When I consider what brings me joy, at the top of my list, I find casual encounters with people I do not know - where in some way we have touched the heart of our humanity and shared it.
My early morning visit to the Hydrotherapy Pool gave me this joy today. In amongst a bunch of strangers all there bright and early to do what was needed to get their ageing bodies working again for the day I had several meaningful encounters...
Alice at least 85 shared with me the pleasure she gets from working as a Volunteer at the hospital in ICU despite having had a stroke and a knee reconstruction gone wrong.
Mr Music (I don't know his name) commented on Thursday that watching Jacqui and I as we both chatted and laughed face to face, while walking across the pool sideways exercising our hips and thigh muscles, reminded him of the song 'You are the sunshine of my smile'. Those words have given me such warmth and confidence and joy in the days since then.
This morning I noticed him singing along with the music that was playing in the backgorund so we had a quick chat about the music and the pleasure it gives us.
Waved to Otto as he came in and later we had a long chat. He had wanted to buy a piece of the land where Buckland now is. How small the world is sometimes... Mum and Dad were the beneficiaries of Mr Buckland not selling his land and bequesthing it to the Buckland trust to build the wonderful aged care facility where they went to live in 1990. Mum is still there at nearly 95, both she and Dad having been cared for at all three levels of the village - self care unit, hostel and nursing home. Thank you Mr Buckland and thanks too to Mum and Dad for looking after themselves so well. I could not have cared for them when they needed it.
The icing on the cake of joy was my chance to say thank you for being there to the Volunteer Gentleman who had opened the pool for us so we could continue our exercising and socialising while the staff are off duty. He had opened a bit late and there was some tension in the air - both within himself and within some of those of us kept waiting. I was very aware of this so it was quite a natural thing for me,as I left to come home, to thank him and comment on how much I had enjoyed his choice of music. We had a short interchange about the music and he told me the next CD was to be Acker Bilk.
I left joyed up in body mind and soul. What a luxury the Pool is - I feel like a film star with all that luxury around me.
On my drive home - less than 10 minutes right across town and almost no traffic - I was reflecting on the experience and realised something I had not ever verbalised so clearly before... I have no desire to do things FOR people but I LOVE doing things WITH people. This short truth explains my whole life...
I was raised as a Christian ( and I love the Jesus story and the life it invites me to) but it seems to me that the only thing I was supposed to do as a result of being a Christian was to do things for other people. So the realisation that I have no desire to do this came as a shock - surely it must be a SIN!
But instead of feeling guilty I sense a freedom... another lifting of the shroud of shame.
In 1990 I was told I had to find out the answer to the question 'What do I really want to do? and then start doing it ... but my assumption was that whatever I really wanted to do would be to do something FOR somebody. Nothing ever turned up... I had no idea what I wanted to do. With this morning's awakening the answer may well begin to emerge...'What do I want to do with people?'
Maybe what I am already doing is the answer. I am certainly enJOYing my involvement with the Choral Society, my Poetry Group and the Dancing Group...
I just wonder whether there is something I could be putting my gifts and talents into that will be of more good to the wider world...
Another joy is watching Qi and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries - they both are top grade TV.
Thank you ABC...You too bring Joy into my life.
Now for a joyful weekend... the sun is shining, the washing drying, we are rich in food and comfort and time...
Thank you Thank you Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment