Posts filed under 'faith'
Everyone likes a happy ending - or a happy beginning. It’s been a week of good news for various friends, and even if the enjoyment of that is as an onlooker, it’s still good. Darker mornings, political parties trying oneupmanship in how much they want to make public sector cuts, need for central heating that bit earlier in the evening, we can all do with a bit of cheer at times like this.
Sometimes, in the midst of waiting for various things to happen in other quarters, life takes a slight turn, and I find my own green shoots - small perhaps, not a ‘green shoots of recovery’ moment, but still worth celebrating. Spending time with family, doing new things with friends, trying new recipes…
For all of my struggling with decrease of daylight at this time of year, somewhere along the line I find that this year’s autumn has a bit more of the mellow, less of the mists of the same time last year. Blogging at that point was an escape, a place to rail a bit at life. This year, I restart the blog again…and then find I am doing things again, away from writing, and that there is perhaps a better balance.
A friend of mine is also exploring new directions, like me a little at a time. Neither of us necessarily sought out these things, whether hobbies or new approaches, but we’re finding life in them, and turning to find others encouraging us on. That helps me breathe a bit easier - enjoy what’s in front of me.
Sometimes hope is stronger than we realise. The green shoots may seem thin, but we see them there one day, return to them the next and find them still there. Sometimes they stand out because of the earlier days spent looking at ‘bare ground’, waiting for something to change - but not just because of this.
Much of this experience is tenative, a little fearful still. There is not the big rush of the large celebration, the milestone in life. But it’s still there, still real, a small harvest.
October 8th, 2009
I’ve written separately about the Berlin museums, and also about the shop selling products relating to German traffic light men. In the same complex as the shop, there’s also a museum focused on Anne Frank.
I read Anne’s diary while doing A-Level German, and knew about her story in general. I also knew of the museum in Holland, based in the house where she and her family were in hiding.
What I didn’t know was that Anne was born in Berlin. Even more interestingly, the museum in Berlin told her story from the point of view of her friend Hannah, who she met on their first day at a Montessori kindergarten. Seeing materials from the school, photographs of them playing together, all served to remind me that Anne’s story began before the family went into hiding.
Probably the most affecting part was seeing video footage of Hannah, describing what it was like to be friends with Anne. We tend to think of the girl who wanted to be a writer; we also know that her diaries were all she was able to put across to the world. Hannah also describes the naughty Anne, the one who stood up to the boys at school; less of the ‘quiet saint’ we may have in our minds.
For me, the most shocking part was where Hannah discovered, after being moved to a concentration camp, that Anne was there too. Despite the danger of being caught, the two friends managed to ‘meet’, whispering through a partition of straw and barbed wire. At that point, Anne’s mother and sister had died, and she thought her father was also dead. Although Hannah encouraged her to keep going, Anne seemed to have lost hope, and was dead within a month.
Hannah reflected on the situation - Anne and her story became famous world wide, but she didn’t live to see it. Hannah’s experience of occupation was perhaps just as typical as Anne’s, or others at that time - and somehow she lived.
Perhaps she felt not unlike Anne’s father, who did in fact survive, and who in some ways came to know Anne more through finding and publishing her diaries. You can be tremendously proud of and affected by someone who writes openly about such difficulties. But you’d far rather you had them with you, and not just their words on a page.
A fitting end to the exhibition was a separate, smaller section, based on a competition where children were encouraged to write about relatives who had been affected by war.
Some wrote about their own situations - one fifteen year old who survived the Yugoslav conflict noted that he had experienced war for thirteen of those fifteen years. Some wrote about experiences their grandparents had that are now less well remembered than that of Anne Frank - one grandparent survived the siege of Leningrad, another witnessed the annexation of Kaliningrad, to the north of Poland.
The stories were powerful - and made more so by the children’s own efforts in retelling them in their own words, and illustrating them, or including photographs where those were available.
A little more indication if I needed it of Berlin’s complex history, and of Germany’s attempts to engage with these difficult topics today.
December 8th, 2006
It’s not really worth a mention on its own in a newsletter of the year that has to fit on two sides of paper.
But a blog seems a good place for it to have its own little write up.
Around Easter time, a lot was going round my mind, and I had a few nights of not being able to sleep. At all. I would usually get up and read in the sitting room for a while, but still not be able to drift off.
After a while, the light would gradually start to come up. So one morning, I opened the window a little, and was able to hear the birds starting to sing. It was incredibly peaceful, and finally drifting off as they continued to sing was even better.
However, it’s one of those ‘can’t step in the same river twice’ moments. Even though birds do clearly do the dawn chorus thing on a regular basis, when I tried to capture this again a morning or two later, either the birds had decided to stay in bed longer, or I just couldn’t settle to sleep.
Not so long after, I did manage to get something of the feeling back, when listening to a new Kate Bush album. I’m sure some readers would consider that Kate would induce sleeplessness in the first place, but the album has two discs - the second is a journey through a day. And yes, it starts with bird song. Every time I hear it, a little bit of my memory recalls: yes, it really is that special a sound.
December 3rd, 2006
So, we’re into December, and right on cue, our first Christmas card arrives.
Thanks, Jim and Betty!
It’s also an excuse to get out the advent calendar. I was given this when I was about eight, and have used it most years since. Never mind the siren song of chocolate in door a day calendars - this one has a poem a day.
Most of it is familiar, although there are some interesting additions. December 15 has a lion looking in on Mary, as she stirs a pot on a campfire, on the journey to Bethelehem.
December 1st, 2006
Ok, so I’ve nearly done on my comments about travels this year, but here’s one that was back in January.
One of the other parts of my job is school linking between Ireland and Scotland. It’s aided along by going to a partner-finding event with teachers from Scottish schools. Often these are in Ireland, and many a partnership has been cemented over a Guiness (or several) at the end of a long week of teaching.
In January, it was Belfast’s turn to host. I’d been there a couple of times before, for meetings with our language assistant colleagues. However, I hadn’t done a tour, which takes in the - possibly notorious - murals presenting both sides of the political divide.
To help us put things in context, the hosts kindly laid on a slide show on the first night. We were able to see pictures that we’d then see for real the next day, as well as others that have now vanished, either under new murals or have been cleared. The guide and deviser of the slide show was scruplously fair in portraying both sides, switching from Republican to Loyalist pictures and back.
I think few of the teachers who’d come from mainland UK had realised just how detailed the imagery is - I certainly didn’t realise there were so many symbols for each side to draw on. It was very powerful to be going in a coach along a local street, with little shops, and suddenly to hear that this was the Falls Road,and that buses didn’t serve at all at some points in the Troubles. I hadn’t realised how close the different neighbourhoods are to each other at points. Perhaps one of the most impacting sights was going along the side of a fairly normal looking estate, and see murals covering the whole side of a house on the end of a row. Our guide also told us that at times, some people tried to cover over the mural…and might be visited in the night to be told, in no uncertain terms, that the mural was to stay.
On a happier note, it was also a trip which included a Northern Irish ceilidh. It was a little confusing where some dances were the same as Scottish ones, but with different names; others had the same name but slightly different steps in between. The Scottish teachers acquitted themselves well, however. In proper ceilidh fashion, there wasn’t just dancing but also some singing, including from two Welsh teachers determined to keep the side up…
Our aim is, at some point, to manage to have a school partnership which includes Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. it didn’t come off this time, but maybe next year in Liverpool…
November 27th, 2006