Home tomorrow then.
A trip to New Quay first. Not to be confused with Newquay. An email to answer before anything else, though.
Cogitating as one does when not at home I'm not really surprised to conclude that the highlight of my summer was a wet Sunday night in a Methodist church in Keswick. Furthermore, the Methodist church that last time I was there I'd opined that I'd never go there again.
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| This ticket is a link to the talk given. It should open in a new window. |
The ticket is pretty self explanatory, the event isn't.
I was wary of going to Keswick this year. I looked forward to the trip, the place and the trip back but the event, not so much.
I love the event which we've been attending for years but two years ago I was en chemo, as they may say, last year I was conscious of how little of it I was able to get out to. This year I wondered why I was going but in reality going was nothing to do with the event but all to do with the people we share this event with.
Almost immediately after our arrival my organiser noted the Sunday evening seminar and collected tickets on the assumption that if able I would go. I was. I did.
Dominic Smart, very, Yorkshireman living in Scotland. Suddenly struck with terminal cancer about a year ago. Sounds familiar.
Listening to him explain how he dealt with the news of the diagnosis, the effects of the treatment and the trials it added to his life was just about the most reassuring talk I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. You may be in a hall with a hundred or more but the talk is to you, just you.
You can witness all this, you can experience it, too but the tendency is to compartmentalise it and assume that the way you deal with it is unique to you. It isn't. It's always those closest to you who suffer most. I've said it before but enduring suffering is far easier than watching ones you love endure suffering.
I said to my wife earlier that one of the worst days of my life was barging into the chemo suite in Singleton hospital in Swansea. I was afraid I was late to take him home hence the rush. Hence the shortness of the visit and the mirth generated as I stood in the doorway in a dusty, dirty boiler suit having been up a ladder doing stuff 20 minutes earlier.
I quickly understood the nurses desire to see me elsewhere immediately but even immediate was far too slow to diminish the sight of Paul in the NHS chair, bags suspended and tubes joined into his PICC line. A sight I shall never forget because a few months earlier I had been there. Typically he found my boiler suited presence more than a trifle amusing. As he understood my anxiety to be there in good time to collect him. What's in an hour anyway?
Dominic Smart put into words what we needed to hear. He said it as it is. The common experience manifest individually. His low point was being sick in a drain in a car park. Mine was being unable to push a fork into a fish finger. Such events force you to confront what we wish we were spared. But we aren't and looking back I find a degree of amusement to be had. I wonder though if our wives look back at these events and see any thing worthy of mirth. Their experience is so far removed from ours but no less conjoined. But theirs will continue long after we have gone. And that is a cause for sorrow, far more than feeling a bit nauseous, a bit sore and a bit tired. Besides I've now got pills for two of those and a reclining chair in front of a pair of speakers for the other.
Dominic Smart, thank you.
New Quay, another place, another lesson. Parked up above their lifeboat house and a delightful wander down to find a Mersey. There can't be many of them left. A wander around the town, then? No. I struggled to get back to the car. Seriously struggled for breath, leaden footed, uncontrollable yawning.
Another moment in which life changed as it dawned on me that I could be struggling to get up Meor hill, let alone Windsor! Another taken for granted part of life gone. Like summer.
Makes you think.
How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent Word! What more can he say than to you he has said,
to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
“Fear not, I am with you, O be not dismayed;
for I am your God, and will still give you aid;
I’ll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand,
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
“When through the deep waters I call you to go,
the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
for I will be with you, your troubles to bless,
and sanctify to you your deepest distress.
“When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie,
my grace, all-sufficient, shall be your supply;
the flame shall not hurt you; I only design
your dross to consume and your gold to refine.
“E’en down to old age all my people shall prove
my sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
and when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.
“The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake."
Anonymous
Dominic Smart blog:
https://paracetamolissounderrated.wordpress.com/
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