Will's Site

Late again! And I don’t really have any excuses. I’m sitting beside my beautiful wife and am full of gratitude that such a wonderful woman would come into my life. We’ve now celebrated our wedding at least three times. Once at the Chinese registry office on 28 June where the legal stuff was done without friends or  relatives in sight; a second time the following Saturday surrounded by Yvonne’s family and friends in a nice hotel down the road from her apartment; and last month (November) in the garden of the London Mennonite Centre.

It was a sheer delight to have a time with my family and friends as well as a couple of Yvonne’s from Changsha. There were over 100 of us on a chilly winter’s day in a marquee heated by a couple of powerful gas space heaters. Thankfully the rain held off and we didn’t  experience any of the snow that came along a week or so later. It was very much a ‘do-it-yourself’ affair although most of my family and friends were doing the ‘do-it-yourself’ bit, but I could not resist playing my guitar along with others in some of the songs. A huge thank you to so many who made it the day to remember that I had hoped for.

 

We had a couple of days away straight afterwards in Canterbury and because of the cold, spent most of it in the cathedral, two services on the Sunday and a walk around on the Monday. Our ‘real’ honeymoon was in the mountains of northern Sichuan province in a magical place called Jiu Zhai Gou an hour or so west of Changsha by plane. The trip also included The Leshan Giant Buddha near Chengdu. I had never dreamed of such a romantic honeymoon. I had always imagined having a few days in a cottage down in Cornwall instead of seeing some of the wonders of China at UNESCO World Heritage sites.

One sad aspect of the London wedding was that it’ll probably be the last Mennonite wedding on the current  premises. The building has been sold and we’re searching for new facilities that we can afford so there will be lots of changes and new beginnings by the summer of 2011. We all have to wait to find out what will turn up!

 

Another ‘last’ is the probability that Viv and I have done our last Free Dance. We competed in the ISU International Adult competition again in Obertsdorf, Germany, in May, and much to our delight came back with a medal. I was so pleased I sent the surgeon who did my hip replacement in 2009 a couple of photos and he was equally delighted to know that one of his patients was active again. But now I’m married I’ve cut back on my skating to two mornings a week which leaves  insufficient time to polish any new programme or keep my fitness up to competition standards. And to cap it all, Viv and I fell when doing a last run-through ‘for old time’s sake’ and again she came off worst with a broken breast bone. Sorry again Viv! (The photo is of the same manoeuvre – done in Obertsdorf – which had such disastrous results!)

 

With Yvonne coming over in October (having waited nearly 3 months for her visa – we have friends who waited 11 months for theirs!) I’ve temporarily stopped singing in the Highgate Choral Society. But I did join 200 of them and others for a ‘spontaneous’ Hallelujah Chorus in Brent Cross on Saturday 18 December which was tremendous fun. We even got 5 seconds on ITN London News that evening. YouTube has 3 videos with my favourite being http://tinyurl.com/hallelujahBC


The church did some carols in Turnpike Lane tube station for a couple of hours the  previous night. It was bitterly cold but a great venue for acoustics, but a bit of a strain on my vocal cords. My part in the following day’s bit of The Messiah probably suffered as a result! Many of us also joined others from local churches to sing carols in the local Whittington Hospital on Christmas Eve.

If you're curious about the appearance of a fluffy doll in the shape of a German
Shepherd that's appears in lots of the wedding photos, I first came across him in Obertsdorf. Passing him in the shop twice a day he kept catching my attention. After 3 days I couldn't resist him any longer. When I gave him to Yvonne in June, she immediately wanted me to give him a name. I felt lost for ideas until I remembered that my dad always chose German names for our pet dogs (why I haven't a clue). Since Juergen Klinsmann was such a local star at Spurs football club and a great ambassador for Germany, our little fluffy friend became a Juergen too. OK, so I'm loosing my marbles!!! You knew that anyway!

 

Happy New Year

 

Will is a happy bunny! Yvonne is sitting beside him at his desk doing her English language study and chatting on QQ (the Chinese equivalent of Skype/Messenger). She’s visiting me for Christmas.

We first started writing to each other in October 2008. We’ve averaged 3 or 4 emails a week which isn’t bad considering that translation is involved. I went to visit her in Changsha, Hunan Province, in June for a couple of weeks. We had a wonderful trip to the Wulingyuan mountains (a world heritage site) for four days as well as getting to know her city.

We are both finding learning each other’s language a challenge though Yvonne is zooming ahead of me. She insists that I speak English to help her learn quicker. My Chinese is very very basic and proceeding slowly with evening classes nearby augmented by computerised language learning via Rosetta Stone. All a big challenge for someone not very good at languages (failed ‘O’ level French at school).

June seemed to be the earliest time I could be strong enough to travel. I had my hip replacement operation at the end of February and was hopping around on crutches for a few weeks. Happily I didn’t need the 6 weeks off work as was suggested but was back full time after a couple of weeks. Everyday I felt I had a new challenge. In March I wanted to be able to get to the memorial service for Ken Smith (my former colleague here at the LMC) who died suddenly and expectedly on 3rd January. He visited for coffee just before Christmas and had us rolling around with laughter as usual. He’s greatly missed. The memorial service was wonderful and the All Saints was absolutely packed.

By the time mid June came around I was fit enough to walk almost any distance (and we did quite a bit of walking in China thanks to my titanium bits) but I waited until July before trying to skate again. It felt vary precarious for a few weeks. But with Emma’s guidance, Vivienne and I fulfilled her new year’s resolution of doing our first competition after the operation before the end of the year. In fact it was early in November at the Oxford Adult dance competition. Sure I was still rusty and not back to where I was 18 months ago when I stopped, but at least it was a marker of getting back to normal. Now we’re starting to lifts again (although Vivienne says it’s still a scary experience)!

Even now, 10 months on, I still notice my right leg/hip getting stronger every couple of weeks. Thank God for the NHS. The nursing care I received was first class. Nothing was too much trouble despite being rushed off their feet. Bless them.

The operation did stop me from taking part in a couple of concerts but in July we did Verdi’s Requiem – possibly the best concert we’ve done. Mozart’s Requiem and Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass followed in November, our Christmas carol concert this month and two Messiah’s in the Royal Albert Hall. March brings Bach’s B minor Mass which I find extraordinarily difficult. It was particularly special for me to be in the choir for the Messiah with Yvonne in the audience together with several friends. While sound-wise the RAH is not the best place, it still is a wonderful building and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra were wonderful.

At the LMC it’s been a challenging time. For over a year now we’ve been going through a re-visioning exercise with every programme under scrutiny. It’s certainly been a tough time for all sorts of bookshops with the British Borders going under and the UK’s major Christian distributor being in financial trouble. Metanoia has 18 months to turn around so I have my work cut out for me with the wonderful help from one of our trustees Simon.

There have been more staff changes of course. Vic, Kathy and Janelle returned to Canada last month after 7 years and now the house feels very quiet. In February Ed and Phyllis also go back but the new host couple with previous connections arrive around then. Perhaps it’s my age (I now have a transport Freedom Pass) but saying goodbye to the Thiessens was very hard. Thank God for Facebook as a way of keeping in touch.

Happy Christmas everybody
Will

Where do you start when you don’t have any decent quotes? No “I’ll kill you if…” or other bits left out due to the sensitivities of the reader! There’s been a distinct lack of verbal abuse in my direction this year. The closest I’ve got to it is “if it still hurts, take some more drugs”!

And that’s what I’ve been doing. Until I eventually yielded to it and got a confirmed medical diagnosis.

You can tell I’m getting old because all I can talk about is the bits of my body that are no longer functioning!!! But at least I’ve still got all my bits, even if this is going to be the last Christmas with them. Say a requiem for them!

Thinking about requiems, I’ve gone back to singing. After a two year break I’ve gone back to the Highgate Choral Society. It’s even bigger now. Around 200 of us at full stretch. We needed them all for our fall concert – Vaughan Williams’ ‘A Sea Symphony’. I think it turned out pretty well and we had a young soprano who could have blown the roof off. Brilliant.

The Christmas season started last week with a concert in St James’ Piccadilly, adding some men’s notes to our conductor’s ‘New London Children’s Choir’ for the Royal Academy’s Christmas Concert. Our’s is this Saturday up here in Highgate, hotly pursued by a couple of big bashes at the Royal Albert Hall on the following night and the next Friday night doing two Handel Messiahs (tickets still available).

Vivienne and I did the ISU Adult competition in Southern Germany again this year after a break last year. There was quite a sizeable British contingent at this ‘prestigious’ event in the beautiful Bavarian winter sports town of Obertsdorf under the shadow of the the Alps. Coach Emma had done a lot of work into creating a wonderful Original Dance for us and we planned to present our Nina Simone Free Dance for the last time. We had our sights set high and had opted to skate in the top group, knowing that we were up against people we would like to emulate. So it was a big disappointment when we fell on our ‘special’ lift which usually got special applause. One of the judges even remarked that we did it perfectly during the warm up. Anyway, all in all, we came last! Someone has to hold everyone else up, n’est-ce pas? But was a privilege to be skating with folk that we we admire and appreciate. Unfortunately pain was a bit of a theme for me for those few days and I failed to ‘skate upto’ Viv’s standard.

I won’t say what Vivienne and Emma got up to after midnight on the last night AFTER the closing banquet.  Anyway, Emma was still poorly several days later.

On a serious front, it’s been a terrible year. Too many people have died. Mum fell and broke her pelvis toward the end of May and despite some wonderful care from hospital and nursing home staff, she passed away early on 11 July with Caroline, Liz and myself by her bedside. Just two week’s short of her 94th birthday. Dear Mum. I’m so glad we were all together. The last few weeks were so painful for her since no surgery or plaster castes could be offered to hold it all together. Just pain-killers and grit.

We’re so grateful we had her for so long. We had a lovely funeral a couple of week’s later. Nephews Simon and Robin did readings and summaries of her life history. I sang one of my favourite songs ‘Something Which is Known’ from 1 John 1. It wasn’t one that she knew or had heard me sing before but it was from one of the scriptures that read to her while she was in hospital. Visiting her there were some special moments. She always wanted to say the Lord’s Prayer. I read bits from the creation story in Genesis, early verses from John’s Gospel and bits about the New Heaven and New Earth in Revelation. She would listen so intently and so quietly as I read. And then we prayed together.

I remember shortly after she fell, telling her about a  young friend Esther (20) who was seriously ill with cancer, and we prayed for her. She clutched her hands together so tightly her knuckles went white as she prayed. Isn’t it amazing how some folk who are right on the edge themselves still have the enormous capacity to recognise and care for others, to regognise the pain and struggle that others are suffering? Awesome.

As I write I feel tears welling up. Dear Esther, a member of our little Mennonite Church along with her family, died just a few hours after Mum passed away. I was talking with Janelle on the way back from church this afternoon about how strange it is to accept that someone is no longer there. I keep looking around at the end of the service to see if Esther was picking up the songbooks. I still have a photo of some other friends which was Esther’s which she left at the Centre about a year ago. It’s in my office and I look at it every day and think of Esther. I still go and have breakfast once a week at a Turkish café that I once took Esther to. Janelle had her own stories of thinking of her every day.

Her funeral was awesome. There must have been around 150 people there. Lots of people spoke from different parts of her life. School friends, family, church members. We sang some of her favourite songs. Toward the end of the service we all lined up to weave flowers into her wickerwork coffin. She would have loved it. It was sooooo beautiful. I’ve never wept so much in the whole of my life. She’s buried along with her father who also succumbed to the same genetic condition. (Lesley and Adam: we think about you every day as you mourn your daughter and sister).

In the following few weeks I heard of the deaths of 3 other significant people. Ivy (my Godfather’s wife – she sent us such a beautiful card a few days after Mum died), Miriam from Indiana who’s wedding anniversary was on the same day as my birthday (we had some joint times together celebrating when she visited us here in London), and Alisdair who died at only 40.

So sad. So sad. But not morbid. Just real. It leaves me feeling grateful. For so many things. Especially for Mum, remembering so many things. Caroline, Liz and I had a lovely day interring her ashes next to Dad’s, and visiting the places in our hometown of Bedford where we grew up. We even had the nerve to pop into the house where our grandparents lived which is now a doctor’s surgery. The practice manager was so welcoming and lovely. She gave us a guided tour of the house and how they had re-modelled it, and listened to our stories of where we used to play when we visited as little kids.

Well this is not quite how I thought this would turn out! Actually I never know. I just start rambling and the witterings just come out!!!

I wish you all lots of love. I have lots to look forward to, including a new hip! So I’m grateful, especially that I might be able to skate again! And I’m grateful for YOU !

The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

Downloadable Witterings
Mum, 2005



Mum, 1944
Esther Misrahi & Will, Sept 2006

OK. So now I’m mad. After paying 50p for parking in Hampstead I’m now having to pay £40 for being 3 minutes late. Grrr. And I was in a good mood, thinking about writing this Christmas letter. Now how it’ll turn out is anybody’s guess. Stand back. The blue touchpaper has been lit!

The idea was to look back as all good witterings have done in the past. We did that at the Wood Green Mennonite Church a couple of weeks ago when they celebrated my being part of the community for 25 years. It was such a lovely gesture. Lots of stories. A book of contributions from most people in the church, and a special prayer time where everyone laid hands on me (mind you with 20 heavy hands pressing down on my shoulders I thought my knees were about to give out)!

I came to the church in the autumn of 1982. A couple of years prior to that I’d read this incredibly influential book called ‘The Politics of Jesus’ which has shaped so much of my thinking ever since. Just last month I read a book about the author John Howard Yoder by my former colleague Mark Thiessen Nation. It confirmed just how much the themes in the original book had taken root in my psyche (and not just mine but a whole wealth of folk from theologians to lay people). Since Yoder (no, not ‘Yoda’ of Star Wars trilogy fame) was a Mennonite from the US mid-west it is not surprising that I felt right at home in the WGMC, the only (English speaking) Menno’ congregation in the UK. 25 years on I still feel right at home, amongst wonderful people that I know love and care for me. So I’m grateful (even if I still have to pay the fine). And so far they haven’t objected to my guitar playing and song leading in worship. Funny how years ago I picked up a guitar and hid behind Andrew Kreider and wanted to be like him. Well that has never happened… but by the time he went to university (and was no longer there to hide behind) I at least was able to attempt to lead the singing without cracking up or drying up. OK there have been a few croaks in my time but no unforgivable bloopers.

Another book I’ve read recently was about the aftermath of the massacre of Amish school children in the little Pennsylvania farming community known as West Nickel Mines. You’ll remember the news from back in October 2006 where a known neighbour shot several girls at a one room school house for unexplained reasons. The book ‘Amish Grace’ explores the community’s shocking knee-jerk response of ‘instant forgiveness’. How grieving parents and relatives reached out to the bewildered widow of the murderer.

Despite reading a couple of books on subject I’m left with a mixture of feelings. Awe being a prevailing one. It seems those familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer ‘forgive us our… as we forgive those who…’ is so embedded in their life that there isn’t even the slightest hesitation before they practice what they preach. These ‘quiet people’ seem to know what it means to follow Jesus in a way that everyone understands.

True questions still remain: What do they do with their pain and grief? What do they do with their anger? What do they do with their rage?

One quote from the book remains with me, not from an Amish mouth, but from a reporter at the scene: ‘…our security lies in reaching out, not in striking back’. Thinking of quotes, another from Mark’s book comes to mind from Yoder’s words ‘…the Christian life is not a matter of rules, definable once and for all and for everyone, but of constantly living under the leading of God. The Bible’s prohibitions show us the minimum not the maximum level of obedience.’ Of course we sell the books at www.metanoiabooks.org.uk (do you think I’d miss the opportunity)?

Looking back… yes I’m grateful that Viv is still willing to skate with me after 6 years. True there’s been no further threat to her front teeth. She’s not afraid of anything (went to climb Mont Blank didn’t she in September with husband Neall. Mad!) But there has been the odd ‘tiff’!

There we were, Will and Vivienne watched by coach Emma. We’re working on some new steps for our free dance (this year we used some of Nina Simone’s wonderful music: Feeling Good and Love Me or Leave Me. Such great stuff to skate to). I think it was a forward inside 3 turn if I’m not mistaken (and I usually am). Unusual for her, Viv was having a hard time of it. She normally handles all the harder steps… e.g. twizzles and choctaws that I continue to struggle with, but that day, forward inside right three-turns were a struggle. Wanting to encourage (obviously) and offer a suggestion I began to open my mouth, but before anything came out there were these strident words ‘you say a single word and I’ll kill you’! Woooah!

Emma’s jaw drops.

Will backs off. Thinks... definitely time to keep quiet!

Then there’s this precious moment of silence...

Vivienne realises what she’s just said.

Vivienne goes bright red.

Anyway… I’m still here! Yeah!

Now we’re working on an Original Dance programme to some Irish country version of Hey Jude. Wonderful. And I’m grateful. There’s no-one else I’d rather skate with Vivienne! Honest.

Looking back... a wonderful highlight in the autumn was when Jack and Tami and her family visited from San Diego. Jack and I worked together on a project in South African in the early 70’s and then sailed across the Atlantic in his 36 ft. sloop Ganimore in 1974. Since then we’ve only seen each other a couple of times so it was extra special for them to visit. Sounds like it was a long time in the planning. Her parents had been thinking about what to do for their 50th wedding anniversary — and that was 3 years ago! So I was the beneficiary of their family travel celebrations.

Looking back... there have been the regular staff changes at the LMC as folk from the US/Canada end their terms with us. In February we said goodbye to Jim and Lois Bare (after he’d done his big Lands End to John O’Groates cycle ride), and welcomed Ed & Phyllis Shirk from Colorado.

And looking forward… I’ll be spending Christmas with family in Bristol. Mum’s there now (she’s 93) living 15 minutes drive from Liz. I’m trying to get down there every other weekend but haven’t done well lately. Was supposed to be there this weekend but still have the after effects of ‘man-flu’ as it is affectionately called in some circles.

We’re hoping to do an international competition in Germany in June if Viv’s timetable permits. Don’t have any holiday plans apart from that. This year’s was a week’s skating course at the former winter Olympic site of Garmische at the foothills of the beautiful Alps.

Blessings, Grace and Peace

Will