I have a vision, alteration

I had a vision

It was a big one, it covered continents and would last a lifetime. At its center was a longing to do what was right; to help the poor and marginalized and to be a radical peace maker, to be about Kingdom business and not church busy-ness, to bypass the normal and walk along the roads less travelled, to reject mediocrity and embrace the radical Jesus I met nine years ago.

However I was recently shocked to discover that for me it was all based on a rocky foundation. One of striving, of proving my love to God, of earning his acceptance, of letting him know how much i would do for him. But also of assuming to know what that meant, what it might look like, to serve him and love him. Obviously it meant doing BIG things for him

On return from Ch. that was all undone. The idols of what I could do for God had to go.

He wanted to be my vision. He wants to fill my line of sight, so that all I see is Him.


I may, or may not, go and do all of the above. I hope to live them for sure. But it may well be in the small and unseen ways of just living life as an ordinary radical, resting in His love.

If he calls me away, it will be as friends, not as the master shouting at the striving servant. If he doesn't call, then I will have lost nothing, but gained him.
So as i staple the 100th booklet of carols together and wonder what it is all about I remember not what I can do for God, but what he has done for me. For now, that's enough.

Something I heard recently...

"Deconstructionism.

Its destruction(ism) with a con at its centre."

Discuss.
Wha'dya think.....

I would rather be a nobody, living nowhere special, doing a nothing job and know His love, than go to some far flung place to do some big ass thing and know nothing.

trains

I feel like I am sat on a train which is passing by a fence or forest or something. It causes the light to flash if its a sunny day - from overwhelmingly bright to deep gloomy grey, all of a sudden. In and out, light and dark.

Thats how I'm feeling. Either feeling fine and cheery, as per the past few months, or really not. Its disorientating, exhausting and I don't know where I am half the time. Its has also led to what some might see as a productive cleaning streak. Its true, I have cleaned a lot, my hands now stink of bleach and the house is cleaner than it has been in decades (who knew that dust could sit on walls?). But it has been more of a manic, must keep busy, type action than a determined effort to be domestic.

And so the trouble comes when I sit still, when thoughts collide in my head and sprinkle shrapnel over my heart.
I'm hoping its just a being bored, end of august thing.

I'm hoping the train stops soon, its hurting my head.

feeling pulled between two different worlds and lives and ways of doing things currently. It seems to be how things will go for me here - and thats cool i guess, but just a bit uncomfortable....

and it leads me to an ever constant reminder to walk my own walk, with integrity and a judgment free heart; neither totally dismissing one and fully embracing the other, or vice verca, but seeing the good and the God in both, how ever contradictory!

i had a long chat with a friend recently. We got chatting about possible jobs for me down here in london.....

It was a good chat. She spoke, I listened, cried and tried to work out this muddlesome world. A week later its still going round my head, but not about the choice to be made (job or not), but about what we were really talking about.

Its been bugging me and I only realised today - we were talking about living from the heart. about being real and having integrity, even when asked to be in odd places and be an unfamiliar shape.

I have to be honest - part of me doesn't want to live from the heart. It seems to be the bit that gets rejected, ignored and broken the most. Its easier without it. Then it can be about what I know. I never have to make any real choices because I never know it all. I can sit on the fence til I have heard all sides of the story.....

But am I actually living?
These last few months I have been really happy, read lots of good books and had lots of great conversations. But nothing really moved me. I may be alive, but I may be lacking integrity.

I am not sure how to do that here. I don't know that I have the courage, to face those fears, to be that person.


But thank you for the reminder. I appreciate it.

"In solitude we can come to the realisation that we are not driven together but brought together. In solitude we come to know our fellow human beings not as partners who can satisfy our deepest needs, but as brothers and sisters with whom we are called to give visibility to God's all-embracing love.
In solitude we discover that community is not a common ideology, but a response to a common call.
In solitude we indeed realise that community is not made but given."

Henri Nouwen, Clowning in Rome

you spend enough time in a place and it'll either eat you up or spit you out.

and the scary thing is you don't realise until its almost too late. Its not like being eaten by a shark, with teeth and thrashing etc... no, much more deadly like sleep walking off a pier or something (don't laugh, for some its a possibility....ask the editor for details).

I got woken up this weekend and was shocked to realise how far down a throat I was.

It starts slowly with small bends and compromises in thoughts and expectations, nothing major, but it'll make life easier.

Then you're dreaming different dreams, big house, big dog, steady pay packet.

Dreams start influencing choices and you let go off the excess, the in the way bit (like chopping off grissle if we want to continue the eating picture). and thoughts you swore would not dominate your head, begin to seep in like mold (so if i want to live here, with house prices as they are I need a wage so large to pay the mortage, so better go find me a HUGE wage....).

the bit of you thats awake and not sleep walking, gets quieter but sits stubbornly in the corner and cries. Thank goodness for that!!

Because after a while, as your toes hit the tonsils, you wake up and realise this is not what you were made for - to try and fit in other peoples boxes, their dreams, or the ones you thought would make you happy. all that will happen is that you get eaten and have a bit of you quietly crying.

So, I guess I'll pick up my grissle, be an awkward shape and get spat out of here.....

There's dirt on the window
Rubbish on the street
Narrow roads limit the sky
And silence has not been heard
Since we started here.

Yet as I climb
With creaks
And close myself in
I begin to soar.
My hair scrapes the ceiling
But I could run for miles.

There's only one star
In the orange tinted dusk
But it's enough
A reminder.

As I close my eyes,
Expanse opens ahead.
The traffic roar
Is turned to a dull drone
As stillness rushes on me
Like a crowd.

I rest
Yet intrigued
I long to tred deeper
Where do you end?
Where do you lead?

This foolish mind restricts
Your limitlessness.
I stumble
Like a blind senseless brute,
Desperate to be free
Of those restraining lines.

Unused to space
To freedom
My steps unsteady
But courage grows
As those voices quieten,

And soon I'm running.
No idea where
Forwards, sideways
Onwards,
And joy rises
As the unseen
Becomes the explored.