daily meds..

once again, i bow to the greater wisdom of your friend and mine, mr nouwen...

i love this one...

 

 

Daily Meditation for April 27, 2007

written by Henri Nouwen

_........................................................._

Writing to Save the Day

Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help

us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings

of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.

Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be "redeemed" by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.

daylight savings..

so last night was the first night for many sleep-filled years, that i have not slept a wink all night
for one reason and another, sleep eluded me

i got a phone call at eleven
i smoked til twelve
went to bed at half-past-twelve
got back up out of bed, and smoked at one
had some blackcurrant squash at about two
ate ice cream (skinny cow, don't fret, ww's) at four
took my effervescent vitamin c at 6
raided the wezzle's place for coffee at seven
left the house bright as a button at eight

so i watched the first dawn over the gardens of blair road, from my seat at the kitchen window...i saw two street lights flicker their good mornings and take their nocturnal rest....i saw pink and orange stripes across the sky over towards the peaks, and sleepy clouds over my head shuffling on by, all in a morning's work for the good lord...
it was amazing...

and so a troubled and tedious night of temporary insomnia, allowed me the great fortune of welcoming a new day...

not just for the blair road gardens, or for us manchester residents or for the hills to the east...but for me, too

last night, i asked jesus to re-route my wellspring, (a la previous post) and amid a reunion of sorts, where i re-called my wellspring from a certain direction and asked to be rooted only in jesus again, no more of this post-valentine mini-drama, adios to hanging around waiting, when the call to wait seems now, overnight to have ended...i found myself this morning, with a pretty, sweet set of timely top-fives on my hands....

enjoy (and feel free to add any you deem essential that i have omitted, i know there are many..)

top-five songs for letting go, shipping out, and moving on...

1 = pass in time - beth orton
2 = time and time again - counting crows
3 = walk away - ben harper
4 = rescue blues - ryan adams
5 = let it die - feist

this evening, i shall mostly be...sleeping...

mostly listening..

once more, i choose to invoke the power of the high fidelity script, to tell you what i have been mainly doing:

Rob: The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.

me: a lot of rules doesn't even begin to cover it. its a complex business, and yet
its also highly enjoyable. its a passtime in itself. and there was i saying no-one has passtimes any more....i couldn't do this on a regular basis though, i'd go nuts

so anyway, you may or may not know that a certain friend of mine, who may or may not be connected to the valentine's tale, is currently laid up in hospital with a stupid amount of broken bones

prior to his leap into the abyss (i'm working on the theory that there is no connection..) we had recently become email buddies. my other feelings for him, such as they are, (ie, fictional, mainly..) remain, but we had been becoming friends, in a blizzard of emails over the course of a work-less, fun-filled week.

and now he lies, motionless, waiting for himself to mend

and so here is the mix-tape to end all mix-tapes
the one where you want him to learn to new music
the one where you want him to see how you've paid attention to his already-stated musical preferences, and taken them somewhere
the one where you want him to be surprised by that feeling of hating a song at the start, but loving it by the end
the one where you want him to suddenly wish he had a laptop with him so he could jolly well get on th'amazon and buy all the associated albums
the one where you're mildly flirting..through someone else's lyrics..
the one where you don't want to inadvertently declare some sort of undying love through someone else's lyrics..

so many potential pitfalls!
fun though xxx

mental hair day

these are always slightly odder than any other -normal- hair days. on a scale of one to mental, today mine is at ludicrous

today, henri has this to offer, among other things:

-without deep roots we easily let others determine who we are-

its true, you know..

the 08:53..

hands up who remembers the 11:33 on simon mayo's mid-morning show on radio one...?!
(god i sound old..)
anyway it was my favourite thing, someone rings up and they just get to choose a set of three songs that get played at 11:33. don't know why that time, it just was..
anyway, this morning i realised that for me, the 08:53 is the set of three songs that see me through from when i get off the bus at piccadilly, and walk up oldham street, past the porn shops and witch supplies shops, various rehab and homeless drop-in centres, up oldham road through the chaos of endless roadworks, to the shiny red door of Work.
and these three songs have this power to fix my mood for at least the first few hours of my working day. sad, but true
and this morning, the beauties of shuffle were made known to me in the joyous and timely set of three songs that walked me to work. and they were:

forever lost, by the magic numbers...
crossing piccadilly gardens, fighting through the daily battle over whether to stop and get coffee in nero's, seeing everyone in their morning finery, scurrying to work, and the homeless guys waking up on those funny benches..i always feel like i'm walking the wrong way..so few people are ever walking up towards oldham street..i managed to resist the urge to join in during the clapping section of this very springy song..

you are my god, from the third enter the worship circle cd
huh, i love this song..i just love how the guy who sings, really can't sing all that well but it just gives it some welly and clearly loves the lord alot.

no stopping us, by jason mraz, from the tonight, not again live cd
its a stupidly happy song...just buy it. get it off eyetunes and you will enjoy your day more, i promise..

you can now look forward to (or dread, depending..) a (probably short-lived) daily dose of the 08:53..!

also, i would like to add that i am wearing my favourite outfit today, and the sun is shining, and jesus is lovely and look, just look what i found had come to life when i went into my kitchen this morning..!!

longing for april

i was, and now its finally here
march for me seemed like the longest month ever..
and now the summer season of bank holidays seems upon us...because you know, as soon as easter's over with, mayday's just around the corner and then its non-stop pimms and gin and eating outside and five yes five weddings and missing the whole of wimbledon again and going to ireland and the sun just never seeming to go down...
my heart feels slightly mulched these days. for reasons of copyright i cannot explain why, but mulched it feels. in a good way mind you.
i had another round of severe nightcleaning the other night..in a -i'm gonna wash that man right out of my oven door- kind of a way. ended up cleaning everything! it helped. and besides, tim and chloe came up the next day, so it was nice to have a clean house for them. how lovely it was to have them to stay.
i am very much enjoying spending time in the evenings during the week by myself. me and claire t concluded the other day that i am perhaps a failed introvert...that naturally, i am much more introverted than my years of insecurity and therefore needing people and noise and attention, would actually give me credit for.
so peeling more of that rowdy na away (rowdy nick was my brother's name in school...i like to think that has has no monopoly on the word..) and wondering who lies underneath....
it seems maybe there is a calmer, more contemplative na who needs not the clamour and bustle but rather a good book, the westminster hour and some down-time with the lord to keep her going...
i like her, she's kind of new

now, i have a few salutations i would like to offer..bear with me..

welcome to the world, amelia joy lydia!
welcome back to these shores, ye gribbons...!
happy holidays to boyds, wenhams, w'ropes and hughes everywhere!
ozme that is so funny about your visa being there all along!! oops!

ok i'm done with shouty exclamation marks now
love you bye x

i carry you
on my shoulders when your knees feel weak or your feet are tired
i carry you
on my mind, most days, and you don't even know
i carry you
to the father with me, so he can give you what you need the most
i carry you
in my hands, like you were tiny, like jonny wilkinson cradling that small, broken-winged bird
i carry you
as you stand your feet on mine and i walk for both of us. just because
i carry you
in my heart. there's no room left in it, it feels so full of you
i carry you
in my womb, the safest place you could ever be, growing and peaceful
i carry you
on my shoulders so you can see better
i carry you
the next step
i carry you
so that one day
you can carry me