the dance of the beautiful people.

I often only write when everything is dark and down, and I thought maybe tonight I'd write differently. However I can't find the right words to describe how I feel. Other than to say that right now this evening I feel that I could do anything I wanted. I'm not all hyper-active and swinging from the chandeliers (not that I have any chandeliers!), not sure I would even say I was joyful, nor even very happy. But I do feel content. I feel valued. I feel like I exist, not as an apology but as a creation of wonder, and beauty. I don't feel beautiful in terms of my appearance, but that as a person, that my personality is beautiful.

I know me.
I know it won't last
probably not for very long
but ...
this evening - I am part of the amazing and beautiful creation of God
I have a place in this creation
I have a place in sharing this creation with the creator
and we, Her and me will continue to dance
the dance of the beautiful people.

it eclipses the sun

My soul hurts.
My soul hurts - are you cleaning it?
Cleaning out the gravel like a grazed knee?

My soul hurts.
My soul hurts - are you sewing it?
Sewing it together like a wound?

My soul hurts.
My soul hurts so loud
it eclipses the sun.

We wept forever

A roar inside
A roar of pain
A primordial roar
A primordial roar of pain
A primordial roar from the very depths
A primordial roar from the very depths of pain
A primordial roar from the very depths of my soul
A primordial roar from the very depths of my soul of pain
Depper than the depths of my soul
From the very depths of creation itself
came a tsunami of tears.

And God also roared in pain,
Christ roared beside me,
the Father roared from before time began
the Spirit roared into eternity,
and they three and me
we wept forever.

Anger

it burns a hole through your soul if you ignore it
it causes you heart to beat so fast it might explode
it causes you mind to have a life of it’s own

I thought I was ok
I thought I could handle what was going on in my brain
I thought the anger was under control

A simple comment causes the safety valve to crack
even whilst it’s cracking my brain registers
the words weren’t meant the way I heard them

it causes you mind to have a life of it’s own
it causes you heart to beat so fast it might explode
it burns a hole through your soul if you ignore it.

Grief

it lurks in the confusion of your mind
in the unbidden thoughts of your heart
and in the darkness of your soul

it lurks waiting to catch you unawares
waiting until your guard is down
waiting for the glimmer of loneliness

it lurks stealing your breath
stealing the beat of you heart
stealing the fire of your soul

it lurks with insidious power
bringing to a halt love
love for self, love for others

let it leak through your eyes
expel it’s anguish in your breath
let the light of your soul expose it

One grain at a time

The image of volcanic rage is obviously itself an expression of the release of pressure. The full dustbin was the final straw. All the other stuff building up.

my world collapsed
not a big blow up kind of collapse
not a volcanic eruption
more like a sand dune in the desert
encroaching one grain of sand at a time

everything collapsed in on me
I was existing only
not living

I went to work
even did some work
I showered and I washed my clothes
when I'd run out of mugs or plates I washed up
I turned up at church
I even managed to preach
and to lead services
but I was slowly dieing
as my world collapsed in on me
one grain at a time

grief
hidden grief
unexplored and unknown
misunderstood grief by some
ignored by others
grief I didn't understand
collapsing in on me one grain at a time

everything collapsed
church - the people aspects seem to be there
but I felt we were losing the reverence and awe
the ritual and sacredness that are so important to me
so even church was collapsing
one grain at a time

in amongst this collapsing
God's voice was getting stronger
more insistent
more obvious
more present
more powerful
collapsing in on me
one grain at a time

and people couldn't see I was collapsing
they could see the presence of God
falling on me
so how could I be collapsing
one grain at a time?

God was in my face
in my mouth
in my lungs
in my breathing
in my soul
in my head changing my thoughts
always there interfering
always there
insistent
obvious
present
filling my very being
ONE GRAIN AT A TIME

the same way that others have interfered with me before
filling my soul with pain and anguish
filling my soul with self loathing and disgust
ONE GRAIN AT A TIME

God was doing it this time!

but ...

why would he do that?

if what others have said could possibly be true
that he loves me then why would he do that?

grain after grain slowly fell into place
I slowly began to hear the words
that God had been pouring over me
One grain at a time

My love is real
My love is real
it is not the love talked of by those that did this
My love is real
every single grain of it is real

this time he was emptying my soul of self loathing and disgust
this time it was the pain of cleaning and repair
the anguish became the itch of healing
One grain at a time

I now know I am loved
loved beyond any reason
beyond any doubts I might have
with real love
every single grain of my being is loved

but all the change causes pressure
and the pressure came out
it did not come out one grain at a time
but in a volcanic eruption

Crucified by my volcanic rage

Good Friday the rage came out.
I did not hurt myself
I did not hurt any one else

The trigger was my neighbor yet again filling my dustbin.
Rage that was completely disproportional to the trigger.
but volcanic rage nevertheless.

The trigger was that I was trying to do the right thing
and I couldn't, I couldn't because of some one being really inconsiderate
I saw it as my being punished because I didn't put myself first
because I am considerate I lost out
It has always been the case.
I am intuitive, it has taken me 40 years to accept that.
I think it means that in some situations I can be more aware of others than people think is possible. That at an early age I was compassionate, in a way the adults around me didn't understand. And therefore they didn't believe I could think or feel the way I did.

Good Friday
Volcanic rage
Christ - my Christ
my friend
my Lord
my lover
my hearts desire
my souls companion
my Saviour
crucified
crucified by my volcanic rage
crucified by the unrighteousness of things done to me
crucified by the unrighteous things I have done
Christ - my Christ
my friend
my Lord
my lover
my hearts desire
my souls companion
my Saviour
crucified
crucified by my volcanic rage

The short version.

So much for my plan.

Things didn't go the way I expected.
I don't have enough time to go into detail at the moment, and will try to write later in the week but the short version is:-

rage big enough to raise a volcano,
to destroy my dinning room,
to decimate all the peace and simplicity of my life
overtook me.

And in order to regain some semblance of calm I watched the TV.

The rage is still there, bubbling under the surface and I need to make time to explore it. I know where it comes from and what triggered it but I need to consider it within the Light of Christ.

No Blogging until after Easter Morning

Erica (see comments from previous blog) has 6 weird things about her.
One of my many, many , many weird things is that I am very attuned to the church year, and as part of that this year I decided that from tonight I would turn off all unnecessary power, until the Easter Light is risen.

So no TV, Computer, Radio, already don't have any heating. Will use the electric shower, and lighting when I need it for safety. I'll still need to use the kettle to washup, but will be eating very simply, and drinking mostly water. Not turning off fridge, freezer and need to wash my work shirts tonight so I can dry them - very difficult drying clothes with no heating when you're at work all day so can't hang them up outside!

No Blogging until after Easter Morning.

Have a though provoking Good Friday
a puzzling Easter Saturday
and a Great Easter Day.

Another night that my soul bleeds

It's amazing sometimes the things I will do to avoid going to bed.
It's late and I've been cleaning the Kitchen.
Recently a friend came and helped me de-clutter and spring clean the Kitchen.
it's the only room in the house that's in any sort of order, the only "grown-up" room in the house. And I quite like being in it.

I've found a piece of music that right now says exactly what I want to pray, and is often on repeat, playing whilst I wash-up,
playing while I clean,
praying while I clean.

I've had one of those very strange days.
I've spoken to no-one.
I work in an office of about 100 people
currently on an account of over 600 people
at a site with thousands of people
and I spoke to no-one - no phone calls no-one.
Last night the phone kept ringing, tonight nothing.

I might as well have not existed today - no-one would have noticed I wasn't there.

I came home to a job application.
It's a job other people think I could do, it's less responsibility than one a few weeks ago that I thought I could do. But there is absolutely no confidence in me that I could even fill the form in let a lone handle the interview or the job.

Are the two connected?
left entirely in my own company
my confidence ceases to exist? ......hmmmm

A few years ago the Church of England rejected me.
My take on it tonight is I am damaged goods.
Too damaged for the Church of England to see my potential.
Too damaged for them to take the risk.

I am not too damaged for God
in fact right now it is being damaged that links me with him.

I once wrote to the 14 year old me.
I wrote something like this.

"I guess if you said to me that you thought your heart had broken, you'd expect me to say it didn't, it might have felt like it, but it didn't really break.

Well that's not true.
It did break
into a million pieces
and Jesus is what holds those pieces together.
It is an incredible job, He has to hold them together enough so your heart still functions, it still beats, it still pumps blood around your body.
And at the same time he can't hold the pieces too loosely other wise the blood just pours out.

Jesus is right there in the middle of you covered in all the gore of your broken heart keeping it working without leaking blood in the wrong places."

Sometimes I think some of the pieces have started to knit together, and sometimes I still see the not quite a million other pieces still so vulnerably held together.

tonight is another night that my soul bleeds.

Another Big Stepping Stone

In the UK last Sunday was Mothering Sunday – traditionally a time that people went home to visit there Mothers, and their Mother Church. It has been adopted as our Mothers Day..

There was a line in the sermon on Sunday – something like
“Some people’s happy event is other people’s nightmare”

Yeah – it was a nightmare for me.

I shouldn’t have gone to church, I guess because I knew what the sermon was going to be (I’d been given a sneak preview earlier last week) I thought I’d be ok. But I wasn’t. There were prayers I couldn’t say… which is ok because God knows I can’t say them. The service was a really good attempt at trying to hold together those who have a good experience of Mothers, and Motherhood, and those of us who don’t. It just didn’t help me.

I have many times stood waiting to administer the chalice and told God “with my Body I thee worship – I am only here in body, my heart and soul hurts too much to be here and wants to be elsewhere”. I am aware of the incongruity of the statement, the very fact I am praying means I am there in more than physical body, at least part of my mind is engaged. This Sunday I stood with tears in my eyes, wishing I was somewhere else.

Jesus spoke to me “You know this that is causing you the pain wasn’t your fault?”

“Yeah I know – but can you understand the pain I feel?
“Yeah” and he stood with me.

He stood with me reassuring me that I was ok, that though not my fault, the pain was very legitimate, and he would not take it away, but he would stand with me in amongst the pain. I found his presence very reassuring the rest of the day as I wept myself to sleep. Aware as I awoke that he was still with me. I Didn’t really get anything I’d planned to do on Sunday done, and the echoes of the pain are still reverberating around my soul, making breathing hard work. I explained, in a lot more detail than here, my day to one of my wise men. I told him what was happening, and how I reacted, and that Sunday had been a very painful day but I was ok. He replied that he thought I was very ok. And we talked of how this day was another big stepping stone in my journey.

Jesus in church

On Sunday in church I felt Jesus standing next to me.
“what do you want?” I asked him
“to sit with you” was his reply.
He “sat next to me.
After a while I looked at him and said “aren’t you going to say anything”
“nope”
“you’re just going to sit there?"
“yep”
after another little while
“aren’t you going to do anything?”
“such as?"
“hold me while I weep, wipe the tears from my eyes, make everything better, tell me I'll be ok?”
“nope”
“you’re just going to sit there”
“yep”
“and do nothing?”
“not quite nothing”
“?”
“I’m going to sit with you right where you are
in this very dark and painful place
right next to you
so you’re not alone”

I am not where I expected to be

So whatever this thing that God is doing with my soul is much bigger than I thought. In fact much bigger than I can handle. I completely lost the plot in the last seven days. Losing all sense of who God is and who I am. Fortunately the people that I turned to were very gentle with me. They understood what I was trying to explain, they listened and they prayed and they enabled me to see the hope I so desperately needed. They checked the decisions I made with an objectivity I didn't have and agreed with them. They say that I am very definitely still listening to God, and still hearing God. But... what I'm hearing is being distorted by too many things happening all at the same time, and I need to clear some space to be able to hear God clearly again and to work with him. I've spent more of this weekend in tears than not in tears. Tears pouring down my face during the service this morning. Some difficult decisions made. Back to work tomorrow, and more difficult conversations. But there is a sense of rightness about the decisions made.

I have moved to a different place and it is not where I expected to be.