Growth Rings

The risk to our ancient woodlands has made me think about identity and growth.  There are forests in England that have existed since the last ice age.  They are mentioned in the Doomsday book so they can be accounted for on the great day of judgement.  Individual, trees have fallen, rotted, and become compost for new seedlings, yet corporately the woods have existed for millennia. 

Similarly, every cell our bodies has died and been replaced many times over. Hair, skin, nails, brain cells - all have endured their own minute deaths and been resurrected, replicated, renewed.  How can we be the same person we were ten, twenty or thirty years ago? On a physical level, personal identity resides in our DNA.  Psychologically speaking, we recognise ourselves through our memories and character. 

The rings of a tree document the years that have passed - the hard winters and warm summers, the floods and the droughts.  Our personalities display the characteristics that have been forged through the dark days and the light.  Often our greatest growth occurs during our darkest times. “Can we depend on ourselves during this time? Forget about it. It is precisely in rough waters, and when our resources are exhausted, that we cannot depend on ourselves. Growth occurs on the rim of risk. You risk failure, disappointment, loss. You gain growth. Occasionally, God has to nudge (okay, shove is more like it) us out of our comfort zones to enlarge our rings" (Carol O'Casey, Unwrapping Wonder: Finding Hope in the Gift of Nature)

The rings remind us that growth is slow, hard won, and needs to be sustained and valued.

 

The loss of an individual tree does not destroy the forest.  But concrete over the entire woodland for new housing and it is not only the environmental impact on other species that needs to be considered.  We lose the memory and the character of our countryside, a sense of identity with the landscape which can never be replaced.  Our forests are at the rim of risk.  They face destruction.  We need to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and enlarge our rings, if only by signing a petition. https://t.co/h61S7gORWG

My New Skirt

I had some Christmas vouchers to spend and went into a big department store.  There were racks of clothes in the sale, still all over-priced to my mind and all the wrong colours or sizes or lengths.  I had money to spend, but I put the vouchers away for another day.

As I had time left on my parking ticket, I popped into a charity shop.  I found a beautiful skirt by White Stuff, brand new with the label still on, the right size and colour.  It fitted!  It cost £9.99.

I came away feeling happy with my purchase, not just because I found something I wanted at a reasonable price, but also because I had thumbed my nose at big business and helped a good cause (Age UK).

This has got me thinking.  There is no downside to the principle of giving.  The lady who gave the skirt uncluttered her wardrobe and donated something she no longer wanted to a cause she believed in.  I was delighted with my purchase.  The charity received £9.99.  According to the recycling experts, Wrap, the British public sends 350,000 tonnes of used clothing to landfill each year . . . but not my skirt!  Charity shops have helped reduce what we bin, as well as saving an estimated million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year -  the carbon footprint of Iceland.  The number of charity shops has increased 30% since 2008 and have performed well as other retail outlets have struggled in the current economic climate.  They have rejuvenated failing High Streets, drawn together a community of volunteers and clothed those on a budget.

Giving creates a virtuous circle of beneficial consequences, for those who give and for those who receive. We shouldn't be surprised that this principle cuts through and subverts other principles at work in the world - capitalism, consumerisem, survival of the fittest - for it's a principle established from the dawn of time by the God who gave of himself through his work of creation and salvation.  As I redeemed my second hand skirt from the landfill, I believe he will redeem a people through the gift of his son.




 

Debt

I have the advantage of having a husband who is good with numbers.  He has been mulling over the size of the US and UK debt.

America is carrying $17.3 trillion of debt as at 6 January 2014.  If you took one second to post a dollar into a slot, and you spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, posting dollars to pay off this debt, it would take a staggering 550,000 years. 

BUT, this is just the debt as at 6 January 2014.  Based on current trends, US debt is increasing by approximately $1 trillion a year.  Each trillion will take 32,000 years to pay off.  So, for each of the 550,000 years you spend paying off the original debt you will be gaining another 32,000 years of debt repayment.  In otherwords, 550,000 x 32,000 years . . . to infinitiy and beyond!

China and Japan are the largest purchasers of this debt.  I think we see before us a new world order, where the politics of power is no longer based on military might but on financial leverage.

In the UK we have £1.4 trillion of debt which will take 45,000 years to repay at one pound per second.

It's too easy to think that this is just virtual money.  Money, after all, does not exist in any tangible way.  Money is just a gentleman's agreement to pay.  Fluctuating interest and exchange rates, the volatility of stocks and shares, rates of inflation teach us that we live in a world of shifting sand.  But at some point these relativities impact on the real world as we have seen with the credit crunch and recent austerity measures. 

This all begs the question, how can we possibly help developing countries when we in the west are effectively bankrupt?  What heritage are we leaving our children? We have stolen their future, for debt denies opportunities for tomorrow. 

Jesus says in Matthew, chapter 6 verses 19 - 21,"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Happy New Year

In 2013 I set up my blogsite, and then didn't do anything with it.  My New Year resolution is to be more disciplined in posting what I have learned through the year as a writer.

2013 was a busy year.  I uploaded my first novel 'Highway Code' onto the Harper Collins authonomy website and began writing my second novel 'Waters of Grace'.  Trying to balance two projects at once - taking on board and responding to reader comments on authonomy whilst writing new material - was a distraction to both endeavours.  I realised that the re-editing process can be as creative as the intial flood of ideas.  'Waters of Grace' was completed by May and uploaded to authonomy for reader feedback.

Being a member of the authonomy community has given me a thicker skin, a greater willingness to 'murder my darlings' and cut the stuff that doesn't work.  I no longer focus so much on my experience as a writer, but spend more time thinking about the reader experience.  This is more than looking to the markets.  It is about wanting to give the reader pleasure, allowing them to suspend their disbelief and bring their own imaginations into a story.

Both books have been sent to agents and rejected; both submitted to competitions and come nowhere.  However, I am now starting to write my third novel, tentatively entitled 'The Gardener's Daughter'.  This time I am using a more structured approach, plotting each scene in detail before I begin to write.  This is a less enjoyable experience for me, but I am hoping to have less re-writing as a result.

In this New Year of new beginnings, I am starting my new novel from the end point and working backwards.  This reminds me of the way in which God knows the end from the beginning.  All that we now experience is driven not only by the past, but also by the final resolution that has already been mapped out.  Will I be the kind of character who takes off in a direction all of my own, digressing from the central thrust of the plot, or will I stick with the Author's intentions and live my story according to his will?  Only time will tell.