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As a follower of Jesus …

I know what I want you to see..

But do you see it?

Anything that we consider antediluvian like typewriters, telephones with leads, pushbikes, and a whole plethora of things we no longer use – we call them dinosaurs.

Yesterday I was visiting my accountant and his Leaving cert daughter had been helping out in the office. She was chatty when I arrived and proceeded to tell me that the printer had been alerting her to a fax.

She recalled thinking “what is a fax?”

I chuckled as we worked our way through a technological minefield of what we have now and what we once had and all the tech in between.

So my dinosaur that I would like to bring back is paper and pen.

During my teens I acquired the name Soupdragon. This is a character in the Clangers who is always making and eating soup.

I made soup

I ate soup

If you met me and asked what I was having for lunch …

The answer was soup.

It hid a thing, a thing around having/doing the same thing every day

And another thing around not eating properly that even today is not worked out completely.

A good day now involves eating three times a day- not four.

“So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭22‬:‭9‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

I am looking forward to tucking in to the heavenly banquet.

The Lord in prayer

I once read a wee book where the protagonist started walking on the beach and never looked back.

Just kept walking

I want to walk around the globe, I wonder if it is possible for someone like me… old, not slim by any stretch, not the fittest by far.

Can an ordinary person like me – walk around the globe?

Which way would I go?

Card games were encouraged when I was a child: clock patience, patience and slow patience.

I always struggled making the piles like my big sister’s perfect piles and of course it was commented on.

Fast forward: gotta love Microsoft’s solitaire suite. I get to play spider, ordinary, pyramid and another kind of solitaire. My piles always look great and never does anyone comment on my untidiness.

I love playing with dragons too.

I always assumed I would live on my own in my old age with a bunch of cats.

The aroma would be coming from some of us – but who knows who.

I would name the cats but forget so have perpetually changing names. However here a few that have lived with me: Princess Tigglewinkle, Polyanski Piecake, The Original Director Tom Morrow among many.

But now I live with my dog and two super humans are about to me in to boot! Go assumptions!

I spent much of my life as an unpaid carer so I have no pension provision outside of government supplied contributory one.

Does this worry me or cause anxiety?

No!

Why? I can hear you ask incredulously…

Because I have an invitation to the greatest banquet ever with the King of kings at the head of the table!

What could be better?

All the security I need is the blessed assurance of eternal life.

So then I can be adventurous…

I have five chairs at my dinner table. One of the chairs has got two arms and I consider this to be my chair.

When I have Bible study at my house, we take the chairs outside and there’s a wee table that we put outside as well and we just sit in the beautiful lawn area hopefully without rain sometimes we get a murmur a starlings and so for my dinner table, if I could have anybody to sit with me.

It would have to be whoever comes to my home that day. I have been accused in the hierarchy of my church that I treat a homeless person the same way I treat someone in the hierarchy…it was said as an accusation, but to be fair, I take it as a compliment.

So my dinner table where there isn’t much food to be fair, I invite anyone. Anyone who needs to come and sit?

Anyone who needs to hear a little bit about Jesus.

Anyone who notices that the end of the table is a space and the space is for the Holy Spirit and the space is clear – there is not a chair because does the Holy Spirit sit in a chair? I think that by giving a chair we are containing the Holy Spirit – something he may not be. 

There’s a lovely word, décolletage which gets better with age. It is often overlooked in skincare regimens and so ages properly.

I love to go to bed at 10. My vocation however means that often I don’t get home until after 10. I can be mid meeting and my reminder to go to bed comes through. My phone knows the rhythm that is best for me.

And my body knows what is best for me. It reacts well to a 10 o’clock bedtime and a 6 am start. And when I don’t I am out of kilter.

My soul finds rest in the Lord. My soul needs that rest. I am under the weather at present I can feel the lack of sleep, the lack of rest affecting every part of my life.

As the illness remains low grade I can function and work but the tiredness is the killer. Managing to be en pointe for a few hours and then collapsing exhausted in a heap before beginning it all again.

Psalm 62

I am a person who eats the weird stuff. I love marmite and not fond of jam. I bless others with pastries and cookies but I would prefer not to eat them myself.

With the death of a family member recently I began a culinary reminiscence: she would halve a barm cake (oven bottom muffin, tea cake, burger bun) and put cheese, picked beetroot and salt liberally all over. Lunch sorted.

Lamb chops grilled with a little salt and rosemary.

Before Quiche arrived she would bake an egg and bacon flan.

A granny recipe called Picnic Pie had hard boiled eggs, tomatoes and spam. It sounds disgusting but is surprisingly tasty.

She used to put sugar in cream, on strawberries and in the fairy tea she made.

She was a pescatarian for the last years, I couldn’t bring myself to eat a fish with a head on it.

And so to a culinary delight. I went to Morocco and had these amazing vegetable Chinese pancakes. Imagine a spring roll cold and not cooked but filled with lovely vegetables. It was amazing. There was humous on the side. A truly delicious feast.

My husband had meat and had a bathroom experience that lasted 3 days!

I need to have noise. It can be urban or rural.

Gentle rain, streams, bird song and wind through trees.

Cars, trains, building sites and sirens in the night.

Home noise of children, animals, kitchen, bathroom and electrical devices.

When there is noise in place which I use as a conduit into prayer then the thing I need most in my life is apparent.

A life giving relationship with Jesus.

I spend most of my time with myself.

By choice

By design

It’s the job

It’s the life

By accident

And the person I am with most second is

Jesus

There’s a wee chorus that sings of a God who will change/ transform/ restore/ renovate me from the inside out and where I might have been named unwanted …

He names me loved.

What is my ideal name. The name I want to be known by?

Well Talenkynic, my wee girl from outer space. Her surname; Dromdrevc from the planet she came from. That is my name.

Harry the dirty dog

I still have it, a bit dog- eared but tells the moral tale of what happens when we do our own thing and don’t do the thing that is needed.

Dark chocolate, nuts, salt, ice cream, real fruit, real fruit compote.

Now over to you… how to make it in a bar!

The last book I enjoyed reading was one by Lisa See. It was called Island of the Sea Women and was just a delight. The story was harrowing in part but it took me to a country I knew little about. It took me to a tradition and a skill I knew nothing about, and reminded me of historical facts attached to Korea.

Having the vocation I have the Bible is not only my work manual and life manual but also where I dig deep to understand God & humanity better. my go to place for everything.

Third book – do you know what I am listening to ~ Agatha Christie on repeat!

I know, you all think I am trying to the holiest in the room but listen it is true.

Communing with the Godhead – father. Son. Spirit. Gives me joy.

Imagine this: talking to the creator of the universe, the person who died so you can have life and the advocate of both of them.

It’s epic.

It is not a chore. It is not a ritual. It is life giving and life breathing mystery of love.