Wednesday 30 April 2008

Aren't computers meant to SAVE time?

Before I went into hospital, I bought a new PC off ebay. Just the CPU – the idea being that I would transfer all my stuff from the old PC to the new, and use the old monitor, keyboard and mouse (which were all reasonably new). Simple, yes? No. Snag number 1 was that I hadn’t paid much attention to the specification of the new CPU – the processor is fast and there is plenty of RAM etc., but it takes a USB mouse and keyboard. Some while back at the previous PC upgrade time, I had been given a special switching device that enables you to run two computers using the same keyboard, mouse and monitor, but the new PC wasn’t compatible with this. I spent much of Monday sorting out a spare monitor and buying a very cheap usb keyboard and mouse. Finally both computers were running and it was time to start transferring stuff across. Snag number 2: I couldn’t fathom out how to get them talking to each other across the home network. That required Dave’s expertise, and now he’s moved out into his new home, he wasn’t around to do it for a couple of days. Meanwhile I decided to start loading software onto the new PC, starting with the programme I use to manage the finances. I bought it back in 1997, and it came on a floppy disk. Snag number 3: the new PC has a blank where you’d normally expect to find the floppy disk drive. Oh well – I could copy the programme from the old PC via a flashcard memory stick, yes? All seemed to be going well until I tried to install it, and it was missing a file. For some reason, it didn’t even occur to me to search the old PC for the missing file! That obvious solution took Dave less than 2 minutes – when I’d spent maybe a couple of hours trying to get the thing sorted out. Galling. I think by then I’d got myself into a somewhat negative frame of mind, disbelieving my own resourcefulness. Even finding my way around the new operating system more slowly than I would wish was knocking my confidence.

I wanted to transfer all my old email messages (from three separate ‘identities’) from the old PC to the new. I managed to do that once before, and really didn’t anticipate it would be a problem. It wasn’t – for Dave. After I’d struggled with it for several hours and failed, Dave took about 4 minutes to set the first identity transfer. It took a long time to download across the network, but finally the first identity was complete with email addresses and old messages. By then Dave had gone home. He does things so quick – click, click, click – that it’s hard to follow, so today despite my best efforts and about three hours-worth of trying, I haven’t managed to transfer the emails from the other two identities. This led to an interesting conversation with Vic. I wondered if subconsciously I’m sabotaging my own efforts because of some ambivalence. I find myself wondering WHY am I so keen to hang on to old email messages or newsgroup posts. Wasn’t this a wonderful chance to start afresh, a whole ‘clean slate’? We joked about how Vic hoards ‘things’ – the garage is literally packed out with things that ‘might come in useful one day’ – and I hoard ‘words’, paperwork or information. Just as he can lay his hand on almost anything in the garage despite the considerable amount stored there, so I can generally lay my hands on the information I seek. Old email messages represent history – if I forget when a family event happened, I can find out with a quick search through old mail messages. Maybe buried in my subconscious is still the ancient dream of becoming ‘a writer’ (in reverent tone!), along with the belief that somewhere in all these saved words are just the ones I need to bring a book to life. As I write this journal entry, I’m still undecided whether to get Dave back to complete the transfer process for me.

Wednesday 9 April 2008

DCIS - update

Had an appointment with the Breast Surgeon this morning - he is pleased with the healing of the wound but has suggested a further operation in order to remove a bit more tissue, as the margins of the area removed showed precancerous cells. Ideally he would wish to operate again 4 - 6 weeks after the previous operation, ie two to four weeks from today.

Forgot all about it for a while in the evening when my friends from Cell group came round for a Bring and Share supper. Vic joined in, and altogether there were twelve of us sat around the table enjoying the occasion, with all manner of good food set before us.

Friday 4 April 2008

Change

On the TV news there was a brief article about Martin Luther King, it being the 40th anniversary of his assassination. What caught my attention was the description of him as a man who loved the world enough to want to change it. When I introspected on why that phrase had penetrated my inattention, the following words came to mind:
Love is not love which seeks to change that which it lovely finds.
I identified it as part of a sonnet by Shakespeare – but when I googled the sonnet, I discovered I had mis-remembered it.

Instead it reads:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
I have sometimes heard Christians affirm that there's nothing we can do to make God love us more, and nothing we do will make Him love us less – which is expressing Shakespeare's sentiments in other words.


Taking these thoughts into the context of other recent thoughts including the poem by Hafiz, 'It felt love', about the rose opening its heart and giving its beauty to the world encouraged by the light, I moved on to an understanding that loving isn't about seeking to change, but offering freedom – granting permission - to change along with the ideal environment to enable the object of love to show its true colours. At church a young lady recently stood in front of everyone and acknowledged that she had felt very ugly when she first joined, but now she feels beautiful – it was really great to hear her acknowledge that, because she does indeed LOOK daily more beautiful, and is a great testimony to the power of love to transform. I guess the beauty must always have been there, but perhaps something in her posture or expression was keeping the beauty hidden until the inner healing released her to show her 'true colours'.


Today's 'A Course in Miracles' affirmation includes the idea that I AM limitless in peace and power. I turned back to contemplating Martin Luther King's impact on the world, and what it takes to change the world:




  • "Be the change you want to see in the world"?


  • "I have a dream …" - offering visionary leadership/ inspiring/motivating others?


  • 'Acts of Random Kindness' (from the film Evan Almighty)?


I thought about the 'Challenge Anneka' series – which showed how one person engaging with others, communicating, empowering, etc. could draw together the necessary resources to achieve a shared goal. What changes would I want to make in the world? What would it take?

Thursday 3 April 2008

Love or Ego?

I was thinking some more about Tuesday's training session. The trainer wrote 'Projection' on the board and asked us what it is. In that moment, a fairly comprehensive definition of the psychological theory of projection was available to me yet I quelled the impulse to speak, deciding to hold back and listen to other members of the group. An inner voice suggested I not make a show of my learning. I thought some more about that this morning, prompted by one of The Word for Today's set Bible readings:

If a person sins because he does not speak up when he hears a public charge to testify regarding something he has seen or learned about, he will be held responsible. (Leviticus 5:1)

I realised that I had quelled the child in me, the enthusiastic, responsive child that would have enjoyed sharing the knowledge. I realised that in quelling that first, natural impulse to give away what I had received, I had listened not to the spirit of humility but to the ego; had behaved inauthentically!

No need to beat myself up about it, however. The title of today's 'Word for Today' is Redeemed!

Praise the Lord, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits –
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
(Psalm 103:1-5)

Wednesday 2 April 2008

It Felt Love




From "The Gift" by Hafiz:


It Felt Love

How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its
Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened.



This was the poem with which our trainer began yesterday's 'Growing in Awareness and Practice' course session, along with a gift for each of us – a camellia blossom - see photo (it being a little early in the season to find roses in bloom in the garden).

It was another very enjoyable and thought-provoking session. With a wide selection of greetings cards on the floor in the middle of the group, we were invited to choose one and say what we liked or didn't like about it.

I picked a black and white photo of a young couple sharing a chair on a sun terrace beside the sea, their legs propped up on the sea wall. The man had evidently sat in the chair first, his back supported by the back of the chair, then the woman had sat down and lain back against him, his arms around her chest and her head resting against him, his cheek inclined to rest gently against her hair. On the sea wall beside their legs was one beer bottle. What I liked about it was:

· the pose, and the close, intimate, supportive relationship the image suggested;

· that it was a b/w photo – all of it captured by light/shade with no colour distracting;

· the expression of contentment on the woman's face;

· her hand reaching up to affirm him by touching his arm;

· the tenderness in his expression as he rested his face against her head;

· the one beer bottle – again suggesting a theme of sharing intimacy;

· that it evoked in me memories of sitting in the sun enjoying the whole relaxing sea side experience;

What I didn't like: when I looked at the pose more closely, I noticed that her bum wasn't supported, that the pose was very carefully contrived and in all likelihood, was not as comfy and relaxed in reality as it appeared at first glance – inauthentic.

After we'd had time to think about the card we each had chosen, we were invited to put a tick beside anything we'd attributed to the image which we don't recognise in ourselves. I ticked 'young' and 'contrived/inauthentic'. Ticking 'young' wasn't as easy as it sounds – there was an inner debate. In some ways I still feel 'young' – nice ways, like feeling energetic, enthusiastic, full of wonder at life's revelations, that sort of thing – yet in another way I didn't want to deny the belief that I have moved into a new level of maturity in recent years, that has little to do with my chronological age. Interesting.

We talked about projection and fragmentation – about what happens in a group when someone demonstrates a behaviour that I absolutely refuse to own. I suggested the Biblical story of the woman caught in adultery being brought before Jesus by the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, and how we may want to metaphorically stone someone, not recognising that we are really rejecting an attribute which if we believed it of ourselves, might not allow us to retain a comfortable view of who we are.


Tuesday 1 April 2008

April Fool

When I got in from dance class last night, David was watching an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation ('Where no one has gone before'). I sat and watched the ending, where the Traveler talks about his journey and how curiosity prompted him to want to experience the Star Trekker's reality. The theme was the power of thought – which fits in well with my own learning programme. On Sunday evening I prayed aloud at the prayer meeting – a confession of how sometimes I get in a comfortable place where it feels nice and safe, like I know what it's all about – then God breaks into my life afresh and surprises and delights me. Then Monday I learnt that there had been a literal 'break in' in my life (as mentioned in yesterday's blog: an intruder had broken into the old shed over the allotment Sunday night). Patrick (at the allotments – not Patrick Stewart!) had shown me the place where he thinks the intruders climbed over a fence to gain access to the allotments. I was privately amused rather than concerned by the break in – I've occasionally wondered why I lock the old shed anyway. In a way it reminded me of an incident many years ago. I'd given my brother a music cassette for his birthday – I think it may have been an Elton John tape – and he was highly amused when his car was broken into and most of his tapes stolen, that the cassette I'd given him was left on the seat, as though tossed there disdainfully by the thief. "A thief with good taste in music!" he joked.

This morning I woke with the words "Just to let you know there's someone on the other side of the fence" in my mind – as though whispered there by a departing dream. I thought about it in the shower – about what a fence represents; for example, we talk about 'sitting on the fence'. It occurred to me that a fence often defines a boundary, and in doing so, defines the limits of responsibility. I thought about something I've read recently – that if we surrender our life to the Holy Spirit and invite His decisions for every choice we encounter, the paradoxical freedom this brings.

I'm reading through a friend's novel, making comments as I go. It's the sequel to the one I mentioned previously, and so far proving a most enjoyable read with sparkling dialogue. It's set in India, and one of the characters is a young teenage boy, homeless, yet who is far more than his appearance indicates. I liked the author's understanding of how early-life challenge can develop strong character and resourcefulness (something we are inadvertently protecting many of our youngsters from in this society).

Now it's time for part three in the 'Growing in Awareness and Practice' training course, but before I go ... there was an article in today's Telegraph about penguins that fly .... to the Amazon Rain Forest for a summer holiday in the sun, when bad weather sets in! telegraph.co.uk/tvondemand