A deep sense of being alive and awake to God and his world.

A prayer of thanks to this God of the sea, the rocks

and the amazing expanse of sky.

And a quick word to the Pond - 

“I’ll be back this evening to taste your briny waters again”

Part hopeful, part an appeal to the restless water, part prophetic? Well  ,, just maybe.

The thing was - I’d be called up once again this Sunday morning, for further tests in Belfast Hospital, with the strong possibility that, if things have not improved, I would need to be admitted for a few days for observation and to have an increased dose of steroids administered intravenously. 

So, not looking forward to that prospect at all, but nevertheless ready for whatever the day might bring. Anna and I headed off to the city early, so that we could attend worship somewhere in Belfast before checking in at the hospital. It was a delight to visit Windsor Presbyterian Church, and see how a truly  multicultural community has grown up under the leadership of Ivan Steen reflecting the changing urban demographic of Northern Ireland. Worship led by a Mongolian girl, translation into Farsi, and a video report and prayer by a Guatemalan. 

So, off to Hospital next. Things are very quiet on a Sunday noon. Blood test taken. Then to wait. And wait.. And pray over the phone. With Audrey and Tom. And to wait some more.. And then at last to hear the welcome words. “Well, your results are marginally improved. So, it’s okay for you to go home, but we will need to keep closely monitoring your condition.” Relief. And praise to God, as we drove back through an increasingly grey afternoon.  By the time we got back to Portstewart, and my walk down to the Herring Pond, the rain had set in for the night. 

So, the promised dip had to wait till the next morning!

Meri Jeewan Sathi

I am constantly amazed at this incredible army of people God has placed around me at this particular moment in my life. 

I have mentioned some already - those whom I count as part of my support team. 

Ordinary people leading very extraordinary lives. 

Here on the North Coast of Ireland, in the rest of the UK, in Portugal, Greece and elsewhere. 

Friends and family, they all mean so much to me. But there is one who stands out foremost in this. 

It is Anna.

Now, back when we lived in Pakistan, there was one word that was normally used for the one who was by your side - your life partner - the ‘Missus’. And that was ‘Biwi’. 

But, if you wanted to be more poetic, you might could also call her your “Jeewan Sathi”

Which, quite literally means “Together for Life”

Sometimes, when we  would be invited out somewhere, I’d introduce Anna

“Yeh meri jeevan sathi hei.”  People loved that.

I liked the idea too. I still do, even more so now. 

She has been my “Together for Life” for the past 41 years. 

My Anna. Or, as our Athens friend Georgis insists on calling her, ever since he discovered her full name through helping with our residence applications - my Anna Maria Victoria - or 'the Queen', for short.

She is my Queen of 41 years, or just over 42 if you care to add in the year of becoming intrigued with one another, and then beginning to like, and then to love, and then to decide to build a life together. 

Amazing to think back over those years, and to see how God has glued us together.

Lots of tough times, challenging situations - bringing up a family in South Asia. I think we must have moved at least six times in our first year of marriage and of our life there in Pakistan.

Then came Portugal. And now also Greece. It was usually I, the adventurous one, the risk taker, who proposed the next challenge. But we always sought agreement through hearing God, and listening to one another, before venturing out. 

I haven’t been always the greatest husband either. 

In those early days of rushing to get things done, to learn a new language, to see progress, to achieve, to prove yourself. And in the rush - to ignore what’s going on at home.

Then to be responsible for a team, and always seeking to make sure that everyone else is happy and fulfilled, and failing to see and meet the need at home.

And when life throws things at you, and you need a safe place in which to vent your frustration and anger, that can often happen at home.

Anna has had to take a lot from me, but through hard conversations, we have learnt to see one another's weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and in the seeing, to accept and to forgive. And the seeing in actual fact, becomes a 'seeing' of the character of Christ being formed over time in the other person. Recognising that reality, affirming it, and drawing strength from it becomes the 'glue' that holds us together.

So, now, in this season we are in, I thank God for her.

For that inner strength and beauty, for that commitment to be ever alongside. 

For that constant prompting me to look up, to seek God in all that’s going on. 

For that deep faith that  there is a plan and a purpose, and an answer to all the uncertainty we’re in.

Thank you God, for Anna.

On the Road Again

 Well, actually.. rail again, in fact.

To Belfast City Hospital once more.

It’s Cycle 2, end of Week 1.

Translated, that means, my second immunotherapy treatment was last Friday.

I have two more weeks till the next one. I’m beginning to detect a pattern. 

The first week is a bit dodgy. I feel kind of rough most of the time, little energy, lie down a lot during the day, and then lose sleep at night. 

After that, it gets better, and I’m more my normal self.

But unusually, I’m back up to the Hospital once again today.

For blood tests, because the results of my earlier ones were a bit askew

As I continue to think of this in terms of a war zone (both physical and spiritual), then this is a border skirmish. The real stuff is still going on against that rebellious army of cancer cells in my bones. But as the T-cells (the ‘SAS’ in the white blood cell world) get armed by the treatment and begin to flex their muscles against the renegades, then there’s always the possibility of ‘friendly fire’ taking down some otherwise innocent targets.  Hence the blood tests with their unusual levels are indicating inflammation in other organs.

And so we continue to fight. Both with the help of the doctors and the medications and all the care I am receiving, plus, on the spiritual level, all the help of wonderful friends round the world, who have been writing, texting and encouraging me with their prayers. 

The Apostle Paul’s description of the nature of this spiritual warfare strikes an interesting parallel for me as to what’s going on in my own body on the physical level. 

To the Corinthians he writes, “the weapons we fight with have divine power to demolish strongholds. So we cast down imaginations and every pretension that sets itself against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”

Just as those cancer cells, if you like, are rebelling against the very purpose for which they were formed, and as a result are playing havoc with my ability to function, and threatening my overall well being, so those thoughts and imaginations that wander into my head in the wee hours of the night (those ‘why’ and “what if’ and ‘when is it over’ questions you can’t help playing with) need to be challenged, and dismissed - demolished. It’s only through Christ’s power in me, that I can bring those critters into line with what I already know of God - that He is altogether good, altogether powerful and altogether wise in the way he is unrolling his plan for my life. And I need to do that daily too, just as my body needs its regular dose of T cell weaponry!

I believe there’s another whole level to this physical / spiritual parallel going on in the wider world of grief and pain and violence, but that will have to be the subject for another blog post