Note to self

coming out of the cold induced fuzz that was my brain i discover some things...

firstly; my room is a total mess. A week of living in PJ's has not been good for the laundry and tidying prospects. never mind. life is bigger.

secondly; when did i last feel alive. what last moved me?? when did i last need to sing my heart out in order to express something of what was going on inside. when did i last have a conversation that had me thinking for days after. when did i really really laugh. when did i really cry. when did i pray beyond words. when did i view god afresh and it take my breathe away. when was i last really grateful to be alive and thankful for this life i lead?

or have i just been moaning. have i just been dashing through, one pay check to the next. have i been silencing thoughts in order to have space to eat and sleep and work. have i been surrounded by crowds, noise, i-pod drone, tv static, soul static, traffic jams and washing machines, deadlines, obligations, life draining compulsions, fast food friendships and coffee froth faith.

when did i last dream and see it as a possibility rather than an escape from reality. When did i last see mighty walls of injustice and shout them down. When did i last see the walls?
When did i last do an random act of kindness. when did i last pray for someone and mean it more for them than for me. When did i last smile at a stranger, or go out of my way to help someone without that begrudging, this is such a nuisance vibe, coming out of my every pore. When did i last sit on a park bench without looking at my watch. when did i sit in a coffee shop and waste a few hours in books, in conversation, in being.

when did i last notice i was breathing?

Only now I notice I haven't been fully alive.

that same old theme

can you believe I am still trying to learn this lesson...... its not about what I do!

been really wrestling with my job recently (until I have 2 days of filing and I realise kids screaming in your face is better by far haha!!)

anyway...... its slowly dawning on me that as ever it is not about what I do, but rather continuing to discover who I am. I first thought this was horribly selfish, but I realise that in London its quite a shocker.

I don't work to earn lots of money or to climb that far off ladder to some unknown destination. But instead, this job gives me a chance to read lots of books, find out what I think of things, learn what I enjoy, dream and love people around me with a bit more energy than I might otherwise have.

I am released from that pressure to perform, to win, to get the next biggest, best whatever. Not to say that I don't do my job well, or look to learn and improve, or that seeking those things are bad in themselves.......


So many people spend years dashing about earning lots of dosh but never quite having the time to enjoy it or enjoy life. I am not saying life should be one big knees up. Not at all. But as Howies say..... there are only 5 people in your life you get to know really well. Shouldn't one of them be you??

I always thought I should know myself by now - but clearly the learning has only just begun.
But I don't think its cool to be self indulgent or selfish - however what if by knowing yourself and walking in the freedom from pressure that that brings, you free others. What if by loving life and walking with light steps you help people realise there are other ways to walk instead of dashing, or plodding with ever increasing heaviness.

I don't want to become a late 20 something who is cynical and narked that life is not full of the promise that I saw ten years before.

But amongst all the rushing and worry I feel around this town, I want to walk with eyes seeing even more promise and adventure ahead of me, not less. Not just work, mortgage payments and a pension......these are all good but not it. Not life, not me.

Finally I see He is letting me be me, but I had not heard him for all the other voices. But now what I hear most clearly amongst the rabble is "further up and further in".

maybe the adventure has only just begun.......

Life seems really full of lots of different things right now - it seems hard to know where to start. the art course continues to be a real release and an eye opener. It seems that my problem is not ideas so much as the application of said ideas onto paper. But that is just skill and I guess will come with time.

Am reading and thinking a lot about fundamentalism, in all its forms at the mo, and what I would do if i was faced with it. A challenge to love and radical peacemaking...... but am I that chilled out in the heat of the moment? A stressful day at school shows me up as not being there yet, when I would rather shout at a girl for what she is doing, than deal with it 'kingdom style'.

On a different note however I am journeying with some of the CG guys here, through the beatitudes and that whole chunk of Matthew. Its amazing what God is doing in all of us as we take ourselves back to the root of this gospel and look at its building blocks. I find myself looking at the bible differently, at God with new eyes and seeing the goggles I put on. Its refreshing and painfully challenging. But I am relishing moving forward with a random bunch of people on a common path.

In all of this though I find London has been forcing me to rush through life and book my diary two weeks ahead. That is not who I want to be, and an exhausting week shows me why. So the plan for November is to get back to basics, back to what this blog is all about - simplicity.

In Life, in God and in Love.

happy half term!!!! hurrah!!!

Some people might say that the teaching establishment is plain old lazy for having so much holiday. A few years ago I might have even agreed with them. But then I entered it, had a term of work and slept for 3 days!!! So to those of you questioning our holidays..... its blooming exhausting!

Ok preach over. Yes I am enjoying my holiday thanks.

But i figure I should catch up with my life.....

Loving school, but teaching jobs remain elusive, so i am going to focus on working with physically disadvantged kids instead...... it is super rewarding anyway. so no worries there.

Loving my new house and the community of city gates..... lots of thinking and talking and doing re community and all that. Learning so much from these guys and how they work and love and live.... its a great challenge. But i love it.

Going to Art classes.... creative painting for beginners. Loving it. The first time I went I felt so totally free and weirdly courageous. loved being able to experiment and try new things and colours etc. Last week though was more of a challenge. I feel like I paint like I am in primary school. Its not at all representing what I feel. Also we are painting lots of still life etc - think I am more abstract than that - still it is good to learn the techniques etc. who knows where it might lead me!!!

Having read a book and an article sent to me (thanks) re women in the middle east who are risking life and limb to stand up for the rights of women in Afganistan and Iran, I have been really challenged and inspired. The life of Nobel peace prize winner Shrin Ebadi (her book is Iran Awakening) is amazing...... but what struck me most was not the cases she took to court, the people she represents or the injustice she brings to light (although all these are in themselves amazing), it is the tiny choices she makes every day to stand in integrity to what she believes. She is civil, holy and compassionate, even when dealing with the most monstrous of evils. She has failed and sees change at only snail pace. But through her life and those she represents she has sown seeds of the idea of rights and justice into the people of her country, which will no doubt reap a crop long after she has left us.

Both her and a woman MP from Afganistan realise that their life is as nothing in comparison to what they are fighting for. It has become and is bigger than themselves, but is impacted so strongly by how they live, the choices they make, the words they speak and the actions they live out.

My question - am I willing to do the same??

community is yet again challenging and humbling me. I really love it, however scary it might feel.

The guys here are great, for so many different reasons. But the main being they just love.

I turn up here and they just open their arms and love me.
But what strikes me is that it is not hinged on approval. I think I have been looking for approval in some shape, way or form. So i get here and get scared because they don't need to approve me to love me. they just do. and freely.

its almost shocking.

well for me anyway.

Cause i realise that this is how God loves. With no check list, no conditions, no certificate or anything...... he just does.
Its not like applying for a bank loan..."excuse me Lord, I would quite like you to pay off my debts please". At which point he checks your previous behavior and likely ability to reoffend. Oh sorry, it looks like you screwed up too much in the past and your current career is not suitable for the life of a Holy Joe. Approval denied.

Nope. Not him......

huh.

other than that life is quite good. bed is big and muscles are aching from first round of basketball in years....

apologies for my last blog...... don't get me wrong. I am excited about my new room, it is a real gift and i know it.

but i am fairly sure i was not created to get excited about a new bedroom! I, we, all of us, were made for more important things.... it is frustrating that life in london forces you to down size in so many ways.

Today in a training day at school I was struck by the futility of it all.... my whole dept was sat round the table trying to work out how to help the life of this one young girl..... to put things in perspective..... over half my school is poor enough to be able to receive free lunches (and even breakfasts) and most of that half live in the worst 30% of housing in Britain. So life is not great for them even before they reach the school gates.

I don't want to bring a wrong comparison or belittle the poverty of those I am about to mention, but merely to say that hearing about some of the situations today reminded me a bit of the IDP camps in northern uganda. Now in so many ways they are not even on the same scale....... but in terms of childrens lives being screwed over and me just sitting there and trying, in vain, to lift the sheer weight of oppression off them. thats where they are the same....

But it is so frustrating because there is so little i can do.

We spent a brief while flicking through the exam results today (not that relevant in our dept), only to find some the girls had exceeded our expectations.... they managed a couple of low level grades between them. A 'great success'.

for who i ask? for us, because we "added value"? For them, because now they fit the mold a little bit, even if badly. (they make everyone else feel better, so lets force them in the mold).

Would it not be better, rather than force them on a track which will only belittle them, make them feel worthless, not pay them enough to live on and leave them struggling..... would it not be better to help them carve out a new shape, a new path..... one that leaves them growing in a the sun rather than left to rot in the shadows. One that encourages dignity and esteem based on who one is rather than what one does.

Not that it will be free of struggles - but ones that they know they can overcome, rather than struggles that they know will only end in an 'F' (which we then falsely tell them is great!!).

..... i know, i know. a first frustrated day back.
and a rant. just had to get it out. was and still is, giving me a head ache.

answers on a postcard.

little green street, a new home

sometimes there are just no words.......

when you have your own double room with your duvet out and aired and your stuff littering the room. when you lie on your pillows and are able to stretch easily in every direction. When you have a window and a desk, a garden and roses, and even space for a window box of your own.

back in london, another room (my 5th i think) but the same odd assortment of things. Unpacking them however i realise life has been good in London. For a start my wardrobe has increased (not that hard really) and i have not found this city to be the isolating, lonely place people tell me. It may be lacking some of my more favorite nutters...... but it makes up for it in so many other ways. the NLC, a funny bunch, but so lovable and so loving.

So i know not what is coming up - but some readers will be excited to know the next 4 months will include...... some art school classes and no doubt a few parties. so please pop on down for the 15th, its the house warming of the lovely little green street!!! Hurrah!!!
(not the whole street i hasten to add, just no 6).

so it appears the long holidays are drawing to a close.....

I can't say I have done anything too exciting with them. No great adventure to the great unknown or unscaled mountain peaks climbed or anything.
But I have sat here with my crumblies (as my folks are affectionately known), done some gardening, made copious amounts of jam and otherwise got a little bored. Not in a bad way I don't think. In a way that is very hard to do in the middle of London. There are always things to do so having nothing to do is perhaps a good way to rest.

So next week is London, a new house, old job and perhaps a new hobby or two......beyond that I can't really tell. My heart is beginning to yearn for adventure again..... but perhaps this year it is adventure of a different sort. Discovering the unknown inside as opposed to out there, somewhere. The time for that will come too.......

A book making me v excited at the mo... the life of Gertude Bell (great name)... a Victoiran woman who defied tradition and went off into the desert looking for and finding an adventure her gender could only dream off..... (she then went on to help establish modern Iraq and was the source of many of todays problems.... but no ones perfect hey!!)

still, the idea of riding solo into the desert..... oh it still entrances me, just as it did her 100 years ago.

Holey buckets

Its funny how small things build up to something more enormous, like a cm a day of earth movements at plate boundaries can lead to giant earthquakes (or more minor ones in manchester! which is still amazing considering....anyway, back to the point)

So quantum leap by quantum leap.... its not like its anything major; short shorts that i said i would never wear, hair a different way, more writing and creative ideas springing off the walls. But its what these things represent that is important....

I realise as i step back from destructive things around me and draw a line, good must be the result.

Its like Liberty is being etched into my heart.... not marked in a bloody or sore way but a creative one, like the word is showing off or something.
Like a break in the surface of the earth can only create new land
or a new course for a river
or, like a red bucket being punctured with a nail, to give it holes all over. Now a useless bucket. We had lots of buckets already. But one where water flows out and catches the light - its beautiful

Useless and totally beautiful.
Thats liberty in me.
and its only just begun to put holes in my bucket.

i was speaking to two people who work in the middle of the middle of nowhere. you find a map and they are the furthest from the sea, blighty and cream teas anywhere... (this is not a fact, but they really do live v far away.).

Anyway, i asked them if they enjoyed it, living over there..... as I am thinking of doing something similar sometime and they said "why would we want to do anything else."

now that is my sort of answer... its not about socks and sandals, or any other poor preconceptions i might have - but about living life fully, even if you're hearts desire is to be somewhere completely inaccessible surrounded by people who speak a language few others do.

because anywhere else would just be compromise.

so this is my new back garden. Lush isn't it.

I sat there this avo after a day in school and watched a wee spider start to make a web, a butterfly fluttering everywhere and a small toad, which had leapt into a candle glass full of water.... it was so chilled. I love it.

it then started to rain, so i trotted inside. But it is nice to know its out there just waiting for me.

School is beginning to rub, I realised over the last week or so. It could be I am tired and need a holiday, the same with the girls. Or it could be that I am finding things about the way school happens which don't quite sit with me. I know people need to be taught, and they need to have someone to teach them. But do the need someone to tell them stuff, or should they discover it for themselves..... I find myself increasingly frustrated by girls not wishing to learn, only just willing to be told. It sucks. What happened to creative learning and initiative.....

No answers...... just an observation.

For now however I have a pot full of dreams brewing, with all their associated problems, and my lovely garden. I guess I just have to keep on hoping and stop being so old or som'it.

after a long rest I feel like I have started running again. and its ace - the wind through my hair and sun on my face (metaphorically speaking, physically it is just raining!)....

As i look to the future and where I would love to go, I find myself finding things out about me - and when I do, even if i don't see them yet, I am grabbing them tight with both hands. God is letting me know who he wants me to be and I am not turning him down in this!!!

Had a bit of a journey in respect to men recently - and unlike normal it did not end with a big soggy mess. I put my heart out there just a little, only to find it a little late in arriving (someone else got there first)..... my initial reaction was - Right, thats it, I am a NUN!!!!I shall go and hide away and never, ever have to be scared again.

But then i realise what a load of tosh that was - you can't truely live, inside a cacoon of your own fashioning where nothing ever impacts you. God made me to feel things, to know joy and sorrow, fear and courage.... so why hide from them. they add colour where otherwise there would be only shades of grey.

as it says in the book the prophet (paraphrased) - joy and sorrow are totally balanced - you are able to receive one only in as much as you have experienced the other.... or something like that.

So bring it on........

ok so i did something to my blog which means that it is meant to be easier to use. and i guess it is cause now i haven't got to look through lots of code stuff to add something on.

but it seems all my friends feel of the edge of the page and i have these horrid black arrows next to me..... look. they are big and not v nice. urgggghhhhhh.

but otherwise life is pretty much great thanks.
yes it is raining a lot, the sun has not shone yet today.

but am not that fussed.
life is still good.

reason for a slightly repetititve blog (see below) is that I am slightly shocked it still is. not that I am expecting a tree to fall on my toe or anything, but am unaccustomed to it thats all.

so after an evening of shopping (well attempting to anyway), dancing around the kitchen cooking and listening to music (generally bad but essential girly), i thought i would sit and blog.

hello.

Lots going on in my head currently but not in a bad way.

After a weekend with some new friends in oxford, I am currently pondering what this whole missionary thing is, and why i am initially so opposed to it. Why is it that something rises in me to say, don't do it........ I figure there is that bit in me that wants fame and christian celeb-ness. However much I don't agree with it, me flesh still loves it! Missionaries can be so far from that, living in a yurt in the middle of nowhere with a small, unknown tribe.....

Or maybe its the ex-colonialist thing, where the gospel and the empire are so tied, with the gospel ultimately loosing out.

Maybe its the feeling of restriction, of being expected to fit a certain mould or walk a missionary middle ground or something.I dunno. I am just typing out now.
But the people I met so challenged so much of that in me - they are going to live in war zones or mud huts simply to tell people about Jesus and to have his name lifted up.

that isn't the middle ground to me.
But i guess the question i find myself asking is, after all my dreaming and wondering, is it a path I am willing to wait for and then to walk.


-----------------

Yet in the midst of all that, He keeps showing me things he wants to do. And they are great and I want to be there to help them happen..... No question i guess.

I feel more like me with every day. I am writing and seeing unnoticed things more. I am knowing Joy, unexpectedly. Like a friend coming up and giving you a hug from behind.
I love my job, with all its chair throwing, hormone filled, teenage angst driven drama. Love it.

not much else to report.

well I have in fact been proved wrong re facebook.....

After loosing contact with a great friend at uni, knowing she was off travelling and working abroad, but otherwise wondering about her existance.....

i discover her on facebook and we have a merry, poke induced, reunion!!!

oh happy days.
so it has all been worth it. and when i say all i mean filling in like 5 boxes to sign up for facebook.
please pass me the humble pie.

thanks for being so patient with me

xx

so i have totally folded to peer pressure and got into the world of facebook.....

i can feel it happening now, my world being sucked right out
into the large and bottomless void that is a life lost on facebook.

otherwise i am looking forward and hopeful to the whole thing.....

otherwise i have no life

its all gone the way of facebook.

jokes, jokes.

haha

Announcement

......i am writing to confirm or deny some horrid romours that are going round causing many of my friends much mirth and generally a good laugh at me (which obviously, having not happened before, needs to be stopped before it becomes a habit on their part!!).

These rumours involve me training and then practising as a teacher of geography.

I hereby confirm these rumours.

Pants - they were right all along! Yes I know, you told me so.... I am just slower on the uptake.

It just so happens, to my great surprise, that I love teaching kids. And teaching geography (the geek in me is screaming for some output!!!).

And so i shall....

I think i will also try for this sept, although this is very late in the day to be applying. But He has shocked me this far, so he can keep on shocking me all the way to the gate!!!

you can stop laughing now....

isn't he rude, pulling a fast one on me like that! Humph (sort of - i love it really, the unexpected and unpredictable. who knows what could happen??!!)

Holiday Joy

in days of holiday, after a mad last few weeks of term where your feet ache from running around all day and you can't take any more internal politics and moaning, you realise the pure bliss of being able to sit quietly and complete a full train of thought. There is the added joy of spring time sun, amazon ordered 2nd hand books and hot cross buns at any time of the day!

Am loving having a chance to read books, esp about my current topic and focus for the future, central Asia.... the geopolitics over the last 200 years are amazing - a complete mush!!(which yes, we did have a hand in unfortunately).

Another fun, slightly surprising thought from this week is - I had not realised that I had this fear that one day the Lord was going to decide that I was in fact a total plonker and obliterate me completely. This meant that I had vague fearful ideas whenever i entered into his presence, but never entirely sure from whence they came.

This week however, being able to have some quality time with the Lord, he kindly informed me that has never been his plan to blast me from the face of the planet with a wave of his mighty hand, but he is infact quite fond of me, and enjoys my company.

And it is quite fun to realise all this - brings a great rush of freedom with it...

Who would have thought, after 7 years with the Lord, finally discovering I am forgiven.

A few of the people i miss....

......in that i don't have photos on my computer of the others.

oh..... hope you guys don't mind tehe

serves you right for filling my computer with your piccies

love u, love mexx

realising in the business of London that its not about asking God to come and be in the midst of everything,

but being still and quiet enough inside to see Him there

its not like he ever left in the first place

we are sometimes just not looking

So now I am trying to learn, amongst the screaming, noisey ladies who I spend my time with, to quiet that bit inside of me, and hear what the Father is saying, to see what He is doing

and how I might be able to help in that.
Or just watch it unfold.

Tricky but great.

oh my - its been agaes. sorry dear readers.... poor form on my part.

well its saturday, sunny outside and i am sat here doing my emails and blog..... all because i have a stinker of a cold!! I got it 2 weeks ago when i took a girl from school to hospital, and caught what she had on the way. But after a week of being ill it went, so i did my normal anna thing - oh a week of half term, lets run around and see lots of people, rather than rest and chill out!!!

and so the cold returned to bite me bum! pants!! literally...

so not much to report. but i now have a permenant job, being a teaching assitant!! Sweet, 8 weeks paid leave!!!!
I do really love it but sometimes is so hard. Take friday for example. It started with me feeling ill anyway, but by second lesson stuff was not going well for one particular girl. Lets call her, Her.

I have a real soft spot for Her. She has a messed up home life, and some fairly complex emotional probs.... but i have soft spot for Her none the less. But then she punches a girl in class and continues with bad behaviour til she is taken away by a duty teacher.... she has only just got back from a break from school, and the time away has not helped her education or intergration with the other girls.

it just really sucks. and what i have to keep rememebering is that its not my job to try and help her with her problems. Just with her Maths. I couldn't even though I want to - she needs people with skills and training that i don't have.
maybe i'm not communicating this very well - it was frustrating not being able help more, not being able to communicate the potential that i see in her, beneath all the other stuff. when other people, so many times, have just wanted her out, somewhere else... its sucky.

also i have a fuzzy, cold head, so words aren't quite making sense.

on a different note - anyone seen any of the planet earth series - amazing!! How they do some of the shots i just don't know. But also - its just amazing to see the amazing earth God made, totally extravagant and seemingly ridiculous (pigmy sea-horses!! Who knew!!).

Perhaps they should do something like that for the wildlife of London. Was in the tube with a pidgeon a few days ago - it was in the train!!! Quite happy to knick a lift, it had lost its claws after all.

anyway I am going to watch some more now, while drinking smoothie and eating chocolate raisins..... i am ill after all.

have you ever tried to describe water to a man living in a desert?

or light to a person born blind?

Whatever words you use, you can't fully describe what it is like; that first drop as it splashes on the lips; the first ray to illunimate the world.

thats what it felt like when people tried to describe Joy to me, and i think the same applies to the journey I am taking with knowing God's unconditional Love for me. Not there yet, but the clouds are brewing.

But its not just people struggling to communicate but God too. He does his best, with creation, Jesus' life and death and all that is entailed in that beautiful love story, with friends and family...

But our minds are so darkened, we really do see through a mirror darkly. He is trying to communicate his very essence, in all its freedom, beauty and simplicity, and yet we just don't get it. even when we do, and want to share it, it gets lost in translation between hearts and minds.

How his heart must break as we fumble around in the dark, clueless to it all.

I am staggered at his patience. And amazed at my inability to communicate the little specks of light that i have seen, to those i love most.

efforts seem to be like the dust, floating in the rays of light sneaking through the cracks.

and then I realise i don't really know how to love.

Not like Him.

Keep showing us Jesus, we need your help.

hello 2007!!!

sorry its been a while but what with the 'tinternet down and lots of running round, i only just got the chance.

generally v much looking forward to this coming year - one of fun, rest, vision and enjoying having a wage....

and so far i have seen much of the above. I went shopping - for clothes, real clothes that i chose and like with no holes and in a style that i like. lush!!!!

i have also been to the ballet - the male version of swan lake at sadlers wells in london. totally amazing. never seen a ballet before, but it was beautiful - the combo between the music and the visual dancing/movement thing - great!!!

so I look to 2007 with hopes and an increasing sense of joy. It feels blank, but not in a bad way, in a surprise me, sort of fashion.

I think my reflection of 2006 could be "failure is an under-rated success".

So many times in the last year i have felt like i failed, falling flat on my face.

But failed in what - generally nothing other than my own high expectations, or one i falsely think other people have. Even if they did - should i be that worried abouot them??

For me, my "failure" helped me see where my aim was not Jesus, or my expectations wrong. It also helped me realise, its not fatal.... if anything i know more now then i did then.

And in London we do a good job of defining people by their successes or failures - i don't want to see things that way. But if i have to be seen that way then maybe it should be as someone who did fail and fall, but was forever trying to get back up.

I also realised Jesus never sees failure the way we do..... when Lazurus was dead in his grave - Mary and martha saw it as failure and massive dissapointment, Jesus saw it as opportunity.

When people saw the cross they saw failure, even Peter. But now we see eternal Hope.

funny old world.
Nice to be in you 2007. sorry for the belated welcome... xxx