In which I discover that a lounge room is more important than I thought

Above: My new, streamlined study

In the middle of last year we tried an experiment. We got rid of the lounge room and set up a study in there, instead. It was good for a while, at least for me. I found it easier to work at home, but we missed having a room where people could stay; we missed watching movies together as a family. Then one day my nine-year-old and I were in an op shop looking for a dress when she spied a big brown modular couch, ran over, flopped on it, and ordered me to buy it.

I don’t usually take interior design instructions from a nine-year-old. But when I flopped on the couch, I too was sold. We bought it, it was delivered the same day, and the desk is now in the shed. And I am again without study.

Mostly, it’s been okay. It hadn't realised how much we like to watch movies together; and as my daughters get older, this will only become more important. I love cuddling up to my girls as we laugh our heads off at Inspector Clouseau, or sigh at Elizabeth Bennett and all her pretty sisters. And I had underestimated how much I like having friends come and stay, something they could not do while the room was a study, but can now it is a lounge room again.

As for my work, I’ve been working in public libraries, or at the kitchen table, or, when the kids are home and the libraries are closed, in a nursing chair in a corner of my bedroom, laptop balanced on my knees. Some days I feel like a pushover, sacrificing my needs to that of my family; other days, I graciously accept that, at this stage, the needs of the family and the demands of hospitality are more important, and I am lucky to have libraries, quiet kitchens and nursing chairs to work in. The current arrangement forces me to be streamlined, and that is a blessing to this messy person; all the same, it is frustrating not having anywhere to leave things out. Everything must be packed away before the next meal or when the library closes, then pulled out again at the next opportunity.

So it's a mixed decision. There are times when I fantasise about houses with studies, or extra rooms. Yet we used to live in one of those houses; but other values impelled us to move here, instead. And it’s not that our current house is too small. It has enough rooms. But the big lounge is at the front of the house, where nobody much hangs out; while the small reading room is just off the kitchen, and is everyone’s favourite place. The small room would make the better study, but the family will not forfeit it, even though it doesn’t fit a couch; the big room really is too big for a study, and contains the piano and the telly. If only I could swap the location of the small room and the big room, so that the big room opened off the kitchen and the small room was up the front - then everyone would be happy!

My husband suggests building a studio in the garden where I can write and think. But my kids fight up in the tree house; the little boys next door constantly wail for their mum; and the boys on the other side kick a soccer ball until midnight several nights a week. It’s noisy out there; building is expensive; and I’m not sure it’s a good option. More realistic is to accept that important values led us to this situation, and then do what so many parents do: wait a decade until the kids move out, and take over a bedroom.

Or maybe just move house.

Not domestic, not a goddess: Mary the prophet

The gospel doesn’t show us a domesticated Mary, nor are we shown a heavenly queen. Instead, we are shown a woman, a prophet, who is, quite literally, on the road. We see her walking into the Judean hills, visiting with cousins, or giving birth, not at home but in another town. We see her fleeing to Egypt, or on the road to Jerusalem, or outside a house where Jesus is. We see her at a wedding, at the cross, or visiting the tomb. What we don’t see is Mary at home, engaged in domestic duties.

To read more, click here.

Picture by Scott Griessel, found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-david-felten/oy-vey-maria-the-virgin-b_b_4476301.html?ir=Australia

Apocalypse Now?

Have you ever been to Venice? Such a beautiful city… But the combination of heavy buildings and rising sea levels mean that this beautiful city is regularly inundated by acqua alta. The waters rise, the sirens sound, and out come the duckboards so the people of the city can walk around. Maps of the projected effects of rising sea levels make the long-term future of Venice look very bleak, indeed.

To read more, click here.

(Picture from http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/duckboards,water/Recent)

Greying, lined, direct, and doing the work of love

Some people I hadn’t seen in a long while came for dinner. “Wow,” said one, “You look so different from when I last saw you. You look so … so … old!”

“Maybe it’s my grey hair?” I suggested.

“Well, yes,” she said, cocking her head to scrutinize my face more closely, “but … it’s also the lines around your eyes.” And then the subject changed and we headed into the kitchen for a drink.

I’ve told the story a few times now, and the response is always the same. “God,” said one friend, “did you poison her dinner?” “What a bitch,” said another. Meanwhile I still think the exchange is hilarious. I do look older than when I last saw her. My hair is turning grey, I do have lines around my eyes. For that matter, I creak when I stand up, my back hurts, my skin is thinning, and hair is beginning to sprout in unfortunate places. So I tell the story because it makes me laugh, and I reckon it’s good to be reminded of my mortality.

I also reckon the story is a good gauge of hospitality. Were my guest’s words such a deadly insult that I should have met them with cold fury? Am I really so needy that everyone must forever pretend that I am young and beautiful? Am I really so important that I should be treated with infinite respect? Well, to all three questions: no, not at all, which is why, when it happened, I laughed. The words weren’t meant as an insult; we don’t need to pretend I am young and beautiful; and I’m not so important that anyone should ever pussyfoot around me and play nice.

Why is plain speaking so rarely acknowledged as a gift? This dinner guest is a dynamo, and has always been blunt. She has spent decades advocating for survivors of sexual abuse, and has regularly crossed swords with the most closed, patriarchal, unresponsive institutions in town. Over time, her words have shaken them up and made them more accountable, and have led to healing processes for survivors. But she has spent so many years talking back to stubborn powerful men on behalf of the marginalised that sometimes she forgets to sugar coat. If that is the price we pay for her to do a heap of thankless, costly, necessary work, then I for one am willing to take it on the chin.

I’m proud to know our dinner guest, glad of her work and plain words, grateful there are people like her in the world. And I’m proud of my grey hair and the lines around my eyes. They’re a record of years lived and babies born and stories told and laughter shared and good work, and she understands this. Like her, I’ve earned my grey hairs, I’ve earned my lines; I don’t need to hide them. And I don’t need my dinner guests to be nice. Instead, I like my guests to be big-hearted people, who are doing the work of love.

With Open Hands

I would be ashamed to admit just how often I sit in the silence before the sermon and contemplate shoes or ‘shoulds’ or shopping lists. I love shoes, and think about them often; and what with three kids, I am forever making shopping lists. As for what I should do – exercise more, pray more, give more away, call this person, email that person, weed the garden, clean the house, radically change my life for the sake of the gospel – well, what I should do is endless. I will never, ever get through the list of things I should do, no matter how hard I try...

To read more, click here.

#FirstWorldProblems?

So I ordered a latte, and I don’t know whether the barista was having a bad day or whether the coffee shop is going downhill, but I was given a flat white – and the milk was too hot. And if I’m going to spend $3.50 on a coffee, the least they can do is get it right. But, you know, #firstworldproblems...

To read more, click here.

Holy Gossip

Unless we share stories about each other and about ourselves, we cannot know each other. In other words, without gossip, we cannot understand each other’s histories; we cannot forgive each other’s foibles; we cannot form community; we cannot learn to love ... Gossip done well is the glue that binds us...

To read more, click here.