Lists and Letters

I'm a list writer.

Why do I write lists?

1. To remember what I need to do.
2. To help me organise the day/week and give a little bit of structure to my life.
3. To make sure things get done when they need to be done.
4. To have the pleasure of being able to cross things off when they are done.
And yes, I have been known on a bad day to write something onto a list that I'd already done just so I could strike it off and feel some small sense of achievement...I know, I know…

I've got the whole list writing thing down to a fairly fine art these days. I have a diary and a book. The diary is for keeping track of events. The book is for everything else. The book is a simple, inexpensive A5 spiral bound thing. And it serves two purposes.

Firstly it replaces scraps of paper. What used to be written onto scraps of paper – a reminder note to myself, a phone message, the address someone just gave me over the phone, the recipe, the name and number of the three roof plumbers I am going to call for quotes to get the roof fixed – all go in the book. There are no more scraps of paper in my house. Well, not any which belong to me anyway.

The second use of the book is the TO DO lists. I seem to write a TO DO list about once a week. It's not something I do at a specified time of the week. But it seems to happen about once a week because it takes about a week to clear a list (or to get sick of the sight of the old one!)

My TO DO lists include:

1. People to ring.
2. Emails, letters and (more recently) blog posts to write.
3. Things to prepare (like scripture lessons, Bible studies, meeting preparation).
4. Jobs to do (banking, trips to the post office, birthday presents to buy, specific cooking for events or people and so on).
My TO DO lists don't include

1. Domestic tasks – unless it is going to be a particularly BIG week and things need to be prioritised.
2. Things that happen every day – like making breakfast.
3. Every single little thing.
4. Things I know I am just not going to get to – like defrosting the fridge.
But I have discovered that THANK YOU NOTES do not belong on a TO DO list. After we have attended a lovely event or after being the recipient of a gift or beautiful act of service it often occurs to me that I should write a quick THANK YOU NOTE. So typically Ilook for my book and add this intention to my TO DO list.

Unfortunately in the last month I have missed several opportunities to bless someone with a THANK YOU NOTE. Yes, these opportunities make it onto my TO DO list. But by putting "Write thank you note to..." on the list (to be attended to some time later in the week) the spontaneity and immediacy is lost. And by the time I get around to writing a THANK YOU NOTE on Friday for something (for example) that happened last Sunday – when I will see that person again at church before the postman has had the opportunity to deliver my letter – the moment has passed.

And the ironic thing is that THANK YOU NOTES don't take very long to write if you have a stack of paper, a nice pen, some envelopes and stamps ready on your desk for such moments. It's not quite as quick as noting it on a TO DO list – but it's not far off. And it is far better to act on these opportunities to bless someone who has blessed you rather than seeing good intentions lost to inaction because the period between the event and the letter has become too great.

NOTE TO SELF:If it occurs to me that I should write a THANK YOU NOTE to someone then I will not put it on my TO DO list. I will just write the note – and enjoy the moment.

New Mercies Every Morning

This morning I woke up before the alarm, felt as though I'd had enough sleep and decided to put this extra time to good use. I got up, put the heater on, made a cup of steaming hot tea and had a glorious, extended time of Bible reading.

It was God's good providence - He clearly knew the encouragement I needed - as I read Psalms 73 through to 84 slowly, carefully and prayerfully. Obviously there is a lot of material in twelve Psalms but of greatest encouragement to me this morning were Psalms 73 and 84 - the bookends of my morning's reading.

Psalm 73 starts:

Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.
For I envied...

Yes! I was nodding my head. This morning I knew in my head that God is good - but my feet have been slipping. The holidays (ah, the holidays!) were fun but again they saw the predictable loss of routine and my feet were slipping. I found myself envious of people in different situations and circumstances. And envy soon gives way to discontent...

The Psalm continues:

For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong.
They are free from the burdens common to man;
they are not plagued by human ills.

That was the Psalmist's source of envy and he took twenty verses to explain his feelings of indignation, discontent, misery and yes, envy. This may not be the issue that causes your feet to slip but anyone who does find their feet slipping could insert their own twenty verses describing their own situation and how it eats away at them.

I was nodding my head feeling some empathy with the Psalmist's "righteous indignation" and yet feeling rebuked at the same time. But from experience I knew that soon, before the end of this very Psalm, there would be a word of encouragement. And here it is from verse 23 to the end:

Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
But as for me,
it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.

What a beautiful encouragement to get my thoughts away from the things of the world and to turn my compass back towards God.

And so by the time I read Psalm 84 I was truly ready to read verses such as 84:1 and 2:

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

and verse 10:

Better to spend one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

Amen!

When the morning started at 6am I knew in my head that God is good. By 7:20am I knew that God is good with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.

O LORD Almighty
blessed is the one
who trusts in you.
Psalm 84:12

Garden Update # 5

There was a bit of time and a tiny patch of fine weather that allowed for gardening during the school holidays so small progress was made.

Firstly I repositioned the daisies and geraniums in "the patch" (a.k.a. the bed of clay as seen above in its original state) and then dug holes for each of them down to the impenetrable clay. Then I poured in the gypsum and the boys filled the holes with water.

While the water was soaking in we dug a little hole by the fence for a passionfruit vine. I had been musing about growing passionfruit along the fence but it was a long term plan. And then we had a "Bring and Buy" stall at church and someone brought some little pots of passionfruit vines. What's a girl to do but support the cause and buy one? So we popped it in.

Now I have read that passionfruit don't thrive when grown near big trees whose roots will compete and potentially win…but I am giving it a go anyway. And if it doesn't work, the "Bring and Buy" stall made $1 out of me!!

Then I raked the yard and swept the brick paving again. I have a good plan there…I rake or sweep into piles and R gets to earn some money for his piggy bank – 10c for every pile placed into the bin. It works for everyone – he likes wearing my gardening gloves and earning money (I make sure there are at least ten piles so that he gets $1 or more for his efforts) and I am spared the part of that job that I don't enjoy.

By then the water had soaked into the clay taking the gypsum with it and total amazement – five holes in the ground and not crow bar in sight. I LOVE GYPSUM. So we planted the plants and watered them in. And took a photo.

This is the start. There are plans for more plants – rosemary, lavender, and I'm thinking some diosma. But that will come in time as the promised plants and/or the dollars come available.

The boys have expressed an interest in growing corn, carrots and tomatoes. Interesting - because they haven't read my blog so they didn't know there was a vegetable plan. I seem to remember that when I was little we grew corn in the summer. I'll need to check out my timing there. And the section where the corn will go is my first target area for the composting project.

Good work.

Do Thy Work

Troubled soul, thou art not bound to feel, but thou art bound to arise. God loves thee whether thou feelest or not. … Try not to feel good when thou art not good, but cry to Him who is good. He changes not because thou changest. Nay, he has an especial tenderness of love towards thee for that thou art in the dark and hast no light, and his heart is glad when thou dost arise and say, "I will go to my Father." For he sees thee through all the gloom through which thou canst not see him. Will thou his will. Say to him: "My God, I am very dull and low and hard; but thou art wise and high and tender, and thou art my God. I am thy child. Forsake me not." Then fold the arms of thy faith, and wait in quietness until light goes up in thy darkness. Fold the arms of thy Faith I say, but not of thy Action: bethink thee of something that thou oughtest to do, and go and do it, if it be but the sweeping of a room, or the preparing of a meal, or a visit to a friend. Heed not thy feelings: Do thy work.

From "Unspoken Sermons" by George MacDonald.

Garden Update # 4

I've been thinking about my options given the problem with the clay.

1. Brick paving.
Well, I'll keep that one in my back pocket but it isn't my preferred option. And besides, other people around here have gardens so it must be possible to get around this.

2. Forget the flowers and get a ground cover with a shallow root system.
I don't think so. That would be boring and where is the challenge in that?? I don't want TOO much of a challenge...but I can do better than that!

3. Instead of planting into the ground, get lots more big pots and plant in pots. Arrange them in some funky way and then scatter gravel/rocks/pebbles around to fill in the gaps.
Again I am not keen. Firstly, all the trees nearby create a lot of leaf litter. I think it would be awkward to keep the area tidy. Secondly, this would be expensive to set up. Mind you, if push really comes to shove, it could be done as a gradual process. But I would need help because I think I lack the creativity to arrange things in "some funky way." Apparently there is a nursery nearby with a courtyard garden done entirely with plants in terracotta pots. I might go and have a look sometime soon by way of professional development.

4. Build up the beds.
This may end up being the answer. Takes infrastructure so this may become a slightly more long term project.

5. Buy a bag of gypsum.

And here it is...modelled beautifully by the parsley. I am going to try this in conjunction with some elementary composting. And probably borrow our neighbour's crowbar!!
I'll let you know how it goes.

Garden Update # 3

I've hit a problem. Literally!

The time came to put the daisies and geraniums into the patch!


So I raked it, cleared it, drew lines in the sand and made a rough plan for a layout...backplanting with the rosemary when it arrives and then dotting the daisies, geranuims and lavender in the front two thirds.
I placed the pots in their spots to make sure it looked OK. All OK.
And then I started to dig.
And then I realised why, when we came to this house, there were no plants in this patch.
You can't really get a sense of perspective with this photo. The grey bit is sandy soily stuff. To a depth of about 15cm. The orange bit is clay. The clay has not had a drop of water on it in a very long time. The clay is rock hard. The clay bent my (albeit cheap) shovel. There are no daisies going in there!

Mmmmm...

Downed tools and went straight next door to our neighbours, one of whom was once a landscape gardener and knows a thing or two about these things. After a short discussion with my friendly neighbour I figure I have five options.

1. Brick paving!

2. Forget the flowers and get a ground cover with a shallow root system.

3. Instead of planting into the ground, get lots more big pots and plant in pots. Arrange them in some funky way and then scatter gravel/rocks/pebbles around to fill in the gaps.

4. Build up the beds. Create some sort of mini retaining wall with bricks or sleepers and ship in large amounts of soil. Then plant. The roots of my plants, my neighbour tells me, will find their way through the clay and thrive. It is just a matter of having enough soil to put them in to start with.

5. Buy a bag of gypsum. Apparently, my good neighbour tells me (and Google has just confirmed it!), gypsum will break down the clay so that it isn't rock hard. It would still be hard work to dig through - the neighbour said he used a crowbar - but not impossible.

Mmmmm....

My New Plan

I have given up watching "The Bill" on television.

Right. I have said it. I have made a public statement. Deep breath.

It's not that I don't like it. In fact I quite enjoy it. But I do my ironing while it's on. I usually finish the ironing before the second episode is over. So once the ironing is done I finish watching the rest of the episode. It finishes at 10pm. Then I put the iron, the ironing board, the clothes brush, the bottle of water for spraying the tough creases and the ironing away. And then I have a shower, check the children, say goodnight to my husband if he is still working and pray. And suddenly it has become a late night. Every Saturday night.

Sunday morning. Feel tired. Not completely organised for church. And have you noticed this too? You can get everyone ready to be out of the door in an organised, calm and happy fashion every other day of the week but on Sunday things seem to fall apart? I am certain that Satan does his best to interfere with families trying to get to church on Sunday morning.

So I have decided that I need to work a bit harder to avoid giving him a foothold.

I will still iron on Saturday nights. (I know, it's an exciting life!) To amuse myself I will watch ONE episode of "The West Wing." I've started right from the beginning. I caught it in the last three episodes of the final series and loved it! So there is a bit of catching up to do - 155 episodes all up - so that should keep me going for three years!!

The benefit is that the process can start earlier - I don't have to wait until 8:30pm to get going - and finish earlier too. I can do my hour or so of ironing, pack it all away and still have some time to get everyone's bits and pieces ready for Sunday morning. And if all goes to plan, I can have an early night and be fully focussed on having a calm Sunday morning. And then all of us should get to church in better shape.

That's the plan.

Out of Africa

I would like you to meet two friends of mine. Both work in Africa.

J, who I have mentioned before, works in a west African country. This week she sent me an email that started like this.

This comes with fresh greetings from a location where the air is clean from summer rains. While the downside might mean more litter washed into one's yard and less electricity (supplies perhaps 30% of the time), it is good to have the trees so green and the air dust-free.

Imagine if we only had electricity for 30% of the time...

The other is R, who works in a landlocked country in the south east of Africa. This is what she wrote in her blog earlier this month.

Remember my 'experiment' last year?

$1 a day (or was it $2?) no power, carry my own water for a week (or was it 2?) oh yeah - i remember- and no matress. lol

Well, I'm upping the ante. I've been given the opportunity to live in a village for a few months... and I moved out there last Friday! It's not about living on the edge or feeling good that I'm doing it tough- it's about getting as much language and cultural interaction as i can.

I'm looking forward to blogging all about it ...soon. But for now- First impressions?

- stinging eyes from lighting and cooking over a smoke fire
- the sheer time investment into every chore
- from boiling water for a cuppa to pumping water and carrying it up the hill to my house
- amazing generosity and friendliness of my new neighbourhood. They've visited, shared their food, invited me to family events (sadaka) and cleaned my pots....

but they're all stories for another day!

I'll write when I can- in the mean time, please pray that I'll get to the next level with language, make some good friends and stay well.

What J and R do takes my breath away.

J and R don't live choose to live in these circumstances so they can be seen to be living the politically and environmentally correct lifestyle.
J and R don't live like this to store up impressive stories to tell at dinner parties.
J and R aren't trying to show off.

Rather...

J and R are two humble women who love God and love the people of the nations in which they live and work.
J and R remind me of the difference between living surrounded by abundance and living abundantly.
J and R remind me to be thankful and to stop complaining when I am inconvenienced in some small way.

And there you have J and R, two friends of mine. Two amazing women.

Garden Update # 2

So, I thought I would ease myself into this gardening thing. In addition to the "tough flowers" and the herbs purchased at the nursery, I also got several bags of potting mix. I got my five large terracotta pots (actually, four terracotta pots and one plastic terracotta-look-alike pot), filled them with the potting mix, popped in the herbs and...

...there you have a very satisfying little corner. I'm very happy about that.

As for that rogue marigold, if you remember this part of the garden that looks onto the trampoline...

...you will notice a couple of dodgy looking plastic chairs just to the right - a place to sit when supervising children on said trampoline.

That little space has been transformed into this, with thanks to the marigold!

That is a much better spot to sit and supervise trampoline shenanigans, complete with a place to put one's cup of tea. I have visions of sitting there in the mornings to read and pray with a cup of tea when the weather warms up too.

Well, that was a good start!

What Genderanalyser Thinks of Church History

Genderanalyser has been doing the rounds for a while. How it works is that you type in your blog address at the Genderanalyser site and it decides whether the blog entered has been written by a man or a woman.

When I entered The Key to the Door this evening, this was the result.

We guess http://thekeytothedoor.blogspot.com is written by a man (52%), however it's quite gender neutral.

Interestingly, I ran Genderanalyser over the blog before the Athanasius post and look what they said then...

We guess http://thekeytothedoor.blogspot.com is written by a woman (54%), however it's quite gender neutral.

Athanasius seemed to make a big difference! Surely church history isn't the domain of men only!

Gonzales on Athanasius - Something for all of us

I have been reading "The Story of Christianity: Volume One" by Justo Gonzales from my reading list. Last week I read a chapter on Athanasius, a hero of fourth century Christianity. (Find him in Wikipedia here!) He was truly a great man of his time and God used him mightily for the Kingdom.

But have a look at how Gonzales describes this man early on in the chapter. (Please note, the following quote is one complete paragraph in the book. I have divided it up and the italics are mine, just so that you can see clearly what is going on here.)

Of all the opponents of Arianism, Athanasius was the most to be feared. The reasons for this were not to be found in subtlety of logical argument, nor in elegance of style, nor even in political perspicacity. In all these areas, Athanasius could be bested by his opponents.

His strong suit was in his close ties to the people among whom he lived,

and in living out his faith without the subtleties of the Arians or the the pomp of so many bishops of other important sees. His monastic discipline,

his roots among the people, his fiery spirit, and his profound and unshakable conviction

made him invincible.

I was SO encouraged to read this. Although his great learning, capacity as an orator and ability to lead were important (he had a big job to do so he needed a certain skill set!) what helped him to cross the line, in Gonzales view, was how he lived.

We may not be in a position to do significant theological study, we may not be good at public speaking and we may not find ourselves in a position of leadership such that we find ourselves with a great sphere of influence.

But we can all live well.

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all people. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Titus 2:11-13

Garden Update # 1

Having presented the garden baseline here, the time has come to move forward on this little project. Thankyou to those who offered helpful suggestions, both in the comments section and also in person.

My first question is to ask about composting. We anticipate being here a good long while so getting some composting happening to keep boosting up the soil (as well as doing something more environmentally friendly with the carrot and potato peelings than just throwing them into the bin) seems a great idea. We have no composting infrastructure and I am after low cost solutions. What do I need to do to get started?

Received some great ideas about this long stretch here.


We have indeed used it as a cricket pitch and expect to have many more backyard games of cricket here. One of R's little friends suggested a swimming pool. And the mother of that friend suggested a lap pool. Both very good ideas but I don't think the owners of the house will come at that! So it will remain a cricket pitch/general running around and playing sort of space - and since winter arrived and the rain started, it has been greening up nicely. I am toying with the idea of a passionfruit vine or two along the fence and maybe a fruit tree or two tucked into a corner but these ideas are a long way down the track. And we may well be getting a friend's surplus-to-requirements swing set which will go somewhere along here too.

The more pressing issue is this patch.


When I first saw this space I immediately thought of a vegie patch. In the eighteen months since this patch became ours to fill, my ideas have moved from vegie patch to flower bed to a mix of the both, a children's garden with interesting little plants and stepping stones and even, in several moments of I-can't-be-bothered-ness, more brick paving...just do away with the problem altogether!

Well, to cut a long story short, I have decided on a garden of tough flowers, but keeping the little angled section to the left free to maybe do some basic vegies (ie. tomatoes and perhaps lettuce in the summer and spuds in the winter) for the boys to have the vegie growing experience.

As I said, I am no gardener! Well, not yet. And I don't have loads of time to give to the garden. I need plants that I know will thrive on neglect and that are low cost to acquire. But at the bottom line I want some flowers because this patch provides the view from the kitchen window.

So I've decided on rosemary, lavender, daisies and geraniums - and I may add a few other items down the track. A friend's mum is potting up some lavender and rosemary for me. And here is the stash from the nursery.

Yes, that is a marigold in there. I have other plans for that!

And because I love using herbs in my cooking and spend a small fortune on fresh herbs in the supermarket...and because I have all those empty pots to fill...here is the herb stash.

Sage, basil, coriander, thyme, parsley and mint. And rosemary will round that out well.
Stay tuned.

Prayer - (2) Quantity

I always feel it well to put a few words of prayer between everything I do.
So said Charles Spurgeon. And CJ Mahaney quoted him here as he wrote about punctuating his day with prayer, humbling himself before God in each new event rather than relying on his own self-sufficiency.

As I make my way from meeting to meeting, decision to decision, and phone call to phone call, I find the counsel of Charles Spurgeon very helpful. “I always feel it well,” he wrote, “to put a few words of prayer between everything I do.” Throughout his busy days, Spurgeon scattered words of prayer between each activity, a model I have sought to emulate over the years.
I really, really, really like this idea.

It's not a substitute for periods of extended, focussed prayer. But it's about coming to God at frequent intervals during the day – making sure that we are relying on Him in all that we do, that we are serving Him in all that we do, giving the mundane activity some purpose and doing such tasks with a cheerful, thankful heart - and keeping the things of God as our main priority throughout the day.

Since reading this I have been thinking about how this practice of pausing to pray before each new thing might apply in the life of a stay at home mum. Because the life of a stay at home mum is not divided into neat hourly blocks. I seem to move to something new every three minutes or so...from hanging out the washing to assisting in locating that critical piece of Lego to sweeping the leaves off the trampoline to dinner preparation and oh yes, back to hanging out that load of washing that was interrupted by the Lego! The days can pass by in a bit of a blur of unfinished activity. Which is fine. This is the nature of life with smalls.

But how might Spurgeon's model apply when life lacks a bit of structure?

1. Use cues in the environment. A friend of mine gave me some really groovy clothes pegs at one stage. At the time she was in great need of prayer and so I got into the habit of praying for her every time I put out the washing. That habit remains – she gets a lot of prayer because I do a lot of washing! This is one example of many.

2. I have the prayer diary of the main mission society we support and also our church's directory on my recipe rack in the kitchen. I seem to be in the kitchen a lot – doing things that don't take a lot of concentration so I use the time to pray through those lists of people. You can cover quite a lot of territory in a day this way!

3. The thing that punctuates my day is people - the people I meet at school drop off and pick up times, the people I might visit or who visit me, the people I speak to and do business with at the shops. I have decided, spurred on by Spurgeon (and CJ Mahaney!) to use people rather than appointments as markers in my day. So I am trying to stop (actually stop) and pray before I go to school, on my way to see someone, on my way to answering the door when someone calls by at our house – praying for those I will meet, praying for a valuable and encouraging interaction, praying that I will be like this.

4. Pray with our children. When something happens or someone comes to mind and prayer is required – or in any of the above three categories – I am just starting to try to form the habit of praying about it with our children. It is one thing to be praying often and silently (which is fine) but I have also become aware that our children need to see this habit of praying frequently throughout the day modelled too so that they learn to "pray without ceasing" and realise that prayer doesn't just happen when saying grace or goodnight prayers. And by teaching them this habit maybe they might even remind me to pray about something one day. That would be a joy.

I'm not too bad at the first two ideas. The second two are new habits that I am trying to form.

I always feel it well to put a few words of prayer between everything I do.
Well, between EVERYTHING may not be practical, but frequently has got to be a good alternative. Any other ideas?