T.S. Eliot for advent

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For such a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Journey Of The Magi

Neighbourhood Friends

Reuben turns five

Back in August it was five years since Reuben's dramatic, unplanned homebirth. The unplanned part was being at home with four ambulance officers crammed into our little apartment bedroom, Soren asleep in the next room, me howling and laughing as Reuben made his way into the world. He hasn't been in a rush since. He's inherited his father's phlegmaticism and moves through his life at a very leisurely pace. We adore him and wouldn't want him any other way (except when running late). He makes us laugh til we cry. At dinner the other night Soren said: Hey Reuben, push away your icecream and have rotten cabbage. Reuben: Soren, that's sin. If not for the fact that he can't read yet (he's on the way, wandering around the house chanting g-g-g gecko! sh-sh-sh shoe!) I might have thought he'd been reading CS Lewis who said 'We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday by the sea. We are far too easily pleased.' My prayer is that he'll know the joy of knowing Jesus as his saviour and friend and of serving Him all his days. 

Masak-masak (again)

Masak-masak = play cooking. 

Agnes prepares the pineapple from our garden.

Malaria

This is what we like to see--a negative result. We've fared pretty well so far--the boys have had it a few times, Autumn once or twice, Phil and I never. The children have never had the strain that hides away in your liver, so they haven't had to deal with recurring bouts or the primaquine treatment to get it out of your system. We don't take preventative medicine anymore, but sleep under nets, test straightaway for symptoms that could mean malaria and have developed an impressive knack for spotting, honing in on and destroying the wretched things (you have to think like a mosquito, our friend advised as we stepped off the plane).

Saturday Solitude


As much as I love and adore my children, one of the tricky things is that one or more of them is ALWAYS THERE and I sometimes crave a bit of blessed silence and space to get my head together, or into a book, or onto a pillow. Mercifully, I have a fearless husband who is willing to take them all away from me from time to time, like on this rainy Saturday...

...and look, he's even smiling, bless him. They're off to the awful mall which the boys love because it has a kind of time zoney place with lots of awful games and they're allowed to play the non-shooting ones.

Soren the Chef

Soren has his own recipe book and loves to use it and surprise us with a 'treat'.

He especially enjoys making the most of the drama of the occasion (applause for his effort is welcome) and always makes sure things look beautiful.