The annual family poem 2020 - Fairytale of Pirongia

 

FAIRYTALE OF PIRONGIA

The Annual Trodden Christmas Poem 2020

 

It was Lockdown Eve,

Down the Five Stags

A young man said to me, won't see another one

And then he played a song

‘You Can’t Touch This’ I think

I turned my hands away, And put them in the sink

 

Got on the bike again, Didn’t care about the rain

I've got a feeling We needed to get out the house

So happy Christmas, I’m glad we made it

I can see a better time, When all our dreams come true

 

We had masks in the parks, We had queues up wazoos

But the time went quite quickly with 1 pm news

When we first locked the doors at the end of the spring

We conquered the Covid and handwash was king

 

We got fat!, We got thinner

We had salad for dinner

When the lockdown was over, We didn’t want more

I went back to dancing, But Joseph quit Fencing

Niamh learned how to barber, And we shopped through the night

 

The orchestras kept going and They played their hearts out well

And the bells were ringing out For Christmas day

 

I’m the mum! He’s the kid! She’s the one chucking junk

Cleaning cupboards and drawers like tomorrow won’t come

You cook and I’ll clean, What? The dryer’s on again?

Then Christmas came fast The year’s done at last

 

The orchestras kept going and They played their hearts out well

And the bells were ringing out For Christmas day

 

The year was tough for us, Well it was for all of us

We kept our dreams alive, In hope of better times

We made a list of things, That turned out in the end

We’ll put it on the fridge, And be glad for them

 

The orchestras kept going and They played their hearts out well

And the bells were ringing out For Christmas day

Listen to the soundtrack so you can sing along:)

 

 

Could be me

 

Today I was teased for the very last time

And I ran from the room to write down this rhyme

To capture the hurt and to capture the shame

That I felt when I heard the crowd call out my name

You’re so noisy they said, you talk far too much

You mean well, we know, but it’s always a rush

You’re hard on the ears, and perhaps we could mention

How it seems that so often you don’t pay attention

Your voice is too loud and your hair is too wild

Apparently, both since you’ve been a young child

You know that we love you but honestly mate

Could you tone it right back - and try not to be late!

And as for the drama that dogs you each day

Perhaps it’s your own that gets in the way

It’s a maelstrom that enters the room don’t you know

And we feel like you have to be star of the show

Well…the thing that hurts most is that all of it’s true

I know I’m ‘too much’ - for me - not just you!

Perhaps I’ll be quiet, say ‘I’m fine thanks, and you?’

When asked how I am at the next public do

I’ll sit in the middle, and tie my hair back

So I do not offend, but blend into the pack

I don’t need reminding, I know how I am

And ‘good-natured teasing’ won’t help with this jam

it's just a matter of faith

October 2014

Last weekend I found myself in the most unlikely of places - invited to the house of a friend, I expected to be '' meeting new people'', but in fact discovered that of the 8 families there, I knew 6 of them, and all bar two of the adults sat somewhere on the ''faith scale'' - a pastor at one end, and...well...probably me at the other.

Conversation with two (whom it turned out I have known since teenage youth group years)  turned, as one might expect to things spiritual.  Was I going to church and if so where? No? Oh, why not? I found myself frustratingly clumsy in response - mumbling about being ''churched out'' and ''taking a break from formality'' - and feeling more than a little deceitful with it. Because although both of those things are true, the story is rather more convoluted than that.  Like many things - the complicated questions can have simple answers and the simple questions often have (very!) complicated answers!

February 2020

Part of the annual spring clean (which I tend to do over the summer break) includes a tidy up of social media, emails and so forth.  My blog has sat largely untouched for a long time, for a bunch of reasons, including that I write a lot for a living and so don't really indulge in it for pleasure much these days.  So today, as I was scrolling through the half-finished posts, deciding what could stay and what could go, this one caught my eye, still in draft form from 2014.

Since I wrote the lines above a lot has happened in my life and world view of things spiritual.  I've been grappling with whether I even need to be writing it down for posterity, but it's interesting to look back on these things...so here it is.

Not long after writing those words, I found myself back at church. It was an 'of course I'll go with you' kind of thing rather than a conscious effort on my behalf, coupled with a vague idea that if I could get my kids interested again it might be a good way to get them into the youth group.  The problem was, I'd sit in church feeling grumpy and resentful that I was there, being all judgy about the people in the room (and wondering how many were there with the same motivations as me) and really not communicating at all with the God I was supposedly there to meet with, and in whom I wasn't sure I believed in the first place.

I came to the conclusion I was better to stay away - echoes of the 'better to be cold or hot than lukewarm' bible verse in my head.  Time went on.  I reached the conclusion that God wasn't overly concerned about my lack of Sunday commitment.  More time passed...I accepted that the beseeching I had done of God in the previous year or so had had absolutely no effect at all - either I wasn't asking with a pure heart, or he didn't care or maybe didn't exist...

And now, in 2020? I want to believe there is a God because I don't really want to have to accept that the world is just some kind of cosmic accident (and ergo, so am I). But do I believe that God is interested in me? That I can have some kind of personal relationship? That my eternal life is dependent on this Judeo-Christian belief I have had around me my whole life?  Nope, and I don't know if I ever did.

What I do know is that I have a responsibility to do my best by the world - which means to walk lightly on the earth, be kind and generous with others, respect myself, all those things that make us good humans.  Does God fit in there somewhere? Possibly, but not in the way I thought and not in the form I've always reverted to imagining. 

It seems to me that the Christian version of God is one of many.  A truth perhaps, but not THE truth. It's just a way of us mere humans making sense of the world.  Just as every Muslim or Buddhist or Taoist does.  When I do the Beliefnet quiz I almost always get 'Sikh' as my most closely aligned religion - seems strange until you read what the framework is.

The thing I just can't get my head around is the New Age type stuff. It seems it is a never-ending, self-perpetuated cycle of self-improvement that has little to do with others - that is definitely not the religion for me.

I read somewhere recently that to be spiritual is just to have an awareness that life is bigger than we are. You don't have to say you're a spiritual person (ick), or 'act' like one. That the rest doesn't really matter.  I think I like that.