starfish November 14, 2009

Run away. Sprint from this place, to a better place. A 100 meter dash from the rubble to the Ritz. A race from distortion to gem stone. A scenario unusual in so many ways. A race that allows me to run back to the start. A race that has routes that will never take me to a finish line.

I am running away from my childish coping mechanisms, I am running away from my kiddish petulance. I am running into a maturity, one that is centred around my faith, like a jedi, like a monk, like an athlete, like a dancer. I run into a hopeless situation that is full of faith, I run into an army of peace, I run into an ocean of hatred that somehow has love flowing in its current.

run.

five-a-day November 11, 2009

In word. In love. By demeanour. In faith. With Integrity.

A position, taken up when I was born maybe before. A position that needs to guarded, not in a defensive manner but in an expression of humanity. I could leave. I could relinquish my position to a decaying landscape. I could retire to a warmer, dryer, sunnier, more comfortable position. But this is my position. This is where I belong. A discipline to remain true to who I am and how I have been designed.

In this position to express Hope in words, in love, by demeanour, in faith with integrity. To live in words would only cause my hope to collapse, to live by love only would create a one dimensional object. To only live by demeanour would would cripple my soul. To have faith and no love would be like a heart of stone, to have integrity and nothing else would reduce me to a good man and not a God one.

I need the five a day in my life, everyday. To speak and in speaking those words matching up to my actions, which in turn match up to the way I hold myself or behave. What I put my trust in needs to connect with how I live my life and that will facilitate living a life of transparency, clarity and boundaries.

This is my journey, I take deeper into Him, the more I lose myself the more I learn about myself through Him. The journey is not linear or regular. Some days I am on a rocket and others I walk. Some days I feel I haven’t journeyed more than a few centimeters and other days I feel I have travelled a light year.

Looking in the mirror, I tell myself to stay focused and disciplined on the five a day, on my journey, from distortion to gem stone.

who November 10, 2009

Man and woman created as an image of Him. Not separate but in unity they become a whole representation of Him. The aspects and virtues that come into focus a reflection of the aspects of a trinity that breathes and moves in 2009 as much as it does in 9Ad.

Equal, made to reflect the entire image of God. A connection. Like the connection we are brought into this world. Connected to our mothers until we are freed to seek another connection. Free to seek connections of the heart and of the soul.

Man and Woman, two parts of one. Designed to be one. Authority and leadership exist with men and women at the helm.

My wife will never be part of a small minded creche and neither will I.

trainspotting November 9, 2009

This week that just past me, felt like a train rattling through on the opposite track. No sooner have I gone to sleep on a Monday full of work than I am here again on Monday morning. I am going to slow my clock down. Double up on days. A week lasts three days and one. Montueday, Wedthurday, FriSatday and Sunday.

I started the week looking at hope. To hope in hopelessness. This is faith. I will pursue with a hope like this. I must. In all situations.

On Wednesday I thanked God. For everything in my life. For the good and the bad. For the opportunity to see the bad become good and for the opportunity to thank Him for the good.

By the time I was at the Thursday part of my week I was thinking about, compartments that delineate. I don’t want any. Everything is spiritual. Everything.

Friday and the contemplation of order drifts into my thoughts. I like it. On Saturday I was drawn to write about that which is real and that which is counterfeit. Sunday a day of prayer. The power for hope and faith to shape words from my soul and for those words to go to Him and then back to me, not necessarily changing my circumstance but always changing me.

To hope, to thank, to see that everything is spiritual, to create order, to pray for an uncontaminated love, to pray.

speak child November 8, 2009

The breadcrumb trail leads to a single prayer. The cards that built the house fell from a detached prayer making its lone journey years before. A collection of words born in the heart of a man, like a bouquet of flowers thrown up to the heavens, they are fashioned and clothed. Words that come from the heart, not perfect, not clever, not attention seeking and not pious. A prayer birthed on the lips of a congregation, a community with a resource of power rarely used. Prayer more effective than shaking angry fists, more transformative than campaigning for reform. Prayer a collection of drops that make a storm, teas spoons of matter that created the earth poured out from a bag of prayer.

Prayer, the oldest conversation to have existed. Before time began, before my heart thumped, there was prayer. Before I came into being He prayed for me, to me, in me. Prayer the longest dinner conversation, the broken bread and the sipped wine dipped into prayer.

My life needs wrapping, like a Christmas present, in prayer paper. A gift, all this life can cope with. A gift to all around. That somehow. In some way. Life. Will. Connect.

Prayer, nature has always maintained that relationship. The seasons pray, the tides pray, the hibernating slumbers pray as do the flocks of migrating birds. In the DNA of every breath is a prayer. The universe breathes and prays.

order November 6, 2009

I prefer the room to be tidy. A priority that changes when other factors are introduced into my day. There is a threshold for me, a point at which I will let go of the grasp to clean the room. My threshold is particularly low. Other people have much higher thresholds. Other peoples thresholds are so high that you can almost guarantee they have a tidy room every day. Other peoples thresholds are so low that you can almost guarantee they will not have a tidy room every day. When the room becomes so untidy it rises up the priority ladder and gets sorted out to a good standard.

I spend a small percentage of a working day looking for stuff; chargers and hard drives, codes and numbers. Maybe if my threshold were higher in tidying up the room, I would misplace less stuff? Maybe the sense of consistent order maintaining a tidy room would somehow permeate into maintaining a tidy life? Could there be so much significance in picking up clothes? Could my life really be connected by the threads of laundry and wardrobes?

I am reminded by the way of the Benedictine Monks, the order that was maintained. From the order comes a dialogue with Him. This room is the most important room in the house, it’s where prayers are prayed, it is where bibles are read and it is where dreams are dreamed. If this room is in a state of chaos physically what kind of spiritual terrain does that create?

I am inspired to create order, simplicity and fashion a consistency into creating a room with order and reverence. From the core of this house I want to create a place where the spirituality is in rhythm with the physical state.

Order. Dialogue. Rhythm. Hope

every November 5, 2009

Unseen realities. A presence undetected. A truth hidden. A background love, like the backdrop of life we find ourselves in. As constant and as fluid as the seasons themselves. The mighty and the mundane, they sit together on the same sofa. The high powered and the incidental share the same pot of tea. The super courageous and the submissive constant eat from the same plate.

What is this that stretches beyond the scope of my pinhole camera vision? This? Why this is life said the voice, laughing like an angel.

I was taught at an early age that life moves fast and I need to move with it. My life always packed in boxes, always ready to go. This year, I unpacked everything. There are no boxes. Spiritual is everything. Everything is illuminated. Everything is everything.

 

thank November 4, 2009

Thank You. Thank You. I am here on earth, November 4th 2009 and am so grateful to Him for my life. Thank you for my wife; her formidable intellect and fairy tale beauty, her diamond faith and extraordinary love. Thank you for my eldest son; his capacity for goodness and honesty, his heaven kissed morality and his releasing consistency. Thank you for my youngest son; his passion and strength, his freedom of movement and his pollenhonesty. Thank you for my daughter; for her security and laughter, her prophetic voice and joy giving presence. Thank you for my life. I am so blessed to be alive today.

rejection November 3, 2009

Somehow because I caught a glimpse of the end of the movie, no mater how far the scene looks from the final resolve, I continue to trust in what I saw. There are times when I worry that maybe it was a celluloid piece of trickery, that actually I never did see the end of the film, or indeed I did see the end, just not for this particular movie.

To hope is difficult enough, to hope when there is hopelessness is faith. I trust that His bridge will hold my weight, my faith. I know what I saw and because of that, I am happy to live my life. With hope and faith. Wrapped in love. I trust. I trust the ending, which means I can live holding onto life a little loosely. There will always be questions about the validity of the ending, however I wholeheartedly believe that the qualitative content of my life has improved so much that even if I am wrong about the ending, it still would have been worth it. Still.

Road Rage October 20, 2009

Travelling on a road, that everyone travels along. Seems so similar on the outside, feels so different on the inside. Travelling on this road searching for unity, how does that look on the interior? How does that look on the exterior? Travelling on a journey, one that has its map burnt on my heart, gifted by a sacrifice, open never closed, inclusive never exclusive.