Farewell and thank you TMA

‘I love to write and I love to think about God. Although I am not theologically trained, I firmly believe that all people of faith are called upon to do theology: to examine their lives in the light of their faith and to examine what they believe in the light of their everyday lives. Professional, academic theologians are really important; ordinary, everyday theologians are too.’

So starts the introduction to my most recent book, and forgive the indulgence of quoting myself in the pages of this august paper!

I still love to write and love to think about God. And The Melbourne Anglican has allowed me to do this publically for many years – the occasional article since forever, and a monthly column since May 2014. That’s a lot of words. I am profoundly grateful to several different TMA editors over the years, who encouraged me to write and gave me a platform to put my ideas and experiences of God and life out there into the big wide world, or at least a small portion thereof.

This is my last column, and I want to thank anyone who has ever read something I’ve written here. I want to encourage anyone who is still reading, to stretch yourself a little to do your own theology – reflection on faith in the light of experience and vice versa.

I want to encourage you, too, in your walk as a Christian, or as someone who is exploring what it might mean to follow Jesus. It’s not an easy road, particularly these days, profoundly counter-cultural as the Christian way can be. But you are not alone. God – the big, love at the heart of the universe, is with us. That’s huge, but that’s not all.

If you’re reading this, you are probably a reader, and there are no end of books and online materials on Christian discipleship. Some are better than others, so be discerning and take the advice of those you trust. Join a church community if you are not already in one. Find one that doesn’t make you wince or seethe, one that is radically inclusive, accepting you and everyone else as they are and goes from there, in the challenge and consolation of a community shot through with the Holy Spirit. Drink in the Bible readings, the preaching, the Sacraments, the prayers, the music, the fellowship.

The spiritual discipline I have found most sustaining, challenging, comforting and influential over many decades has been the daily practice of contemplative prayer, or Christian meditation. I have practiced this kind of wordless prayer each day and I don’t think I would still be in the Jesus crew without it. I don’t know if meditation is for everyone; I know it has been a powerful tool for connecting with Divine for countless people through history and across the world and that it has been vital for me. There are rich written resources and small groups doing this ancient and contemporary Christian thing. Tap into them.

Thank you to all the readers, thank you TMA. It’s been an absolute privilege.

This was published in the September issue of The Melbourne Anglican

Welcome to our world, fellahs

Acclaimed TV series Borgen, about a fictional first female Prime Minister of Denmark, has just ‘dropped’ its fourth season, arguably the best yet. I devoured the box-set of Seasons 1-3 a decade ago. Never had I imagined becoming so utterly caught up in a show about politics, set in a country about which I knew precious little.

Half the appeal lies in the performance of Sidse Babett Kundsen, who plays the role of Danish Prime Minister Birgitte Nyborg. I could watch the captivating Knudsen reading a phone book of bewildering (to this ignorant Anglo) Danish names.

The thing that sold me utterly on Season 4, however, was its startlingly realistic portrayal of a menopausal woman, without pandering to stereotypes. Sure, the ever-ambitious Nyborg is crankier than she used to be, but this is revealed to be less on account of her hormones than her essential loneliness. In one profoundly moving scene, where her adult son challenges her as to why power has recently become the most important thing in her life, she says, simply, ’But back then, I had you guys’.

Hot flushes might be a cliché but there’s a reason for that. Nyborg has to leave a meeting and cool herself down in the bathroom, running her face and wrists under cold water, untucking and flapping her blouse. Most women who have endured menopause know only too well that desperate feeling akin to instantaneously spiking a temperature high enough to land you in hospital.

And who among people who menstruate have never messaged a friend or colleague, ‘tampon, urgent!’ as Nyborg does at the start of a vital meeting with the Chinese Ambassador, before racing to the bathroom and craning her neck to see if she has a blood stain on her skirt.

She peers into the mirror to pull out stray whiskers. She even has a ball under her desk on which to rub the underside of her foot, something I spent hours doing as a victim of plantar fasciitis, that painful condition which often affects women of a certain age.

I hope women everywhere are cheering as Nyborg so convincingly portrays a remarkable human being who happens to be enduring menopause. Welcome to our world, fellahs.

May there be many more realistic portrayals of how women live. Not many of us are in Parliament, but menopause, menstruation, period pain, childbirth, breast feeding, struggling to be able to afford pads – are the ordinary things my half of the population live with and, despite this, still manage to do all we do.

Published in The Melbourne Age on 4 August

Specs

I knew I was starting to be seriously old when I realised I looked better with my glasses on than without.

Those first few years of wearing glasses (and thank goodness we live in an era where spectacles are a fashion accessory, not an embarrassment, as they were when I was youthful and there was a ditty that is appalling in so many ways I don’t know where to start, about men not making passes at girls who wear glasses) I remember whipping them off whenever a camera appeared.

I no longer do this. About two years ago, I was looking affectionately at pictures of me with my three besties, all of whom I have known intimately since we were at school. We had one photo taken with our eyewear on, one not. And we all, me particularly, looked better with. (I recall not liking the way my beloved parents looked when they took their specs off – naked, unfamiliar, vulnerable.)

I worked out the reason quickly enough. Spectacle frames cover a significant proportion of my numerous wrinkles, also the bags under my eyes; an effective non-surgical, non-invasive age-concealer, praise be.

This was confirmed when I flirted briefly with that shape of frame that everyone seemed to be sporting a while back – bigger, more circular. They looked cool, sophisticated and arty on most people; on my face, they simply revealed more signs of ageing. The smaller, squarer designs hid the weary under-eye portion of my visage far more effectively, so back to them I went.

I remember the suave young man who accosted me in a city arcade one pre-lockdown lunchtime with the seductive line, ‘You have such beautiful skin,’ only to deliver the sucker punch, once he had lured me into his little cosmetics boutique, with his next sally, ‘And I could really help you with those wrinkles’.

The thing is, up to a point, I am genuinely fond of my wrinkles. I have no wish to erase them by scalpel, needle or fancy, eye-wateringly expensive lotions. They tell my story. They make me who I am.

But. Specs are just the anti-ageing aid I need. Absolutely essential for basic sight these days, they can be cool, they change every couple of years, and, best of all, they cover a multitude of sins, or, at least, bags and lines.

Back in the day, I hoped wearing glasses would give me a few more IQ points. Now I hope they make me look a little less ancient and weary.

COVID Binge reading

COVID stricken, but well enough to read, I indulged myself by doing something novel (no pun intended), rereading an entire series of books, back to back. I exaggerate, but only slightly, there are 11 in total; I had reread the first three over the summer. In my COVID week, I read seven more.

My son who was staying with us got the Big C first; my husband was next to succumb. They were both pretty sick with high fevers and I cared for them through the worst of it, something that, as an ex-nurse, I positively enjoy.

Finally it was my turn. I didn’t get it too badly, but I felt wretched and had zero energy, so I took to my bed and my armchair with said pile of books and serial cups of tea.

The series I chose is a long-loved comfort read for me – the Simon Serrailler detective novels by Susan Hill. Set in a fictional English Cathedral town, the stories are as much about village life as a whodunit. Serrailler, the main detective, also an accomplished artist, is an entitled pain in the proverbial, but his sister, the local GP, Cat Deerbon, is the anchor of the tales as she manages a family, a busy career, a farmhouse and more than her fair share of personal trauma.

There’s a dash of cathedral politics (Cat is a believer, Simon isn’t), a lot about the UK health system and its woes, and each volume features a topical issue: voluntary assisted dying, drugs, child sex trafficking. It’s simultaneously feel-good and confronting – some of your favourite characters will be killed off and Hill traverses some very dark territory indeed. But there is always humanity and resilience in there somewhere, often in the person of Cat.

Bingeing a TV series is not uncommon, but I’ve never had the time to binge read like this. It was more personal, more interior, more all-absorbing because it was just me and the story, literally in isolation from the world. When I put down the tenth book, the last on my shelf, I felt bereft.

My mum had a friend who always left one Jane Austen unread, as he couldn’t bear to think that he had no more of his beloved Austen to discover. I don’t have that kind of discipline. As soon as I was better, I bought number 11 in the series, which I’ve already devoured. Now, I just have to wait in patience for number 12, and hope that I die before Susan Hill stops writing.

Rediscovered joys of communal living

1980, freshly married, my beloved and I lived in a university college flat with one communal washing machine. We shared it with younger under-grads who were as thoughtless as most people are at that age; I couldn’t wait to be grown up enough to have our very own laundry with all the trappings.

When we moved into a house with all the bells and whistles, I was ecstatic. No waiting for the machine to be free, or cleaning up other people’s manky mess. No removing soft wads of lint from the dryer. Our own clothes line, just a few steps from the back door.

Ten years of towelling nappies followed, and we were doubly grateful for that old warrior of a machine, that we bought second hand when I was pregnant with our first. And even when we were done with nappies, the washing for a family of six was endless.

Now we have come full circle. On the cusp of retirement, we have downsized dramatically and reside in a modest apartment with shared laundry. Eight gleaming washers (no dryers, praise be) live in a communal laundry on the roof, where there are also an abundance of clothes lines, under cover but open to every breeze.

On the roof (where there is also grass, tables, barbeques, where our neighbours’ dogs frolic and we occasionally meet for drinks) we chat over the chores, putting me in mind of centuries of women (thankfully these days both genders are equally represented at the clothes lines) catching up as they scrubbed the bedding at the river side or collected water at the village well.

It works perfectly. I have rarely had to wait for either machine or line space and if I do, I’ve learnt that it’s no big deal.

I wonder if something else is happening here, not simply that we are at an age where we don’t have to launder so often. Could it be that people are learning that you don’t have to own everything you need? In a church we were involved with years back, there was an inventory of tools and equipment that families had that others could use whenever they needed – electric drills, wheelbarrows, trailers.

In a world almost destroyed by excessive consumption, massively overblown housing for some and none for others, the insatiable desire to possess, could the humble old communal laundry be pointing the way to a return to sharing things and facilities? As the old saying goes ‘live simply, so that others can simply live’.