Courage in the midst of reality

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Living in South Africa is like an adventure. This is not a post about our history and the journey to democracy but  it is a small window into the present day experience of a very white ; middle aged woman; mother of four sons .

I think the reality of most South Africans is we could live with a level of fear and anxiety for our safety and we do , I guess if we are honest.

I am though certain that God is our protector and sovereignly working a plan and purpose and so even the bad things that happen are in his loving hands. 

Turning on the news today and hearing that our Bafana Bafana captain has been shot dead in a robbery, just breaks my heart. Another act of violence and another precious life lost because of it. 

This weekend, we had some intruders in our home. We were entertaining and had not locked up. Some stuff was stolen. We have had this happen before while on holiday one year. people broke in and stole a whole lot of belongings while we are slept.

I find my response to these everyday occurances strange. I am a little freaked and we are being a great deal more vigilant but we all sort of just get on with it. If I told someone this story they would nod and tell me another such story.

And yet this is not really ok. 

I volunteer an hour a week with a great NGO called Life Matters. We work in a school in the Western Cape in the Steenberg area. This is a government school and LMF begins its programme with grade 2 children. I have a son in grade 2 and so I know where these children should be and what they should be learning/reading. The community is really poor. The average income for the month is R1100. between 70% and 80% of children drop out of school after grade 7. It is pretty dire.

This is a context for some of the people who live in the Western Cape. I understand this context and from these kinds of situations crime flourishes. 

When I stop and look at the county that is ours. This beautiful South Africa, my heart feels full and empty at the very same time.  We are a country divided by cultural differences historically and desperate for real transformation now. I know that people need heart transformation so that we can truly change; truly love; truly live. 

It takes courage to live a life that counts in this current South African context.

So I end with this thought and prayer- may the gospel of Jesus, the real hope and real courage to live authentic and full lives despite our circumstances... may this gospel go out!

in the togetherness of games( and other fun activites)

Our boys love to play screen games. I have made peace with this wonder . However, keeping the balance in life is always the tricky bit. This post is about a wonderful observation.

Sometimes I might suggest that the boys find a board game to play. We have a whole cupboard full of different games. Some are play alone kinds and others are group games. I might even suggest some. 9x out of 10 the simple answer is no.

There are two appraoches I have found that work in getting the boys involved in WHATEVER idea comes up. 

1. If I choose some games and simply put them on the breakfast table, the boys will play them:)

2. If I get the puzzle out and sit with them to get it going, they play!! In other words, if I or Doug get  involved and play or make or do then we ALL get invovled and have some fun.

I find that my own attitides and experience shifts when I get involved. We have some great family - together time and we have some great conversations. Those who are more introvert can have their alone time with their own game or puzzle while still being next to us. 

Gavin Keller, a great South African Principal from one of our loval Cape Town schools, gives some very encouraging talks. One of them is on the teens brain. I remember how he explains that the teens has a bull dozer digging up all the nerons in the brain and one of the good things to "make them do" is to do things together. Good healthy hormones are released when this happens that make the teen feel loved . 

These fun together times are one of these.

During the holidays I began to make a paper mache bowl along side our youngest son. He was making an elephant!!

While we tore paper and stuck shapes, the others slowly began to join in. The older two began to create something that has since died a death, BUT it was not the end result that I had in mind, but rather the time spent together, just tearing and sticking and chatting of course.

So, we have togetherness in the chaos of life piecing puzzles together that were previously " boring" and now are quite fun actually :)

The Modern Monderns.

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 Today I enjoyed a visit to a few art galleries , in Cape Town, with some dear friends who happen to do art with me.

We began in my kitchen, a comfortable and safe place of much art and the normal chaos of a suburban life with four growing boys.

We journeyed out into Cape Town from suburbia. 

I experienced again that feeling of leaving the known and exploring the unknown that I often feel whenever we do anything new or different.

Sometimes I can feel this way when I meet a fellow human being so other than myself. Today it was the otherness of art.

We began at The Goodman Gallery in Cape Town and worked our way down into Salt River.

The Gallery itself finds its home in an older building and swishes us in with glass and good grace. I liked the feel of the gallery. It is open and has space for one to walk around and think. And think one  must with this exhibition.

[Working Title] is on until the 25th October and is an exhibition of a collection of artists. This is an annual exhibition held at The Goodman Gallery, who in so doing is supporting young and independent artists.

I can not make sense of the art here , for you, except to share some of the thoughts and feelings these art pieces evoke. I decided that instead of trying to decide if I like or dislike something I would simply listen to my feeling and ideas that flowed from the art works as I enjoyed it. 

So, for the first one where the artists projects his art onto a collection of familiar city objects all painted in white, I found impatience was my friend. This made me chuckle.... A real sighn of the times. I too can not wait for anything to begin or come along. This one realy reflected myself back to me. :)

Another that I began to read and was so full of words and pain was beautiful and yet I left its friend that played a DVD along side it. I was once again too impatient until my friend told me the sad story of that artisit . 

Art sure is sad sometimes.

And so we wnet on... what could this one mean? what is this person trying to say? what does this remind me of. 

Like a giant puzzle the morning unfolded.

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These interesting works by Zander Blom  at another gallery, were what we ended up with. His strange juxtoposion of shapes and colour with thick oil on linen creating oil smuges or greesey pools, were talking points at most. The interesting thing for me was the lack of contol he had over the oil running and so it is as if the art work "paints" itself. Makes me think of Pollock and the universe speeking idea. 

I personally did not like these works at all. Not because they were odd but because they held a disunity for me. The shapes he used di not flow together. Being a lover of shape and form I just did not like the jarring result of colour and shape that he used on his artwork. they made me feel as if he had not yet quite finished what he started. 

We left and headed for coffee at The Kitchen on Sir Lowery Road.  A must for delicious salads and sandwiches and good coffee. 

Heading home to suburbia, we reflected . Us 40 somethings had a blast but were quitely content to enter the real world of  organised chaos  and family disorder once again.

Having spread our art wings for the day, we had fun together and built good friendhships wile trying to understand the strange world that art sometimes is.

What the world needs now is Peace.

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Peace!

A wonderful word. If I asked you to sit and think about what that word means to you.... what it evokes in your mind.... what it would feel like inside of you and look like around you....

Peace!

I love KungFu Panda. In one of the movies Po goes in search of inner peace. I often think about his desire for inner peace.( It is a great way to talk to kids about peace actually but for another day:))

I am studying with my darling ladies bible study, Beth Moores Fruit of the Spirit study. It is really very helpful in looking at the fruit and each aspect is. 

The Fruit ( one fruit) is...

love

joy

PEACE

there it is ... peace. 

What is this peace and how do we receive it.... keep it....have it...offer it to others?

To begin at the beginning is to understand that we do not have inner or outer peace. We are in chaos both in our inner lives and we are at war with God. Until we come to Jesus and receive his peace making offer that his death provided, we can not enter into the peace we so yearn for and need. Peace with God is the beginning of all peace and it is our greatest need.

For those of us who have this. We can now live in peace.

If we know the Prince of Peace- Jesus - then we have Gods spirit living in us. We have access to the real inner peace.

Why then do we not experience this peace?

Beth does a very interesting thing in this study and she takes a look at Jesus and how he reflects peace in all situations.

Jesus totally trusted his heavenly Father as provider of all his needs. He had peace in circumstances because he had grasped this. God is our perfect provider. he knows our needs and he will provide.

Oh that we might grasp this truth and live in the light of it.

The peace that Gods gives us is real. it is that which we can not understand, manufacture on our own and which despite our circumstances it is real. 

The world can not give this kind of peace.The kind that guards our hearts and minds in the midst of chaos and pain.This is because it is Gods peace and he gives it to us.

Jesus offers it to a world that is desperate for peace. 

We live in a time in history when people rule with youtube be headings; mass child abductions; war on civilians; people seem not to care that human trafficking is at an all time high; slavery still exists but has changed its face ;poverty and access to basic life necessities like water and toilets are denied by greedy politicians who justify their rule. 

The list is endless.

People just can not seem to get along.

Jesus has come to bring real peace. Peace with God and peace with one another. 

I urge you to enter his rest.

For more help on how to do this watch this  on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgpaOq93rJ4

ADHD - the Yucky of food

We are an ADHD family. If you have ready anything on my blog before, you will have come across a great deal of writting on ADHD. These posts are written to inform and encourage those who walk this journey. Hopefully they will also educate those who do not. 

This is a post about eating.

It is our experience of food and ADHD and I know many people who have a similar journey and some who are fortunate not to.

Food!

Food is an issue for me. I have a love hate relationship with it. I love it but it is not so loving to me.

I have struggled my whole life with my weight and so food is an issue for me.

Because of this, I have tried very much not to make it an issue for my kids. Thankfully I have 4 boys but I am fully aware that boys are also susceptible to the negative food issues and weight issues that are pervasive in our modern society.

Our youngest son is a thing boy. He is growing normally but he is thin. 

A friend of mine who is a nutritionist helped me shed some light on his food issues.

She was helping me think through how to fatten him up as he has lost some weight . 

As she spoke, I realised that part of the problem is he is not really interested in food. His sensory issues cause him to yuck at the sight of it and his ADHD means he is just not interested in it. It is not interesting. He has to eat but honestly if he did not have to, he would not. It is not important to him.

As I realised this, I felt relieved. At least I can see what the enemy is here and so we can work with it. She had some wonderful ideas.....

* get the child to help you cut up the veggies etc. In this way he will feel and smell the food and get used to it on a  sensory level. Even if he does eats it. It is entering his ADHD world. It might interest him

* take him shopping and let him see the food on the shelves and choose things that he might like to try

* ask him to think about the food he likes and why.... is it better to eat crunchy things than mushy etc

* get him involved in growing and picking food

Foods high in good fats like olive oil and peanut butter etc

Crumbed and crunchy fish and chicken

full fat milks etc

Parenting a child who has a tiny menu of things he eats; who is oppositional off ritalin and not hungry on ritalin, is challenging to say the least.

I am so grateful for this friend and thank her from my heart. She really helped me see things a little more clearly and offered some good solutions. 

Thanks Aila!