I loved this past weekend, for a number of reasons. Firstly it started with another Tat for Tat party on Friday eve… this was the third party of its kind we’ve had here, and it was great. Think lots of women in a room all bringing unwanted presents/clothes we no longer wear/random tat and all swapping it. I got a cool floppy black ‘grunge hat’ like one I used to have in the ’90s, a funky bag, some scarfs and jewellery, plus a lovely top and some other bits and bobs. It was a little high octane, just due to the sheer volume of tat that had to be got through, but I think fun was had by all.

Then on Saturday I hotfooted it into town to meet up with a friend. We had one of *those* conversations, you know, the kind that challenge and encourage you and make you feel really excited about what God is up to. I love those moments when you start chatting and there is a real connection. God is definitely doing some great things at the moment, definitely in this city but in my heart as well, and somehow the two merge together and we can celebrate those things and look forward to the future and just generally feel excited about that stuff.

In the evening I met another friend and again just really felt challenged but in a good way. Sometimes I think you don’t realise the stuff thats staring you in the face and you need brave, kind people to gently point it out.

On Sunday I went to church and just again loved it. I don’t feel like the new girl there which is strange, I could have been there for months it feels. Conversations and relationships feel really natural, I love the people there already, and the talk was great too – all about kindness. I was challenged and inspired. Plus I had an ‘I’m down with the yoof’ moment when one of them liked my jeggings… I can’t even believe that I own jeggings…

After church we drove to the coast, music blaring. It was one of those amazing moments… Looking out to an inky black sea, feeling like you’re at the very door to the country, singing along to amazing lyrics: “Love will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free, make you more like the man you were made to be” etc, just feeling full of life and hope and anticipation. Happy times.

Is ‘One Bright Hour’, by Bebo Norman. The lyrics are amazing:

Wading throught the aftermath
Yesterday’s a photograph
Rummaging through faith to find hope
That there will be a reckoning
Of the beauty and the beckoning
Calling me to stand on what I know

One bright hour you will come for me
One bright hour you’ll set the captive free
One bright hour you will wipe the tears away
From eyes that now can see
One bright hour

He’ll chase away the fleeting dark
From broken earth and broken heart
The holy line where joy and sorrow meet
And you will sing redemptions songs
Making new what we made wrong
On the day the story is complete

One bright hour you will come for me
One bright hour you’ll set the captive free
One bright hour you will wipre the tears away
From eyes that now can see
One bright hour
One bright hour

I will sing Hallelujah
I will sing Hallelujah
All will sing Hallelujah
All will sing Hallelujah

So, I’m doing a digital art project for uni on my digital life… I’m meant to produce some sort of ‘footprint’ to show where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing/thinking.

This means I have to blog more – “daily if possible”, what on earth am I going to find to say?

Today, anyway, I thought I’d begin by talking a bit about some of the things that made me think yesterday.

One of the biggest problems I have with designing stuff is that my ideas – what I want the final outcome to look like, so often outweigh my technical skill. I want the post-it notes to flutter as if ruffled by a gentle breeze, yet I barely know how to copy and paste them into the template even as a flat object… hmm.

This made me think about often this happens – how often the things I can create with my imagination, the things I dream, I simply cannot achieve. Some of it is down to technical skill, but with wider stuff so often it is down to other things – the actions of others, circumstances of life etc. I guess if I could make happen everything I dreamed that would be vaguely deistic, and thats getting into the realms of blasphemy

Anyway, it did make me think that, in the (often frustrating) gap between dreams and reality, that’s where prayer comes in. It is true that I want to make post-it notes virtually ruffle, but more than that I want to see my friends come to healing, I want God to rescue people I know are in difficult situations, I want to know more of his fullness myself, and there’s no way I can ‘make’ those dreams a reality. I can do stuff that perhaps contributes, but at the end of the day there’s still that gap, and that’s where I’ve got to trust that God has it in hand, rather than trying to fix stuff (hmm, bad habit that).

One of my other friends said, in response, that our dreams would be limited if we only dreamed what we could achieve. Another commented that it is better to have dreamed and not achieved the end result than to have not dreamed at all. I think I agree with both of those things. It strikes me too that dreaming is a risk. If I let myself consider how I’d like something to be, how I’d like a situation to change, I’m kind of nailing my colours to the mast about it… I’m being vulnerable, because if it then doesn’t happen, or things seem to go the opposite way, then I’m opening myself up to be disappointed.

I should stop musing now and get ready for uni, but… yeah, I am encouraged to keep dreaming.

(ps. As an aside, this conversation generated a couple of the best compliments I have received in a long time. My marvellous friend Dave said that my imagination makes Twin Peaks seem understandable. And the lovely Mandy said it was a good job I couldn’t make all my dreams happen because goodness knows what would be the result. I love it that I am renown for my quirkiness!)

Today I went on a wander to try out some of the settings on my camera and the software I bought to accompany it. Not bad for a first attempt I thought!

The photos are a little big for the viewer but you can see them here.

As I write, we are celebrating pseudo-Christmas here in our lovely house. Let me set the scene for you…. We are listening to Carols from Oxford on CD, we have winter green scented oil in the burner, we have ordered thai food (which I’ve never had before.) Later there will be crackers and homemade mince pies, and it’s all being washed down with Starbucks Christmas blend and some yummy mulled wine… happy times!! (pictures to follow).

Oh, and at the mo I am eating chocolate orange with popping candy… which is the most bizarre thing ever.

Tonight could be a metaphor for the whole week really. I have done a bit of work but a lot of revelling. This week has marked Red Cup day, which is when Starbucks launch their Christmas drinks range…

On Wednesday evening I went to a firework party with the guys from cell. Top marks for entertainment and ingenuity, for company and for nibbles

I have been playing with the new software I bought for my mac. It means I can do all the graphic design and website creation stuff I need to for my course.

Oh and I have been getting to know Sirius, who is the new kitten living at our house. He is very lovely!

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!

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!

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)

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!

So much to say but with no logical order in which to frame it, hmm… I think I felt more confident blogging when I was telling exciting tales about my forays into the world of prayer, but is writing about freshers flu, myriad coffee meets, and the delights of library tours as worthy? I think so…

I love being a student. One of our first assignments is to create a self portrait website. We’ve been given a ‘blank page’ when it comes to layout, design, content – it can feature whatever we like (and as ever my imagination is far outrunning my technical expertise). How exactly do you get handwritten words to curl up off a journal page and project themselves onto blank walls? How do you make pages flick over as if caught by the wind? How do I make a bookcase slide forward on a click, revealing an Anne Frank-style secret room behind? These are the questions permeating my mind while I sip double shot lattes and wait for buses (which never run on time in the countryside, let me tell you!!).

My fellow students are an intriguing bunch. I love the variety and the colour and the spice they bring into my life. Gone is ’safe-christian world’ where most people I know have the same thoughts and beliefs and even goals as me. Welcome to the eclectic melee of different backgrounds, ideologies, life-experiences that is the educational establishment: The ‘athiestic corner’ that detest studying medieval morality plays – (“I don’t get why they’re all ’bout Jesus ‘n stuff”, winning quote of the week prize I think); the scraggled early-morning bunch gathered for morning office in the uni chapel (they all knew when to stand up and sit down though, and they definitely knew what a canticle was, unlike my good self…); the varying degrees of hangover observable during the progression of freshers week, overhearing conversations that intrigue, horrify cause ones mind to boggle… it all gives me much to muse over.

I’m also loving delving into new relationships, new forms of community. Wandsworth was great for that – like a jumper that fits you just right, and there may be holes in the elbows now but that kinda just adds to the charm. So coming here was a bit of a worry on that score. What if I just didn’t find that? What if here was some sort of relational black-hole? What if I just didn’t fit in? (and a thousand other thoughts and little insecurities that many freshers before me have thought I’m sure). And I have been homesick. I knew it was bad today when I found myself thinking about and missing the little raised up bit of pavement by the HSBC cashpoint in Wandsworth that I always used, and always made the effort to walk on even when I wasn’t using the cashpoint (not obsessive much….). Anyway…

I’ve been relieved to find out that my fears haven’t been realised. Here is different, but not bad different, it’s refreshing. In fact it’s been a bit of a social whirlwind… I’ve been to new cell groups (which I’ve loved, felt energised by, been prayed for at, felt at home in, ate yummy calzone in, and generally been able to be myself at…Woop!), I’ve sung in Handel’s Messiah (yes, really… it felt good to dust off those good ole top soprano notes that haven’t had much use for a while), I’ve been to a church prayer meeting, (and then joined them for coffee and a tea-cake afterwards in the most endearing little coffee-shop), I’ve sat in Macdonalds with some of my fellow-freshers (and tried not to feel out of place, being over 20 and not exactly revering the aforementioned fast-food option), oh – and I helped to set the cakes and biscuits out on a plate at church on Sunday evening (you know you fit in somewhere when you know where they keep cling film).

I think I like the second week in a new place better than the first. Last week I was sorely tempted to buy a T-Shirt with “I am Vicki, I am a student at…, I am studying…, I used to live in London” etc on. At times it felt daunting to have to introduce myself all the time, and even just the intensity of finding the rooms where our lectures were, understanding the groups and abbreviations, remembering student IDs and IT passwords and the like. There were times when I wanted to stay in and just not have to face another round of introductions. But this week I feel more resolute. This morning I dared to venture to the chapel, this morning I remembered the names of some of my classmates, this morning I didn’t have to extricate my much-folded campus map from its cosy home in my rucksack – it’s all becoming a little more intuitive. It feels a bit like there is the space to enjoy some of this now, to remember how much I love this place, to get excited about what God is doing here, to actually think about what I can contribute and what I want to build into my rhythm of life in this season. To pick a picture analogy, I guess it feels like the cement in the foundations has solidified enough to support me putting some metal beams in place – to begin building a framework of life and community and celebration and stillness and discipline and accountability and freedom and grace that will hopefully typify and give structure and stability to these next few years.

Thursdays are my busiest day lecture-wise, and then I have a weekend of showing much-beloved friends around my new locality to look forward to. I can’t wait to see them – to drink coffee with them, to show them my soon-to-be-familiar-but-as-yet-still-new haunts, to blow raspberries on their tummies and bounce them on my knee, to talk about pterodactyls and diggers and to wander round shops comparing fabric remnants (they represent a selection of ages, you understand). I love it that the life and loves I enjoyed in Wandsworth and over the past five years do not end because I am here, but I get to experience new depths to them, as the distance makes me appreciate them even more.

Will hopefully post some photos post-weekend. Hurrah for exciting new chapters eh!