Happiness

It´s strange when you turn around and something you never anticipated an end to is gone. I realised today that for the first time in...maybe 6 months? I´ve actually been feeling happy. Not just in a fleeting way but profoundly happy. I thought I was going to have to go on anti-depressents to find that but no, apparently it was waiting out in Bolivia. I´m sure that once I get back into everyday life I´ll sink back down again, but it´s good to know that happiness is still out there.

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There´s something about Joni Mitchell´s lyrics that manage to express those complex emotions that I could never lyrically or poetically do justice to, although they´re some of the deepest that can be felt. "A Case of You", though I´m sure I don´t `get it´ fully seems to be so accurate in expressing how I feel about the guy I was involved with before I came out here, without straying too far into the land of emo. It´s such a beautiful song.

Feelings can be funny things. Having taken space from life, I find myself desperately missing a guy that I really didn´t have that much contact with or see hardly at all in the UK, and at the same time realising just what a `waste of time´ that guy has been for me, as I´ve realised just how deep my feelings for someone else were. Complicated. So...I need to confront guy no.1 about some pretty abysmal conduct (ie he had a girlfriend?!) knowing how much I´ll miss him when, pretty much inevitably, he´s out of my life, but I´m also faced with my feelings for someone else, that I know isn´t likely to ever return them, so I have to cut comfort out of my life and replace it with the awareness that if I´m `faithful to my heart´ I´m going to be single for a loooong time. Has to be done...but life is NEVER simlple.

Anyhoo, enough with the emo-ness...

Self-Reliance

Half way up a vertical wall of ice, when down wasn´t easier that up, and when my body was seizing up with panic because I´m really quite scared of heights (I wobble nervously on kerbs sometimes) and I couldn´t get my crampons deep enough into the wall in order to rely on them to support me if I tried to make progress upwards, it made me really consider the kind of person that I am. It´s hardly news to me that I find if hard to let go and relinqish control, or to accept that some doors in life must clost for others to open and all that triteness, but the implications of this have rarely been so apparent. In order to get any higher, I had to accept the risk of making a bad choice, of failing and of falling, accept that my own incapability would indeed lead me to fall more often than not, but also accept that this wasn´t the end of the world. I had to get to a point where I knew more than in my mind but also in my body (soul? spirit?) that someone had the other end of the rope, and that yes I might hurt myself, but more than likely his grip on the rope would protect me. And even if for some reason this grip didn´t do it´s job, even if I did die, I would at least die in a place that I loved, that I was in for a good reason, and doing something that I could be proud of myself for. Basically, I had to get to a point where I didn´t allow myself to think negatively. I think that was more of a worthwhile exercise than the physical acheivement side of things for me. Lets face it, I´ll never be a champion ice-climber, but if from these experiences I can batter into my thick skull that failure is a neccessary product of progress, and that if I let it frame who I am like I have been doing then I will not, as a person, move in a healthy direction, then I´ll be a better person for it. I need to accept that someone DOES have hold of the rope, either that or actually decide that they don´t and reconcile myself to that fact, and I need to accept my limitations but use them as a point to start from, not blocks to my ability to get anywhere.

I did get to the top of the glacier´s snout. Not by the first route that I attempted, but I did get there and did more besides. When you can´t let yourself give up, oddly enough you don´t. God, who I do still hope is there, although he must be looking atmy life with sadness and horror in the most part if he is, may not be speaking to me a lot at the moment, or I may be deaf to most of it. But maybe the one thing that has repeatedly got through in the past months, as I´ve gradually screwed myself further and further up, is the one piece of guidance that I need. Maybe if I could get to the point where I realise it with my body as well as my mind, I could get a grip again (or get a grip in the first place, I´m not sure having a grip was ever my forte). What God keeps telling me is that I shouldn´t have to change who I am in order to recieve love or be a worthwhile human being. It goes against everything that I´ve let people close to me speak into my life recently, but if I could just stop letting those people dictate my worth, and just accept that I have worth, then that would be a point I could actually make progress from.

Next step: achieving said departure from insecurities. That could take a while! At least now I´m out in the world though, and forging "my own path" as it were, instead of just copying those around me. It´s a start :)

ACCESS!

And I accessed this account. Only took me 3 months!

I´ll consider updating...but for now I have fairly little to say :)

Fluid

Everything in my life seems fluid, and sometimes it's hard to tell whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. University's proves an odd mix of dull and extremely dramatically event full, I guess it averages out to be 'normal life', though what with all the 'normal life' going on, I doubt I'll pass the year. However, I'm not thinking about that too much, as I have my summer plans to distract me. It may be a little much to ask that I'll 'find myself' in Bolivia, but it will certainly prove life changing, considering that I'm spending the summer traveling between four different continents, having spent my life until this point solidly and unmovingly stuck in Europe.

Life seems a little short of grand revelations at the moment. I guess I could be seen as the classic 'weed-choked Christian', what with my ever-high stress levels, being buried in revision, language learning, complicated relationship with *shockhorror* a 'non-Christian', failure to get to attend church due to not only my objection to the concept but also my general failure at getting up in the morning, due to a general failure to sleep when I want to. I don't really think life's that simple though.

Pacing the Cage

Maybe I shouldn't identify with this song at such an early stage in my life, but I really do:

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

I've proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip's worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And every one was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It's as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you'll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can't see what's round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage Pacing the cage

-Bruce Cockburn 'Pacing the Cage'

University is, as ever, proving busy. I've still not been to church, and am struggling with the thought of telling my parents this. It's not that I'm rejecting my faith, but it is a rejection of the Christian culture, and I know that whatever I say people are going to read 'back-sliding' into it. It's crazy, as I feel more serous about my faith now than ever, and if anything, this rejection of the culture is because I decided that these things matter too much to just be expending energy doing things for the sake of them, or because I've always done them, or because it makes me look like a better Christian/proves a point.

Today some of us met to discuss getting together more regularly, to develop more solid spiritual friendships and I guess to explore different outworkings of the concept of church. We accept that we don't have vast life esperience or wisdom in these areas, but there came a point when we'd talked these issues to death and it felt right to 'action' some our beliefs. I don't know how it'll work, especially as a couple of the people in the group have in the past been a really negative part of my life, but it should be interesting.

Musings on a sensitive issue

My internet's been dodgy of late so I've not posted for a while. Life has been somewhat bizarre and I'm concerned that my depression's returning, but hopefully once I get back into the swing of uni life my mood will improve. In the next few weeks I have to decide the topic of my dissertation, find a member of staff in the relevent field, decide whether I want to work abroad next academic year and if I want to, where I want to go. I also have at least one rather large piece of coursework, my sister's hen party and wedding, and a sea of reading to wade through, so there's certainly plenty to keep me busy.

One of my housemate's friends went with them to church yesterday. He's a sweet guy who seems to be really searching for truth of some kind, but is quite scared of Christian society, as he's gay and believes that he'll be harshly judged. In my old church (the one in question) at least, I know that this would be the case. I don't know how he'd 'officially' be treated but I'm all too well aquainted with the stances of my friends who attend, who are mostly very well meaning, but one of which claims to be homophobic in the same light-hearted way that others might relate a minor personality flaw, and another of which has scoffed at the idea that God loves homosexuals.

I personally believe that homosexuality is probably not part of God's 'ideal' (as it were) plan for us, and is perhaps a product of the broken world in which we live, but don't believe I can make a strong stance on the morality of something that I (and I know this can be debated either way) do not feel that the Bible gives definite teaching on, and which must be incredibly hard to deal with in such an un-accepting society, the complexities of which I could not feel unless I were in that position myself.

I would not feel in a position to condemn a homosexual person or the lifestyle choices that they had made, but instead to extend love, and to try to as a Christian be if anything a more accepting part of society. To this end I viewed the introduction of civil partnerships in Britain as a positive step, as I believe that the law is in place to protect the poulation, and that homosexual couples should be entitled to the same legal and financial protection as heterosexual couples, with their wish to maintain a long-term relationship supported not hindered. It's a tricky and a contentious area, but too often I feel that I'm wanting to 'protect' homosexual friends from the church, as opposed to encouraging them to join with us, and to me that is desperately sad.

Musings on Church

In order to work out what I think I should be doing about Church, I need to work out what I think Church should be all about. At the moment, this is what I see our priorities should be

-To work together in order to be God's hands and feet in blessing and showing love to the world, thus building the kingdom of Heaven as best we know how.
-To build a supportive community which encourages and provides signposts in the spiritual development of both those that are a part of it and those that aren't.

How is that best achieved?

My Dream

Last night I dreamt that I was trying to help my ex-boyfriend's girlfriend find a dress to wear. I was trying to be nice, but her friend (actually an unrelated girl from church) construed everything I said as offensive, and I got so upset that I ended up slapping her. Everyone, including my ex-boyfriend crowded round her, disgusted at me, and I ran off naked. I somehow ended up running past my old secondary school, which now had climbing flowers growing all up the fences. Some of the flowers were constructed into a dress so I put this on, but then some of my old male teachers, who had been standing around outside chatting, spotted me and started shouting over to see if I was okay. Ashamed, I started running, pulling myself along by my arms as I kept falling over the dress. My old headmaster gave pursuit, grumbling all the time about how restrictive his marriage was. And I ran until I was exhausted, at which point I sat down and tried to cover myself, and he complemented me on my excellent turn of speed and stamina, saying that I must have amazing legs. I pointed out that I had in fact been pulling myself mostly with my arms, at which he seemed less impressed. Then I woke up.

I don't usually have interesting dreams, but this was most bizarre. Clearly my head is at a strange place right now.

Extreme Pilrgim

I just watched the first episode of a tv programme called 'Extreme Pilgrim'. It was interesting; centring on a Church of England priest going to China to experience Buddhism courtesy of Zen and martial arts. I could imagine the voices of friends, family and Church members warning against syncretism, even ready to exorcise the man, and definitely dubious of him as a representative of the Christian faith. However, the overall conclusion of the show, at least as far as I was concerned, was that there is inherent spirituality in simple community living and in stilling your soul.

In terms of stilling one's soul, I was put in mind of a talk I heard by Peter Scazzero, who champions the daily office as an important and healthy discipline, and of a talk entitled '5 Pagan values Christians hold dear' by the late Mike Yaconelli, in which he attacks busy-ness as a Christian value. As a naturally low energy (we could say lazy but I prefer to blame genetics) person this has always resonnated with me(!), if simply because I have at times tried to maintain a typically busy Christian lifestyle and have lost myself in it, become ridiculously stressed, and as a result got ill and emotionally unstable. Maybe this in itself is an indication of my lack of spiritual stamina, but I object to that evalution. Much as I do believe that Christians should be deeply involved in community and environmental work etc, we should not be judged by our busy-ness. In fact, it would be preferable not to be judged at all, which, although we talk about it, still seems an alien concept to most Christians.

I'm very attatched to the idea of community living, although I'm sure that I unduly romanticise it. Me and a close friend, being quite 'hippy' and environmental in our tendencies, always dream about creating a more environmentally sustainable female semi-monastic community after university. We aren't quite sure if this will involve compulsory singleness, it must be admitted that this depends on how pessimistic we feel as the time. Much as I'm a loner by nature, and may end up single for long periods if not permanently, I feel that it's quite important to live, or at least closely share our lives, with others. The creation of this community culture is a key function of church as far as I'm concerned, although it will always be a struggle, as Western society has become so individualist.

Stillness

I'm sitting here at two in the morning in the stillness of somebody else's home, living in borrowed space with only a backpack's worth of belongings. It makes me wonder about what life is actually all about. That sounds trite I know, and I could get all-uber spiritual on you just to prove that I can, but that's not really the point of what I'm saying.

The point is that I can spend time and money 'building' a life for myself, kitting myself out with everything I think I need, equiping myself to be, or at least seem, an interesting well-rounded individaul, and to live the kind of life that I want. But then I'm sitting here without even a bed (admittedly with the laptop) and I'm happier here than at my house, in my room with all my 'stuff'. So what is life? I talked about 'building' a life, but so much of that is surely just peripheral? And how much of that peripheral 'stuff' is just there to make me look like I have an interesting life, and to express what kind of a person I am? When all that is removed, what really defines me, and makes my life good or bad?

There's nothing quite like sitting in the stillness, realising that you're actually happier without that houseful of moderately expensive junk, to qwell those materialistic urges and make me ponder the big questions, such as what my life really boils down to, and what I really want to spend my time doing with it.

I'm going to Kenya for a month this summer for my course, it'll be my first time out of Europe and two of those weeks will be spent with most likely just a handful of us students doing what we want. We're staying in mudhuts. It's always been my dream to get 'out there' and experience the world, I guess after this summer I'll have a slightly better notion as to whether I can handle it or not.

How can I know what I'm capable of if I've never set foot out of the box?

New Year

Happy New Year!

Am staying at my friends' house for a while, is nice as they have heating and hot water. It's nice to have nice people around. Strange though how the only people I feel really comfortable with are non-Christians/those that Christians'd call non-Christians. Surely that shouldn't be the way things work. Although I guess it was the same for Jesus, the religious people were really judgemental of him and he spent most of his time with people that they didn't accept. Not that I think I'm Jesus.