The Four Rs

 There are four activities (or perhaps in two cases, non-activities) which I find to be vital for my soul's continuing well-being. And this past few days, I have been indulging in all four of them, to my delight and joy... And for me, they are summed up in this lucky photo of my favourite beach in all the world, Benar Beach, which was taken earlier this year. There is something about the "permanence in motion" (to quote Stephen Donaldson) of sunlit waves which restores my soul. 

Benar Beach in mid-Wales (Sue Woolley)

What are my Four Rs? Rest, Relaxation, Reading, and that well-known honorary R, WRiting. I drove up to spend a few days with a very dear friend on Sunday afternoon, straight after leading worship in Shrewsbury (because that meant I was part way there already). My friend lives in a tiny hamlet in the Lake District and over the past few years, I have fallen into the very pleasant habit of spending a few days in her hospitable company three or four times a year. Both of us enjoy our time together very much.

The shape of my visits is unvarying - we indulge in extensive bouts of the three Cs - Canasta, Crochet and Conversation. As the days pass, I find myself sleeping in later and later, which does me good. And also travel to delightful towns which have good wool shops and bookshops. I will be travelling home with three new books... Bill Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors, Write to be Published by Nicola Morgan, and Illuminated Alphabets by Patricia Carter, all bought secondhand - wonderful! I've already read the Nicola Morgan book - I knew I recognised the name - I enjoyed her first novel, Mondays are Red, about a teenager with synaethesia - more than twenty years ago.

Reading is the only constant activity in my life. During 2023 so far, I have read 95 books. To be fair, many of those are re-reads, which take less time, but I have also discovered some new joys: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, Writing Down the Bones and Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg, Femina by Janina Ramirez, and The Poet's Manual and Rhyming Dictionary by Frances Stillman. All delightful, and in some cases, very useful.

How do you restore your soul?

it's an Inside Job

 I very much like this week's quotation, by Marcus Aurelius: "The ability to live happily comes from a power within the soul."

Because I do believe that happiness is an inside job. Let me declare one fact straight away: I am an optimist, married to a pessimist (although he would call himself a realist). I have blogged about this before, here, so I'm not going to repeat myself. Suffice it to say, I think I've got the better deal, as I am happier for more of the time...

The gorgeous postcard which accompanies this week's quote made me very happy. And reminded me of a special evening last year, when I was holidaying in mid-Wales with my best friend. We went down to the local beach to watch the sun setting, and it was completely glorious. Here is a photo I took with my phone that evening:

We were down there for about three quarters of an hour and were filled with awe and wonder at the beauty in front of us. And yes, happiness, that we were able to witness it. 

So this year, back at the same lovely holiday cottage with my husband, I decided to take him down to the beach to share the glory. Sadly, there were some clouds, which meant it wasn't quite the same, but when the sun came through a gap, the effect was equally stunning. It made me feel happy to be alive...

I read somewhere (I can't remember where) that individuals are born with an innate quota of happiness. So that even when something wonderful (or something dreadful) happens to them, although they may be happier (or sadder) in the short term, they will eventually revert to their default happiness level. I think the example given was lottery winners, who are thrilled when they win a substantial sum of money, then discover that it hasn't really made a difference to their happiness in the long term.

Another example, used by Geneen Roth, is about losing weight. She says that people tend to put living their best and happiest lives off, until they've reached their desired weight, rather than being happy now, allowing themselves to be happy now. 

So happiness is also about trying to appreciate the present moment. Which I believe is a spiritual practice, like any other. I blogged about having a gratitude practice as recently as last month. It really is an inside job.

How do you nurture your own happiness?

Being Welcomed Here

 Kurt Haberstich once wrote, "It is more delightful to step through the open door of a humble house, than to stand before the locked gate of a palace."

I think he meant that it is the quality of welcome we receive that makes the difference. To hear the delight, the warmth, in someone's voice, when they invite us in, whether it is to their home, or their place of worship, gives us the confidence we need to proceed, to walk into a new situation.

Yet, offering a true welcome to strangers can be difficult. We have to remember that each human being is "unique, precious, a child of God," as the Quakers say. It is far too easy for us to retreat into judgement, into "othering", seeing other people as somehow less than we are ourselves. It can lead to all sorts of -isms: sexism, racism, classism, ageism, homophobia.

Ultimately, I believe our welcome should be offered to people as they truly are, rather than pre-judging them by how they identify themselves, or how we identify them - by what they look like, how they dress, the colour of their skin, the number of their piercings or tattoos, their age, their religious faith, their sexual orientation, their gender. Whenever we choose to judge people in that way, we are guilty of being non-inclusive, of putting up that metaphorical drawbridge, which says, "You are not welcome here."

Sadly, this seems to be all too prevalant in UK society today, no matter what we look like or whom we are attracted to. Why do we do this to ourselves, to each other? We are all human beings, each one unique, each one worthy of love and justice and respect, each one with unique gifts to offer the world. As my friend, Yvonne Aburrow, once wrote, "everyone is an unique combination of beauty and diversity, and we should celebrate that. And each form of oppression of that beauty and diversity is different, with its own distinct history, which is different in different places, which is why we need feminism, and LGBT liberation, and Black liberation, and the disability rights campaign, rather than a single, munged-together 'human' campaign."

I believe we need to learn to be aware of ourselves and each other as "unique combinations of beauty and diversity" and to respect and appreciate the struggles that each of us goes through to be recognised as such. And welcome all, regardless of superficial differences.

    

Time to Relax

 American journalist, Sydney J. Harris, once wrote, "The time to relax is when you don't have the time for it."

And there are times when we look at the postcard which came with this week's quote, when we sigh in longing, wishing we were there, on that comfortable hammock, looking out to sea and relaxing. 

At first sight, Harris's advice may seem paradoxical - how on earth are we supposed to relax when we don't have the time for it? It might even make us feel angry - what the **** is he talking about? But over the years, I have found that it is very good advice indeed. Because when we get too busy, rushing from one task to the next without even a breathing space in between, that is when it becomes impossible to pay proper attention to what we are supposed to be doing, and the results are rarely good. 

Yet if we strive to take a more leisured approach to the to-do list, giving ourselves a little resting space between each task, we will be able to move from one to the next with a clearer mind, and not get so wound up in what we *have to* (which is often self-imposed pressure) get done. 

I believe that this advice has become ever more important in the past few years, as more and more of us have begun to work from home, following the pandemic. And if we are not careful, it can be difficult to maintain proper boundaries between "work life" and "home life". Yet boundaries are so important, otherwise we will never be able to properly rest, relax.

One thing I have begun to do in the past few years, is to try to only answer work-related e-mails when I'm using my work PC. Rather than when they pop up on my phone. Because if I'm not sitting at my work PC, or doing ministerial work outside my home, I really shouldn't be working. And answering work-related e-mails *is* work. Our mobile phones can be a tremendous source of temptation - they are always to hand, constantly pinging for our attention (unless we've turned all the alerts off). I blogged about my own mobile's insidious influence here.

So these days, I try to consciously separate work time from relax time. And feel very much better for it. How do you maintain the boundaries between work and home?