We like brit blondes and we cannot lie
You other brothers can’t deny
When a girl walks in in red white blue
And a platinum haircut too
We are charmed, wanna offer her tea
And fall down on bended knee
To praise and then start singing
“You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling”
Oh Lady, will you come and teach us
How to speak thus?
How could anyone refuse?
When she sounds like Julie Andrews
Ooh, Union-jack-clad-lass
If we could have your class
Well wouldn’t it be loverly
We’d dance (brit pronounc.) and say it properly
We’ve heard her question
To hell with discretion
She’s loud and smart
Got goin’ with a lot of heart
We’re tired of other girls
Sayin’ it’s all about looks and pearls
Take the average yagster and ask what he’d pick
She gotta have much wit
So, fellas! (Yeah!) Fellas! (Yeah!)
Has our Katie got the brit? (Hell yeah!)
Tell her to share it! (Share it!) Share it! (Share it!)
Give us somma your brit!
Baby got brit!
Today I share with you the lyrics that inspired the name Baby Got Brit. They were written for me by my darling friend, and most dedicated follower, Miss Spitfire, as a gift for my 22nd birthday almost a year ago. I have been waiting for an appropriate time to make this tribute but today I can wait no longer - for this is the last post I will make on BGB.
When I took a break and started to fast "Intermacy" I knew that over lent I would have to decide on the future nature of my blogging. I loved to blog, to share, to talk about myself (who doesn't?) and make insightful comments on life and what not. However, there was a line of divulgence that I had crossed unawares and, better late than never, I resolved to reset that line. What I didn't realise was that over lent God was going to show me so many things about myself that I would end up deciding on a lot more than my blog's future nature.
So, on one last crazy blow out of sharing, I will tell you a little bit of what He did in me.
Oh the hilarity of the analogy that I will use! It took me by surprise too but God, in true keeping with how well He knows me, gave me the most fabulous of metaphors that I may treasure and delight it when putting my old self to death becomes just a little too tough. For that is, in effect, what is going on here. This milestone I am accepting on a whole new level exactly what it means to sacrifice even the most fundamental characteristics of Who I Am, in order that I rest upon the secure foundation of Jesus. So many things in me testify to insecurity and, try as I might, that does not change with self-defense or justification... be it the language I use, the things that I own (or obsessively collect!), the way I share my Romans 7 nature in an attempt to rid myself of shame...
At the risk of being too open let's move on and see what it is that spoke to me about this.
Jade Goody.
Oh yes! I too was surprised when I eventually worked it out but it makes such sense.
So who was this star of British reality TV? A loud, bolshy, fun loving, foolish, needy, attention seeking, proud, loving, funny, ridiculous, extreme, verbose (or gobby!), messy, sinful, lovable, broken, indiscrete, unrefined, annoying, genuine, hopeful, hard working, "true-to-herself" girl. All these things and more were said about her at her funeral last weekend. She remains an icon of Great Britishness and, though often slated in the papers and renown for making a spectacle of herself, many people had soft hearts for her and her honesty. Especially towards the end as she battled with cervical cancer and eventually died on the 22nd March.
I once wrote about changing yourself for other people. I remember the gist, though it feels like a long time ago. I think that Jade held strongly to some of the things I was questioning then to do with compromising for other people vs being assured in your own identity. After facing a lot of criticism from very unloving sources I suppose it becomes easy to take ones own standard as the most important and strongly discount the opinions of anyone that don't very very clearly demonstrate love. But the thing is, despite all the things that I latch on to in myself, it is not me that I am accountable to. I can be as immutable in my attitude as I like but until my attitude is totally in line with His then I have not reached my goal... and to progress on a journey we must move.
The story of Jade and I is this:
The whole world knew she was dying, they'd found out months ago and it's been constantly covered by the media ever since. Yet I had somehow missed it. On 28th Feb this year I found out... then just 3 weeks later (wow, it felt longer) she was gone.
Now, I wasn't a fan of her. Not at all in fact. When she was first on Big Brother I thought her ridiculous, hideous, pathetic, idiotic, desperate... the works. She became a background amusement but I never had an ounce of respect for her. Yet when all this came to light, and with the news that she had apparently become a Christian too, I strangely felt emphatically passionate. Like I loved her and wanted to tell her and encourage her and explain that she was special and her faults didn't matter and I was sorry for judging her. I thought it was because I was a Christian now, I suppose that's true in a wider sense. I also wanted her to understand just how huge and amazing her new hope in Jesus was, that He could actually heal her and transform her as well as bring her peace. I wished I could break into the world of PR that couldn't affirm this truth - I even wrote her a song! I thought this was because I have a heart to see a break through of miraculous power and healing that points towards God and shakes the nation. All these things are true, yet somehow there was more...
One friend said to me that he thought I had an unhealthy obsession with her. I tried to explain that I was not idolising Jade, far from it, I wanted to recognise her as a actual person. They said I couldn't do that as I didn't know her. I didn't tell them that I felt like I did... I had no justification at all for that. I even noted to myself the irony that, as she died her death in the public eye (doing interviews to the end and raising money to support her two boys) the whole world reported on it and I, in all my sincere passion, had not written one blog. It was like because it was real it was private.
In her last months the heat was turned up under Jade and I came to realise it was in the fire of refinement that I saw synonymy between her and I. This verse in Isaiah 43 (that I do believe was left for me in a comment here) has been a real comfort to me recently and it became the chorus for the song I wrote her:
You'll walk through the fire and you won't get burned
You're just being refined and there's a lot to learn
But you've got God on your side
And you're making Him smile
It's the Daddy's pride
And it's all worthwhile
I found that I was singing it to myself a fair amount too.
But it wasn't until the night of the day of the funeral that it hit me just why I was so moved for her: I too was coming to the end of my "Jaded" period in life. Not that I will suddenly be made perfect, but hopefully I am significantly moving on from the false bold securities that I have. That is, after all, what refinement is about - being made really hot (and bothered) until only the Good stuff remains.
So, as I didn't report on her journey to the grave, I also didn't blog mine... until now.
For I think that Baby Got Brit, with all it's "charm" and flippant public intimacy, is symbolic of what I am being refined away from. Not that there is anything wrong with who I have been in the process - loving Jade so very very much made me see just how OK it is to have faults; and the soft spot I had for her has been releasing in terms of my own masked shame. But in aspiring for her healing and growth, nay transformation, I realise that I must aspire for my own.
For Baby you are lovely but, aside from all the issues with content, quantity, being totally tangled in direction, the disorganisation in your tags, incontinuity to your themes, out-dated picture and lack of returning back to the hundreds of things you start to mention... aside from all this and more is the simple truth that you are no longer Kat(i)e.
Why not?
I am not platinum now - we all know how significant the hair is.
The girl that went to Paris and met the pilots (reference in the second verse) was a lifetime ago :)
I don't actually say "to h*ll with discretion anymore", I think sometimes it may have its uses!
SHOCK HORROR at the asterisk above - As far as my thoughts on swearing go, in short: I still think it is subjective; it is definitely about the heart; I found out I didn't have as much control over my tongue as I would have liked; I knew that the perception of others is part of the question but I've realised that trying to change that is a tough battle and I want to pick the ones that are most important - I don't think this is one of them.
As for the name, well... I am not a "citizen of the world" anymore so, though Britain will always be close to my heart, I don't want to make it part of my identity. Plus, who knows where God will take me...!
And then there is "Baby".
It has been quite a journey, this blog. From before I even properly made the call to be a Jesus-follower, through my rebirth, all the early questions and now this period of refinement and preparation. I have pretty much exhausted the "observations of a recent convert" theme and, though I have loved it, it is time to let go and move on to something bigger and better. After all, Paul did say:
"When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things." 1 Corinthians 13:11
In all seriousness, the distance I have been brought in the past year astounds me and, actually, I don't want to pretend that I am not weaned. And not just because I am nearly at the age that I think adulthood begins...! I feel different. However scary moving on is, it is time to do it. Life is a race and that means forward motion.
So. Bye bye Baby. Immature, British, brash, broken. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm slagging Jade off - I love us both. I just know that the time has come for a part of me to embrace the same fate as her and wave goodbye to everything that doesn't stand up to the baptism of fire.
Jade Goody. Don't you love that name? The two sides to her summed up... how could this larger than life character be anything but a powerful symbol of modern human "reality" that will be profound to the end - where she found the true reality of a hope that defeats death?
So now I step back from the public eye as she finally has and, laying down my defenses, die to my old self. But then, through the power of Easter, I can rise again a New Creation; as she too has found her resurrection in Christ!
So, what is this New Creation? Mostly off-line actually!
But I don't want to stop blogging just yet. ['Phewww' I hear, from those dedicated few that made it to this point in The Longest Blog Post Ever Written!] I have, instead, identified a sub-theme that I wish to extract from my ramblings and isolate in a new inter-web location. That is:
Analogy!
I know I know, if bloggers are better known for anything than they are for over-divulging it is their tacky metaphors. But I Don't Care! I can't help it, I love 'em and find them all the time, everywhere. I can even justify this with a verse:
"Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely." 1 Corinthians 13:12
To me this just expresses perfectly what it is about analogy that is so significant - how actually everything is an imperfect metaphor for (or isomorphic subset of) the ultimate truth. And what do you know, it comes directly after the verse about putting away childish things. As one door closes, another opens...!
It won't be about my life per se. I think that moving focus away from ourselves is actually quite important, particularly for self-indulgent "media hungry" lil' old me. I will explain more in the new location:
www.analogisethat.blogspot.com
Basically, though, I want to ponder more, divulge less and say what I observe not what I do.
It's not gonna be all stuffy poetic pretentious nonsense mind. Nor will I lose my "cool edge" as I am changed. This can often be the fear/criticism: that when we let God take over our lives we become that certain sort of "religious" (as in not the James kind) loser that is prim, ghastly, monotone and void of individuality. I reckon that God, in all His infinite enormity, has enough facets that we could all take on His image and still be entirely unique and different from each other. This is why I am not terrified of reformation...
That, and perfect love casts out all fear. God must be the only person (I don't mean person, but what else can one say?) who loves us so perfectly that His constructive criticism melts hearts instead of puts up defenses.
So BGB is laid to rest in peace; or goes toddling onwards and upwards if you prefer.
And as I read all the lovely things Miss S wrote about me back then I wonder if, though some fade away, others might increase over time...? Perhaps. I do hope so. The worth of what I am becoming so outweighs the losses that, though goodbyes are sad, it is all I can do. All I want to do. As a wise man once said, sometimes something has to die before something else can come to life and grow.
While we are yet to be made perfect there will always need to be endings; the important thing is to look forward to what begins next, whatever that may be... One thing of which I am sure: it won't make me cry.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Intermacy
There's been a recent craze that has spread like wildfire across Facebook called '25 Things'. For those of you that don't fb, this involves writing a note of any random 25 things about yourself that other people may not know (or want to know) and then tagging 25 friends in it who are to read, "enjoy", then pass it on... doing it about themselves and including the person that originally tagged them in some kind of "get to know your friends better" fest. It's like chainmail but you publish it to your profile for the whole world to see.
As you may well imagine, I love this kind of thing. I have such a penchant for getting "real" and down to the "nitty gritty" with people that the opportunity to share and receive sharing back was just perfect. I was dead excited when I got the chance to do it and my 25th thing was even:
"25. We are not supposed to function alone and I think community and deep meaningful relationships are where it is at!"
My point was that to get real with people is the only way that relationships can ever be more than superficial and empty. I stand by this.
Of course not that many people I tagged actually tagged me back. I can understand that not everyone has the time, can be bothered or wants to be pushed into deeper friendships on demand. I get it and am not too bothered as the medium of Facebook is hardly reflective of real life and the efforts we make with our proper friends (as opposed to "friends" as found on Facebook) is the truly important thing.
But the thing that this phenomenon accentuated was the desire that people have to get intimate, even in this unnatural environment. Like, perhaps a little too real. Sharing for all the world to see (not just your friends but anyone that your friends know too) the sometime amusing but all too often cringeworthy details of their lives. It really sorts people into try hard, comedian, philosopher, procrastinator, attention seeker, regular joe, boring... I don't actually have a cohesive list of genres like in a US high school... just postulating a few. It seems that the world over, in all sorts of formats, we want to be noticed and appreciated and loved - to the point that we will put a little piece of our souls on the internet and be judged and adored in various proportions.
And this is just a little too close to home for me. For a few weeks now (you may have noticed) I have been feeling a bit of dis-ease at the one-sided nature of my blog relationship. It was like BGB became my significant other as far as intimacy levels go, but I try and try to get real with "him" and all I get back is pretty colours and an outdated picture coming up the same every time I press publish. It was taking from me but I was not getting the necessary return. I do have friends here in Bristol to share with but for some reason Baby, with all our history, is familiar to me. So I poured out more than a little piece of my soul on the internet and, as with all those people on Facebook, I suddenly began to see that I was being judged and adored in inestimable proportions by actually real people. Not just a blogspot domain name.
The root of this issue, I came to see, is in the fact that I am generically pro-honesty. I don't see the point in ever not trying to be totally real and I don't like it when relationships are superficial. I wanted to share the truth of my life and sure, of course I choose what I share and there will always be gaps or secrets, but on the whole my top priority was letting the truth speak. So I rushed in, as always, putting out all these raw emotions as I felt them so that I had integrity and so that I could write about things that not everyone would even admit to. I suppose I half-consciously decided that there was intrinsic worth in doing this because being genuine is always the most important thing. Then suddenly, months down the line I sit down and finally assess... and I feel so utterly utterly vulnerable.
For it suddenly hit me, way after I could have possibly contained myself, that I had not kept anything back. Something extra for me and a carefully chosen few. I felt like an emotional slut. Some people put themselves out in the world offering everything up to all and sundry on and plate in the hope that someone will come along and make them feel special. Tell them they have worth. Give them the affirmation they crave. And, as with a physical slut, you know that people will use and abuse and take what they give but the incentive to feed back into them is gone. They have nothing left to offer so why would you make the effort? More than that, who really wants to be with the village bike?
I'm not saying that I actually feel like people who read my blog are taking advantage of me. Just that I feel so exposed, my heart reaction is as though that is so. Now, I hardly get enough readers to truly worry, and people do occasionally make contact about stuff I post, but it is not really about the facts of the situation. Not so much about what people are or aren't thinking or what they take from me but that I just let it happen without any prior consideration at all. I suppose more than anything I question my motivation for the vulnerability, rather than how people receive it... for girls that let it all hang out on a Friday night are in a sense inviting men to disrespect them (not assault them mind, so not going there).
Basically, I had a reality check. It's not that I regret the honesty per se, just that I haven't considered what it means for me both with regards to my own emotional safety and why I even do it at all. Another way in which I had a wake up call was when, after a succession of essay related stati through last Thursday night, an old school friend of my sister sent me a message of encouragement because she had noticed me on her newsfeed updates. Entirely lovely of her and I don't mind the sentiment in the slightest but how is it that someone I used to annoy at breaktime over a decade ago could even know what is going on with me now? What does this say about me? Translate that into the general diagnosis for people that do '25 Things' and it is clear I have the worst case going of Internet Intimacy; or Intermacy as I have coined it.
I'd see people exposing themselves in part on Facebook and raise an eyebrow yet I suddenly realised I have crafted it so that huge chunks of detailed text about my whole life are on public view. I don't need this, I really don't. There are plenty of real people around to invest my time and emotions into; ones that can invest back and not leave me feeling like a tapped resource.
So this lent I am not just giving up swearing. Starting tomorrow I'm saying goodbye to blogging, status updates and any other form of blogosphere or Facebook exposure. If I want to be in touch with my friends I can meet with them, talk to them, even email or write them... but I will not do it so that the whole world can watch on. It seems I've become addicted to the artificial attention and why do I even care what other people think anyway? The only one who's opinion matters is always watching... and He doesn't get the honed, edited version of events.
I could be back after Easter. If so it will be with a better sense of what I do and don't deem an acceptable level of intermacy. It is hard, there is so much I still want to write but to do so would require the context of my reality and the payoff of that risk is one I have not yet weighed up. I am losing two of my favourite things in one foul swoop... this is going to be tough... but it should be good too.
Who knows who I'll be when I come back. If I come back. For now this xkcd comic rather sums up the next leg of this journey. Enjoy it and I may or may not see you around...
http://www.xkcd.com/77/
As you may well imagine, I love this kind of thing. I have such a penchant for getting "real" and down to the "nitty gritty" with people that the opportunity to share and receive sharing back was just perfect. I was dead excited when I got the chance to do it and my 25th thing was even:
"25. We are not supposed to function alone and I think community and deep meaningful relationships are where it is at!"
My point was that to get real with people is the only way that relationships can ever be more than superficial and empty. I stand by this.
Of course not that many people I tagged actually tagged me back. I can understand that not everyone has the time, can be bothered or wants to be pushed into deeper friendships on demand. I get it and am not too bothered as the medium of Facebook is hardly reflective of real life and the efforts we make with our proper friends (as opposed to "friends" as found on Facebook) is the truly important thing.
But the thing that this phenomenon accentuated was the desire that people have to get intimate, even in this unnatural environment. Like, perhaps a little too real. Sharing for all the world to see (not just your friends but anyone that your friends know too) the sometime amusing but all too often cringeworthy details of their lives. It really sorts people into try hard, comedian, philosopher, procrastinator, attention seeker, regular joe, boring... I don't actually have a cohesive list of genres like in a US high school... just postulating a few. It seems that the world over, in all sorts of formats, we want to be noticed and appreciated and loved - to the point that we will put a little piece of our souls on the internet and be judged and adored in various proportions.
And this is just a little too close to home for me. For a few weeks now (you may have noticed) I have been feeling a bit of dis-ease at the one-sided nature of my blog relationship. It was like BGB became my significant other as far as intimacy levels go, but I try and try to get real with "him" and all I get back is pretty colours and an outdated picture coming up the same every time I press publish. It was taking from me but I was not getting the necessary return. I do have friends here in Bristol to share with but for some reason Baby, with all our history, is familiar to me. So I poured out more than a little piece of my soul on the internet and, as with all those people on Facebook, I suddenly began to see that I was being judged and adored in inestimable proportions by actually real people. Not just a blogspot domain name.
The root of this issue, I came to see, is in the fact that I am generically pro-honesty. I don't see the point in ever not trying to be totally real and I don't like it when relationships are superficial. I wanted to share the truth of my life and sure, of course I choose what I share and there will always be gaps or secrets, but on the whole my top priority was letting the truth speak. So I rushed in, as always, putting out all these raw emotions as I felt them so that I had integrity and so that I could write about things that not everyone would even admit to. I suppose I half-consciously decided that there was intrinsic worth in doing this because being genuine is always the most important thing. Then suddenly, months down the line I sit down and finally assess... and I feel so utterly utterly vulnerable.
For it suddenly hit me, way after I could have possibly contained myself, that I had not kept anything back. Something extra for me and a carefully chosen few. I felt like an emotional slut. Some people put themselves out in the world offering everything up to all and sundry on and plate in the hope that someone will come along and make them feel special. Tell them they have worth. Give them the affirmation they crave. And, as with a physical slut, you know that people will use and abuse and take what they give but the incentive to feed back into them is gone. They have nothing left to offer so why would you make the effort? More than that, who really wants to be with the village bike?
I'm not saying that I actually feel like people who read my blog are taking advantage of me. Just that I feel so exposed, my heart reaction is as though that is so. Now, I hardly get enough readers to truly worry, and people do occasionally make contact about stuff I post, but it is not really about the facts of the situation. Not so much about what people are or aren't thinking or what they take from me but that I just let it happen without any prior consideration at all. I suppose more than anything I question my motivation for the vulnerability, rather than how people receive it... for girls that let it all hang out on a Friday night are in a sense inviting men to disrespect them (not assault them mind, so not going there).
Basically, I had a reality check. It's not that I regret the honesty per se, just that I haven't considered what it means for me both with regards to my own emotional safety and why I even do it at all. Another way in which I had a wake up call was when, after a succession of essay related stati through last Thursday night, an old school friend of my sister sent me a message of encouragement because she had noticed me on her newsfeed updates. Entirely lovely of her and I don't mind the sentiment in the slightest but how is it that someone I used to annoy at breaktime over a decade ago could even know what is going on with me now? What does this say about me? Translate that into the general diagnosis for people that do '25 Things' and it is clear I have the worst case going of Internet Intimacy; or Intermacy as I have coined it.
I'd see people exposing themselves in part on Facebook and raise an eyebrow yet I suddenly realised I have crafted it so that huge chunks of detailed text about my whole life are on public view. I don't need this, I really don't. There are plenty of real people around to invest my time and emotions into; ones that can invest back and not leave me feeling like a tapped resource.
So this lent I am not just giving up swearing. Starting tomorrow I'm saying goodbye to blogging, status updates and any other form of blogosphere or Facebook exposure. If I want to be in touch with my friends I can meet with them, talk to them, even email or write them... but I will not do it so that the whole world can watch on. It seems I've become addicted to the artificial attention and why do I even care what other people think anyway? The only one who's opinion matters is always watching... and He doesn't get the honed, edited version of events.
I could be back after Easter. If so it will be with a better sense of what I do and don't deem an acceptable level of intermacy. It is hard, there is so much I still want to write but to do so would require the context of my reality and the payoff of that risk is one I have not yet weighed up. I am losing two of my favourite things in one foul swoop... this is going to be tough... but it should be good too.
Who knows who I'll be when I come back. If I come back. For now this xkcd comic rather sums up the next leg of this journey. Enjoy it and I may or may not see you around...
http://www.xkcd.com/77/
Monday, February 23, 2009
The One About The Swearing
I do not wish to apologise in advance for the length of this post. It is all relevant and worthy of reading. Whether you choose to do so is, of course, another matter!
Last week I called something "funky cool" and the person I was talking to immediately assumed I had said "fucking cool". The fact is that to do so hadn't even occurred to me - worrying. It was looking like I may have been giving up my corner on swearing before I have even argued the case for it. But I could not let that happen, so today brings the long promised post on using words that are bloody rude...
I met a friend's mum over Christmas and when she heard my "story from dark to light" she asked me some fabulous questions. (Quite a pentecostal background btw.) They were:
1. Have you received the Holy Spirit yet?
2. Do you speak in tongues yet?
3. Have you stopped swearing yet?
I laughed so hard. I then tried to to explain why I didn't think no. 3 was necessarily a necessity... she told me that I would be convicted in time.
The whole image of being changed when you become a Christian is an interesting one. Of course the point is that you are a new creation, standing in the grace of God. Things about life are going to look pretty different, the darker it was before the starker the change some may say. And I have talked a lot recently about how much I have changed. It's been fucking amazing actually, to look back and gasp in awe at the incredible effect knowing Jesus has had on my life.
But on the other hand, something cool one person said about it all was that I was utterly different yet more me than I had ever been. And one of the things about me was my creative linguistic expression. That and my desire and giftings for shocking other people.
Now. Don't hear that and think that my adamancy to explete stems purely from a willingness to be contentious. This has been something that has affected my interpretation of this issue but it has also been something that has been challenged as time goes by. From an early point of thinking it is hilarious to say that "God is fucking amazing" because I really felt that Christians were "stuck up their own arses" about swearing I have mellowed somewhat. In a way I wish I could still say that classic phrase but I feel more uncomfortable about it. Though I don't think it's the word so much as the capacity to belittle what I really think of God - making a point is not what praise should be about.
So, let me outline to you what I have discovered and pondered on as I make my journey from f'ing and blinding to slipping into alternative lingo without even realising.
Before I begin I must first deny that swearing is for "boring people". I have found it to be very creative and I also think that it does a very good job of emphasising things when it has to. I don't care what you say, there is a reason that they were invented and it wasn't to disempower communication. Most people don't like it because of the strength of the expression and whilst it can be quite sad to use the same vocab every other word the same can be said for people that blandly utter non-swear words and atleast the ones that do it aren't afraid of making an impression.
That said, it has little bearing on my thoughts. I found myself absorbed into a very Christian environment when I starting going to church in Switzerland. I love my pals there dearly and this really isn't about anyone in particular, actually a large part of this is to do with culture or should I say the mix thereof. So many people were shocked by my language. It is fair enough, I sort of cultivated it to shock (mostly my parents!) but at the same time I had never met people who genuinely were taken aback by it. Yet I sometimes felt very strongly that the reasoning behind the discomfort I caused was not because I was offending anyone in a really personal way but more because I was crossing an arbitrary line that they had down. It really depended vastly on the continent of origin of the person who was reacting but I suppose the argument was that it was an unholy way of speaking. And I just saw this as legalistic mumbo jumbo. I really couldn't believe that people gave a shit what words I would say when it was clear my motivation was not ill.
So I have to admit it became a bit of a thing that Kat(i)e did. There were those that really appreciated the "fresh of breath air" that I brought actually, believe it or not! The way I saw it, language is a tool and these words were able to bring comedy, expression, and challenge into situations. I felt that people needed shaking up and it was my job to do it. Like I said, I was always one to stir so why not incorporate that role from before into the Kingdom now?
I was challenged in this of course, sometimes rightly so, and as time went by my usage got whittled down and down and down.
The number one command is to be loving and I didn't want to cause offence to people, particularly strangers or the vulnerable, so doing it in public I felt had to be metered.
As for children, well they probably wouldn't get that I had theologically reasoned why I wasn't in the wrong and so I had to guard the impression that would make.
It goes without saying, though I better had, that it is never right to swear directly at someone in an abusive way.
God loves this world and every body and thing in it and to be disrespectful is not cool.
Phrase like "fucking cool" and "bloody brilliant" are only every meant to add emphasis. When talking about something genuinely bad I could add it there too but negativity in general is not cool so I don't think I condone it then either.
That said, I would sometimes tell Satan to "fuck off" but then I heard that even the angels were polite to him so I figured best not.
One person told me that they witness by not swearing in a swear heavy environment and I can totally dig that. If it shows you are different. I just stuck to my guns that I was showing I was different in a different way. That I was not subject to the arbitrary laws of the church (small 'c') that wanted to put people into a box.
A big thing I realised was the whole "stumbling block" issue in Romans and as I spoke to Christians that said they struggled with swearing and felt bad when they messed up I realised that my "job" wasn't to get them to be OK with it as for them swearing is a big deal and I had no right to lead them into a place of guilt.
All these things added up to a limited context where I could let it rip! I never did adhere to the whole "don't swear in church" thing as God is everywhere and his temple is no longer a building but me and if I can swear at home I can definitely swear in the big old pile of bricks down the road. I did continue to swear, around those who weren't grieved by me but only for me!
You may argue that the loving neighbours and brothers thing means that challenging other Christians to not be legalistic goes out of the window. I know what you mean, but I have to say I don't think it is that black and white. If we accepted people's existing thresholds as the place within which to function then we may never get to the real honesty of life or the stuff that God wants us to do that is truly important, as we are caught up on insignificant details. There is the story of Tony Campollo (sp?) who got up at a conference and talked about how shit it was that people were dying in Africa but that the really shit thing is the fact that people react worse to the swearing than the situation. He got banned and people are still dying in Africa 10 years on... I feel that within loving there is sometimes the need to be cruel to be kind and I refuse to accept that because people find something "unacceptable" that they should be allowed to always not accept it. If we all went at the pace of the slowest runner then progress would be appalling and sometimes the slow ones need motivation forward in order to grow.
That said. Being the lesser of two evils does not make something right. What arguments have I heard against me? (Now is the time to stop if you think this post in long enough!).
Well, the main points were taken straight from the bible, which I must admit is pretty strong. I will try and remember the best ones:
Ephesians 4:29 - 5:7 which talks about unwholesome words and coarse joking being obscene and unholy.
James 3:1-12 which is about taming the tongue and the power of the words that leave your mouth.
Matthew 15 where Jesus himself discusses what comes out of your mouths being the things that make you unclean.
I've probably heard more but I never made a list of them all (feel free to add any you think of) and I already think these are all good points. I also think that my response is not going to be changed by this argument for, as I see it, the way all of these counter mine is if I am swearing in a way that is motivated by cruel or unholy intentions. Which is not at all my point.
For you see, language is a tool. It has evolved over so many years and words have meant so many things that I cannot see how the utterance of one is objective since even the definition is subjective to time and place. Did you know that in Māori the word for coward sounds just like fucker? And when we use the word gay it used to mean happy, then homosexual and now, for many silly "laddish" cultures, rubbish. Surely the context of a word is the thing that gives it meaning and thus power? If I am using "fucking" or "bloody" as qualifiers, or saying "shit" to mean "no way?!" then does that actually proclaim a heart that is coarse or unclean? In this subjective environment, motivation must be the only thing that counts and if a person's motivation not to swear is because they think people will frown upon them, it doesn't mean that God cannot see the secret hate words of frustration that they mumble to themselves. Doesn't cheeky verbalised bant beat hidden and internal angst any day?
Some say that language may be this mutable thing but that, actually, it is defined by how society sees it and not how I want it to be seen. Apart from the fact that many other people in society use it the same way as me (for I didn't just make up "love-swearing" but rather adopted it) and we cannot possible decide who's opinion is more valid, I postuate that perhaps refusing to accept swearing as wrong can instead take the power out of the words and stop them from being able to spread hate.
I sat next to the national director of Agapé at dinner tonight (check me and my name dropping!) and I told his all of this. He came up with the same ol' chestnuts for a while but then he did offer a new gem which I was quite thoughtful on. Right back in the day (when people were still friends with dinosaurs) man was told to name the animals. This dude's idea was that perhaps, in our era of "post-modernism" where we all talk about language as being this mutable thing, maybe this is actually a lie that keeps us from the fact that words have got specific meaning because we give it to them. A lion is a lion, end of. We created this language and we can't just decide willy nilly that "shag", for example, doesn't talk about sex in a degrading way. The meaning is there and is fixed and, as we all know, words have power; maybe by hiding this power from humanity a clever ploy is under way to get us all cursing and bringing negative connotations in secretly. Maybe that is why campness is so stereotypically jovial - because being "gay" spoke of joy before bumming. (That wasn't his example by the way!) Now, I can't fully accept this because of the historic way languages have morphed and evolved and even biblically speaking the first definitions were changed at babel, but I can see what he says about a word's meaning hanging around even when the people present don't intend it to. Still, there must be a cross over point when a connotation is changed? I mean, I have met miserable gay people... plus the word "wicked" used to mean evil and now means great and I'm not convinced that that speaks curses over everything cool to be found in North-East London. Something to think about but by no means a definitive answer. And what, are we supposed to go with the flow and just use words as society intends us to? Letting the world put us in a box?
I actually have a theory, which I will throw in here seeing as the post is already ridiculously long. I have heard the word "shabba" said in tongues (Christian language of the Holy Spirit, kinda like a secret language with God) by quite a few people and apparently a lot them famous charismatic ones all say it, like a popular slogan. Make sense, if you hang out with the same people you use the same lingo. Now, if I get so excited I can't express it sometimes I just want to talk in tongues and you know what, I think that maybe "shabba!" is angel talk for "shit!" When meant in a good way. It is a holy exclamation! Why not, eh? We all need to blurt it out sometimes. After all, aren't tongues for when you run out of human words? Screw society and all it's definitions, I'll use holy words. I don't know what they mean at all, so noone can corrupt them!
Anyway. Back to "swearing". I use "" because I think that the current implicit connotation of "to swear" is negative and my point is that the words aren't necessarily and shouldn't be tarred so. Life in Jesus is meant to be about freedom, not regulation. I do think that I am truly free to do this and the pleasure of taking those words and knowing that I am not condemned to use them is pretty cool! I also think that I am far far far too adamant about it and that, actually, if I deem it so possible that those people who think swearing is objectively wrong are themselves wrong then it is contrapossible that myself deeming swearing to be subjective is also wrong.
I may or may not be right but what I am not is God and I feel, after arguing my corner and taking the anti-legalistic high ground for so long, that I have become legalistic about my right to swear. Also, I may well say it is about the heart and not the actual words, but if my motivation becomes fighting then I am not loving and I am not being cruel to be kind but merely to be right. Which is definitely a load of bollocks.
So, it is now time to surrender. To say that, despite the frustration at falling into the stereotype and the potentially unnecessary softness of Christian life, that I am prepared to do it anyway. Acceptable or not, maybe it is important right now that I don't swear, in the same way that it is important my friend's nan does. Or quite possibly that none of us should in our plight for purity. Whether language is mutable we could discuss till the cows come home... the thing that Jesus wants is for me to be mutable. I don't know that the Holy Spirit has convicted me to stop swearing but He has convicted me to be willing to, to be open to changing even this deep-rooted defining personal feature in order that I may take on the features of Jesus instead. And so, this lent I will be fasting all my fave words and I won't even use "bums" "tits" and "willies" in case they are displacement. I'll have a swear jar too, though the plan is for it to remain empty. I don't know how I'll feel about taking it up again after Easter and so tomorrow, on one final splurge as I leave pasturate, I may well have to bid them C U Next Tuesday! :-O
Last week I called something "funky cool" and the person I was talking to immediately assumed I had said "fucking cool". The fact is that to do so hadn't even occurred to me - worrying. It was looking like I may have been giving up my corner on swearing before I have even argued the case for it. But I could not let that happen, so today brings the long promised post on using words that are bloody rude...
I met a friend's mum over Christmas and when she heard my "story from dark to light" she asked me some fabulous questions. (Quite a pentecostal background btw.) They were:
1. Have you received the Holy Spirit yet?
2. Do you speak in tongues yet?
3. Have you stopped swearing yet?
I laughed so hard. I then tried to to explain why I didn't think no. 3 was necessarily a necessity... she told me that I would be convicted in time.
The whole image of being changed when you become a Christian is an interesting one. Of course the point is that you are a new creation, standing in the grace of God. Things about life are going to look pretty different, the darker it was before the starker the change some may say. And I have talked a lot recently about how much I have changed. It's been fucking amazing actually, to look back and gasp in awe at the incredible effect knowing Jesus has had on my life.
But on the other hand, something cool one person said about it all was that I was utterly different yet more me than I had ever been. And one of the things about me was my creative linguistic expression. That and my desire and giftings for shocking other people.
Now. Don't hear that and think that my adamancy to explete stems purely from a willingness to be contentious. This has been something that has affected my interpretation of this issue but it has also been something that has been challenged as time goes by. From an early point of thinking it is hilarious to say that "God is fucking amazing" because I really felt that Christians were "stuck up their own arses" about swearing I have mellowed somewhat. In a way I wish I could still say that classic phrase but I feel more uncomfortable about it. Though I don't think it's the word so much as the capacity to belittle what I really think of God - making a point is not what praise should be about.
So, let me outline to you what I have discovered and pondered on as I make my journey from f'ing and blinding to slipping into alternative lingo without even realising.
Before I begin I must first deny that swearing is for "boring people". I have found it to be very creative and I also think that it does a very good job of emphasising things when it has to. I don't care what you say, there is a reason that they were invented and it wasn't to disempower communication. Most people don't like it because of the strength of the expression and whilst it can be quite sad to use the same vocab every other word the same can be said for people that blandly utter non-swear words and atleast the ones that do it aren't afraid of making an impression.
That said, it has little bearing on my thoughts. I found myself absorbed into a very Christian environment when I starting going to church in Switzerland. I love my pals there dearly and this really isn't about anyone in particular, actually a large part of this is to do with culture or should I say the mix thereof. So many people were shocked by my language. It is fair enough, I sort of cultivated it to shock (mostly my parents!) but at the same time I had never met people who genuinely were taken aback by it. Yet I sometimes felt very strongly that the reasoning behind the discomfort I caused was not because I was offending anyone in a really personal way but more because I was crossing an arbitrary line that they had down. It really depended vastly on the continent of origin of the person who was reacting but I suppose the argument was that it was an unholy way of speaking. And I just saw this as legalistic mumbo jumbo. I really couldn't believe that people gave a shit what words I would say when it was clear my motivation was not ill.
So I have to admit it became a bit of a thing that Kat(i)e did. There were those that really appreciated the "fresh of breath air" that I brought actually, believe it or not! The way I saw it, language is a tool and these words were able to bring comedy, expression, and challenge into situations. I felt that people needed shaking up and it was my job to do it. Like I said, I was always one to stir so why not incorporate that role from before into the Kingdom now?
I was challenged in this of course, sometimes rightly so, and as time went by my usage got whittled down and down and down.
The number one command is to be loving and I didn't want to cause offence to people, particularly strangers or the vulnerable, so doing it in public I felt had to be metered.
As for children, well they probably wouldn't get that I had theologically reasoned why I wasn't in the wrong and so I had to guard the impression that would make.
It goes without saying, though I better had, that it is never right to swear directly at someone in an abusive way.
God loves this world and every body and thing in it and to be disrespectful is not cool.
Phrase like "fucking cool" and "bloody brilliant" are only every meant to add emphasis. When talking about something genuinely bad I could add it there too but negativity in general is not cool so I don't think I condone it then either.
That said, I would sometimes tell Satan to "fuck off" but then I heard that even the angels were polite to him so I figured best not.
One person told me that they witness by not swearing in a swear heavy environment and I can totally dig that. If it shows you are different. I just stuck to my guns that I was showing I was different in a different way. That I was not subject to the arbitrary laws of the church (small 'c') that wanted to put people into a box.
A big thing I realised was the whole "stumbling block" issue in Romans and as I spoke to Christians that said they struggled with swearing and felt bad when they messed up I realised that my "job" wasn't to get them to be OK with it as for them swearing is a big deal and I had no right to lead them into a place of guilt.
All these things added up to a limited context where I could let it rip! I never did adhere to the whole "don't swear in church" thing as God is everywhere and his temple is no longer a building but me and if I can swear at home I can definitely swear in the big old pile of bricks down the road. I did continue to swear, around those who weren't grieved by me but only for me!
You may argue that the loving neighbours and brothers thing means that challenging other Christians to not be legalistic goes out of the window. I know what you mean, but I have to say I don't think it is that black and white. If we accepted people's existing thresholds as the place within which to function then we may never get to the real honesty of life or the stuff that God wants us to do that is truly important, as we are caught up on insignificant details. There is the story of Tony Campollo (sp?) who got up at a conference and talked about how shit it was that people were dying in Africa but that the really shit thing is the fact that people react worse to the swearing than the situation. He got banned and people are still dying in Africa 10 years on... I feel that within loving there is sometimes the need to be cruel to be kind and I refuse to accept that because people find something "unacceptable" that they should be allowed to always not accept it. If we all went at the pace of the slowest runner then progress would be appalling and sometimes the slow ones need motivation forward in order to grow.
That said. Being the lesser of two evils does not make something right. What arguments have I heard against me? (Now is the time to stop if you think this post in long enough!).
Well, the main points were taken straight from the bible, which I must admit is pretty strong. I will try and remember the best ones:
Ephesians 4:29 - 5:7 which talks about unwholesome words and coarse joking being obscene and unholy.
James 3:1-12 which is about taming the tongue and the power of the words that leave your mouth.
Matthew 15 where Jesus himself discusses what comes out of your mouths being the things that make you unclean.
I've probably heard more but I never made a list of them all (feel free to add any you think of) and I already think these are all good points. I also think that my response is not going to be changed by this argument for, as I see it, the way all of these counter mine is if I am swearing in a way that is motivated by cruel or unholy intentions. Which is not at all my point.
For you see, language is a tool. It has evolved over so many years and words have meant so many things that I cannot see how the utterance of one is objective since even the definition is subjective to time and place. Did you know that in Māori the word for coward sounds just like fucker? And when we use the word gay it used to mean happy, then homosexual and now, for many silly "laddish" cultures, rubbish. Surely the context of a word is the thing that gives it meaning and thus power? If I am using "fucking" or "bloody" as qualifiers, or saying "shit" to mean "no way?!" then does that actually proclaim a heart that is coarse or unclean? In this subjective environment, motivation must be the only thing that counts and if a person's motivation not to swear is because they think people will frown upon them, it doesn't mean that God cannot see the secret hate words of frustration that they mumble to themselves. Doesn't cheeky verbalised bant beat hidden and internal angst any day?
Some say that language may be this mutable thing but that, actually, it is defined by how society sees it and not how I want it to be seen. Apart from the fact that many other people in society use it the same way as me (for I didn't just make up "love-swearing" but rather adopted it) and we cannot possible decide who's opinion is more valid, I postuate that perhaps refusing to accept swearing as wrong can instead take the power out of the words and stop them from being able to spread hate.
I sat next to the national director of Agapé at dinner tonight (check me and my name dropping!) and I told his all of this. He came up with the same ol' chestnuts for a while but then he did offer a new gem which I was quite thoughtful on. Right back in the day (when people were still friends with dinosaurs) man was told to name the animals. This dude's idea was that perhaps, in our era of "post-modernism" where we all talk about language as being this mutable thing, maybe this is actually a lie that keeps us from the fact that words have got specific meaning because we give it to them. A lion is a lion, end of. We created this language and we can't just decide willy nilly that "shag", for example, doesn't talk about sex in a degrading way. The meaning is there and is fixed and, as we all know, words have power; maybe by hiding this power from humanity a clever ploy is under way to get us all cursing and bringing negative connotations in secretly. Maybe that is why campness is so stereotypically jovial - because being "gay" spoke of joy before bumming. (That wasn't his example by the way!) Now, I can't fully accept this because of the historic way languages have morphed and evolved and even biblically speaking the first definitions were changed at babel, but I can see what he says about a word's meaning hanging around even when the people present don't intend it to. Still, there must be a cross over point when a connotation is changed? I mean, I have met miserable gay people... plus the word "wicked" used to mean evil and now means great and I'm not convinced that that speaks curses over everything cool to be found in North-East London. Something to think about but by no means a definitive answer. And what, are we supposed to go with the flow and just use words as society intends us to? Letting the world put us in a box?
I actually have a theory, which I will throw in here seeing as the post is already ridiculously long. I have heard the word "shabba" said in tongues (Christian language of the Holy Spirit, kinda like a secret language with God) by quite a few people and apparently a lot them famous charismatic ones all say it, like a popular slogan. Make sense, if you hang out with the same people you use the same lingo. Now, if I get so excited I can't express it sometimes I just want to talk in tongues and you know what, I think that maybe "shabba!" is angel talk for "shit!" When meant in a good way. It is a holy exclamation! Why not, eh? We all need to blurt it out sometimes. After all, aren't tongues for when you run out of human words? Screw society and all it's definitions, I'll use holy words. I don't know what they mean at all, so noone can corrupt them!
Anyway. Back to "swearing". I use "" because I think that the current implicit connotation of "to swear" is negative and my point is that the words aren't necessarily and shouldn't be tarred so. Life in Jesus is meant to be about freedom, not regulation. I do think that I am truly free to do this and the pleasure of taking those words and knowing that I am not condemned to use them is pretty cool! I also think that I am far far far too adamant about it and that, actually, if I deem it so possible that those people who think swearing is objectively wrong are themselves wrong then it is contrapossible that myself deeming swearing to be subjective is also wrong.
I may or may not be right but what I am not is God and I feel, after arguing my corner and taking the anti-legalistic high ground for so long, that I have become legalistic about my right to swear. Also, I may well say it is about the heart and not the actual words, but if my motivation becomes fighting then I am not loving and I am not being cruel to be kind but merely to be right. Which is definitely a load of bollocks.
So, it is now time to surrender. To say that, despite the frustration at falling into the stereotype and the potentially unnecessary softness of Christian life, that I am prepared to do it anyway. Acceptable or not, maybe it is important right now that I don't swear, in the same way that it is important my friend's nan does. Or quite possibly that none of us should in our plight for purity. Whether language is mutable we could discuss till the cows come home... the thing that Jesus wants is for me to be mutable. I don't know that the Holy Spirit has convicted me to stop swearing but He has convicted me to be willing to, to be open to changing even this deep-rooted defining personal feature in order that I may take on the features of Jesus instead. And so, this lent I will be fasting all my fave words and I won't even use "bums" "tits" and "willies" in case they are displacement. I'll have a swear jar too, though the plan is for it to remain empty. I don't know how I'll feel about taking it up again after Easter and so tomorrow, on one final splurge as I leave pasturate, I may well have to bid them C U Next Tuesday! :-O
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Diamonds Are Formed Under Pressure
Disclaimer - I'm too tired to write coherently or concisely but it's now or never...
I just had the best Sunday. Went to a baptism in the morning, after which we had this really great party with lots of good food, sunshine, singsongs, dancing and all lovely stuff like that. The ceremony itself just had so much joy - four people took the plunge and each had such a special story. I know no-one's testimony is better or worse, each a magic part of kingdom history, but this one guy stood up there and told us about his life full of addiction and violence and total shit and said he gave his life to Jesus two weeks ago... It had been a bit more of a journey than that but the crux is that he said for the first time he now had a hope and that the darkness of it all had been broken by this light he never knew even possible. I suppose the thing about those really stark stories is that they can represent in a graphic image the reality of freedom that we all (can) have with Jesus. Darkness doesn't have to be obvious or even apparent in anyway to take a hold of a life and chain it all up. Loving the reminder. (Also loving the way I was sitting at the front right behind one of the baptisees who stood up and pulled down his jeans in front of me...! He was wearing shorts under but it was still *quite* unexpected.)
Talking about darkness... (and being in shock!)
I didn't make my deadline on Friday.
After a night of utter frustration, during which I was stupidly (nay miraculously) OK and able to keep afloat and I suppose jog on some (not running, that is too hardcore), I got to midday before I decided it wasn't possible anymore and I should prob go tell someone. But I'd kept at it till then, willing it to work. Crying out at times to take it all away (secretly hoping I would get hit by a car on my walk just enough that I could stop but not so bad it would hurt or have any long term detriment!) but then embracing the need to try and do my bit even if it didn't work out, so I felt like I had done all I could. At which point it still didn't work out.
How did that feel? Second time round, so sure, so joyful, so adamant that it would be a testimony to God's faithfulness like when Daniel went in that old den and Darius was dead impressed by the lack of death-by-lion. I didn't feel like my faith depended on it so much, more that those friends who saw me be so carefree and chilled would be a bit unimpressed if my God didn't rescue me. I wanted Him to work a specific miracle for what I thought it would be good for and I had set out very particular guidelines for how God should be honoured in this situation.
But I realise: it really isn't up to me to tell him how to roll. Actually, maybe this wasn't about God doing something that would impress all those people who I'd seen the day before but about what honour I personally could give to him. Maybe he wanted my affections in the dark situation rather than to "win people over" which, let's face it, He can do however He likes. There is a pretty sweet song by Ishmael - you must know him - which goes like this:
I praise the Lord when the sun comes out, but I won't if it get's too hot
I praise the Lord when it rains a little, but not if it rains a lot
I praise the Lord when things go my way, but I won't when the going is tough
I praise the Lord when I've plenty of cash, but I won't when I aint got enough
Obviously sarcastic. Brilliant. Friday I had to let go of the let down, relinquish the fear that I was going to fail, and just go with it and still trust. I don't like saying this 'cause I don't want to appear proud but at the same time I am delighted at the way in which depending on God drew me close enough to Him that when it turned sour it wasn't about giving up but about somehow trying to praise through it. Though I won't pretend it wasn't horrible and really gutting too at times and just utter emotional sleep deprived turmoil. Another song ('cause everyone else says it better) by another legend Graham K sums it up:
For the joys and for the sorrows, the best and worst of times
For this moment for tomorrow, for all that lies behind
Fears that crowd around me, for the failures of my plans
For the dreams of all I hope to be, the truth of what I am
For this I have Jesus (repeat 2.5 times for emphasis!)
My point? I don't know if it will ever get easy to give up on my plans... especially when this alternative involves continued pressure and an absolute lack of idea about the coming months and how I will possibly deal with further deadlines and exams and, well, life. But really when it comes down to it all these things will pass away and so once again I must look at the things that will not. He is the only thing.
I figure that if I did what I could and this still happened then it must the right thing, ergo be glad. I suppose that is the difference that the light makes: chases the dark out of situations so they haven't got the power to ensnare and destroy.
Don't get me wrong. I hate it a lot. Friday sucked ass and did threaten to break me. I hate not being free, I hate the stress and the excuses and the way in which I have to be needy and "special" and I wish I could see my friends freely and get involved in the homeless shelter (I'm not being holy, I like it there) and everything else I want to do. There's no point pretending life is amazing right now 'cause that will only devalue it all when it is amazing, but it is alright nonetheless. After all, there's a time to enjoy and a time to endure; a time to play and a time to work. But I don't mind the shit 'cause truly it does bring me closer to Jesus and I am by no means perfect but I ain't gonna lie, I am improving.
Being refined, duh, it is not going to be nice or quick or pain free and messless. But it is going to be incredible and as these deep foundations get laid and a seed is planted at the bottom of them a house can be built that will have fruit growing all around it (I like mixing my metaphors) and then it will be like a gingerbread cottage but instead of tempting and dangerous and far too indulgent it will be healthy and good and the right kind of natural sugars.
So walk, plod, run, crawl, skip, jog, shuffle, trudge, dance on. Which ever it is, as it gets me through the fire, I know I will not be burned.
I just had the best Sunday. Went to a baptism in the morning, after which we had this really great party with lots of good food, sunshine, singsongs, dancing and all lovely stuff like that. The ceremony itself just had so much joy - four people took the plunge and each had such a special story. I know no-one's testimony is better or worse, each a magic part of kingdom history, but this one guy stood up there and told us about his life full of addiction and violence and total shit and said he gave his life to Jesus two weeks ago... It had been a bit more of a journey than that but the crux is that he said for the first time he now had a hope and that the darkness of it all had been broken by this light he never knew even possible. I suppose the thing about those really stark stories is that they can represent in a graphic image the reality of freedom that we all (can) have with Jesus. Darkness doesn't have to be obvious or even apparent in anyway to take a hold of a life and chain it all up. Loving the reminder. (Also loving the way I was sitting at the front right behind one of the baptisees who stood up and pulled down his jeans in front of me...! He was wearing shorts under but it was still *quite* unexpected.)
Talking about darkness... (and being in shock!)
I didn't make my deadline on Friday.
After a night of utter frustration, during which I was stupidly (nay miraculously) OK and able to keep afloat and I suppose jog on some (not running, that is too hardcore), I got to midday before I decided it wasn't possible anymore and I should prob go tell someone. But I'd kept at it till then, willing it to work. Crying out at times to take it all away (secretly hoping I would get hit by a car on my walk just enough that I could stop but not so bad it would hurt or have any long term detriment!) but then embracing the need to try and do my bit even if it didn't work out, so I felt like I had done all I could. At which point it still didn't work out.
How did that feel? Second time round, so sure, so joyful, so adamant that it would be a testimony to God's faithfulness like when Daniel went in that old den and Darius was dead impressed by the lack of death-by-lion. I didn't feel like my faith depended on it so much, more that those friends who saw me be so carefree and chilled would be a bit unimpressed if my God didn't rescue me. I wanted Him to work a specific miracle for what I thought it would be good for and I had set out very particular guidelines for how God should be honoured in this situation.
But I realise: it really isn't up to me to tell him how to roll. Actually, maybe this wasn't about God doing something that would impress all those people who I'd seen the day before but about what honour I personally could give to him. Maybe he wanted my affections in the dark situation rather than to "win people over" which, let's face it, He can do however He likes. There is a pretty sweet song by Ishmael - you must know him - which goes like this:
I praise the Lord when the sun comes out, but I won't if it get's too hot
I praise the Lord when it rains a little, but not if it rains a lot
I praise the Lord when things go my way, but I won't when the going is tough
I praise the Lord when I've plenty of cash, but I won't when I aint got enough
Obviously sarcastic. Brilliant. Friday I had to let go of the let down, relinquish the fear that I was going to fail, and just go with it and still trust. I don't like saying this 'cause I don't want to appear proud but at the same time I am delighted at the way in which depending on God drew me close enough to Him that when it turned sour it wasn't about giving up but about somehow trying to praise through it. Though I won't pretend it wasn't horrible and really gutting too at times and just utter emotional sleep deprived turmoil. Another song ('cause everyone else says it better) by another legend Graham K sums it up:
For the joys and for the sorrows, the best and worst of times
For this moment for tomorrow, for all that lies behind
Fears that crowd around me, for the failures of my plans
For the dreams of all I hope to be, the truth of what I am
For this I have Jesus (repeat 2.5 times for emphasis!)
My point? I don't know if it will ever get easy to give up on my plans... especially when this alternative involves continued pressure and an absolute lack of idea about the coming months and how I will possibly deal with further deadlines and exams and, well, life. But really when it comes down to it all these things will pass away and so once again I must look at the things that will not. He is the only thing.
I figure that if I did what I could and this still happened then it must the right thing, ergo be glad. I suppose that is the difference that the light makes: chases the dark out of situations so they haven't got the power to ensnare and destroy.
Don't get me wrong. I hate it a lot. Friday sucked ass and did threaten to break me. I hate not being free, I hate the stress and the excuses and the way in which I have to be needy and "special" and I wish I could see my friends freely and get involved in the homeless shelter (I'm not being holy, I like it there) and everything else I want to do. There's no point pretending life is amazing right now 'cause that will only devalue it all when it is amazing, but it is alright nonetheless. After all, there's a time to enjoy and a time to endure; a time to play and a time to work. But I don't mind the shit 'cause truly it does bring me closer to Jesus and I am by no means perfect but I ain't gonna lie, I am improving.
Being refined, duh, it is not going to be nice or quick or pain free and messless. But it is going to be incredible and as these deep foundations get laid and a seed is planted at the bottom of them a house can be built that will have fruit growing all around it (I like mixing my metaphors) and then it will be like a gingerbread cottage but instead of tempting and dangerous and far too indulgent it will be healthy and good and the right kind of natural sugars.
So walk, plod, run, crawl, skip, jog, shuffle, trudge, dance on. Which ever it is, as it gets me through the fire, I know I will not be burned.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Interval Training
I'm pulling an all-nighter with only my facebook status for company. Progress is slow; peace is unprecedented; I feel like I might be giving birth to a miracle and it isn't half uneasy but so far I have not hit panic. The fear waved at me across the room but I put my finger up right back at it!
For I have decided to enjoy this. Nothing can get to me if I don't let it and I can't do anything to change the situation I'm in. Plus, this whole essay is about analogy and foundations - my two favourite things to write about! The people I have met today seem quite shocked by what I expect to achieve (currently at 9,500 words instead of 5,000 and only 2,500 of them are good, with the rest in a total mess which may not actually contain enough quality to salvage!) by 4pm tomorrow. I'm shocked at how much I'm not panicking or bothered right now and am blogging so I have it in writing that God has made a huge an utter difference in this situation. I used to go to bed to avoid the dread and skirt around the issue at hand in despair. Now it's like "what will be will be" then I plod on trying to do as little thinking as possible about anything else much and just marveling at the peace that passes understanding down in my heart.
I read something on this random running blog (like the running in the poem the other day, get it? Incidentally, I was walking behind a person today with a jumper that said "jog on" on the back and at the time I was listening to "Chasing Pavements" - I love stuff like that!) a few weeks ago about how the author found that she could not simultaneously love and hate something. I liked that. I like what I am doing my essay on so why on earth would I hate this? I get to spend the next 14 hours doing something I am interested in and passionate about. Hurrah! If I start to flag it is the perfect excuse to eat chocolate and drink real coffee!! It's like the bible when it says to love good and hate evil. That's in the Old T and the New T so you know it's important. I am not going to have contempt for this 'cause it is good. A good subject, points to good things, gives me good opportunities, draws me nearer to God (like good but capitalised and without the 'o'), has been the source of many good blessings (not that there is such a thing as a not-good blessing). I have no right at all to be despondent now. God wants me to delight and appreciate every minute, if not simply because I get to depend on Him a whole lot.
So I'm blogging when I said I wouldn't. Ah well, I also wrote the plan for a whole novel this afternoon! Remember how I prayed that I would not be inspired to create - no songs, no poems, no dances(!)...? Well I have surpassed all this and jotted down 4,000 words worth of ideas. I'm not claiming it was necessarily God but it was pretty exciting. I never thought I would be the type to write a proper story like that.
I'd rather have a book than an essay... but I'd sooner have both. Back to it...
For I have decided to enjoy this. Nothing can get to me if I don't let it and I can't do anything to change the situation I'm in. Plus, this whole essay is about analogy and foundations - my two favourite things to write about! The people I have met today seem quite shocked by what I expect to achieve (currently at 9,500 words instead of 5,000 and only 2,500 of them are good, with the rest in a total mess which may not actually contain enough quality to salvage!) by 4pm tomorrow. I'm shocked at how much I'm not panicking or bothered right now and am blogging so I have it in writing that God has made a huge an utter difference in this situation. I used to go to bed to avoid the dread and skirt around the issue at hand in despair. Now it's like "what will be will be" then I plod on trying to do as little thinking as possible about anything else much and just marveling at the peace that passes understanding down in my heart.
I read something on this random running blog (like the running in the poem the other day, get it? Incidentally, I was walking behind a person today with a jumper that said "jog on" on the back and at the time I was listening to "Chasing Pavements" - I love stuff like that!) a few weeks ago about how the author found that she could not simultaneously love and hate something. I liked that. I like what I am doing my essay on so why on earth would I hate this? I get to spend the next 14 hours doing something I am interested in and passionate about. Hurrah! If I start to flag it is the perfect excuse to eat chocolate and drink real coffee!! It's like the bible when it says to love good and hate evil. That's in the Old T and the New T so you know it's important. I am not going to have contempt for this 'cause it is good. A good subject, points to good things, gives me good opportunities, draws me nearer to God (like good but capitalised and without the 'o'), has been the source of many good blessings (not that there is such a thing as a not-good blessing). I have no right at all to be despondent now. God wants me to delight and appreciate every minute, if not simply because I get to depend on Him a whole lot.
So I'm blogging when I said I wouldn't. Ah well, I also wrote the plan for a whole novel this afternoon! Remember how I prayed that I would not be inspired to create - no songs, no poems, no dances(!)...? Well I have surpassed all this and jotted down 4,000 words worth of ideas. I'm not claiming it was necessarily God but it was pretty exciting. I never thought I would be the type to write a proper story like that.
I'd rather have a book than an essay... but I'd sooner have both. Back to it...
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The End Is Nigh II
I already have a post called 'The End Is Nigh'. I don't know what that was about... I suppose it just goes to show I am melodramatic.
I am about to embark on the last proper night of sleep I will have before this 4pm deadline on Friday is met. All the washing up is done, ready for me to just do what I need to do unhindered in the kitchen department. I can't be sure but I reckon this will be the last post I write until then.
Which means that this is a turning point. Next time you hear from me I will be one of two things:
1) A person with 1/6 of her degree completed
2) A person with a problem
The plan is that either one of these things could be God's will for my life, to draw me closer to Him and bring about His Kingdom on earth, and so I want the one that happens to that one. The secret plan is that I want it to be number 1) but I'm not supposed to be presumptuous! Either way, no problem is too big or too small for God to gladly help out with.
Hmmmm. I confess I am afraid. I am praying that this won't continue, so that should deal with that hopefully. I am also praying that I won't feel the need to "capture my final moments" through the medium of song. Or choreography (I have started dancing recently but this is one thing that definitely does not aspire to leave my living via the interweb!). Or anything else at all that could be a "worthy" alternative to being that person with 1/6 of a degree (or in this context a person that hasn't wasted the opportunity to have a whole degree). Yeah, God, confidence and uncreativity is what I want. Please. If that's alright.
I'm also trying to claim Daniel's education in my prayer life. I can't really compare this to be thrown to the lions but I am drinking a lot of water and I got my vegetable box delivered on Monday so we live on a similar diet.
But it is time for bed. So I bid you so long, farewell and that I will see you on the other side. I really could not say what is going to happen next. I enter a foggy place where possibilty and impossibility are undetermined and divine intervention potential but unspecified. I have no strong sense that all will come together, neither that it won't. I just pray that through this ominous mist I will know God's support and love so much that the worth of every painful stumbling shuffle forward will be fully apparent.
I am about to embark on the last proper night of sleep I will have before this 4pm deadline on Friday is met. All the washing up is done, ready for me to just do what I need to do unhindered in the kitchen department. I can't be sure but I reckon this will be the last post I write until then.
Which means that this is a turning point. Next time you hear from me I will be one of two things:
1) A person with 1/6 of her degree completed
2) A person with a problem
The plan is that either one of these things could be God's will for my life, to draw me closer to Him and bring about His Kingdom on earth, and so I want the one that happens to that one. The secret plan is that I want it to be number 1) but I'm not supposed to be presumptuous! Either way, no problem is too big or too small for God to gladly help out with.
Hmmmm. I confess I am afraid. I am praying that this won't continue, so that should deal with that hopefully. I am also praying that I won't feel the need to "capture my final moments" through the medium of song. Or choreography (I have started dancing recently but this is one thing that definitely does not aspire to leave my living via the interweb!). Or anything else at all that could be a "worthy" alternative to being that person with 1/6 of a degree (or in this context a person that hasn't wasted the opportunity to have a whole degree). Yeah, God, confidence and uncreativity is what I want. Please. If that's alright.
I'm also trying to claim Daniel's education in my prayer life. I can't really compare this to be thrown to the lions but I am drinking a lot of water and I got my vegetable box delivered on Monday so we live on a similar diet.
But it is time for bed. So I bid you so long, farewell and that I will see you on the other side. I really could not say what is going to happen next. I enter a foggy place where possibilty and impossibility are undetermined and divine intervention potential but unspecified. I have no strong sense that all will come together, neither that it won't. I just pray that through this ominous mist I will know God's support and love so much that the worth of every painful stumbling shuffle forward will be fully apparent.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
One Whole Year
It's been a vast expanse of a day. Academic and personal developments... it all comes at once, seemingly.
Starting on a big fat wad of joy I have to say I think that for now I've come back to being on top of it all. So glad to be spending some ace quality time with God recently, loving reading the word again and generally feeling good! I say this straight because it ain't that common and it is fabulous when it seems as real and peaceful as this. I have even been working with an attitude of doing it for God despite what I can achieve wordlyly, which is not at all how I felt a few days ago... so I'm lovin' it while I can..!
I don't really know how much to share. I'm gonna do what I normally do and go for honesty over restraint, which I may regret later but the worst that can happen is I look stupid... and there is no shame in the Kingdom!
Today is a significant one in the personal calendar of Kat(i)e because it is exactly a year since the last time I saw someone who used to be one of, if not the, most significant person in my life (they're not dead mind). There is tons of history I have no interest in going into but the short version is that I feel I was moved to Switzerland because God was taking me out of this really unhealthy dependent relationship so I could get free! Which has happened in a huge way. So huge that I never in my wildest dreams would have predicted it and back then the idea of life without him was as scary and alien to me as scary aliens.
So this morning I wondered about if I should wonder about it. 3 years is a long time in the life of a 21 year old (especially as I don't remember most of the early ones) so part of me felt like I should register and ponder on what it all means. The truth was, I didn’t know how I felt. How should I commemorate this? Write a song, an extra verse for another song, a poem, a novel, a play? I still have aspirations for a musical but the plots lines are more befitting of a soap opera than an actual opera! A fake letter, a real letter, pour my heart out into a journal that nosey grandkids may read? Perhaps I should blog I thought; I dismissed this for a time but it seems I have cracked...! Thing is though, it all felt a bit like an obligation and as I tried to express I really had nothing to think. This memory belonged to someone so distant from me it didn't make sense to analyse. I wasn't interested. I wasn't even sure what was real and I didn't care either.
Of course this lack of interest interested me! I got pretty darn excited by the fact I didn't give a damn. A new sense of freedom flooded me and I wrote a journal, a poem, a song AND a verse about moving on! And now a blog...
So is that it? Well no, 'cause that's untested. I am fine, see me smile. Later in the day (about an hour ago actually) I came a bit more earthward and felt swamped by life (specifically the aspects pertaining to the philosophy of maths). Still impressively (not my ability but I am grateful for it) undespairing but kind of morose, I leave the library an unhappy mathematician. Momentarily overwhelmed I wanted to cry quite a lot. And so I settle into my ipod for the trudge home with this message ringing in my ears:
"It Must Have Been Love but it's over now. Save Tonight, 'cause I'm Lost Without You and tomorrow you'll be gone, Leaving me working my way Through The Dark. This Same Girl is Still With You so please just Stay Another Day 'cause You may be Forgiven but you'll never be Forgotten. I Still Miss Someone and They Can't Take That Away From Me."
You know what? Sometime random is just wrong. I kept skipping tracks and I kept finding numbers that wanted to indulge my inner Mood Indigo... but instead I Dried My Eyes. I'm well out of the dark actually, I Suddenly Saw a long time ago and have been On My Way From Misery To Happiness for ages. The only person I ever have and ever will be Lost Without is J.E.S.U.S., Yes! He is my First, Last, My Everything. I Walk Away and I realise that That's What The Love of God Can Do. That's what the love of God did do. Hence the feeling like I'm living in a Whole New World.
I'm always going to hit these low moments, especially when I am in the process of being refined, no sense in denying it. But how good does it feel to know that this particular era of self-indulgent misery is in the past! I can find plenty of other ways to throw myself a pity party but that door seems to be officially closed and I am so glad I got to both realise and confirm it. Also, I know that with the highs comes the lows and that is just the "egg-card" balance (obscure Brit-TVAd reference). I don't mind. When I'm up I'm too optimistic to fret it and when I'm down I can look forward to being back up!
So umm, I don't really have a concluding paragraph. Ah well, you can read the poem if you're that way inclined. It's one of them ones with 'looser structure':
One whole year
366 days
Such a lot can happen
Priorities change
Yesterdays fade and make space
To embrace a different Way
What a cliché
“Year ago today”
Do I really care?
Is it not just obligation that recalls?
The tiny details of the past
They make a nice contrast
But that’s all
The only use of pain as I see
Is a reminder of how I came to be free
Do not dismiss the reality of misery
But embrace it, to mark the path to liberty
A milestone
Who’d have thought that I was built for endurance?
Long distance seems so boring
And hard
It will surely wear me down before long
But long has gone
My legs grew strong
And as I came to love the run I looked around
At what I would have missed were I still underground
From the rising to the setting sun
Trees in fields, mountaintops, valleys glisten with dewdrops
Now I’d welcome that flock of sheep
That I once feared when lost
I was asleep
Eyes shut, arms crossed
Then suddenly they were opened
and the glare ached
Until the spots had cleared and revealed the Truth
I though my heart would break
but instead it was renewed
What would I say
if I went back
a year ago this very day?
Crocodile tears are all that I could offer while my former cried
Quite estranged
So I write to recognise the inconceivable distance I've come
Not to revisit some long gone strife
Done with that, I celebrate Life
Starting on a big fat wad of joy I have to say I think that for now I've come back to being on top of it all. So glad to be spending some ace quality time with God recently, loving reading the word again and generally feeling good! I say this straight because it ain't that common and it is fabulous when it seems as real and peaceful as this. I have even been working with an attitude of doing it for God despite what I can achieve wordlyly, which is not at all how I felt a few days ago... so I'm lovin' it while I can..!
I don't really know how much to share. I'm gonna do what I normally do and go for honesty over restraint, which I may regret later but the worst that can happen is I look stupid... and there is no shame in the Kingdom!
Today is a significant one in the personal calendar of Kat(i)e because it is exactly a year since the last time I saw someone who used to be one of, if not the, most significant person in my life (they're not dead mind). There is tons of history I have no interest in going into but the short version is that I feel I was moved to Switzerland because God was taking me out of this really unhealthy dependent relationship so I could get free! Which has happened in a huge way. So huge that I never in my wildest dreams would have predicted it and back then the idea of life without him was as scary and alien to me as scary aliens.
So this morning I wondered about if I should wonder about it. 3 years is a long time in the life of a 21 year old (especially as I don't remember most of the early ones) so part of me felt like I should register and ponder on what it all means. The truth was, I didn’t know how I felt. How should I commemorate this? Write a song, an extra verse for another song, a poem, a novel, a play? I still have aspirations for a musical but the plots lines are more befitting of a soap opera than an actual opera! A fake letter, a real letter, pour my heart out into a journal that nosey grandkids may read? Perhaps I should blog I thought; I dismissed this for a time but it seems I have cracked...! Thing is though, it all felt a bit like an obligation and as I tried to express I really had nothing to think. This memory belonged to someone so distant from me it didn't make sense to analyse. I wasn't interested. I wasn't even sure what was real and I didn't care either.
Of course this lack of interest interested me! I got pretty darn excited by the fact I didn't give a damn. A new sense of freedom flooded me and I wrote a journal, a poem, a song AND a verse about moving on! And now a blog...
So is that it? Well no, 'cause that's untested. I am fine, see me smile. Later in the day (about an hour ago actually) I came a bit more earthward and felt swamped by life (specifically the aspects pertaining to the philosophy of maths). Still impressively (not my ability but I am grateful for it) undespairing but kind of morose, I leave the library an unhappy mathematician. Momentarily overwhelmed I wanted to cry quite a lot. And so I settle into my ipod for the trudge home with this message ringing in my ears:
"It Must Have Been Love but it's over now. Save Tonight, 'cause I'm Lost Without You and tomorrow you'll be gone, Leaving me working my way Through The Dark. This Same Girl is Still With You so please just Stay Another Day 'cause You may be Forgiven but you'll never be Forgotten. I Still Miss Someone and They Can't Take That Away From Me."
You know what? Sometime random is just wrong. I kept skipping tracks and I kept finding numbers that wanted to indulge my inner Mood Indigo... but instead I Dried My Eyes. I'm well out of the dark actually, I Suddenly Saw a long time ago and have been On My Way From Misery To Happiness for ages. The only person I ever have and ever will be Lost Without is J.E.S.U.S., Yes! He is my First, Last, My Everything. I Walk Away and I realise that That's What The Love of God Can Do. That's what the love of God did do. Hence the feeling like I'm living in a Whole New World.
I'm always going to hit these low moments, especially when I am in the process of being refined, no sense in denying it. But how good does it feel to know that this particular era of self-indulgent misery is in the past! I can find plenty of other ways to throw myself a pity party but that door seems to be officially closed and I am so glad I got to both realise and confirm it. Also, I know that with the highs comes the lows and that is just the "egg-card" balance (obscure Brit-TVAd reference). I don't mind. When I'm up I'm too optimistic to fret it and when I'm down I can look forward to being back up!
So umm, I don't really have a concluding paragraph. Ah well, you can read the poem if you're that way inclined. It's one of them ones with 'looser structure':
One whole year
366 days
Such a lot can happen
Priorities change
Yesterdays fade and make space
To embrace a different Way
What a cliché
“Year ago today”
Do I really care?
Is it not just obligation that recalls?
The tiny details of the past
They make a nice contrast
But that’s all
The only use of pain as I see
Is a reminder of how I came to be free
Do not dismiss the reality of misery
But embrace it, to mark the path to liberty
A milestone
Who’d have thought that I was built for endurance?
Long distance seems so boring
And hard
It will surely wear me down before long
But long has gone
My legs grew strong
And as I came to love the run I looked around
At what I would have missed were I still underground
From the rising to the setting sun
Trees in fields, mountaintops, valleys glisten with dewdrops
Now I’d welcome that flock of sheep
That I once feared when lost
I was asleep
Eyes shut, arms crossed
Then suddenly they were opened
and the glare ached
Until the spots had cleared and revealed the Truth
I though my heart would break
but instead it was renewed
What would I say
if I went back
a year ago this very day?
Crocodile tears are all that I could offer while my former cried
Quite estranged
So I write to recognise the inconceivable distance I've come
Not to revisit some long gone strife
Done with that, I celebrate Life
Monday, February 16, 2009
Ha ha!
When I write I tend to do a bit here and there, hopping all over the place to different sections as I think of things and then spending most of my time cutting and pasting (or just cutting). I have over 26 pages... just only about 4 of them are useful thus far!
I was inspecting some random collections of my words: half written paragraphs, phrases, bullet points, notes to myself etc, just now and two jumped out at me as particularly amusing. Sorry to be quoting myself, I just laughed out loud and, since I am currently on a break, I figured I'd share:
"The thing about language is that it is always so very"
"CHECK - not quite wrt [with respect to] reality yet"
You may not appreciate this as much as I do but you just spent time reading it anyway, so there!
I was inspecting some random collections of my words: half written paragraphs, phrases, bullet points, notes to myself etc, just now and two jumped out at me as particularly amusing. Sorry to be quoting myself, I just laughed out loud and, since I am currently on a break, I figured I'd share:
"The thing about language is that it is always so very"
"CHECK - not quite wrt [with respect to] reality yet"
You may not appreciate this as much as I do but you just spent time reading it anyway, so there!
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