Family and friends will know I like to bake the odd cake. My most frequent cake is a chocolate one – a family favourite with reliable results. The trouble is that baking is an art, not a science, and while you can follow the recipe and control the variables fairly well, no two home-made cakes are identical. (Not even this pair I cooked up with a friend recently, though they came pretty close...)
Things go wrong sometimes (that’s life). And the last time I made my usual cake, the poor sponge couldn’t quite take the weight of the icing I poured on the top.
The icing on the cake was the straw that broke the camel’s back, I thought. Which just goes to show that I don’t actually think about the things I put into words. If George Orwell was alive today he’d be turning in his grave. (I wish I had come up with this line, but it’s actually a misquote from the film Brassed Off.) Orwell lamented the decline of the English language, noting (amongst other things) that “incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying”.
But isn’t that part of what makes language fun?
Some days it’s hard to climb the stairs.
Each step seems far too high,
My legs too weak
To carry me.
Some days it’s hard to finish a task.
I struggle to see a reason why
I should not put it off
Until tomorrow.
Some days it’s hard to keep worry at bay,
The anxious thoughts,
The nervous tension,
Panic, guilt and shame.
Some days it’s hard to stand up tall,
Pinned to the bed or couch
By a small voice of fear that says
There is no point at all.
Some days it’s hard to climb the stairs,
And some days I bounce up them
Two at a time.
Mind-reading is a complex business. No, really. Sometimes there’s too much interference going on to be able to see clearly inside someone else’s head and read their thoughts...
One of the things I find tricky - especially in a professional environment - is doing work for someone who has a fixed vision of the outcome. It can be demoralising to put effort into something and then to be sent away to do it again, and difficult to be patient with requests for changes that seem insignificant or contradictory. I often reach the point of thinking, why don’t they just do it themselves?
It can be hard to please perfectionists. It can be hard to please a group of people with varying opinions (as a book-cover-designer friend of mine will testify!). It can be hard to please people who are never really sure of what they think in the first place.
Yet I know on the inside that the root cause of my upset is really my own pride and selfishness. I want my tasks to be easy, and my efforts to be praised. It’s hard taking correction and admitting error or weakness. It’s not that I’m a better person - I’m sure I would be the same in their position (and quite possibly worse; relinquishing control and delegating is not easy!).
But wouldn’t it be great if we could use this kind of situation for good, instead of for fuelling our own resentment and negativity? Each instance of correction is an opportunity to serve. And serve again. To be patient and understanding, and to work hard to get it right. To accept someone else’s suggestions, and to learn for next time. To produce the second (or third, or fourth, or fiftieth) attempt with a smile. It’s not all about me.
I’ve heard it said that the danger of “switching off” to watch TV is that we can absorb all sorts of unhelpful messages without properly filtering them. I was recently watching an episode of BBC One’s Merlin (The Sword in the Stone, part 2), where Isolde says to the lovelorn Gwen yearning after King Arthur: “Never give up hope. Love is stronger than anything.”
I had to press pause and consider this for a minute. I thought about some of the things that my heart has yearned for, and I thought, actually, that’s not always the most helpful advice to give someone. I’m sure the same can be said for many of us - on our journeys through life, we desire things that we are not meant to have, that we cannot have, or that sometimes are just black-and-white wrong for us. Sometimes, we instead need people to say to us, “let go”.
The one thing - the only thing - in which we are to hope constantly is in Jesus, and in the joyful peace and the future promise that his death and resurrection offer to us.
“Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:22-23)
A couple of months ago I changed jobs. I am not a fan of change, although this particular change was not a bad one, so my outlook on the situation was somewhat mixed. In the fortnight’s gap between one contract ending and another beginning, I took advantage of the free time to make a few visits by train. On one of these journeys, waiting on a dull platform for a connecting train, I realised I was enacting a kind of microcosm of my general life situation, which in turn led me to some comforting conclusions.
Change is ok. It happens, and it doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. Sometimes there’s a wait involved, and sometimes a bit of uncertainty. Sometimes things don’t go quite the way you expect. But change can often mean progress. When you leave one train to board another, you intend to continue your journey onwards. You’ve got a final destination, but the train you were on wasn’t going to get you there.
One of my favourite fictional characters uses the train metaphor as an illustration of choice. Towards the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry is facing the challenge of returning to a difficult and dangerous situation (with a heroic motive, obviously). Dumbledore says to Harry (who believes their surreal surroundings are in fact King’s Cross station),
“I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to ... let’s say ... board a train.”
“And where would it take me?”
“On,” said Dumbledore simply.
I shall now endeavour to see changes in my life in this simple way. Don’t fear changes, enjoy a few minutes in the waiting room, and be a braver traveller, knowing that each change is taking you onwards.
Once upon a recent time, a girl began to write.
She wrote on subjects big and small, in order that she might
Make sense of all the many thoughts that drifted in her head,
And form some pleasant sentences and paragraphs instead.
These musings follow trains of thought on things humorous or odd,
Or how to work and bake and sing – all for the glory of God.
But on life's journey, most of all, fellow passengers shine through;
In all of life's adventures, she enjoys travelling with you.
