Fuzzy

Joy

Welcome the coming day as irreplaceable and unique, the today in which God is present. Look how to live it with a heart that trusts. The past is buried in God, and of the future he also takes care.
God is never the author of torment within anyone. He gives inner peace. What dizzy anxiety if God tormented the human heart, keeping account of what each person is not! We would be imagining God to have manipulative designs, as if he willed to make human beings guilt ridden. Whereas God suffers together with every person who is tormented.

In times of trial, search steadfastly to discover all that can light up our night. Gather up the events, however small, which awaken thankfulness and joy.

Remember that the presence of the Risen Christ cuts through the darkness: ''Darkness is no darkness with you, the night sheds light like the day.''

When you do not understand what is happening to you and there are difficulties to be lived through, would you forget the inner joy offered by Christ who declared nine times over:

Matthew 5. 1-12

By faith, you are able to choose the road which mounts up towards serene joy, and you will build your dwelling in the lands of joyfulness.

''You jesus, my joy, you give rest for my heart.''

Perfect joy lies in transparency of heart. In order to shine out, such joy requires no less than your whole being. It awakens others to God: above all by what you are.

Let Christ sing in you the radiant gift of life, to the point that the springs of jubilation never run dry.

Perfect joy is in the eagerness of the one who runs towards Christ Jesus.

One day , seeing that Zachaeus had climbed up in a tree to watch him pass by, Jesus called to him ''Zacchaeus, come down! Hurry, for I have to stay at your house today.'' So Zacchaeus came down at once and welcomed him joyfully.

End the Siege of Gaza

Click here to download the PDF.

John O'Donohue Blessing used for Barack Obama

On his way to Washington D.C. for his inauguration, President Barack Obama stopped in Baltimore, Maryland. He was greeted by Maryland's Governor Martin O'Malley and a crowd of well-wishers. As he welcomed the then-President-elect to Baltimore, Gov. O'Malley offered a blessing - a reading of John O'Donohue's, 'For One Who Holds Power' from 'To Bless the Space Between Us' (entitled, 'Benedictus' in the U.K.). Nice link!

Now that's what I call a prayer

Dr. Joseph Lowery delivers Inauguration Benediction for Barack Obama

Spring 2009 dates

Fuzzy moves back to Wednesdays for 2009 - with the possible theme 'visions of the future' ...

January

Sat 17 Control Film night at Jake and Gillian's
Wed 21 Jake and Gillian's
Wed 28 Nive's

February

Wed 4 Jem and Helen's
Wed 11 Steve and Niki's
Wed 18 Half Term break
Wed 25 Paul and Chantal's

March

Wed 4 Nive's
Wed 11 Steve and Niki's
Wed 18 Jem and Helen's
Wed 25 Paul and Chantal's

April

Wed 2 Glenfall House for an early evening picnic

Easter break

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this.....

When you’re going to have a baby it’s like planning a fabulous vacation - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland”. “Holland?!?!” you say. “What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy! All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting place full of pestilence and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you will learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you never would have met. It’s just a different place. It’s slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you have been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is coming and going from Italy and they’re bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.” And the pain of that will never, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the special, the very lovely things about Holland.

Found in the Down’s Syndrome Newsletter, Spring 1998.

Alastair McIntosh's Lecture at the Do Lectures

Sigur Ros - Svefn-g-englar

Autumn 2008 Dates – now Thursday nights!

September
25

October
2 Jem and Helen's
9 Steve and Niki's (Yom Kippur – Day of Atonement)
16 Nive's
(18 - 25 Nive and Paul in Israel-Palestine)
23 Charlotte's?
30 Paul and Chantal's

November
6 Jake and Gillian's – early start at 6pm for sparklers and bonfire
13 Jake and Gillian's
20 Jem and Helen's
27 Nive's

December
4 Steve and Niki's
11 Charlotte's?
18 Fuzzy Christmas meal (adults!)

The Holiness of Place – a Leunig Prayer in response

Dear God,

We give thanks for places of simplicity and peace. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of refuge and beauty. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of nature's truth and freedom, of joy, inspiration and renewal, places where all creatures may find acceptance and belonging. Let us search for these places: in the world, in ourselves and in others. Let us restore them. Let us strengthen and protect them and let us create them.
May we mend this outer world according to the truth of our inner life and may our souls be shaped and nourished by nature's eternal wisdom.

Amen

Nive and Myers Briggs - 14 May 2008

Elbow – Weather to Fly

Are we having the time of our life?
Are we having the time of our lives?
Are we coming across clear?
Are we coming across fine?
Are we part of the plan here?
Are we having the time of our lives?
Are we coming across clear?
Are we coming across fine?
Are we having the time of our lives?
Are we part of the plan here?

We have the drive and time on our hands
One little room and the biggest of plans.
The days were shaping up,
Frosty and bright.
Perfect weather to fly.

Perfect weather to fly.

Pounding the streets where my fathers feet still
Ring from the walls,
we'd sing in the doorways,
or bicker and row
Just figuring how we were wired inside
Perfect weather to fly.

So in looking to stray from the line
we decided instead
we should pull out the thread that was
stitching us into this tapestry vile,
And why wouldn't you try?
Perfect weather to fly.

We have the drive and time on our hands
One little room and the biggest of plans.
The days were shaping up,
Frosty and bright.
Perfect weather to fly.

Perfect weather to fly.

Pounding the streets where my fathers feet still
Ring from the walls,
we'd sing in the doorways,
or bicker and row
Just figuring how we were wired inside
Perfect weather to fly.

So in looking to stray from the line
we decided instead
we should pull out the thread that was
stitching us into this tapestry vile,
And why wouldn't you try?
Perfect weather to fly.

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Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Jung

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.
Carl Jung

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.
Carl Jung

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Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
Aristotle

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.
William Butler Yeats

No one remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.
Thomas Mann

He who knows others is learned;
He who knows himself is wise.
Lao-tzu, Tao te Ching

Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it's dark.
Zen Proverb

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
Anaïs Nin

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
St. Augustine

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
Nelson Mandela

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
Douglas Adams

By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear.
George Herbert

"Know thyself?" If I knew myself, I'd run away.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying "Amen" to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.
Robert Louis Stevenson

If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life. ~James A. Michener

One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Oscar Wilde

"Know thyself" - a maxim as pernicious as it is odious. A person observing himself would arrest his own development. Any caterpillar who tried to "know himself" would never become a butterfly.
André Gide, Nouvelles Nourritures

The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live.
Nicolas Chamfort

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.
George Eliot

The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.
Richard Bach

There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.
Henry Ward Beecher

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]]> Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation.

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spiritual drink.

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation.

This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.

May the body of Christ bring us to everlasting life. (share the bread)

May the blood of Christ bring me to everlasting life. (share the wine)

Slow Parenting

Click here to see article online.

Jonathan Sach's 'Counting your Blessings'

1. Give thanks: feel gratitude for what you have, not impatience for what you don't have.

2. Praise: show your appreciation for what someone has done; you will make their day.

3. Spend time with your family and or close friends. These relationships are special; if distance is a problem do it by phone.

4. Discover meaning: every so often ask how best to use your gifts; life will have a fuller meaning as a result.

5. Live your values: establish habits that express your ideals, so you live your beliefs.

6. Forgive: Life is too short to bear a grudge or to seek revenge. Let it go and move on.

7. Keep learning: there is always something to learn or to be interested in and that helps to keep us young in mind.

8. Learn to listen: this can be difficult! It is a great gift to give to someone; it shows we are taking them seriously and not rushing to make our own point.

9. Create moments of silence in the soul: enjoy the joy of just being, incorporate this into your quiet time if it is not there already.

10. Transform suffering: those who have survived a tragedy and are stronger by result did not ask 'Who did this to me?' Instead they asked 'What does this allow me to do that I could not have done before' and so become agents of hope.

Tess Ward's 'Night Shielding Prayer'

Loving Creator, you made us infinitely special.
As I lie down this night under the varied stars,
melt the envy I sometimes feel for others.
Let me trust your grace in my own becoming
and the timing as you unfold your gift.
Abundant Spirit may I see the gift of yourself
in every stranger and friend I have met this day.

May I learn to rejoice in the uniqueness of each different soul
and our stories known only to you,
As I lie down with thanksgiving.

Summer dates 2008

May
21 Paul and Chantal's - European Champion's Final
28 Half Term - nearly all away

June
4 Paul and Chantal's - Iona feedback
11 Steve and Niki's
18 Jem and Helen's
21/22 Hales Holy Fool Pilgrimage weekend
25 Jake and Gillian's - Holy Fool reflection

July
2 Paul and Chantal's
9 Steve and Niki's
12 Stanway Fete
16 Summer BBQ - 5pm onwards, possibly up at the South Cerney Lakes