Bye bye Baby, Baby bye bye

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.

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

DTR

I like all the flavours of jelly babies now. I used to have favourites, and leasts, eating them in reverse order (unless I was sharing!) and always ending on the blacks. Now I like each one for it's own qualities and can gladly mix it up. I have no point... for this part of today's post I am going to have a competition. The most interesting analogy wins a packet of jelly babies!

Other things about how I am changing... I have spent most of my 22nd year wishing and then thinking I was 23. I don't know why. Some kind of fallacy that I would be better at 23? A classic "not enjoying where you are at" moment which leaves me with 2 months to go till I actually am 23 wondering what 22 is like. I feel like I have missed out on being truly myself for want of fitting into another mould.

Yeah, coming into a better place with identity is defo a trademark of this year. I remember thinking when I was 14 (being quite mature for my age as I was!) that I was not going to change from now and had "found myself", which I have come to recognise as hallmark for being insecure and thus asserting security. Now I wake up every day and think that I am nowhere near being "right". Which I think is perhaps the only hope I will ever have at being true to myself, knowing that I'm not. This whole identity in Christ part of being a Christian has spoken to me a lot, as I observe all the other places I have tried to put my identity over time and realise that the only good option is something that doesn't ever change (whilst already being great!) and won't let you down. So much of the pain that comes out of relationships that end is from letting your identity become fixed in a person so that when they are gone it feels like you are too. I suppose that is what I think the difference is now, as a Christian. The way I see it we are all looking for something to hook onto as our security, that is sort of a trait of humanity and we try it everywhere from romance to jobs to appearance... but if we choose anything fallible we will lose it eventually and feel lost ourselves. By putting it in Jesus I suddenly find that there is something unchanging in my world and, actually, the idea is that as I am inevitably changing it is (hopefully) to become more like Him and so in a sense I'm stabilising in my fluctuations.

Yeah. That is what I am loving today as the analogy. OSCILLATION. I feel like I am oscillating to some central point in which I have potential to be truly secure. Like a centre-of-gravity. Some wise bloke once said to my brother-in-law (who is, by the by, also wise) that balance is not a good thing. Trying to keep these really opposite features of your life in some kind of polarised precarious distribution is just totally contrary to having a holistic existence where everything is centred around one thing. There is no sustainability in it either, if you look at systems of inertia you can find an arrangement that keeps level when these far flung masses are in place but it doesn't take much to topple it and if you have close together forces they will have a lot more substance for the equivalent moment. That's science and I can't begin to explain it. If you don't understand then ask my dad.

That was a bit of an aside. Sorry if I confused things. This oscillating to a central point looks sort of like starting off really far away in one direction then going far in the other then turning back but less extremely and continuing as such in decreasing amounts... It's a dampening effect. Sort of imagine a ball bouncing and getting less and less (except that it finally stops in mid air). Or maybe a swing which has a big first push but then your friend gets bored. I have been doing this: I started off insane; I suddenly saw all these things I need to change; I got really worked up about it all and began to disregard who I am to the extreme of losing everything unique and lovable about me; I then realised I'm actually great and swung back; then I wanted to become more holy; then I realised I was being legalistic and so rebelled; now slowly I sort of get God's love for me and am coming closer to him but maybe not understanding loads of His nature; as such I am reminded of my academic issues and try to reason it through; in this I realise some kind of deep-rooted respect for His law and concepts and can't shake what He's done for me... Coming eventually (is the plan) to some sort of more centralised place which I think might be my identity in Christ. Not "there" at all you understand but it feels almost like things are beginning to fall into place enough that I am really noticing it. A spiral is a good image and also a mathematically equivalent one so feel free to use it.

How is this revealing itself in my life here and now then? Well, the voice stuff is going well, I was excited by my first "session" today and look forward to working on that more. I am delighted to find out that I can do a bit of careful singing (only in church like and around the house but I was not really refraining very well so now I can do it a bit with permission I am less likely to do it too much naughtily) and talking I am beginning to find a good level in. As far as general group interaction goes I think that actually I have gotten a lot better. I have more security in what I do and don't share, it is still pretty forward and I can at times be overly tangential (the optimal amount being anecdotal but not overbearing) but I feel like I have matured in that. Sounds really odd, I suppose the context is that I found it quite hard to be in a new group of people when I got back (like church groups, that's where I've been tonight you see) and almost feeling like I could not control my "input" then feeling bad and generally like it was a far less accepting environment than Geneva when everyone cut me a lot of slack! It was totally well timed as part of my development but has been really tricky and today I have not come home feeling like I over did it - both physically and socially. OK, I still may have said things a bit too flippantly (like how I think that we should be like bible times and only hang out with same sex groups!) but I also had some useful insights about forming relationships with the opposite sex (too much to say now but I am tempted to blog another this time, I know a lot about it and tonight has helped formulate my thoughts) that seemed to come out almost concisely!

So yeah, DTR. Define The Relationship. Sort of more relevant to the topic with pasturate which I haven't really gone into but also, in a far more significant albeit convoluted way, about Defining my Relationship with Jesus. As I get into a more stable place it is like "we" are getting tighter and the benefit of a centralised grounding for that means that I feel less "wobbly". Despite all my crap of late, I do feel less wobbly, almost as though it has brought me closer in and thus better off!

Sort of a side note to all this, but I'm gonna do it anyway, is looking at relationships in general. I've realised my "significant other" is my blog. I've also realised I'm not sure I'm happy about this. I don't mean that I'm ready for an actual bf (though my hair is getting longer!) but I just feel a bit frustrated. I mean, if I put this much time into a person relationship I would expect something back. Not sure where this is going but there feels to be a certain amount of love lost between me and BGB right now and if things carry on this way I may opt for a "break". I mean, I do have a life of my own and I think I may wish to build into relationships that are not, to all intents and purposes, me talking to myself.

On an actual side note, but I'm just really excited, I got a new bible! If you recall I mentioned how I lost my NLT that I had as a "youth" and had restarted using when I got back to England. It left me a) sad and b) not sure what to do. I wanted a bigger one than my pocket NIV and I kinda wanted a study bible which was a different version for comparison, but which to get? I mentioned before that I didn't really know about versions and heard different things from different people all the time. If there's nothing that annoys me more is someone being adamant that theirs in the best (or conversely that others definitely aren't!) so seeking advice was hard! But I just really naturally bought an NLT Study Bible yesterday which sort of happened randomly and "felt" right. It's the newest study out and I liked the NLT before. Plus, were it not for me losing my last one I wouldn't have been able to justify getting this. I don't think it's more "right" than others but I do like their policy of a translation that is accurate but reads for now (without being super casual) as that is sort of the point of translating isn't it? That it come across as best as possible in the new language. Similar to the original in terms of style but without necessarily being about direct interpretations. Whatever, I didn't do any of that really, I just went with my gut and this made the most sense in the shop. I like it. I'm gonna get my mum to make me a leopard print cover!! Oh yeah, a verse that is ace and the reason I brought up bibles:

Lamentations 3: 20-26

I probably just needed to put that link and be done with it. Maybe that's what I'll do with baby...

"Dreams can come true, look at me babe I'm with you..."

That was what came on my car radio last night as I came back from Michelle's and I meant to mention it in my blog but I never. So now I have. If this whole God thing really has come together then absolutely anything actually is possible - there was a time I never thought He could be with me and now look: He is and I still can't get over it.

Which is the reason that I am slowly going from being a person who expected things never to work out to someone who is always expecting everything to. Moments of absolute disdain aside (which can take a large chunk out of some of my days, granted) I have been having loads of hope recently. Ridiculous amounts. Raising them stakes good and high. The way I see it, if God is gonna top anything I can conceive of then the best thing for me to do is think BIG. That's a boring game theory model. Think BIG get BIGGER. Think small get Medium. There is no payoff formula is there? I think the answer is "Duh, Supersize me".

So today I did. I dreamed SO big. I planned the next 30 years of my life. There were lots of gaps, don't get me wrong, and I am not saying this all has to happen or else, I just figured "why not get excited by the possibilities?" Some of it is crazy and made up and I won't be really disappointed if becoming Prime Minister doesn't happen (hell, I'm not entirely sure how I would feel about a woman running the country!) and exactly how Eastern Europe comes into it is flexible... but some of it I can see clearly in one shape or another. Like community building in Bristol, being a homemaker (not the same as housewife), working with the homeless, female identity empowerment (not "female empowerment" which sounds a lot like feminism and I don't mean at all), starting a music project that gives opportunity to the deprived and disadvantaged and shares love with the world. I even decided that I probably did need a husband at some point and now have a pretty good feel of what he would need to be up for and capable of!! They're not all bad after all...

So I was kinda stoked about this vision. It clearly isn't going to look exactly like this but I reckon that God is putting some stuff in particular on my heart. And I really do get that if His alternative is to be, say a stay home mum for example, then that would be the better thing.

At the same time I was aware it's important that, in my expecting of great stuff and amazing gifts, how God wants to use me is so not about me. Which is really really hard. I don't know about you but I have this huge imagination which is lots of fun and exciting and enables me to see the "bigger picture" but it also leads me to get carried away with things that are just "cool". The advance autobiography that I wrote for myself would have gotten well loads of credit I swear. I would be everybody's fave prime minister and change the world... whilst also fabulously managing a family of 4/5 and recording several albums. And what with my "childlike" faith that God can do it I am prime candidate for missing the point that He probably shouldn't. I struggle enough with pride (when I'm not struggling with feeling down on myself, obviously) indeed even as I write I am proud that I have recognised this danger in advance! I just can't win...

So I'm sitting at this concert tonight with my sister, contemplating all these important things in my young brain, when God starts stirring a bit more. The gig was amazing. A team of musicians that work with prisoners and ex-prisoners as a rehab type thingy - called changing tunes, check it out. Some of the most powerful songs I have ever heard, particularly one that just spelled out in incredible "The Streets" style this really gritty gripping reality of the unhealthy complicated status between men and women. It all just added to the realisation that music is an amazing tool with the capacity to change lives and bring light. Hurrah! Inspiring much? Coincidence? I knew that I wanted to work with homeless people and "disadvantaged" youth 'cause that's where I have been "moved" and where my albeit limited experiences lie, so the prison work was a really cool overlap but with plenty of scope to bring it to others.

'Cause of course that is my priority. Tapping a new market. Helping people that have no other options. Really making a BIG difference. Being something incredible that makes people go wow and gives a warm fuzzy glow at the *number* of lives changed. Getting my M.B.E.

So I have to laugh when at the interval one of the musicians gets up and talks about this new project that has been set up in the kinda funky-but-really-quite-dodge part of town where there is already a huge vision for change and love revolution. A vision I already feel both excited by and jealous of. The project described ticks in every way what I had just decided to call my life works.

I can't help it. I feel like I missed the window, not been there from the start. Now I'm trying to carve out a special role for me in The Kingdom but really I mean in The World 'cause that is the place that my accolade would be coming from. I arrived back in England to see the beginning of a radical church movement in Bristol, a revolution underway; and though I'd been praying and excited and certain of it happening before I got here I was kinda annoyed that no-one waited. There have been people praying for decades but I had claims on the particular power of mine and where is the recognition? No-one even knows I exist.

So what is this post about? Well, I figure seeing as I don't get to be a "founder" of the self-harmony (it even has a cool name) thing and will no doubt have to be a "worker" instead then the least I could do is put it somewhere in writing that I thought of it too... independently of them!

Lol. I figure this is kinda how we are, right? People. Crap. Yet not. But still so. It's funny, sometimes if I'm really quiet I think I can hear my sinful nature fighting with the Holy Spirit as though they were sitting on my shoulders.

I know, I always have I think since I resigned myself to Christ, that it isn't about me. That community is the best thing and that as I allow it to become important and the love takes over then I will believe in it increasingly, till one day I know it wholeheartedly in every circumstance. Just it sucks when you want to be a pop star! Or anything else.

We see it everywhere you know, taking ownership. Even in the church. Duh, particularly. Even when it is about what God is doing people love to be able to claim that He is doing it just for them, because of what they have been doing and how they have been seeking. Even when it is a community it is a limited community, just you and your friends. Even when it is the Christian world as a whole we forget that it isn't just for us but for EVERYONE and get comfy and superior.

So what will I do? Write my plan in pencil I suppose. Go where He wants. Trust that the timing isn't a fudge and that I will be put in the right place even if that place is somewhere really small - which presumably it will be when my humility is still so small. I think that humility and importance are directly proportional you know. He only lifts people up that don't care - which is why I'm trying so hard not to!

One thing I read that is really helpful for me in my motivations lately (I can spend a long time over-analysing things and getting very confused about what is actually going on in my heart) is something Paul wrote. It's funny, I used to really hate that guy but he does say some good shit:

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.

Which makes sense given how fickle and complicated we are.

So I will carry on dreaming and believing and seeking and petitioning what is on my heart to the best of my own understanding but there really is very little point in me trying to figure it all out, what with the constant internal battle. If God didn't put it in me then it won't last long, what with the victory having been won. I just have to let Him carry on changing me.

It does suck though. At the moment it still sucks... but I am a work in progress and the masterpiece is yet to be reveal...!

Experimenting with Haiku's, Christmas stylee

I know I haven't been writing but I'm just too muddled in my head. It's been a busy term, the end in particular, and finding time to put it all together into words has proven tricky. I've been to six parties and six carol services already and now I've arrived at the parent's in London I am finding myself doing all kinds of visiting and whatnot so my intentions of catching up in the tranquility of home life are not quite being fulfilled.

To top it all off I have been thinking a lot about Christmas and it confuses me. I have a lot of joy for this season, a lot of expectation for good things (and no I don't mean presents) and am loving that it is my first Christmas with Jesus. Last year I said to someone that I wanted to be a Christian by Christmas 'cause then it would be even better and they said to me that God has His own way of doing things and I would be best to accept and follow His plans (or something like that, which was far more helpful than telling me to just go do it) and they were SO right. This way has rocked much more that last year would have 'cause I've had the time (7 months exactly in fact) to get to know Jesus better, making it much more special. In the words of the first track of my first ever Christian Christmas album (Wow Christmas(!)): "It's going to be a Christmas to remember"; and I don't think that is because of snow.

Yet at the same time it is a bit strange to see the world as we know it changing and how the consumer driven society that I am still, unwittingly, oft a part of is crumbling while the unseasonal mildness becomes actually quite worrying. This year is definitely different for more than one reason and I am finding the contrast interesting and a bit strange. I failed to put it into words and so decided to try my hand at a haiku. I like poetry 'cause it encourages me to express myself in limited vocabulary, these being even more restrictive, and while I haven't quite achieved a one verse wonder I still thought I'd share:

Winter is not cold
The shops are so empty now
Something’s going wrong

Different plan this year
Can’t ignore facts anymore
Something’s going wrong

Headlines of despair
It will continue to change
When did it go wrong?

Yet in the face of all this fear the message of Christmas remains simple.

Oh Immanuel
Today brings change for us all
Love joy peace and hope

So I suppose that Christmas (or rather Christ, who is after all the reason for the season) is even more pertinent now in the financial/environmental/social clime that hangs over us.

Oh dark fearful fog
Hovering low and heavy
All lights dimmed but One

I could get used to this writing in verse!

In case we don't speak
May your Christmas be blessèd
Lots of love from me

x x x

The Analogy That Keeps on Giving

I am waiting for growth. Enjoying it short while it lasts. Surely I can let the metaphor go for a while.

But no! What's happened now? I hear you ask. Is the style growing out, maybe I got a trim or a perm (wow that would not work at all)? I actually think that the shape is doing OK. I may or may not tidy it up when I get back to London but it seems to have lasted alright.

I have simply made an insightful observation based upon pre-existing features.

Before I got the chop and went for the "cut the crap and start again approach" to my hair. I was trying to bring it back to ginge (which, in case you didn't know due to repeated brainwashing of jealous people, is a wonderful colour akin to gold and totally cool) the artificial and "fast-tracked" way. That is through dye. The latest time I tried this, when my roots were already at least an inch long, they used an "organic permanent mix" instead of the usual semi as it would be better for the condition. Organic you say? Bring it on I say. BUT, you know what this means? The bit of root I had that ended up being the bulk of the short drastic 'starting again' haircut was actually dyed.

Which meant that I turned out to be more ginger than I actually am naturally.

Only fractionally, maybe a shade more orange, but it does notice in the right light (now my true true roots are coming through) and the overall effect is subtly but significantly brighter.

And this is where it gets clever see. I have been thinking about how maybe I have been being a bit "too" Christian of late. Like, it started out funny and it still is a lot of the time but I don't want to become someone that is all about generic identity and forgetting the fearfully and wonderfully made part.

Looking for your new identity in Christ can be hard, particularly when there are things in your old identity that are tied in with negative conotations. The temptation is to say these things I knew about me are wrong and I need to "find myself" again but you know what, Jesus has already found me. I once was lost but he left those 99 sheep to look for me and is now rejoicing over me with singing. Along with all the angels. I just need to take out the bits of debris that I picked up in the wilderness.

For example: I talk a lot. I mean a lot. There are good things in this. Some of my friends have really encouraged me with statements such as "I like it 'cause it means I don't have to" and it sure comes in handy with some people some of the time and certain types of in-your-face evangelism. But this verbosity has been a bit of point of tension for me, particularly recently since, delightful character trait though it is, it becomes hard to pretend that being "too much" is always other people's problem. I mean, you seldom hear people say that Russell Brand just isn't understood properly and should be put in charge of more things, do you?! Unless you hear it from me that is... "They just can't handle me" was not something that Paul said about mixing with both the Jews and Gentiles etc. So from this came the temptation to believe, based upon the times that I miss the mark, that I am actually just totally wrong in myself. I sure didn't want to live in denial of things I need to change.

The idea of refinement vs rejection of these qualities got a bit muddled up till I wasn't really sure where the old me and the new me changed over. I know I do get it wrong and have a tendency to sometimes speak compulsively and without due care and attention but I didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and assassinating my whole unique character seemed a bit drastic. Confusing.

But the hair thing helps a lot.

As I see it, I am a hell of a lot closer to natural than platinum blonde was. In all the process of trying to force myself into God's identity for me I just got a bit carried away and over did it. But it is relatively small, it will not last forever and it isn't a bad bad match. In time the ends will become a smaller ratio of dyed to real and then, little by little, get trimmed away. (Mum, could you book me that appointment actually please!)

People that know me of late think I'm a bit off the wall; people that knew me before Switzerland think I have calmed down a lot; people that watched it happen... I don't really know what they think...! But somewhere in the middle of all this is a happy balance and I just need to peace out and let God make it happen. In time. As I wait patiently and don't try and force it 'cause actually that don't work. I am alright. I am not perfect. I am in the best possible hands.

When was in GVA and we did the gig (a prime time for God showing me insecurities I forgot I had) we dressed up in *quite* silly outfits. Both my other band members (which is why I am putting their pic up too! Share the responsibility...) wanted orange hair and I am game for most things. So we did this:

Which now screams to me to be the perfect symbol of what I am not supposed to do. Put on make up and fake it to make the issues go away. I ain't conforming for anyone, it isn't about being as orange as I can (fun though it sometimes is!) but about being as orange as I am supposed to be. The blonde in strawberry blonde is there for a reason.

Best of both. Like hovis only not bread.

Live Repentance feat. Analogy

I don't know what to blog about! I have lots of things I could do - both trivial and non - but I don't know which one to choose. I feel like writing about what is most recent given that would be the freshest "off the press" story and some of the others can go on hold easily... But there are even so many recent things to distill.

Had a great morning full of answers to prayer to do with work and hugely augmented faith as a result. Bit of a crash in the middle which I am putting down to Satan being so annoyed at earlier victory but with a great boost from a very well-timed sister! Amazing evening with my girlies which would take a lot of background info but was very inspired and boosting and wonderful... and then there was the drive home.

Not much has happened since I got in the door so I suppose that is the most recent thing.

I have a car. It is a bit of a luxury as a student. Especially given how safe and functional it is! I know I talk about environment and consumerism but I think that this car is OK and, selfishness aside, I will try and justify it. I see it very much as a gift from God and as such try and use it for other people where possible. Not in a "wow I'm holy way" but you know the bible says for those that use their gifts more is given and for those that don't they will be taken away - I figure if I give people lifts I may get my VW camper and if I don't I may have to take the bus. It's a nobrainer! Anyway. I have recently been able to do this a lot. It's cold and dark and there has been a bit of prowler around Brizzle but in that I have been picking up and dropping off girls and, well, I suppose letting God use me to protect them. I love it! So I was thanking him for this tonight when I took my friends home and it led me onto the story of how I got Valerie (the car). Which made me realise in turn some things that I probably needed to repent of! You can be my witnesses.

When I passed my test, back in the summer of '06, I didn't think I'd get a car. Then a friend of a friend was getting rid of their's and offered it my way. Even that was a God thing (not just 'cause they were a Christian) as it really did bless me tons and gave me a sense of freedom and security at a time when I was a bit unsettled and very not free. In honour of the Christianess of the gift I called the car Eli. It was defo a boy and I thought it was a cool name. Well then, a short way into the first term of the next academic year I had a little accident. First POI (point of impetus!): forgive and let go of blame in that - the person who did not indicate, the person who pissed me off before I got in the car, myself for being a numpty. CHECK. I still drove Eli for ages unrepaired, irresponsibly I suppose but the indicator worked - just. I'm sorry for that too - doesn't really show much love does it. When I got home at Christmas, the last day of term in fact (driving on the M25 to be specific) it finally gave up. I get home and I could not go right without waving an arm. Pretty cool stuff that it lasted till then exactly so thanks God!

It was a clear write-off. A car that cost a penny for legalistic ownership sakes was really not worth replacing the whole front and side of. Rubbish. Or not... here's a cunning tip for you kids: if you want a car get one that is cheap and dangerous, put all your brothers and sisters and their spouses in it, go visit the parents, then drive off in the dark with the bonnet making a noise as it scrape along the ground. This happened in the middle of the term and... well... long story short there was an early 21st present waiting for me back home!

The short story long is that they had been so distressed by this scenario that they decided I had to have a new car and it had to be before my birthday (in April) so it would come at Christmas. They chose it carefully and were going to surprise me with it in the new year just before I drove back but seeing my car at a new level of atrocity they ended up telling me straight away. I couldn't get it till the end of the hols 'cause one of the reasons they acted early was so it could first be used by this lovely missionary couple we know that visit England every Christmas back from their project in Uganda.

Well, needless to say I was delighted! Of course they were welcome to the car for now, I was the luckiest girl already. My wheels now had a roll cage! More than than even (important though it is I'm sure) it had a radio controlled lock and CD player!! OK, the crunch time was that it was a Nissan Micra new style... the girliest middle age car ever made and with a weird face at the front. The funny thing about this was that my parents had bought one 6 months prior (which is why they knew it was good) and at the time I had told them not to 'cause I hated them! Lol, that is so them not to remember, how endearing - I was so excited it didn't really matter.

'Cept when there is a though of negativity, even a little bit, there tends to be a build up of frustration in relationships. We say things are OK and push on trying to make it so, telling ourselves that we are bad for feeling, well ingratitude for example. Meanwhile it boils beneath the surface unless you deal with it or it erupts. Forcing loving ain't possible - it needs to come from God or it won't be lasting and for that we need to confess and ask him to help.

I can see you looking shocked that I ever had a problem, even for a minute, with this situation. What can I say - I told you I'm not holy. Spoiled brat comes to mind right...? Well, I agree. I'm all about exposing the past crap and the lies that bring us to that place and you know what, as I told this story to my car full of friends I realised that some of it just never got officially addressed. People at my church talk about "doing business with God" which makes me cringe but it does kinda have a point too. I often find myself saying "I'll do it later" and I realise that sometimes I find it hard to make time and concentrate and bring these things before Him. Well maybe that "another day" attitude is something that we get from Satan trying to stop us dealing with things that we'd benefit "settling up the account" over. So I'm doing it now, live as it were (!) to make sure I don't let that happen.

What happened then? Well Mum and Dad aren't hearing this for the first time - they did eventually bear the fall out of these pent up thoughts. Sorry 'bout that by the way - I'll ring you and do it properly, but sorry. I needed a bit of practise before the motorway trip so I took their Nissan for spin round Sainsbury's car park and it was then that I had a bit of a stress. The thing is Eli (who was a Mazda LX 121) had this really big square back window with visibility to die for (or not!) and I could park easily and see to the left and right and all kinds of good stuff like that. Check him out:

Suddenly a modern car with side bars and rounded design and safely features just didn't do it at all - I could not drive this car. It wasn't right for me; it wasn't 'me'. I panicked, I stressed, I let all the pent up frustrations ever get to me and God wasn't there to dispell that with his love, or heal any insecurities or damages. So I vented. Big time. I've always been a tell-it-like-it-is-girl but I used to be a lot less loving in that and I suppose for all these things I am really sorry too and need to say it - and accept forgiveness too.

At the time though it just came out. That they hadn't checked with me 'cause they wanted to do this for their friends and my input didn't count, they went for a car I told them I didn't like and didn't even care enough to remember that, they didn't actually care about me at all it was just "doing the right thing" and getting rid of potential guilt, their Christian motives came before their parental ones (always a killer for kids of Christians, ask any shrink!), they chose a car they didn't represent me at all - that wasn't anger so much as me being upset that I had to let go of Eli, retro and cool with a red and grey striped interior, boxy shape and tape player on which I listened to all the old Now's; then replace it with a modern girly-but-not-in-a-good-way boring car that made me a grown up before I was ready. I felt like I was missing the window on being a studenty fun cheap car'd chick who could paint patterns and what not. This was it. A few months of that was all I got. A mum-mobile before I was a mum that would last so long I'd be one by then and it would be too late to be cool.

I don't say this 'cause I want to make my folks feel bad. I acknowledge that it was totally not a valid reaction and most people would be shocked that I said this in response to a car given freely and lovingly out of a genuine care for safety and happiness. There was an oversight of not consulting me but it is just as much sweet that they wanted to surprise me and t'was my own "issues" that made this stuff come up, not their mistakes. Deep rooted ones that are put there by the enemy to upset us and drive wedges between people and hide away so we can't identify them. We were talking today about things from when we're young that we then need to deal with as adults. Happens to us all. Which is the point - one lady shared about her friend who had to forgive her mum for neglecting them as kids because she spent all her energies guarding them from an abusive father. It's hardly wrong and the frustrating thing is that were she to have not done that her daughter would be forgiving her for having not guarded them from an abusive father. It seems like a lose-lose situation.

The truth it, pobody is nerfect (I know, I'm sorry). In any relationship (and parents are just the obvious ones 'cause they are so early on and so key) things go wrong 'cause of the fallen human nature. When we grow up, or just move on, we need to take responsibility for this and learn to deal with it by letting God and his love sort out our problems. There was Adam and he brought in the shite but Jesus came to take it back out so really let's get over the inevitable flaws, forgiving ourselves and each other, so we can receive His perfection.

Our relationship with Him is based upon what we have modeled to us and if we can't get past the errors that will inevitably be there we won't be able to have a whole relationship with Him.

The funny thing too is that Valerie just is me now! Even named after a song that reminds me of me ("I miss your ginger hair and the way you like to dress" - what's that you say...? Narcissistic?). I was rebelling and not feeling ready for maturity but I was and it came and now, well, I am loving her and her electric windows and reliability and security and all that jazz. I like being warm when I drive along and having comfortable suspension! I love that God gave me a car and how, right since I got back, it has come in really handy for so many people. I still wouldn't say no a a VW one day but my identity is in Him and not in my transportation. Though I did just use my car as an analogy for my new life so in a way I suppose my identity is in my transportation... Oh it's late, I'm allowed to make no sense! Going back to the analogy briefly: dangerous wreck that nearly got me seriously injured - loving parent gave me a brand new wonderful safe and fitting vehicle that meets my needs and has far more value... Love it!

I love my car. I love my parents. I love my God. I love leaving old identities behind and coming into new ones. I smirk that my last post was about wanting to not be über-Christian but I still write about this before I share cabbage recipes... Oh well. Some things there just ain't no denying... You've such amazing grace :-)

N.B. The last line quotes an 80's power ballad called 'The Power of Love' but I figure noone will get that unnoitified.

Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

It's definitely wrong to make three posts in one night... but I've not been blogging in ages... I don't reckon I will for a while... and I think I may have just had one of those really tangibly "deep" moments. This post is going to be working things out as I go and who knows if it will make it to the publishing stage. Whatever happens, it will probably be real... and narcissistic.

I just watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". That is a cue for anyone that doesn't find this film meaningful to stop reading now. I had never seen it, I knew it was a classic, the story sounded interesting indeed but I think that I avoided it because I could not deal with the concept of forgetting. I am, as I may have mentioned, a hoarder. Of all things, tangible and existential. I've been facing up to this challenge of late and the timing was perfect.

'Cause recently I have been doing some active forgetting. Recently as in this past year since God starting changing my life, these past 3 months since I got back to England, these past few weeks as I've been facing some residual memories, these last few days as I've had to challenge all of the above. The imagery is a big boulder that He smashed to pieces with His love and the revelation thereof but now He is going around picking out the bits of gravel - and some of them are pretty wedged in.

I threw out a bag of "stuff" last week which was neat. Took it with me from London to Bristol to deal with but couldn't face getting it out the car till then. Nothing specifically dodge but I needed to let it go for memories sake. I'm pretty sure that when I go back at Christmas there will be a whole lot more of that to do and so I'm getting ready...

Last night (late Friday) I had a conversation I shouldn't have about a person I don't know anymore. You know, when you can tell you are in an unhealthy discussion and that there is a lot of potential for badness but you are tired, hurting and frankly too stupid to know better. I was challenged on my memories and came away not sure what I recall as fact and fiction - problem with saying things best unsaid is that you end up hearing things best unheard. Let's call a spade a spade, I'd "erased" someone from my life and sometimes they do just creep back in.

The risk of being someone with a past (i.e. anyone) that can't be wiped clear whether you want to, don't want to or sometimes want to, is that it stays around. Even when we are sanctified by the blood of Jesus; even when we have forgiven, are guilt free and looking ahead; our brains have an uncanny way of wanting to defy all the best intentions in the world. I know that it is a decision I must make to move forward. It's a decision I have already made without any doubt in my mind, yet it is a decision I must continue to keep making. Still, having a piece of history based around love - which is what we seem to base our most significant things around - is messy 'cause it mixes up good stuff with not good stuff and leaves the two so tangled you can end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

We shouldn't say goodbye to love but we must learn to extract it back for ourselves and put it to better use somewhere else. I don't want to leave my heart in a memory then try and erase the memory but equally I don't want to carry the crap around with me.

The thing that really struck me was that the minute before I watched the film I read a poem (have been trawling the labyrinth of my files, hence the sudden splurge of them) and I had opened one I did not recognise then forgotten so that it popped up when I was closing programs. It's from last October and isn't very positive: all about stuff going wrong really...

What comes before a fall?
“They” say pride.
The inevitable fall out of a conceited heart
Just desserts on every part

What comes before a fall?
I say hope.
The inevitable fall out of an expectant heart
Just surviving alone in the dark

What is it that makes a fail?
Pushing resources beyond the mark
With pacing yourself and working hard
Success will entail, set you apart

What is it that makes me fail?
Trying for something I cannot live out?
Or speaking the words that make it go south?
Having an attitude full of doubt

How to avoid the spiraling doom?
Cannot expect for risk of defeat
Instead, telling forth, I sow what I reap.
When what we believe is the key to our curse
With each emphasis it gets worse and worse

Can the pattern be broken?
One thing’s for sure
Writing this verse isn’t the cure

I just love that it is about self-curses which is effectively what we put in place when we hold onto our broken memories and give them power in our lives. I suppose the point is a reminder that we need to break the patterns. Not be moping over the defeat or the fall or anything else that is going to drag us down but by letting the memory be where it is, in the past. God doesn't want to give us a hope and a past now does He? Jesus came to make all things new.

So don't tell me that that film is all about the need to remember things you sometimes want to forget. It is about dealing with memories properly. Not running away but also not deciding that they are all there is to the truth. We are/should be changing all the time into what we don't fully know but memories can only tell us about the past, not the future.

"What a loss to spend that much time with someone, only to find out she’s a stranger." The fear of letting go is that we have wasted time but ironically the more we hold onto it the more we waste. There's gonna be no junk in heaven anyway so why have it here on earth? It's funny, you get warned about storing up your treasures on earth but sometimes we are storing up far worse things.

Change your heart, look around you. Change your heart, it will astound you. Parting theme tune, parting theme. Goodnight.

It's Official

I am officially back. I just changed my facebook regional network from Switzerland to Bristol. [Edit: I wrote Geneva instead of Bristol but that would make no sense.]

Interesting observation: I had 50 friends in the Swiss network and 51 in the Bristol one. You know what I'm like with things like that - it just says to me that I have tipped the balance between here and there. Which is kinda what it was like returning...

I had an amazing time in Geneva. I saw friends that I love dearly; got the chance to do things I never thought I would (more to follow on everything that the gig taught me and what it was like, including mental photos!); learnt TONS (was talking to a BRS friend the night I got back and she said that she had felt it was going to be a time of... and we both said together: "accelerated learning" which was so true); got real direction from God as to what He is planning next and a bit about later too...; had a chance to chill; to say goodbye to some people; to get re-encouraged about what was important when I left - like prayer and worship, both of which are really starting up here too, seemingly; to catch the lovely GVA peeps up on what has been going on - which felt like a lot. Indeed, when I saw how much Mia (YAGs 20ish month year old darling) had grown and was talking, making sense and singing worship songs and all it was like she had done the same amount of intense growing as I had these two months! Not that I'm claiming to make sense you understand, I just like obscure imagery. Not the best structured paragraph I ever wrote but I suppose what I am saying is that it was a good time, in a jumbled thought processes kind of a way. I celebrated my 5 month rebirth day whilst there and it was nice to do that there at the retreat where so much had happened the year before (I don't think I ever wrote that story did I! That really has to happen...).

And I felt different. At times like I had already moved on even. Which is right and good and I am grateful that, even so, I still have these blessed friendships. I feel like I am in a place of enjoying it for what it was and letting it be something different as time goes by. Not my last visit for sure but it was the final chapter of something. And the beginning of something new!! :-D

The more I change the more I see there is to change but that is cool 'cause I have a really short attention span!

Coming back my flat was finally a home. It had curtains! Another symbol that I am really settled here now. I have decided on where I will make my home church (it turns out not my sister's chuch but the other one - which is a shame but kinda cool as my church's sister church is my sister's church which makes a lot of sense to me); found a few great things screaming out to get involved in (like co-rewriting the training for the discipleship/evangelistic programme and doing a wholeness course which ties in perfectly with what I've been learning... I will let you know how that goes); reconnected with my lovely new friends (who I'm going away with this weekend!); and changed my network.

Which tips the balance to 51. Also the percentage that gives someone a majority share and priority. My return to La Suisse is over, I am back for the long haul and while the trip was great and I love you guys tons and always will, I am fully at home here.

Until God says otherwise anyway :-)

Don't Be Happy For Me

It’s kinda hard for anyone to miss the fact that my life has changed. Ask anyone that knew me before I went to Geneva, before I found Jesus, before the light, and they will say that I am a hell of a lot happier. Well, they may not say “hell”, that would depend on who’s talking; and the word happier is a very deceptive one because it conveys more of an instantaneous emotion and doesn’t necessarily suggest depth. They tend to mean content, satisfied, a changed state of mind, I see it a bit like what the Ancient Greeks called eudaimonia and were all searching for (I like the wiki "human flourishing"). Anyway, the simple truth of it is that they have seen the Joy I found. Joy that supersedes the instantaneous emotions and drastically changes my outlook (I hope the verses don't seem too tenuous. I can't go into explaining them all now, this is just background). Joy that gives me strength. Joy, evidence of The Spirit, that brings me back to life.

I used to be angry. I used to be miserable. I used to make decisions that did not value me and would treat other people with equal disappreciation. I was selfish and yet had no self-respect. I used to get demotivated very easily, struggle a great deal to even get up in the morning and I hated switching my mind on in case the thoughts were too much to deal with. I spent all my cognitive energies on obsessive behaviour and would get caught up in depression with no way out. I used to scare people. I used to be scared by people. I used to scare myself. I had bought into the lies of the world to a terrifying degree and had a very inappropriate sense of humour. Most of these things have changed…! I still wear silly clothes a lot of the time and don't always quite know when to stop but, meh, you got to be true to yourself. I am a lot more grateful for everything now and let’s not forget the joy.

You know what? People have actually noticed. I’m not saying I have been giving a great testimony all the time, I’ve made some pretty major mistakes already and struggle with always conveying the truth of which I am not at all proud. Yet even with all this, close friends, old acquaintances even departmental secretaries see it.

But let me tell you what pisses me off. When people say “I’m really happy for you.”

OK, if you’re a Christian I think you can get away with it. Though perhaps, again with the “happy”, that’s a bit of an instantaneous and easily quashed emotion. My favourite reaction was from an old flatmate who said I should have a party when I got back. I liked that one – a ‘Kat(i)e Got Saved’ party with the tag line “because the angels are doing it”. It’s a bit fat rejoicement.

But if you’re not a Christian then why, in heaven or on earth, would you be glad? Don’t you see, I haven’t found something that “works for me”. I am single minded in my belief that what I have found is the truth and that if you are not in agreement you must, quite simply, be wrong.

I don’t judge you (will save that for if you become one of "us") but seriously, isn’t it the most patronising thing you ever heard that I pray for you and care to see you find the same thing. But it is clearly explicit in the Bible that Jesus is THE ONLY WAY and if I tell you I’m a Christian I am saying I believe this very thing: I am right you are wrong and I can’t be persuaded to compromise. I won’t always ram it down your throat but I can’t help having it as a very predominant silent thought most of the time. Unless I’m in a bitchy mood then surely that’s even worse – that I stop caring?

I’m not actually trying to persuade you to stop being friends with me now that I am crazy. I just want you to realise that being happy for me is stupid – what I have found only truly works for me if it works for everyone, so either I am deluded and you ought to be worried for me or I am right and you ought to be worried for yourself.

I wish I wasn’t a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

OK I’m not. I don’t have flowers in my hair and, technically, am not really a punk rocker either.

But I sure as hell look like one.

Today, ladies and gents, is the next installment in my most major, nay famous, analogy. My hair cuts. (See here for the full hairstory.)

I have gone and gotten all controversial on 1 Corinthian 11’s ass. Which I will in due course (or not, I am aware I make empty promises when it comes to blogs and apologise. Please Matthew 18 me) be expounding on but today in not the day for biblical debates (I think that sounds more like a Tuesday thing doesn’t it?).

I no longer have face length hair. It doesn’t even cover my ears. In fact, some may argue that my whole attempt to have long locks has been somewhat marred by my decision to cut it all off to not more than 2 inches in any place.

‘Citing though, in’t it?

I have been this way since Monday. The title might suggest that I am not best please with the idea. “Getting tired of it already are you Kat(i)e?” I hear you cry. “That’s what happens when you make a whimsical decision on a bored impulse.” Should have stuck to the waiting slowly and repeatedly recolouring to bring myself into some kind of semblance of truth till I had fully grown through, maybe?

But the thing is, it was getting a bit much. Constant redying was a drain on the resources if nothing else and the effect did not really last very long ever and wasn’t always as good a match each time. It stood me in good stead for a time but the fact remains that some things are too damaged to repair and you do just need to cut off and start again.

And this does indeed fit in well with where I am at right now. Check out Ezekiel 39 (particularly vs. 12-16) and you will see my life story. As long as you can replace Israel with Kat(i)e; Gog with [insert terrors from the world here]; skeletons with assortment of left over memories, insecurities, traits, resentments, attachments etc etc and tweak a few other key phrases like bury, search party and land. The essence is there though and I am indeed 7 months on from doing some pretty big battles (in the spiritual sense) and have been, on my return, doing some major cleansing (a mixture of literal and symbolic) and burying (of people, possessions and thought patterns – metaphorically that is). The to-the-day “coincidences” have been uncanny and I have, during the week at my folks, been doing some more sorting out of actual stuff. I am cutting the crap and sometimes you just have to be drastic.

And that is what I did hairlistically speaking too. I chopped away at the ashen (as in a shade of blonde and post fire!) remains and salvaged the roots, where the true colour is at. Underneath it all I had enough new growth to make a proper style of it. Just.

And that just is what I don’t like so much. It is cool enough and faking it was hard work, but really I do want more. I want to have a bob again and be looking forward expectantly to it hitting my shoulder blades. And beyond…

But this all takes time. Patience. Waiting. At least I am back to "how I was intended". The remnants of the bleach attack are, aside from a few tiny wisps at the front, all but lost. The colour? Fabulously "ginge" ☺ Being at the start of what I know will be a long process is pretty daunting whilst not particularly pretty, but it is real. I'm getting established and am on my way.

Which also fits in with what I'm getting up to. Yesterday I was all organised, checking out about studying, organising support, paying bills, ringing the gas man, seeing the carpenter, sending off insurance papers. Today a few more errands and dealing with "household affairs". All the grown up stuff! Revolution is indeed in the air.

The Anaesthesia is Wearing Off

When I got the placement in Geneva it really felt like I was being pushed out of the country. I applied 'cause it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss out on but I was comfortable in my existence, miserable though it was, and didn't actually want to go. Every stage of interview I went through I said "Yes" but only because I could not, reasonably, say “No”. I said to my mum back then that if I got offered the post I would probably do the same thing but I still spent my whole time making excuses for why it was not a good idea (they were crap by the way). As I made the phone call to refuse the offer, I remember the rainbow that I wrote about 2 posts ago and confirmed.

And so, in a moment, my life was changed.

When I went to La Suisse I took with me a lot of baggage (literally and figuratively speaking). There was a lot of unpacking that needed doing - it turned out that (metaphorically) I had gone and destroyed my heart completely and needed a transplant. At the time it was remarkable how I managed to let go so much of the past and just enjoy life again. With England in the background everything of before seemed a long way away and not at all important. With my new heart I was healed!

Yet there is a time to mourn and a time to dance. England is no longer a fuzzy memory but a very real and tangible place in which I reside. Amidst all the excitement about God giving to me everywhere that I put my foot I am realising that, though the battle is won, there are a lot of skeletons to bury.

It feels like, post-op and post-fabulous feeling of being made whole, the numbness is wearing off and with that I am aware of the tenderness around the incision.

Now, don't worry, I am not writing this in floods of tears. The main initial pain was incredibly avoided with the anaesthesia that is God's love. The new heart has been in place sufficiently long that rejection is unlikely and I still have a large number of carers to check I am stable and keep the wounds clean: Ana last night fed me the most sophisticated TV dinner known to man – stuffed trout with steamed veg, then totally let me vent to her; tonight I am off to house group with my sister and btw the leaders are North American which makes me feel strangely at home!

All of which is great 'cause while it heals I am at a higher risk of infection. For this reason I must be particularly vigilant with aftercare and staying away from major causes of disease till I am strong enough to “be a doctor” myself.

I just have to remember that the pain is part of the joy; acknowledging the past is part of the release from it. It needs to happen which is why I must neither avoid nor fear it. If I stayed in the Geneva mindset it would be akin to drug abuse, keeping anaesthetised long after appropriate and just running away. I know enough people that don’t face up to the emotional fall out of catastrophe to realise that this is the only way ahead. I don’t want to end up smacked off my head on pain killers – figuratively or not. Sometimes you just have to feel it.

But, and it is more of a huge J-Lo sized BUT, there is a huge difference with the inclusion of a new heart. My health is so much better that, while the tenderness is there, I am able to deal with the strain. Obviously it is the God aspect of that which makes a difference. I am fitter than ever before and it is sure not by my own strength.

I totally didn't realise (perhaps naïvely) that I still need to do this but I am content that it is all part of the process and that, one day, the scars will not hurt.

And so, over time, my life will yet again change.

[I didn’t write the rainbow post thinking I would write this a few days later by the way; it just seems to have fitted together as certain things have happened. Not surprising, God is cool like that.]

New Chapter, New Verse

1st of September was my first day back in Bristol.  I moved here with my car jam packed, safe journey = total blessing, and I was slowly realising that this is it.  The beginning of life in Bristol.  Exactly a year on since when got to Geneva and was thinking 'maybe, just maybe, life will change from this' and now I am seeing the very real and definite truth of that.

10 days before I moved to La Suisse I became the "lucky" and proud owner of a very small, very cute lady-flat in Brizzle.  Totally right for me, an absolutely blessing and I am looking forward to living in it and making my first home there.  Perfect single Christian girl flat :-)  When I lived there for a brief period last year I was like 'It's my new home!' and got really excited even though I knew it was only for ten days.  That as it happens turned out to be a really amazing time in which I became best mates with Ana and was totally blessed by that friendship (yes my dear, I do consider you to be a gift from God!).  It was also the period (and place) in which she met her man Dan with whom she is now old and boring with...!

So yesterday I came back one year on and it was one of those "waiting pays off" moments.  When you realise really clearly that the concept of everything having a time and a place and whatnot is true and that letting things live out like that is the best thing.  But with all the patience I had got the hang of, I clean forgot to get excited about the fact that this time IT IS IT!!  I get to move in and make a home and put up whatever I like on the walls and not worry about keeping it sparse 'cause I am leaving at the end of the year.  I am still only starting to realise it is for now and the waiting is over... and is was SO worth it.

And, like I had a 10 day taster of the flat, I also had a 10 day taster of Ana.  Now I get her all the time!  She was the first visitor I had and her and Dan helped me totally unload my car then dragged me off to their fantastic seaview pad in Portishead, ran me a bath, cooked me dinner and insulted me!  Got to love having friends like that... It was such a perfect first day back and I was overwhelmed with the truth of the fact that life here is GREAT.

And so perspective changes again.  I knew Bristol was going to be good but in Geneva it kinda took a backward step, blurry as it were with Switzerland in the foreground.  Now they have changed places and, just as I loved Ana from afar but didn't get to eat her Thai, the same will be for GVA.  Robyn's late-night-fruity-salad; Caro's not-as-green-as-I-expected-(but still very good!)-guacamole... Brian's mega-beast-of-an-omelette! Not to mention all the other wonderful people and things and food and places that I love and miss.  But the good news is that I can get maple syrup here (thanks mum!) and I can use Skype, so really it don't matter too much.  The blurry background is still very much a part of my bigger picture.

I'll leave you on some funnies and praises:

-When I was driving here I was like "God, I know you answer prayer and if you don't its 'cause you have a good reason for it and a better plan but really, I don't see what you would not want me to have a parking space right by my flat" - there it was directly opposite when I arrived. Allelujah!

-When I was talking to Dan and said it feels like a new chapter he asked me if nowadays I lived my life by chapter and verse... He also air kissed me goodbye this morning and said "I won't kiss you 'cause that's like 3rd base for you people".  Christian jokes, got to love 'em!  On a serious note I am really glad that we can keep our close friendship despite the changes.  I know Ana was worried I'd be boring but I have proved to her that in fact she is more so - being all settled and loved up and all!

-As we walked along the harbour this morning (beautiful btw, I will get some piccies up) a local man asked us - in a really fabulous SW accent - whether the swan with it's leg out was OK or if he should call the RSPB.  Then Dan was like 'no that swan is always like that, he has a dodgy leg but he's alright'. Love that there are locals that care and more so that there is a local swan.  This place is cool.

So.  Being back in the home town feels pretty good.  Gert good in fact.  As Annie, fellow ginger given a new start in life, would say:

I think I'm going to like it here.

Slow Motion

I am incredibly tired. Like, sitting down in the hall and lying still doing nothing for two hours once I've finished breakfast tired. I hate it. I have SO MUCH to do today: am in the middle of packing as I leave my parents house and head towards Bristol and the new home and life waiting for me there. I can only take what will fit into my Nissan Micra - the clue is in the name (MS I'll put up pics when I can be arsed) - and there is lots left behind that needs to be in some kind of semblance of order. All this and I just want to sit around. Even blogging is an effort.

It worries me. I don't like it one bit and am convinced I am ill. My mother on the other hand seems to think that it is perfectly normal that after a summer jam packed with activity, a final week of mayhem, moving countries, sorting out and moving house here, plus all the emotional jack that goes with it all, may take its toll. Well, I don't know. Maybe she's right. How pants is that, I really need to be able to go go go.

Or not. So apparently it is time to stop and rest and move at half speed for a while. I am just going to have to listen to my body and not have unreasonable expectations of myself. That is, after all, one of the grace killers and if I want to be in line with God's plans perhaps I will have to be content to not do very much.

September, it seems, is going to be a slow month but I suppose that fits in with where I am at right now. I took everything I possibly could from my time in Geneva, would have done more if I had the time. Now I just need to absorb it all and recoup. My body, it seems, is not taking anymore abuse! Plus I am starting 'school' in a month and would quite like to be on top form for that. Haven't done so well in the past and I must take the time to be the best prepared I can, that this time I really do it properly.

On top of this my mind too is half asleep so who knows what will happen to BGB? I won't have the internet where I am going, though apparently the whole harbourside in Bristol is now wireless (some change is good change - the indisputable example!), but the future is unclear... Maybe once the fog clears I'll let you know what the outcome of it all is.

See you around, though I will be slow and boring for a while so perhaps not!

My Bird Has Flown The Nest

OK. What's sadder than a cheesy gimmick of a title? A cheesy gimmick of a title that is a reuse of my current Facebook status!

Robyn went back to Canada today. I was going to put back home but I defiantly did not because, well, because I like to think of her first loyalties being in Geneva with me. Playing as my husband instead of being an actual wife to her own. Boy will I miss her. That is one iron sharpening iron friendship and I have never felt more challenged and loved at the same time. Thank you :-D

The whole home thing though. Selfish gene aside I do think it is hard to look to another place and call it home after such a time away. Particularly when what has happened in the interim changes you and your situation completely. England was home once and I know it will be again but right now I am leaving home, ergo I cannot not be going back. Can I? Perhaps Robyn feels like this, I don't know. I sure do. It is just the fact of transition - things change.

But they also continue to change too and from this point onwards will be a new chapter for us both.

Geneva really has been a nest for me. It is a useful analogy and I have observed many lives being changed whilst here. I've watched people enter, be transformed and then get sent out in the world. It is a place for nourishment and growth and also for some a place of stability, as they become a nurturer here - but you only need so many of those and for every parent in a bird family you have a whole host of little chicks that eventually fly away. And that is what Robyn did this morning. And that is what I will do tomorrow night (I write as though it is Saturday given that it is presleep).

But if I were to quote my favourite (OK, I only know one) Christian reggae artist - "fly away home to glory" - maybe I need to rethink this whole 'home' thing. I suppose really, though I leave a home here - an encouraging, supportive and caring life and family that has weaned me onto solid food and given me a whole bunch of love - I am flying away home. Because if home is in glory and the kingdom is in our hearts it doesn't really matter where you settle down.

So really, Robyn did go home today; and I go home tomorrow; and we are both leaving home behind... because like a tortoise we carry home around with us and wherever I stop and draw in my legs is where I will find shelter - because glory is deep down in my heart.

Talking about deep deep, a down down... which is exactly the opposite of the tortoise analogy... but it is late, I have silly amounts of packing and finishing up still to do (if you are reading this before Sunday 7pm UK time, pray now; you don't even have to believe) and don't have the usual fall back plan that my parents will fit it into their car somehow. That said, I am leaving a bunch with Beautiful Brian and coming back to get it stupidly soon.

Am I being melodramatic given how easy Jet travel is these days? But where would the fun be otherwise?!

Night (if I ever get to bed) x