{"id":1103,"date":"2010-12-16T15:52:21","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T15:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2010-12-16T15:54:54","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T15:54:54","slug":"saying-no-and-sticking-to-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/?p=1103","title":{"rendered":"Saying no and sticking to it"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Saying ‘no’ at Church is a difficult thing. Not just for me. There is always, always, always guilt involved and sometimes, if I’m honest, people make use of those feelings in order to get others to do things that they want done.<\/p>\n

For many, many years I was in charge of flowers and decorations for my Church. I was kind of coerced into the job in the first place by someone I’m very fond of and couldn’t say no to. Flowers are something I can do – the quilters innate knowledge about balance and colour have always helped me there. But while I can arrange flowers perfectly adequately, they are not really my thing. At least they are in my garden, but I have a bit of a hard time getting excited about a formal arrangement (or at least about a formal arrangement done by me!).<\/p>\n

Over the years, the job started to be a real burden. I organized rotas, visited wholesalers, arranged for special events big and small, in memory of loved ones and for weddings. I made advent wreaths and organized a huge Easter flower festival every year. I spent too many Christmas Eve mornings driving around the local (crammed) supermarkets trying to find suitable flowers in the requisite colours (red and white) followed by several hours in a freezing church actually decorating.<\/p>\n

Christmas was always the breaking point. By the time I had finished and run home to prepare everything for my family I was generally too exhausted to make it back into the city for Midnight Mass (which was a clue that maybe I was just doing too much!) There was generally an issue after Christmas – when we are often away – and I could never find anyone who could dismantle everything and tidy it away. One year this resulted in me having to just leave the arrangements, hoping that they wouldn’t die too quickly, which of course they inevitably did… and I had to deal with an angry chaplain when I came back. I’m not going to go into why he couldn’t just move them out of the way if they caused so much offence….just not going there, I’d never stop and you’d be here all day reading my rant!!!<\/p>\n

I spent a lot of time over the past few years trying to find someone else to take over the job. I asked people, wrote witty little ads in the church magazine, conversed earnestly with the Church \u00a0Council about the problem. You name it, I did it. And one day I just said no. It all felt like a weight on my shoulders and I couldn’t bear it anymore. So I wrote to the Church Council and resigned.<\/p>\n

They weren’t very pleased, but they had to respect what I said. There was a fair bit of muttering and the odd caustic comment and I felt guilty as hell. But at the same time, oh so relieved.<\/p>\n

And you know what happened? The very next week a nice retired lady volunteered of her own free will to take it over.<\/p>\n

And I thought we all lived happily ever after.<\/p>\n

Until yesterday.<\/p>\n

When she phoned me up to ask me if I would like to decorate the church for Christmas.<\/p>\n

I took a deep breath. I didn’t say what I thought, which was something along the lines of ‘are you completely insane? Why would I want to do that? I spent years getting rid of this burden. I am actually really enjoying not having to do the flowers this Christmas. And you’re asking me to do them AGAIN?’<\/p>\n

I very quietly said ‘no, I’m sorry, but I’m busy and I don’t want to do them’.<\/p>\n

There was a shocked silence on the other end of the phone.<\/p>\n

And I felt guilty.<\/p>\n

But I didn’t let myself to be talked into it. I stuck to my guns. I don’t want to do the flowers. Flowers in Church should not be arranged by someone with black, unwilling, resentful thoughts in her heart.<\/p>\n

I’m still dealing with my feelings of guilt. But I also feel glad that I was brave enough to say no. I have done my time and I need a break – not just for me, but for my family too.<\/p>\n

But I still feel bad. A little bit anyway.<\/p>\n

Helen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saying ‘no’ at Church is a difficult thing. Not just for me. There is always, always, always guilt involved and sometimes, if I’m honest, people make use of those feelings in order to get others to do things that they want done. For many, many years I was in charge of flowers and decorations for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQtrc-hN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1107,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions\/1107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}