currently feeling a little battered in my life choices at the moment - i.e. the whole not working in a "proper job" thing. It appears that the rest of the world thinks i am quite strange, which is fine, but I am realising the assistance of being around people who understand you. I am struggling to even work out why i am doing it at the mo, because it seems that i am quite scared even about the next month and all that it holds in store regarding travel, new people and places and money.

The first few of those list i normally love, but at the moment i am coming to loathe the restrictions, in my mind at least, even if nowhere else, that the latter, ££, force on me. So i think about going to new placces and am in fear because it is, in my head, just going to stress me out.
Now i realise, to all you lovely friends of Jesus out there, that I am being silly, and i should just go and have more faith......
But i am just writting it as it is - i do have faith. But currently it is just dwarfed by fear. boo. I hate it!!!

One inspiration I have found is a great book, which i mentioned before, culture jam. It just reminded me that i am not the only person (all those in manchester aside) not wanting to sit in an office and join the rat race.

I know that it will no doubt turn out fine, and in two weeks i will be in the tropical sun with some beautiful friends.... but right now i am just a bit scared.

thats ok though.

"it's all just part of the journey" (the very learn'ed HDC) haha

well.. it has been a little while, so have quite a bit to ramble about. but so i shall.....

I have finally moved house ( many of you will be happy to hear), on the week when 2 suspected terrorists were arrested on my street and a small riot ensued, rusholme is not what it used to be!!!!! But my new house, and new housemates are much fun indeed and i have already enjoyed an all day breakfast, for the whole day, and lord of the rings fest!!! fab!! but I did not even manage to spend much time there before i came down south to dorset for some fresh air, wellies and good food. The family is home for christmas, and we got a little snow (on the south coast!!) and a log fire - so i am quite content.

I am really enjoying reading the newspapaer a lot, along with "Culture Jam" by the adbusters posse in Vancover (big up ozza). A good mix me thinks. I am enjoying Culture jam, and the idea and the pure injustice of so much of what we count as society at the moment. But for some reason, and this is the bit that scares me more i think, I just don't feel inspired or empowered to do anything about it. When I hang out with various campaigning friends i feel i can find the vision to do something, but alone i feel the curse of this generation, apathy, hit me like i brick wall, and part of me just turns over and turns off. I know that this is one thing I just really need to shake myself out of, probably on a daily basis..... i guess i am just not sure where to focus my energies at the moment.

On a different note however, I would like to wish all my friends and readers a 'merry mass'. It seems, from my reading of the current papers today, that Christ has truely been taken out of our festive season. Carol concerts are being banned, nativity plays restricted, or worse, perverted to show the true Gods of this age (aka posh and becks and co).

There was an interesting article in the Times today, written by an aethesist, who was basically asking what the Christians where doing to protect their religous festival and british culture from those trying to shut them up?? He gave the example of Shieks (sp??) and Musilims doing everything they can to protect the sanctity of their religions, but proposed that the Christians in England were bowing to political correctedness and being silent. Why are we so scared and not walking as the 'children of another dimension', and putting Christ back at the centre, not just of these festivities but of our culture again?

Rant over, feeling i have just totally kicked myself up the bum (a good thing), told myself how to focus my energies (likewise), and then taken a huge sigh.... not really knowing where to go from here.

Computer time is now over however, so will continue this train of thought later.....

Happy days indeed

I am now a little older than i was before - but am finding that i am still younger than most people I know!! Whopeee! And not a grey hair in sight! (R and O!!).
My birthday was fab with breakfast at trof, happy indeed!, followed by supper at solomon grundies (thanks to tony for that!). However somehow i managed to make it last a little longer by organising a bit of a bash with beth at trof on saturday night. That was much fun and I loved sitting in a favorite place with some of my favorite people. The suddenly hattie, a v good friend and fellow crazy person, appeared at the top of the stairs - everyone else new she was on her way except me!!! Very Happy days!!

After being sqeezed out of trof (its a little too cool at night now, and so a bit too busy) we went home for a cup of tea and a natter. Much laughter and a few 'oh i miss you guys' tears later, we had a broken bed and sore stomachs.... it seems that my somewhat creaky bed could not handle 3 little bottoms on it for so long, and so gave up trying!!

All in all i very much enjoyed celebrating my birthday, and watching as £££ miracles unfolded before my eyes. He really is the Provider (even of nice new boots and a skirt to match!). So having now worn said skirt and boots, and felt rather girly, my eyes are looking to Christmas and much family fun on the south coast.

However I am realising that a month is a long time and there are many things I could do between now and then. So the first surprise up God's sleeve is a prayer conference thing, where basically i get to hang out with Him and lots of friends for 2 days!! Not in Manchester!! (I love it but just need to get out!!). I don't even have to worry about paying for it, cause He had that covered too..... oh the fun ahead. I can feel it in my bones!!!

Still I have boring things to do like pay libary fines, so will sign off. Much love to those beautiful people who are just a little too far away to hug. boo. I love you and thanks much for the b'day love!!

under pressure

from various comments to blog..... and so i shall.

two sweet hours of uniterupted computer time, and an inbox full of emails that are too old to be interesting. boo. so blogging it is!!

Am moving house!!! Whopeee!! The beautiful Laura and i are off to the dizzy heights of Whalley Range (still manchester for those outside this bubble), to live on blair road in a lush house with ben and hannah. I am really looking forward to it as my current housing situation is ok, but am realising that sometimes God just wants to give us the best, just cause he can.

I am learning a lot about how God sees me at the moment. Previously i had in my head that he only changes/ adds things in us to prepare us for something in the future. a new job, being a wife etc. When actually He showed me that He is the ultmiate geek... He gets this old style computer, strips off the naff stuff, adds in the essentials but then decides to put all this other stuff on the computer just cause its quite cool and its fun.... how cool is that.

So I am now very much enjoying finding out what fun stuff I am to do.... like dropping the current clothes style (mainly involves hiding) and celebrating instead!! Also crazy adventures, possibly the next to be in uganda. Possible modes of transport which have been suggested include
1) the private jet (hdc airlines)
2) the camel (from Egypt with love from parents)
3) just appearing there (possibly via a toilet cubicle in terminal 4 of Heathrow!!)

I am excited about the future, even though it is fuzzy/blank at the moment. But i am also really loving the Manchester posse right now (although i do always obviously), but after what seems like a bit of a 'mourning time' or something after the departure of many fine friends, the guys here are family to me now, and i am really loving it!

Other exciting news... the german market, and therefore bratwurst, gulhwein and mince pies, has landed in manchester... oh i love it!!! However i am resisting joining the shopping throng already; one, because i have no money, but two, because it seems silly to spend more than a month on it. That wont stop me from enjoying the odd bratworst though!!

I've just got back from fun and frolicks in Greece where a good frined got married in one of the worlds best spots, on the side of a volcano crater!! ( and all the geologists go oooooh!). It was really fun to get out of manchester, to chill out and do verylittle, but in a different place, with different people.
Especially loved laughing lots more, esp with HDC.... sore tummies and all!! Met lots of sweedish people who were v funny. Made me feel very english and realise that i do enjoy a good cup of tea with cake (who wouldn't???). They have this great saying in sweeden that if a drink is really amazing that it is like "angels pissing on your tongue"... nice!!
Anyway, crashing on..... very much enjoyed the advenutre of it all, the getting lost on the wrong side of the road, finding the nunnery and the french astro-physicist, all topped off by a beautiful sunset wedding with lots of new friends and good food. yum.

SO I am now back in manchester without a job, but definately knowing that i am not doing nothing. Friends have corrected my 'oh, im not doing anything' enough to make me realise that the life i am trying to eeck out here is in fact something. The next couple of months will hopefully be ones of travel through Britain, a pilgramage, some might say.... crazy prayer adventures me thinks!!
But having been surrounded by people who think the english/british are very funny and a little odd (although the exapmles they met were not typical me thinks), I would quite like to find out what makes the british who we are... other than Heinz tomato sauce, terry wogan and the bbc...

I am also quite giddy about discovering my girlie nature, which i am realising, thankfully, doesn't have to include either ribbons or small flwoer print dresses.... urgh! Even went so far as to do my nails yesterday... well as far as buffing anyway. quite enjoying their new look...... simple things!!

Enjoying Autunm colours in the trees/ parks/ pavement depending where the leaves are, oh and my mum's bonfire toffee
Not enjoying the Christmas adverts, its not even halfway through November!!! But somehow i still fancy a mince pie.... (sick and wrong this early on surely!)

Have finally had some web time and just done a grand tour of my friends blogspots...... I know some truely fab and exciting people!! Top marks goes to sprog blog - the cutest photies in the world!

hen nights and holidays....

started with one and got the other.....

Big up to clare for hosting a beautiful and relaxing weekend, congrats to resa... 12days to go!! Also big up to hatts who did a foot thing, and also gave me new socks... so my feet are in heaven!!

I love my girls, they pick me up and dust me off, and then tell me to go on holiday when I am at my most tired and stressed for ages!! So in a week I will be off on travels again, off to greece for the afore mentioned wedding, some sun, sea and adventure. Maybe even a bit of head space!! but lots of my favorite people will be there, and i won't be stressing about anything... whopee!!

But for the next week its sarnies and rain as usual..... oh hum.

Also, for the joy of any regular readers, I now have comments, big up to George for that one!! (resa ta for the pestering... )

Current Activities include

making sandwiches for business people in a posh part of town
reading many books at once
swishing through the leaves and getting very soggy feet.

A great quote i loved from a book i finished a week ago (first one in a while)

" We may be badly made, but we're not finished, and its the adventure of changing reality and changing ourselves that makes our blip in the history of the universe worthwhile, this fleeting warmth between two glaciers that is us." Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down.

Don't agree with the whole thing, but very much the idea behind it....

what do you do when you have a map, but the scale and street layout get changed without anyone asking you.....
I think that is how i feel at the moment. I am now walking blind with my old contexts being made redundant, while old ideas float about waiting to be pinned to something more concrete. But unexpected doors are opneing everywhere... so i guess i just need to put one foot infront of the other and look out for walls and the odd lamp-posts. Walking into them would hurt, and i would look a little silly....

Scary to think that 2004 is soon to be over.

why do so many of my blogs talk about just walking forward into life... i need to get a new train of thought or something.

Looking back

I think my last rant was me wanting to change pace and get into things, life, something more than was. And now I am very definately at that cross over, and looking back.

I am enjoying this new pace of life, but as i think over the last 6 months of .... well whatever it might be called, i realise how much has changed in me and how important it has been. I find myself with a new level of peace and assurance about me - and who i am. but also about just doing what i am meant to be doing, and not worrying about what i am not....
Some things don't even need to be 'done' but rather just happen. Even if that means i can't do them, or control them - and i like that. I find myself in a culture where people assume that for things to happen something needs to be done - when actaully it can be more simple than that, and more hidden than that.

So I am enjoying the hidden things of life, the tiny things that only I see with God. The times with friends that are not so impressive, but beautifully simple all the same, which make relationships what they are. But i am also realsing the power of that hidden-ness and anonimity, when your motive is nothing except to be before God in that place; rather than be before men.

One thing i love about this blog - i start with nothing really to say, but realising that i maybe i could put fingers to keys, and then it just rolls. it may not make sense to anyone - but as a place to process goes - it works for me!!!!

I can firmly say that, having been told to throw out ideas about what I think might be coming up next, i have a blank page before me. But i know that it is going to involve a change in pace, a change in scenery and level of relationship, with God and friends. But I am so grateful for this time, when so few people get the chance just to chill out and seek god for such a time, i recognise that although i don't know the full impact yet (if ever) that it has been important for this traveller. I hope to instill in my life a rhythm of rest, prayer etc - just like the monks i have thought so much about these last few months, in order that in the business of this life, that the source of it is not abandoned or neglected, and i end up weary and lost....

But in fact - i think it is more than that - its more than just coming to a well for a top up. But there is something new in my relationship with God that is, yes peaceful to a new level, but also so much more beautiful. I can't put my finger on it - but am really beginning to know something more of His beauty, which He is letting me find somewhere a little deeper than my gut. I am quite excited about that - it feels like i have been given permission to walk into a room he hasn't shown me before, one that you come into with a bit of awe and childish wonder.

But currently I am only at the door - so i'm off to find out what is behind it

rainy days

in september..... and so the students returned. Suddenly there are lots more people, and much more music and paper on the pavement. But it is part of the life of manchester, so let it roll!! Just lets make sure us oldies roll with it!!

Feel really pulled and streached in my thoughts at the mo, in tension between so many different poles. A tricky but fresh place to be, if not a little frustrating at times. Suddenly can't quite words to it, so will wait on that for a little while.

One question I have been wrestling with, is about being in the real world, not just a little bubble, but actually engaging with this city. But where and how. What is reality?? Do i go and work with the homeless, because that is a part of this place, or do i go and serve latte's to the coffee culture, another bubble in itself.

Perhaps the world is just full of bubbles??

But where am i am meant to be in this, what bubble should i be going to, learning from and hopefully impacting.
This little bubble, is comfy, but a tad too small. I have cramp. Life, me thinks, is also meant to be a tad fuller than what it is at the moment.

Why, so often, do I feel like i should be wearing tweed (its the season darling), and having my 35th birthday.
where has all the fun gone - and i'm only 21!!

Right, rant over - am off to find this thing called life, in its fullest!

busy busy

It appears that after 5 and a half months of not being busy that it may well continue. Not that I am going to be jobless, but rather the jobs are not going to be as i had hoped - keeping me busy!

They are instead going to be, well I am not quite sure, but what I have gleaned is that they are not going to keep me rushing about for 5 days a week. This is good, because it means i will continue to find out that my worth is not in the job or the paycheck. But it does come as a surprise, to someone who has found being still for this time so far, a bit of a struggle. But also, causes me to think a bit about the cost. Someone who i love once said that no-one starts something without first calculating the cost of the endevour. Its the same here - am i willing to be still, and let other people question it when it goes so strongly against our western busy busy mindset.....

Perhaps I should ask for an african holiday, as part of work experiance, in order to encourage me to not consider time, and work as what makes me a 'useful person'.

hello world

well... september is finally here!! I don't know a more eagerly anticiapted month in my whole life, new 'season', new times and hopefully a new direction on this path.

For the last few months I have been chilling and hanging out with the big man, while looking, in part, for a job. I said to a friend two weeks ago, that i felt i was just adrift and floating around. He replied, 'Anna, I think you are being moved with purpose and destiny into a new current of life..'!!!

And i think i may soon be reaching that point. horay!

The last few weeks have been a bit emotional, to say the least, but finished with a week camping with some of my favorite people in the world. Devon didn't know what hit it, quickly followed by a more gentle attack on the gower in Wales...
It was fun just to hang out with people, chat, catch up and make new friends. It was also good to be released just to be real with people when i was feeling pooey and in need of a good cry. Which, to be honest, has been quite a bit recently!

But now i am back, sleeping in a room which is bigger than me (short tents are not good), with two new house mates and a whole heap of hope for the future. I am not sure what it entails, and am beginning to think that any ideas i do have are so well of the mark that they are comical!

However, although by normal terms things seem a bit shot ( no job, little money, lots of debt, no career plan and a broken relationship)... I am feeling rather joyful and very hopeful. That, me thinks, is the paradox of faith.... (hoping in what we cannot see....)
but also the knowledge that the things of the world, in comparison to the things i treasure most (friends, love, intamacy and increasing depth with God) are really transitory. So I guess i am finding out how to be content in all (worldly) circumstances knowing that somethings can never be taken away!!!

I can't quite decide which is worse.....

being disapointed, or no longer being surprised when it happens.

on that note...

I saw the first line in a newspaper...
a little rough around the edges, but hey, for now it flowed, that's what matters...

Love has defeated me.

I wait, broken,
For it to conquer

I stand, rejected,
Despised yet hopeful
Many have walked here
Yet none stand
And so I wait

I have been undone
Crumpled and dug out
But unlocked and restored
I stand in darkness
And in faith

Love has crushed me
Melted me
Forced me to stand
To shake off the dust
Of lies,
The dust of others

Love has defeated me
And my hiding
It has stripped me
Bare and torn apart
With pain no longer
Hiding
There is no fear

And so I stand
I wait
Rejected or accepted
In love
It defeated me
It created and
It restores me.

Hello Me

Just come back from nearly a week in Dorset, doing very little. Some sun, some rain, but mainly just chilling with Hattie, one of the best.

After doing nothing for 4 months I realise I am only just learning what it means to rest. Rest is not the absence of work, but, for me, the absence of needing to do something, anything. To find myself useless, completely jobless and redundant was quite hard, as I feel loved when I feel useful. But when the God who made everyting, including me, tells me he doesn't need me to do anything for him ('cause he can do it all himself anyway...) it takes me a little while to be quiet, stop having a strop, and begin to realise a bit of that unconditional love He wants me to have, but I am normally too busy to recieve.

So in that place of stillness and, to be honest, brokenness, something begins to flow which has not done for years. The other bit of me which has been shut up and boxed away by self condemnation and intimidation. I can't quite put words to it - but i love it and am going to enjoy discovering how to express it - this being one of those places.

I was really challenged this morning to put some of the words I scribbled down yesterday onto this blog. I dont even know who reads it, but I was challenged to let other people read it, think over it - and dare I say it, even form some sort of conclusion from/on it. But not to be scared of that, or let it hold me back - there are worse things to fear. If this is a journey of discovery, then the bits in-between are going to be messy and probably quite naff - but to fold to fear would be boxing it all up again. I think this is one box I am outgrowing quite quickly...

I am enjoying finding Anna too much....

Thoughts in my head...

I should have been a plumber. The one coming to install our new gas oven (whopeee) is charging a sweet (for him) 45 english pounds, not including VAT!! Ohh i can see the student debt disapearing in front of me...

We are all GEEKS! I have been discovering recently that many of my previously quite cool friends, are secretly geeks! (note to reader - a geek is above a dork and a nerd, both of which are not to be sought after - or so i am told??).
I am a geek for (on a good day) geology but always quantum physics... all those quarks!
TD loves her maps and Salford
AKH her stationary, punctuation and more besides..
HMC loves thermo-haline circulation
HDC loves words (one each day), Mr bean mugs and being on TV

.... have you found your inner-geek!

Other than that, August continues in the rain.
I am learning about reading and thinking, about love and sacrifice, and about anger and truth.


But more on them later - I'm going outside to enjoy the rain!

and then there was 10....

And the downsizing continues.
Today another good friend leaves manchester for new spanish horizons, the fourth of an increasing number of people who I have met and journeyed with these last 10 months, who are departing this fair city. My hot holiday destination list is growing all the time!!

But it is a challenge to me, to continue to be the friend to these guys that i have been, but when i am not just around the corner. Anyone from any previous walks of my life will know i am terrible at keeping in contact, supporting people and sharing my life with those who are not directly in my line of sight. But I am being challenged to change this (hence the increased blog time) because these people are still important to me, and our friendships, although great fun, have consequences beyond ourselves. The way that we live and think and breathe is different, and so walking it alone would be hard.... and so calls for community, the global village, (a phrase i used to hate, but as my family from manchester are walking into it, i am realising it cant by-passed but embraced).

How much would i love all these amazing people to stay in manchester - a whole lot! But then again, as i said before, what we have learnt even just since i have been here (and for others the whole 7 years before), was not just for us, was not just for this little pocket of downtrodden earth - but something living, breathing, evolving and moving... so to hem it in and keep it in a box would be 1) a crime and 2) the very thing we were trying to break free from in the first place! To think we should keep it quietly to ourselves means not allowing others to challenge us, and prevents us from loving people in a way which releases them to be the best they can be

So to those gone and going, let the journey and the adventure continue, not alone or apart but just in a bigger place.....

been a while

.... so long in fact that blogger setup has changed and become easier for us less techno enclined people. nice!!
 
So, since i last wrote, i ran off the cliff a bit scared but enjoying the freedom. Currently I am still in free fall, the fall being much longer than expected. So it has been a case of waiting......
 
But someone once said ' if you can learn to wait you have learnt everything'. I still don't fully get that one, but certainly there is an art which i have yet to master, of just sitting and just resting in that place. Rather than always looking for the answer or the end point.
 
The lesson for the free fall has been - it's about the journey that you travel, and what you learn in the process of traveling somewhere, rather than the place itself.
In my scientific head that made very little sense because it is the result that you measure things on, that can be compared to other results and so marked or graded or something....
But actually it is more about the people that we become, that we meet and the One we discover that makes it worthwhile.
 
So if you ever stop moving, you know your in trouble. Because when you stop you think you have found it, when actually 'it' is way bigger than that.
 
So it's the balance between resting, waiting and enjoying the journey.
Tricky, but fun....

Its All Good

Today, in the midst of a few crazy "life choices" a friend turns to me and says - 'its all good'. Even though I am horribly uncomfortable right now, a bit angry and not entirely sure where I am going, I know that it is where I am meant to be right now, that it is not a bad place to be.... it's just a little spiky.

And i guess it is times like this that allow me to settle into the old pattern, the usual bit of God that I know. Or I can push further and discover how much He wants to carry, and how much I am willing to let go. Having almost reached the cliff edge, there is no holding back now.... I may aswell see how fast I can run and how far I can jump.

The question is - where do I land, and what do I do when I get there?

Wrestling with God....

one of the best books I am reading at the moment. Almost like it is written for me, right now. But well written because it talks about God, outside of religion, outside of the boxes where we think He can be controlled. Outside of all our expectations.

I guess that is why I am chasing Him, why I am willing to let go of some things, and dig into others. I am at that point where crazy things are being asked of me, and yet when it comes to the crunch I am happy to give up what I think is good, in order that He can give me the best. So when your running, you can either skid to a stop, or just keep on going, breathless and tired, straight over the edge... and see what He's got for you.

It's bound to be unexpected, unbelievable and yet what you have been asking for in the first place. Just somewhere deeper, unknown.

and so it continues

So.... this blog idea has been in my head a while, but only now do I have ideas to put on it. It seems the time has come for the thinker in me to appear, and hence this space to air some of the thoughts, and process some of the adventure which I am currently walking.

I am no computer geek ( a few levels above a dork, so I am told) so this blog will be simple in the extreme. But why complicate things.... life is trying hard enough without giving it any help.