Graham Chastney's Blessings

Today is my first day back after a 2 week break with the family.

We spent most of it in Tuscany, Italy at the wonderfully idyllic Podere San Martino (there web site needs a bit of work).

It was great to be away with the family and to enjoy the sights of Tuscany.

We spent some days by the pool, and others visiting places, and still others doing a bit of both.

I’m writing this during my lunch and my body is telling me that it’s time to go for the sleep that I have so easily become used to.

One of the privileges that comes with job that I do is that I am able to travel to work on some days in a small jet. It’s not as grand as it might sound, we’re not talking about a fancy private jet, we are talking about a small passenger plane carrying around a hundred people.

I’m actually writing these words from inside that jet on a glorious summer’s day. The "fasten seatbelt sign" is turned off so I’m cleared to type.

We’ve just left a small airport in the south of England, and I’m on my way home. The flight is quite quiet today so I’ve been able to secure my favourite seat – a window seat a little way behind the wings. I love looking out of the window as we travel up the country.

In the winter it’s all of the lights; today it’s a fabulous view of classical English fields in yellow, golden browns and a multitude of greens.

I’ve travelled this route so many times that I know roughly where we are; at the moment we are passing over Stoke noticeable by its football stadium.
In no time at all, if we follow the normal route, we’ll be turning left over the Lancashire moors making our way directly over our house; getting lower all the time until we land.

This evening there is barely a cloud in the sky, where they do linger the shadows beneath make patterns on the ground.

I’ve travelled this way many, many times before; it’s become a comfortable routine. I know roughly what is going to happen from the time I walk through the small door with “Departures” on a sign above through until I get into my car at the other end. The rhythm of it is the same every time. Actually I’ve heard the safety briefing so many times that I have to remind myself that it’s going on and not to talk.

I know other people for whom a flight is a scary prospect because they have never done it before, it fells strange and uncomfortable.

There are times in life when it’s good to dwell in the routines and others when the routine is that last place we should dwell. Today I’m enjoying the routine.

Both of these quotes are true:

The secret of love is seeking variety in your life together, and never letting routine chords dull the melody of your romance

The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.

There is a sense in which we need a framework of routine without the bondage of it.

I’ve used this quote before, but I make no apologies for it:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

Matthew 11

As spring moves into summer here in Lancashire we get two glorious golden shows in the fields and meadows around.

First it’s the turn of the Dandelion popping up almost overnight, bursting into bloom for a few days, transforming into balls of seeds that explode into a passing breeze.

The Dandelion is followed by the Buttercup. A different golden glow spreading across the open fields thousands upon thousands of them.

I remember the times as a child when we used to pick the Buttercups and hold them under our chins to see if we loved  butter. We never noticed that the result was always the same. We used to blow the Dandelion heads pretending to tell the time – blow, one o’clock, blow, two o’clock.

Later on the buttercups are joined in the fields by the tall grasses and they dance together in the passing wind. In teams they sway from side to side making patterns in the meadow their heads swaying around like a merry drunk.

Out in the open countryside these bringers of spring and summer colour are gloriously at home and in their place.

In my garden it’s a different matter, here they are not fabulous meadow flowers, here they are weeds.

My garden isn’t a meadow, my garden is my garden. This is not the place for the Dandelion or the Buttercup, but that doesn’t stop them trying. The Dandelion still thinks that the gap between the paving is a good place to grow, the Buttercup feels that same about my lawn. Here they don’t grow to anything like their full potential, here in my garden they are mutants stood on or cut down. They are disfigured by the restrictions that I place upon them, or the environment that they have chosen. The only thing that can be done with them is to cut them out and remove them.

The plants are exactly the same – it’s the place that has changed.

So many times in my own life I’ve been in the wrong place, sometimes physically, but also mentally and spiritually. I’ve been in the place of restriction or the place where I have been cut down. I’ve placed myself in a garden when I should have been in the open fields.

We aren’t plants growing wherever the seed landed, we have the blessing of choice. We can choose where we are going to grow and if we make the wrong choice we can change to another place. Sometimes we need the help of a higher power to move us, but the choice is ours to make.

In some areas of my life I currently feel like I have moved into a place of restriction and I need to do something about it. There’s no point in me sitting here complaining about it I need to do something, I can make the change.

Other areas of my life feel like they were made for me and the remarkable thing is that many of these places are not the places I would have chosen if it weren’t for the lessons that I learnt in the places of constraint. So even in that place there are lessons to be learnt.

The Dandelion and the Buttercup are both wonderful flowers but they need to be in their place, and so do we.

Only 50 million?

Most Wednesday evenings Sue runs a ladies event (Revive) at church. That leaves myself, Jonathan and Emily at home; so we’ve decided to make this a time when we go out and have a bit of fun ourselves.

One week we decided to go and check out the new art work on Blackpool Prom, not somewhere I would normally choose, but for a bit of an adventure, why not. It was sunset and we had lots of fun interacting with the different pieces. There’s a slideshow of some of the pictures at the bottom of this post of some of the many pictures that we took. We particularly liked the huge glitter-ball, the setting sun meant that we were able to dance in and out of the reflected sun on the pavement.

Last week it was a wonderful warm spring evening and we called in at Hurst Green, home of the famous Stoneyhurst College and probably the inspiration for some of the places described in Lord of the Rings.

We decided that we would walk up alongside a small stream I think is called Deanbrook.

There are some woods and plenty of places to explore. There’s even a big amphitheatre which was probably once a quarry, but the star attraction has to be Deanbrook itself. The stream makes it’s way down the valley over limestone which has been worn out into pools and small waterfalls; it’s quite idyllic.

It was a shame that it was still April, because on a summer’s evening it would be a great place for a paddle and swim. Jonathan pleaded with me several times to do precisely that; I thought about it, but sometimes there are limits.

On our way back down the stream we decided to take a closer look at one of the pools. The main attraction of this particular pool was that it looked deep and right next to it was a very long stick so we could get a good idea of how deep.

Jonathan bounced across a rock and picked up the stick plunging it deep into the pool to demonstrate that it was well over 6ft deep in the middle. Again he pleaded to go swimming.

My progress was a little more cautious, but resulted in me sliding down the rock and careering out of control towards the pool. I was just preparing myself for the inevitable cold dip when I regained grip right on the edge.

Just as I was regaining my composure Jonathan decided to step across the narrow stream feeding the pool to take a look at it from another side. It was only a short step from one side to the other, but the mossy rocks meant that both his feel lost their footing and propelled him down into the stream.

Much to all of our surprise the stream was very deep at this point and Jonathan sank down all the way up to his outstretched arms. There he hung, with his elongated arms holding head and shoulders above the water, trying to catch his breath while the rest of him was getting used to the idea of being plunged into a pool of cold water.

As a loving caring compassionate parent I took the only action I could and laughed. Emily, however, saw things a little differently and went white at the thought of losing her brother to the elements.

In retrospect Emily’s reaction was probably a bit more appropriate.

So there we are, I’m standing shakily on a slippery rock, Jonathan is acclimatizing himself to the temperature of Lancashire stream water in April and Emily is getting whiter by the second.

After what seamed like an age I managed to regain my composure and reach in to give Jonathan a hand out of his predicament. It was then that Jonathan realised that his (new) mobile phone was in his back pocket and had been subjected to the same experience as himself. Thankfully it dried out over the next couple of days and is now working fine.

Jonathan regained his composure steadily and a few hugs reassured Emily that everything was going to be alright.

Thankfully it wasn’t a long walk back to the car, but you could tell where Jonathan had walked by the trail of wet footprints that followed us.

Oh, and did I tell you, we also played in the park and watch crown-green bowling. It was a wonderful adventure.

I’m writing this on a Wednesday lunchtime, we don’t yet have a plan for this evening, but perhaps something a little less adventurous might be in order, I wonder where the nearest zip wire is?

I’ve tweaked the colours on this site a little so that highlights are green rather than blue to differentiate a bit between grahamchastney.com and this blessings site.

But I’m still not sure whether green is a good colour. What do you think?

Last week we spent a few days in western Scotland getting away from it all. We managed to find a great place right on the shores of Loch Awe.

It was really beautiful and a great time of relaxing.

I did some thinking too, but I’ll write about that later.

I’ve written a few times about thoughts that come to me on my morning walk near where I live. It’s not surprising that I get ideas while out walking because that’s one of the reasons that I do it.

Walking and thinking is something that people have done for generations and generations, it’s great way of relieving stress.

Near our house I’m very privileged to have a whole set of walks through fields and woods. There are all sorts of alternatives, all of them out into the countryside.

The options for walking would be very limited though is it wasn’t for the wonderful invention of the bridge.

Our house isn’t far from a four lane section of the M6 motorway, there’s just a thin slither of countryside between the two. There’s a nice path down this slither, but it would become a bit dull if I couldn’t go down the path and along the lane under the thundering traffic and out into the open fields beyond. Then travel a bit further along to the old railway line and back across the wide footbridge, that links it back up to the other side.

On other days I can go through the woods a bit further along and over the footbridge into another set of woods where I’ve seen deer a few times. This footbridge is so narrow that if you look down towards your feet you can feel like you are flying over all of the vehicles as they speed underneath.

Trying to cross the M6 without access to these bridges would be a recipe for suicide, literally.  If it wasn’t for these bridges I would be stuck on my side of the motorway. I would have places to walk, but my options would be so limited.

The bridges enable me to connect to a much broader set of experiences and a whole new set of opportunities.

There is common phrase used about broken relationships: “burning your bridges” which suggests that relationships are a bit like bridges. If bridges open up new opportunities and relationships are like bridges how many relationships do you have that open up new prospects. I count myself as particularly blessed with the number of friends that add so much to who I am.

There’s also another relationship that broadens my perspective in so many ways and that is my relationship with Jesus. Many people see Christianity as something that shrinks peoples options, but a relationship with Jesus does exactly the opposite.

Jesus: “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”

John 10:10

What would you like to see in the “about” page on this site?

If you click on the heading “about” you’ll notice that it doesn’t say anything of any value. This is primarily because I’m not quite sure what to write. So I thought I would ask the people who read what I write to tell me what they would like to know (Yes, that’s you).

If you want to know it then there is a reasonable chance that someone else would too.

Just leave a comment on the bottom of this post and I’ll see what we come up with.

I reserve the right not to include your ideas though, I’m not leaving myself that open.

The buildings where my church meets is situated on a triangular plot of land on the edge of Preston.

On one side there is a local road with houses on the other side. On another are the backs of houses. On the third is a main road, East Way, beyond this main road, a few hundred yards away, is the M55 motorway which is elevated above the level of Easy Way. Up there on it’s embankment it obscuring the view of everything beyond.

All in all it doesn’t make for the most inspiring of views. It’s fine if you want to know how many people have been to the Pleasure Beach in Blackpool and are now stuck in the queue trying to get onto the M6. Other than that it’s an ordinary urban view on the edge of a city.

But all of this tarmac and concrete hides a secret.

The church buildings have, until recently, all been on ground level. From down there the secret is completely hidden behind the M55.

A recent set of extension has added a new, two story, part to the side of the building facing north and the M55 embankment. One of the things that the architect wanted to create in this new part of the building was a light and airy space. There are big windows on both the ground and first floor, it’s facing north so they needed to let in as much light as possible.

(A quick aside. If you are not from the UK, you perhaps think that the first floor is on the ground, but here in the UK we call the floor on the ground the “ground floor”. The floor immediately above ground level we call the “first floor”, not the “second floor”, OK?)

Up on the first floor these big windows open up the secret. The elevated position reveal what is hidden beyond. It’s not visible every day, the weather conditions have to be right, but that just adds to the mystery.

Recently I was in a meeting on the first floor and was sat facing the window. It was a crisp clear day, cold, but fine. It was a morning meeting and we started in the dark. As time progressed I looked out of the window to see the sun rising in the sky lighting up the snow capped mountains of the Lake District beyond.

The Lake District was recently voted Britain’s greatest natural wonder. I’m not sure about that, but they are quite impressive all the same, and they are only 30 miles, or so, away.

You wouldn’t know they were there from the ground, up on the first floor the view is glorious. It’s an elevation of only a few feet, but it makes all of the difference.

In the Bible Jesus used to go off and climb mountains when he wanted to be alone with his father. I always thought that this was so that he could be closer to God, because I thought of God as “up there”. Recently I’ve wondered whether he went up into the mountain so he could get a better perspective down, not up.

God, of course, is everywhere and you don’t need to climb high so he can hear you, but looking down on a situation certainly gives you a different view. It gives you a longer view. It gives you a broader view. It gives you an unobstructed view.

(The picture isn’t one taken from the window, it’s one I took while in Keswick on a quiet day, special days)