When I was working in schools I used to love Wednesdays as they marked the middle of my working week with the children. The rest of the week was spent working in the parish. Wednesdays were always wonderful and happy days.
I have enjoyed watching the plethora of baby birds in the garden this week with frantic parents trying to satisfy their insatiable appetites. At times we have had as many as seventeen starling fledglings and oodles of baby Sparrows too. They have all been squawking in high pitched unison for food from the worn out and sometimes bedraggled parents, feathers ruffled and squabbling if some other parent bird came near their source of food. Some of the Sparrows are on to the next level of nest building and so it all goes on, with perhaps three or four batches of young being raised in a season.
This also made me think of parents with their children at home during lockdown and the novelty of homeschooling, often now being either forgotten or a dread rather than a pleasure. Teaching is a demanding profession at the best of times!
I have heard of parents who struggling themselves to tackle year six maths, fail to comprehend what is involved in "The Big Write" and the importance of simple self discovery. It is all so different from when we were in school!
It is more than teaching our children, it is being there and constantly doing. Where is the time to catch up with self, to relax, reflect, where is the "me" time? Six weeks of school holidays can be a challenge to many but at least then we could go out and about, the children had more freedom and it is no wonder that so many feel defeated and question their roles in the new normal.
This of course is not just for parents and their offspring. Many people are finding life hard and may be feel they struggle to do things, feel involved and fear loneliness and isolation where they fear, nobody understands.
This is the third day of our marking of Mental Health Awareness Week and I do want to point you to the parish website www.gpch.church which has lots available on it to browse through and enjoy.
Today, I want to share another Nikita Gill poem which I have been sent. This one is powerful too, as it explores that we all grow through our experiences in life and they make us what we will become. We can all suffer as we live and often think we are alone in this but rather than just be damaged we are actually adding knowledge,experience, self care, love and can come out shining, self confident with experiences to share with others. A survivor indeed! Not unscathed, not without scars, but abounding in many of life's riches and a better more rounded character.
Today enjoy Nikita's poem and dazzle like a diamond in your daily living.
I was sent this at the weekend from Eleanor and think you will be as amazed as I was. It is Pavarotti's 11-year old granddaughter singing:
What a God given gift. If that does not bring a tear to your eye, nothing will.