Perfect

Hello everyone. I hope you are well and recovered from the Christmas excesses. We are all fine here. Plymouth has decided not to join in with the general Snowmageddon - it's windy and very rainy but, at the moment, that's about it. I hope it's not too bad where you are. 

We had a nice Christmas. As I said, the kids were away for the beginning of it so it was a bit different but still fine. As you can see above, these days, the level of bin bag detritus has gone down a lot which HOH is always pleased about. I don't know what you did for the New Year celebrations. I went to bed. I have never liked it. I am not a miserable crow generally but I have real objections to an event that seems to be set up to make people feel bad about where they are up to in life and that, if you are not wearing new silver pants and jumping up and down at midnight with all your hundreds of friends, you are failing at everything. All I will say is that the M&S sale had silver jeans in it stretching as far as the eye can see so it seems a lot of other people aren't falling for it either. 

I'm not a very New Years-resolutionery kind of person. I'm not sure that many people are these days. I wonder if I am getting too old. In the main, I am quite content I think and more than grateful for many things. As I reach into more advanced years, I think I may have left it too late to travel the world, to live in an apartment in Venice or to swim the channel. My natural leaning is always to laziness I'm afraid so I may not be achieving as much as I could. 

One of the things that I have seen a lot of people do is have a (fanfare) WORD OF THE YEAR! For some of the people I see on YouTube, the words are usually "Me!" or "Invincible!" or "Powerful!" That's nice, isn't it? Obviously, I have dismissed that sort of nonsense straight away. But then I noticed that normal and impressive people like Ang at Tracing Rainbows have a Word of the Year so I wondered if I should have a bit of a think about it. 

I wish I could say that I have prayed and fasted and it was written in the sky but it just sort of came to me. The word is "Perfect". (Ta-Da). I am obviously not talking about me but I was thinking about a few things that I have found helpful.

The first is that - despite what social media tells us - things don't have to be perfect to be helpful and nice. Sometimes, I don't feel like putting this blog up because it's not what you would call high art or even a deep religious calling. I know lots of people are doing more successful and interesting things. It definitely isn't perfect but it is a helpful hobby-like thing and there seems to be a dedicated, small, happy band of people who enjoy it. Will it start a vast social movement of women of a certain age? Unlikely - although never say never.

I did get a message from someone saying that they enjoyed it and that I should push it further but, I never have because  - well it's not perfect - at all. But does that matter? Is CS Lewis looking down from heaven, reading this and thinking "Poor - very poor." I think that we know he is not. It's my hobby and I would like to expand a bit but I think I have to remind myself that I don't have to wait until I have it just perfect. I think, in life, progress over perfect as they say is more than enough. If I am only remembering to do those stretching exercises that stop my back from seizing up four days out of seven, that's still four days more than I used to do and I may possibly do five days next week.  (Or maybe three days. I can't make any promises.)

The second thing is around Fear. When I was young we used to sing "Perfect Love casteth out all fear". I had absolutely no idea what that meant. (That song also had the line "Marching on while the worldlings sneer". Not particularly helpful I would have thought.) I think I can be too fearful sometimes. Scared of life, scared of death, scared of people, scared of those little silverfish that come up the bathroom drain sometimes. 

Firstly, I think that the fearful should not be too hard on themselves. A wise lady once told me that, if Jesus had said something about something, it was because he recognised that this was something that a lot of people struggled with. Secondly, nobody really cares. Sometimes, I haven't put things on Instagram because I wondered what people would think about them - and usually it's only me with a photo of myself with a Jack Russell that looks like our dog! Most people have problems enough of their own. 

So, to stop moaning on. Two scriptures that I have found very helpful in The Message version. (I am now thinking - is this too religious?) Anyway, re the perfect Love thing

There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. 1John 4

and alongside it

Because you’re not yet taking God seriously,” said Jesus. “The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel of faith, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, ‘Move!’ and it would move. There is nothing you wouldn’t be able to tackle.” Matthew 17

I think that most Christians take a whole lifetime to properly get hold of these things. they are big, clever thoughts. It probably shouldn't stop us from trying really hard to do so though. 

Thanks very much for reading and have a lovely week.