Sunday 21st June

I think that there are so many lessons out there to be learned, if we just look for them.

At the same time, though, there are a whole lot of coincidences that happen which, I suppose, we could interpret as lessons – if they speak to us.

We may tend to be cynical and say that anything, basically, could be interpreted as being a lesson / sign, but maybe that is actually what it is all about – recognising things that make sense to us at a particular time, in relation to a particular set of circumstances and particular events. In that way, events, stories, observations might speak to us just because we are tuned in. Maybe we just need to be listening.

I went to church today for the first time in about 3 weeks, as we have been gallivanting for the last couple of weekends. As usual, I was late, and the sermon had already begun. I caught the most part of it, though and it spoke to me because Chunky was talking about looking at things from different perspectives – how each of us is not, actually, at the centre of the universe when it comes to events happening. He was making the point that that may be how we see the world, but that it is a big world in an enormous universe and things happen to everyone all the time.

It made me see that, perhaps, I have been right all the time to take this cancer thing in my stride. It has been kak and it has definitely coloured the way I will see a lot of things in the future. It was not the be-all and end-all of my experience, though. It may have been a major event in my life, particularly coming when it did so soon after Mum’s death, but it was really just another mountain along the way.

It may have been quite a huge mountain, but it was climbable, as I knew all the time; and it was conquerable, one step at a time.

Isn’t that what all of life is about, actually? There are bumps and hills and even mountains that we have to climb as we go along our paths. Often, others share the same obstacles with us. Sometimes, they may need to climb not quite the same height as we do and the going may be a little easier – as with everyone around me and this cancer thing – but the climb is still shared. We are not alone.

And that is what makes any obstacle conquerable and any journey doable.