oakleythoughtso

Someone I didn't know very well died last week. She was important to me. She was not famous. But she was faithful, generous, and beautiful. She was Pat.

Decades ago, Pat went to a Billy Graham crusade, and became a Christian.* From the time that Pat decided to follow Jesus, she never gave up doing so. She joined a church. It happens to be the same one you will find me in fairly frequently. Despite difficulties with her health, and her advancing years, Pat was extremely faithful and attentive to that church. She was still attending up until a few weeks ago, at the age of ninety. When I say attentive, I mean to play on the word. Because, while Pat attended church regularly, she was also attentive to the needs of the people she came into contact with through that place.

I didn't know this until today: Pat was a prayer warrior. She prayed often, faithfully. She prayed for people's babies when they were born. She prayed for the children. She prayed for any need that she knew that anyone had. For decades. And because of that she prayed for me, and for my brother.

I'm new in town. I moved here in January. But I've lived here before. My parents and I lived here when I was a toddler. We happened to attend the same church that I've been talking about. And my brother was born here. Pat was here then. I find it staggering, really. Not just that someone would go to the same church for half their life. But that someone would so selflessly, quietly pray for so many people.

Years ago, Pat started praying for more men. Not for herself (!) If you've ever been in an Anglican church, you'll know that the common demographic doesn't include as many men as the general population. Also, most men tend to be older. Pat decided that she would pray for more young men to be involved at her church. She knew how brilliant men's contributions can be - to friendships, acquaintance-ships, families. So she prayed. Looking around the chairs this morning (I was going to say pews, but we've modernised), I could see at a glance how God had answered Pat's prayers in this matter. Lots of lads. Masses of men. Great gobs of grandfather-figures. Awesome.

My brother, who would've been one of the Pat-prayed-for babies, is also an awesome man. I'm not crediting Pat entirely with that. I'm just saying.

Tuesday will see our church filled with people celebrating Pat's life. Ninety years of being gorgeous. One of her last requests was for flowers, especially yellow ones. So tomorrow I'm going to raid my garden of every last daffodil and jonquil I can find. I'm also going to prune my just-flowering magnolia. Take down a boot-full of blooms for Pat.

No more pain for Pat. Just meeting her saviour and hearing, "Well done, good and faithful servant".

"One of the things I love about you is your wanton abandon," my husband said. Don't be concerned, I know you're probably thinking this will be the most hideous over-share in the history of blogging. But honestly, I was washing up at the time. James' reaction was ironical, and in response to my suggestion that we have a cup of Earl Grey tea and eat chocolate in front of Doctor Who, "...it being Saturday night and all". 

A friend, a lovely friend, who blogs here, found my blog yesterday. Being a kind and helpful sort, he recommended that I get all technical and track visitations. (To my blog, that is. Nothing extra-terrestrial going on here.) Will was kind enough to send me a little tutorial via Twitter, so that I could, you know, quickly and easily add the tracker. 


An hour. Blerk. I don't understand HTML at all. I mean, I completely admire it, and I find all those computer-whizzy people quite astounding and interesting. I have one friend who tweets about it, and I don't understand a single syllable, but I enjoy reading his tweets nevertheless. (One likes to feel that one associates with the intelligentsia.)


I began to wonder what it was about the HTML that I didn't like. Was it the <arrows> and strange fragments of not-words? Was it the blank spaces which, as I later discovered, as just as important as the letters? I think it was the feeling of being in a half-familiar world. A world which, given half a day's tutorial, I technically could understand, but which I had no interest in learning about. 


Limits to knowledge annoy me - always have. I can remember vividly learning as a small child that in heaven, when Jesus sets everything to rights, we will understand everything we need to know. "I'm in!" said my soul, and the rest is (complicated) history. 


Limits to understanding also frustrate me. One of my pet hates as a child was being misunderstood. In truth, this is still a problem for me. And I can see that trait in my eldest daughter too. It's linked somewhat to a strong sense of justice. But that's a story for another day.


Several events have thrown me lately. I posted a photo of my childhood teddy on facebook last week. My Dad saw it and corrected the spelling of his name. It seems, for thirty years, I have thought my teddy was Ralphy. In fact, he is named after a dog in Richard Adams' Plague Dogs. And so, it turns out that my teddy is in fact called Rowfy. It's a similar pronunciation. All these years I have just thought my parents didn't really annunciate their 'l's very clearly (sorry Mum and Dad). As I remarked to my sympathetic sister, "I feel almost as if I've found out I'm adopted!" Of course, this is a completely over-the-top remark, but it does tip its hat toward the depth of surprise I was experiencing. 


So, what have we learnt? (Erhgh. That phrase doesn't half give me the shivers!) Several things, which probably could be written out in a little poem, but won't be, because I've other important, cheese-related articles to be writing.

• Learning is a lifelong and worthy pursuit.
• Knowlege is wonderful, but until that Great Day, we won't ever have enough for our own liking.
• When faced with uneasiness, we could perhaps let go of perfectionism, or whatever else is getting in our way, and learn to learn like a child again.
• To knit.