Thursday 11 November 2010

CS Lewis from "Learning In Wartime" in "The Weight of Glory".

"The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun. We are mistaken when we compare war to "normal life." Life has never been normal. Even those periods we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out on closer inspection, to be full of crises, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They propound theorems in beleagured cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss poetry while advancing on the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature."

"It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received."

"What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent: 100 percent of us die and the percentage cannot be increased. Yet war does do something to death. It forces us to remember it. The only reason that cancer at sixty or paralysis at 75 do not bother us is that we forget them.All schemes of happiness centered in this world were always doomed to final frustration. In ordinary times only a wise man can realize it. Now the stupidest of us knows it."

CS Lewis. The Weight of Glory.

Thursday 4 November 2010

The MRCGP week.

I am writing for the YLCF's peek into your week.

I have just sat my (part one) exam of my MRCGP, which is my post-graduate qualification in General Practice (Family Practice) with results due in 2 weeks time so I am in post-exam mode meaning that other things can become important again!

So my "schedule" has adjusted this week to account for this. I work part time on a General Practice training scheme, Tuesdays, Wednesday morning and Thursdays. So I will write about this past week because that is becoming the new normal.

Monday

I had a few appointments to keep but was up and reading my bible around nine am. I tend to take extended periods on my non working days to read my bible and pray. This is not due to some great amount of discipline on my part but because of my own need of it. At the moment I reading through Isaiah, Luke and 1 Samuel. Especially at the moment I am struck by passages in Isaiah that demonstrate God's sovereignty and control of our lives.
Mid-morning I drive to the doctor's surgery where I use to work and pick up a dictaphone ordered for me by the practice manager. I sit and chat with the doctors during their coffee break. Back home I quickly eat some lunch and walk into town for my hairdressing appointment. I managed to leave my purse at home so have to run home to pick it up, go back to the hairdresser to pay the bill. On the way home through the park, rain is sprinkling, scattered clouds against the cool blue and red and orange leaves falling from the trees.
I meet a lady from church going to pick up her grandson from school and we talk, wind tugging at the trees. I fly back into town pay my bill and meet with the Church minister for a coffee.
Back home I eat, my dinner and start thinking through work the next day.

Tuesday

I am doing the unscheduled care clinic in the morning, lots of variety and last-minuteness and then have an afternoon discussing different issues with the pharmacist. I need creams and gloves from Body Shop due to my hand ezcema flaring up so rush to the shops in the late afternoon for this.

Wednesday

I go to GP Registrar teaching, small groups of doctors meeting to discuss cases and different educational topics. In the afternoon, I need to do various jobs including going to the bank and decide to watch the Social Network at the cinema. After the film, I sit in the theatre cafe and start writing an article for the church magazine which I need to submit at the end of November. Then I go to the church bible study which is looking at King Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20.

Thursday

Today I am duty doctor so at work early, dealing with house calls in the morning, telephoning advice and last minute appointments in the afternoon. In the evening, I take things easy, unwinding from quite a stressful day.

Friday

Today I meet a friend who has finished night shift at the children's hospital for breakfast at a cafe- pancakes, bacon and maple syrup and tea or coffee and lots of conversation. Then I buy some mint tea bags from a special coffee shop that I want to give to a Lebanese friend as a gift and grab another quick cup of tea and finish my book in a different cafe. I text my Lebanese friend to arrange meeting up and my arabic lesson. This afternoon I have practiced the piano, and have various admin and computer work to do.

Saturday and Sunday

Neither of these days have arrived yet but I have a meal to look forward to at an Italian restaurant with a friend on Saturday night before the prayer meeting along with more computer work and housework. Sunday will be playing in the church music group, relaxing in the afternoon and then the evening service.

I have been challenged of late to regard my singleness as an opportunity to be flexible, to have a wide circle of friends and interests, to show hospitality and to read and the study the bible in a more focussed way. I have at times been full of self-pity and so wasted time that I could of used better and forming a more disciplined schedule for Monday and Friday especially is part of this. There are a few things I wish to focus on :-
  • Keeping "home" in my flat and so finding it easier to be generous with hospitality.
  • More focussed bible study
  • Giving a "whole heart and mind" at work and so being a good witness and showing care to those who need it.
  • Arabic language study

Those are my big projects and so I need to break down my days to see those through.

"Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."
Ephesians ch 5 vs 16-17 (NIV)

Friday 13 August 2010

What makes us write.

Writing is like an excitement and bubbling up of ideas that are crying out to be there on the page, where images spring to life in the reader's mind and descriptions and concepts make the mind soar.

Good writing feeds the mind, so that the heart is stirred.
Reading of books conversely fill us up with what can then be expressed well, so that the mind is strengthened and it's powers of articulation improved.

I have been reading in Sharon James' Gentle Rain on Tender Grass (readings through the Pentateuch) of God's creativety. We are made in his image so that his creativety is in us, and a meaningful expression of this is the written word.

I have such a mix and variety of thoughts as to how we are at one and the same time, enthused to seek truth and knowledge out (through reading of God's word and good books) but at the same time create our own stories and ink on the page.

Oh, that I might treasure what has been given me and seek it with all my heart.

Thursday 15 July 2010

Nightly journeys- where is this place?

Out in the deep blowing darkness
Sky finally turned navy blue at eleven pm
With gaps of pale turquoise left as patches
Glimmering in the darkness a star

Twilight at six pm, dusk suddenly imminent
Cicadas making music in the trees
Evening star, venus, pale blue looking down
Dusty warm air cooling down

Long journey in second class three tier
Plunging through the dark night
Lights in the bush, a distant village
Fires burning bright

Taxi ride through rubber plantations
Trees standing tall in straight lines
Climbing into the cool hills, darkness falls
Headlights chasing each other up the road
Night rushing past till journey's end.

Rebekah Dickinson July 2010

Wednesday 9 June 2010

Love

Sonnet 116

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
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

William Shakespeare

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

1 Corinthians 13:4-6

Friday 21 May 2010

Bitter Things

Be strong
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift
We have hard work to do and loads to lift
Shun not the struggle; face it
'Tis God's gift.

Phillips Brooks

I thank God for the bitter things;
They've been a friend to grace
They've driven me from the paths of ease
To storm the secret place.

Florence White Willets

Sunday 9 May 2010

William Wilberforce (1759-1833)

Let us not despair; it is a blessed cause, and success, ere long, will crown our exertions. Already we have gained one victory; we have obtained, for these poor creatures, the recognition of their human nature, which, for a while was most shamefully denied. This is the first fruits of our efforts; let us persevere and our triumph will be complete. Never, never will we desist till we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name, released ourselves from the load of guilt, under which we at present labour, and extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonour to this country.

William Wilberforce,speech before the House of Commons, 18 April 1791

Reviews that are worthy of a great review.

I love old books. I love Little Women, Jane Eyre and Anne of Green Gables. Such books are such a feast of word and thought that you can read again and again and you find such a balm in going back to them. The heroines inspire and amuse and wake up a well of creativety.

I don't know I have come accross a recent contemporary writer with a similar propensity with one notable exception. This writer is not well known and she has not written any published material in the normal sence of someone with such a gift.

Her name is Lanier Ivester and she is a housewife and lives in the state of Georgia. She has not published in the traditional sence but she blogs at http://www.laniersbooks.com/

Read here to find reviews that recommend, and teach just as much as they enthuse on the books themselves.

They are worthy of a review and the author should consider writing and publishing herself, as she has been told before!

Friday 7 May 2010

Extracts from Psalm 73

Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart,

But as for me, my foot had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold,
For I envied the arrogant when I saw the
prosperity of the wicked
....

When my heart was grieved and
my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you
....

Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterwards you will take me into glory.
....

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion for ever.
....

Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you
....

But as for me it is good to be near God.
I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.

Tuesday 27 April 2010

The Love of God by Frederick M. Lehman

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain

O love of God,
how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—The saints’ and angels’ song.

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

By Frederick M. Lehman. Written in 1917, and published in Songs That Are Different, Volume 2, 1919, based on the Jewish poem, Haddumut, written in 1050 by Neir Ben Isaac Nehorai.

Mrs Mary Livingstone

Mary Livingstone

A Poem written for her husband David, after a long separation :-

Do you think I would reproach you with the sorrows that I bore?
Since the sorrow is all over now, I have you here once more.
And there is nothing but the gladness and the love within my heart,
And a hope so sweet and certain that never again we'll part

A hundred thousand welcomes! How my heart is gushing o'er
With the love and joy and wonder just to see your face once more.
How did I live without you all those long long years of woe?
It seems as if it would kill me to be parted from you now.

You'll never part me darling, there is a promise in your eye;
I may tend you while I am living, you will watch me when I die.
And if death but kindly lead me to the blessed home on high,
What a hundred thousand welcomes will await you in the sky!

Mary Livingstone (1821-1862)

Written for the 11th December 1856 after his return from Africa.

(Source : Good Wives? by Margaret Forster pg 57-58 Vintage 2001)

Thursday 22 April 2010

Ode to a Nightingale

Read at the end of the film Bright Star.

Ode to a Nightingale

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,

That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.


O for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country-green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South!

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stainèd mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:


Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.


Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.


I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.


Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

To thy high requiem become a sod.


Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that ofttimes hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.


Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

John Keats

Friday 26 March 2010

Mending up holes and learning lessons.

"I must put down a dear little story told me by my friend this morning. Her small niece, aged somewhere between three and four, was heard telling the parable of the lost sheep to a cousin a year or two older. The finale was, "So the Shepherd put back the lamb into the fold, and then he mended up the hole where it had got out."
All of sanctification as well as salvation lay in the wisdom of those child-lips" (Ezekiel 34:15-16)


"Oh the desert is lovely in it's restfulness. The great brooding stillness over and through everything is so full of God. One does not wonder that He used to take His people in to the wilderness to teach them." (Mark 6:31)

Lilias Trotter from "A Blossom in the Desert"

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Thomas Brooks and the right focus.

Focussing on the Right Thing:-





"The first device that Satan has to keep souls in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition, and so making their life a hell, is by causing them to be still poring and musing upon sin, to mind their sins more than their Savior; yes, so to mind their sins as to forget, yes, to neglect their Savior, that, as the Psalmist speaks, 'The Lord is not in all their thoughts' (Psalm 10:4). Their eyes are so fixed upon their disease, that they cannot see the remedy, though it be near; and they do so muse upon their debts, that they have neither mind nor heart to think of their Surety. A Christian should wear Christ in his bosom as a flower of delight, for he is a whole paradise of delight. He who minds not Christ more than his sin, can never be thankful and fruitful as he should."
- Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices