...love actually

Today I was overwhelmed with a consuming sense of Love – God was clearly calling this out for me to explore. Hmmm, so on a one page blog I wonder where I can get and as I start writing I’m aware of my potentially limited experience.

I’m pretty sure that the topic which is most prevalent in song writing is Love, it has been written in every style, in every generation and probably from every possible angle.

The first commandment from God is about Love…

Mark 12:30

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

No coincidence then that Love is something that occupies so much of our lives. The bible affirms over and over again the theme of love and how God the Father loves each and every one of us alike. Love comes in many forms: compassionate, caring and physical between two partners. God experiences love in and with us – perhaps except the love experienced between two partners. Unless God transcends gender and is able to experience that which seems to be uniquely between man and woman.

God sent His only son to earth to be born in human form and experience that which is human, except joining with a woman in physical love. I wonder if that is why as we begin to experience love as teenagers we struggle with limited guidelines on how this should look and feel?

Contentious…I know.

God created us in love and desires that we fully give and receive of the same.  Unconditionally giving love to another requires true vulnerability and ‘submission’. It requires trust and the true wish to put another’s desires and happiness before your own.

I wonder how many people can truly say they experience love in this way. Not just that which is compassionate, caring, emotional, nurturing, parental or only of passion & lust.

As God spoke Love into my heart today I felt an insane sense of excitement, that I can and will experience a shared and consuming sense of love in my life.

I believe that the other components of love and friendship are important but I don’t think consuming love is unrealistic, especially as God has given and commanded that we each have the opportunity to have Love… Actually!

...a childlike mission possible

As it’s Christmas, I have been wondering a lot about life as seen through a child’s eyes and what this looks like, how we all have it and yet lose it.

We are told throughout the bible that we are born sinful and yet as a new born child we are the most innocent and perfect we will ever be in God’s eyes. Many of the verses in the bible that talk about children, talk about acceptance and simplicity – a sense that as we get older we confuse, complicate and blur that which God wants of us and wants us to be.

Matthew 18: 1-5

"Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me."

Children often accept others as they are – no matter how different they maybe from themselves. Children express themselves openly – emotionally, physically and verbally. Tears, tantrums and giggles. Fighting, running, nurturing and learning /experiencing the effect of words.

So does God expect us to accept, see and experience life as children do? As children we experience life short term. Children live for the day, telling a child to wait for a treat/holiday that is months away is beyond comprehension. Our lives are in God’s hands, nothing is assured even though as adults we have the ongoing desire to plan. Adults often talk about living for the moment and perhaps we have fleeting desires to do so but how often does that feeling last for?

Children are optimistic, open and expectant – nothing is impossible. However, as we impart, receive and share the all important knowledge from child to adulthood our doors actually close in an ever increasing tunnel. We shut down to experiences, we shut down to expectation and we lose the excitement of life that God implanted into each of us. As parents we spend time trying to ensure we ‘teach’ our children more…

More knowledge, more about life around us and more about relationships with each other. So what is in more, that is better? Certainly the more choices I have, the more options in life, the more confused I can become. The more there is to discern and the chances of making the wrong decision increase.

I wonder if our desire to know more comes from the initial sin for knowledge in the Garden of Eden. That we could have and know it all. So as parents, is our desire for our children to know more and have more sinful? 

In general, the life expectations and lifelines we each desire are man-made not God made. If we trust and believe in God, anything is possible – we simply need to see and experience life as a child.  

...your true colours

...great expectations

I was reminded by a feature on the news this morning about the impact and effect nostalgia has upon us, when the TV production team cut back from a shot of music from the 1970’s & 80’s only to catch the middle aged presenters dancing on camera.

It made me wonder about my own momentous and iconic memories and what it is in these that make me remember these as my favourite times or perhaps my favourite age.

1.     I’m 14 or 15 and I have found and am comfortable with my unique identity. I no longer feel like a child, I am able to formulate my own opinions, I realise my own attractiveness and am exploring what I find attractive in a partner. I know what I like and what I don’t, I finally feel I have acquired almost all the basic knowledge needed for life and by now I even know stuff my parents don’t!

So what was it about this time in my life that I look back on so fondly, almost aspirationally? It felt like I was on the edge of a precipice, the future was entirely in my hands – or so it felt. The future opportunities and expectations were exciting beyond all measure. I could do, be and achieve all my dreams; all options were open to me, with no limits and no no’s!

2.     I’m 30 and have given birth to my second healthy & happy child; my world is complete in a perfect family bubble. It meets all external expectations of normality & ‘happiness’.

So why by this stage were cracks already beginning to appear? I would and will always say that my children are the most important and defining part of me. My life has been, is and will always be them. They are the most amazing ‘thing’ I have ever done. So clearly this should be one of my most favourite times, shouldn’t it? Even admitting it isn’t feels wrong.

Is it because my initial dreams were too big or unrealistic? Or maybe it’s simply that the choices I made meant that my great expectations were starting to feel out of reach and I was in a precipice of my own making.

3.     I’m in the third stage of life and what is yet to come, I pray. I feel it must be in a shared environment with a person who brings the best out in me. Once again it feels free, full of expectation, joy and mellow warmth.

So how do I get here, when to some extent I am still in a self created precipice?

There is something about needing to take the opportunity to lift and remove any of the barriers that are limiting me, helping this to yet be a momentous era.  Because I can make this what I want, it still can be exciting beyond all measure.

Whilst this blog feels quite melancholy, it’s actually a celebration of knowing who I am, what I like, what is off track and where my signposts are for the future.

Which leaves me feeling that there are no dreams or expectations that are too great?

So, what were your great expectations? Because if you haven’t reminisced lately on where you started, how can you ever expect to arrive?

… will fix it for you

Over the last couple of weeks there have been family and friends that our prayers would certainly have been asking to ‘fix, repair, solve…’

My mother-in-law was admitted quickly via A&E this week because of water on the heart and lungs….my Father suffered dizzy spells hopefully just because of an inner ear infection and a good friends father has also suffered a stroke that has debilitated his speech sand movement. Prayers were quickly submitted that the wisdom of those that could fix and repair the problem did so and that those that we hold dear know the peace that transcends panic.

So today started with an amazing friend praying on my behalf, for a fix of a kind. It made me wonder when we ask for things to be repaired what our expectations are.

Do we hope that the situation will return to the same as before? Or that the outcome will be improved from before? Either way what is that the best option?

Our human nature of course wants a lack of change, for things to be as they were before – if nothing else, to give us time to reassess and change what needs changing. But do we? Isn’t it the unexpected that makes us reassess quickly what is out of character from the normal?

So is a quick fix or repair the best we should ask for? Within a changing situation does God not give us the chance to evaluate? Ask for forgiveness? Seek His voice and wisdom and do we always take that path?

Generally I think we simply want things to return to the status quo, as it was before. However, often the ‘as they were before’ can be man-made rather than God-made. When will we seek and listen?

So I’m sure my friend who advised ‘fixing’ meant well, in fact it was an was urge to seek God for the right decision. And seeking God is of course the right path.

Biblically there are many instances where individuals call out to God to fix, repair and answer the prayer that they are seeking.

The story of Lazarus is one where Jesus is sought to bring life back to the dead, with Sarah and Abraham God is trusted to eventually deliver a child to elderly parents and there are many more instances of miracles to repair and fix sight, mobility, convulsions, mistakes and so on…

But for Lazarus, Jesus did it in His own time, no rushing with blue lights flashing because if it is within God’s plan it WILL happen. Prayers will be answered even if they are whispered deeply and silently within our soul.

So we should pray for repair within God’s wisdom and timetable. Perhaps what we should also pray for is how God can use us to support others where change needs to happen and where wisdom needs to be sought.

...wHoleness

It’s easy to think of our lives as compartmentalised.

We are children, friends, parents, colleagues, lovers, partners…and some of these compartments link together and others feel quite separate. Visualising and getting in touch with this thought came about with a vision of an Orange. Bizarrely appropriate at this time of year when I have a Christingle, where the orange symbolises the physical wholeness of the world.

So wholeness or maybe even holeness is something I have been thinking about.

The uniqueness of citrus fruits is within their segments. Beneath the skin is a whole constructed of many segments, never do you peel an orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit to find that one segment is missing. Never is there a hole in the whole. Some segments are bigger or smaller than others but there is never a gap. The fruit simply couldn’t or wouldn’t grow without being complete.

The same is true of us. Our wholeness is key if we are to fully grow.

Whilst it is OK that some segments of our lives are more important than others and that some join together whilst others are remote from each other, I don’t think God ever wants us to have a gap in our wholeness. Perhaps there is one area of our lives that we have simply shut down to, where there is a hole that we are not growing within.

I know this is true for me.

Our spirit, soul and body are constantly interacting together, as a whole, as a complete person.  That’s the way God designed us.

In the bible, Paul refers to man being spirit, soul and body.  We are not beings of separate and distinctively different components, but a whole person.  We are a spirit who has a soul that lives in a body.  All of these aspects are inextricably interwoven. To be whole, to be complete, each aspect of a person must be tended to & growing.

It’s impossible to achieve growth and wholeness in our own strength and abilities. Transformation that brings a sense of wholeness can only be done by listening to the one who created us – God himself.

My growth and wholeness is being suspended while I don’t tend to my missing segment. God has spoken into my hole and shown me that I shouldn’t close or ignore the gap and I’m listening .

...it's possible

When I think of the times God has ‘spoken’ to me it has never been through hearing a voice I assign to God. Most often God’s voice comes through images or the writing/voice of others.

I still pray that God might reveal himself through a ‘physical’ image I see or hear but I wonder whether it would absolutely freak me completely, or whether I would simply be the same as 'doubting' Thomas. Would seeing or hearing satisfy me?

As I was praying last night I had a strong visual image of a cornfield. I was stood on the outside and the tall corn felt like a barrier, an almost impossible barrier – but something I needed to enter and be a part of, although I had no sense of what would be found within. Simply a sense that I needed to be within, to make it possible and experience ‘it’.

It reminded me of the film ‘The Field of Dreams’, where an unreasonable and irrational petition is received by the lead character. So how or why would you follow a request that seems impossible? ‘Build it and they will come’ was the commission given to Kevin Costner to remove a cornfield and replace it with a baseball field. Removing a viable money generating enterprise and replacing it with a fun dream.

Hmmmm….

Not a million times different from the commission God gave to Noah or the other many ‘crazy’ commissions that appear in the Bible as God ‘challenges’ man to hear, listen and obey. David and Goliath being one of the many Old Testament stories where the challenge seems impossible – only with God’s power can anything like a youth vs. a giant find a positive outcome.

It’s because God is of the possible, not the maybe or impossible.

So even when a situation looks impossible, it’s our lack of faith that is the challenge. God is steadfast, it’s ‘easy’ - Believe, Hear & Act.  But often the right answer doesn’t even look feasible or possible simply because of our lack of trust, vision or belief in the possible.

How sad…

Especially as the bible is full of miracles and real life stories.

So back to my cornfield – I’m on the outside but it’s not a solid wall. In fact my vision felt intriguing, exciting, God was calling me into ‘the impossible’  it simply needs me to see the opening and be engulfed by my God of the possible who will lead me…

What ‘Field of Dreams’ do you have and what do you think is impossible and is keeping you on the outside of what God wants for you?

...power of love

I’m feeling…."The Power Of Love"

I'll protect you from the hooded claw
Keep the vampires from your door

Feels like fire
I'm so in love with you
Dreams are like angels
They keep bad at bay-bad at bay
Love is the light
Scaring darkness away-yeah

I'm so in love with you
Purge the soul
Make love your goal

[1]-The power of love
A force from above
Cleaning my soul
Flame on burn desire
Love with tongues of fire
Purge the soul
Make love your goal

I'll protect you from the hooded claw
Keep the vampires from your door
When the chips are down I'll be around
With my undying, death-defying
Love for you

Envy will hurt itself
Let yourself be beautiful
Sparkling love, flowers
And pearls and pretty girls
Love is like an energy
Rushin' rushin' inside of me

[Repeat 1]

This time we go sublime
Lovers entwine-divine divine
Love is danger, love is pleasure
Love is pure-the only treasure

I'm so in love with you
Purge the soul
Make love your goal

The power of love
A force from above
Cleaning my soul
The power of love
A force from above
A sky-scraping dove

Flame on burn desire
Love with tongues of fire
Purge the soul
Make love your goal

I'll protect you from the hooded claw
Keep the vampires from your door

...comfortable?

“Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin”

…is a phrase that is familiar to many of us from childhood. It signalled the beginning of a children’s story-time radio programme, where the inference is for the child to sit quietly, focus the mind and hear/listen & absorb the story being told.

The unspoken rules being that if you were not sitting awaiting the narration, the story would not be told.  Maybe worse, that the story would be paused if the ‘rules’ were broken. 

For me, I clearly remember meeting the ‘required’ conditions as a child – either listening to Enid Blyton tales read by my Dad or perhaps the Teacher reading as I sat cross legged at primary school. I loved and still love listening to stories being narrated. I can sit comfortably and immerse myself into the fantasy world I hear and visualise the story in my mind.

But what if I was sat uncomfortably? Would I be distracted and not hear the story or would I need to increase my determination & desire to hear?

Perhaps for me today’s equivalent is having a stand up meeting? I know the information is important, that I am required to listen and so being uncomfortable makes me concentrate, focus and hear.

So, I wonder how uncomfortable I am willing to be to hear God?

Much of the Bible makes for uncomfortable, paradoxical reading, so I need to desire to hear what it says to me. Alongside hearing that God loves me, the Bible also confronts me with the fact that I am a sinner and do not and almost certainly will not live up to the desires He has for me – well not in this life.

But it’s this uncomfortable-ness that I need, to give me the desire to focus and hear what God has to say and wants for my life.

This completely contradicts what society says is good for us. Being comfortable in terms of wealth and relationships is what we all aspire to…isn’t it? However within this it becomes easy to lose focus on God.

Even when we know something is wrong or needs changing in our life, our relative comfortable-ness can be difficult to address. How often do we choose to step out of our comfort zones, in any aspect life? And what happens when we are faced with God asking us to make a change and to step out of our boundaries? Do we listen or would we prefer to simply remain comfortable?

Next time I read the bible or pray I am going to get uncomfortable either in my physical environment or by visualising the same. It will be interesting to see whether this state enables me to focus much in the same way as fasting can do.

So if you’re sitting comfortably… maybe God won’t begin and your life story will remain on pause :;

...the something of nothing

Can having nothing really exist?

The fact that we are alive means we have life, therefore it is impossible to have nothing.

Yet often as I lose ‘things’ I feel like I am left with nothing. Nothingness is a void, a space previously filled with something. So nothing feels like a vacuum, like an airless container imploding and collapsing inwards.

But all of this sounds negative, self obsessed and completely not where I am at or coming from.

Biblically Jesus asked his disciples and many others mentioned throughout the Gospels to follow him after giving up all they had acquired in life. This was not only physical objects but relationships too. How hard is that? Some much of what we have and what we do defines who we are. So maybe that’s why Jesus required his disciples to give up everything. Maybe the Disciples needed to lose what & who they were to re-write who they would become? Throughout the Gospels we also know that the Disciples had trouble “getting it” and so Jesus needed them to be really focused – no distractions required.

The same is true for me. Without ‘things’ I am free, having nothing can be releasing but it does require humility. Whether I choose to free myself from the baggage of life or whether life frees me from my worldliness, it takes adjustment and a change of heart. And sometimes I struggle with that.

I’m at a place now where I can or maybe should give some ‘things’ up and in other ways life has taken ‘things’ from me. The only solution for me is to go to God empty handed but with a humble, open and expectant heart. Expectant that through life’s experiences and through whatever comes, the something shapes me into the person God requires.

God is focusing me…I have my blank canvas again and can fill it easily but will the marks I make be of God or man? All too often it is easy to fill the silence when a conversation goes quiet, or to fill an empty room with objects or to feel the need to complete every empty box on a form. But isn’t there something in the silence, the space, the nothingness?

I’m ending just as I started, because we have life, nothingness is impossible. Our God given being is ‘something’ but to remain God focused perhaps I need to be careful about the marks on my otherwise stripped back canvas and enjoy creating the something, that can never be nothing.

...arking

“There’s a time and a place” so the phrase goes…

For God, it came after many times of forgiveness and repeatedly allowing mankind time and again to repent .God gave the people of Noah's time 120 years to prepare for God's judgment and repent of their sin and rebellion toward God. During this time of grace only Noah and his family obeyed, repented, and were saved.

Genesis 6:3

Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years”.

The purpose of the Flood was to destroy all civilization and start over again.

The Ark enabled God to start again with mankind. Noah withdrew into the Ark with important stuff around him, so that when he stepped out into the world again he was ready to live & create anew.

Sometimes I feel like I need to withdraw into my Ark. To protect myself, to hide from the storms of life and to gather around me, all that is important.  My Ark needs to be a place where I can be vulnerable and where I can regenerate my body, mind and spirit so I’m better equipped to rejoin the world.

So what do I need to surround myself with in my ark? What is important to me and what enables me to feel me?

Now my ark will be more about creating an ambience that allows me to re-emerge. My ark is a moment to take stock and evaluate what makes me who I am and what I need to keep or discard.

My ark needs to feel like a warm, secure and bright place – almost too bright for me to see within and serenely quiet. Not silent but with a sound that connects deep inside of me.

I feel the desire to look upwards and physically touch & hold all that is important.

In that space I’m able to be creative, emotionally & physically in touch with myself and vulnerable. I want to enjoy experiences with fresh excitement every time,  I want to feel a fountain explode inside of me for the people I love and connect with and I want to see, smile and be inspired by even the small things. I want to giggle like I’m being tickled all the time, I want the air to make me tingle and feel alive and I want to spin and fall backwards knowing that something as soft as a cloud or someone as strong as hurricane will catch me. 

Creating my ark, even in words feels so real for me…and enables me to let go of the things that are stopping me starting anew and just being me. So for now I’m arking and I’ll venture out when I’m ready…  

                                                                                                             “If I lay here…

If I just lay here…

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”

...all cried out

...journeying

So yesterday’s blog got me thinking about colour, light and rainbows. The un-expectation of a Rainbow brings such a sense of delight, hope and of course reaffirms the spiritual – promise of a world that God would never again destroy.

However despite the overwhelming sense of optimism that a rainbow brings; the cessation of rain in the face of sun, positive legend around hope found at the end of a rainbow and the pure joy of seeing the full colour spectrum displayed across the sky – the sense that reaching or touching the rainbow is unattainable always feels disappointing to me.

So, maybe the rainbow is a visual representation of man’s constant strive to reach perfection – Utopia, Heaven…with the reality that the journey to get there, is important in even hoping that the acquisition is a possibility.

In our society journeys are always pitched as part of the whole, an experience to enjoy, it’s not all about the destination. A Winnebago holiday travelling from East to West across the USA, a trip on the Orient Express through Europe or perhaps a cruise around the Caribbean. The arrival is less important than experiencing the journey. The journey itself being a life changing experience.

However for some of the world’s poorest people journeys are absolutely about the final destination. Journeys are often undertaken as a result of necessity – hunger, flood, earthquake, destruction and/or disorder. The end of the journey signals a haven, where food, medicine and relative safety can be found.

So I recognise that whatever my life is like, I am actually privileged enough to be in a position to absorb, learn and ‘enjoy’ my life experience. That the rainbow is something I am unable to grasp but the joy experienced in trying to attain and live the journey is really important to me.

Many biblical stories are about God revealing himself to and within us during the journey. Moses’ meeting with God through the burning bush in the desert and Paul’s many missionary journeys where the good news of Jesus was shared and Paul set up the Christian church across the Mediterranean.

My Christian beliefs keep me mindful that my final destination is dependent on my life choices. I’m sure these will not always be right but God knows and probably expects that. However asking, praying and trying to journey in God’s direction is the best I can do. And if life was only about the destination God would not have created me or given me free choice.

My life is full of the echo of journeying, I want to keep it that way and to learn and enjoy those that journey along with me.

“If I could, then I would
I'll go wherever you will go
Way up high or down low
I'll go wherever you will go”

The Calling “I’ll go wherever you will go”

http://youtu.be/aRCNZ8JALms

...the context of colour

Colour has been something that has always fascinated me.

As well as the visual interpretation of colour, I’m also interested in how colour influences emotions and mood and whether colour can be contextual?

I wonder whether colour actually exists in our world or whether colour is a phenomenon created by our eyes or perhaps our brain, after all isn’t colour created by the refraction of light? Maybe everything in the world is a different tone of just one hue. What if the world is really beige?

Even having that thought makes me feel extremely sad; a colourless world has an impact on my entire psyche. So if a lack of colour brings with it a sense of hopelessness and bland monotony what does colour bring?

We all know & mostly buy in to today’s colour associations with gender – pink for girls and blue for boys’, whether we feel this is right or wrong. However it seems that the use of pink and blue emerged at the turn of the century, the rule being pink for boys, blue for girls. Since pink was a stronger colour it was best suited for boys; blue was more delicate and dainty and best for girls. Blue is considered a calm, passive colour, hence feminine. Red (pink derived from red) is considered active hence masculine. Why is challenging this norm in our culture so difficult?

And what about the emotions, sensations and cultural inferences of colour?

If I think about Yellow for example what do I feel, what mood does it evoke? Bright, optimistic, vibrant, warm, alive, fresh…but these associations are not what the colour itself mean but what is evoked in me by my associations with objects are that colour. Sunshine is a warm, bright yellow & lemons taste zingy, zesty and fresh. Both culturally contextual, because if you have never experienced a lemon, what would that colour evoke within you? Additionally I wonder whether the nomadic tribes that permanently live in the Sahara have emotions of sunshine yellow in the same way we do in the northern hemisphere. For them, the sun mostly brings harsh relentless, unforgiving conditions to live in. So does it make them have the same sense of optimism and cheerfulness when experiencing that colour?

Similarly green for me feels like the colour of the outdoors and of nature. Fresh, natural and alive. So for those who live within the Sahara desert the colour and emotion associated with the outdoors would be terracotta, wouldn’t it?

Interestingly only 3 primary colours are needed to make the entire spectrum of colours – Red, Yellow & Blue. Combinations of these 3 colours give us all we need, just as the 3 in the Holy Trinity – Father, Son & Holy Spirit give us all we need as believers to create a living relationship with God the creator.

Without light we are unable to see and experience colour. In scripture it is God that commanded light to shine out of the darkness – so colour and our experience of it is God given but culturally created.

For me, my favourite colour changes dependant on my mood or what I feel the need to experience.  This blog is in black and white, so either completely right or wrong – otherwise it would be in shades of grey, wouldn’t it?

...how handy?

For me, I’m pretty sure my hands are absolutely key to who I am.

I know that sounds kind of weird but without my hands expression for me would be difficult.

So experiences of my hands…. I’ve been laughed at for needing to utilize my touch sensation to understand almost everything. Feeling, holding and stroking give me the space to consider whether I like what I feel and the time to decide what to do next. I’m like this even with inanimate objects. I somehow am able to feel decisions through touch – perhaps not alone because wisdom is also required to discern the right choice.

My creativity is dependent on my hands too. Seeing an amazing visual, whether physically or psychologically is one thing. Enabling that visual to ‘escape’, to be shared with others requires my ability to write, draw, sculpt or create in some way. Feeling a creation from an idea through to hands that touch, maneouvre, shape, construct and enjoy.

Touch for me is one of the key sensations. Whether it is holding an artist paintbrush confidently, yet deftly to create strokes on a page. Soft, small, delicate or bold, brash and brave or running my hands across fabric to determine which will create the desired outcome. Stroking my hands across skin, feeling texture, warmth, or the effect my hands have.

I understand the world around me through touch and also use my hands to express myself. I am unable to fully engage with others without my hands. I use my hands when I’m excited, gesticulating madly or when I’m sad to hold my head in my hands or to wipe away tears. My hands smooth, fiddle, play and create all the time.

Biblically we are aware that God ‘spoke’ creation into being, however there are constant references or inferences that God holds us, keeps us safe, cradles us. That (if we take His hand) He will lead us.

Jesus’ touch & hands blessed and embraced little children with tender love. His hands broke bread to feed thousands. He touched and healed those that were ill, even those with the most serious and contagious diseases and those who were under the power of the devil. And more than once, He touched and raised to life someone who had died.  And just before He ascended to heaven, He lifted up His hands and blessed the disciples.

My hands are uniquely made by God with fingerprints that are individual to me, as are yours.

Use your hands today – raise them in praise and worship to God, hold them together in prayer, use them to soothe another, to create, to demonstrate fun or just to you show care by holding someone …

What will your hands say about you…?

...feeling like Alice

Have you ever felt like Alice? …In Wonderland of course.

It was a vision, sensation, thought some or all of these that struck me today.  The image came to mind of Alice held in an enormous spinning tea cup. Now I have no clue whether Alice is ever featured in the story in this way, as I have never read Alice in Wonderland. At this point I can hear a certain friend gasping in horror and disbelief – however my piecemeal absorption of the story, along with a little creativity and inspiration can still create a picture for me. So I replaced Alice with myself but maybe you can imagine yourself in the same way?

I am small within the spinning teacup and I feel scared, out of control and yet held in a safe space all at the same time. Sometimes this is how I feel and can visualise myself in the world that God has created. I’m a small person in a big space and within a big and unknown timeline. The world is an amazing wonderland, kind of crazy and fantastical in so many ways. So much of it makes absolutely no sense to us, I’m not sure God ever created it for us to understand but simply to be within and to enjoy.

In some ways God is my teacup. He holds me safe and secure within, whilst I spin crazily through the world like a spinning fairground ride.

I also imagine myself small, hugging my knees and sitting alone on the giant bottom step of a long winding stairway. This vision to me feels like God has put me in this space to contemplate my errors, where I have gone wrong or what I could do better.

I also occasionally take on the physical & mental rushed worry that the ‘White Rabbit’ – others, create around me. God created time and man created watches.  Time has a natural wonderland rhythm that watches rush us through and can make us miss.

Matthew Chapter 6

²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?  ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”

The Mad Hatter’s riddles feel like my own struggles to make sense of myself, the world and my place within it. At times the riddles are fun to work out, they make me smile and they make me see in a whole new exciting way. At other times the riddles frustrate me, there are too many of them all at once, they seemingly never end or have a definitive answer and so I want to leave the tea party and get back into the protection of my teacup.

We live in an amazing wonderland where only God has all the answers and where we are all created uniquely and wonderfully.

So whilst I might be a bit weird, I enjoy the vision of being Alice. I am small; things are sometimes mad, spinning and confusing but I know that God is in control and I put my faith in Him.

...the art of noise

Yesterday’s musings on “The Sound of Music” made me think a little more about different types of music and how these affect or reflect our moods and emotions.

This started with the line “The hills are alive with the sound of music” – the context of the song and film being the mountains of Austria. So, it occurred to me that the music from this part of the world mirrors the echoing without and within that is created and felt by the mountains and style of musical expression in that area. Something about the geography, expanse of scenery and the quality of sound that is created within that space. Pure, echoing, reverberating sound that is created by external physical elements but can be felt by man’s internal soul. Not just the visual awesomeness but the sound it creates.

So I wanted to expand on a few other similar or contrasting resonances.

More relevant to modern culture today is the heavy bass line in music. A sound that physically vibrates around the inside of our bodies, much like the vibrations experienced by the amplification system delivering the sound. A sound or maybe noise that actually moves your body and that feels internal in all aspects. It rings inside our ears, makes our heart pound and feels like the sound is trying to physically burst out of us. Our bodies consume the sound and involuntarily adrenaline levels are raised. How & why does that happen?

White noise is a random flat sound. The constant pitch and repetitive nature of the sound connects with our psyche in such a way that we absolutely want the noise to end. And outcomes to the sound create physical & emotional effects on those exposed.

So what about silence and is there even such a thing in our world? How often do any of us encounter silence and does the lack of quiet space affect us?

Despite the multitude of Christian traditions created over thousands of years, prayer can still often be seen as an individual activity, undertaken in silence or quiet. A communion between God and ourselves. But perhaps there are ideas that can be taken from thinking about music and the sound landscape that God has created around us. And how we can use that to help us connect with ourselves and ultimately with God.

Maybe our prayer life can be more relational if we connect with and hear God’s world. It’s easy to think that God connects with us through words – the key way that we understand and engage with each other. If not hearing God directly then perhaps hearing God’s voice through the spoken word or wisdom of others.

Music and sound are perhaps just an alternative way that can help us reflect where we are back to God and in that space can be a way of feeling the echo within…feeling God within.

...the sound of music

What is it about music that connects so deeply with our soul?

As babies or as parents the natural instinct is to be soothed or to soothe. A whole host of traditional lullabies exist to calm a fretful baby; Nursery toys that have songs on repeat often accompanied by magical lights, the lyrical rocking that carers resort to while singing or humming to placate the wails and tears.

Cultures that are nearer to nature also still have a real sense of connection with the rhythm of life. Chores are often completed along with a chant or dance - perhaps pounding grain underfoot or with a fufu pounder. As manual chores have disappeared from western life we have also lost the ability to connect with music in the same way. As a tool to keep us in time or to keep us inspired.

In western society music is purely about enjoyment, we each identify with a style or sound that resonates with who we are. Rather than feeling the rhythm of music as an internal motivator, music becomes an external signpost. It helps us identify with others who have a similar sense of style. It’s more about external than internal.

This thought came to me as a result of a friend’s mention of meeting with a Nun this weekend…

Musicals have always been my favourite genre of film – my earliest choices being The Sound of Music and The Wizard of Oz. I either wanted to be Dorothy with her red glittery shoes singing “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” or Nun/Governess Maria singing “These are a few of my favourite things”.

There is something about the honesty and emotion conveyed in words expressed through song that connects with my heart.

Biblically music has always important. Perhaps as the majority of society was unable to read, learning was shared through music and lyrics. Music and words have also always enabled individuals to express emotions in a way that the spoken word alone cannot do. It is something about the rhythm and mood created that connects deeply with the heart of who we are.

In the bible the songs in the book of Psalms particularly enable the writers to express sorrow, thanksgiving, praise and joy. The combination of voices in a harmonious gospel choir uplifts the soul and Tzaize chants bring a sense of focus while allowing our spirit to encounter God in a real and open way.

In The Sound of Music, music is brought back into the hearts and home of the Von Trapp family and their romps through the hills and mountains inspire all who watch the film to sing and find joy in the smallest things. Like raindrops on roses …with a renewed zest for life.

So, the sound of music has made me consider my focus, where my zest for life lies and what my favourite things are.

What are your favourite things? Are you living with a rhythm to your life that connects with your heart and soul?  And if not…why not?

...fireflies

Western society is based on external appearances. We each judge others on what they look like, stereotypes kick in and this happens almost subconsciously.

We align ourselves with others who are similar, similar backgrounds, similar views and even similar in appearance. This is especially applicable within our teenage years – kids morph into each other, with the outward appearance being almost identical. It’s easy to think this is just a youth phenomenon but actually within the work place we adults also feel the need to fit in and look the part.

Grey suits in the city, corporate polyester suits behind the desks of high street banks and an alternative look with anything charity orientated.

At some point during my teen years I became aware that actually I had my own views, opinions, style and God ordained sense of individuality. Different from friends and more amazingly different from the views and opinions my parents had brought me up with. That can be hard.

But from my pre-teen years I felt a real sense of God within me. However, I also had the desire to remain ‘cool’, as I felt belief in God would appear less than ‘cool’. If I could look ‘normal’ on the outside then that might help others find God too??

But something different had to shine through that would help others see God within me.

I was reminded of that thought and feeling this morning, as I gazed outside at a bunch of tiny flies hovering together in my garden. It reminded me of the song ‘Fireflies’.

Fireflies are attractive to others by the chemicals produced within their abdomen. Glowing yellow, green or pale red. No matter the colour it makes those observing see that the interior of the firefly is as important as the exterior. What is inside is as important as what is on the outside.

There are many individuals within the bible who God shines through. People who don’t naturally fit in. Like the woman in Luke Chapter 7 who is unafraid to approach Jesus and cleanse and anoint his feet with perfume.

I wonder how God shines through each of us as believers. What do others see in us that can help attract them to God? Something about who we are, unspoken, shiny and special just like fireflies. Fireflies have the ability to be attractive, to fascinate whilst being impossible to ignore.

I know that I am not perfect, just as fireflies vary and glow with a different intensity and colour. God shines out of me as a broken and imperfect person.

I love being a firefly…what about you…?

...the filling

Bread has been a staple food from the beginning of time and remains the same today.

Biblically manna is a fine flake like bread substance in Exodus that kept the escaping Israelites nourished as they journeyed home from Egypt.

Jesus feeds the 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes and bread is symbolic as the broken body of Christ shared with the disciples 2000 years ago and remains today… for us of faith. Jesus, the bread of life.

However in 21^st century Britain bread is synonymous with sandwiches. Thanks to the 4^th Earl of Sandwich, who apparently requested meat tucked between two slices of bread.

Without bread it isn’t a sandwich.  Bread is simply what holds the filling together. Bread is almost the Alpha & Omega – the beginning and the end. It starts and ends the sandwich and holds everything in between together.

God will always be our Alpha & Omega but the in between part is up to us.

God has created mankind and will come again at the end of time. Genesis to Revelation…

We are and can create the filling. God wants us to be interesting and come up with unique and individual fillings that satisfy Him and us as the different people He created. Fillings should be interesting and creatively demonstrate a little of who we are.

One of the best sandwich creators was the cartoon character Scooby Doo with his multi decker multi filled sandwiches. I’m not sure I have ever stretched myself to a Scooby Doo style sandwich but I have created unusual combinations. Beetroot, Peanut butter and cucumber, cheddar cheese and marmalade or salami, mango chutney & brie to name just a few.

So if we know that God is the beginning and the end, His commandment to us is to ensure we experiment and fulfil the filling plans He has for us. Let’s not simply settle for butter. The middle or filling is what God has given us to experiment with, to discover ourselves in His plan and to pack in everything within the precious life He has blessed us with.

I’m certainly not content with butter alone.

I know that God wants me to experiment with my fillings. Some things just don’t work, I might get it wrong and need to throw it away and start again. But if I know what I like, if I know what God wants me to enjoy, then the filling can be amazing.

It can and should be something to delight in, to smile about to want more of and to continually enjoy.

So what would your Scooby Doo sandwich be today? And what filling does God want for your life? And how will you ensure you put the best choice of filling between Alpha & Omega?

...navigation

Satellite navigation...good or bad?

Personally I’m a mix of old school and techno chic geek. It means I love the advancement, excitement and intrigue of all that is new but I still like to be able to have the skills to utilise the traditional. Both methods would probably gain similar end results but the journey would certainly be different.

The sat nav journey requires complete reliance on the technology to deliver end to end results as predicted. At the start it outlines the route, alerts along the way on delays, offers solutions, highlights advantages and disadvantages and also updates on the time and distance to the end goal. The planner might take the quickest but less scenic route or the driver maybe too focused on the technology to miss nature and landmarks along the way.

The traditional journey starts with a map, maybe a compass or just an understanding of the physical geography & elements – sunrise and sunset. Next steps are the ability to prioritise and utilise the information to work out where you’re heading and if it’s in the right direction. Misinterpretation of information could mean you don’t arrive as quickly as you require and mistakes might also mean you see places and landmarks you had not planned for.

So if you were given a translucent crystal how helpful would that be? Would finding your way be crystal clear?

Apparently Vikings were super ahead of the curve, ahead of sat nav with it’s variety of voice overs from scalding to sexy. Vikings navigated with a clear crystal called the Iceland Spar. Which utilised light, along with an optical effect to locate the sun… even when hidden from view.

So where am I going with this blog today??…giggle

Well apart from identifying that Vikings are clearly the cleverest race ever, I think I have come to a crystal clear decision.

Navigation requires a real mixture of techniques to ensure clarity of vision & confirmation that your route is going in the right direction. Often there are obstacles along the way but that is OK, so long as you have and use the right tools and keep your eye on the guiding light.

I can identify with this in Christian terms as I navigate the sea of life. Prayer, discernment, wisdom, reflection and a listening heart that sees, hears and connects deeply, often without the rational is important. And all of this needs to be done while keeping my sight firmly fixed on God, my guiding light… whether I am worthy or not.

So, it’s a Viking and Iceland Spar all the way for me…