Privileges

 

1972

Arrival at a Capernwray school is something of a Paradigm shift, leaving one slightly off the normal kilter. Ours happened to be in New Zealand, making us a group of very lucky young people. We ate our meals in the Lodge overlooking a massive lawn that ended in a cliff overlooking the Pacific. And then there was the sky. 

We stayed in dorms and attended lectures by gifted Bible teachers, learning things we still have never forgotten. And then, we did "chores". Only they weren't called that, dear Readers. Chores came with a different name, because we were becoming different people and were very slightly off the normal kilter.

They were not chores that we were doing. They were Privileges.

It is a lesson that has lingered - when laundry sits on a couch or dishes rest in the sink, I no longer think "chore"; instead, I think "Privilege". And for whom am I doing Privileges? the Giver of grace and peace. Do we always feel that working the mundane is a privilege? Probably not. But there is a choice there, too, and I am still, daily, making it.

2024

Every day here at the Lodge (now called 'Fowey Lodge') I wander a few feet from my cottage doorstep (for no one lives in the Lodge, now; it is, sadly, to be sold) and stand there. A new Paradigm may be on the horizon. But for the rest of my final week here, I shall wander the halls and gardens of the empty Fowey, remembering precisely the spots where significant things happened, in 1972; the places where significant people, including me, were being changed from the Old to the New, becoming very slightly off the normal kilter.

See you along the Way!

the SconeLady