Sun Day

The weather has suddenly become sunny and warm this last week - a bit too warm for me actually. Today I decided not to go to church, instead I gagged my guilty conscience and paid a visit to mr starbucks where I sat outside and drew. I had a lovely time. Then I walked over the road to the museum where I got 20 postcards for £1! I sat in the sun for a bit in the park there until I started to fry, then visited the botanical gardens which was insanely busy and not very relaxing, so I left. This might sound a bit daft, but I felt there was something almost holy about the whole thing, which I can't quite explain. Last week at uni we were asked to say how we are going to look after ouselves when the course finishes, and I couldn't answer...now I would say that days like today are one way. It felt like giving myself a gift. The other week I read the following in a book about facing death (i wasn't just being my cheery self - I applied for a job in a hospice and thought I should do some research):

The need to be affirmed, to feel ourselves of value, even beloved, is part of what it means to be human. There are few better nouns to describe the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth than 'affirmation'. Individual after individual crosses his path needing some kind of healing, and goes away affirmed, knowing that because they matter in his eyes, they matter equally to God. We each have our own stories and we each need at times to share our stories. All centre on the need to love and be loved, to be fulfilled in our search for what speaks to us of the good, the true and the lasting in the tangled yarn of our lives. And nowhere is this truer than when we reflect on our mortality, or when we come to die. In one sense it's true that, in the words of the funeral service, 'we brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out', but that applies to the clutter of money and possessions and attachments; for in a deeper sense, what we take out is not nothing: it's a life given by God which (for the lucky ones) over the years has been shaped by our genes and desires and people and events, and then – if we so desire – offered back to God to be used, in ways known only to him, to his glory and the growth of his Kingdom. One of my processors at Westminster Abbey, Dean Eric Abbott, wrote:
When we come to the end…God will be able to take what we have done for him, whether implicitly or explicitly, and will gather it into his Kingdom, to be in that Kingdom that particular enrichment of the Kingdom's glory which our particular life has to contribute. For there is something which only you can bring into the Kingdom..(Mayne, M. (2006) The Enduring Melody. London: Darton, Longman and Todd.)

 

I think I'm saying that I felt affirmed - and there is something about drawing and stuff that is my 'thing that I bring' which is nothing new really, but a nice realisation and reminder.