fns..

so i forgot to tell you about last friday night..
me, cate and caleb found ourselves once more footloose and fancy free on a friday evening
deciding that a second attempt on the cloud bar was now several months overdue, we went back to our respective homes at about 9 and got ready to be allowed into the hilton.
and we did it! we went in and waited on the red carpet for the escalator, and there, 20 feet inside the building it had already become clear that we were going to have to explain to caleb the concept of nouveaux riche...the people that go there are just the kind of people that i, snobbishly, ungraciously or whatever, have been happy to be avoiding, on the whole, for the last approximately 10 years...it was very, very funny, realising again that these people really are real, that they go places to be seen, and to see who else is going..i kept wondering how many of the turned heads around the room were recognising caleb from the MEN a few days before..!
but the view...
it was so worth it all, for the view..all four sides of the 23rd floor...imagine, that's only half-way up the building! the view is awesome....
so we proceeded with our Friday Night Singles meeting, hot topics included anonymous valentines...what can they ever hope to achieve? and that kind of thing...
anyway, it was ace, we left there and went to somewhere where we felt much more at home, some smoky gross pub with pool and magners and that as lovely..in a different way!
anyway, i recommend the cloud bar, for the view, the strange seats and the fake-tan giro jet-set...
thanks guys it was a really fun evening...x

sunday, sunday..

i would like to personally thank everyone who has helped make this a lovely sunday for me..
all entirely unplanned and unexpected, none of it wildly adventurous or extraordinary, but the sunday blues sometimes come, and i wish for family and home....i know that today the blues had no place, i was at home and with family..

merci beaucoup, mes amis...

i love blogging at home...am at the balcony not the toilet though sal, sorry! you know as well as i do that that one will never happen!

so here's to another week...ius sure to be a good one..

peace to you, mes cheries...night...x

if its between me and larry,

i win.
right now, am even happier than larry.
am in my bed.
its sunday morning, so naturally the archer's omnibus is on.
i have a large cup of coffee (its my second)
what's so abnormally good about that? i hear you ask...
note: i'm in my bed.
this can only mean one thing.
i got internet..!
oh and not just any old internet, the kind when i will now be able to blog from all sorts of places in the building...the bath...the balcony, the stairwell, the kitchen table, the flat roof at the front, MY NEW SOFA.
i could go on..
yes, yesterday was a brilliant day. in one morning i received: a replacement sim card for my stolen phone, a usb wireless adaptor, and a sofa. i was later given a phone AND i shopped in asda for the kind of food quantity that means i pretty much now don't need to go anywhere for about a month..except maybe work...
am excited.
i plan to be a better blogger, a more regular emailer, a back-to-better-form reader of books, and am trying to figure out the mythical realms of ichat usage for windows, via aol login and any help in this area would be much appreciated.
i also made food last night which i'm sure only katie hall could have appreciated as much as it deserved, so thankfully it was her who rocked up at my door just as i was cutting up the salmon...i've been trying to think this last week (for some reason boycotting any kind of recipe aides..!) how to make food that would remind me of cataluña.
(disappears to find a nice example picture..)
(gives up, and kicks herself for still having five films undeveloped of the 40 days in bcn, including all the nice food at ra, which was her favourite place..)
and i did it..! salmon and tomatoey sauce, with loads of garlic and spice and then lots of different kinds of beans and yellow split peas and some lentils...ahhh it was so good..! and i was transported back for a minute or two..
and to think i used to hate cooking.

well dears, i'm afraid you can expect more of these mildly pointless posts now that i can blog whenever i jolly well like...!
i can only apologise now...and later, i'll probably be back later..

come and sit on my new sofa, its lovely...!

gggrrrrrrrrrrr

someone stole my phone.
am furious.
i have no phone so please don't spend your pennies texting me, or your worries thinking i don't love if i haven't replied to those you've already sent..
will let you know when i have a new one..x

more grace, less speed..

i suck at my job today.
i realise that sitting here spending all of four minutes doesn't improve that fact, but its true and i wanted to say it.
when people push me, like want more than we are usually prepared to offer in the line of furniture, clothes, food, whatever, the general wisdom is that there is no general wisdom, no rules, no regulations, you go with what that person needs and what their individually dire circumstances happen to be that day.
what i have realised today is that probably over the last three months or so, i have back-pedalled from that in my head, to thoughts of, no, you'll have what you're given, or things similarly awful.
i am horrified at myself for my reluctance to be nice.
i feel constantly that people are taking the piss out of us, out of me, and i hear myself saying no alot more than i hear anyone else saying it.
its probably a necessary stage in the learning how to deal with the poor crash course i stupidly signed myself up for by taking on this job, but i just wish for this afternoon that i could be nice again.

reverse phiosophy..

this post is most definitely in the "who knew" category.
(please see below)
since june 2005, when claire b (then h) and myself went to see stoney in cardiff (we were both living at our homes in the west country at the time, nothing so drastically committed as going all that way from manchester and london!). we saw them, they were ace, had a chat with jon after, and watched some random band who stoney were supporting, and then looked at eachother and agreed they were shit, so went home. about three months later that very same band were the firs ever to have an album do brilliantly because of downloads and word of mouth and generally avoiding the man.
since that welsh summer evening i have stood my ground with my original decision, and bar slight allowances for maybe one song, have declared them to be shit.
but today, having curiously decided to put the album onto my phone and dedicate my morning to journey about town to investigating it, i concluded that i need to confess my stupidity
the arctic monkeys are good...
they're really good...

so the other hundreds of things that i have used my perverse philosophy of "if that many people like it, it can't be good" on, include...
corrine bailey rae
24 (well and truly over it)
star wars
kaiser chiefs
kasabian
harry potter (thanks tim for getting me past that one early on!)
ray le montagne (over it..thanks drago..)
camera phones (what a knob!)
oasis (except b-sides, generally crap)
my space (still not over that one, although this facebook business is clearly of the same ilk..)
football (hoping not to get over that one..)
big brother (lynch me if i do)

i could go on...
so i am getting over being a snob about things, basically....it hurts!

nightcleaning..

is probably not quite so enjoyable as nightswimming, and yet i seem to have developed a certain love of it...
it involves doing not much for most of your evening. nothing, at all, preferably, just mooching, pottering or sitting.
and then finally, at around nine, half-nine, you find yourself putting some washing on...and cleaning up the kitchen after the chaos created by making dinner has sat there for a couple of hours..including about two-to-three rounds of washing-up, with necessary dryings-up in between...its all getting a bit out of hand at this point, as you find yourself enjoying it...john mayer is accompanying, and the occasional cigarette provides a welcome break..and then you might think about putting all your clean clothes away, sorting laundry, and maybe putting up a picture or two...and then it seems that the bin in the kitchen needs to be emptied..and no, it can't wait til tomorrow...you won't want to do it tomorrow, and you know that, deep down..so you do it now...its pushing half-ten at this stage, and you know there is a slight chance that bin-mongering at this hour may well either arouse the suspicion of your neighbours, or in the worst case scenario, wake them up...but you toddle off down all those stairs anyway, seizing that bin-emptying moment for all its worth..and then bath-cleaning, mirror-polishing, dressing-table-re-organising and cooker-top scrubbing are all still on offer....and hard to resist, when the hair is already tied back, the clothes already quite dishevelled, and the night yet young...
needless to say, i missed the book at bedtime, only getting to bed when today at westminster had already started - oops....
but my house is clean, really clean...
do come round..x

any answers...

a great woman once asked - what is it that makes community break down and fail individuals....?- and then invited discussion.

i found myself with a wry grin on my face..only of the slight variety, as i thought back over the years of church-as-family..the crying and the eating and the babysitting and the hilltops and the movie-watching and bible-reading and tea-making and going-out-dancing and the frankly just getting on with things

and i thought, i wouldn't change it for the world....sure, there's more - more sharing, more truth-telling, more babies on the way, more friends to be made and more lives to be lead....
but as the poem says, -even with all its sham and drudgery and broken dreams- community really is a wonderful thing, when your heart's in it.

and when it isn't? i hear you ponder, quietly...
well dears, when it (one's heart) isn't in it, it still must be somewhere...your heart isn't capable of being nowhere.....its the wellspring, and sometimes we redirect it, as per the free will clause, and after time, find that we've allowed it to spring up in the murky caves of isolation, or in the puddle-reflected brightlights of fast-moving careers, or in the seabed of the wrong person, or in an island we never expected to call home, or in a lakeside life that is, frankly, dull..... we get to choose. and sometimes we choose to unchoose what we've chosen, but one thing that i really think is this..
more often than not, we are the cause of our being failed by community. i have "been failed" by community at, and being honest here, only at, the times when i've let my own wellspring bubble up in the grey, motionless lake of self-pity. it goes like this..i feel no-one loves me - so i don't ask for love - so when its offered i'm out of the habit of accepting it - so i forget its even available - then i get to forgetting i want it - then i forget i physically can't get by without it - then around this point god usually steps up and drags the wellspring kicking and screaming back to its preferred home at the estuary of hope, where life is open, and can go in all directions, but at all times springs from a place that allows for possibility, for mistakes and upsets, for the -oooooh, interestings- of life....

this place, for me, is in community. i love the family that god has gifted me with here, and although i sometimes neglect or belittle or misrepresent it, when i'm not doing those things, i try to hold it like a fragile glass while still washing it up, or like a small bird that wants to fly but really needs a splint putting on its leg, or like poppy hughes who wants to stand up so badly that she forgot to hold on to the sofa....it really hurt....! sorry i wasn't quick enough pops...

in a way that for me is scarily reminiscent of the tie that binds me to jesus, the ties of community are built of beautifully fragile stuff...human love...and all its pulsing and frothing and dumbing down and boxing in and forgetfulness and time spent apart...

but the tie that binds me to jesus is not this. not for his part. for his part it is built of the finest web, oaklike roots and heaven's own cable-ties. he cannot let go of me, its not an option for him. when i re-route my own wellspring, (and yes i realise i'm lighting far too many metaphor fires here to possibly be able to keep them all going..!) it is not his fault. but sometimes i blame him. other times i re-route it, i blame people around me, but it is not their fault either. yet every time, because of the years passed and meals shared and truths-owned, they forgive me and take me back. and so does he. i now have a tear or two in my eye as i consider this life that he has created for me, and i cannot thank him enough. it amazes me that i can know charis and lucy, and becca, and matt and fran, and caleb and sal and joshua and oh my goodness.....how did i ever get to here....? its because people taught me about jesus in the spring and summer of 2000, and the winters of the four following years, and in the summer of 2006....months and seasons gone, choc-a-block with learning of jesus together, and persisting in love.

i need a cup of tea now...x

passtimes: an observation..

no-one has hobbies anymore
its true. if its not true, no-one calls them hobbies, so its still actually true...
people just do things, they just get on with them, and those things seem to be more incorporated into the rest of their lives than hobbies used to be.
its just an observation. i never promised it would be good!

anerchiadau chan gwrymiau

am in wales...!
the above is a welsh salutation, in a ..haha, i'm in wales..kind of way...
chez hugs, am content..with a coffee, the remains of a large glass of red wine, delicious dinner a short while ago, and sal, jon and ellie around, chatting away, talking wales, work, coffee, babies, cafés and relocating to the country...
a fine, fine way to spend a friday au fin du semaine...am ever so glad to be here.
with love, from windy wales, and all present...x

beggars belief

http://www.manchester.gov.uk/housing/research/chomerough.htm

and, to accompany that, one of the best things you could spend a day or two reading..

sunday kitchen..

is there a happier, more content man in the world than rolf harris?
seriously, i ask you....
on sunday, two wonderful things happened..
1) i made stew. i have never made stew before, i have never even bought the kind of beef that one buys in order to make stew before. but make stew i did, and may i say (i'm hoping sal will appear at some point to back me up...) it was the nicest food i have ever made. i shall be making more...
2) i watched, while the stew was doing that slow, sunday cooking thing and i was having a sly g+t, a programme that basically showed you why rolf harris is the happiest man in the world. i was amazed. the man has literally gone about creating this life for himself where he gets to do all the things he loves doing, and call it work. he has gone from music to art and animals and australia to england and back round them all again, being endlessly enthused and grin-inducingly animated. my dad is kind of like that, gets very enthused...he kind of looks like him too....maybe that's why i love the guy even though he's kind of wierd and a bit past it...! anyway rolf's cartoon club fascinated me as a child, seeing from ten lines on a bit of paper suddenly a giraffe or a cat or a zebra....what fun! kids tv is shit now, but that was pure and genius.
rolf, i salute thee, old man!
i had such a lovely manchester weekend..cate's on friday with pizza and wine....we are so classy....russell and dc and farewells to her for the next while as she's off to the man once more....and my new jason mraz cds finally came, all the way from amewica..! then le samedi i saw the gils for lunch and the wenhams for dinner, while ensconced in (gasp - not pw, surely!!) harry potter and the (still the best one..) prisoner of azkeban (sp?). a very enjoyable watch, although did anyone ever do more pre-empting and questioning and surmising during a film than those two...it was very fun....! the chicken a la grainy mustard was a right treat too,....colsossians with eggs and denno on dimanche au matin....generally a good week for food in my house....!hurrah!
i'm telling you, never was a weekend of non-events so quietly enjoyable..

genesis one..

i am so so enjoying bible study chez knox on a thursday night...
ray mears...no, the other one...is doing his bible lecture thing on the webbernet, and is a vastly intelligent and ever-so-english old man, who i think is hilarious....we listen to him ramble on and after 45 minutes say, "so, to genesis one..."
i haven't enjoyed sitting around to talk about the bible this much since the old soloman grundy mondays with gribbo, and it is large part due to the fact that we are learning to differ gracefully.....
a few years ago, it felt like we were all playing catch-up....got to keep up with the thinking on such-and-such...or, well, if they all think it....or got to concede that such a person will always know more about ---than me.......but now, i think we have been grown to be more gracious to eachother in the small but significant ways that we disagree about god...to the point where i think we are now much more willing to learn from eachother in humbleness than we are eager to be right, and publicly so...
i love my jesus family here, truly, and this for me is a thoroughly of-the-lord weekly family time together.....gracias a todo....!

Daily Meditation for January 5, 2007

The following was written by Henri Nouwen (the Morning Dose of Henri awaits many of us these days I'm sure, in our inboxes, grinning away at us, saying read, read...! and here's is today's offering..it deserved to be shared..)

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

Living the Moment to the Fullest

Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let's be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.

(get your own, here...)

mastermind...

jesus, i have no doubt, is the smartest man who ever lived. not because he invented things, although i'm sure he had a hand in creation somewhere....! but because he did the best thing for the kingdom at all times. and that means the best thing for all of us in the end. i should say that's the very definition of smart.
what i don't get is, how with so many christians living on the earth right now, each one with their own unique piece of the perspective puzzzle, that once fitted together would surely mean jesus could be seen and known.......even with all that.....and so much grace flying around....and such all-reaching methods of communicating news and ideas....and such access to the political arena.......and a holy spirit gagging to be let out into the world through our inconsistent kindness and broken bravery........even after all that has been afforded us in the here, now and present, this is still the state of things.......


CrisisWatch N°41
2 January 2007

Ten actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated in December 2006, according to the new issue of CrisisWatch,* released today.

In Somalia, full-scale war erupted between the Council of Somali Islamic Courts and the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government, with fighting estimated to have killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands. In Darfur, the humanitarian and security situation deteriorated while international negotiations continued over the deployment of a strengthened peacekeeping force.

The Occupied Territories saw their worst factional clashes in a decade as Fatah and Hamas battled over the formation of a unity government. Tensions over Iran's nuclear program rose after the UN Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions.

The sudden death of Turkmenistan's authoritarian leader, Saparmurat Niyazov, prompted fears of a destabilising struggle to fill the power vacuum left behind. In Fiji, the government of Laisenia Qarase was deposed by military commander Frank Bainimarama in a bloodless coup. The situation also deteriorated in the Basque Country, Bolivia, Egypt and Kyrgyzstan.

One situation showed improvement in December. In Guinea, supporters of President Conte and the opposition reached consensus on conditions for organising legislative elections in June 2007.

For January 2007, CrisisWatch identifies Lebanon as a Conflict Risk Alert, or situation at particular risk of new or significantly escalated conflict in the coming month. A Conflict Resolution Opportunity is identified for Uganda.

DECEMBER 2006 TRENDS

Deteriorated Situations
Basque Country (Spain), Bolivia, Egypt, Fiji, Iran, Israel/Occupied Territories, Kyrgyzstan, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan

Improved Situations
Guinea

Unchanged Situations
Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Chechnya (Russia), Colombia, Comoros Islands, Côte d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Georgia, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, India (non-Kashmir), Kashmir, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Moldova, Myanmar/Burma, Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan), Nepal, Nigeria, North Caucasus (non-Chechnya), North Korea, Northern Ireland (UK), Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somaliland (Somalia), Sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan Strait, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Western Sahara, Zimbabwe

JANUARY 2007 WATCHLIST

Conflict Resolution Opportunity
Uganda

Conflict Risk Alerts
Lebanon

lost properly...?

a new year's plea...
do anyone have, or have any clues as to the whereabouts of, my...

in books...
shadow of the wind by carlos ruis zafon
the end of poverty by jeffrey sachs
development as freedom by amartya sen
various harry potter books
various dr.angelou books
microserfs by the lovely doug

in music...
old low light by kathryn williams
in between dreams by jack johnson
double 100 hours cd of their two old ones revisited..
killers hot fuss

in dvd...
garden state
high fidelity
reality bites

and oui, oui, before the clamour begins, i am aware that i have....
lou's time-traveller's wife...
lou's bride stripped bare
knoxes' stronger than my heart
george's stuart
penny's iron..and ironing board...and multichef...!

ok, fine i can't remember any more, i'm sure the remainders will come hurtling in...! go easy....

year end..

is it just me or has this year been somewhat colourless...?
i'm not about to moan, but merely to remark that it has been personally rather uneventful and often hard or horrid for some people i know...
i have also laughed alot this year, i have made a new friend in the brilliant katie hall, i have been to lovely weddings and been at least 2nd drunkest at some drunken parties......i gave up smoking, for a long time.....then a slight hint of boy trauma and the filter-tip queen was back on the scene....
i think its basically been one of slight ups and slight downs....which i guess you could say isn't bad, exactly, but not terribly anything..........i have learnt an awful lot from being and remaining in this slightly bland state, however....mainly that god asks to be known and not felt. there is more of this one fact to learn, obviously....but its a start....
i have this year re-discovered the sheer comfty warmth of being entranced by a novel. those few days, or sometime hours, at times weeks, when the thick plot of a story, or the growing familiarity of its characters, or the delight in getting home to find no-one there, just an empty house and a kettle creating the perfect reading room. aaaah, the history of love. i cannot tell of the wonders of that book.
along with nicole krauss i am discovering the merits of the written work of our dear lord himself.....the bible is become a place where i am much more readily at home and enjoying myself. that wasn't at all true in the bad old days of 2005....!
i had one of the most surprising holidays of my life...the trip to belfast and moneymore and lough erne with drago claire and emma. never have three days been so fully streched out..and all for our comfort and joy - and the sun shone! ha sitting on a boat with death of a naturalist! ha!
i would not have dreamt, not seriously anyway, of living on my own in any time prior to now...but that this time last year the same was true of heald place....hey this time next year i could be living in london, that last bastion of places i swore i'd never live....!
i have not written as much as i would have liked this year, especially on here, and for that i am sorry.....
i have colour in my cheeks these days though....i have sidestepped the pastel path of 2006 and am now looking for garish clashes and bold flowers and daring stripes and more shades of green that even i had thought possible...
2007, i await you...colour me an interesting time of it...

holy shire..

its here...the long-awaited friday of homegoing is here....the last day of term, the last friday before christmas, the last waking up early in 2006....the first day of my holidays....!

and here, for your festive enjoyment, is a photo my mother sent me on her flash new phone of what awaits me there...!

evensong..

so last night i left work and had a lovely walk in the dry, nose-reddening cold to the cathedral. they have evensong there at 5, or 5.30 all weekdays....and i had never been before. there were more people in the choir than in the non-choir, and they all knew what to do and when to stand up and when to turn to face the cross and all that stuff. i knew nothing. i realised what a strange and wonderful thing church is when mid-rigmarole, how it makes no sense unless you know.....this, having been precisely why i left catholicism behind me, is why i can't ordinarily now squeeze myself into the routine of organised services...but you know, i think i must be maturing, because the bizzarity of the whole thing struck me as discipline, as order, as quite lifting...it felt like homage...and it was in the cavermous quiet of manchester cathedral, which is like a younger, warmer version of gloucester cathedral...that the half-dozen of us gathered yesterday evening, for the onyl time ever/ would never be in the same room together again, and never have evensong together again four nights before christmas in the year of our lord two thousand and six...
lovely...

fullheartedly..

i have that slightly tingly sensation today. the anticipation of going home, but not just any old going home, nay, going home for christmas....i was talking to someone last night about the love of the train ride home. i'm not actually getting the train this friday, but catching a lift with mark and chrissie....but the southward journey, seeing the stone of buldings become more normal to me, the lie of the land more pleasing to my eye, and names of places less peculiar, the hills and woods more familiar.
and this is where i make my confession....everytime i go home, but even more in the winterly anticipation of christmas....the lines from -anne of the island- come into my head quickly and clearly....it is my favourite one of the six books, as you may know, and still marks so much of the writing that has made me think -if only i could have written this...- but the truth that some of you may also already know, is that the book is emotionally so open that it is cliched to us now.....the lines are on this page...read them if you wish, and forgive me, if you can my hopeless melodrama...but i love her, and on this one, i trust her to say it better than me....

the winter wonderland..

ah, such wonder...
i had ever such a lovely time in wales this weekend!
to all present, i thank thee..to those who for a minute every now and again i wished were there, consider yourself missed....
the drive down, surprisingly, was probably my favourite time...and no wait, the drive back too..! me cate and hattie found ourselves the first to arrive and last to leave - therefore the homemakers and the clear-up committee...both of which were lovely in their own ways...
and i enjoyed very much the company of the wezzles family, seeing caleb so tired he could hardly move but then being so alive whenever we were praying, having mr vino in our collective midst and wondering how we got by without him all those years....seeing the hughes family, much missed round these parts...
i really felt this air of ease, like we really have made it out of the fearful, insecure time of who's better than who or who's doing better with god than who, and who's going to lead things and whatever....it felt very much like we really do just function together now.....not that we're anywhere near writing the book on it, but it really did seem like a family doing things together and everyone pitching in just when they and only they could do their part...
i loved it

joy cometh..

i should offer an apology here....
the last post was whiny and selfish. i was going to delete it, out of embarrassment, but i think it should serve more as a reminder to myself that whiners are wieners and to just remember the following, before writing any such post in the future...
the evening of monday carried on in much the same vein as the daytime...i felt anxious, sad, and mildly lost. i watched tv, pottered at home, and generally let myself feel quite miserable. i spent some time with ben which was nice and also watched the choir, which i have been enjoying very much. however i played evoision with god and put him off and put him off..
bedtime came and i felt as uneasy as i had all day, knowing too that i was now letting -it- whatever it was, really have a hold.
and then i read about 10 psalms, and prayed. i'm not even kidding when i say god entirely came through, showed me truth, offered me peace and i felt life in me again. it hadn't just been 24 hours, really, it had indeed been longer, possibly much longer.
i learned from scratch (again!) that god answers when i actually call. instead of me not calling and him not answering and me getting cross with him (!!!) when he's not at fault but is just waiting for me to say what i want, and to offer my trust just by asking.
quelle idioa, you might say, na....
good one...
thing is, i'm pretty sure this is how it goes..on and on, over and over....but i think i am starting to see that the quicker i react the quicker he responds to me, because fear and doubt don't have so long to creep in.
i'm quite, quite sure that this has all made alot more sense in my head than it has to you, dear reader, but just believe me that things are ok, and i really am sorry for the last post....love you

ill at ease....

sometimes i forget how good i can fake it...
the being ok, and sometimes when i really am not ok, the world around me is entirely convinced, sucked in......i feel ill at ease, quite often these days.......
i feel like even though i am posing no threat, spiritually, to anyone right now, the very fact that i work where i do pleases god and irks the other one, and here i am again with mental wranglings and old fears......
i think my vision of jesus hasn't grown for sometime. its been ages, in fact, since one of those faith-injecting moments with god, or one of those awe-inspiring glimpses of how its all working out because of him....or even just one of those fractions of a second, where you feel him, near and steady, true and undefeated.
i want him to show up in my life soon, again.....part of me thinks, na, you've seen so much, surely that's enough to live on...?! surely you've had more than most people ever think they're allowed to ask for in their whole long lives..!?
but me, i want more. i want to know him who refused to stay dead...the man who lived. to know that that same rope that pulled him out of being dead will also pull me out of where i feel i am.
i also want to know him in the unfeeling, unsensory way...in the solid, authorised version of himself. in the absolute, the irrefutable, the certainty of history, triumph and fact.
i fear i am reaching that point in life when faith should be simmering down, becoming either tidy and polite and organised (rotas for tea duty, kids' work and welcomes...) or non-existent; grown-out-of, or squeezed out by -reality-
i can't do my job with faith like that, and i can't rise above myself with faith like that either.
i sure can't please god with faith like that.
and the double whammy is i can't be happy or at peace either.
start me up god, and lead the way...

the stage is set...

i can now gladly announce that the first in our advent season of winterly film watching will commence this sunday evening at 7pm at my house.
pigface you said somethign about mulled wine...?!
i'll get the stollen and various other things, feel free to bring anything else you'd like, and cushions or blankets if you so wish, as seating is somewhat limited...!
wooooooooohhhhhhhhooooooowwww