A little more action

I love to think about the future. I mean, I really love it. I imagine jobs, more jobs, hobbies that turn into jobs, countries, the friends we might make in the countries, babies, the family issues that might arise because of the babies... And I do that when I'm thinking about my life in the context of serving God; the things I'll be involved in, the gifts I'll use, the way James and I will be able to work together, the hospitality we'll show, the people who'll come to know Jesus, the changes the will happen in our church... All good things, really.

But God's been teaching me that these things come from small, faithful, prayerful and loving actions. So I'm trying to give the thinking a rest and do little more doing. Feel free to keep me to it.

Butterfly tendencies II

When I was in a sixth-form English lesson with the teacher that I most respected, we were discussing what we were going to go as to a fancy dress party that evening. When asked what I was going dressed as, I replied that I would be going as a butterfly. She immediately burst out laughing; a deep, knowing laugh that was interspersed with giggles and which carried on shaking her shoulder-pads for a good minute. I sat there bemused.

It was the same laugh she used when we were reading Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia and we had come across an innuendo that was lost on us at first but that I was encouraged to find through the direction of her laugh. What was the hidden meaning here? Why was it so funny that I would be going as a butterfly? Was the wire, canvas and paint I had still to assemble into a pair of giant wings and antennae in some way a symbol of who I was? Do I have butterfly tendencies?