come on now, fess up..whole stole the fun...?

ok, its 3:32 in the a.m. and i just got home. i spent the evening out in gloucester. it was the birthday of one of my all-time favourite people, so when the night club was suggested as a venue for the after-dinner, i could find no way out of it..i really need to work on my faith in miraculous tranportation.....
its called intraction. or maybe with two nns...........oh sweet lord. going out, i have discovered in the last few hours, is not fun anymore. i don't mean i didn't have fun. i didn't, but that's another story...i just mean, nothing about fun is fun now. the dancing is so stifled and affected and contrived. in fact, i wondered on more than one occasion whether it could really be considered dancing at all. there appears to be nothing left of self-expression, or abandon, or dancing away ones problems. the latter is a therapy route i have often chosen in the past, and have found it almost invariably effective in sweeping those blues away, however temporarily. the thing is, its now drink that is the abandon, and pulling which is the expression, and aim, of the whole event. i saw one person actually enjoying himself while dancing, giving his whole body over to the shite music that frankly, deserved no such attention. but it was quite apparent that his wacko moves were not going to get him any nearer to having sex tonight. he didn't care. i loved him.
i spent quite a lot of time deciding which to be the sadder about - the old women, out as usual, saturday night, hideous halter-necks and young men passing who stopped, showed interest, got close enough to see the facial signs of age-betrayal, and ran for the hills. but then there are the young ones. one, i was informed by a friend, is pregnant and 18. one, has no job because her overbearing bofriend mocked her and her efforts at a hairdressing apprenticeship and made her quiet. she was 19.
and however much i try, i can't write or think these things without feeling like a snob. i've never been a class-warrior, but then i have been brought up and educated in an age where we are forcibly told that class does not exist anymore. but its not about class. or age, or education, its about self-respect i think. although, in the grander scheme, i suppose its really about jesus.

and music....? who, WHO decided in the 90s that R&B was going to be bitched into being the label of more or less all music that filled innteraction this evening...? R&B means rythym and blues. we're agreed on that one, right..? before that, the genre was generally bunched under the category of soul, which i had equal objections to, given that the melodies were generally neither soulful not the lyrics evident of any soul behind them.
so rap soul hip-hop r+b whatever, its all the same. the bass is intrusive on one's natural heartbeat, the lyrics are obscene (and no, you don't have to be mary whitehouse, or 75, to own up to thinking that..) and the vast majority of its melodic perpetrators cannot sing. its all about black people, which of itself, is a good thing. but to see a room full of 800 white people furtively attempting to follow the every move observed daily on MTV of these new musical revolutionaries.....oh it was humiliating. and its everywhere. its not just here.
so this is my question....is dancing not cool? the cool people, who like decent music that has actual talent behind it - glorious, mostly unappreciated, and therefore still cool - are these people (i hope you know i am counting myself amoung them) not supposed to dance? because where on the earth can you find a place to dance to music that is not, as aforementioned, shite?
answers on a postcard.

am i living it right...?

why georgia....? as the song goes....
or why clonmel, co. tipp., in this case....
here's the why....
the fleagh cheoil...

...i'm so excited! we leave in a couple of hours, me and fifi, in holly, for the ferry, and for green hills and fields, for familia, for moynihans bar, for stradbally beach, and for alot alot of drinkin beer in the street with your hand in your pocket...what scandal..!
and, i hope, for some quality time with the good lord...i need it. and here is so successfully squishing me.....so i'm off chicos....laters...x x x

time for a little glass of wine...

oh who's idea was that...?! just saw the gribbos for a couple of hours....and now its back to no more manchester for this girl... i think that's gonna happen to me a few times over the next week or so, as all my friends go more or less right past my door to get to the holiday destination....no, i still don't want to go, but it sure was nice to see some kindred spirits. i have one or two here, that's for sure, but they are sporadically around....but the gribbos...ain't no one quite like em.....so no who's idea was this leaving thing....ah yes, mine, and probably the good lord's too..... now thing is, it just doesn't all seem to be working out quite like i had supposed it might....which is fine...its not exactly a grumble i have in me, more a severe question....when's it going to work...?! and severely rhetorical it is too.....shit man, i'm just so ready to go!! manchester stuff confuses me now....and gloucster stuff, well, there isn't any really...!! but spain stuff..........oh i was reading about this guy today, called someone Christie...an anarchist, scottish, but an anarchist of the late Franco-era.....he was part of a plot to assissinate franco, and it got foiled....the G2 was venerating him today and finding every word he said either hilarious or earth-shatteringly profound......he was a pretty great guy, but he did try to kill someone......he served his time, sure....and he was right in everything that were and are his opinions (in my opinion...) and i found myself feeling this huge feeling...i thought - am i really getting swepped along with this man and all his charisma....? but really....it was spain........all the talk of madrid and barcelona and the foothills of the pyrenees and the hitch-hiking and the plazas..........and i was aching.....its growing man, the ache.....which is what i need....the ache....i think its the ache that's gonna get me there you know.........................................you know..?

and the winner is....

not me, man...i can't even get a job in tesco! not true, i could if i wanted a permanent job, and i wasn't quick enough to lie when that issue came up.....so things at home are good...in an unsteady faith see-saw kind of way.....god gave me about ten days of chill before he stepped it all up. i am now back to knowing how much i need him, and knowing pretty much nothing but that. oh and also that i am meant to be in barcelona by the end of september. thing is, there's knowing that, and there's knowing that that equates to god's provision for me to get there...and there's the hitch.....i have no full-time job as yet, and the clock is ticking...and the last couple of days this has really started to bother me. probably because its been in the last five days that i've realised just how much i want to go to spain. to barcelona, at this time, and not at any other time. and i believe fully that it is ordained for now, and that god has purposed it specifically and strategically. and yet i sem to have no trust for the money. every single other thing i trust him over. but this...its the same old stumbling block, but i guess that now really is as good a time as any to figure out a way over it. having been a pretty big feature of the prayers befor ei left manchester, philippians is as inspirational on this subject as is possible for a few pages in a book to be. but petitioning....what is that? being in such a house of religion means that the worhip that must necessarily precede that part is all but out of the quesiton. but there must be a way through that also, particularly if i'm headed to a nation of the same religion only on an infinitely bigger scale. oh, whittering now...but that's that dielmma and i know i just gotta get down to figuring it out...
ok enough of that, but i had to say it....
what else.....
i'm reading loads about spanish history, about the inquisition, about catalaluna and barcelona history, and figuring that as a city it has an incredible legacy of protest, unrest and well, demonstration. and a mind of its own. and a people that are allwed to and expected to contribute to the life and future of the city. let me in...! i can't even tell you how giddy these books are making me...and i love that its that stuff and not the architecture and art that are attracting me there. i'm having quite a time of it seing how i'm not meant to be a voice there, not yet. when so many have such audible voices i get to be quiet there for a while and sound it all out. so far in the book about the inquisition, the only places in europe that have spoken out against it are england and cataluna....sorry for the lack of n with squiggle...also trying to reconcile the stuff that god was telling me about last night, to do with his jealousy, and the disgust i feel at reading about the inquisition. how do they match up? it doesn't take genious to see how they though they had the right idea. so its all interesting. not enough of a word for it to be honest.
so bed and philippians here i come.....guys which ever of you may be reading this that feel like praying about this money stuff with me....i'd really appreciate it. if it were anyone else, i'd be saying well, he's planned it, he's asked you to go, so he'll provide. it doesn't seem all that crystal-cut simple when you're in it though. if only.....
oh, to not be a simpleton.......

profuse apologies..

..for the dreary post of the other day. it all passed away, as these things tend to.
the surprising part is that is has stayed passed.
i left today. no more manchester living for this lady.
i did cry, but as i looked around, going through fallowfield, and withers, and all that crowd, i knew that i had no more time, noo more patience in me, no more energy to spend on a place that dosn't hold any of the purposes for my life in it. they can't work there.
the scary part is that i know that whatever happens, as of today, is only ever going to be out of the kindness of jesus, and the work i'm prepared to put in.
even old douglas, he knew that's what it all comes down to eventually. you gotta get down to it if you're going to sit on top of those textbooks and shout at passers-by, begging them to question. and question and questions.
any questions?
ys i'm sad, but i don't regret or don't wish anything were other than it is.
which i'm not sure has ever been true for me before.

thanks, one and all, for letting me go. and for letting me be there as a part-timer with you all, letting me come along for the ride.

stick with me, i'm going somewhere.....

not oh happy day

oh dear god i am so cross today and sad
= disgruntled
i have not felt disgruntled for a very long time, months even. and now i am back, after all the hard tefl work, looking for a damn admin job.
oh i'm so cross.
there are no jobs.
and i am now sad about leaving people, which somehow until today i have not been.

got to snap out of it am getting prayed for oh joy in a couple of hours.
have abandoned all grammar propriety.

word..

man, i can't, in fact, don't believe that the last time i blogged was april 1st...i wrote a monster of a post sometime in may...
but yeah, still a pretty shoddy effort on my part
i am half way through my third-last week in manchester
nearly six years of waiting and it turns out i still don't know how to leave.

pretty smashing new blog hey...? loving the green

so i'm feelin wierdly calm about spain....not excepting thed ending up in prison on the way stuff brought up by marijke (sp..?) last night....

i have been dispatched a commission from the lord to document the last six months, with reference to the various departure that have been/are going on....not sure what the point of the observations is going to be, but i know i am far from the only one is to be feeling a mighty intregue about how things work in a community that spans about ten countries....what i come up with will be posted on here....

well its good to be back, i've missed you maya...........

ok so in brief
tefl course is mental. i hate it and love it in equal measure.
fran is in barcelona.....let the games begin.,....
dc left. hewo left. oz left. three down, about ten more to go........
watched lost in translation again...confirmed its place in my top five films

ok gotta scoot...laters world.....x

trying to get through for glastonbury tickets......holy lord this is the single most irritating, nervewracking, boredom-inducing thing i have EVER done

some facts..

i love john meyer
i hate this keyboard
i love having resa home
i hate owing money
i love sting
i hate it when snow mellts
i love snow
i hate that my mum lives so far away
i love the feeling that i am hungry but its making fat be burned off me
i hate being hungry
i love the book of psalms
i hate the human league particularly the song..can't remember the name...famous
i love the nervous feeling i have right now of having started writing my first book yikes
i hate looking for jobs


see, sometimes things really are quite simply either black or white

the qualifiers..

i feel i should explain some of the things that i recently said have been blowing my mind..so here it is..
1, was the book the pursuit of god by aw tozer....this guy basically earned the right to criticise the established church, and so does it effectively powerfully and graciously. he earned this right by remaining within it, even when the spirit within him found it hard - limitations, leadership issues, etc, and by the sheer amount of hours he put in before the throne of god. he knew the longing of god to communicate one-on-one with his children. he recognised that the institution of church disallowed this, by spoon-feeding the word to people, and by convincing them that chasing after god meant getting 'carried away', which obviously our stade and mature society does not see as a good thing. i love to read this book because he is unreserved in his criticism, and yet one knows that he writes nothing without having recieved permission from god. i love to hear that there have been groups, even in this last century of machines war and darkness, of people who have chased god on an individual as weel as corporate level. this i believe is where things start to really work. the body starts to function sincerely and lovingly within the world. and its good for me to be reminded that we are far from being the first ones to have tried this.

2,umm....oh yeah, the movie elephant..whoever you are you should probably go see this movie. i felt entirely defeated when i left the cinema, but i guess its one of those essential movies - these kind of movies are mostly never seen as essential, because they carry a sort of responsibility with them. this film made the high school in it seem like it could have been any high school in the world. the school itself did nothing to warrant the massacre that it experienced. but the sort of pathetically insignificant bullying and teasing and malice that are some people's everyday experience of school do happen everywhere. and no kid in the world would find it impossible to get hold of a gun. somehow, i guess it could be done, whatever country, whatever that country's laws concerning guns. there's a lot of them about. in terms of colours and shade and lighting and trees and gracefulness i haven't seen such a beautiful bit of film in a long time.

3,ah yes....this has been an idea that has attempted to permeate my brain at times in the last few months.i don't believe it. let that be rightly understood. i refuse to believe it. last saturday when i blogged it i guess even as an isolated concept it was blowing my head. the thought that if had never known grace i almost certainly would believe it.but there is still a difference between not believing it, and knowing how to proceed with this disbelief. ok, this is my stuff now, i'm sure sense to anyone else has been lost by this point!

4, oh the joys of consigning one's past to the nonexistant archives of heaven. mmm...still pretty new for me. alot has to change in the mind that remains, so that that past can be left there as irretrievable. (sp.?)i guess it can only really happen when an real miracle occurs. i know that i feel different here, in this house of my childhood. i talked to my mum last night about praying with irene last week. she digs it. bless the lord.

5,yeah nelly f....what a gem.

6, one life, one country..still none the wiser about that one..guess its staing under wraps for a while. i think i'll know what i'm in ireland in august. maybe not. but the more i tell people my plan of leaving the north and mooching around for a whioe and then going to spain next january, the more it seems like the best plan ever.

7, well,i would write out the poem i wrote about these most beauty-full of flowers, but alas it is on a wall in a certain house a couple of hundred miles away. another day i will i promise
that's all folks

some slight news..

hola todos...ok, here's a tale and half.
went to see a lady called irene the other night. i am still shocked into silence a few times a day by what happened there. god came and hung out with us. i learned that there is nothing he cannot change.
i don't know how much to tell....some of it is oddly hidden.
but ok, i have to try...i know now, that the transition i made four years ago, from being a catholic, to being as i now am, not, has had to take this long. i never entirely gave it up. i never surrendered the nationalism that is passed through an irish catholic family line. i never renounced vows i had uttered (in ignorance or otherwise). i always wondered about the necessity and validity of praying to mary. i
anyway alot of old things have gone now. the new ones are coming.
i finally feel like i have permission and the space and the energy to pursue god
am reading, in light of that, the pursuit of god, by a w tozer...check it out it currently blowing my mind
as is elephant, the movie.
as is the idea that sometimes friendships just don't work
as is the newness of life without history...it all being given up, and considered rubbish for the sake of having a future
as is the idea that sometimes, i can make god happy
as is powerless by nelly furtado
as is the idea of giving my whole life to one country
as is the beauty of daffodils

try one of those on for size, i dare ya

against the clock..

ok, having, as i do, about three minutes to sum up the last month and five days that have passed since last we met in this untangible but nevertheless highly effective method comunicacion, suffice to say.....
i have experienced contentment, since december 23rd. not as a constant, but as a passing fancy. its hard to live without, once felt, but i know where it came from, and so i know that when the day or the wind or the falling of snow is all as it should be, i shall have it again.
claire is at the door to go for coffee.....
love you

we've come a long, long way baby..

i love being here, when you phone a friend from round here at their house, and their parent or sibling or whoever answers the phone, knows straight away who you are, before you've even said all that much.....and cards are made out to everyone in my house, not just me, from people who in theory are only my friends.....and when i will spend this evening, once more, as one of the 'lower sixth', since we'll be in the company of the 'upper', including nick and all his friends...who could ask for more..? and now, we can even take the mick out of my mum for her overactive tear-ducts....who would've thought?

hurrah for home..

manchester is too much for me right now. manchester still has, it would seem, a shelf-life equal to a semester, with me. i cannot seem to convince myself that i want or need to stay there longer than thirteen weeks. this week i was pretty much pissed off with everything. new things and places and people are not so good in my subconcious brain, when it has gone over the thirteen week threshold, into the assumed southward migration of the school holidays. after that point my head expects family, open rows, honest discussion, frank expression of love, thousands of years' worth of mutual understanding, and genuine concern for one another. my house in manchester this week was more or less none of these things, for one reason or another. marie and the scene in the movie of my life that was the most eerily reminiscant of little women than anything anyone could've scripted, was the one oasis. until last night, which involved a lot of laughter. although marie and i did get cooking rage. and i cried because i burnt my finger. thats when you know you're tired.
i feel like i am allowed now to investigate the post-manchester path i shall tread. i have thought that for a week or two now. maybe somewhere that takes a two-week public holiday every thirteen weeks or so?
good one

oh lord..

..the complexities of life in a frequently too-close-for-normality group of 23 year old single people!
holy mother
matt says we should start being more open on these pages of nosiness than we have been to-date. particularly concerning the inner-workings of friendships between boys and girls, the lines around and inside of which have never been more blurred, en masse, than during the last few months. i quite agree. i didn't think it would be me that started it though.
...... .....................
and do you know what? i wrote and i wrote, about a certain situation between two certian people that i love dearly. and some about me. and i chickened out. erased it all.

we can't rewind

the theoretical protester....

see, tomorrow, in mind, spirit, heart, i'm in london
in theory, that is..
however, due to lack of funds i cannot go in person.
in practise, that is..
why? why do i persist in having no money whatsoever?
i realise this is a theme in my life. a motif, if you will, in the poem of my existance..

scrap it, god, think of a new theme. change the record..x

where to re-begin?

after consulting with my younger and infinitely wiser sister as to how and where i should re-begin my regular blogging, she has advised me to commence with talking about a certain song, by a certain band. i have been assured the name of this band is well known among many who would mock the ridiculousness of the church, mostly in america. they are in the slightly-comedy category of all crap music stores across the pond (oh? never used that phrase before..?!) they are definitely early-teen, try-hard ska-punk bacnd, but who i am reliably informed have always been so, even before the recent resurgence in said form of (usually) slightly ghastly music, which has historically drawn the line between me and mr furtado's commonality of taste.
ladies and gentlemen, the band are.....five iron frenzy.
the song (should you still be reading) is dandelions.
the song makes me happier than mr jones has ever managed to. it has toppled return of the space cowboy off its treasured and long-standing number-one spot in the song-that-makes-na-most-inexplicably-happy chart, and has indeed raised my expectations of american (particularly christian) songwriting beyond all possible recounting of votes.
ok, reasons why i like it so much are as follows...
1: it is a christian band, singing a song about love and grace and things like that, that does not attempt in ANY WAY to incorporate bible verses into the lyrics
2: it is punk(ish, esque..) christian music....the two concepts have never been thought of in the same sentence in the christian music industry of this country.
3: it is childish. its primarily about a kid who thinks dandelions are flowers, and brings them, running, to his mum for a present. the angst and philosophy of most music in my collection seems dank, turgid (hope you're reading this phil) and moribund in comparison. its innocent. isn't that what we all secretly want?
4 is has the line "lord search my heart. create in me something clean."
5: its about flowers.
6: its about choosing how to look at things. having grace as a filter on the back of your eyes.
7: its not too long
ok, scraping the barrel now.....
seriously though, whatever way you know how, get it.
over and out..piona, wubboo

una urgencia..

oh gracious..well, its been a while...not really in the mood for this right now, but i have a feeling in me which seems worthy of note. its an urge, i think. perhaps a feeling of being propelled, like things are speeding up.
what things, you may ask? well, healing, i think mainly. the time is coming, and has now come, to open myself to god, as the great lady has it "like a bowl, like a flower, like a wound". i'm pretty sure i haven't been hiding from him. but equally i can admit that i haven't been chasing him. truth is, i can't be arsed. or haven't been, anyway.
i know that i need words of truth. the profound, the searching questions, and the ambiguous notions of grace are no longer adequate. i have lived off these things for so long.
the times they are a-changing.
so,as much as the people i love and respect can give, in the true-word-dispensing category, i am now willing to ask for them, listen up, pay attention and duly act.
so bring it on, truth-speakers. and come on, truth-giver, now's your chance....i'm all ears

finally..

not sure how it has taken me so long to find this song, but these are the words i had feeding into my head on the bus on the way home today - on my favourite bus journey ever, travelled so many times, always after fun....
its creed....

You always reached out to me and
helped me believe
All those memories we share
I will cherish every one of them
The truth of it is there’s a right way to live
And you showed me
So now you live on in the words of a song
You’re a melody

You stand here with me now

Just when fear blinded me
you taught me to dream
I’ll give you everything I am
and still fall short of
What you’ve done for me
In this life that I live
I hope I can give love unselfishly
I’ve learned the world is bigger than me
You’re my daily dose of reality

You stand here with me now

On and on we sing
On and on we sing this song

‘Cause you stand here with me

so yeah..

i talked to one of my very best friends this evening. i told her about my week....and she asks me, only at the point when she's sure i'm thinking it myself anyway - "so where is your god now?"
ouch
see what's happened, now, jesus? see the fear and doubt creeping in? see the path that is now open wide, inviting these enemies in? see where your negligence has got you? or was it? was it your negligence, or your will? the catholics among my family (which is pretty much 85% of them), while shaken, are able to see nothing only your will at work. i, on the other hand know that other forces operate in the world besides you, with less benevolence and good ideas on their minds.......and yet, while they have power, surely, surely, you're meant to be greater.
this is the most honest i can be with you god, and it's taken me most of a bottle of chilean chardonnay and plenty cigarettes to get me to this point.......ok, so, listen up, cos here's the thing..
i do not understand you. i thought that in jesus you had made your good, perfect, kind and gracious will plainly known to all of us. don't get me wrong, i have no reservations about why you want martin o'brien there, with you, wherever the fuck you are. but seriously - now? really? couldn't you just have waited another little while? couldn't you just have stayed awake and kept watch over him?
so, here's the deal. i shall keep on believing that you exist. because the sky, and particularly its sunsets of late, has been too incredible for any cosmic explosion to accidentally design. and the kindness of people around us has been too deep and thoughtful to ever be the product of chemicals and hormones, too sincere to be acted out of duty, and too well-timed to be anything but heavenly-sent. see, its not that i fail to notice you where you are at work. not at all. its that i fail to see how you can jusitfy not working where you are most needed.
thing is i love you. i know i'm pretty much buggared without you. but i refuse to remain stuck to you for anything less than the deepest love - for without that we'd be left with mere religion, and i left that behind me long ago. so come, my lord, show me where you are, where you are working, where your love is awaiting us. show me your hands, you know, the ones that heal, the ones that tell us we are whole.

lately

i found a song about love
i guess its not the kind of jesus-lovin'-love we spend most of our time talking about. but its real. i know i haven't had it before. it entrigues me i think. makes me jealous. excited. scared.
makes me wonder what i'm doing rhe god stuff for. only momentarily. then i realise the guy in the song knows his faults and she knows her faults and they're pretty much relying on eachother to figure it all out. i think that's where i know i might be better off with the one i got.
in the momentary moment, i'm not even scared that i might have the god stuff wrong. or that it might all be a big fat lie. i think what gets to me is that it doesn't make me happy and scared and thrilled and nervous and giddy and needing like the guy in the song is while he's singing about the girl.
so is he missing something? he doesn't think so....
i think what i so often wonder, is, well..did i get a faulty version? of this spirit-filled-life..? the constancy is the missing component. is that a human fault? sin in me? because shit, i mean apparently god is unchanging. unwavering....no shadows of turning.......? ah-ha...!
thanks, brain, that was the one i was looking for..ok, i'm off....over and out....
ooh, here's the song...

Could you whisper in my ear
The things you want to feel
I'll give you anything
To feel it comin'
Do you wake up on your own
And wonder where you are
You live with all your faults

I wanna wake up where you are
I won't say anything at all
So why don't you slide
Yeah we're gonna let is slide

Don't you love the life you killed
The priest is on the phone
Your father hit the wall
Your ma disowned you
Don't suppose I'll ever know
What it means to be a man
Something I can't charge
I'll live around it

I wanna wake up where you are
I won't say anything at all
So why don't you slide
Mmmmm slide

And I'll do anything you ever
Dreamed to be complete
Little pieces of the nothing that, fall
May put your arms around me
What you feel is what you are
And what you are is beautiful
May do you manna get married
Or run away

And I'll do anything you ever
Dreamed to be complete
Little pieces of the nothing that, fall
May put your arms around me
What you feel is what you are
And what you are is beautiful
May do you wanna get married
Or run away

I wanna wake up where you are
I won't say anything at all
Yeah slide

And I'll do anything you ever
Dreamed to be complete
Little pieces of the nothing that, fall
And I'll do anything you ever
Dreamed to be complete
Little pieces of the nothing that, fall

Oh Oh Oh slide
(Just slide between the sheets of all the beds you never knew)
Yeah slide
Why don't you slide into my room
Just slide into my room
Oh, we'll run away, run away, run away

what a shocker..

so i had the shock of my life today...i'm walking out of the bookstore, and what do i see on the new titles rack....a new treat from mr d coupland.....was so unprepared i couild barely get the words out to the guy at the desk to ask when the paperback version would be out.......six months, says he....horrified, i was....so i bought the damn thing. they sucked me in, the bastards - i've never bought a hardback book in my life.....shocking.....

so anyways, i'm off to cornwall now for a few days - via rachel's house in bristol and via the pub with emily and simon and alistair...hurrah...

so yeah, the business is getting pretty exciting...so much to think about..bought a bunch of books today that will help whenever we have a question and can't get through on the phone to either of our dads!! hehehe

ffrw..

so, ok, lets back up to the weekend that just passed.....The last days before September and all its new-ness came. I had been waiting for god to really show me, beyond all reasoning and analysis that which I needed to be sure to leave behind me before the new day began.
On Saturday evening at the festival prayer tent, I had figured out, while watching the fireworks, that that would probably be the last time I smoked a cigarette while watching fireworks. Earlier I had come to understand that I had reached the end of the road that i had carved out for me and god – one problem here being the question of how to extend the road, and one being that I finally knew that I had myself made the road. That it was not formed from divine materials or planned and structured by a heavenly route map. I had pretty much just made it myself.
So, later on Saturday evening in the unplugged gaff at Heaton Park, I finally had the conversation with god that I’d been waiting for for three years. The one where I ask him if I have a particular, single evil spirit attached to me, or at work in my life- and he replies yes, yes you do. I’d pretty much known that for a really long time, but either never waited long enough for the answer, or was not ready to deal with the consequences. I talked briefly to hdc about it and while she was reluctant to talk about it there and then, and didn’t want me jumping to any conclusions based on what she said just then, but I kinda just knew. And she said its quite possible that god did wait, until I was ready to handle it, before he told me. Suddenly it all simply fell into place and in my spirit, going to bed soon after, and waking the next day, I felt no fear, only the anticipation of freedom. My waking on Sunday was a pretty sweet feeling, actually, like I truly knew the reality of having been granted a reprieve – one more day - to right the wrong, forget the past, hatch a dream and well, give up smoking. Sitting here right now, I cannot convey in words, only by telling you how close I am to tears, how much I want a cigarette. But we’re not about today yet.. wait…
So, Sunday, I pottered about, wondering whether or not to smoke….it wasn’t that hard a decision, if I’m honest. Bought some amber leaf - ouch, no cutters’ left in the shop for my last day!! – and went to west didders with Caleb. We sat and read our books – both very excited, and both finished them, satisfied, challenged, different……I look books…..
Oh, so, ok, this is what happened – wrote this part later on that day….
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book that I so needed to read…as Nouwen moves from talking about the prodigal son, ot the person of the elder son, and finally to talking about the father, I suddenly found myself wanting something that I’ve always wanted, but never known why or to what end and from what source the wanting came. I’m not really talking about some deep spiritual longing to be at home with the Father, but more the restlessness caused in me by the selfish nature of my love and life.
To say that I have become self-absorbed is beyond true and yet surprisingly un-cringe-worthy. Could it be that I don’t even care? Possibly. Could it be that I don’t think it’s my fault but more the fault of the devil and so therefore its not my responsibility to repent for it…? Probably.
“Isn’t there a subtle pressure in both the church and society to remain a dependant child? Hasn’t the church in the past stressed obedience in a fashion that made it hard to claim spiritual fatherhood, and hasn’t our consumer society encouraged us to indulge in childish self-gratification? Who has truly challenged us to liberate ourselves from immature dependencies and to accept the burden of responsible adults? ….. what I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or the elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father….Indeed, as son and heir I am to become successor. I am destined to step into my Father’s place and offer to others the same compassion he has offered me. The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the Father. Being back in the Father’s house requires that I make the Father’s life my own and become transformed in his image.”
So I approached the evening of the eve of September with this in mind. It was, is, the most far-reaching and yet deeply personal challenge I have ever been handed. I think I had come to realise that the fulfilment of this challenge is what awaits me on the next section of my road.
I went to pray with everyone at Millie’s house. For the first four hours it was nothing that I needed. I did not raise the subject of what I did need, either, just sat there idly waiting for someone to know.
Finally, I went out for a fag with oria (turned out with was going to be our last) and while we were outside we both allowed ourselves to really feel the urgency that had taken up residence in both our stomachs. We realised that the symptoms of our very different problems were surprisingly similar, so arm-n-arm we went in and told our best friends that we had nothing left. It was so much harder than I thought it would be. But that was nothing compared ti what followed….we lied on the floor, faces in the carpet, and pretty much just cried. I think I must have been a toddler the last time I wailed like that – particularly when Caleb shouted in my ear. I wanted to hit him. God kinda showed me that the sort of noise I’d just heard was not entirely dissimilar to the noise he hears from my heart – that I don’t know my heart is making, let alone know if it is heard. I felt tim rubing my back which reminded me throughout of the replete nature of grace – that something I had once thought would remain broken for good had indeed been remade. I needed it. my head was taken to some severe places with god. Tim prayed that me and Or would be able to walk like Gandalf, in the authority to refuse the enemy passage, to tell him to his face that he shall not pass, and to break up the path behind us in the hope of moving only ever forwards. That was pretty amazing since I’ve always wanted to walk leaving no trace, to know my past was where it belonged, and all that….
And then a while later I was talking to god about the whole inward-looking thing, the self-absorbed thing….well I kinda explained to him that the biggest reason why that’s happened is because he has thus fat given me no or very little direction, as in, I don’t know who I supposed to work with, spend my time with, show the same compassion to that I have been shown. And so he told me, quite plainly and simply, that I am not to wait any longer til I train ot be a counsellor, but I am to do it soon.
Hurrah
Oh the rest was long and tiring, involved a lot of being brave and crying, and allowing god to lead the way.
I awoke yesterday feeling like I should be drinking juices and being wheeled round ain a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses and a blanket over my knees. I felt like a post-operative invalid. And yet very very peaceful, and excited and free. But today still I am so physically tired - like i’m in rehab. I guess I am.

i dreamed of you last night
you had a different face - or maybe just a haircut
you were older, and wiser
yet more like a child
i was amazed to find you still there at the back of my mind
- beth orton

an bus eireann..

well these were thursday's offerings......
they may sound small, but they were pretty cool lessons to learn on a dublin - clonmel bus of a thursday afternoon.......i'm loving being here - having an amazing time - cate drago hdc, all y'all fanx for your messages.....keep praying please......cate - it would seem the whole book of james is my food.....fanx for that..love you x x x x x


When peacemakers plant seeds of peace, they will harvest justice (James 3:18)

When I seek peace, and I pursue it, why do i? most of the time I do not seek it in order that I may plant it elsewhere. I seek it for my own rest, my own contentment.
Jesus help me to want the peace you give me to be only a demonstration of your goodness and power – not something I keep to myself but something I pass onto others or to the land – for you to be seen as beautiful.


The prayer of an innocent person is powerful (James 5:16)

The more I think about it the more I think it not entirely impossible that god may group people together in the assurance that one kind of sin is particularly non-existent in each person – as in, one person who does not struggle with lust will be present in every group within the body – or someone who doesn’t get angry or overly proud…..would it be that god positions his people so that we each have access to one “innocent person” who can pray for us in the given power….was talking to matt about it a bit the other day, and now with this it makes good sense to me.
Jesus please put in me a hunger to always know how to pray – not just when but for who and about what….sounds simple but this would change everything for me and the people I know…..help my mind to start to understand and see the perfect ways in which you strategise and plan…we need to cover one another more in prayer – help us to see who is the absolute best person to pray for who…our prayers are random and kinda haphazard, compared to what I’m starting to think they could be…help us to be more purposeful in this more conscious of each other and yet not wanting to be the first to jump in a pray – but waiting for the person who will pray the prayer most effectively….crap its all very complex….

Man, just read my “utmost..” (still not sorry, resa!{love you})for the evening...he talks about our lack being what gets us to god – not our decisions or our goodness….he says that it is in our unconscious actions that we most influence others – because this is where it is Jesus at work for sure and not us…..he says “if we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of jesus”..
Shit are we in trouble….
I know that of late I have balked at the words of others when they tell tales of what they prayed well for someone, or the positive influence they were able to have over a person or in a situation….shit I so do not want to be the person that dos that anymore….god seriously, even for the most basic reason that the more we are so overjoyed at having prayed/prophesied the exact right thing over someone, the more it shows how extraordinary that is to us – this needs to be breath to us, man, the most normal occurrence of everyday life…knowing what god wants and praying or being it into action…..
It should not be something so unheard of that we can then distort it so that it goes down on our score sheet……..Jesus come on man, how low can we go…? Please help us know what to speak aloud for the encouragement of others, and what to store in our hearts like Mary – and what to not even recognize – I jus think mainly our minds need cleaning out , well, ok, let just say mine, cos shit, I’m not meant ot be preaching at anyone right now….this is for me, god, I don’t wanna throw whatever good you do in my life or through me back in your face by owning it and triumphing over it…….
fink that's about it for today...