The view from my bedroom window: The fields and hills covered with hoar frost.
The snow fell over our Oxford garden and transformed it. I sometimes look at my garden, and think it’s getting rather scruffy, and resolve to get out with shears and secateurs come spring.
But then snow falls, and the garden, a little bit overgrown, much in need of a prune, is transformed. White, magical, still and quiet. Cobwebs, laced in frost, glisten.
Nothing is as it seemed yesterday.
Nothing is as it seems. That’s a great lessons my garden teaches me as it changes from season to season—bulbs burst from the barren ground come spring; there was rich life beneath the frozen year. The bare branches sing with blossom; where had that been hiding?
The earth suddenly turns rich green and bursts with flower and birdsong in summer. Then it morphs again, gold-vermilion, followed by winter, austere and stark.
‘You thought you knew me; think again. You thought you had me pegged; think again.” We can only understand a fraction of reality.
And we too shall be changed, just as our earth is. “Our bodies sown in dishonour, shall be raised in glory; sown in weakness, shall be raised in power. We will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and we will be changed.” (1 Cor. 15)
Beads of ice transform a spider’s web
Change, metamorphosis, metanoia, or changing one’s mind. Repentance. For me, these are magical words, full of hope and possibility.
Day by day, we can change the seeds we put into the soil of our lives, resisting negativity, and judgement and meanness, sowing instead mercy, and kindness. And what we sow we reap. And gradually, the very substance of our hearts changes. Because of the mercy of the gardener.
- Icicles on the leaves of a contorted willow.
Nothing is as it seems. I wrote a harsh email earlier this week to an old frenemy I kind of like whom I first met 18 years, and who has been making a nuisance of himself on my Facebook page, and sometimes blog, leaving several negative, hostile, almost slanderous comments daily. Replying or deleting; replying or deleting: How time-consuming it all became.
Was it just envy, hostility, insecurity, sadness over his own failures? Relative success reveals whom your true friends are, just as relative failure or poverty. I blocked him, unblocked him at his request, and then when he was back with his undermining, hostile comments, reblocked him.
I wrote a harsh email explaining why (after being patient for months and months), sent it, and then a minute later, as many writers do, saw how I could have said the same thing in a dignified, restrained way in just two or three sentences. And without judgement.
His put-downs and contentious comments sure looked like envy and hostility and malice, but they may not have been. Some people are just nuts, high-functioning nuts perhaps, but nuts, not evil. “Do not judge,” Jesus said, for nothing is as it seems. As adults we can decide whom we want in our lives, and whom we’d rather block, but without withering character judgements as to whether they are mad, bad or merely sad.
I feel too ashamed to re-read that email. How will my friend, or frenemy feel? I felt dreadful.
Frost on a rose
Oh, there is only one place for such as I to retreat. To the fountain of forgiveness that falls, falls like blood, magic blood that turns its recipients as snow.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
And so I return again to the cleansing fountains, to the love of Jesus at Calvary when he, inexplicably, heart-rendingly, offered his beautiful life as a payment in full for every sin of mine.
And the mercy from the Great Heart, the life-blood of that Great Heart pours over me, and I feel the sweetness of that great love, and I feel his love and acceptance, and I snuggle into the recesses of the Most High, and there am I safe.
Such forgiveness, for a cranky woman who blew it. Incredible. I am made new, forgiven, washed white as snow.
Ice fingers on the twigs of a contorted willow.
* * *
And I forgive the man whose been trolling my Facebook page so insistently.
And become Facebook friends again? Oh no! He was consistently judging my theology, my reading of the Bible (he has a mercilessly inerrantist reading) and my politics. The continuous contemptuous putdowns were very annoying. And being exposed to people’s judgements is bad, dangerous and harmful. Judgments can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, and being judged in a heavy weight to bear!! As we are not to judge, we are also not to expose ourselves, our ears, hearts or spirits to other people’s judgements. For nothing is as it seems. They too only see in part.
Envy is dangerous, and the leading, hostile questions he was asking me on my FB page were almost slanderous–“Do you support abortion for any and every reason,” (in response to my posting, without comment, a Guardian article on the medically unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar)
Anyone who experiences increasing business success or career success will face putdowns and envy and snideness from old friends, acquaintances or frenemies whose own life has been disappointing. It’s a sad fact of life.
How do we deal with this? Do not boast. Certainly. Disguise your relative success? Perhaps. Drop them? In some instances, where is not much fondness in my heart for them, or vice-versa, and we still meet up out of old habit, this might be the best solution.
Iced rosehips
I love being a Christian adult. I do not have to act reflexively. I can act with wisdom, after consultation with my Lord. My forgiver.
“When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.”
William Butler Yeats
Frosted fennel in seed
Read my new memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India (US) or UK.
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My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) or UK
What wonderful pictures! We haven’t had more than sharp frost in South East England. How magical everything looks with an snow-white sugar-dusted icy covering. Yet the same cannot be said of our hearts, which need to remain tender and pliable, teachable and malleable in the Potter’s hands. Reading through your anguished account, I sense a tender heart that reproaches itself for any sign of unkindness toward another. The things you’ve experienced required a tough approach as a means of signalling “This is unacceptable” at least. It is possible to react firmly and fairly, with tough love that helps the other person to see our boundaries and their overstepping of them.
Please don’t reproach yourself any more, Anita. Considering what you have had to endure, you acted in both your own and the frenemy’s best interests. As you continue to hand everything over at the throne of grace, God will help you to see things as He sees them – to remember that you are a much loved and forgiven child of God and a ‘Work in progress’ as we all are, slowly (and imperceptibly at times), being ‘changed from glory to glory’. Be at peace, my friend. Bless you 🙂
Thank you, Joy. I guess life continually throws us new challenges. I simply didn’t know what to do in this occasion, as the person had been a friend, but suddenly, after they visited us from the US this summer, there was a slew of put-downs, contradictions of everything I shared, and more sinister, libellous anonymous comments on my blog which I tracked down by means of the IP address (thanks, WordPress). I guess I shouldn’t have reinstated them at their request. I guess we live and learn how to deal with challenges without sin!!
I love that verse you quoted, ‘we shall all be changed’. It gives hope to things like you are talking about, where we end up saying things that we regret soon after. One day we won’t have to wrestle with it all anymore.
Yes, and we are changed from glory to glory even in this life. That gives us even more hope!!
The pictures are wonderful!!! I do miss having 4 seasons rather than 2 (rain, no rain). It has threatened to snow here tonight, but I live in the ever-so-slightest valley and while we generally get a little dusting on the hill behind me, just the few feet of elevation means I usually don’t get even the dusting.
As for forgiveness and your judgement of your frenemy, I have a few things to say. First of all, when you or anyone else I know “unfriends” someone (and that phrase is not just describing the recent development of facebook, but people have unfriended people for as long as the human race has been around) because of a friction between them, I remind them that Jesus didn’t like everyone either. I get frustrated with this constant message given from kindergarten onward that we have to be everyone’s friend. That message is bound for failure. Yes, Jesus was open about his friends, taking in folks that society had marginalized, but he wasn’t friends with everyone. Loving everyone, showing respect for all humankind – those were hallmarks of his teaching, but there was room for a healthy “I choose not to spend time with you”.
The second thing is that it’s ok to get angry and make a break with other people. We’re taught, in our western culture, that anger is antithetical to love. I think the ability to love someone one is angry with is the stuff of high holiness. But we’re taught that forgiveness means we forget about the hurt they’ve caused and reset the relationship. This is how people (and many times women) get into abusive and co-dependent relationships. We are taught that forgiveness requires us to be put into a position of being re-injured. There’s a great book on the subject, the exact name escapes me, but it’s something like “Saying ‘No’ In Love” – written in a Christian context with Biblical passages as a foundation for the work – but it’s a crucial read for anyone trying to leave an abusive and/or co-dependent situation.
I don’t recall Jesus “cooling off” after he tossed the money changers out of the temple and asking them to come back…that he’d lost his head and that he was really sorry he threw all their money everywhere. However, I don’t see any indication that he loved any of those people any less…I think he loved them right through his anger as he was tossing them out on their ears for what they had turned the temple into.
Thanks, LA, that is very comforting. I was more guilty about the harsh email spelling out why than the actual unfriending. He was stressing me with the daily negative hostile comments or putdowns, and judgements on my theology and politics and a general supercilious attitude towards me. I unfriended once, refriended at his request, and then, I guess both of us felt we were stuck with each other, and his upsetting and boring comments continued, sometimes several in a day.
Acc. to the Pareto Principle, 80% of the relational hassle in our lives comes from 20 % of the people, and this one guy was certainly responsible for me losing the joy and fun of exploration and sharing of ideas on FB. No, I am delighted, he’s blocked, but wish I would have done it without hurting his feelings. What you sow you reap, and all that…
This is so beautiful, Anita. And yet, and yet: my heart is so heavy with everything I’ve learnt about the shootings in Connecticut. Why do I see so much violence and hatred around me? And why do those who should be transformed all too often contribute to more prejudice, bigotedness and hurt to others?
And where is God in all this? I know that this is an age-old question and one that is so hard to understand and to live with.
A love freely given is far greater than a love coerced. And with the freedom to love or not to love…out of that comes the anger and violence towards our fellow travelers on planet Earth. Could God force us to love and worship Him? I absolutely believe that He can since He can do all things. But He has chosen a path of choices where each and every day we must either choose to be with Him or against Him. In giving us this choice, we open ourselves up to those who choose against God. Yet, I believe His hand is on the hearts of everyone affected by all tragedies all across the world and that our lives in His presence after we pass this Earthly life will be glorious. Take heart, Klaudia, that God is with us in our sorrow and frustration over this incident. My heart is also heavy with grief over this senseless act of violence. 6 and 7 year old kids, beloved principals and teachers – I just want to scream with anguish!!
Wish I had a good answer. There is something more to suffering than we realize isn’t it–that’s why Christ came as the Lamb which was slain, as the suffering servant. I too cried when I saw the pictures. There always have been the mentally ill–but never before have they had such easy access to guns!