Rhythm

“Gradually within and beyond the banalities of routine, the rhythm of Tuin established itself. Sun, moon and tide wielded an implacable baton conducting our every move, dictating to us when it was time to fish, time to labour and time to rest. And yet within the metronomic structures of heat and night and day, we were free to flounder or to flourish. To survive one must conform. When the pattern of conformity is set, then you can see where your freedoms lie.”
from Castaway by Lucy Irvine

Conformity has never been a word that's sat well with me. It makes me wriggle inside and cringe. And yet, when I'm out and about, cycling in the city or walking by a river, I'm glad, without realising, of the comforts of conformity and the safety it brings. Like Lucy Irvine on her desert island, I'm being held by forces beyond me. And if I choose to go against them, I will suffer. And those around me will suffer. And the world around me will suffer too.

It seems to me, then, there's two types of conformity. A conformity that's imposed by cultural standards. Which either suits people or not. And a conformity that's inherent and more about flow than fitting in. About respect for the natural rythms of life and learning to work with them.

When I stopped Running Up Waterfalls in Cambodia a few years ago, I went through a time of flailing about. Things that had been holding me began to fall away. I got sick and had to go back to the UK for medical treatment. It shocked me that the strong body I was used to wasn't proving so reliable. Thankfully things got sorted fairly quickly and I was able to return after a few months, albeit with much less energy and a weakened capacity for stress.

Not long after, the US-based NGO I was working with suddenly pulled out of the country, leaving the team of Cambodians and ex-pats I was part of, reeling. We hadn't seen it coming, although our boss had been under increasing pressure for months for not conforming to what head office was telling him. He preferred to work to the rhythms of the Cambodians and listen to what they wanted. But that didn't go down well with the funders and in the end, KABOOOSH, we were sunk.

I remember the shock of it all. And the outrage. Especially given the lack of notice (less than a month), the fact that two team members, both Cambodians, had babies on the way and suddenly no financial security, and that little thought had been given to the people benefitting from the projects run by the NGO which all had to close.

I remember the week when the ship finally went down. A bleak bleak week. Personally I was already done in and then I got the news that a friend in Wales had died of cancer. And that my fab and very supportive vicar and his wife on the Isle of Wight were leaving and moving to a new parish in Ibiza. And that the friend and team-mate I'd been closest to in the whole debacle was leaving Cambodia and returning to the UK imminently. So yep, a bleak, bleak week.

It occured to me then that there'd come a time when I'd be left floating, like in the film, Titanic, and everyone I'd been through the trauma with would have gone their separate ways. And then there'd come a time of silence. After all the noise and the weird excitement of it all, silence.

And it came. A few weeks later, it came.

I stayed in my flat for a week or so when it did. Trying to paint. But nothing coming. Trying to write but nothing flowing. Properly beyond it. And just clinging to Jesus, the one fixed point in it all.

Months later, when I was back visiting in the UK, I remember a friend, who knew the extent of what had happened, asking me how I was doing. And I found myself saying: "I'm rising." And it felt like the perfect phrase.


Because what had been happening since that locked-down week was, and still is, amazing to me. A quiet resurrection. Where all I did was give in. And start falling. And in that falling, begin to discover a rhythm I've been learning to conform to, and be held up by, ever since.

More of that in later posts though. My brain's flagging and I've been writing and deleting paragraphs for the past hour or so trying to explain what happened during the rising. So best if I give in to what feels like a very natural coffee break and say t'ra for now.

SELAH