Toyin’ with my mind

#Bloganuary today prompts us to write about a favourite childhood toy. I went out to the garage and pulled down the box that stores the remnants of my old Hornby O gauge train set. I think I was about 6 or 7 when it appeared under the Christmas Tree. I had hours of fun laying out the track in various configurations on the bedroom floor, using cushions and empty boxes as hills and tunnels. It started my love affair with trains, and here I am, six decades later still waiting for the space, time and $$$ to build a decent layout! One of those things I’ll get to when proper retirement starts, I suppose. In the meantime, one shelf in my office is dedicated to keeping my appetite whetted.

Toyin’ with my mind
A track looking for somewhere
Locos ready to chuff

A model railway fuses carpentry, mechanics, art and spirit!

‘leventh of Christmas

I have been chided simultaneously both for being overly strict to form and too free and easy. This means I’ve got it about right. Even so, squeezing “Eleventh day of Christmas into a 5 syllable haiku opening has me bracing myself! I am told the pipers piping are the eleven faithful apostles (after Judas has excused himself)

‘leventh of Christmas
Do ye ken the piper’s cry?
Turn ’round with new heart!

Bagpipes skirling, kilts a-whirling, over the hill they come – let’s follow!

#Bloganuary No.3

diagram as seen at https://david-culture.medium.com/oh-it-you-are-entering-the-comfort-zone-83c854435474

Write about the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone

Sometimes it seems as if I am perpetually out of my comfort zone. The paradox is that I have spent a life time – seven decades! – learning to live within a state of what some call “existential dissonance.”
It may sound grim, but I am thankful for it.

I can embrace risk, but not recklessly.
I can welcome other points of view, advancing learning and avoiding dogmatism.
When I relax, mostly by meditating, I don’t have to feel I’ve earned it – I am returning to my authentic core.

Authenticity keeps me anchored while weighing up the swirling chaos of my thoughts and the demands of others. When I was a fledgling church minister, a mentor shouted at me, “Claim your authority!” I’ve come to know that authority and authenticity are inextricably linked.
It’s been a life commandment to which I often return.

Social justice advocacy, refugee ministry, mental health support, community building and a nurturing, teaching role in day to day pastoral oversight of small suburban congregations have offered plenty of scope. Retirement has been no different, for which I am relieved.

I don’t think I’d survive too long in a comfort zone!


#Bloganuary No. 2

What’s a road trip you’d like to take?

They ask me this and I scratch my head,
I’ve done a few, and of more I’ve read,
What can eclipse the roads I’ve traveled
And the stories and thoughts that they in turn unravelled.

Our very own Nullarbor had its Kombi run
Roos, wombats and camels in the burning sun
Hitchhikers share the driving load
A thousand kilometers straight of unbending road.

The road from Amman to Petra ran past
The Wadi Musa where Moses’ water flowed fast
And what could beat the old Al Khazneh treasury
Immortalized by Indiana of current screen memory.

By Al_Khazneh_Petra.jpg: Graham Racher from London, UKderivative work: MrPanyGoff – Al_Khazneh_Petra.jpg, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14686572

The Grand Ol ‘Opry House in Tennessee
Launched our troupe north through green Kentucky
Fields of Ohio, Virginia thunder
Our church history alive, and we’re from Down Under.

Bulawayo to the bush winds a long dusty track
We travel to schools and communities out back
We listen to stories and talk about hope
Sink bores for water; with these we’ll all cope.

Maharashtra in India runs east to west
The road is quite crowded, we all do our best
From Mumbai to Yavatmal is quite a long haul
But the people we meet make it all a big ball!

So “What’s a road trip you’d like to take?”
One of these again – for old time’s sake!

Ninth Day of Christmas

The Good Book tells us “… the [nine] fruit of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5), and the song gives us nine ladies dancing.

Ninth Day of Christmas
Pirouetting, whirling dance
Spirit rejoices.

In the soft tones of nativity, Spirit nurtures maturity.

Bloganuary Challenge

Throughout January, my blog host, WordPress, poses a daily question in its Bloganuary challenge

It kicks off with “What advice would you give your teenage self?”

Let me respond by trying something new – a biolet (poetic device that follows ABabBA – any meter)

Acknowledge your fear
Let go of your timidity
Within you is the courage of a lion
Unleash it and the whole world will invite you in
Let go of your timidity
Acknowledge your fear

Gweru, Zimbabwe, 2014

Eighth Day of Christmas

Photo by ksenia c on Unsplash

The eighth day of Christmas coincides with the first day of the New Year on the Gregorian calendar. In Christian symbolism, coincidentally, it stands for resurrection, regeneration and new beginnings (eight people not only survived the Great Deluge, but represent humanity’s new start.)
All this in eight maids a-milkin’!

Eighth day of Christmas
Exit old, in with the new
Possibilities!

In the vast circle of life, the finish is also a beginning!

Seven of Christmas

I have to title it this way to manage a haiku’s first line of five syllables (eleven will present a challenge!) “Seven swans a swimming” traditionally represent the old charismatic gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.

Seven of Christmas
Sages of long past ages
Renew our deep fire

Digging into ancient wisdom thrusts us into the eternal now.

Sixth Day of Christmas

Six geese a-layin’ somehow symbolise the six days of creation. The prologue of the fourth gospel draws strong identification of the Logos, Christ, with the beginning of all things. Somehow geese invite contemplation of how even the absurd fits into the matrix of all that is.

Sixth day of Christmas
Geese and ganders proud parade
sound forth creation.

The music of the spheres and amusement of odd creatures sing glory