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...
Showing posts with label Coincidences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coincidences. Show all posts
Friday, February 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
New Beginnings
I've been sitting by a window all day, watching the snow in my garden melt at an incredible pace and hearing birds chirp. There have been foxes and blackbirds and all kinds of water dripping. It feels like the first day of spring.
Straight after yesterday, the deepest winteryness I've seen in England for years.
It was quite fabulous. I got hardly any work done (plumber in the house meant I couldn't relax but at least I have hot showers now!) but I did get some hope. Oddly. The little pieces of snow, making magic happen one piece at a time. Altogether causing big change though insignificant alone. Lovely.
Also, due to the snow I had my evening plans canceled which meant that when quite out of the blue an old friend from Geneva was in the city for 'one night only' we could hang out. Barely spoke for ages and now he is moving to Exeter to be a marine! What a small world... we went to my friends's place for a big community meal and had some really cool chats. I do like last minute.
Whenever things like that happen I feel like God is doing something. Haven't a clue what but got to be something, all them pieces falling together like that. Could be quite invisible or abstracted but still, something...
I want to get on with my work as I am making snowflakes progresses and hoping it will all add up, so I shall be off. But what with yesterday feeling like the start of "something" cool and now the newness of spring, I have decided to post this poem I wrote called "New Beginnings". It was written for Michelle in Geneva as a YAGs auction item. Offered October 2007, theme picked March 2008 and I got it in the post just before Christmas.
New beginnings
So clear in the spring
All life gives birth, flowers from earth
Babies from… who knows where?
Stork or cabbage or something less fair
Each little-one angels watch over in care
New beginnings
The start of a story
Hope in the journey from Hades to glory
Oh what a joy to watch how He plays
Breath-baited angels run errands and praise
But none comprehend His mysterious ways
New beginnings
When a soul turns from darkness to light
As the son rises, the end of the night
Angels in heaven are celebrating
One little lost sheep and all that rejoicing
Oh what a start, rescued by a King
New beginnings
The daily expression
As we come to God with a heartfelt confession
Obedience blown on a whim or in fear
Fallen angels whispering in our ear
In forgiveness renewal, the slate wiped clear
New beginnings
Oh holy night
In cold winter climes we celebrate life
Humbly born into earthly frustration
While voices in heaven sing of salvation
The angels can see He's the Hope of the Nations
New beginnings
That old metaphor
Each telling a story of the Creator
As He converts his love into life
To make it spring up and echo the cry
Of thousands of angels high up in the sky
Rejoicing eternity that began in a word
In the beginning was God.
Straight after yesterday, the deepest winteryness I've seen in England for years.
It was quite fabulous. I got hardly any work done (plumber in the house meant I couldn't relax but at least I have hot showers now!) but I did get some hope. Oddly. The little pieces of snow, making magic happen one piece at a time. Altogether causing big change though insignificant alone. Lovely.
Also, due to the snow I had my evening plans canceled which meant that when quite out of the blue an old friend from Geneva was in the city for 'one night only' we could hang out. Barely spoke for ages and now he is moving to Exeter to be a marine! What a small world... we went to my friends's place for a big community meal and had some really cool chats. I do like last minute.
Whenever things like that happen I feel like God is doing something. Haven't a clue what but got to be something, all them pieces falling together like that. Could be quite invisible or abstracted but still, something...
I want to get on with my work as I am making snowflakes progresses and hoping it will all add up, so I shall be off. But what with yesterday feeling like the start of "something" cool and now the newness of spring, I have decided to post this poem I wrote called "New Beginnings". It was written for Michelle in Geneva as a YAGs auction item. Offered October 2007, theme picked March 2008 and I got it in the post just before Christmas.
New beginnings
So clear in the spring
All life gives birth, flowers from earth
Babies from… who knows where?
Stork or cabbage or something less fair
Each little-one angels watch over in care
New beginnings
The start of a story
Hope in the journey from Hades to glory
Oh what a joy to watch how He plays
Breath-baited angels run errands and praise
But none comprehend His mysterious ways
New beginnings
When a soul turns from darkness to light
As the son rises, the end of the night
Angels in heaven are celebrating
One little lost sheep and all that rejoicing
Oh what a start, rescued by a King
New beginnings
The daily expression
As we come to God with a heartfelt confession
Obedience blown on a whim or in fear
Fallen angels whispering in our ear
In forgiveness renewal, the slate wiped clear
New beginnings
Oh holy night
In cold winter climes we celebrate life
Humbly born into earthly frustration
While voices in heaven sing of salvation
The angels can see He's the Hope of the Nations
New beginnings
That old metaphor
Each telling a story of the Creator
As He converts his love into life
To make it spring up and echo the cry
Of thousands of angels high up in the sky
Rejoicing eternity that began in a word
In the beginning was God.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
MIssing... assumed stressed/bored/lost/injured/lazy/backslid/busy/dead
I think that's it.
Actually I am OK. If I had to be any of the above I think it would be busy, but mostly I'm frustrated at still not being online!
I wasn't sure I was going to write a blog as I am only on the internet 'cause I fancied going for a late night walk, then I though I'm going past the maths department so why not take my laptop and make the most of the 24/7 wifi (or whiffee should I say Darryl) connection as I hadn't checked my mail in a while (haven't quite worked out how to do remote webmail access for my email address without following the link on my laptop). So I am here sitting on a cold step praying I don't get piles and wondering what I really should be doing, if I could work out God's mind exactly.
Maybe deciding for myself?!
That is one of them things about Christianity. Looking to God for all the answers. I became really sure that God was totally in control of it all and had an ideal plan for me. Then I realised that I had taken the whole biblical stance and seen it as a way to not have to make any decisions. Classic giving up control to someone more powerful than me because I was afraid to be strong for myself. So then when I realised that God isn't going to explicitly tell me how to spend every spare minute of my day the panic of getting things wrong really came along. That is what once upon a time stopped me from being able to choose meals in restaurants (I still struggle with that a bit but believe me, if you saw me before you'd realise that's nothing!) and disabled me from walking down the street without about 6 different tics or compulsive traits.
I really struggled with control. It's ironic that I looked externally to people that could take control of my life so I didn't have to then I would struggle internally with the lack of control that I had. Self control is a huge issue in Christianity - it surprises me how many people struggle with it and don't even realise - but I don't think that is where I am going today.
Today it is about using God as a way to diminish responsibility for our own lives. Like by praying in the morning we no longer have to make plans for the day it will all fall together.
This is a hard thing for me to grapple with. Partly 'cause a lot of the time cool God-incidences do happen. Thursday all I did was bump into people that I seemed "supposed" to spend time with and before I knew it it was evening and I had redeveloped old relationships, made a fabulous new friend and met loads of people I felt I should pray for. Today I found myself wondering up Gloucester road late afternoon, all the shops were shutting I was miles from my car and I was like "What am I doing here?". Then I bumped into someone from church that had gone a different way home than usual (and was annoyed at himself for it) who had been walking around all day saying "What do you want to say to me God?". I ended up giving him apparently really sound advice which can't have been from me and we both went home feeling like it was supposed to happen.
But it isn't necessarily always like that. I have also had times where I have gotten so worked up by what I should and shouldn't do that I have totally overlooked taking control and making my own mind up - wanting God to take the burden of choice away and ensure I do not make a mistake, then feeling lost if He isn't obviously there. Hating the feeling of purposelessness for even a minute, like life is about what we are fulfilling and forgetting that actually I am quite small in the scheme of things, that God has told me exactly what does and doesn't glorify Him and that today, right now, it doesn't matter too much as long as I aim to please.
All too often the temptation is to look at every minute situation and try and see what God is doing in it. A classic Christian thing is to say "maybe God is trying to tell me something". Like when I was looking for my iPod before I came out for a walk and couldn't find it I thought "well maybe God wants me to pray or listen or something and so is stopping me". That is pretty crazy though because for one thing if I was really adamant about listening to music this evening I would have just said to myself "clearly Satan doesn't want me to listen to worship songs as I walk along" because that would have suited me. As though everything has to have some kind of spiritual significance.
Which TOTALLY negates our own responsibility for life. Not everything comes to us with a quick prayer and waiting. Sometimes we have to make a choice.
Like if God wants to talk to me quietly, or just have me spend time with him, having my iPod wouldn't change that. My choice to listen would be the deciding factor for if it happened - I have to make the effort, I have to WANT it. I like having music on as I walk, I like getting absorbed in it and avoiding the mundane route I take everyday. I put Christian music on my iPod so that I feel less bad about the escapism, but perhaps it would be a good opportunity to let Him in. Afterall, while Tim Hughes is fabulous, he is but a fallible image of The Almighty.
This kind of stuff for me is a nightmare. One of my favourite things about becoming a Christian (Jesus aside) was the idea that I never again had to worry about choice or getting things wrong. Or so I thought. Surely with God in control, someone that has my best interests at heart AND knows how to fullfill them, things might be hard but they would always be Right. Right? The realisation that I still have input and responsibility and thus the potential for failure sucked ass. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'Human Error'.
The freedom to mess up was, and still is, scary. The thing is though, no matter what mistakes we make He is able and willing to bring great stuff out of them, 'cause God is never going to give you up, never going to let you down, never going to run around and desert you.
I was going to be lazy and upload an old poem, turns out I found more than enough to say! Night x
Actually I am OK. If I had to be any of the above I think it would be busy, but mostly I'm frustrated at still not being online!
I wasn't sure I was going to write a blog as I am only on the internet 'cause I fancied going for a late night walk, then I though I'm going past the maths department so why not take my laptop and make the most of the 24/7 wifi (or whiffee should I say Darryl) connection as I hadn't checked my mail in a while (haven't quite worked out how to do remote webmail access for my email address without following the link on my laptop). So I am here sitting on a cold step praying I don't get piles and wondering what I really should be doing, if I could work out God's mind exactly.
Maybe deciding for myself?!
That is one of them things about Christianity. Looking to God for all the answers. I became really sure that God was totally in control of it all and had an ideal plan for me. Then I realised that I had taken the whole biblical stance and seen it as a way to not have to make any decisions. Classic giving up control to someone more powerful than me because I was afraid to be strong for myself. So then when I realised that God isn't going to explicitly tell me how to spend every spare minute of my day the panic of getting things wrong really came along. That is what once upon a time stopped me from being able to choose meals in restaurants (I still struggle with that a bit but believe me, if you saw me before you'd realise that's nothing!) and disabled me from walking down the street without about 6 different tics or compulsive traits.
I really struggled with control. It's ironic that I looked externally to people that could take control of my life so I didn't have to then I would struggle internally with the lack of control that I had. Self control is a huge issue in Christianity - it surprises me how many people struggle with it and don't even realise - but I don't think that is where I am going today.
Today it is about using God as a way to diminish responsibility for our own lives. Like by praying in the morning we no longer have to make plans for the day it will all fall together.
This is a hard thing for me to grapple with. Partly 'cause a lot of the time cool God-incidences do happen. Thursday all I did was bump into people that I seemed "supposed" to spend time with and before I knew it it was evening and I had redeveloped old relationships, made a fabulous new friend and met loads of people I felt I should pray for. Today I found myself wondering up Gloucester road late afternoon, all the shops were shutting I was miles from my car and I was like "What am I doing here?". Then I bumped into someone from church that had gone a different way home than usual (and was annoyed at himself for it) who had been walking around all day saying "What do you want to say to me God?". I ended up giving him apparently really sound advice which can't have been from me and we both went home feeling like it was supposed to happen.
But it isn't necessarily always like that. I have also had times where I have gotten so worked up by what I should and shouldn't do that I have totally overlooked taking control and making my own mind up - wanting God to take the burden of choice away and ensure I do not make a mistake, then feeling lost if He isn't obviously there. Hating the feeling of purposelessness for even a minute, like life is about what we are fulfilling and forgetting that actually I am quite small in the scheme of things, that God has told me exactly what does and doesn't glorify Him and that today, right now, it doesn't matter too much as long as I aim to please.
All too often the temptation is to look at every minute situation and try and see what God is doing in it. A classic Christian thing is to say "maybe God is trying to tell me something". Like when I was looking for my iPod before I came out for a walk and couldn't find it I thought "well maybe God wants me to pray or listen or something and so is stopping me". That is pretty crazy though because for one thing if I was really adamant about listening to music this evening I would have just said to myself "clearly Satan doesn't want me to listen to worship songs as I walk along" because that would have suited me. As though everything has to have some kind of spiritual significance.
Which TOTALLY negates our own responsibility for life. Not everything comes to us with a quick prayer and waiting. Sometimes we have to make a choice.
Like if God wants to talk to me quietly, or just have me spend time with him, having my iPod wouldn't change that. My choice to listen would be the deciding factor for if it happened - I have to make the effort, I have to WANT it. I like having music on as I walk, I like getting absorbed in it and avoiding the mundane route I take everyday. I put Christian music on my iPod so that I feel less bad about the escapism, but perhaps it would be a good opportunity to let Him in. Afterall, while Tim Hughes is fabulous, he is but a fallible image of The Almighty.
This kind of stuff for me is a nightmare. One of my favourite things about becoming a Christian (Jesus aside) was the idea that I never again had to worry about choice or getting things wrong. Or so I thought. Surely with God in control, someone that has my best interests at heart AND knows how to fullfill them, things might be hard but they would always be Right. Right? The realisation that I still have input and responsibility and thus the potential for failure sucked ass. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'Human Error'.
The freedom to mess up was, and still is, scary. The thing is though, no matter what mistakes we make He is able and willing to bring great stuff out of them, 'cause God is never going to give you up, never going to let you down, never going to run around and desert you.
I was going to be lazy and upload an old poem, turns out I found more than enough to say! Night x
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