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

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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

woooof..

is my new favourite exclamation
it has a positive tone, kind of a woohoo attitude, but more subtle. its not a woof, like a dog. which is usually more of a 'u' like in 'bus' anyway, but more prolonged and works well in conjunction with a sort of sigh of happiness.
such is the sound that i uttered several times this weekend, which was not only a fin de semaine, but for me a fin de l'hiver. the sun came out, the clocks got shuffled on and the brocklehursts were back in the neighbourhood.
poker was played,
cocktails invented,
new trof was investigated (reading group on the top floor, anyone...?!)
shoes were not bought
sainsbury's voucher fairies were honoured and beloved,
a record short amount of time was spent in the osbourne (one pint and no longer..)
articulate was so so much fun!
skate park prayer time was better than good.
beef stew was a triumph,
the crossword tried and failed
was in bed by 8.45 with a harry potter book, a sneaky (non-options)hot chocolate (can i get a gasp from the ww crowd...!?)
and i was asleep by 11
woooof

hace cuatro años..

who was there, that time at cultural shift, when it was announced that the government had not received enough votes in the debate to be able to go to war..., any of you?
i'm sure oz and cate were there.....
i don't think i'll ever forget it. for a brief time, i allowed myself to think that it would make a difference. the massive protests in london and round the world were scheduled for the next day, and the combination of the two events meant that it seemed as though the invasion was going to be averted.
they say that people today in iraq believe themselves to be less safe, less provided for, than under saddam..i can believe that. i can also, however, believe the people who say they are happier to know that they at least have the option to vote, that the future is wider open than it ever seemed before. but i guess its like the whole of life, the more you open yourself up to joy, the more open you allow yourself to be to sadness..the more you allow faith to grow in you, the more disappointed you may be when it doesn't work out..the more you fight for democracy the more fighting you seem to provide space for..the less you know about what you're fighting for, the less you end up achieving. on that basis, the fact that we had no idea why we were going to war, really, pretty much means it was inevitable that in the aftermath, we would have no clue what we were doing.
the full extent of just how irresponsibly we went at it, knowing how little we knew about what to do once the statues were torn down, is what now stuns me the most. the naivete, the sheer stupidity, of looking at a country and saying, oh, we've figured out what your problem is, so we'll take him out of the equation, and see how you fare. oh, you don't want to behave? fine, we'll kill you, on a fairly steady basis, for probably a good ten years, and then see how many of you are left standing with which we can form a puppet government. Afghanistan. prime example.
i hate this, i hate how cross it makes me, i hate how much they didn't listen, i hate how no-one has still come up with a viable alternative to the way things are going. leaving now would mean exactly what it meant in afghanistan. a country left to self-mutilate for another couple of years until we feel threatened enough to be able to justify spending more on going back in to re-stabilise things.
what a load of shit
today is s sad day, if you ask me. which you didn't. sorry x

ticking all the boxes..

here we are managing to live up to as many irish stereotypes in one evening as we can...






and one sad paddy with no magners left..

size matters..

three things over the last week concerning size, that i have laughed at or otherwise enjoyed alot alot
1 - the optician lady, while examining my eyes (for my new super amazing contact lenses, to be ready shortly - woo and yay..) suddenly enquired -have you always had such enormous eyes..?!- to which i mumbled a yes, thinking she must surely be taking the mick because everyone knows that everyone's eyes are all the same size....or so i thought! turns out mine are officially half a whole millimetre wider in diameter than your average peeper..! who knew..
2 - on speaking to chloe for ages on the phone last night, which was delightful, as soon as i informed her of my new WW allegiance, she exclaimed -but what about your lovely jubblies, you're not going to lose those as well, are you!?- i laughed alot alot, and then later grew in my increasing anxiety that in all my dietary piety, i may about to lose some of my greatest assets..
3 - i bought a skirt yesterday (mt, about a £1..!) and got it home only to find that i have already, yes, already lost a dress size. glory be.

spring is springing..

j'adore the spring..
and here's one of my favourite things about it..
it makes people sing...
just now, i was in the hsbc over the road, waiting my turn when this man came in singing -mardy bum- and not even quietly. he was just pottering around, going to the cash machine, singing away...i was grinning at him so hard that i think he felt it cos he turned around and caught me grinning and just carried on, me, firm in my theory that he'd heard it on xfm at 8.20 this morning as i had, and we'd both had it stuck in our heads since!
that, right there, is what spring does to you if you let it...
i let you i let you!!!!!

so here we are..

i am having a resurgence of my former affections for bloc party. the album -silent alarm- is inconsistent but its bright moments are wonderful, i think..
it has helped put my mind in a frame of whimsy though, which is only a part-time bad thing..

happy birthday sal...!!

..in light of which,

..supper out this evening beckons...
so i have done my research, and plan to thoroughly put these wise words into practise..
i searched for "eating out while on weight watchers", and got these..
(there were long and detailed explanations of each one, but they sound so much funnier without those parts...i've been out of the dieting game for such a long time, i'd fogotten the strange, coded, boot-camp language that "they" seem to think so necessary!!

Dining Do's and Don'ts
1. Set a budget.Determine how much you're willing to eat before looking at the menu.
2. Put on your game face.
3. Make special requests.
4. Practice portion control.
5. Break down (language) barriers.
6. Downsize the super-size.
7. Watch out for extras.
8. Don't go top heavy.
9. Don't drink away your progress.
10. Resign from the "clean plate club."

funtimes ahead, hey..?! anyone present this evening, you are welcome to call me on any of these if you see me straying from The Path...!
xxxx

spring comes to narnia..

look..! just look... this is where my brother shall be wed, in august.. and a few weeks ago it looked like this: mais maintenant, it looks like this:it really is a bit like narnia, see..

mumma and mr tumnus!!

and here they are..

the happy couple...(or if you look at nick, the petrified couple..!)..and the rococo wedding planner..

moonpoker..

my weekend in summary:
fresh air..full houses...oap evoision....wedding venue treasure hunts....

ah, the sheer joy of a poker evening at home with mum and dad, nick, rob and amy and me....i think i am finally understanding the whole game a bit more, but bluffing remains a mystery to me..pheobe was right when she asked "and is that not just another word for lying...?" i think its quite difficult. especially when you just don't want to look like a dunce if you take it really far and then lose....i guess we should ref that as per john hainses' wise words regarding another situation in a previous post...!

so i arrived home on friday night to steak and then a few hours in the rene with the rentals and nick and angela....we played poker and i drank cranberry juice..good to keep a clear head about these matters...! on saturday day mum and i explored the land of narnia also known as the rococo gardens....a whole post on that will follow....and then saturday evening we took it in turns to run outside into the freezing cold to check on the status of the moon, pausing at the bar (the back door step) for another cold drink on the way back in, hastily throwing cigarettes down in favour of not letting mum get away with "shuffling" the cards while no-one was looking...! the moon was beautiful, the game amateurish and hilarious, the company some of my favourite in the world, and the new discovery of dry martini quite an eye-opener for me...
yesterday got lost in the hills of nailsworth with nick and dad...managed to avoid seeing the grandparents, made time for the archers omnibus and had some soup...and still home to the north in time for another chapter of the order of the pheonix before a jolly good sleep.
i love it up here, but shire holidays are ever-necessary..
xxx

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

in about 33 minutes i leave for the shire

amen, henri..

Daily Meditation for March 2, 2007
written by Henri Nouwen
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God Covenant
God made a covenant with us. The word covenant means "coming together." God wants to come together with us. In many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible, we see that God appears as a God who defends us against our enemies, protects us against dangers, and guides us to freedom. God is God-for-us. When Jesus comes a new dimension of the covenant is revealed. In Jesus, God is born, grows to maturity, lives, suffers, and dies as we do. God is God-with-us. Finally, when Jesus leaves he promises the Holy Spirit. In the Holy Spirit, God reveals the full depth of the covenant. God wants to be as close to us as our breath. God wants to breathe in us, so that all we say, think and do is completely inspired by God. God is God-within-us. Thus God's covenant reveals to us to
how much God loves us.

continuity flaw..

well my doves, i feel it is time that, for the sake of continuity and for the purposes of my children being able to use this baby to make a tidy sum from my posthumously published memoirs, i ought really to conclude the valentine tale....

it has ended, and with not a little cry, and with a great bundle of lessons learned, joys anticipated, self risked and insanity considered, i may now own that i am set to move on.

i enjoyed the experience immensely, it gave a small spark on the odd rainy morning, and a wry grin at the reality of my own foolishness on drunken evenings when i'd come home and still find myself wondering about...him...

i need wonder no more, for it is not to be.

and would i undo it? take it back? reverse all that has been versed? maid non, pas du tout...je ne regrette rien..

who said that? somebody famous...

my loves, here's the thing: i have won as they call it at the MOD the battle for hearts and minds...i have won, over my own mind, set in fear and self-doubt. and i have triumphed in the game of risk, where all i had to place as my bet was the small bit of my heart that it took to see it through.

i win
ok i jesus wins too. he really does. and he deserves to..deserves a medal for putting up with me, and my endless questions, my laughing at his silly notions, and never seeming to fully trust what he's up to there in the background...

and yet...he waits for me to catch on, do the math and put the pieces together, enough now to see that its not my time. not today
xxx

my plastic heaven..

so today i bought a plastic, see-through, dome-shaped umbrella.
it was the stormiest of stormy afternoon - never good for annas on a wednesday because janet leaves work early which means no ride home and therefore...rain...
i was so cross by the time i had got down oldham road across the ring road via near-death and then down oldham street...and then i recalled that pop cafe are now selling these beauties, so i went in paid my money and thence began my voyage chez portable plastic heaven. you cannot go wrong. your hair doesn't get blown about, glasses remain un-waterlogged, and rage is kept to an absolute minimum...
so now my only rainy-day problem is that age-old story of the girls who buy their trousers too long, and live in manchester, and end up with the rain absorbed up to their knees before long and then the shivers all day at work...
if only the inventive men of the world could solve that one...?!
btw yes there will be photos to follow of me and my plastic heaven..

paddy's day: the preview..

so i thought i would let you in on a secret...
i cannot wait for st patrick's day
it is clearly still two weeks and four days away, but i am so looking forward to it..and here's why:
its almost like going home for christmas....
i head to the shire, knowing that love awaits me, daddio at the station..the others already installed in le cafe rene, as per shire fridays, and the run-up begins...ah the joy of a year in which the 17th of march falls on a weekend....
present will be the usual stuff of a shire friday: magners piled all round, an embarsassing number of bottles stacked on the table...roll-ups to hand, rob and amy giddy to see me, mum on her g+t's and angela enjoying a few glasses of red...and nicko with the hugs that only a brother built like a bear can bestow....and then the lovely princess fiona...hopefully...with the grinning...and maybe with the welsh boy in tow...and luke, and yes hopefully, his girlfriend...josh and big aid..bar-staff i went to school with..and lots of laughing..
and the saturday..should probably go to mass.. but won't.
and then gloucester v harlequins at kingsholm, three pm in the shed..
and then probably back to the rene via the gate for free guinness
the evening of st patrick's fay for the haywards takes place in a pub called the great western which we never go to any other night of the year...and all the camping crowd are there, and dad with his guitar, maddie with her bohdran, desie on the accordian, ben the fiddle and everyone in the room knowing that at some point they will have to sing "their song" which means, as you grow older in an irish family, most people who can hold a tune end up adopting a song as their own, which on any given occasion they will be expected to let out, cigarette in hand and their mum's eyes watering up next to you..mine is named arthur mcbride..
it won't be an early night..
and you know what, my uncle and aunt, michael and dierdre are going to be present for the whole thing!! they are heading over from clonmel for the weekend, making our collective joy complete...
anyone want to come with..?! x
(this post is dedicated to mr hughes and his blog-attentiveness...)

bathtime reading..

my lenten resolution is to read something beautiful before i go to bed.
here is a small part of this evening's nightime-reading which i just read in the bath...
it is from the imitation of christ..

o light everlasting, surpassing all created light! pour forth from heaven the glorious rays of your light, and pierce the very depths of my heart. purify, gladden, light and quicken the powers of my spirit, that it may hold to you with joy unspeakable.

night loves x

a history lesson

so today i finished reading the history of love..
it is such a gem of a book. there are people in it who i cannot ever imagine meeting anyone remotely like them, but they become quite real, visible and loveable.
like the shadow of the wind, it is a book about a book - and all the necessary puzzles thrown up by a fiction book concerning a fictional book - who in the book wrote the second book, the time is was written and parellels with the time in which a main character is reading it. and the confusion between the book you are reading and the book the character is reading..it messes with your head more in the shadow of the wind, but the book within the history of love is just beautiful, i wish it were a real book. i would hand it out faster than i could ever give out gospel tracts i'm sure...

it just makes you wonder how much you would be prepared to risk your heart...how able you would be to move on if the person you love moved on from you...it makes you think how would i carry myself through, if i had no certainty in my life...where would i be without the pillars of people that i find around me...

the two children in the book are so lost as their father has died and their mother half-gone with him....the old man has nothing but obsession, and imaginings, and regrets and letters unsent. the other old man, spent his whole life lying just so he could be defined by something...

the tone of voice often lead me to laugh out loud when on the bus..lunchtime at work..in my bed...there is sharp honesty and poetic daydreaming aplenty...

it makes me feel a bit like when i first listened to august and everything after - how could anyone even try to write music after hearing this?!
how could i ever think of writing a book, when someone has already written the history of love...?!