Fitting in

I've met Polish people, French people, Ukranian people, Bangladeshi people, people from all over the world, in England, speaking very little English. I've only ever felt admiration for them for knowing more of another language than I do, for doing the hard things after the upheaval I imagine they've gone through and for struggling against communication barriers and learning new cultural norms. 

I don't necessarily feel that that admiration has come full circle back to me at present, but I'm taking courage. One neighbour, from Norfolk - wierdly! was in my childrens' shoes however many years ago. She too was brought here from England with no French language and put straight into school. She's reassured me, "you'll have a terrible first year, but after that you'll be speaking French." 

My Grandpa was Polish. He never lost the accent but I asked him once which language he prayed the Our Father in, and he said usually English. He kept display cabinets full of Polish handicrafts but never told us stories about them. He never taught his daughters Polish. He wanted to assimilate and be completely British. This did not stop him smuggling medical supplies to his home country behind the iron curtain, or maintaining strong ties with his family. But it is sad to think that there were probably lots of catholic traditions from his childhood that were lost to us. 

Have you ever heard of an Advent garden? I read it described in a book about gardening for primary school children by Beatrice Lockie. She describes a school hall with an earth and foliage installation and a spiral shaped pathway into it. In near-darkness the children go in one at a time down the spiral path to light their candle from the central candle and rest it in the soil. The hall slowly fills with light and the children sit in silence contemplating the dawn of redemption. Amazing right? But what interested me was the candles: beeswax candles poked into apples. This image of a bees wax candle stuffed in an apple was like a key which unlocked a whole, unrecorded world of rituals wrapped in everyday appearances, a million miles from the pristine 9 inch candles in brass candle holders on the altar at church, but equally steeped in meaning, that Britain must have been filled with in the middle ages. Again, now lost to us. 

Your St Brigid's hankerchief, from your Irish roots, strikes me as one of these. An ordinary piece of cloth placed outside on the eve of St Brigid's day and brought in wet with dew in the morning to be used as a comfort throughout the year. And each year the story of St Brigid's cloak is remembered and retold. 

Well, a blank sheet is not a terrible place for me to start making holy traditions rooted in the ordinary. And infact I have already begun a new tradition here in France. In our village the church is locked. Not normally in use. However the bells in the tower still ring out at 6, 12 and 6. So I put an Angelus wallpaper on my phone and I've learned the prayers. And when I hear the bells with my kids, I teach it to them.