Sounds of Silence

Good evening Bernadette

Allow me to introduce myself.  I am your bedside light.

So please, will you let me shine on your thoughts as I peer over your shoulder and read what you are tap-tapping into that keyboard there. Perhaps I should mind my own business but I rather like analysing what people in this room read and write. Heaven knows I have nothing better to do.

Besides, I cannot switch myself on and off at a whim.

So, here you are at yet another silent retreat looking very much the part - contemplative and determined - but I agree with that very self-aware sentence you just wrote about how no reputable nunnery would take you on.

I have been here at this Retreat Centre for about three years now (my predecessor burned out)  and have effortlessly managed silence the whole time. You, on the other hand, just texted your daughter to inform her of your incredible spiritual progress after only two and a half hours. A bit premature, don't you think? 

Mmmm...now you are writing about all those years you worked at the Cafe.  Hang on, I will wait until you finish that sentence...turn the laptop a bit more this way...thanks...aha...insightful...that's good, Bernadette, very good...

You just admitted that for eight years you had more bubble and froth than a cappachino! More bounce than a beach-ball! More smile than a Cheshire cat!

But there was a price to pay. Each evening you were a wrung-out dish-rag from the sheer effort of being nice to customers all day.

You're on a roll now, Bernadette. One light-bulb moment after another! ( I love light-bulbs, by the way ) You've just concluded that nobody should invest so much energy in others while neglecting their own needs and that the best thing you did was quit your cafe job very abruptly one day.

In hindsight you even thank the boss who made your life difficult, for the very next day you stumbled into a new job where silence awaited you under the kiwifruit vines.

Oh, so at first you didn't cope very well? Silence was too silent for you, was it Bernadette?  You listened all day to your radio? Peace was there for the taking but you opted for a bombardment of music and current affairs?  Uncomfortable with something, were we?

Hurry up and finish that sentence...oh, you got tired of being jokey-jokey and you've been consciously re-claiming your quota of earnest ever since...?

So, I guess you really do mean business here at this retreat, Bernadette. The last three people who slept in this room couldn't resist peeking at Facebook but you have not been tempted ...yet...well done.

What!!! Unbelievable! Here am I, so impressed by your spirituality one minute and then the dinner-gong clangs and you're stampeding down the corridor like your pants are on fire.

Unbelievable, switching me off like that! Bernadette, there is way too much power in your hands but no doubt I'll see you later.

Over and very out,

Nighty nighty

From Bedside Lighty


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Light at the End of the Tunnel

An overly-familiar Shropshire forced me to eat lunch in the car today. When he lunged at my ciabatta bread-roll (it had peanut-butter and squished banana in it), I fled from under the vines to the passenger's seat of my car and wound the window right up.

While the sheep snorted miffed nostrils against the glass I grinned back, munched on black jelly-beans and contemplated the life-lessons I learned in the last seven weeks while I sawed and lopped and tugged at those three rows of shockingly entangled kiwifruit vines. My leather gloves fell to bits, my arms ached, my legs bruised, my forehead perspired and an inner-voice often taunted me with, 'Dummkopf!'.

Yes, there were times I almost gave up the mammoth task.

But when the last cane fell and sunlight danced where darkness had reigned for so long, well, what an incredible sense of achievement!

So, while imprisoned in my own vehicle, here are the principles I came up with:

1)  When life is just a long dark tunnel of tangled-up problems even the tiniest determined action to improve things lets in a tiny pinpoint of light.

2)  When enough tiny pinpoints of light gather together they become a sunny patch.

3) When enough sunny patches merge we dare to hope.

4) When we feel hope the necessary energy seems to well up within and we find ourselves chopping away with increased gusto!

5) Even if there is still plenty of problem to tackle, glance back now and then to enjoy how far you've come.

6) At a certain stage we do indeed see the light at the end of the dark tunnel so be sure to pay yourself a compliment or three about how determined and resilient and amazing you are.

7) If the going gets tough and your progress seems pathetically slow ask a friend to remind you how determined and resilient and amazing you are.

8) Be sure to do the same for them when they struggle with something. Only the dead are burden-free.

9) Take breaks when fatigue strikes and make mini-celebrations of them whether your coffee  is poured from  an old thermos flask or dripped from the finest Italian espresso-machine.  Both brews are beautiful if you decide they are.

10) Mission accomplished? Rejoice! Sure, another wilderness will challenge you again one day but is there any harm in being happy and relieved in the meantime?