In her 'spare time' Karen continues to reflect on her marriage, whilst in the midst of the 'grit and joy' of her daily life. These words are published here because they reflect a depth of devotion and firmness of commitment, on both her part and her husbands. They have left their front door open for us to walk in through. I bow to that generous offer. And respect it.
See also Karens first post in this series, Up Against It...

Writing is an interesting process. I think it may be different for different people but right now, for me, it is part of a gentle, inner turning; a kind of song that needs to be sung. I do hope the reader won’t mind if I sing it.

I look at my little altar, across the room and my eye rests upon the photograph in its pewter and turquoise frame. I am drawn into the scene; David stands tall, though bowing his head slightly to his right to meet with mine, the top of which just meets with the bottom of his chin. We pose for the photographer; it is our daughter’s graduation celebration. He looks strong and young, belying the slow creeping of rheumatoid disease within.

I once heard a doctor describe rheumatoid as ‘cancer of the joints’. This is an apt description, I think, though an emotive one. I can barely remember a time when he didn’t have it.

But there was a time.........

They say that opposites attract and there are all sorts of reasons, both practical and spiritual, why that is often a good thing. Speaking for myself, I saw in David, many qualities that I searched for within myself- steadiness and ‘stickability’ being two of them. For as much as David was a ‘steady sort of guy’, I was, quite frankly ‘a bit of a dreamer'. I loved to dance; he loved to sit in the corner with a book and, dare I say, a pint of good ale. On the other hand, I’m up for a bit of ‘risk taking’ whilst David prefers ‘safe ground’. Living together for 33 years has had the effect of ‘evening things out a bit’. There has been a necessary ‘meeting in the middle’, which feels like a positive.

Though we were both born and bred in Shropshire, we had quite different upbringings. David was the son of a police sergeant and his Irish Catholic wife, Kathleen, who took up several country beats, in his career, requiring the whole family to move, sometimes at short notice. David was born in Cleobury Mortimer but lived for the majority of his childhood in Bucknell - Welsh border country - acquiring a thick, regional accent that sounded like a foreign language to the inhabitants of Bridgnorth, where the family eventually settled. He was the eldest of four children and although money was often 'tight', he recalls the strength and security of being part of a large, close-knit family. He has many happy memories.

I, on the other was born in Bridgnorth to a carpenter, turned insurance salesman and his land girl wife. My parents always dreamed of farming the land together and raising pigs and geese. They moved someway to fulfilling this dream by renting a small holding, keeping livestock and breeding dogs. The ‘dream’ however, was stinted, when the marriage ended after only eight years, leaving my mother a single parent to my sister and me. I too was the eldest child. I too have happy memories and many sad ones, also.

These two childhoods were very different, in many ways but there were three distinct similarities. Firstly, there was a sense of the nomadic about them. For, as David’s parents were compelled to move frequently because the life of a country ‘bobby’ dictated it, so my mother, searching for work, a sense of stability and a glimpse of happiness, also moved from place to place trying to find it.

Secondly, as eldest children, we both bore the mark that many first children have; an overburdening sense of responsibility. This sense of responsibility, intertwined with the accompanying fear, has been the ‘root’ of much individual suffering, for both of us.

Thirdly, and most importantly, from our very first memory we have both had a sense of something greater than ourselves and both sought to understand and ‘serve’ it. In youth, David was an altar boy in his local Roman Catholic church, though he talks of his most ‘spiritual experience’ being sitting quietly, on his front doorstep, with the family spaniel, listening to the wind. Likewise, a regular in church, until my mother was told she wasn’t welcome for divorcing my father, my most transcendental moments have been those spent in solitude, ‘sitting’ quietly with nature, in my childhood tree house, the local woods and fields or by the brook.

By spring, 1975, both sets of parents had settled into a semi-permanent residency. David’s family lived in a residential area of Oldbury Wells, on the outskirts of Bridgnorth town. Whilst my mother, after ‘uping sticks’ and moving several times, had by now ‘settled’ in a cedar wood bungalow in the more rural area of Oldbury. Though we had no knowledge of each other, all that separated us was a field, a church and a short section of road. Soon those three features would be most significant in our lives. We would ‘court’ in the field, marry in the church and a late evening walk along the road would result in an accident that would impact on our lives, long after skin had healed and bones were mended. But that is for another time, perhaps, not now; for the light is creeping in around around the edges of the room. I can hear David, in his converted garage, downstairs, moving a glass, taking his ‘pills’, it’s time to get up and start the day..........

Boots and shoes where I live.

If someone leaves shoes in disarray, let us silently set them to order, such an act surely will bring harmony to the minds of people around the world.

Thanks to Pascal for this quote - found on a postcard from Eiheiji temple in Japan.

And from Karen, also left as a comment and also too interesting to leave hidden:

This article puts me in mind of a time, many years ago, when David and I took our three children to a Buddhist family camp in the Theravada tradition. Though of course, the monks and laity had many ways of training with and manifesting compassion for both self and others, putting their slippers straight, as in the Zen tradition, wasn't one of them. Being still 'green' to the true purpose of this practice, I found myself greatly 'phased' by piles of scattered shoes outside the meditation hall door. It took me a good 24 hours of persistent shoe tidying before I finally stopped, laughed at myself and let it go!

See guest post, First Things.... about the teaching of putting ones shoes straight.

This is what came out when I set to writing. It's not what I expected but it's what came...Karen.

I have an altar in my bedroom; an altar that one might politely say is more in the ‘Chinese style’ than the Japanese. It has a Buddha, once white, long since painted gold but with the original colour creeping out around the toes and edges of His flowing robes.

The Buddha stands on an old turquoise gift box, the type you buy to send shirts, or hats and scarves to fathers, sons, brothers, husbands.... It is turquoise because it is a favourite colour of mine, it is the colour of the lay minister’s small kesa and also because it matches the room. It has an incense burner that could use a little TLC in the cleaning department, a stylised lotus flower in a glass bowl, also turquoise, a large ceramic vase, once again turquoise that appeared after a friend had stayed in the room overnight and which, after due deliberation, I decided to leave there, a wedding invitation which, once received, I placed as an offering of future peace and happiness for the bride and groom, a remembrance day poppy, a text that I purchased from the Throssel Hole bookshop many years ago, which states Dogen’s teaching ‘When the opposites arise, the Buddha Mind is lost’ (the latter two items both fall into the category ‘lest I forget’), a copy of The Kyojukaimon (also ‘lest I forget’) and a photograph, in a pewter and turquoise frame, of my husband David and me.

There is no water offering on the altar, a fact that, as I write, I am slightly puzzled by, until I remember that there always used to be one before life became so spectacularly ‘interesting’! I recall the thought and the subsequent decision that willing as I was to accept this latest offering, from the Universe, into my ‘fathomless begging bowl’, I simply didn’t have the time to ‘deal with all that’ and be topping up water offerings and keeping them clean and free from limescale, so I replaced the goblet with a large gold and turquoise pendant, a colour co-ordinated jewel at the Buddha’s feet!

Now, whilst I could be commended for my pragmatism, I’m fairly certain that my thinking was a little ‘out’. For beautiful and awe inspiring though the Buddha jewel is, it cannot be fully seen, experienced and appreciated without the constant flow of the water of compassion. Deciding to ‘set it aside’ at any time has to be a mistake but to do this when we are ‘really up against it’ is surely a recipe for disaster and ‘up against it’ is how I would describe life for the past three years, since my husband David became seriously ill.

So, this is why I write, to turn the wheel of the Dharma, to let compassion flow by telling the story of life with David. It is a life both unique and very ordinary. It is our own but not unlike yours, I am sure. It has its highs and it has its lows, it pain, its joy and it is abundant in its daily opportunities to train with a bright mind and an open heart.

These are my first thoughts and there will be more but first I am off to get the goblet from the cupboard and make my offering.

Karen and her husband are long time congregation members and lay minister within our Order. I look forward to more articles, hope you do too.

A thought for all those people caught up in the drama of the severe weather here in England. My huge sympathies for the hardship it is causing so many people. I'd hope we, collectively, can maintain a level of walking forward, looking up and generally acting in a way that keeps everybody safe.

My, now about to be disclosed, location is Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria. There is not that much snow here although bitterly cold. The current project is...to get out of where I am now, sitting on the floor of a guest house room. Walk down the very icy street, calling in at the Spar shop to top up my mobile phone with air time - and buy some vegi. And then make my way to the house where I am cleaning and painting walls, and shifting stuff in preparation for furniture to be moved into next week-end. Weather permitting.

Sometimes I end up helping people, in this case a person who studies with me, in very practical ways....and gladly done.

Let's be careful out there.

Taken on a sunny afternoon above Ambleside in the Lake District while on a walk.

For most of my early adult life I looked for a purpose. A purpose to life, for living. Returning after my first retreat here at Throssel it occurred to me that I didn't need to think about having a purpose any more. It was not that I had found a purpose. I did however wonder if I had and what it might be but nothing came to mind. No it was simply that I didn't need to concern myself about a purpose for living any more. It was such a relief.

We hear of people in extremity who derive meaning, or purpose to live from simple things. For example I heard of a girl in a concentration camp who left behind, for she died in the camp, a diary. In it she recorded how each day she glimpsed a tree and it was this tree that kept her going and gave meaning to remaining alive.

Another story is of a Korean woman incarcerated for something she had not done. Each day the guards would take her out and beat and abuse her. Each day she did her walking and sitting meditation and, she wrote, I am free!

What is it that sets us free to simply live? Free as the tree to spread its branches and send its roots deep into the earth. To have our leaves turn brown in autumn and fall off and then to bud and blossom when the sun warms us. We are not plants, we are however filled with life. Is that not enough?

An after thought. At a certain time when I was almost at the end of reasonable life options I met a person who must have seen something in me. Anyway, he most seriously advised me to learn to meditate. And I couldn't but take notice of him, he was in earnest. I distinctly remember him saying, It doesn't matter where you do that, under a tree for example! So there you have it a link between trees and meditation

Mum and seven year old daughter walking home from school. Daughter is twisting and twirling, repeatedly jumping up and around. Suddenly seven year old stops and announces proudly, I've done one! They walk on. Later mum asks, What was that all about, you saying about have 'done one'? Child somewhat surprised replied, I did a good turn. I promised at the Brownies that I'd do a good turn every day! Apparently the child was somewhat put off when she found out what doing a good turn actually involved.

We learn at an early age about making promises and sometimes we don't quite appreciate what it is we are promising to do, or not do. As with the twirling child. I still remember the Girl Guide Threefold Promise. The preamble goes: I promise on my honour to do my best to do my duty... In many ways this is old fashioned sounding stuff. There is however a ring there, a ring of intention. Goodness! I promise on my honour! And duty! Not sentiments that come readily now, perhaps. Number two Girl Guide promise was to help other people at all times. I believe there was an innocent simplicity within childhood promises, to help other people or to do a good turn - and the private ones which nobody knew about. And I believe that simplicity of wish/intention remains within each of us. Yes we fall down on our vows and promises, be they lofty or mundane ones, however it seems we do keep on getting up, turning around and walking on.

Thanks to Karen and Linda for inspiring this post.