Day 9

Faithful friends are a well-built shelter;
when you find one, you find a treasure.
Faithful friends are priceless;
their value is beyond counting.
Faithful friends are the essence of life,
a blessing for those who fear Yahweh.
Those who fear Yahweh treat others with respect;
and their friends will behave the same way.

Sirach 6:14
(Sirach was written by a Jewish scribe who lived in Jerusalem in the early third century BC. His name was Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sirach. He is often called simply "Ben Sira.")

A suggestion for your prayer and meditation:

"A primary activity in spiritual direction is simply listening, being a sounding board on whom others can try out ideas, oprinions, or self-criticism...This is almost a natural response to deep friendship. By making such friendship spiritual by a specific agreement of both parties, you will truly find "a treasure beyond price and a life-saving remedy". (Father William A. Meninger from The Committed Life).

Read the passage from Sirach slowly, pausing a few seconds at the end of each line.
Take a moment today and consider who among those you know might be your faithful friend.
Email or call that friend and ask if they might act as a spiritual director if even for just this one time.
Consider an idea, opinion or self-criticism that you might express to your friend and ask for their feedback.
Acknowledge their feedback refraining from the urge to agree or disagree.
Offer your response to this feedback in prayer perhaps using the statement "Creator God, pour forth your Wisdom on me and grant me insight and understanding, amen."
Pastor Patty Fox 40 days with 40 Christian mystics

I couldn't get through any aspect of my life without my friends; they are the most precious gift from God. My closest friend, Lindsay has been on my life for 34 years and knows me better than anyone- there's no way I could be anything but myself with her. I trust her honesty and counsel and she makes me laugh my bum off!
This weekend I have the utter privilege of spending in the company of two much newer friends, Tracy and Alison, who I met through training for ministry. The three and a half years we've spent together have been some of the toughest we've each experienced, but our friendship has kept us strong through it all. We're completely honest with each other, yet hold one another with such love and respect (well...mostly, we do tend to tease  Alison). Most importantly we laugh together. There's no facade, no barriers. Like when we're before God there can be no pretence or inauthenticity.

Act 1 - Circles

It feels like I've only had a moment to catch my breath since finishing the Advent/Christmas blogathon and now Lent has arrived. This year that means not only countdown to Easter but the countdown to Easter school (a big chunk of my final few months of formal ordination training), which begins the day before Palm Sunday. Between now and then there's quite a bit of work to do.

This year for Lent, after three years of Love Life Live Lent, it felt like time for a new challenge so I've signed up for 40 Acts: "40 days of giving back, doing good and living generously"

Every day a new act pops into my in-box with a short, medium and longer suggestion of something to do. Today was all about thinking about the circles of people you belong to, their interconnectedness, praying for them and thinking how your generosity could benefit them in Lent - I made a doodle as you can see!

I took part in the Ash Wednesday service at St Michael's this evening. It's a quiet, penitential service, which some folk might hate the idea of, but we're all broken, imperfect beings and sometimes we mess up. It's good sometimes to reflect back on some of the not-so-great things we've done and said, or things about ourselves or in our lives that may be harmful to us or others. Lent should be about flipping that stuff around and 40 Acts helps by giving us ways to make the world a bit lovelier.

Faith, my daughter blew me away when I got home from church. As part of today's act she's made a WhatsApp group of her best friends and will be telling them each day's act, letting them know what she's doing and encouraging them to join her. It's prompted her friends to ask questions about what Lent is and why we do stuff. I appear to have a little evangelist!

“He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” 

 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”  

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:27-29)

On the ninth day of Christmas...

...I hung out with friends

Christmas has been a crazy mix of work, church and family that there's been very little time for friends. Tonight some of our friends came round with their children and we ate, drank, laughed and made merry. Tonight I thank God that I am blessed with true friendship.

17th December

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” -Luke 2:13-14

The heavenly host appear, providing an x-factor esque gospel back up to our main angel? Possibly. It's a timely reminder of the need for back up- a team of folk behind you who have your back, look out for you and who you do likewise for. This might be in your work (essential in healthcare!), your family, your friendship groups or your church.
I'm blessed in all these areas. I work in an acute and stressful healthcare setting where the cohesion of the team is essential, I'd be lost without my family- especially my parents, my friends always come through when I need them, my church family are amazing and my college mates keep me just the right side of sane.
What I'm not good at is remembering all this. As a bit of a control freak I always try to deal with stuff on my own, not always very successfully. When I remember that I have back up and use it amazing things happen, and I see God at work in the people I'm so blessed to have in my life.

Be More Thoughtful

I've been thinking about my friends a lot this week. I don't see them very often but with school holidays looming I'll get to socialise a bit. Being in training and shift changes have impacted on my seeing friends whilst I'm out and about. When we do speak it's often them asking how I am so I often don't know what's going on with them.
To be more thoughtful I'm trying to consider some of the non-material needs some of my friends have right now and how I can help, maybe just by spending time, listening or making them a cuppa.
I'm also continuing to develop my ideas around the needs of the staff I work with, and how these might be met from a spiritual perspective. Helping people feel valued is important in any community - work, family, friends or church.

Care For Your Friends More

It's that point during Lent when I get to reflect upon what a bad friend I am- at least physically. I think about my friends everyday and I try to keep in touch with them electronically, but the realities of work, family and training make is difficult to spend actual time with them. When it comes to sending birthday cards on time I'm a total failure! But I am thinking of them, I'm praying for them, and I'm looking forward to a time when things are a bit less hectic and we can spend more actual time together.

A feast of rich food

Today has been rather lovely. I attended the mid - week eucharist at my placement church, St Matthew's Stretford, this morning and followed that this afternoon by making lots of lovely preserves which I give as Christmas presents. There were more pressing matters- coursework and Sunday's sermon- but I just needed a day for me and for my annual ritual.
One of the readings we had this morning was from Isaiah chapter 25, part of which reads:
"...the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear".
A reminder that God has wonderful things in store for us and wants us to live an abundant life.
The LLLA task for today was thinking back over the year and thanking God for our "best bits". The times I am most thankful for are invariably the shared family times- cuddles, a takeaway, a film- or wine and food shared with friends- cheese, wine and boardgames on my birthday or a summer meal in the garden. It's during these simple times, spent in the company of those I love, that I've felt happiest. I'm thankful for so many other things such as my learning experiences and meaningful connections within my work but home, family, friends and sharing good things, in its simplicity, fills me with joy.

Care for your friends more

There is much more to a good friendship than remembering birthdays...I hope...because if that's how these things are measured I'm pretty appalling. Well, it's not necessarily remembering that's the issue, it's doing something about it. I'm rubbish- especially where using the postal service is concerned. The procurement of stamps and visiting post boxes seem beyond me- so praise be for Moonpig, Getting Personal and other such companies who help me with this terrible affliction.
Despite my best efforts I had misplaced a couple of birthdays along the way so I took the opportunity to correct this today, sending a card for a missed birthday last week (sorry Al!) and finally remembering to give another friend a pressie from her February birthday (sorry Lorna!)
I'm doubt I'll ever get much better at this, but I do love you all despite my forgetfulness/lack of organisation.  Forgive me..?

Be More Friendly

Being friendly to someone new, as was today's task, is pretty easy to accomplish as there's lots of lovely new girls at work. The thing is, they're all so delightful it's impossible not to be friendly towards them! But reading some of my friends' Facebook updates today it's actually reasonably rare for a lot of people to be in a situation where they are with new people. 

Meeting new people can be terrifying, depending upon the circumstances but  the ways in which I meet new people mean it's usually they who are frightened. This isn't because I'm scary by the way!! It's because when I meet a new person it's usually a new patient- maybe even newly diagnosed, or the relative of a patient, or a new staff member as mentioned above.
The best thing I can do in any of these circumstances is just show a bit of understanding, patience and kindness.

Leviticus 19.18: but you shall love your neighbour as yourself

'Tis the season to be jolly!

Today was all about celebrating friendship.
A well earned day off- and time to spend with the kids at last- so we headed off for tea and cake this morning with good friends. This afternoon some other friends popped round for a cuppa and their son (our boy's BFF) has stayed for tea and a sleepover.
Having people in your life who you choose to have there and spend time with, simply because they are a delight to your heart, is a blessing indeed.

Care For Your Friends more

Anyone who ever expects to receive a birthday card through the post from knows that I can sometimes...or all the time...be a little, well...after the fact. This isn't just limited to birthdays- I seem to be tardy with anything that requires the use of the postal service. I have no idea why.
Today's task was something I've already attempted to do for 2013- make a list of everyone's birthdays and remember to send cards. I've purchased a lovely birthday book from Paperchase (any excuse to purchase stationery items) and everyone's birthday has been noted- a couple of people may even be able to confirm receiving cards within a few days of their birthday (Sarah..?). Yay me!
I also today finally completed my phone a friend task (phones, along with the postal system, are my achilles heel) and was so happy that I did! I spoke to a friend who's been unwell for several months and it was lovely to speak to her.
I asked the kids to find out their best friend's birthdays- we'll see in the morning if they did.

1 Thessalonians 3:12
And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.

Keep in Touch

Today's task was the first one that I didn't really manage, mostly due to circumstances- mainly the fact that I was in work from 7.30am to 9pm.
The task was to phone someone you love but haven't spoken to for a while, but being able to do that in a work environment was rather difficult.
I feel really disappointed that this was today's task, and that I failed, because it's something I have ridiculous amounts of guilt over.
Mike did manage it though- he phoned one of our friends who even though they live close we've not seen for a while and I think it did them both good.
I'm hoping I'll be able to do today's task tomorrow!

Be More Friendly

Today we had to be friendly to someone new- not the easiest task on a day when what I do and who I see is so structured.
To start with I was very friendly to the slightly abrupt lady at the garden centre where we went for breakfast (breakfast date!) At work I tried to make a special effort to be friendly to everyone but especially the students, new doctor and new patient. I managed to talk to a consultant without using even veiled sarcasm- quite a feat!
The kids made an effort to play with someone who maybe they wouldn't usually.
I'm a bit excited about tomorrow's task, but that's for tomorrow's blog.

Leviticus 19:18
Love your neighbour as yourself

Enjoy The World

A much lovelier day today! All family members well and, as we're instructed to do today by LLLL, up for enjoying the world.
Today was definitely a day of enjoyment; a bit of a lie-in, visiting friends and meeting their ten week old baby, taking lunch and cakes to share with our friends, and this evening we'll see some more friends to celebrate a new house and a birthday.
The LLLL activity today is planting seeds. I have a large stash of seeds for various edible plants and I let the children choose what they wanted to grow. Faith went for basil and Jacob tomatos, in the hope we might get some soup as an end result!
Such a contrast between our days yesterday and today helps to put things into perspective. I've enjoyed wordly things today, but mostly I've enjoyed friendship and family. With my shift patterns we just get one day a week together as a foursome and it's utterly delightful when we feel the day has been used well.

Genesis 1:31
God saw all that He had made, and indeed it was very good

I'm sorry!

So after the marvellous pancake parties yesterday (the Jenklets celebrated at home with Nana) we are brought down to more solemn activities today as we are asked to "say sorry".
For the kids I've given them each a post-it note and told them to write down something they're sorry they did to each other recently. For myself attending the Ash Wednesday communion service with Ashing gives the opportunity to focus on the ways in which I feel I can be a better person, the things I've done that I wish I hadn't and to say sorry.
Writing this blog also gives me a chance to say sorry- being to caught up in daily life, work, kids and church there rarely seems to be an opportunity to stop, to spend time with friends, to truly listen to them and realise the ways in which they may be hurting, broken or in need.
So to my friends- I love you and I wish I saw you more. Maybe this year I'll be a bit less rubbish!

Psalm 51:10
Create in me a clean heart O God

www.livelent.net