The God less travelled

I would love to believe in the God that other people believe in. As Tom Jones sings in his song to his child ‘Counting on You’ saying, “So may there be millions who feel like you do, oh my love.” It would just be easier to have a big group of people around you who continuously affirm and confirm your views. I think that it is harder to constantly have people challenge your view, but perhaps by the end of it all your own faith is stronger. I am not sure. What I am sure about is that I have most often, by fate or by choice ‘taken the road less travelled.’ As to whether it has ‘made all the difference’, I think the jury is still out. Still there are times I look at that other road, the one that everyone takes and wish that I was walking with everyone else. So this is my God less travelled.

I struggle with people feeling they have the right to tell others how to live their lives. No one knows the background of the other. What right have I got to tell someone else how they should live their lives. Now I am happy with laws and athough I break than my fair share of speeding laws, I think that laws as a whole help society work more seamlessly. But if someone chooses to break the law, then they suffer society’s consequences. But I can still understand why that law and any law really was broken and I can feel compassion for both the victim and the criminal.

There are a few things that I refuse to believe. I refuse to believe that God loves some people more than others (which I will address in another ranting post) and I also refuse to believe that God is cruel. If I have a God, it is a loving forgiving one. I mean that truly. I don’t think that you can apply the reasoning of free will and the reasoning that ‘God knows what you are going to do before you do it’. How is that free will? If God knew that I was going to choose and fail or choose incorrectly, then it is just cruel to continue the scenario. A loving God could not be so cruel. Seriously, if you knew that your child was going to choose the wrong path, would you close your eyes and let them take the path that will ruin them?

I feel that I don’t know enough to judge, well, ever. Do I know what is in that person’s past? Do I know what tools they bought with them to the table? Just because they look like they are coping, are they? I can only believe that if there is a God then that God does in fact know, not just what they bring to the table but also Why they have chosen such a path. I think that Thomas Mores’ Utopia should be required reading along with bible studies. Thomas More, or more correctly Saint Thomas More was a man who wrote controversially in Henry VIII’s time. Now that takes a brave man, sainted for taking the Catholic Church’s side against the formation of the Church of England, an act for which he also (fairly typically for HenryVIII), lost his head. But if you read into it, it wasn’t the Church of England he had a problem with; it was the acceptance of the king as Supreme Head of the Church of England.

In Utopia, Thomas More says:

“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”

Is that not what we are saying God does? That he makes sinners and then punishes us for that. I refuse to believe that God would be so cruel. That he creates someone homosexual, but then punishes them for that. Can you really believe that God would hate his creations as much as you fear them? That he has someone born in the Ghettos and then punishes them for swearing. Can you really believe that God would punish his creations when, by virtue of their birthplace alone, they have not learned any other language? That he has someone born beautiful, but disrespected, so that she chooses to use sex as a way out. Would he really punish her for that, even when she has never been taught self respect and knows no other option? That he would have a child born in a place where life is worth nothing and then punish him for taking a life, that to him was worthless?

When did we get given the right to say that this person deserves compassion but not that one? I think the beginning of grace is the ability to forgive people their choices. The beginning is being able to see that there may be another side to the story, a belief that just because your life is completely blessed, that perhaps there are others out there who were not blessed enough to want to or be able to ‘walk the one more travelled”. Compassion is about knowing that though the path may be clear for you, that for another through no fault of their own the path may be hidden in vines and quicksand. God could not be cruel enough to hide the path, booby trap it and then punish them for not finding the path. I can only hope that your God is not as cruel and judgmental as his representatives on earth are.

Inspiring Quality Lives

This is the Mission Statement for my work.  It has been bandied about lately because I have sitting through more management type meetings.  It is a nice thought but as I always do, I struggle with the details of it.  I have no idea how to 'inspire quality lives'.  I think that very few of my workmates even think about the whole thing.  My problem is;

What is quality when it comes to some one's life?

How do I inspire that?

I think that quality is very dependent on your philosophy.  My quality life, might be a damned life in someone else's eyes.  Their quality life may be damned in my eyes.  I can't help but think that quality itself is fraught.  Fraught with identity.  Fraught with misinformation.  Can I not 'inspire a quality life' as easily by being good as by being bad.  Inspiration comes as much from deciding not to be what you watch as it does from deciding to be what you watch.

I wish life was more black and white for me sometimes.  I am sure that no one else even thinks about the Mission statement, let alone contemplates it.  It seems such an easy statement, but I can see all these loopholes.  I don't know.  I can't judge someone else's life.  I'll leave that to the priests and the fundamentalist Christians.  I don't know if at the end of all of it, I will be judged.  I know that my job is to judge my own life.  I think that I am the only one on Earth qualified to do that.  Oh that doesn't stop other people judging me, but I can't stop that either.  Let them have fun with that.  At least when judging yourself, you are uniquely suited.  I know in myself what were the factors behind decisions.

I haven't changed anything or made any big decisions at the moment that I am dancing around.  This night time contemplation is just about the Mission statement.

Paving the Way

This weekend has been really busy on multiple levels.  I have been cleaning pavers with a power washer (called a gurney in Australia).  As it hasn't been done foe, well forever, the tiles are thick with mould and dirt and grime.  Pretty much, difficult to shift accumulated mess from three years of rain and several years of drought before that.  It has been hard work.  I go until my arms shake and my hands can't grip anymore.  Then start it back up again in the morning.  But not anymore.  I am finished.  Initially I started with the Bear's gurney that ran off 240 volts, but it wasn't even close to strong enough.  Then Pete brought over his mother of all gurneys.  It runs off a 50HP petrol motor and is so strong the kids can't hold it.  I can't hold it one handed and it feels like fire truck pressure.  Last weekend I lost control of it.  Only once.  The water created what looked like a burn across my foot in a welt that I am only just losing a week later.  This is no sissy water pressure.  But I am done and hopefully it will last a little while.  I wanted to 'git er done' before Levi's party in two weeks.

The best thing about the weekend was Motherhood the Musical.  It was fabulous.  They had something that every mother could relate to at some stage in their parenting.  Levi was over at Ty's and went to sleep very very late.  This morning he slept through swimming practice.......Again!!  I think that I need to re look at this 7.30am thing in the winter.  So we went grocery shopping, we watched movies and then I went out to wash pavers.  Tonight he is in there cough cough coughing, so perhaps the sleep in and snugly day has more to do with that than the late night. 

We didn't go to 'Eggs" again today.  I have trouble with Eggs.  It is the Sunday night get together that is compulsory for our family on Sunday night.  Now my first off objection is that it is Sunday night, normally around 6pm.  Levi goes to bed at 7pm.  So already there is a problem.  There is no chance in hell that he will get to bed on time on the most important night of the week.  I think it's fine for the older kids but he is still little.  My other problem is that it is every freaking week!  I mean once a month we would all make an effort and go but every week it is just an enormous drain.  I think it is really for Jo and likely will quickly revert to monthly (or event driven) when she stops being so adamant about it.  It becomes a test of love every week, and I fail so regularly it is becoming habit.

I think most people miss the point of real love.  I probably do too, miss the point I mean.  But I think that real love is about being happy that the person you love is happy.  If you can't provide that somehow, I just think it's fine to be OK if someone else can.  I think that Bruno Mars misses the point in Grenade.  Catching a grenade for someone, that is the easy bit.  Dying for someone, that is the easy job.  I think giving someone up, can mean real love.  I think that living on after someone you love dies, that is the hardest role of all.  But perhaps I just don't really understand jealousy and ownership between people.  I am happy that I don't really understand.  I am happier believing that parents don't own their children and spouses don't own each other.  That is what I will teach Levi.  I will teach him to get together with his family because he wants to, not because he has to.

Parenting and thoughts of Inadequacy

Sleepovers are Rites of Passages for kids and Levi's went really well.  First off Ty's family picked him up from school and they went to play Mini Golf.  He loved it and then they went home and camped out on the deck.  Levi didn't really even ask for me which was great.  They went to bed late and woke up at the crack of dawn but they loved playing so much that I brought Ty home in the morn and they played all day as well.  I attacked weeds with the Weed Whacker until I got tired (and the motor got too hot and wouldn't restart).

Ty's parents and I talked when I went to pick him up.  They loved having him and are going to take Levi one afternoon a week which will reduce his time at after school care.  She said that they were going to invite a couple of kids but one of the other mothers said that if Levi was going then she didn't want to because Levi is a "bad influence".  Now regardless of how much that makes me want to jump up and beat someone, I have to think really hard.  The mother has a kid that I see as a fairly spoiled, bossy little guy that can't seem to do any wrong in his mother's eyes.  Now if I am looking really hard at Levi, maybe he could be a fairly spoiled, bossy little guy as well, but at least I recognize it.  But even after all of that, really how bad an influence can any 5 year old be?  I mean really!

Maybe I can forgive the slight to Levi's character but it is a little difficult to forgive the broadcasting of that to other families that are my and Levi's friends.  I told Ty's parents that the last thing that I wanted them to have to do was to choose a side over anything let alone something so ridiculously petty.  At least all the classes were split up, so they are in different classes.  I wouldn't do anything anyway.  It won't hurt Levi.  It will hurt me but I am big enough and ugly enough to be the parent.  But I will watch.  And I will have a low threshold for it actually impacting Levi.  Really they are all 5 or 6.  It is not like they are all going to be friends for life or anything.  I mean how many people even remember friends they had in Grade 1.  I see the early years of school as the place to learn things like getting along with other kids and working out differences

It is making me look harder at Levi and try to decide if perhaps the deluded parent is actually me.  Maybe I think he can do wrong but I don't set enough store by it.  Maybe I should be more controlling but even in the cold light of day I think it is nuts. 

How is he possibly able to learn anything if I show him how all the time? 

How can he possibly learn reasoning if I impose adult reasoning all the time? 

How can he learn to value truth without at some point feeling the repercussions of a lie? 

How is he supposed to mature if he never has to face up to any consequences or mistakes?

OK I am done! 

Now for happier stuff.  Our creek has changed since the big flood!



 Now it has a beautiful place to swim under the trees where the first little rapid is.  The kids can get in and it is incredibly safe for all out bigger kids.   Ruby and her family and Ty's family all went down for a dip after the hot, humidity that was the day.  The kids played in the water and threw rocks.  They were so happy and relaxed.  It did my heart good to watch them.  They are so lovely together.  At one point Ruby was having trouble getting across the stream and I when I let Levi know he came running over and held her hand until she was across safely.  It was a lovely afternoon!

Then tonight just when I thought it wasn't possible to love that little man more he said to me: 

"Mum, you know how I think you are the best, all the other kids must think their mother's are the best!"

I told him he was right. (Not until after there was a little pang in my heart for all those little kids out there for whom that is not true)

"So you might not be the best of all, but you will always be the best to me!"

Yes he's right.  I might not be the best mother ever but as long as he thinks that I am doing OK, that's sweet with me! 

Is it really worth it?

 I have been lying in bed trying to sleep this morning but failing miserably.  I have to say Goodbye to Ross and Evan tomorrow and Robert and Ken on Sunday.  Once again it is almost beyond me.  It would just be so easy not to and I think that is the biggest problem of all.  Tomorrow I could get a job at the hospital and be paid at least what I am paid now.  Oh I wouldn't be a 'manager' but for me that definitely goes on the 'Pro' side not the 'Con' side, esp as being a manager in Brisbane has given me almost zero joy and has certainly had more work involved than I think anyone imagined. 

Tomorrow I could buy a 4 bedroom house here on a big chunk of land for $200K.  The housing prices are incredible at the moment and it is definitely a buyers market.  Heck, if I tried hard I could wait a bit and get a house for less.   At a fixed interest level of 3% compared to the massive interest I am paying in Australia, I might even have a hope of paying it off sooner!  It is funny, but I keep thinking about the housing correction that Australia is supposed to do soon and fear that soon, my house in Australia won't be worth much either.  Levi loves his brothers so much!  I feel like a bad mother taking him away from them and know that their time to be able to be around and play with him is growing short.  Ross has only two years before he leaves school.  He is growing into a lovely adult but in 18 months when we come back he will be just that, an adult.  I know, it's Ross he will still play with Levi, but it is hard to know how much time they are losing.  The other day day introduced me to his friends, still using the "this is my 'other mother'" title.  Heart warming but it still ripped me apart.  I am missing his life as well as Evan's and it makes me really sad to contemplate that.

 It comes down to what you move anywhere for.  In reality it was the schooling that finalized my decision.  That and the thought that I could get some help in Australia.  But is Brisbane Boys Grammar really worth all that has been sacrificed for it?  I like the idea that Levi go to a boy only school, because he is in such a girl dominated environment, but that is not true in USA, in fact it is the opposite, he would live surrounded by boys and men who love him dearly.  I will admit, the schooling is better but I don't even know if I will be able to afford BGS when the time comes.  I am frantically trying to put money away into a school account but is it really worth the amount that you have to pay to go.  In the cold hard financial truths of this world and watching them put the fees up furiously, I think that unless Levi gets a scholarship, my chances of being able to afford to send him are low.  And is St Mary's or Sacred Heart that different?  Yes the education level is lower, but surely I could supplement that and I am more likely to have the resources to do that here.

I wish that these things were easier.  I write this on an internet that uploads easily and free while in Australia it is slow and they charge like a wounded bull.  It frustrates me that Australia seems to only take the bad stuff from USA.  They follow dumb trends like their life depends on it but simple efficient tools like the internet and cell phones are worked on weird archaic dinosaur systems in Australia.  Why can't we take those systems, the ones everyone likes?  Why do the Australian people not look up and say "Why don't we do that?"  This is starting to sound like a rant.  It didn't start that way, but I am sad and I don't want to leave my family (again).  I wonder what it would take to move back?  I am not wishing for any of this to happen, mind you, I was just wondering about coming back so it crystallizes my reasons in my head for staying in Australia.  My job in Australia is better, certainly not better paid, certainly not better compensated but still better.  I love what I do there and wouldn't really love what I do here, but could perhaps get to a point where I do.  If Jo died tomorrow and Jane managed to stay more than 3 days in China, I think I would come back.  If Levi did, I would be back in a heartbeat.  I can't imagine dealing with that kind of grief and having to look after others at the same time.  If I lost my job, I would be back. 

 I have lovely friends and family in both places now.  It kills me to think about leaving USA, but in a few weeks and after I have been crabby for a few days (OK weeks - Sorry work friends), I settle back in, because I am not unhappy in Australia, I just miss my family.  The other thing that I miss is Frankie.  In USA, they all knew him.  They talk about him as a real entity.  THEY miss him.  I feel like Frankie is in the background at times in a way that he never is in Australia.  I don't get that there because no one has the basis for it.  No one knew him as well as anyone here.  I feel that as I walk away from USA again, I am once again walking away from his memory.

It's OK, I will be OK in a week or so and helping to clean up Brisbane will be a welcome distraction.  I will put on my happy face and soon it will not just be a mask! 

Maybe there are a few things that Levi might not miss though, like this face plant!

What about more therapy?

Today I was asked again; "What about more therapy?"

It is always accompanied by a plea in a parent's eyes. So much behind the question that remains unspoken behind the words. Sometimes there is an extra edge behind them. I met this little boy and his mother today. They had lovely support, Grandma and Grandpa had moved close to help, but it is never enough to calm the guilt and the drive, the frustration and the futility. He is a beautiful little boy, with a diagnosis that required not one, not two and not even three hyphens but four. I think that had I been his mother I would have said "He has Vegemite Syndrome" or some other easy title. I think that if a diagnosis can't be pronounced by a parent without medical background, it should be renamed.

But I digress. He was beautiful. But he had that look that you recognise after a while. He didn't really look you in the eye, but would if helped. He was floppy but could still walk and climb. He didn't speak at all. Then there was Mum. She loves him so much. She talked of the 'therapy' time they spend each day and how she has trouble 'engaging' him now. She wanted more ideas, more interaction from him and more time. She wants him to be 'better' so badly, because she loves him and hates seeing him hurting. Then the big question "What about more therapy"

I see a child, a family, that just need to take the stress level down. I see a child that no amount of therapy is going to 'fix' and who loved to play with me, and who never knew that it was working him hard too. I see the tears in Mum's eyes as she asks about therapy. It is so hard to remind her that she is strong and that she has been the one that has been able to strengthen him. It is so hard to convince her that she is brave enough to continue. It is harder still to convince her to try to forgive herself. To not wake at night thinking about the things that she should have done that day, or the therapy she had missed. The internet talks so much about the window of treatment for early intervention and this Mum had assumed that at the 4th birthday the window slammed shut and from there on that was where it all ended. I almost spilled her tears by just assuring her that the window doesn't slam. I tell funny stories about learning things as an adult and the tears recede a little more. I hope that her stress level went with it.

I wish that I could find the pill that helped all the little kids out there. The kids with diagnoses longer than there own names and the ones without a diagnosis. I wish it was just about more therapy. I wish that I could stop the relentless decline in function and the tears in parents eyes. I just wish that it was as easy as the question about therapy. All I can do is love all those kids out there and hurt for their parents.

Gen Y ??

I don't really understand the whole Gen Y thing. I know this probably marks me as a Old person and completely out of touch but maybe that is exactly what I am. I know that the statistics say that they will have more job changes in their first 10 years than we will have in a lifetime and other (to me) horrifying numbers. Is that really what is going to make then happy or have they been taught to be so entitled that they leave the instant that things don't go exactly their way.

Two weeks ago, one of the young physios that we had hired for year long positions resigned because there was a 'better' job at the hospital. There was no mention of the dollars that our agency had invested in teaching her, both through my time and with external courses. No thought about what it meant for us or our agency. It was just about what was best for the individual.

I think that we are just creating a generation of completely vulnerable people. In the past resilience was a given. If you fell over, you got up again. If you were unhappy, you found ways of finding happiness. If something bad happened, you got over it. If you signed a contract for a year you worked at it until the end. Now days if something bad happens, the whole school gets counselling. If you are not happy, it's someone else's fault. If something better comes along, you leave the job and there's no skin off your nose. I am sure that our parents worried about us because our morals didn't match theirs, but I worry because all of this changing jobs and being given everything they want doesn't seem to be making them happy. I hope my nieces and nephew can beat that. I have no idea how to help them achieve happiness in a world seeking happiness

Teeth brushing and Night time Musings

The night time conversation went like this:

"Mum, if I had a brother that didn't die like Frankie, how old would he be?"

"Depends on when he was born, Honey"

"But Frankie just stays three years old doesn't he?"

"Yes he does, but he would be 10 now"

"I know. That's weird to be 3 and 10, hey"

"That's true, you can only really be two ages when we die and other people remember you"

"Yeah. I'm glad we remember Frankie, Mum"

"Me too"

"What is 15 plus 15 Mum?"

I am glad that he thinks about Frankie and also glad that he talks about him all the time, even though it is always a little hard to respond out of the blue esp this time of year. Levi was grumpy tonight too. He found it hard to go to sleep and was resistant to, of all things brushing his teeth. Frankly, his teeth aren't going to drop out with one night of dirt, so I just let him ride and didn't fight it at all. He was very sweet though in bed snuggled up against me;

"Mum, We will love each other forever, right?"

"Yes, that is absolutely right!"

"Even when I'm old and I say I hate you, I'm only joking, cause inside I'll still love you. Remember that OK."

"OK Honey, I will always remember that"

I hope he never actually says that but that is why I'm writing it now. If he is 15 and says he hates me, I can look back here and remember that he is really loving me...inside. Such a sweet sweet boy. I can't even imagine a grumpy teenager. Let's wait and see!