thoughts of an idle pilgrim

...and another year and a bit

2011-08-28T13:51:00.001-07:00

in a very different place again!

I do have a job - since January.
I enjoy the job (mostly).
But it just doesn't pay enough.

What else has changed.
Well that's hard to identify.
Too hard for tonight, I've tried several times!
Key words would be materialistic, consciousness, loss of technology, vocation

Nearly two and a half years later ....

2010-07-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

what's new?

well my body doesn't work as well as it used to
I'm in a different church
and I've been unemployed for a year in 4 days time

today I found out that yet again I came second in an interview for a job
for the 5th time I've come second
trouble is second doesn't really help
second just doesn't get you the job

earlier I wanted to write but couldn't think who to write to
couldn't think who might begin to understand where I am
even the wise men admit they can't quite understand where I am
they don't think I'm in a bad place
and from their view point they think I'm in a really exciting place
but they do understand that I am finding it a hard place

I am in a learning place
learning to trust in God
learning to trust that there is a God
learning to hear the phrase "I'm sure God has a job for you"
without asking "what do you mean?"
to the people that say it
because they don't know what they mean

it's a lonely place
mostly of my own making
I guess it's my pride that makes me think I have nothing to tell anyone
I am nearly 44 and have nothing to show for my life
except things I find difficult to explain
a better understanding of myself
but at the same time the realisation of just how little I really understand myself
and my knowledge of God has grown but by an infinitesimally small amount
these things don't seem to compare with families and careers

how do you explain about an exploring being a contemplative
in a very noisy and materialistic society
especially when you are very reluctant about the whole idea yourself

well at least I remembered a place I could write
after two and a half years
no-one will be watching

I'll write again soon

2008-02-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

check out this link - Fried Blue Diary I'm told there will be more poems
coming.
I'll write again soon.

the dance of the beautiful people.

2007-10-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-06T04:58:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-04-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-23T02:30:00.000-07:00

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

2007-01-16T14:07:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

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.

God is doing something strange in my soul

2006-09-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-09-10T13:43:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-23T00:59:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-01T04:07:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-05-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-05-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

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 ...

2006-05-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

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

Severed from the common thread of my life

2005-08-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

My Spiritual Director on Friday said that despite how confusing life feels to me at the moment he could see a very strong common thread weaving all aspects of my life together. However when I asked him what the thread was he couldn't really answer. His answer was a cop out (which he knew) and was along the lines of "it's an inner thing - somthing inside you". We also discussed when this particular thread might have started, but didn't come to any conclusions.

Thinking about it now, the image that the common thread that had been in my life was cut very abruptly (by others), is quite a good way of describing how I felt - "severed from the common thread of my life". At the time it seemed I was completely severed but maybe it was with a very blunt knife and that there were still straggly bits of the thread hanging on to things. For more than a year I have lived threadless - aimlessly wandering through life, stopping the things that were part of the previous thread - stopping them gently rather than abruptly as many of them affected other people not just me. May be that's part of this new thread - that untill I put down all things of the old thread I still had my hands too full to pick up this new thread. What is this thread? even if it is an inner thing what is it? what colour? what texture? how strong is it? will it be weaved with other threads to be stronger brighter more beautiful? will it have knots in it? decorative knots or just tangled knots? Whatever it's strength will this one also be severed by others? severed by me? will it come to a genlte end, or become part of some one elses weaving?

Smirging on the beach

2005-05-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

Smirging a cross between smudging and merging

We were watching the wind blowing some dry sand across the top of the wet sand and I said it was smirging the patterns made by the wet sand and the sea. I likened it to the Holy Spirit smirging our patterns.

For me Faith is about being the person that God created me to be
The [Idle Pilgrim] that God created me to be

S. said something about you are the person that God created now … I think he was trying to say that God created me and totally passionately adores me. Yes my head gets that (don’t think my heart does!) I know logically that Christ died for me – if I changed nothing more. But I am not the person God created me to be. I have been molded by the things I have encountered in my life.

There is a big debate about are we who nature has created or who our parents have nurtured. They both play a part. The decisions made by my parents had an impact on my life. The decisions my grandparents made had an impact on my parents and hence on me. My great grandparents…

Whether I lived in the country or the town. Whether my parents set good examples of enjoying sporting activities or the more cerebral activities. I will have picked up from parents and grandparents how I behave towards other people. The schools that I went to had some impact, the friends that I made, and the enemies that I made. All the things that have happened to me have changed me – as I grow I change. Some of the changes are good changes. I am wiser now than I was (honest!) a little happier maybe. Some of the changes are not so good .. I’m never going to be a ballerina or a gymnast! I don’t think that I am the[Idle Pilgrim] that God created me to be. I also think that I may never be the [Idle Pilgrim] that God created me to be… I believe that God’s call is “come and share with me” and that when I can fully share with him, completely no hesitation, no doubts or worries then may be I will be… will that be this side of Heaven? I don’t know.

Some of us are closer to the person God created us to be than others.

Some people as they draw closer to God, as they share more and more with him they find a clear idea of vocation, of lifestyle, job, career that enables them to share with God. Something that helps them understand a bit more about the person that God has created them to be. And some of us struggle on. I suspect some of us will always struggle on. For me I need to allow God to work on changing some of the patterns that I have created for me or that have been created for me. One of the reasons that I was not recommended [for ordination training] is that I give too much of myself. I am too hard on myself and don’t allow myself to ‘be’ enough. It is a pattern that I need to allow God to work on. Not in order that I can train to be a priest… but in order that I can become more the[Idle Pilgrim] that God created me to be. I need some help – I need the holy spirit to help me change some of my patterns. Like the wind blowing the dry sand on the beach I need the Holy spirit to smirge some of my patterns to make new patterns.

Drama, and faith and heart-crushing...

2005-02-02T22:41:00.000-08:00

it's very late so this might not work but I'll try any way

I was reading the comments for Too Obscure I Guess from RLP's blog and didn't get past the first comment by jessi as I read "I love reading it, drama and faith and heart-crushing and God and all" I thought "that's the problem church is heart-crushing both at the moment and all that has happened to me this year. The sadness that statment inspires is so dark - church should be about light not darkness.

there is more to this but it's late and I have a busy week ahead of me.

one final thought :
what is the point of a silent prophet?

why do I not write

2005-01-13T22:18:00.000-08:00

writing like many things is good for me and I don't do it.
possibly lots of types of writing

mind streaming at the begining or end of the day
reflective writing on some aspect of my life (spiritual, work, emotional)
creative writing - it has been a very long time since i played with a piece of writing
the sermons that I write... well wrote (don't preach at the moment)
poetry - usually when I am low I write poetry some as a commentary on the lowness of life and some on the hope that I long to see but is just out of view

more writing!

very confused

2004-12-03T21:13:00.000-08:00

OK so I've made a few mistakes setting this up.
This is the third atempt!

I'm not really sure why I've created a blog I do know that I would like to write but I'm not sure what I want to write about. Maybe I just need a place to be able to express some of the confusion in my head at the moment.

The thing that is confusing me is whether to trust God or not?
Do I really have a choice?
and what should I really be doing with my life!