Random moments with Jess pt 2

Driving home after the prayer meeting:
Jess- Did you notice?
Kath- Yeah
Jess- His flies were so undone.
Kath- I KNOW, it was like an eclipse, I tried not to look directly at it.
Jess and Kath- uncontrollable laughter.

We spent an evening trying not to look at each other and laugh. It was taxing, but we managed it. Well done us.

So anyway.

It would appear that writers block gets to us all, but I find it comforting that several long absentee people from the blogging world have returned around the same time. It's kind of like the summer knocked us out and finding your feet again with this blogging thing is hard to do. After all, after not writing for so long and somehow managing to survive, one wonders as to the point of carrying on. However, it's fun, so hoorah for those getting back into it. Keep the dream alive or some such nonsense.
Welcome back Becci, Alison Joy Young, Ceryn and Sarah Brown

Irresistible?

Top 5 things in no particular order that are irresistible:

1. The smell of cakes emanating from our kitchen. (I like the word emanating, say it out loud slowly and it will bring you joy, I promise.)
2. Time wasting. Especially when I have much prep to do and places to be in half an hour, time wasting is inevitable.
3. The offer of a cup of tea (feel free to insert your favorite drink of choice that is irresistible. Not all of you have seen the one true way of tea yet, I realise, and I'm learning to be inclusive).
4. God and his crazy steadfast unfailing unavoidable love. (you try, go on, I dare you...)
5. Blogging again. (see, I'm back...)

Collecting together.

Some images and sounds that have joined me this week.

Little Miss Sunshine. I'll say little for fear of overhyping, but really, a film that lives up to the over exuberant praise lavished on it. It's witty, dark, interesting, funny and a little bit stupid. And yes the film makers have made their characters all learn things which always slightly annoys me, but they are such likeable characters that you don't really mind.



Get cape. Wear cape. Fly Genius stuff. Beautiful voice, folky guitar and fascinating lyrics. "We are all striving for this thing that makes this grind worth surviving, be that our white whale or the one little moment when our dreams still feel alive"




More intriguing is this 43 song collection of old sea songs, interesting from a history of song point of view and interesting from a random interpretation of songs from artists across the song writing spectrum. Nick Cave, Bono, Eliza Carthy, Rufus Wainwright, Ed Harcourt, Lucinda Williams, Sting, Jarvis Cocker and more all contribute. Although I'm not sure the whole singing with a Pirate accent really works for Sting, it's a selection of grand stories, sad songs of murder, pain and love gone wrong, and of course a few 'way-hay and up she rises' along the way.


John Mayer is the next discovery, revealed to me by the excellent Steph. With songs that tell stories and insanely brilliant guitar playing who could not enjoy?
"We bit our lips, She looked out the window, Rolling tiny balls of napkin paper, I played a quick game of chess with the salt and pepper shaker, And I could see clearly, An indelible line was drawn, Between what was good, what just slipped out and what went wrong"


Last night I saw Kate Rusby live again. She claims that one of the rules of folk music is to leave 60% of your audience depressed by the end of the evening. And with lines like this: "So lay me down gently, oh lay me down low, I fear I am broken and won't mend, I know. One thing I ask when the stars light the skies, Who now will sing me lullabies? Oh who now will sing me lullabies?" I can see why they might. But again, there is something strangely uplifting about someone singing out the feelings within you, maybe it's the comfort of knowing others have been in these depths and know what it's like. Maybe it's just the chance to wallow a bit. Who knows? It still works.

Neighbours magic

Finally the magic has worked and Karl and Susan have had their moment. I'm sure the road to reunification won't be smooth but today was a grand start. Credit to both of them for being the only people able to act in the programme and credit to the wonderful youtube for having far too many videos of them. Here's just one that is warming to the soul. Apologies, you'll have to click away, I have NO idea how blogging videos works.

Click now

thoughts

Just returned from Team Days, one of the best bits of this crazy job, hanging around with people who get the work you do and getting to care for each other in that. Team days usually involve a guest speaker braving the randomness and coming to share their wisdom on some stuff. It's been occurring to me recently that the topic of team days isn't all that important to the proceedings but the speaker is. Presumably anyone could come and talk about the things we think about but it's who the speaker is that makes the most impression, them honestly sharing their thoughts about God and letting us share their lives for a couple of hours or days. There really is something in the fact that God created us all different and works through us as we are, that who we are is more important than what we do.

This time we had some guy from a Bible College supposedly telling us about World Mission. A very worthy subject I'm sure you'll agree. But I had the feeling that if we'd have asked him to speak on apples he'd have been just as good. He came across as a man in love with Jesus. He told us the brilliant reality of the gospel again, he told us we were dearly loved children of God, he cried as he did so, he helped me want to carry on in this fight. Through him chatting to us God opened up my dark hard heart and wooed me with his love again. All the best speakers we have are like this, and that got me thinking, what's the most important thing in giving talks, seminars and Bible studies? Is it that people learn some information about a topic or that we encounter God together, that my love, and lack of love, for him spills out all over the place and we learn and grow and cry together because of the one who has called us out of darkness?

I guess the point I'm mulling on is: will people have encountered God through me being me and trying to be in love with him this year, or will they have learnt more information that I have imparted to them? Now there's a thought to chew on for a bit.

On tiredness

Tiredness makes me:

Sleepy
Grumpy
(thinking of dwarves yet?)
Cry randomly all over the place.
Get confused at the huge amount of choice in supermarkets.
Get looked at sympathetically by checkout ladies by my inability to answer their aray of complex questions. (cashback? I don't know, help me, reward card? yes possibly but I can't remember, what? eh? shhhh)
Sob on the phone to my Mum.
Spend the afternoon in a daze in bed.
Utterly bemused at how time flows past when there aren't any sessions to go to. Time passes and I haven't sat in 3 meetings, had food with many people and had two hours off in the afternoon. Somehow I've stumbled to the end of the day.
Confused as to what to do with all this choice of how to spend my time.

I'm with Sartre, I'm going to spend the rest of the evening staring at a tree crying, wishing I had it's lack of choice.