God is doing something strange in my soul

I spoke to a very wise man the other day.

well I tried to speak to him
he asked a simple question about whether my job was more secure
I explained that in terms of finance yes - I have a job and will be paid
in terms of what I'm doing no they still haven't decided.

all I managed to talk about was my job (which is in the IT sector)
and he stopped me and said
"Do you know that God is doing something really strange in your soul?"
"right now, right at this moment in your life?"

we talked about this - I know God is doing something strange in my soul
not sure I would have quite phrased it like that but it fits
the wise man said that I was also very tranquil about what was happening
it's strange how tranquil to the rest of the world seems like going crazy to me!

I am very aware of God doing something strange in my soul
there are moments that I can almost taste God in the air or smell God on the air
there are bits of writing that I'm falling over in the midst of writing an essay
and I can almost hear God saying - "read this,
this is what you ministry will be like
you will need to really understand about this
these are the things I want you to be known for"

there is no clear picture of a specific job, or path
but there is the fogginess of something there
just out of my reach
and there are moments where a wisp creeps to within my grasp

I've discovered that I need to grab onto each wisp and record it
don't have time right now to reflect on them
but if I don't grab it there and then its gone

there is a settling of my soul,
an much much much bigger understanding of ....
I guess it's Who God is - though that doesn't seem quite right
maybe it's "That God is" rather than Who God is.

A different wise man told me
he thought I was beginning to believe that God believed in me
that's a wisp I need to follow up
I think it's a very big wisp

another wisp is a question asked by the 1st wise man
"Do you know that God loves you?"
it isn't a question I can answer
love isn't something I can really understand because of my experiences
my answer - "God and I have an understanding
I understand as much as I can at the moment "
sometimes wonder if I'll ever really know

So why did my Old Testament Essay take so long?

Like ivy all over a house
there was something all over me,
it’s tendrils sinking into the very depths of my soul.

But unlike ivy this couldn’t just be torn off.
Each tendril had to be traced and then gently extracted.
These were the tendrils of a very angry, frustrated, lonely 6 year old.

The 6 year old did get hurt as this was happening
and I had to reassure her that it was for the right reasons,
that I really have her best interest at heart.

I had to find a way through the essay
A way of writing an academic essay
that was what I wanted to say
and not what I thought the tutor wanted to read.

The 6 year old needed to be heard,
and needs to know that being angry is not stupid,
that disagreeing with adults is not stupid,
that adults should allow you to think your own thoughts
and not what they want you to think,
that her thoughts are real, and not imaginary.

I have to allow my own way of thinking to become …
Just to become
In the same way that we need to learn to just be.

My thoughts need to be allowed to become
To become thoughts
Thoughts of an angry lonely 6 year old
Thoughts of wisdom
Thoughts of beauty
Thoughts of being

Just to become

But sometimes an adult has to stop a 6 year old from hurting herself,
and she and I have to find ways of allowing her to express her self safely,
and we will continue to work on this
and the essay was written and handed in
and the new testament essay was a little bit easier
and the current essay…
happening very slowly, reflections on funeral services

the inspiration within me
listening to the 6 year old as well as the 40 year old
and some how an essay will appear.

Soap

I forgot to mention the soap.
There is some Natural Soap at this web site http://www.natural-handmade-soap.net/ .
and the desciptions of the fragances are great! It's homemade soap
Sold at this site -- http://www.natural-handmade-soap.net/ .
I'm going to get some Handmade Soap and then I can tell you what it's like!

broke my prayer beads

I broke my prayer beads tonight. Or rather I broke the cross at the end of them. I made them at a point when words meant nothing, the only way I could pray was to hold them.

it's only a small thing really but I do feel bereft.

I have a set made for me by a friend who became a novice on Tuesday
that was a beautiful service, I di find it very hard I shall miss her dearly
now we have to explore a friendship within a differnt context
but not sure how strong the thread on the beads are.
I guess I have to use these until they fall apart as well.

prayer - until prayer falls appart

yes that sums me up at the moment
I do until I fall apart
I write an essay until I am literally banging my head then I figure I'd better stop for a bit.

I still have 3 essays, and the fourth part of one essay to do.
they must be done before the end of August!

then a month off - well off from essay writing - I just have some training for work to do as well as my full time job.

not really an idle pilgrim

certainly an exhausted pilgrim - perhaps I should change my name!

Something very big is rolling

There is something very big rolling around inside me.
I feel like a pinball table with a ball that just won't stop.
It's bouncing of different bits of me.
Not only can I not identify what the ball is
but I can't identify what the different bits it's hitting are.

..... maybe ....

maybe the ball started out as an assignment on
"what the purpose of prayer is"

now it's like a snowball rolling down a hill
it's picked up all sorts of things
and is big and very solid.

It's not a ping pong ball,
more like a 4 inch steel ball bearing

Thud it hits something else
thud - no sleep tonight
- realing too much from being hit again
thud - hit to the head I guess
- no sensible thought going on here
thud - another hit to the things that used to make sense
- and now don't

I have no idea who I am
I have no idea who God is
I have no idea what prayer is
I have no idea what the purpose of prayer is
.... except that it is alwasy "just a little bit more" than what I think it is

RLP talks of different roles
I have roles - yes
but I can't identify them
I have no sense of belonging to anything

In amongst all this confusion . . .
One of my friends really wants to help me do something very different for my 40th birthday
One of my friends wants me to help her run a discussion group - she sees me as a freelance vicar!
One of my friends tells me I talking prophetically to her

do they know who I am?

Tonight my soul is bleeding

In February my best friend, who had been sharing my house for the previous 9 months, moved out of my house and into a convent. She is currently a postulant in an Anglican community. Her community is one that I have known for a long time and is actually on the way home from my work place. On Monday(her day off) I took her out for a pizza and beer. I miss her terribly - it was a good night but she leaves a big wound.

Tonight for very good reasons I had to go and see the people that battered my soul as a child. They cooked me a very nice meal, found a red wine I liked which is amazing considering I didn't think I liked red wine.

I got home to discover that a really close friend came very close (the second time in 2 years now) to dying.

I'm sitting here, with too much work to do, in a house that is so untidy I can't see it ever being tidy again, almost constant pain in my shoulder from neck muscles that are so tight they are pulling my rib over my collar bone.

it's all just too much.

tears fall
my soul bleeds

and I cling to a strange phrase

"Behold I desire truth deep within you
and shall make you understand wisdom
in the depths of your heart"

(based around Psalm 51 v7)

Just a brief note

To say thanks for the hug! Had a beautiful hug from a friends 6 week old baby - still very small, slept in my arms for quite a while!

2000 words written on placement analysis (plus another 1000 on the report of the placement!)

3 meetings with wise and Godly men that leave me very puzzled

Away this weekend on a prayer retreat with my course

maybe I'll have a few words after that

Deep tears of the Soul.

Thursday night I was praying.

I was very conscious of Jesus very, very gently asking me a question.
"“Why do you not receive my love with joy?"”
It was so gently asked; there was nothing but love in the question, and I knew it was being asked for me to realise what the answer was.

The answer ...
"My heart is so battered, it'’s full of holes, like a sieve,
love just leaks out,
it is only there for a while and then it's gone"

there was a follow on question

"and your soul?"
"My soul is so battered, bruised and scarred that it'’s barely recognisable as a soul"”

These were things that Jesus already knew,
but I didn't -– well I did,
but I had not put the words together,
and it was time to put them together.

Friday morning I had a meeting with a wise and Godly man.
At one point he said "you have an unusual soul"–
I smiled -– if he only knew how I see it!

He went on to say that my soul is an unusual mix of the pragmatic and the poetic.
He told me many things -– some of them will leak out of my heart in a while but for now they sit there.

In amongst all of this was a very strange reaction.
Last night checking my emails I had a bit of a song running through my head.
The only word that I could remember was Hallelujah.
And I suddenly started to cry;
I cried deep tears, tears from my soul.
Hallelujah - Praise God
it just induces tears,
deep tears that I don't have the words to explain.
Deep tears of my soul, and the reassurance that God understands.

Deep tears of my soul, pouring out in praise to my God.

I blame Gregory of Nyssa!

Ok so when I said that I wasn't going to write soon I was wrong!

I blame Gregory of Nyssa!

Now some of you will know that Gregory was born around 335 AD, so how can he have had anything to do with my writing now!. Well I've spent all my free time in the last two weeks trying to write and assignment. A 2000 word sermon on Gregory of Nyssa. I completed it late last night but woke up this morning completely exhausted. The sort of bone weary exhaustion.
Because I was exhausted I have taken today off and so read a few things on the web.

And I got rid of my TV tonight.
I've been spending far to much time watching not whatever happened to be on and decided a while a go that I would rather spend my time reading and maybe writing.

The house feels a bit quiet but I guess I'll get used to it. I have been using the TV to listen to digital radio, for some reason I am in a radio black spot for non digital radio. My plan is to use the internet to listen to the radio when I want to, and I can also use the PC to play CD's so the house won't be silent all the time.

I might even get chance to go to bed early occasionally!

That's the plan tonight - go to bed so I can be up early in the morning to start on the next assignment. I have to do 6000 words on the purpose of prayer and worship before the 24th May. I do have Monday off to work on it as well as tomorrow and next week end but I might have to consider getting an extension!

I have to stop wondering why I'm doing this course and just get on with it. Wise people that know me seem to think it is the right thing to do. When I agreed to do it (nearly a year ago now) I thought that God was calling me to do it, so I really should just get on with it. Maybe with the odd stop here.

too much writing of the wrong sort ...

I haven't written anything here for a while and won't again for a while.

reasons for not writeing

• the actual content of my work changes pretty frequently at the moment. Just a the point that I think I have got the hang of what I'm supposed to be doing it changes - so lots of writing what I think I should be doing and then throwing it away (or changining it again!)
  
• in my spare time I'm doing a diploma in ministry and theology .I'm finding it very hard as I've never written essays before -lots of writing and throwing away and starting again
• in the other bit of my spare time (!) I'm doing a 6 month training course at work which means more ... well thinking not really writing much and 50% in my own time!.

these on top of a few problems at home have meant not much time for writeing.
Nor infact reading I've got out of touch with blogs I used to read.

in August I get about 2 weeks break from all the training - might need to do some sleeping but might get round to doing some writeing.

But if you want to read something beautiful then try this blog prodigalaspersions