Tea Time

Faithful are the words of a friend

Yesterday I spent the day with my best friend. She and I have known each other forever, it seems. In fact it's only been about 16 years, but we just 'click' in the way true friends do.

It doesn't happen as often as we'd like, but when our schedules mesh and we have time, we plan a marathon tea party. We've been known to start in the morning and talk our way through to supper time or beyond. We've learned over the years to clear our day and just relax in the warmth of our friendship. We just slow down and unwind in each other's presence.

There is no topic that is off limits. We don't judge each other or try to fix the other's problems. We listen and share and when the cups are empty and the pot's run dry (if we don't rush to make more) we both leave feeling refreshed and ready to take on the mantel of our lives again.

Yesterday, my friend asked me what I'm doing for me. Such a simple question. Or so it seemed. I think I answered with a simplistic answer and the tide of conversation flowed on. Writing in my journal that night, I revisited the question and realized how deep that question went.

As women, we rarely DO for ourselves. We DO for children, family, parents, spouse, friends, organizations, churches, but for ourselves? I don't know about you, but my day is full of children, work, housework, and then bed. To get up the next day and start again. My tea party with my friend is one of the few times I put away all the 'shoulds' and 'havetos' and just relax, knowing that this time is special.

I began this year with a resolution to do more for myself. To count myself as worthy as every other project and person in my life that I do for. Yet here it is Sept and I've let that resolution slip by. Well, thankfully, I have a friend who cares enough to remind me that I'm important. Not just in our tea time together, but every day.

So I begin again- to work into each day, some activity that is just for me. Whether it's blogging or drawing or writing or reading or sewing-I have a lot of interests so it shouldn't be that difficult. Making the time to do it, well that's another issues all together.

Sheep M 9/6/09

C: The Cote Meeting and Rest

Last weekend was a busy weekend. First, there was the flurry of trying to get my house in order enough to host our Three Blind Sheep dinner Saturday night. M and S are good friends and totally non-judgmental about my messiness (or seem to be, anyway), but it sure does bother me to have folks into my usual disarray. Throwing things out of sight took a little time and effort! They arrived mid-afternoon and I was as ready as I was ever going to be, just giving up on what remained.

We sat and talked and talked and talked as only the three of us can. We talked about our lives, we talked about a recent church conference, we talked about God and plans and food supply v. population and nanotechnology (about which NONE of us has a clue, but we loved talking about it), and on and on—you can see that our conversation covered lots of ground. We had not been able to be together like this in a very long time, and few other people are wacky enough to tolerate these random wonderings and soundings. Really, we need each other for this.

I don’t think we moved from the table all evening except for short bathroom trips and when I got up to throw steaks on and heat the rest of the easy-fix dinner. It was fun, it was restful, and it was restorative.

M stayed the night and, after we talked til noon, I went out a couple of hours to ride first on the tractor, bush hogging, and then the lawn mower around the large yard to the side of my house. On those implements I do lots of thinking, and I thought a lot about the evening with my friends and how restful it all was in spite of my frantic cleaning frenzy.

In fact, I found myself thinking how restful my tractor and lawn mower were! It was hot (90’s), but the humming of the mowing, the smell of the grass and the visible strips of progress as the grass became shorter were all mesmerizingly relaxing! Such a paradox! Activity—even hot activity— can be restful, which led my ADD mind to consider the meaning of rest. I think that for me “rest” equates with “peace.”

Of course, the first Bible verse that comes to my mind when I think of rest is Jesus’ saying:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is
light. -- Matthew 11:28-30

I pretty-much know for a fact that Jesus did not mean exclusively the lying-on-the-couch kind of rest, here (although that can, obviously, be rest, too). He meant, rather something He calls “rest for your souls.” Again, for me, this equals “peace.”

I had considered just lying around all afternoon after M left, watching old movies and eating junk food rather than working in the hot sun. That actually sounded more like rest at first. I had earned this—it was easily justified after my stressful week with not enough time (besides, I have a lazy streak a MILE wide…). But, you know, that grass beckoned to me. It isn’t so much that I was stressed out about the state of my lawn and surroundings. It was more like the grass mowing was calling me in an alluring way, as something pleasant awaiting me.

So, off I went, because lying on the couch, while restful to my body, would not have been restful to my soul. It was the right choice. It gave me time to think about that nanotechnology thingy S was talking about last night. It was restful, and it was peaceful.

One of the paradoxes of the spirit! I loved being with my friends--even the work to prepare for them was restful...pure peace! - C

Sheep C: A Peek Inside the Cote

I hosted a slumber party this weekend for eight of my favorite Ewes. Sheep M was there, too, so there’s a clue for those of you wondering who the male member of our trio is. Most of us were fifty-somethings, Sheep M being the young chipper of the crowd, and we had the distinct pleasure of an eighteen-year-old who joined us for dinner and breakfast.

We had the best time! We ate a wonderful dinner, had rich desserts, got little gifts, and lots of wine and cranberry/pomegranate martinis. We stayed up late, late, watched Where the Heart Is, identifying with Novalee’s and Lexi’s poor choices of men, and generally were totally hedonistic. We crashed all over the house about 3:00 a.m., sleeping in every available space, including the couch and two cots.

When the breakfast hour came, we all trailed sleepily into the kitchen for coffee, settling around my breakfast table for biscuits, bacon and fruit. After a night of light-hearted fun and, I think, bonding, it was amazing to me that talk on its own shifted to the serious. It wasn’t planned, and it wasn’t a downer. It was just where everyone wanted to go at the moment and, as I said, it was amazing…

I don’t want to disclose the nature of the troubles, because the subject of those worries might just peek into this blog (we hope so), and the Sheep’s Cote is a sacred thing. It is a place of safety, somewhere to come into during the dark night of life. (Oh, my, am I waxing poetic here!).

Quite literally, we talked through present life for several hours. Each one of us has either gone through some life-devastation or is going through it right this very moment. We were able to vent honestly, to ask “What am I to do?,” to share what we have done in similar situations in the past, and to say, “Well, I know what I would do—I wouldn’t put up with that, not one more minute” (Tuff Talk!)

This last strong outburst made us laugh (Confession: it was me, the "Tuff Talker" who said this). We all agreed that it was the right advice; we also all agreed that we can sure talk tough when it’s someone else’s life. Execution of same was going to be much harder than speaking it! So, we head-on talked about whether we should even have been spouting this tough talk when we all knew that dealing with a loved one is a complicated task. What we came to was this: Yes, we should issue this sound-but-hard advice within the fold, but we also needed to give grace to the Ewe involved as she faced this serious situation. One of us spoke up with this wisdom (borne of her own similar past pain): “You are just going to have to move as God speaks to you.”

In the end, we knew that we had not actually solved any of the problems presented, but we sure had allowed for honest airing. We had given each a safe place to which to return for support and the benefit of hindsight on our own past messes for guidance.

I was reminded of how our ultimate source of both guidance and comfort is God Himself, and how we are supposed to share those gifts of help from above with others:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. Corinthians 1:3, 4 (NIV).

And this is exactly what was happening around my breakfast table! It was a natural, non-contrived occurrence because this is just what happens within the fold. It is one of the great purposes of the flock. – Sheep C, 12/14/2008