Two Metaphors and Reality

Recently I’ve been reflecting on life-metaphors…

Yesterday afternoon I played chess with Roy… with a big pot of tea… at a table in a local hotel… all very civilised. Our skill (or lack of it!) is on a similar level. We managed four games in a couple of hours…

Life’s a daily game of chess… developing a strategy, planning ahead… marshalling troops, assessing your opponent, making mistakes… aiming to win but accepting defeat. Win or lose there’s another game tomorrow.

At Men’s Shed in the morning the workshop was busy. Richard’s made some lovely walnut shelves. Alan’s recently completed a retro boomerang table. Less skilled gents are making garden planters from pallet wood – with imperfections described as ‘rustic’…

Life’s a woodwork project… using our skills with the available materials and tools. Other more skilled craftsmen help with parts of the project we can’t handle alone. What’s constructed in life’s workshop is then on public display.

It got more personal. Some gents have been diagnosed with diabetes. We heard about changing diets, resolving to lose weight, the possible consequences… Then prostate problems… prostate cancer, enlarged prostate, tests and treatment…

With a group of older men together there was the usual bravado, inappropriate vulgarity and dark humour; there was also honesty, courage and vulnerability, shared anxieties, fragility and uncertainty.

In life’s daily chess game, life’s woodworking project, it’s about what I do or achieve; I remain in control.

In life’s reality – cancer, surgery, tests, treatment… much is outside my control. I consider who I am, what might happen to me… physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Individual hopes and fears, come with richness, variety, depth…

Musing… returning to familiar words from the prayer of St Francis: O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love…