Travels & Significant Moments October 31, 2009

This week has been Reading Week. So I shall begin by admitting to having done no reading whatsoever… Three essays are looming so next week really must be the week of work. This week, however, has been the week of visiting friends and sharing in significant moments.

A lovely friend here offered me a free trip up to London, as she was heading that way anyway. I accepted, and last Saturday found us winding our way up towards our glorious capital, singing cheesy 90’s pop anthems and generally trying to wake ourselves up. I arrived and sought out the Wandsworth SA Fairtrade coffee-shop, a date that used to be one of my monthly highlights. Think bacon rolls, banana and walnut cake, and as many friends as you can fit into one building. It was lovely to stroll through the doors of church like it was the most normal thing in the world. Lovely, if a little strange.

The next few days passed in a whirl of friends, coffee shop visits and catching up. I went to church on the Sunday. I sat in the park for hours with a close friend. I ate surf & turf with two of my favourite people in the whole world. On Monday I popped into my old work and spent some time stuffing envelopes, just to help out and keep my hand in. Then I had lunch with my lovely ex-workmates. It was fab to see them all again. I went to Ikea, a favoured old haunt, and ate meatballs with more lovely people. On Tuesday night I took part in the church prayer walk… how I’ve missed those!

On Wednesday I travelled back here with my lovely friend, accompanied by the fantastic music of Take That. It had been nice to be away but it was great to be back, really great. I flung myself into more coffee meetings, cell group and just generally reacquainted myself with this place which I love so much.

Yesterday was a significant day, as Alan and the kids went to Giants Causeway to scatter Jo’s ashes. The grief and loss of it all seemed very real, as we thought about them, and the events of four months ago. I still really miss her. and then in another corner of the country, on a different beach, looking out across a different sea, myself and a friend marked loss and release in our own way, handing precious people over to God. So I think I feel a bit headwrecked after all of that, but still sure that God has all of these things in hand, and trusting him for the good plans he has for us.

Last night I headed to a half night of prayer at church. It probably sounds over-effusive, but I loved it. I miss the focussed intercession of prayernet in Wandsworth. I miss grappling with something and listening to God and feeding back. I miss creative prayer, but last night encouraged me and inspired me that, though in a different place, there is very definitely ‘prayer-stuff’ I can get my teeth into here, and God very definitely has things to say and do in this place. Hurrah for that!

 

Bookmunching October 18, 2009

I have read three novels this week (coincidentally none of them are the ones I am meant to have read for my course… oops). I have loved, intrigued and eagerly devoured all three, and have thrice experienced that familiar paradox of satisfaction and disappointment as I finished the last word of the last paragraph of each one. So I thought I’d write about them

Firstly, I read Beloved, by Toni Morrison. An account of one woman and her family and their experience of slavery. The language was quite hard to get to grips with, as it’s based in 19th Century America, and the content was difficult, graphic, disturbing. That said I think it was one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It was gritty and complex and I couldn’t switch off when I put it down. I found myself willing there to be a happy ending. I found myself thinking about the subject of slavery long after the story was over. I also found myself thinking about suffering, the strength of the human spirit, religion, and a whole bunch of related stuff that is still percolating in my mind.

Next on the list was The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas. The best surprise about this was that when I started reading I realised I recognised the scenery and the setting, so I could visualise what I was reading from almost the first page. That really brought the story alive for me. I loved the main character, Ariel… I could identify with her a lot, and so I found myself willing her to make the right decisions and to triumph. I liked the messiness and the unpredictability and the sheer imagination woven through the plot. I went straight to Amazon after finishing and got her next book (for a penny… result!).

Lastly I read A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka. I loved the merging of genres in this. Sometimes it felt like a history book, sometimes comedy, sometimes romance, and other times it made me feel so sad. I liked the way she surreptitiously makes comments about society, racism and loneliness. Like the other two, this felt like a story about struggle… I wasn’t sure how it would end or if good would triumph. It made me laugh and cry.

I suppose I should get back to Doctor Faustus now… Joy of joys!

Inspired… October 16, 2009

So, my course at uni is digital art, and so I spend a lot of time trawling the net for expressions of creativity expressed in digital form. I don’t really have an answer to the “What do you want to do when you graduate?” question, but I know it is something about creativity, healing, prayer… something that fuses together all of those things and helps people find freedom from different kinds of captivity.

Creativity has always energised, engaged me. Perhaps that’s what first got me into 24-7 prayer… the sense that my communication with God could be something tangible, expressive… something I splay across a page in bright paint, or form in my hands with wet clay. And one of the best things about this new, relaxed schedule I find myself enjoying, is that the creativity I simply didn’t have time for in London (or, I didn’t make time for…) is bursting out.

I have been scribbling in notebooks, taking lots of photos, doodling on the corners of seminar notes. It is so refreshing to have space to think. One of the projects we are doing this term is to create a self portrait website from scratch – a task which I am really enjoying – rifling through old journals and pictures I drew when I was a kid and building a picture that hopefully communicates something, and something that will hopefully point to the amazing difference God has made in my life.

Anyway, I started this post to talk about a website I found… I guess if being at uni has reminded me of anything, it’s that there are a lot of people struggling and a lot of them have little or no support. They have noone to turn to. That breaks my heart and inspires me to pray for them, and for opportunities to reflect hope to them.

There is a ministry in Amercia called, To Write Love On Her Arms, which aims to help people find freedom from Self Injury, and other destructive behaviour patterns. I often look at their stuff and am inspired and challenged by the stories I read. I often follow links and links from there too, just to see where I end up.

This week I found a site called Heart Connection, which is like an online community where people can share their stories and get help, ask questions, get prayer etc. I know that forums can be really helpful, so I was intrigued. I kept following links, and eventually found this site:

http://www.heartsupport.com/getinvolved/visualedition/

It’s a space where people can submit pictures, photos artwork that reflects where they are on their journeys. It reminds me a bit of postsecret, where people send in an anonymous, artworked postcard of a secret they want to share. I went through a lot of different emotions, looking at the photos – joy and hope at the freedom some people were finding, a sense of urgency that there is so much pain and need out there, and sadness, I felt so stirred up by the honesty and rawness in some of the submissions. The picture above is just one example.

…The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners… (Isaiah 61:1)

Ann on the bus, and other stories October 13, 2009

One of the most glorious features of the past two weeks has been the three visits from lovely, London-related friends. It was such a blessing that they would come, that they would choose to spend time here in this lovely but entirely unfamiliar city, and that they would feign interest in my dubious yet enthusiastic tourist guiding (“Look! Let’s stop and watch that bus trying to fit through those towers)…

This is a good place to visit. There are many lovely coffee shops, there is the beach, only a stones throw away, and many other delights. I have loved catching up with people I really care about, people I miss hugely – in this strange in-between season where I haven’t quite managed to convince myself that this is not a holiday, that I really can’t jump on a bus to their house for an spontaneous sausage sandwich… It was great to catch up.

This week, which heralds the celebration of a full four weeks here, has been great so far. Yesterday, I felt like a real student when we all got kicked out of our seminar for not having read the text (We’re all sure she didn’t tell us to). I spent some time hanging out with a good friend from my course, then we went back to my house and drank tea (surely doing much damage to the myth that I am engaging in any sort of student hedonism. It’s all tea and early nights here). Then my lovely house companions made yummy salmon, and we had rhubarb crumble (no supernoodles for me!!).

Today, I am in the library studying… studying not blogging… Must. Do. Work.

But I did want to tell two stories that impacted me from the weekend. On Saturday, myself and my two lovely friends caught a bus to the seaside. It’s only a short journey, probably fifteen minutes or so, and I just happened to sit on the outside, nearest to the other passengers. I got talking to a lovely lady called Ann (or maybe Anne… it makes me feel sad that I don’t know how it is spelt). Ann was telling me about her journey, about how she’d spent two hours on a bus to get to the seaside for a day, how it was the only outing she’d had for a while, and that she so missed being around people, so talking to me on the bus made her day. It was one of those conversations – we talked about the weather, the bus (which had just been involved in a minor collision), the election, the state of the nation, her family… I could tell that she was really lonely, and I really wanted to spend more time with her, to hear her story. It made me think about how I take contact and interaction for granted, I speak to people all the time, I have countless coffee meetings each week, and yet Ann had noone to talk to at all. It made me think about London, and how noone talks to anyone on buses there (except when it snows, or when there is a national emergency)… it made me want to keep my eyes open for more lonely people on buses who could just do with an inconsequential natter. It’s made me think twice about plugging my headphones in and withdrawing from the world around me this week for sure.

I hope Ann had a nice time at the beach. I hope she enjoyed her tuna sandwiches. I’m praying that she gets to enjoy the beauty of community back where she lives, that someone will draw alongside her and just listen. Bless her.

My other story involves scones, and was probably the funniest thing that happened to us on Saturday. We had decided that a perfect accoutrement to tea would be scones, with jam and cream (refer to my earlier point about the lack of hedonism), and so had proudly snaffled some before we left seaside-land. The purchase itself had been amusing, because my friends choose the wise option of a pack of scones reduced to 72p, while I viewed this with a certain suspicion. Anyway, we got home and decided to have a brief break. My friends went to have a snooze, while I went on a trip to the supermarket to procure some clotted cream.

I got back, to find a scene of carnage in the kitchen. Dogs are lovely, but they seem to have no food-related decorum (at least the dogs in question, anyhow). All that was left of the scones were some ripped up cellophane, and a smattering of crumbs strewn liberally around. I think they had enjoyed the feast (not minding that the scones were short-dated it seems). I stood there for a while, holding the now-redundant clotted-cream, wondering what to do.

This is where my friends husband saves the day. He decided to make us some new scones, and glorious they were. There were bacon and red onion scones, with special homemade maple chutney, and then normal scones, with fab raspberry jam. We feasted… and the dogs got none. We decided to take it as a spiritual lesson  – that when stuff gets stolen, God always has better in store!

I think that’s all my stories for today… Back to Doctor Faustus then!