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).