great expectations

or: just because you got hurt, it doesn't mean they're nasty

sometimes people hurt other people not because of any nasty intentions but simply because of the two parties having different expectations of whatever-it-is that they're getting into.

I remember years ago when I had a mad crush on a very charming Irish guy and I came across a book that was a tongue-in-cheek attempt to tell you all you ever needed to know about Irish men. The one and only thing I remember from that book now was this: when an Irish guy says to a woman "I'll call you" - she hears "I'll call you tomorrow" whilst what he means is "I'll call you sometime between now and the day I die"...

I also remember another crush, this time over a colleague at work (yes, I know, bad idea, but I was young and foolish in my mid 30s) - a phone call from him asking if I'd like to come for lunch at some trendy new place round the corner certainly got my expectations up!!! but he hadn't said "just you and me", so I couldn't blame him when I was upset to find there was a whole bunch of us round the table. I was hurt, but he hadn't set out to hurt my feelings. (at least I don't think he had. of course I did also meet some guys along the way who were actually nasty, but I don't think this one was.)

but this isn't just about romance - the expectations thing happens in all sorts of situations. I think there's tons of scope for it to happen on social networking sites - Jane invites Diane to be her "friend" on an SN site, Jane being the kind of person who collects online contacts with no particular intention to build relationships, and Diane being a very needy person who has suffered lots of rejection and looks at every such invitation as a promise of undying friendship.

it's tricky, because so much of this stuff goes unsaid. people don't often state clearly what their expectations are. often we just assume that everyone else sees things the same way we do. sometimes we're embarrassed to confess to our weakness, so we don't state our needs - what if I say I'm looking for really deep friendship and it turns out the other person wasn't, I might feel I'd made an idiot of myself.

no contracts, no signed agreements, no listing of the ground rules - therefore plenty of scope for misunderstandings and for disappointment. we let other people down sometimes without being aware of it at all - like that guy at work who invited me to lunch, not knowing what I was hoping for...

and so, when we get hurt because someone didn't live up to the hopes we had, the thing is to look at the situation realistically and ask ourselves: did X actually promise us this rose garden that we were hoping for, or is it just what we allowed ourselves to believe?

it's hard to do that - to separate out our hurt from the people who hurt us. but if someone steps on my toe when they don't even know my toe is there, I can't really blame them.

so one goes somewhere quiet to weep, and forgives them for they knew not what they were doing.

the clear English award...

does not go this year to HM Revenue & Customs (that's the tax authorities here in the UK) for their "How to fill in your Short Tax Return" guide, which had my head spinning whilst staring at one paragraph in particular.

(Note: the "did you start" in the heading refers to when it was that I started to be self-employed - I started in November 2007 and therefore this paragraph applies to me; the british tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April and the tax return I'm having to complete now is for the year to 5 April 2010.)

here's what they say - clear as mud...

Did you start between 6 April 2007 and 5 April 2008?

If you made up your first books to a date before 5 April 2009, put in boxes 3.7 to 3.10 (or 3.11) the figures for the year beginning on the day after your last end of year date, and ending on the end of year date between 6 April 2009 and 5 April 2010.

If you made up your first books to a date after 5 April 2009, you cannot use this form.

I did eventually manage to understand what I'm supposed to do (I think) but I could have had more hair left on my head if they'd have actually written this thing in English in the first place.

so fed up with all this "93% won't" nonsense!

once again I get an email supporting a good cause but absolutely doing my head in with the emotional blackmail that's added in: 93% of people won't forward this... will you be one of those who... yada yada

if only they didn't include this rubbish, I might have actually read the whole thing, and who knows, I might even have chosen to forward the email. but I'm afraid I get so annoyed when I see these things that I just press Delete.

maybe this is why 93% won't forward it? because 93% are fed up to the back teeth with the amount of emotional blackmail they get from their friends on the email? (not to mention all those facebook status update things.)

how about a slightly more respectful approach? how about emailing and saying: you know, there's this cause which I feel is important, I wonder if you'd like to support it to by forwarding the email to others? I wonder what percentage of people would rise to that...

come back logic, all is forgiven

Again and again I see this stuff in blogs and in replies to blogs: people saying there's no such thing as absolute truth, there's what's true for you and what's true for me... and I find myself imagining this scene:

I'm in the supermarket, standing in the milk aisle, looking at the milk. I can see blue top milk and green top milk, I can see two-pint containers and four-pint containers and one-pint containers of milk.

A man standing next to me says: hey, you want to say it's milk - that's cool. if that's what makes you happy, you go on thinking it's milk. that's your truth. me - I see it as strawberry ice cream. that's my truth.

Another guy comes along and says: that's fine, that's your truth, as long as it makes you happy... to me this is the Eiffel Tower.

I want to know what drugs everybody has been taking.

And I sure hope what I bought in that 4-pint container this afternoon doesn't turn out to be strawberry ice cream, because it won't go that well with my muesli in the morning.

some ramblings about the pursuit of happiness

this subject has been coming at me from various directions recently - one friend posted an Ayn Rand quote and another posted something from the American Declaration of Independence, and it's got me into this very rambling train of thought, full of "on the other hand"s. So, as is my wont when these things happen, I've come here to ramble.

the Ayn Rand quote had two parts - the first was about valuing yourself, the second was about fighting for your happiness. the first bit I have no problem with whatsoever.

in fact, I believe we humans go through a humungous amount of unnecessary suffering because we undervalue ourselves. and I believe one of the most important messages people need to hear is: you are precious, you were made in God's image, he loves you so much that he sent his son to die in your place - that's how precious you are, not just to some ordinary human but to the creator of the universe himself!

so, yes, value yourself. definitely. you are precious, significant, a unique individual with your own unique gifts and God regards you as precious.

but does that necessarily mean you should fight for your happiness, as Ayn Rand suggested? (I'm not going to try and unpick the thing in the American Declaration of Independence about a right to pursue your happiness - the whole issue of what we mean by "a right" and where we might get these "rights" from is a whole 'nother story. Not for now.)

Now, I need to slightly digress here and say: sometimes there's stuff we read which can be really valuable for a certain person because of where they're at right now, and for another person it could be useless, or even dangerous, because of where they're at. It's to do with the journey we've been through, the things we have struggled with, the things we have yet to learn, the emotional scars that still need healing, etc.

It's a bit like the "slow" signs on the roads. I remember in one of my driving lessons, driving through a rather bendy road where the speed limit was 60mph but I was a bit scared so I was probably doing 40, I came to a "slow" sign and my driving instructor saw me reach for the brake pedal and said: no, don't slow down, that sign is for people doing 60 and more.

So if someone has been doing 25 on the "pursuit of happiness" road then perhaps they do need encouragement to speed up a bit. Whereas for those who tend to go over the speed limit anyway, what is more helpful is a "slow" sign.

End of detour. Back to the matter in hand: pursuing happiness, fighting for your happiness - here are my jumbled thoughts.

My immediate reaction, seeing this quote on a Christian friend's blog, was: but how can you square fighting for your happiness with the call to seek first the kingdom of God, trusting that he will provide all that we need? or with that stuff Jesus said about taking up your cross and following him? not to mention being prepared to face persecution for your faith?

But on the other hand - didn't Jesus say he came so that we may have abundant life? and doesn't God love me and want me to be happy?

And then again - what is happiness anyway? and how would one go about pursuing it, or fighting for it? Doesn't happiness tend to find you in some very unexpected places, when you're busy doing other things, maybe even doing things for other people - when you've decided to take up your cross, to forgo your own happiness for the sake of others?

We've been told to love others as we love ourselves - which does kind of presuppose that we do love ourselves, and if I met someone who doesn't then I would start with that, I wouldn't start by preaching selflessness to them. This goes back to my earlier driving analogy. If a person is very egocentric then they need to learn to love others more, but if a person is a virtual doormat then they need to learn to value themselves more.

But assuming we've got that bit in place, the loving ourselves bit, then we are told to love others as we love ourselves - so pursuing my own happiness shouldn't be at the top of my agenda. I'm not saying it shouldn't be there at all - just that it shouldn't become more important than pursuing other people's happiness.

As a Christian, what should be at the top of my agenda? Loving God and loving others.

Jesus told us to seek first God's kingdom and trust that our Father knows what we need and will take care of us. So yes, God loves me and wants what's best for me, and knowing how much he values me, how precious I am to him, I can trust him to provide all that I need. (though not necessarily what I'd like and when I'd like it...) I don't think he wants me to put my efforts into chasing after happiness, I think he'd much rather I pursued his agenda and not mine, trusting in his love and faithfulness.

And of course if I love God, then doing his will is where I'll find true happiness.

But on the other hand... if a person has been overdoing the selfless sacrifice side of things, then it may be that God's message to them where they're at is: hey, loosen up a bit, you don't actually have a responsibility to fix the problems of everyone in the universe - that's my job. Stop working so hard. Go get an ice cream, take a walk in the park, play with the kids/pets/whatever, take time to actually enjoy life!

Some people undervalue themselves and need to learn their true value as precious individuals made in God's image. Some people overvalue themselves and need to learn to put others first. It's a question of achieving a healthy balance. Valuing myself correctly - not too little and not too much - means I can say: I deserve happiness just as much as everyone else, and everyone else deserves happiness just as much as I do.

what about books I've dipped into

Shelfari is ok, it's fun to build your virtual bookshelf, post reviews when you finish reading a book (helps with remembering later what you thought at the time), browse through other people's bookshelves and read their reviews. And even discuss books with other people if you like. For book lovers this is great. But...

they have these options for each book:
I've read
I plan to read
I am reading

and what it missing for me there is:
I've dipped into

which in my case would cover a multitude of books. I have bookmarks inside about a zillion books. Not novels - with novels I start from the beginning and keep going till the end, the only exception being those very rare novels that I decide are not worth reading to the end so they get given away to a charity shop. But there are so many books I've got scattered around here which are of the non-fiction variety, whether it's Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island which I dip into every once in a while for some light entertainment, or counselling books such as Boundaries which I keep going back to every now and again, or Christian books, of which I've just picked up two off my shelf because I suddenly feel like looking at them after they've been sitting there for years - one of the Cover to Cover series, and Yancey's The Bible Jesus Read.

There was a stage when I was marking as "I'm reading now" every book I started reading. Then I decided that this was totally ridiculous, I'm not going to pretend to be reading now each and every book that I've stuck a bookmark in. I can't say I'm reading now the four I mentioned above plus - just glancing around the lounge right now: Tramp for the Lord, Captivating, Free to Fail, Personality and Prayer, and who knows what else...

no, not all books fit into that linear timeline. at least not the way I read them.

"Until Jesus pays my salary..."

Got into an interesting discussion on my friend Gerry's Facebook page (yes, amazing, I know... but it does sometimes happen) on the subject of Religious Education at schools here in the UK, and one of his friends said:

My son... says that his RE teacher was told at parents eve that she should be converting the children to christianity (as they attend a C of E School) and her reply was 'until Jesus pays my salary I shall stick to the curriculum'

I didn't respond to this comment there, as I was already raising a whole load of controversy on another issue, but my mind keeps turning back to this - I see so many layers there, I have to try and unpick it.

My initial reaction was to the "until Jesus pays my salary" phrase - it makes me question to what extent exactly this woman regards Jesus as her Lord. It seems to imply: Jesus isn't my boss, the school pays my salary so I'll do what they tell me.

Of course, on the other hand, there are people who I think sometimes take it to the other extreme, and forget that their boss is actually paying their salary and has a say about what they do in their working hours.

I think there's a fine line there somewhere...

If someone pays you to do a certain job, yes, it is up to them (within reason and within the limits of what is legal) to say how they want it done. And if these terms are made explicit at the job application stage, you have the choice to take it or leave it - if something there goes against your conscience then you have the choice to say no, I can't do it.

But at the same time, you can't say 'Jesus is my Lord' but then leave him out of your work life. And if you believe that Jesus has commanded us to go and make disciples - can you really switch that off at work?

It is a tricky minefield in some work situations. I think that's why I didn't like that comment - because it made it sound like it's really clear cut, when I don't think it is. I think any Christian in paid employment has to work out how to balance their loyalties. I think that if your boss says, for example, that they forbid you from mentioning Jesus in your work time, then you have to adhere to that. If you're accepting their pay, you're agreeing to have them as your boss. But if your boss tells you to do something that is clearly immoral - I think at that point you have to say sorry, I can't do that because ultimately I am answerable to God first.

The question of evangelism is more tricky, there's a general command but obviously we don't do it all the time with each and every person we meet, so there may be specific situations where we say: in this situation I don't do this. (of course there's nothing to stop you praying for people in your own time.) There's an issue of how you use your boss's time - if he's paying for you to do a certain job between, say, 9-5 mondays to fridays, using that time to do something else would be stealing, which would not be honouring to God.

so, back to that RE teacher - if her contract says she is hired to teach children about the various religions and encouraging the children to think for themselves, not ramming a particular faith down their throats (which as far as I understand is the general idea of RE lessons in schools here) then I guess it would be inappropriate for her to stand in front of the class and preach the Gospel and issue an invitation to come forward and accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour... (btw, another layer in this is that I bristle at the phrase 'converting the children to Christianity' because actually no human being converts another, all we can do is tell people about it and offer them the opportunity to become Christians if they choose to.)

so I guess I'm agreeing with her in disagreeing with the suggestion that she 'should be converting the children to Christianity' but I bristle at the way she phrased that disagreement, because it sounds to me like not a very respectful attitude towards Jesus.

and also because, ultimately, all good things come from him and the fact that she has a job and a salary is, ultimately, down to him. and because there are times when God calls people to risk their livelihood for him, trusting that he will keep providing somehow. and I'm here to testify to his faithfulness in such situations - as one who was told, back in 2001, to quit her job, and has not gone hungry since.

this reminds me of a conversation I had back in 1999 with the guy who was my vicar at the time, when I believed God was calling me to what is commonly referred to as 'full-time ministry' and my vicar said: and in what way are you not working for him full-time now?

achievements come in different shapes and sizes

more thoughts from that earlier conversation about how I think I haven't got the single-mindedness necessary for writing a novel.

why is it that I tend to think as though writing a novel would be such an important achievement? why do I belittle the writing that I do, saying it's "just poems and short stories", as though these don't count for anything?

where do I get the idea that some achievements are more important than others - or is it just that deep down I still want human recognition, still want people to say: look at her, she did XYZ, wow!

I have lots of unfinished novels, plus an unfinished philosophy degree, two unfinished jumpers, at least one unfinished piece of cross-stitch embroidery, even a few unfinished blogs in draft form - though blogs I normally do finish, because I normally just write them in one sitting, not stopping till I press publish. it's the same with poems - I just write them in one sitting. and my short stories don't get finished unless I can finish them quickly, whilst I'm still full of enthusiasm about them.

I did complete the counselling course. I did, several years ago, complete a correspondence course in proofreading & copy-editing course - somehow I was determined to do it and I did it.

but do I really have to have these sorts of achievements to be able to say my life has some meaning? there are lots of other achievements, ones which you can't so easily put on your CV but which mean something to me, and which I believe mean something to God. he doesn't look at things in the same way as a potential employer who reads through your CV, nor in the same way that a typical Jewish mama would - God isn't looking to see how many academic qualifications you've got, how many prestigious jobs you've held, how many novels you've had published.

here's one of the things he looks at: how much love have you shown to other people?

I think it's since 1999 that I've had the clear conviction that God has called me to be a person who has time for people, who listens to people for real, with empathy and compassion. you can't do that if you're being single-minded about getting a novel written at all costs. (at least I can't.)

actually, there is a side of me that does get very task-focused, and it's when I'm being like that that I become incapable of showing much love to people. I become quite unpleasant, not very nice to be around at all. because all I'm seeing is the perceived need to get the job done, and I'm forgetting about the really important command to love others as I love myself. so maybe I do get the job done, and in human terms that can count as an achievement - but at what cost? if I hurt other people's feelings along the way, is it worth it?

there is a story Jesus told about someone who had been robbed and was lying helpless on the side of the road, and a priest walked past without stopping to help. was this priest so focused on getting to the Temple to perform his duties - getting the job done - that he wouldn't stop to show love and care for a fellow human being?

Lord, help me to look at life more and more through your value system and less and less through the world's. Help me to value your kinds of achievements more than those the world values, to place loving my neighbour higher than the sorts of things that would look good on my CV, the sorts of things that would do my Jewish mama proud. When the time comes for me to leave this temporary existence, let my obituary be one that would do you proud.

"I guess I shall never change"

was having a chat last night with a friend from the writing group who, it turns out, is like me in the tendency to flit from one thing to another and leave a lot of stuff unfinished. it all started from the jumper I'd found when sorting through stuff that had been lying in the cupboard under the stairs for years, a jumper I had actually got as far as very nearly finishing, I'd actually knitted the whole thing and started putting it together but I think this was when I was leaving the place where I'd been living and going elsewhere, and then a couple of months later I moved elsewhere again, and about a month later went back home to Israel, leaving a whole load of stuff in the loft of nice friends (including said unfinished jumper) and...

I digress. which kind of demonstrates this tendency, doesn't it? :)

the thing is, the unfinished jumper got us talking about how we are neither of us likely to ever finish a novel because we just don't have that single-mindedness, the perseverance, the ability to pick one project and focus on it for a length of time whilst forsaking all others. and caro ended up sighing and saying "I guess I shall never change" and I think we all do this, don't we, this sighing over the way we are and wishing we were different, sometimes beating ourselves over the head about it, as though we had a choice.

of course we do have choices in many areas, but we don't have a choice about what our personality is like, what our innate tendencies are, our strengths and weaknesses. I think the jury's out on how much of it is stuff we're born with and how much is to do with the way we were brought up (my instinct is very much in the "born with" direction) but whichever it is, it isn't anything we had a choice about - it's what we've been given, it's how we are.

not that we're necessarily static. some tendencies can go through subtle changes over time, and of course God can and does sometimes do stuff that we see as miraculous because it's outside of the normal way things work (though when I think about some of the plain ordinary stuff that goes on in God's creation, it seems pretty miraculous too, like when I watched a film of a baby being formed in the womb over time, or when I think about babies growing up and becoming grown people... but I'm digressing again)

so what was I trying to say? part of my journey over the past few years has been about learning to accept myself as I am. not to beat myself over the head, not to sigh about it too much. ok, so I don't have that single-mindedness that some people do, and those are the people more likely to churn out novels, whereas I have got as far as writing 14,000 words of a novel and then found something else to play with. but what if everyone was single-minded? to be quite honest, I don't think I'd find it all that nice to be married to someone like that - and I don't think my husband would either, so it's probably a blessing for our marriage that I'm not like that! there are pros and cons to all these things, and the world is so much richer for the variety of personality types that inhabit it.

the Bible talks in terms of different parts of one body: 'the eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you"' - all different parts are necessary for the body to be whole and to function.

so if I'm a lower intestine there's no point in me sighing and thinking I wish I was a nose. there already are people assigned to the role of nose. I've got to do the job of being a lower intestine. (or whatever it is that I happen to be)

this is not to say that there's no room for change at all - of course there is, and part of my call as a Christian is to cooperate with God in his work of changing me more and more into the likeness of Jesus. (which, when looking at the starting point, is such a huge change that it seems unbelievable.) but I think the key is that it's about cooperating with what God is doing, not about my own ideas of how I'd like to be, nor about the pressure from other people or from society in general as to how I should be.

people can come at you with all sorts of pressure, they might have all sorts of ideas like "it's not good for you to spend too much time on your own" (which means they don't understand introverts) or "it's so much better to get up early in the morning" (which means they don't accept night-owls) or "clutter is unhealthy" (which means they don't understand my need, as a P, for things to not be too tidy), etc - so often people generalise from their own experience and assume that what works for them is going to work for everyone.

and we so easily internalise these messages, and accept that we should be different to how we are. but as long as God doesn't say there's something wrong with how I am, then all those people can go take a hike. and God doesn't say there's anything wrong with me being an INFP, or with someone else being an ESTJ, or whatever.

this reminds me of something I heard once, don't remember where now, about a dictionary of Pidgin English that translated the term "justification" into something like: God say he okay.

basically, God says I'm ok. he loves me as I am. yes, he's working on changing me into more like his son, more like how I was originally meant to be - human beings were originally made in God's image, and through Jesus he is restoring that image. but it's God who can see it all clearly and who knows exactly which bits need to be worked at, and he knows in what order things need to be done. and if anyone has the right to sigh over any aspect of my personality or behaviour, it's him.

I'm reminded of something from decades ago, probably when I was about 16 or so, a few friends chatting together and someone saying something to my friend Andra about how chubby she was, but she remained unfazed. how come? she had a new boyfriend, and was full of confidence because, she said, he liked her as she was.

of course having a fellow human being who likes you as you are is great for your self-esteem, but knowing that God loves me and likes me as I am - well, that takes it to a whole different league!

My pet crazy person

This loving people thing sometimes creeps up on you in the most unexpected ways.

I was staying at a Christian retreat centre, aiming to have a nice restful and relaxing break, when this guy turned up who reminded me of those bunnies in the old advert for batteries. I think the technical term I'm looking for is hyperactive. This guy walks around a lounge where people are sitting quietly and points to an armchair and says loudly: look at that, this is top quality furniture, excellent upholstery! He turns to people he has never met before and says: hello, what's your name? He interrupts people's conversations to say: you two over there, are you a couple or are you two separate people?

And like those bunnies in the advert, he doesn't seem to stop to draw breath. (or, more to the point, to let other people draw breath...)

My immediate reaction was to think: oh, help, how am I going to cope? I'm here till Saturday and it's only Wednesday evening. Am I going to have to go hide in my room all the time?

Ok, "help" is a good prayer... and God can do pretty amazing stuff when I let him, and he did. By Saturday morning I was sorry to have to leave this guy behind. No - he hadn't been miraculously healed from whatever it is that causes him to behave that way, but I had come to feel affection for him. He hadn't stopped being a nutter, but he had become my pet nutter, he had become someone who is pretty unbalanced and behaves in infuriating ways but I know him and like him.

It did help that I'm aware of being unbalanced and infuriating too, in my own ways... So when he asked me if I thought he was crackers, I said: do you think I am? We had some fun banter around the possibility that we had each of us booked into the wrong place by mistake, thinking it was the local loony bin but then finding to our disappointment that there were no straitjackets and no pills.

The process of this guy becoming my pet crazy person started with a game of Scrabble. I had this idea of asking one of the others staying there - someone I got on well with - if she fancied a game of Scrabble that evening. Then he heard us talking about playing and asked if he could join in. She and I exchanged looks of panic, but there was no way we could really say no without being extremely rude.

So we sat down to play, but very quickly she and I were forced to lay down some ground rules to preserve our sanity. We had to find ways of explaining reasonably that we simply can't cope with the level of chatter that he tends to produce, that there's no way we could concentrate on the game if he kept yakking and that we simply found it exhausting. We explained all this whilst realising that he doesn't have a huge amount of control over this, so we just had to keep telling him to shush every now and again - but he took it well, he's an intelligent guy and I think he did understand where we were coming from, and he valued our company enough to accept the way we kept telling him to be quiet. The thing is, everyone needs to feel loved and accepted, and I guess we found a way of giving him love and acceptance whilst not letting it kill us.

He did seem a bit calmer the next day, he wasn't hanging around in the lounge all the time and pestering people like that first evening - he'd booked all sorts of activities which he obviously needs for letting out all that energy and internal chaos, and seemed perfectly capable of occupying himself, not needing people's attention all the time, though clearly pleased when asked to join us for Trivial Pursuit on the Thursday evening. On Friday night, my last night there, I sat in the conservatory doing a jigsaw puzzle and he sat on a bench outside, popping in once to tell me he was driving to the shops and ask if I needed anything, another time to offer me a sweet (yummy!) and the third time he just said good night on his way up to bed. And I found myself thinking: I'm going to miss this guy.

Which is not how I had expected to feel when he first turned up in the lounge on the Wednesday.

People grow on you. I've seen this happen again and again. Even people that bug you - there's a subtle change over time (sometimes, not always) where instead of that inward groan when you see them coming, you find yourself starting to smile at their quirks and foibles, you find that instead of getting cross you just smile indulgently, as you would at your child when they're being naughty again.

Knowing that I have my own quirks certainly helps, it helps to keep me in check when I groan about other people's infuriating habits.

There was a lovely moment during that game of Scrabble, when this guy moved the coasters on the table and arranged them in straight lines, looking at me looking at him and saying to me: I bet you think I'm crackers, don't you? (Was this before or after he went over to the bookshelves and straightened up all the books? anyway, he obviously has a thing about stuff being straight and tidy.) My response was to rearrange the coasters whilst explaining to him that whilst his crackeredness meant he needed things to be in straight lines, my crackeredness means I actually need them not to be in straight lines and it would really bug me if I had to sit there for a long time seeing those coasters in those neat straight lines...

"Everybody's normal till you get to know them"* is one of my favourite book titles of all time.

*(It's a book by John Ortberg, and it's really good, not just the title.)

so, why don't I feel like forwarding an email with such a great story

This is one I've seen before, it's about a brave woman called Irena Sendler, who saved Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Poland and paid a high price when she was caught.

And I checked it on Snopes and it's true. A true story about a brave woman - what's not to like?

So why was I feeling uneasy? I read the Snopes entry and pondered a bit. The one thing that Snopes say they can't verify is whether or not it's true that she was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, because that information is not actually publicly available. So this claim is possibly true but we can't know for sure.

Snopes also quote a statement from the International Federation of Social Workers, who expressed disappointment that she didn't get this prize. With that I have no problem - anyone is entitled to express disappointment with a result that they're not happy with.

Here's what I'm not comfortable with in the email that's being circulated:

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.

She was not selected.

Al Gore won --- for a slide show on Global Warming.

The implication being: aren't those people terrible, to award the prize to that man for such a piddly thing instead of giving it to this wonderful brave woman.

Now, I'm not particularly an Al Gore fan, and I'm not quite convinced about the Global Warming theory, but I don't like the way his efforts are made fun of by calling his movie "a slide show", and more importantly, I don't like the way this value judgement is being tied in with the whole thing, so that people will feel like they really ought to forward this email because Irena Sendler was such an amazing woman, and thus they're being manipulated into signing up for this value judgement about Al Gore at the same time - if you want to honour this woman, can't you do it without rubbishing another human being who is, whether you agree with him or not, trying to do something for stuff he believes is important?

It's this mixing of different issues that I don't like, bringing the Al Gore issue in through the back door so you don't notice because your eyes are too moist from thinking of this brave woman's sacrifice - I don't think that's actually honouring to her memory.

(and being a nitpicker I can't fail to notice that it says this Nobel prize thing happened "last year" - which means this story has been circulating on the email since 2008.) (lesson no.37: don't believe everything you read on the email, but most importantly do not trust what they say about how long ago stuff happened.)

grumble grumble

some thoughts on half-empty glasses

today we said goodbye to John, our assistant pastor, who is moving on to serve elsewhere. I went up to John to thank him personally - his preaching was my first impression of this church, it was one of the things that drew me there, I had felt starved of good teaching and it was wonderful to find that there was a church in this town where I could get fed.

and tonight he preached about grumbling, and I find myself thinking:

I do grumble a bit, here and there, about stuff to do with our church - mostly just to myself, but I do. But back then I didn't - back then I was seeing the positive stuff and was very excited about it. And, hey, the positive stuff is still there - it hasn't changed.

John mentioned the Israelites in the wilderness, who grumbled when they got thirsty, even though they had only recently seen God perform amazing miracles, including parting the water for them to pass through and then drowning the Egyptian army who was pursuing them. You'd have thought they'd still remember how amazing God is and that they'd think: we're thirsty, ok, no doubt God will provide us with water.

But isn't this the way we humans tend to be? We can experience amazing things, and get very excited about them, but then - the excitement wears off, and we start taking things for granted. We get used to the good stuff, forget how amazed we were when we first experienced it, and then we're ready to grumble about the stuff that isn't so good. It's a question of which bits we notice, which bits we're focused on. Like that old glass half-full or half-empty analogy.

Imagine you're thirsty. Very very very thirsty. You've been running a marathon and it's been an unbearably hot day. You get to the end of the race, and someone offers you some water.

You are very very grateful. At that moment, that's your focus: someone has given me water. wonderful. thank you.

Then you go home and have a shower and a rest, and you're telling your wife/husband/friends/whoever about the marathon. You tell them how hot you were, and how wonderful it was to get a drink of water at the end. And how wonderful it feels now to be home and showered and changed and rested.

You appreciate all these things. Right now, it's all fresh in your mind.

How long before you get back to normal, and start grumbling when you have to wait more than two minutes in the queue for your latte at Starbucks?

Or how about romance - boy meets girl, he asks her out and she is very starry-eyed, this guy seems so nice, he's funny and intelligent and warm and caring and everything she's ever wanted in a man. She has been feeling kind of low since her previous boyfriend left her for someone else, in a very hurtful way. She is now basking in this new guy's attention, she is excited about this new love, she is full of hope. It all seems wonderful.

How long until she starts grumbling about how he leaves his dirty socks on the floor?

But the guy hasn't changed (at least in my analogy he hasn't) - he still is funny and intelligent and warm and caring, he still is doing all those things that she appreciated so much early on. But they've been living together for a while and she's now so focused on his dirty socks habit that when he brings her flowers she doesn't get excited, she hardly notices what the flowers look like. Because at some point she got used to all the positive stuff, so now she can grumble about the stuff she doesn't like.

My husband and I have been married for nearly seven years now, and of course there are better moments and less fantastic moments. In one of the less fantastic moments I did an exercise just for myself - I took a sheet of paper and started writing down things about him that I value.

I started just jotting down whatever came to mind, with no particular order. At some point I had to go over to the other side of the page.

That helped, because it shifted my focus - instead of looking at the empty half of the glass I was staring at the full half, and it was beautiful. In fact, it looked like a lot more than half a glass.

some thoughts on work, rest and play

I read an interesting article in yesterday's paper about some recent research suggesting that mothers who go out to work have 30 hours free time per week, to which the reactions from mumsnetters were obviously along the lines of: you've got to be joking...

Not being in that category myself, I can't say much more than that about the lives of working mothers, but what grabbed my attention was the method used to reach this conclusion.

First, here's the part that I think makes sense:

Rather than ask people to estimate how much time they spend on certain activities per day or per week, those taking part in this research were asked to keep time diaries, logging in detail all the stuff they were doing during a 24-hour period, so that later the researchers could allocate the activities to the appropriate categories and arrive at a real total of how many minutes the person actually devoted to e.g. housework, childcare, work at whatever their job is, shopping, cooking, watching TV, commuting, etc. I think this makes much more sense than asking people for an estimate, because it's unlikely that a person will have a good objective idea of how much time they spend on each of these things.

But where I think their method is lacking is in the either/or attitude to the use of time. The article gave a list of activities that this sociologist files under "leisure activities" and others that are filed under "non-leisure activities", and these lists include stuff like:

Shopping - under non-leisure, no matter what kind of shopping you're doing. which is ridiculous considering that so many women do regard shopping as a fun and enjoyable pastime, something they do just to cheer themselves up a bit. (No, I'm not talking about wheeling your trolley round a supermarket, I'm talking about treating yourself to new clothes or makeup or a handbag or whatever - or, if you are me, letting yourself loose in a stationery shop...)

Personal grooming - again, they place it in the non-leisure category. Can you honestly tell me that for the average busy working mother, having a manicure or a facial is not a wonderful bit of me-time snatched in between her errands?

On the other hand, volunteering is placed in the leisure section. Huh?

And keeping fit is in the leisure section, even if you hate exercise.

At least with reading they show a bit more discernment, and say reading is under "leisure" but not if you're reading work stuff.

But with childcare, they lump everything you do with your kids under "non-leisure", even if you're having loads of fun, even if you're just taking them along to something you enjoy doing, or using them as an excuse to play...

And commuting is placed clearly under non-leisure, but from what I remember from my commuting days, it was a mixed bag - though some of it was certainly stressful (London Underground in the morning rush hour), some of it was a great chance to unwind on your way home after a day's work, reading the newspaper or a book and basically not having to do anything from the moment you got on the train and sat down to the moment you got up at the end of the journey.

I think if you want a real picture of how people use their time, you need to allow for certain time slots to go under more than one category. The trouble is, of course, you'd end up with a total of more than 24 hours per day... But seriously, I've always had a problem with these sorts of approaches to recording use of time - they're fine when you're doing a clear-cut job, when you're focused on a specific task at each given moment, but trying to apply that to women at home... sorry, how do you record those minutes when you're talking to a friend on the cordless phone whilst cooking a meal?

not to mention that some activities are restful/relaxing/recharging for one person, and a chore for another. if your husband loves tennis and insists you go play every weekend, does this count as leisure time for you? if you have an annoying neighbour who keeps popping round for a cup of tea and a chat, do you have to file that under "leisure" because you are sitting down and having a cuppa and socialising? and then, on the other hand, say you actually have a job that involves doing the stuff you love doing - is that strictly work time?

I don't find life is quite so black and white.

Looking for a good NormalSpeak course, preferably by correspondence

want to watch a fish seriously out of water? place an introvert in a social gathering consisting of more than, I'd say, six people and you will see someone seriously struggling to breathe. and it's so much worse when you're actually surrounded by people that you do generally like and want to communicate with. it would be different if it was something you were doing just out of duty - a work drinks party that you just go to for a short while so as not to offend whoever's birthday it is, or a boring conference that everyone moans about having to attend. but yesterday I was at the graduation ceremony for my counselling course and I was surrounded by my classmates, who are all people that I feel in some way connected to with this special bond of people who have survived something really tough together. of course you connect more closely with some than with others, but there's no one in my class who I wasn't pleased to see there, each of these people has become special to me and, in some peculiar way, I love them all.

after the ceremony there was afternoon tea - sandwiches, cakes, tea, coffee, some kind of cold drinks which I didn't explore as they looked kind of chemical so I got water from the machine instead. it was a hot and sunny afternoon and we all headed outdoors, shunning the comfy sofas and armchairs of the lounge in favour of the garden furniture or, for those young and fit enough, the grass.

I did manage to have a few really good conversations with some people, and that's what made it worth the effort. But I find it so hard to actually get a good conversation in these situations. First of all, you come outside with your drink and look around and have to somehow decide which group of people to head for, and then you have to try and somehow edge your way into the conversation, and it all stays at the shallow end for ages. Once you've worked out that this is all that's ever going to happen round this table, you use some excuse to get up - going to get another drink/more cake/whatever - and hope to collide with someone who does actually want to talk for real.

That process can continue for a long while, having a whole load of non-conversations with people until - at last - you find a soul mate and sit down happily to talk about what's really been going on in your lives.

until someone else turns up, of course...

But you may be wondering what that stuff in the title was about.

The thing is, in all these various conversations you have in these kind of situations, things come up and I absolutely know that my reaction was totally weird but I have no idea what normal people would have said.

Like, what do you say when you meet a girl you haven't seen for half a year except for facebook and the last you heard was she'd finally broken up with that guy and she is now standing in front of you with a very nice looking bloke by her side and after you and she chat for a bit she suddenly remembers about introductions and says: This is [insert name here], my new man.

These are the sorts of times when I know that if this was happening on multiply or on facebook I'd be fine because I'd have all the time in the world to think about a response.

or, later, when I bumped into someone I hadn't seen for even longer - she was in our first year but not in the second, and was there as a guest this time - and she said she's getting married next month.

I think the word I was fumbling for was "congratulations", but it definitely didn't come out at the time. I was trying to think what to ask, and I still haven't a clue what would be an appropriate question. I mean, what I want to know is: who is he? But how do you ask that, in a way that doesn't sound like you're completely surprised that there actually is someone who is marrying her?

*sigh* if you do hear of a good course in NormalSpeak do let me know, but as an introvert I would much prefer if it was a correspondence course - having to go out and meet people is... well... you see what I mean...

not fair?

So I open today's Times and unsurprisingly there's stuff in there about the World Cup, including even an editorial. The editorial got all philosophical and started musing about who should win the World Cup "if sport was fair, and championships were decided according to need rather than skill" - at which point I got into major quibbling mode.

I guess the question is how one defines fairness.

I can understand someone talking about, say, distribution of food in terms of it being fair to distribute it according to people's needs. Food is the first example that springs to my mind, but more generally this could apply to all sorts of things that are necessary and where there's a limited amount of stuff to go round. But championships? prizes? surely the only fair way of distributing those is according to skill shown through achievement, that's the whole point of prizes! The teams in the World Cup have been putting huge efforts into training and will be giving all they've got in the games, and the whole idea behind this is that the team that plays best will be awarded for playing best. That's their motivation - knowing that there is a reward for doing well. I fail to see anything unfair about that.

Take your kids to the park, and leave them there

I must have looked like a nodding dog while I was reading this article - it makes so much sense! It just can't be healthy for children's development to keep them so closely supervised all the time. And, as the article says, people tend to forget the statistics which say the vast majority of crimes against children are not committed by strangers - I think it's just so much easier to focus on the "stranger danger" issues, because that's something you can actually do something about, you can teach your kids not to take sweets from strangers, you can mollycoddle them and supervise them in the playground, so you get a sense of control. One of the quotes from British parents in response to this "take your children to the park... and leave them there" idea was from a dad who said that he's not willing to take this kind of risk because he needs to know his kids are safe. But hey, can you ever really know that? Is there such a thing as complete and total safety in this world? All you can really have is an illusion that your kids are safe.

And if you wrap them up in cotton wool, you're taking different risks - you're risking your kids growing up without having a clue how to make decisions for themselves, how to make good judgements about risk-taking. You're risking your kids growing up to be over-anxious adults.

And yes, I know, it's easy for me to say - I haven't got kids to worry about. But I'm pretty sure that if I did, I wouldn't want to raise them on the fear & anxiety diet that my own mum brought me up on.



For more about this stuff go to Free-Range Kids - How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children

"had on"??? what's happened to "was wearing"?

I'm reading a novel by Anita Shreve, really good stuff but there's one thing that keeps bugging me in this book and it's the way she describes what people are wearing. Again and again I find myself accosted by sentences such as:

"Margaret had on jeans and a long-sleeved blouse."

Is it just me, or this is a weird and clumsy alternative to the perfectly normal "Margaret was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved blouse"?

I'm pretty sure I've never come across this sort of thing before. Perhaps this is the latest, most modern way, and I'm just (as usual) behind the times?

Your thoughts please, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

rules are so boring and limiting, aren't they...

When I was a child I thought like a child... I looked forward to the time when I would be a grown-up at last and would be able to do whatever I liked. No adults to boss me around, tell me when to go to bed or when to get up, to make me do my homework or tidy up my room or comb my hair...

But looking back now, I can see how important it was that there were adults in my life who set boundaries for me, because a child doesn't know what's good for him and needs to be kept safe, to be protected from his own natural desires - a child wants to run and catch that ball, and needs to be forced to stay back and not get hit by a passing car. a child wants to explore - what would it be like sticking my fingers in those interesting-shaped holes in that plasticky thing on the wall? a child needs to be forced against his instincts not to stick his fingers in the electric socket, not to put his hand in the fire, not to do all sorts of things that seem really attractive but are seriously dangerous. Good parents do this not because they're spoilsports but because they care about their children.

A child also needs the adults to force him against his instincts to refrain from hitting his brothers and sisters, pulling their hair, stomping over their toys and dolls - a child needs to be taught that there are some things that are not acceptable behaviour. We like to think of children as sweet innocent little things, but the truth is that children do not need anyone to teach them to be nasty towards others - that, sadly, is something that comes naturally. So they need to be taught to curb that malicious instinct. Good parents do this not because they're spoilsports but because they want to bring the best out of their children, to discourage negative and destructive behaviour and encourage positive behaviour.

It took me a long time before I could see the same pattern with God - that he is not some big spoilsport in the sky who seeks to stop our fun, but neither is he a stupid, uncaring, irresponsible parent who would just let his kids poke their hands in the electric sockets and pull their sisters' hair and kick the cat without telling them not to do that.

The fact that we are very good at not listening, or at hearing him but going our own sweet way because we feel we know best or because whatever-it-is seems so attractive that we put our fingers in our ears and say la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you - that's what we humans are like, and God in his amazing love and mercy still goes on loving us, as good parents do when faced with teenage rebellion... the kids that you nurtured suddenly turning against you, yelling "I hate you" and slamming the door in your face, doing all the things you've told them not to do - a good parent carries on loving them despite their appalling behaviour.

A good, responsible and caring and wise parent does not say: do whatever you like, it's ok. Therapists and counsellors in later years pick up the pieces of such parenting - because the message a kid gets through this, even though it isn't at all what the parents intend, is: I'm not valued, they don't care about me enough to keep trying to protect me, they don't care what happens to me.

A good, responsible and caring and wise parent says: the way you are behaving is not ok, but I still love you anyway.

That's the kind of parent God is. He cares. He cares enough to put boundaries round us, even though he knows we will continue breaking them. He cares enough to keep loving us despite our rebellious behaviour. He cares enough to always want us back, no matter what we've done.

He's not the type of parent who will say: oh, what you did doesn't matter. He's not going to beat around the bush, pretend that you hadn't broken his heart by causing so much damage to yourself and to others around you. What he will say is: I'm so glad you've realised and that you've come back - now I can clean you up from all the muck that has stuck to you along the way, I can bind your wounds, I can start work on healing you. Oh, and I've paid your debts, down to the last penny.

"I can't do that, I'm a Christian"

Years ago, in my London days, I remember the young daughter of a friend of mine asking me every now and again questions like: Meirav, can you do such-and-such if you're a Christian?

Which to me, being Jewish, sounded very normal - when you're Jewish, life is full of "can you do xyz" type questions. We don't eat that - we're Jewish. We don't do xyz on Shabbat [Saturday - the Sabbath day] - because we're Jewish. Being Jewish revolves around do's and don'ts (and around finding ways round the don'ts...) - we're used to these sorts of questions. And our rabbis have spent a lot of time on working these things out, laying down guidelines for each and every aspect of behaviour.

There is something about human beings that yearns for clear rules and regulations. There is also something about us that rebels against rules and regulations (whether they are God-given or man-made). And there is something about us that picks certain rules and regulations and places them higher than others...

For some reason, anything to do with sex tends to get a much higher billing. Is it because sex is a more exciting subject than, say, the nicking of paper clips from the office where you work? Or is it because we like to have something we can make a big deal out of, so that we could avoid looking at the planks in our own eyes? It is so much easier to avoid the issues of feuds or gossip within the church if we are focused on those people out there who are sleeping with people they're not married to.

And so, we've got an election looming here and we have topics that are deemed to be "Christian issues" and, whilst all these topics are ones which I believe are important, I feel like shouting: what about the orphans and the widows? what about God's heart for the poor? surely welfare and employment and taxation are Christian issues too? and maybe government policy about social welfare and unemployment benefits is more important than whether or not they will promote marriage?

But that's not what I had in mind when I started forming this post in my head. I was thinking not of the elections but of day-to-day life, of the sorts of choices we make all the time, and thinking how sad it is that you're so much more likely to hear someone saying "I can't do that, I'm a Christian" about, say, going to the pub for a drink than about being nasty towards a fellow human being - sad because if there's one thing that is abundantly clear from the Bible and from Jesus' teachings it is that we are not only to love God but we are to love our fellow human beings as we love ourselves.

We humans are so much more comfortable discussing issues like, is it okay to go to the pub/smoke cigarettes/listen to rock music/etc etc if you're a Christian. From whether or not it's okay to go to the movies, we could then go on some lengthy tangents about exactly what kind of movies it would be okay to watch - do you draw the line at PG, at 12, maybe even 15? And as long as we're discussing these issues, we can avoid thinking about the other, more uncomfortable stuff...

Not to mention the fabulous glow of self-righteousness we can get from counting the specks in the eyes of people we know, and the glee with which we could share that with a Christian friend "just for prayer" - not that we are gossiping, of course...

Now, to go look in the mirror and see how many planks I've got stuck in my own eyes.

Apparently spellcheck howlers have a name

Apparently spellcheck howlers have a name - you know those times when you type something and the spellchecker comes up with an alternative suggestion and you just accept it without thinking? well, apparently it's called the Cupertino effect, because that's what sometimes comes up when people misspell the word "cooperation". And thus some linguistic beauties are born, such as the "South Asian Association for Regional Cupertino".

Reading about this brought back fond memories from my days as a typist in an accountants' office in London, where one of the guys I typed for had a business contact with the unusual surname "Nuttgeons" - whenever I typed a letter to him, the spellchecker would suggest the closest alternative: nightgowns. And so this person was forever embedded in my mind as Mr Nightgowns. (By the way, my browser's spellcheck put a wavy red line under the name Nuttgeons and suggested Nuttiness instead... Some of these Cupertinos can be dangerous!)

Whilst still working in that office, I had even greater fun when we got new software which included not just a spellchecker but a grammar checker. One of the optional features of the grammar checker was to check for gender-specific terminology. The firm I worked for had a branch in the Isle of Man, and when I used the grammar checker on a document that included references to that branch, the computer suggested I might want to change it to Isle of Person...

something old and something new

Something new I learned today: the story about lemmings jumping off cliffs as a mass suicide is a myth.

A friend pointed me to this link, where you too can read about how the mass suicide scene in the so-called documentary film was faked.

Sadly the fact that human beings are capable of such cruel and deceptive behaviour is rather old news :(

Slightly over the top, in my view!

There are Christians in some countries who go to prison for their faith. There are places where people are tortured and in some cases even killed just because they have chosen to become Christians. And in England a nurse has filed a claim for unfair dismissal because she was not allowed to wear a crucifix on a chain at work.

I'm sorry but I fail to feel the slightest bit of solidarity with this woman. As the tribunal chairman pointed out when he refused her claim, wearing a cross is not a requirement of the Christian faith. She was not, as far as I understand from this newspaper article, required to hide her faith - the hospital had even suggested she might pin her crucifix to her uniform! Their reason for asking her to remove it from the chain was because of a health & safety concern that patients might pull on it - ok, I think that's health & safety concerns going over the top, but to suggest that this is a case of religious discrimination is way off the mark. And to say, "This is a very bad day for Christianity" - sorry, but it seems to me that a sense of proportion is rather lacking there.

*sigh* Where does he get this from???

Apparently the current President of the USA thinks the message of the story of the Exodus is that "wherever we live, there is oppression to be fought and freedom to be won." He further said, "In retelling this story from generation to generation, we are reminded of our ongoing responsibility to fight against all forms of suffering and discrimination." [quoted from this newspaper article]

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not for one minute trying to say that there's anything wrong with fighting against suffering and oppression.

What irks me is the feeling that such an amazing and special story is being hijacked, being used to promote a message that simply is not there in the text. Last night we sat and told the story, and I'm sorry but whichever way I look at it, I do not see how it is about the responsibility of human beings to fight against suffering/oppression/whatever. It is not a story of a rebellion, of a human fight for freedom. It is the story of a bunch of people who were severely oppressed and were amazingly, spectacularly, miraculously, rescued by God himself!

I can certainly see more than one point in this story, more than one message. There is the message about God's faithfulness - he remembers his covenant with Abraham, Issac and Jacob and he comes to rescue his people. There is a message about God's almighty power, which could be paraphrased as: don't mess with God! If he's fighting for you, you're in a very safe place, but if he's fighting against you - you don't stand a chance. (This can be a bit uncomfortable for those who like to think of God as merely a cuddly daddy-type who invites you to sit on his lap and gives you presents and says "there, there" a lot.) And of course I see the theme of being saved through the blood of a faultless lamb - a theme which was pointing to what was then the future, to the coming of the Messiah who was to be sacrificed so that all may go free through his blood.

And it is because I see such important themes in this story that I got so cross when I read about Obama's interpretation. It devalues the whole thing. It takes a story of God's awesomeness and turns it into a speech about human values. Yes, these are good values - and I believe God does want to see everyone set free. But that's not what Passover is about - it's not about human beings fighting for freedom, it is about human beings receiving freedom, won by God himself and handed to them on a plate. For the Israelites at the time it was freedom from the Egyptians - won for them by God and all they had to do was accept it, by smearing the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. And the clues about what was then the future arrival of the Messiah - again, they are about God himself winning freedom for humankind (this time for all humankind, not just the Israelites), and all we have to do is accept the blood sacrifice of the faultless Lamb of God, the Messiah, Jesus.

Please, let's not confuse freedom fighters (commendable as they may be) with freedom-receivers.

Oh give thanks to the LORD.

this one's for david

the Bible tells me not to judge others, and of course the reason God bothers to mention this is because he knows we tend to do it... we look at another person and say: look at her, she's so obnoxious; look at him, he's such a lazy so-and-so. etc etc. we see the externals and make judgements. but all we're seeing is the externals, we're seeing tiny bits of the picture, and most of the time - unless we've got to know someone very very well - we don't know the half of it.

scratch the surface with any fellow human being and you'll find that they are carrying heavy burdens, and often those external behaviour patterns that you find so annoying and unreasonable are a result of the pain which they don't talk about most of the time.

people don't go around with t-shirts saying: my job is boring/my daughter hates me/my back hurts all the time/my mum used to lock me in the broom cupboard for hours for no reason/my wife is having an affair/my overdraft has reached its limits/the bank wants to repossess my home/my husband gets drunk and beats me/my next-door neighbour keeps throwing stones at my cat/my son is taking drugs/my parents don't approve of my boyfriend/my teachers keep picking on me/my period is late and I'm worried/my shoes are pinching and I can't afford new ones/etc etc - people do not, most of the time, broadcast to all and sundry everything that is making them feel that life is tough.

but the tension has to come out somehow, so we kick the cat/yell at the kids/spouse/colleagues/friends/someone who has dared block our way on the road... and people look and shake their heads and say: why does she have to be so obnoxious...

many years ago, someone saw me being obnoxious and unpleasant and had the wisdom to see through it, he chose to reach out to me in friendship despite my very sharp corners. I was working in a tax advisers' and accountants' office in London, and for most people in the office I was - excuse the language - that bitch that you don't go and talk to unless you absolutely have to. I was rude, I was unhelpful, my immediate answer to any request was "no" - not my job, go find someone else to do it, that sort of thing. The f word was not unknown in my vocabulary. most people shook their heads, rolled their eyes, and steered well clear of me.

but david chose to befriend me. he was one of the partners in the firm, and he was the one who had interviewed me for the job there. the day he came up to me with a piece of paper and said, "would you like to type this for me?" and got the reply, "no", he could have given up on me and sacked me... (I wasn't being intentionally rude, I was just replying literally to what I heard as a yes/no question... I was new in England, and in Israel we don't have this form of asking politely in a way that sounds as though you're asking a question... we don't do niceties, an Israeli boss would simply bung the sheet of paper on your desk and say "type this".) but david didn't give up on me, he chose to be my friend and he was a real and very reliable friend throughout the eleven years I worked there. (and has remained a friend to this day)

at the time, I didn't know why I was being so obnoxious. I didn't see myself as making choices, all I could see was that I was right...

it was some time after I came out of the extremely unhealthy relationship I'd been in, that another friend made the connection and pointed out to me that I had been in such a difficult situation at home, that no wonder I was tense and taking my tension out on people at work. at home I was scared, walking on tiptoe, but at work I could exercise some control over things. once I'd come out of that relationship, and started to take ownership of my life back, I could afford to start being nice to people... (at least some of the time)

so what am I trying to say here? just this - next time you roll your eyes at someone's behaviour, remember: you don't know what burdens they are carrying. and just as I did back then in 1990, they could probably benefit from someone reaching out to them in friendship.

and I'm reminding myself of this too.

"If you like"

Grrrrr...

Got an email from Shelfari with book recommendations. Nice of them, you might say. It would be if they had actually used the information they hold to provide me with relevant recommendations - like when I log onto Amazon I get recommendations based on books I've bought, said I own, showed an interest in... that makes sense. But Shelfari, who have records of books I own, books I've read, books I've marked as favourites, books I've given x number of stars to, etc... Shelfari don't seem to have made any attempt to access that information and use it. So their email lists a whole load of books I've never heard of by authors I've never heard of, each under the heading of "if you like XYZ, you might also like: ................." when XYZ is a book I've mostly never heard of...

oh, there's one exception, it's the bit where they say "if you liked Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, you might also like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee," which is interesting as (a) I really don't remember if I liked Catcher in the Rye and even if I did like it when I read it probably about three decades ago, I have absolutely no idea if I'd like it now; but, more importantly, (b) To Kill a Mockingbird is a book I've actually listed on Shelfari as a book I've read! (and that book I actually remember liking very much)

So, big brother ain't doing all that well :)

Is it just me?

Like everyone else, I get these emails now and again - words of wisdom on pretty backgrounds, sometimes even a powerpoint presentation with beautiful music... but are these really words of wisdom? is it just me that picks the nits, that wants to edit before passing it on, and often doesn't pass it on?

is it just me that wonders: would these words seem so wise and profound if they didn't come with beautiful pictures? if this is really true, does it need to be packaged like this?

I'm not saying it's all wrong. Far from it - a lot of it is good and true. But I feel it's presented in a way that is meant to distract us from thinking about whether or not it's true. I feel the pictures and the music are there to lull us into a kind of passive listening and absorbing, unquestioning, unthinking. I feel we're being discouraged from thinking critically about what is on the screen in front of us, from weighing up the words and seeing for ourselves whether we agree with them or not.

And I feel even more strongly about the video being circulated now, titled "The Interview With God" - how dare anyone put words into God's mouth in this way? Yes, some of the words are good. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that most of them are true. But dressing it up as though God himself would say this - sorry, that's unbelievably presumptuous! and to suggest that when God is asked at the end of the interview what else he would like his children to know, that all God says is, "Just know that I am here. Always." - sorry, is that really it? God as our loving, gracious father who just smiles and wants us to know he's always here? Is this why he bothered to give us, for example, the Ten Commandments? Is this why there's all that stuff in the Bible about God's wrath, about the need to repent and turn to Jesus so we can escape God's just punishment? I'm sorry, I don't buy into this. It's nice, it's pretty, but it's not the whole picture. It's a sanitised and heavily-edited version of what the real interview would be like.

Okay, I've got it off my chest now.

Ever thought of social networking sites as virtual coffee shops?

What makes people happy? The Times got a bunch of writers to each say something about what it is that brings cheer to their lives, and I particularly enjoyed Caitlin Moran's response, which was all about Twitter. Granted, I don't use Twitter in the way she does, I use Multiply and Facebook for these purposes (whilst I use Blogger purely as a soapbox), but I can identify with a lot of what she says.

She talks about being a writer who not only works from home, but also values the way that in writing you have time to think about what you're going to say, as opposed to what happens when she does venture out of the house and meet people face to face. "That whole talky-to-people's-face thing - that's, like, constant improvisation. It's like a gigantic, lifetime-length episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Very stressful. There's no 'delete' function. You can't google a salient, point-proving fact." As someone who loves the "edit" feature (and I feel so lost without it on fb), I am so so with her on this!

Seems to me that the things she loves about Twitter are things that I could equally say about Multiply, they're just typical of online social networking. Twitter allows her to exercise her chattiness in a way that works a lot better for her. "Unlike life, you can simply lob in a comment to someone else's conversation without it seeming rude... And also, unlike life, you can simply ignore people you don't like. It's so benign." and she talks about others she knows who are also writers working from home, who "use Twitter as some magical coffee shop in the sky, where one can repeatedly drop in and while away 20 minutes, before knuckling back down to a deadline."

At which point I raise my eyebrows and say: only 20 minutes? what self-discipline, what willpower :)

For the full article in the Times click here.