7th May 2012

I need to learn how to fly. Not as a pilot or even in a plane, I just want to be able to fly; anytime I choose. A bit like the birds in my recent photo. The slightest perceived threat and up they go; no hesitation. They’re away! And just recently we’ve been reading of the remarkable satellite tracking of the cuckoo, as it journeys from the UK to the Congo on a 10,000 mile round trip. A different season, a different continent… all under their own steam. I’ve occasionally immersed myself in historical novels, fleshing out the realities of life in the Middle Ages, and the idea of long distance travel before the advent of modern transport is highly impressive. When I was a teenager a friend of mine undertook to walk from Derby to London, maybe 125 miles, and that took him the best part of a week. He slept rough, in churchyards and the like and he sure looked a mess when he joined me for the MAYC church weekend in Westminster. So I cannot conceive how medieval armies walked all across Europe, living off the land, even though a little pillaging was commonly part of warmongering. Birds make it though... pretty much every year. Then again my Bible says that the Lord watches over every single one of them.

I need to migrate. I’ve been living in a place that is no longer healthy for me to remain. I’m not necessarily talking about a physical relocation, though I can’t rule that out yet. Never say never. But, for sure I have to live in a completely different way from my experience of the past few decades. My wife has died, I’m now a single bloke looking to work things out in the best way I can. Unfortunately I still feel married, Jane is completely part of everything I am and everything I do. Her influence upon the way I think, the way I talk and even what I believe is massive. She taught me gentleness and encouraged perseverance; at times she was so very bold in the face of my instinctive caution, I’m a different person from the teenage lad she first fell in love with. And so was she! Being part of a totally committed marriage, working out the challenges of many differences of opinion, we fell deeper and deeper in love. And that was a particularly secure place to live. I have to stretch out the wings of new life and leave my marital ‘nest’ to learn to fly as a single man. I have to stop thinking and behaving as a married man. My journey is now to be with the Lord as my sole companion, and I’m quite confident that he has places for me to go and things for me to do. He’ll keep me busy, no doubt. Jane was a gift from God, far more than I deserved. To expect another relationship like that as I move through my own middle age would be presumptuous and I cannot allow myself to keep hold of the thought of being married again. It may never happen. I have to learn to accept being single. That feels kinda weird!

Psalm 16:11 ^‘You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.’ (NLT)