More than Writers

Have you a picture of what life is like? A metaphor or an image? St Paul thought it a race; Ronan Keating a few years ago thought that life was a rollercoaster (just gotta ride it!); Forrest Gump thought it was like a box of chocolates. A friend thinks that life is a series of tests (interesting discussions there). It seems that so many of us think in metaphors. I do.  This is my metaphor:  life is like kicking a carpet. Bear with me.  There's this roll of carpet - only about two or three feet wide, sort of like a stair carpet, that I unroll ahead of me as I walk along. Everyone has one. There's some artistic licence here as the carpet never gets any smaller and doesn't start out that big, it sort of magically unrolls in front of me. I do have to put  some  effort in but it's not actually as hard as actually kicking an actual carpet, if you've ever tried to unroll one in the living room while your spouse tries to lift up the sofa. This is a m...

“It’s your fault I’m not getting any housework done!” That’s what someone said to me yesterday. She’d heard me speak at a meeting and, as we chatted afterwards, informed me of my part in her not getting the duster out. The blame, apparently, lies in the fact that reading my books is more enjoyable than housework. And, since she bought two more yesterday, the housework-less state of her house looks set to continue. “Oh, I’m sorry!” is what I jokingly said in response.   Am I really sorry?   Not a bit. Christmas may be over a month away, but that lady gave me an early Christmas present yesterday. She reads my books: What a gift to me. To be honest, I sometimes forget that people do read what I write. And then someone reminds me. Like the person who recently told me she’d gone into a shop, looking for a book to read.   She’d considered mine, discounted it, and then something drew her back.   She bought it and, in her words, ‘once I started readi...

Agatha Christie' desk and typewriter. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,  today and forever.   Do not be carried away by all kinds  of strange teachings.   It is good to have our hearts strengthened by grace...."                                    Hebrews 13:8-9 A recent children’s magazine had a photo of a portable typewriter and described how it worked.   To me it seemed extraordinary that children today wouldn’t know about an invention that so changed peoples' lives. Memories were sparked of familiar names: Remington, Underwood, Olympia, Imperial, Royal used in offices and remainig the same for nearly a hundred years.      Pitman typing classes taught us to sit properly, and why I don't suffer from the repetitive strain injuries of today. At 1...

Perhaps, like me, you know a lot of people. Some you may like a lot; some you may call friends. I consider myself singularly blessed when it comes to friends, and this came home to me forcibly recently when I met up with a friend met at university who subsequently went to live in Canada. Although she has been back to the UK several times it is difficult to see everyone you'd like to see when your visit is short, and although we kept in touch we hadn't actually seen one another for 28 years! Somehow, though, I had every confidence that our friendship doesn't rely on the details of life, and that we would be able to talk freely and without any awkwardness - and so it proved. I have another friend, of long standing, with whom I would literally trust my life and deepest secrets. She is the soul of loyalty. I did not expect to find any more, to be honest, as I grew older - not of such kindness and faithfulness; but God is good, and I have. She knows who she is! In addition there...

Oh dear. I've just noticed the date, and it's that time of the month again (no, not that time, those finished a long time ago). The time when I have to find something meaningfully to say about writing, or God, or preferably both. Having just been away on retreat for five days, I had lost track and thought all I had to do today was unpack my case and order the food from Ocado. A blog is a funny thing; it creeps up on you and suddenly demands that you utter oracles, or at least something mildly entertaining. I suppose I should be used to the idea by now, having been writing a monthly magazine column for 35 years, but that has a wider remit and this blog ought in general to be about something vaguely connected with our shared profession, or at least our profession of faith. 'Morgan' Forster And there's the rub. Do we really need, does the world really need, more words about words or about The Word? EM Forster (whom I met when I was 12, but that's another st...

Discovering New Words The word ‘palimpsest’ first entered my vocabulary when I was a newly qualified teacher, guiding my almost-as-old-as-me group of A-Level students through the opening chapter of 'The Handmaid's Tale,' by Margaret Atwood. Describing the gymnasium where the women are made to sleep, Atwood writes, “ Dances would have been held there; the music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound .”  To avoid looking like I didn't 'know my stuff,' I investigated the meaning of this unfamiliar word (appearing to glide like a swan, when you're engaging in rather more frantic, duck-like paddling, is key to surviving one's early teaching career).  According to the dictionary, a palimpsest is: "... a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing. ... something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form." In the case of ‘The Handm...

Last weekend was my book launch. I know many of you have seen photos and comments from the evening, so please be assured that this post is not about that! I want to focus on the morning after, during which my husband and I preached at our church. We had decided we needed to share our story together, as it appears in the first part of my book. Many of the congregation already knew it – some had lived through it with us – but we were conscious of the fact that there were newer people who had joined in the last few years who may not. We didn’t want anyone to have a shock if they bought and read my book! God has been taking our whole church on a journey with authenticity over the years, and, just in the last few weeks, it seems that He has increased the emphasis on encouraging people to be vulnerable with one another. We certainly wanted to build on that, and, while we did talk about the book and our story, we moved on to explore how we believed God was nudging as a church fam...