Cream Crackers

Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:48:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:55:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/v/6voJjexENok&hl=en&fs=1">

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

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:29:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:53:00 +0000

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

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

Fluid

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:54:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:04:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:07:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:51:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:35:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:25:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:56:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:46:00 +0000

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.

New Year's Eve

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 11:06:00 +0000

I really hope that this New Year is better than the last. I think most people hope that, but really, this past year stank. Just before the beginning of this year, I got broken up with by the man I thought I'd marry, and saw everything that I'd invested my life in pulled from under my feet. Shortly afterward, my sister got engaged, which was obviously wonderful, but both rubbed it in and was hard to come to terms with in terms of basically losing a sister (I know, I know, I haven't lost her, but things won't be the same any more). My faith, which was the one stable thing in my life, if not disappeared then radically changed, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, dyspraxia and told that I very likely have ADD, and scraped through my first year of uni while grappling with depression and stress-related illness. On top of this, in spite of genuinely trying to be a nice, and more importantly a good person, I somehow made enemies of people around me who (at Christian Union and Church, ironically) spread rumours about my mental health, self-harming habits, relationship with my ex-boyfriend and vairous other painful topics, which, in a new environment where I was depsperately trying to make friends, made life very hard.

I guess this was a pretty standard first year of uni really, but frankly I'm just glad that I've made it through alive. I'm not really grappling with depression and more and the illness has let up, although goodness know's what'll happen when term starts, considering that this coming term is suppposed to be the most stressful of our uni career. All I can do is pray in sheer desperation that God have mercy and that I'm not stretched so hard I snap.

-

I was chatting to a friend about marriage yesterday. There's been an influx in the past year in the amount of people I know who're engaged, and he's one of them (the first, to give him credit) but the only one who isn't a Christian. We agreed that part of the motive for Christian young people getting married early is because they want to have sex, whereas that's hardly ever a factor for non-Christians so non-Christians usually wait longer. He pointed out that his motives in marriage are by that measure perhaps purer than many Christians. He can have sex any time he wants, with pretty much whoever he wants if he so desires, so the commitment is greater: a) to only have sex with this one partner for the rest of his life, and b) to spend the rest of his life with this one partner, although he's already reaping all the benefits of a sexual relationship without commiting. Much as I think there's another side to the coin, he does make a good point.

ANYHOW, enough with the sex.

Next to Me

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 23:33:00 +0000

This is one of those songs that I listen to, and while things may still seem crap, there's hope. A cutesy sentiment I know, but when a song spells out what I feel and what I've been through so well, and tells me that I'm not the first person to feel that way and that I don't have to struggle through it alone, I have to give credit where credit's due:

'When they drag you from your bed before the dawn
When they beat you 'til you know you can't go on
When you believe you're right but still you're always wrong
Come and sit down here with me

When they freeze you out of every conversation
When you get hurt but they tell you you're exaggerating
When you don't fit into any of the plans that they are making
Come and sit down here with me

When rejection is your natural condition
When they give someone else your job or dream position
When you've got more to offer than they could possibly imagine
Come and sit down here with me

When there's no one to trust at the hour of your confession
When there's no grace to give you time to learn your lesson
When you are only worth ten percent of your possessions
Come and sit down here with me

Come and sit down here with me
You're in perfect company
No matter how lonely you may feel
Come and sit down here with me

When all that you believed is a dream that is dying
When they still sell you lies but long ago you stopped buying
When you're more scared of falling than excited by the flying
Come and sit down here with me

When you have long given up hope of your own healing
When all the prayers you pray bounce back down from the ceiling
When the last breath you take is the only one that's appealing
Come and sit down here with me

Come and sit down here with me
You're in perfect company
No matter how lonely you may feel
Take the weight off of your feet

Come and sit down here with me
You're in perfect company
No matter how lonely you may feel
Come and sit down here with me'

-Brian Housten 'Next to Me'

Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:38:00 +0000

Christmas passed fairly uneventfully for me. It's too easy in the frenzy of good food of presents to forget to stop and really think about what we're celebrating. I think that's rather a shame really, as I think that the 'Christmas story' has enormous social significance. God squeezes himeself into human form, and is born a vulnerable baby, into a dirty, messed-up world, entrusting himself to his creations, who he knew would reject him and eventually kill him. He is born to a working-class teenage mother. He is attended by outcasts and foriegners, and fast becomes an asylum-seeker, when his parents flee genocide (in the name of state security) in his native country. If we let this truth permeate us it surely has to dynamically affect our worldview. Christmas may have been cutesyfied and commercialised until it seems nothing but a nice story involving animals and presents, but we must not let this induce us into trying to play down its significance.

At the risk of becoming the mother from Almost Famous, I would be very tempted to change the date of my celebration of Christmas to a date in September when I know it won't be commercialised. I hate the idea of big business profiting from my celebration of what should be such a socially significant story.

Innocence Again

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:31:00 +0000

'Do you remember when
You were way back then
You held the world inside your hands
When you told me love
Was the strongest stuff
Your strength was innocence

But, oh man
The signs of the times are omens
You're starting the day in
No man's land again

Who are you gonna be?
When you're on your knees, who do you believe?
Fear is a lonely man
You've been given innocence
You've been given innocence again

You should know by now
That your darkest hour
Is when your broken heart goes down
It's a bitter end
When the sweet begins
Grace is sufficiency

But, oh dear, we'll never deserve it
No dear, we never could earn it
Now, here, the choice is yours

Grace is high and low
Grace is high and low
Grace is high and low
We'll never be the same'

-Switchfoot 'Innocence Again'

Today I asked God to restore my innocence.

Proving God

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 01:41:00 +0000

It occured to me the other day that we cannot accept the human instinct to search for a greater being or purpose in life as proof that such a thing exists. It's also man's instinct to fear what he does not understand or is not familiar with, but it does not seem rational to accept those fears as grounded. I don't know if that makes sense.

Maybe it's not important, (or even our business?) to 'prove' God's existence anyway, at least not scientifically speaking. I'm not saying that faith shouldn't have intellectual basis, which considering my nature would be a bit like a fish deciding that water was to be shunned, but when was a relationship ever established or maintained through scientifically prooving that the other party existed? Besides, we live in a post-modern(!) age where it's hard enough to prove that your goldfish exists.

I think that half the time I've simply been zealous in my attempts to prove to my friends that God exists because I've been insecure in my faith. In reality, we probably shouldn't have to, our lives should be the proof. This sounds awfully trite, but I think it's what it boils down to. I certainly know that if my life isn't proof, then my intellectual proof is meaningless. After all, if I truely believe what I've always claimed to, it's going to have a pretty phenomenal impact on my life. Which is actually fabulously exciting, in a bladder-burstingly terrifying kind of way x

Otherlyness - a new hope

noreply@blogger.com (Claire) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:32:00 +0000

I've been feeling pretty, well, un-faith-filled of late. My life's gone pretty pear-shaped, and I've ended up completely stopping attending CU at uni, basically stopping attending church meetings, and my relationship with God just doesn't seem to be there any more. To put it bluntly, I don't want to be a Christian.

It's not that I have particular trouble believing in God (although sometimes I'm skeptical and as I've said I don't feel it right now), or that Jesus lived, was amazing, and even rose from the dead two millenia ago, but I hate the culture of mainstream evangelical Christianity, it makes me feel sick to my stomach and I don't want to be associated with it. I know they're doing their best, but all I ever seem to see is the damage and hostility their good intentions cause. If that's really what the Christian faith is all about then my faith is dead, as I want no part of it.

Fresh hope has come for me tonight in the form of the concept of 'Otherlyness', put forward by Jim Henderson et al (see: www.offthemap.com). It is 'the spiritual practice of noticing and serving others in ordinary ways'. I love that! 'Holyness' now has such bad connotations for me of superiority complexes and a refusal to engage and grapple with the world's problems, maybe this new take on it has a better angle. I'd love to read Jim Henderson's books 'Evangelism without Additives' and 'Jim and Casper go to Church' and learn more about his take on things. Maybe they'd help me work out what to do about the thorny issues of church and CU.