Letters from Spain: more from the intrepid globetrotter

CONVERSATIONS WITH A YELLOW BREASTED FINCH
Licking wounds over coffee, empanadas and deep thinking stuff...

It is only in La Manga Del Mar Menor that I can safely draw the curtains in the morning, and almost guarantee a blue-skied, sunny start to the day. It is the one redeeming grace that I hunger for, especially after a long, hard, and extremely cold winter working with very deprived, homeless humans. My body and my soul yearned for the heat of the Iberian sun. So I could finally thaw.

I thought I was tough, and I am. Seen too much of life, and been seasoned by sufficient personal trauma to be squeamish or mawkish about suffering humanity. But there had been deep cuts this past shelter season, with personalities engraved permanently upon my heart who will be hard to erase and pass on by as though we'd never engaged, or shared moments under God which significantly transformed; and I mean both parties in those encounters. The winter holocaust just past has had the dubious honour of having been one of the most Siberian since the 70s. As a shelter runner this has been about frontline assault and wounding, docking the nightly faces that fall into our warm churches which were distorted from grimacing against that kind of cold, and the reasons they found their lives in that kind of limbo. Worse still, I knew there were others out there whom I had not, would not, could not have admitted for whatever reasons: capacity, incapacity; disability, inability. My hands were tied and my struggles against the ropes have chafed and cut me to the quick.

To boot, just as things were going unexpectedly well in personal life, more trauma decided to rear its boring head again as the shelters were closing, as my performance levels were pushed to beyond ebbing phase. I only had to let go of myself and I would have just caved in. It is upon such a cusp that one reveals just what stuff one is made of. A very wise friend and confidante once taught me: if you were a milk bottle and we broke you, milk would pour out; not vinegar. I've worked hard in recent years to become as pure, fortified, pasteurised, grade A, wholesome milk as I can be in my little bottle, with not a hint of sourness to curdle my insides.

But what my wise friend did not dwell on - it's always the small print that gets you isn't it? - was that nevertheless as you, small vessel, break and the white stuff gushes forth, it bloody hurts.

For the first time in my life, instead of digging my heels in to kick and scream and fight, against all odds, lose and keep on fighting, the Chinese call that "dead chicken kicking against the rice pot lid" - I decided to run. Enough, was enough, was enough. Not after SO much pain this winter. I would not be victimised again. I would not face ignominy and unfair dismissal, be ignored, abandoned and wiped clean off the slate like I didn't have a worth, that it didn't matter. It does matter; I MATTER! So I would do the abandoning, the dismissal. I would do the "look back with anger" bit and leave, a blaze of fury in my wake.

I ran, to the Far East. In search of home, or what's left of it. Found only echoes, and even lives who were once family, moved on and not always freely available. Fair enough. But I only wanted coffee, and a catch up: one should never underestimate how much redemption can be achieved over the duration of a single cappuccino and a few well chosen sentiments to reminisce upon. I ran further: Southeast. And hit pagan territory, an alien and nearly hostile land, and even less family time to stem the spilt milk.

Finally, I've run to the Iberian peninsula. A place filled with recent painful memories above what used to be familiar (true sense of the word) stability and shortlived contentment. But this has become a place I'd escaped to, a bolt hole from which to wail under giant stars that hang so low, you could just reach up and touch them. The sun shines, relentlessly, regardless of your sorrow. One has to admit it's not done in cruelty or mockery; it just does. Sun and Spain go hand in hand - well, most of the time anyway as El Niño or global warming or the hole in the sky would permit. It is a real challenge to sit amongst the surges of gentle Mediterranean zephyrs, in the crossfire of competing birdsong, under a diamond blue canopy, and wholeheartedly weep. Mind you, I'm a rebel and a pioneer. I can do ANYTHING. So I have retched and railed at Fate, Destiny, Damned Bad Luck, and God.

It is at moments like these, when you have come to absolutely the end of yourself, that your soul finally sings out a song. For me, as woman of a deeply etched faith, I sing out a dirge to the Creator of the Universe, a Friend, a Father, a Saviour, a Lord. And typically of Him, He would choose to answer through the tweets and twitters of a yellow breasted finch, perched precariously on the uppermost tip of a pine tree swaying beside my terrace. Oh how he twirped, and chirped for my attention.

"Well hello..." I'd finally replied. "What was that? It's a beautiful day that the Boss has made? Yes, I can see that. And what? He has provided you with the juiciest worm this morning for breakfast? How good of Him. I know, He's like that - generous to a fault. And He's led you beside your still waters and green pastures?" A sudden chorus of hidden yellow breasted others affirmed that general notion.

I acquiesced. Yes, He is trying also to restore my soul. I know He is a Great Shepherd. All winter I have fed the homeless, gone hungry myself in many many ways, and through all the human hunger He has laid for me a banquet, a feast to sup at, which restored continually my soul. He did anoint me with the oil of brotherhood, of priesthood in the shelters - and how my cup overflowed. You know, they tell me that in Arab culture, if your host pours you wine into your cup, it means that he likes you and wishes you to remain. But if he pours into your cup until it overflows, he means for you never to leave him: you would always find a welcome and have indefinite leave to remain.

Yellow-breasted finch said, "And He will not let your heart's desires go unattended; He HAS attended them. I too, will find my life's match. And then there will be two of us swaying on this tiny patch of pine tree tip top, and life will be absolute HELL to balance then! hahaha (or twirp twirp twirp). With that, he took off into the wild azure above. Funny old thing: throughout the day, he returned to look at me. Tweet.

I gazed out at the turquoise lagoon in the distance, gently swathed by morning mist. My vision in personal life can only go so far; it was, as it always has been, a matter of trust. Proverbs 3:5-6 has dogged my days for the past 3 years, and instead of seeing those words as a ball and chain, I've come to understand them to be my anchor. And as far as He would allow me to see at times into the future, in the last days I have seen very far where the homeless work is concerned. There is a stirring within that there is a great work, or at least, a great deal of work to be done in days ahead. The message has an integrity and true ring about it, so much so that if a false note is struck against it, I tingle and instinctively know not to veer away from the appointed course. It is, I believe, ordained. And until I stop running away, it will not begin. Thanks Pops; ball's in my court, huh?

So I ponder my continued escape. Each time I have ventured anywhere near a sacred space, be it in the windswept moorlands of the Devon coast, or a tiny church of my childhood in the Orient, the Spirit has pursued me. Each time I have felt I was out of sorts and out of the loop, He spoke - and I echoed Him by spouting prophecies on those around me. In the very next instant, my Scriptural references would literally pop up on an overhead projector screen - word for word, verse for verse. A hurt child runs, and the loving Father pursues to comfort, and to remind that truly "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

Surely, goodness and mercy - and love - will follow me, all the days of my life.

Overhead, yellow breasted friend suddenly swooped - and an identical other followed him, dipping and diving on the thermals, both full throated and singing with all their little might.