Category: Blessings

One of the nice things about being a bit of an unknown on the Internet is that I can leave the comments on this blog wide open and allow anyone to comment. I get comments in all sorts of ways outside the blog comments as well. Sometimes people I know actually talk to me, but I also get comments coming through on email, IM and on flickr. It’s great to receive your comments; thank-you for making the effort. It means a lot to me that people actually read what I write and that the meager offering mean something to them.

The main purpose of this blog is to allow people to connect with the things that I regard as important and worthwhile. We live in a society that tries to rubbish and degrade everything and I wanted to be one of the people that stood against that attitude. I’m not trying to be an ego-maniac I’m just trying to put out there what I have been given.

Bless you for your contributions and comments, they really brighten my day.

(I hope no-one thinks I am writing these items in order of their priority in my life because it would give you a really false view of the things that I regard as import. I write them when I feel the muse coming to write about a particular topic.)

“What is the purpose of my life?” It’s a really important question. It doesn’t always manifest itself in those exact words, but the root issue is the same. It’s a question that people ask at different times of their life. I was 17 when I first asked the question but for most people they seem to reach the question when they are in their 30’s. It creep up on people and no-one tells them that they are going to face it sooner or later. Even if someone did tell you that it was coming, I am not sure that anyone would face the question before it arrived.

When we are young we can barely see beyond the next big event in our lives. Even if that big event is only the next weekend, or the activity we are going to do that evening.

As we move into teenage life our time-frame broadens a bit, but not that far. We might be able to think as far as passing a qualification, but the thought of anything as grand as marriage and children is well beyond most teenagers. Most teenagers I know are looking as far as passing their driving test.

Most people go through radical changes in their twenties; they may get married; they may get a qualification; they may have children; they may get a job; they may buy a house. All of this activity leaves little time to think about the purpose of life, that’s for old people.

Through all of this a few realise that there is more to life; they seek a purpose and some even find it.

It is not until people reach their thirties that many of them start asking the question ‘why?’. Why did I bother? Why did that happen? Why didn’t that happen? Many people don’t even reach the question in their thirties but certainly many of the people I know do.

In the Bible there was someone who decided that they would try every part of life in order to find it’s meaning. He came to this conclusion:

“I was a wise teacher with much understanding, and I collected a number of proverbs that I had carefully studied. Then I tried to explain these things in the best and most accurate way. Words of wisdom are like the stick a farmer uses to make animals move. These sayings come from God, our only shepherd, and they are like nails that fasten things together. My child, I warn you to stay away from any teachings except these. There is no end to books, and too much study will wear you out.

Everything you were taught can be put into a few words: 

Respect and obey God! This is what life is all about.

God will judge everything we do, even what is done in secret, whether good or bad. “

I regarded it as a blessing is that I found the purpose of my life when I was 17. I did quite a bit of living before that point and I came to a place where I knew that none of the living was worth anything. It was at that time that I had a personal encounter with God. I don’t have the words to explain how that felt or even the mechanics of what happened; I just know that I met with God. From that point on I have known that the purpose of my life is to be an apprentice of God; to ‘respect and obey’ Him. The rest of my life has been framed within that single purpose.

The reason I write this blog is framed within that purpose.

The way that I am a father and husband is framed within that purpose.

The type of employee that I am is framed within that purpose.

My leisure time is framed within that purpose.

This purpose is the ultimate purpose upon which all other worthwhile purposes are built. I’m not talking here about a cause to champion or an aim to fulfill, I’m talking about a relationship between me and God.

England & Wales win the Ashes and the country goes wild; but in a very British way.

I go out to play tennis and win a game on my very flaky serve and I am ecstatic.

I am so privileged to be able to participate in sports as a leisure activity. There are so many people in this world of ours who have got far more basic things to think about, like where to find clean water. Being in the very  privileged position of having enough I can choose how I use my leisure time, and one of the things that I love to do is to play sport.

I’m not one of these sport junkies who has to get their fix of whatever sport is on. I enjoy my sport, but it’s not really a huge part of my life. One of the main reasons it’s not that dominant is because I’m not actually very good at it. There are four of us who try to play tennis every week, and have done for years. I am easily the weakest of the players, but that doesn’t stop me enjoying it. On a purely rational level I’m not sure why.

Playing sport is part of exploring the fullness of life. As well helping me physically it also exercises the mind and the spirit.

Why does a ball travel like that when I hit it like this; and why when I try it like this does it not do that?

Why does my serve go so much better when I’m not thinking about it. I sometimes sing a song in my head to stop me thinking too much?

Why do I feel refreshed from an our on a tennis court when 30 mins in a gym tires me out?

I suppose it’s about self-discovery.

I find that I am schizophrenia in many different aspects of my life. There are things which I know I enjoy, but I don’t do them. I enjoy a trip to the gym; but struggle to get myself motivated. I enjoy turning the television off and reading a book; but don’t do it very often. I really enjoy meeting new people; but I worry about it and avoid doing it. I think that this particular worry is really a fear of what people will think about me. It’s an irrational fear that has been there for for a very long time. I’m actually writing this in a room full of people, but I wouldn’t dream of talking to any of them so I’ve got my headphones on looking industrious.

Even though I worry about it, meeting interesting people – which for me, is most people – is a blessing.

There are billions of people on this planet, and they all look different. But looking different is only the surface of the differences. These people all think differently. They all eat differently. They all have a different heritage. Each of these and the numerous other differences aren’t small incremental nuances they are deep and they are profound.

On a person-to-person level I have rarely come across someone who didn’t interest me in some way.

One year Sue, Jonathan, Emily and I went to Florida on holiday, and to visit my brother’s family. On the way back we were sat in the airport opposite another British family. This family fascinated me. There was Mum, Dad and two teenage children. These people had been on holiday, the same as us, but they had obviously had a completely different experience to us. We were chilled; they were anything but chilled. The teenage son didn’t even need to say a word for his mother to chew his ears off; “don’t you start”. Once the mother had said her piece the father would have a go and then the father and the mother would have a go at each other. What needs to happen for family communications to get that bad. It’s a mystery, to me anyway.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realised that things that I found dull and boring actually enlivened others. My job is predominantly project based, start, execute, complete, get out. I have a work colleague whose job it is to keep things running once I have been in and done my stuff. He didn’t choose this job because he wasn’t good enough at the project stuff, he chose it because he is good at it. It’s the thing that gets him going in a morning. If you asked me to do that job I would be bored in less than a week, he does it with a passion. I have known him for a long time and I still can’t get my head around it, it’s a mystery to me. It’s the mystery that is the thing that makes him so interesting.

This summer I sat and listened to a man who had been lead by God to do some amazing things. He wasn’t a particularly good presenter, but his passion and his heart shone through. That passion and that heart reached across a tent of thousands and entered my chest and struck right into my heart. It’s a mystery how someone’s heart and spirit shines through. He could probably have talked about his cat and I would still have communicated his heart.

At our church we meet regularly in small groups where we discuss different aspects of our faith and it’s impact on our lives. Sometimes one of the quieter members of the group will spark into life and go for it. There heart for the particular topic will spill over the top of their shyness and they will reveal a fascinating insight into their relationship with Jesus. A relationship which is personal to them. The thing that is a mystery to me is the thing that lights the fuse. It is often something that you wouldn’t associate with the individual at all. That regular interaction with that small group of individuals enlightens my own existence and experience in a way that only the interaction of people with people can do.

This blog is written primarily to myself – listen to yourself Graham.

I have enough material wealth – there is absolutely no question about that. I have more than enough personal wealth actually, yet my action and many of my thoughts struggle with that concept. I am, therefore, writing this blog to remind myself of that fact.

There is never any question as to whether or not the Chastney family can afford to eat each day; there is often a question as to whether we will eat too much.

There is never any question as to whether or not we will have somewhere warm and cozy to sleep at night. We have a beautiful house, which is dry and warm with beds that wrap us up and make us feel safe. Sometimes we choose to sleep in a tent; but that’s our choice.

There isn’t even a question, normally, whether we can afford to do something that we really want to do. We can normally afford it and normally we do it.

We can afford to go to the cinema, the theatre, on holiday, visit friends, go out for meals. We can afford to run two cars. We can afford electricity. We can afford fresh water. We can afford insurance for all of the things which we have. We can even afford to insure ourselves. I’m not worrying too much about my financial future in old age, because my pension provision is very good thank you. In short – I have enough, we have enough, we have more than enough.

Unfortunately “I have enough” is a logical statement that I can make but it’s not one that gets through to my inner thoughts or inner spirit. I have spent most of my life struggling to get to my current financial position, and now I have got here I am struggling to turn off the urge to earn more in order to get more. This is of course a curse. It’s a double edged curse. On one side of the curse there is the urge to get more money. In order to fulfill this urge I need to work ever longer and harder, a strive to get into good positions at work. On the other side is the urge to get more things which don’t satisfy, actually the more you have the less they satisfy. It’s a deep seated curse which only the few manage to escape from. I’m not sure I could ever fully escape but I am determined to get it into a much clearer perspective.

How am I planning to deal with the curse? Well there are already a couple of things that I am doing. One, of course, is to make it public that I have enough, and that’s the purpose of this particular muse. The other is to get intentional about giving more money away. Giving money away is a great way of realising that other people can get so much more value out of it than I can.

We have sponsored a child in Africa for a long time; a boy who is sponsored in Jonathan’s name. We have recently started sponsoring a girl too; who is sponsored in Emily’s name. For a terrifyingly small amount of money those two children get so much more value than we would. The way that Emily has connected with this concept has been amazing. Even though all we have is a picture of this girl, Emily has identified with her and her situation in a remarkable way. We also give away to other things – but that’s between us and God. My intention is to keep down that track, giving it away has to be a good way of keeping the curse under control.

I’m trying to decide what else I should do, there are a couple of ideas but they haven’t quite crystallised yet.

It is a real blessing to have enough. It’s a curse not to realise it.

The real question at the back of all of this is the question of priorities. Is it important that I have more things? Is it important that I have more money? Jesus had some things to say about this:

“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or–worse!-stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.”

Matthew 6

I have always been fascinated by going to the seaside and experiencing waves. I say experiencing because you don’t watch waves you experience them. Even if I am not in the sea every one of my senses is influenced by the constant pulse of the waves.

• My eyes are drawn into their rhythm
• My ears are soothed by their tempo
• I feel the moist air and spray
• I taste the salt
• I smell the rich sea aroma

There is no escaping the presence of the wave, but yet it doesn’t assault me. It doesn’t come up and howl it’s presence. Even in the biggest storm the wave may shout, but still it is somehow strangely natural and in keeping.

Wave are remarkable. Each wave is unique; each resounding whoosh is different to every one before it and every one after it; it’s height is different; where it breaks is different; each one draws back at a different pace. Every minute of every day they drum onto millions of miles of shore and yet they are matchless.

Each of us recognises the sound of a real wave. We were told as children that the sound in the shell was the sound of the wave; but none of us were really fooled. People have tried to synthesis the sound; but we all recognise these imitations. I have a CD of classical music with wave sounds in the background; but it’s not the same.

Some of my fondest and most vivid memories are animated by the presence of waves.

As a child walking along the front (as we call it) at Hornsea in a storm I decided that I wanted to get closer to the waves. So without my parents watching a snook down one of the paths leading to the sea from the sea wall. Closer and closer a crept towards the waves. And then, without warning, one of the waves decided to come and say hello. It engulfed me. I was drenched. My mum was shouting, screaming even. I was fine, I had lived my adventure and survived.

A few summers ago we went to Florida as a family; my brother and his family were living out there. They were living in Cocoa Beach and we would have happily spent every day in the waves. We bought body-boards and spent hours trying to master those waves. Some times those waves lifted us up and dumped us onto the beach; on other times they would break on top of us. You can’t master a wave, you can only allow it to come and treat you to a ride.

Last summer we went to Quiberon in Brittany while staying with Andrew and Katharine.  What a fabulous day. Fabulous waves that we spent all day enjoying. We were tossed and tumbled and lifted off our feet and we loved it.

Just this weekend we had a barbecue on the beach at North Berwick with friends. We listened to the waves as the sun set in magnificent colours or purple, red, orange and gold. But those waves weren’t intimidated by the grandness of it all, they just continued in their cadence and in so doing amplified the whole experience.

The waves also remind me of Jesus and His power over them, His ability to still them. We stand before the wave and dance to its tune; but not Jesus.

And to finish, a poem:

I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.

Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea —
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.

Sara Teadale

This weekend Sue, Jonathan, Emily and I are visiting friends in Edinburgh.

There is something very special about having friends who live away. I don’t mean that it’s nice that they don’t live too close. It would be fabulous to have these particular friends much closer. What I mean is that it’s great to get away from the day-to-day grind of living your normal life and go and visit someone you know cares about you.

When friends live away you can get in your car and leave all of the day-to-day niggles behind, they don’t have to come with you if you don’t want them too. If you do, however,  decide to take them with you friends who live away from you often have a completely different way of looking at those niggles. So often, in my experience, that different perspective has been the thing that has stopped the niggle being a niggle and started it on the road to becoming something that is getting resolved.

I do have to confess, though, that I am terrible at keeping those kind of relationships going. Sue it brilliant at it. She’s the one who makes phones call, remembers birthdays, sends Christmas cards. Thank you special lady.

Wow: Used to express wonder, amazement, or great pleasure.

I went to the cinema last night with some friends. Sue is away at a Crusader camp with Jonathan and Emily. Sue has gone as an emergency cook (they were short of one) and the kids have gone along for the fun (and they are having a lot of it)

Anyway, Dave, Bob and Nina decided to take me out to the cinema to see Crash (2005).

Wow, what a film.

It starts with this line “It’s the sense of touch. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something.” and then off it goes. It twists and it turns all over the place. Some films have one or two story lines layered on top of each other. This film has loads and loads of layers. People crash into each other all over the place, but not car-to-car, this is all person-to-person, life-to-life, culture-to-culture, pain-to-pain and joy-to-joy. If that doesn’t make any sense, then you’ll have to go and see the film.

I can’t say I got some deep meaningful understanding from the film; it definitely challenged me about my attitudes to race. But, wow, what a film. The film ends with a man enjoying the falling snow; I had been so consumed by the film that when it became time to leave I actually looked for my coat and jumper before realising that it was still summer outside.

I love to be amazed and to go wow. Being a reserved English type I don’t spend my whole life going wow at every blade of grass. It takes something special to get a wow from me, and yet, I love it when I do. I love it that something can sneak up on me and amaze me. I love it that after 37 years I haven’t seen it all, I haven’t experienced it all. I love knowing that there is so much more to experience and so much more out there that could make me go wow.

From time to time in my life a sense God talking to me, touching my soul. Every time that happens I go wow. But this wow is different to all other wows. This wow goes much, much deeper than any other wow. That type of wow is a blessing that my meager words could never even begin to describe.

(If you don’t like swearing don’t go and see this film because there is lots of it. For me the swearing was all in context. I hate films that just swear for no apparent reason)

I have recently been remembering my early Christian life by listening to some sermons that I heard back then. They are available online by a preacher called Tony Campolo. Like many itinerant preachers he gives the same message in a number of places so the talk online isn’t quite the same as the one I listened to, but it was enough to rekindle my memories of those day. I was lovely to feel those days.

In one of the talks he recounts a survey of 50 people over the age of 95 who were asked what they would do differently if they had life to live all over again. They responded by focusing on the following: 

• They would risk more. 
• They would reflect more. 
• They would do more things that would live on after they were dead.

What an amazing challenge. But what does live on after you die, and then it came to me memories. Not my memories, but the memories of those around me, and especially the memories of those I dearly love. Especially the memories of my children, Jonathan and Emily.

The other Sunday, Sue and I were in the rare situation where neither of us needed to be at church. We had an evening off. As it was the last day of our holiday we decided to break free a bit and build some memories. On this occasion we drove up into the Trough of Bowland where there is a stream which is deep enough in a few places to swim. We took swimming gear and paddling shoes. Though it wasn’t the warmest evening ever both Jonathan and Emily decided that being in the water was definitely more interesting than sitting on the bank. Jonathan stuck to paddling and throwing stones; Emily wanted to get in deeper and deeper though. She wanted to risk more; she wanted to really swim. We steadily made our way down the stream until we found a pool big enough and she loved it.

Sue and I both sat on the banks and reflected. We revelled in the joy that our children were getting from the simple, yet profound, adventure of life. We breathed in the beauty of the gently flowing brook and the green hills, lit by the summer sun slowly making its way down into Morecombe Bay.

The great thing about memories is that they don’t need to cost anything. You don’t need to pay £65 for a day pass into a theme park. What you need to do is something that is either new or something that is old and dearly loved; a ritual. It’s one of those strange contradictions. The things that build memories are either things that are novel and adventurous, or things that have become part of your family ritual. When I say ritual I am talking about those things that we do time and time again with the same love and excitement as the first time we did them.

I am sure that Emily will remember the game we play every evening. Emily and I have this ritual of racing to bed. She (nearly) always wins and I (nearly) always let her. We have played this game thousands of times we will probably play it thousands more; it is our ritual and we love it.

We love to watch local television programmes that tell us about things going on in our area, because it opens our eyes to new adventures. These programmes show us things that we would never have thought of. It’s OK to be spontaneous, but sometimes adventures take a little planning.

The whole chastney family love going to church, and it feels strange when we don’t. I pray that the ritual of going to church will live on after I die, in the lives of my children. I pray that their memories of what God can do in his people will stay with them, and that they will love Him too. That would be a real blessing.

Jesus gave us a ritual – we call it Communion. He gave is this ritual to remind us; to make the memory live.

Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory.”

In many many ways he also challenged us to adventure too.

Sleep

A natural periodic state of rest for the mind and body, in which the eyes usually close and consciousness is completely or partially lost, so that there is a decrease in bodily movement and responsiveness to external stimuli. During sleep the brain in humans and other mammals undergoes a characteristic cycle of brain-wave activity that includes intervals of dreaming.

The other day I read an article from the Harvard Magazine (of all things) about sleep. I could go into a long and complicated story about how I got to be reading this article but I’m not sure it would be that interesting. Suffice to say it involved a rather dull teleconference and a blog article. Sleep has always fascinated me, big questions like; why did God create it? what do we get from it? what do we really do while we are sleeping? This article made some fascinating statements about sleep and it’s purposes. Some of it was quite technical but there was some great lines too:

Sleeping well helps keep you alive longer. Among humans, death from all causes is lowest among adults who get seven to eight hours of sleep nightly, and significantly higher among those who sleep less than seven or more than nine hours.

And:

The moral of much sleep research is startlingly simple. Your mother was right: You’ll get sick, become fat, and won’t work as well if you don’t get a good night’s sleep. So make time for rest and recovery. Stickgold likes to compare two hypothetical people, one sleeping eight hours, the other four. The latter person is awake 20 hours a day, compared to 16 hours for the first. “But if the person on four hours is just 20 percent less efficient while awake, then in 20 hours of waking he or she will get only 16 hours of work done, so it’s a wash,” he says. “Except that they are living on four hours of sleep a night. They’re not gaining anything, but are losing a huge amount: you’ll see it in their health, their social interactions, their ability to learn and think clearly. And I cannot believe they are not losing at least 20 percent in their efficiency.”

It also has a lot to say about our need to go with the rhythms of night and day.

Sue and have been teased by many of our friends for our need to get to bed, but it turns out we were right all along. We all need our sleep.

But just because we need something, doesn’t mean it’s a blessing.

I love sitting in my bed reading a book and feeling sleep come over me like a wave.

I love waking up on a cold crisp winters morning , knowing that it is absolutely freezing outside my warm cozy cocoon.

I love going up to my children’s bedrooms and just watching them sleep, peaceful and quiet.

I love going to bed on a stormy windy evening and listening to the gales howling telling me that it’s all wild outside; but inside it’s warm and it’s cosy.

I love waking up and listening to Sue’s latest bizarre dream.

I love sitting in the shade on a summers day and feeling a gentle breeze woo me too sleep.

I love waking up knowing the answer to something I’ve been pondering for hours the previous day.

I love waking up knowing that I don’t have to rush off to some job or other, rolling over to Sue, putting my arms around her and lying there in that semi-awake state that a clear schedule allows.

And that it why sleep is a blessing.

I have to say though, that I am still pushing back against the afternoon nap because that is just too strong a signal that I am getting old.

Anyway it’s 10 o’clock, it’s dark outside and it’s time for bed.

From Psalm 4:

Why is everyone hungry for more? “More, more,” they say. “More, more.”

I have God’s more-than-enough, more joy in one ordinary day than they get in all their shopping sprees.

At day’s end I’m ready for sound sleep, for you, GOD, have put my life back together.

Today is the first ‘real’ day of our holidays.

The actual first day was yesterday, but a holiday never quite feels like a holiday until I have actually woken up in a place.

This morning we woke up to a gloriously sunny day in Keswick and dressed for church. One of the really nice things about Sue’s Mum and Dad’s house is that it is in walking distance of church (we normally have to drive) and on a sunny day like today that was fabulous. We arrived at an early (so we thought) 10:15, only to discover that they had recently moved church earlier to 10:15. The place was packed because it’s the Keswick Convention. It was Steve Brady, who is always really good.

Having been to church we grabbed a sandwich and set off to walk around Buttermere. We all love Buttermere, there is something about the place that is both restful and awesome. We also planned for a bit of a paddle and perhaps a bit of a swim, so had the backpacks full of enough gear to allow everyone to get thoroughly wet.

Half way around we paddled in a waterfall. At the end of the lake we watched the local shepherd bringing the sheep down for shearing and grabbed a well deserved ice-cream. Just before the tunnel at Hassness we stopped for a proper paddle, and all got changed to go in for a swim.

By this time Emily was absolutely bursting with excitement. Jonathan was equally as excited but at 13 is trying to show it in a more adult way (and not doing too good a job of it yet, thankfully).

So in we went, straight in, well not actually because lakes in the UK aren’t very warm. The kids always go in first and try to fool us by saying that it’s not cold. Their faces always tell a completely different story. Despite the cold (and it wasn’t that cold) in we went; in deep; in over our heads; in out of our depth.

One of the challenges with swimming in Buttermere is that it slopes off dramatically; at 45 degrees down into a 20 metre deep abyss. Within 5 metres it’s too deep for any of us to stand.

It is cold, it is clear and it is glorious.

Now to those of you who might be thinking something along the lines of “But Graham isn’t that a bit dangerous, you’ve got young children” I have this to say – life is an adventure, live a little. In order to live a little you need to adventure a little. Much of life in the UK seems to be about squeezing the adventure out, but all that does is remove the life from it.

A swim in a lake that is surrounded by glorious mountains, trees, rocks and lake, is a treasure of great value. Doing it with my loved ones multiplies the value to make it a treasure beyond value.