Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground – Dante Alighieri

It’s totally naff that the ‘heaven’ theme is number 7. I hate cliches.

We do walk around with our eyes on the ground. Sometimes I think that my eyes aren’t anywhere at all, so easy to get lost inside your own brain and wrapped in your own internal world.

The Word became flesh, and here then is some kind of heaven mashed with earth. It’s beautiful. It’s here yet not. My awareness is poorer than I might yearn for. Daily I hope to ask to be woken up. Daily I hope to ask. Over and over and over.

Hold on, hold on to your old ways
Or put off, put off every old face.
And I know, I know you are changed out.
And I hope, I hope you’re arranged out.
But I’m still asleep
And you woke me up again.

- Sufjan Stevens

This post is part of the 100 Theme Challenge

I am disgustingly addicted to Pintrest. It’s so damn fun.

You can find mine here: pinterest.com/becmatheson

But the rest of the time it just makes you want Spring. Spring I am ready for you.

Grace Be With You All

Remember to love one another
And do what is pleasing to Him
Be strengthened by grace
And worship in reverence and awe
The God of peace

And grace be with you all
And may the Great Shepherd of the sheep
Equip you with all things
For doing His will
And grace be with you all

Forget not the sufferings of Jesus
And bear the disgrace that He bore
Confessing His name, for Christ is the same
Yesterday, today and forever

And grace be with you all
And may the Great Shepherd of the sheep
Equip you with all things
For doing His will
And grace be with you all

And grace be with you all
And may the Great Shepherd of the sheep
Equip you with good things
For doing His will
And grace be with you all
And grace be with you all

I have to confess that I did take this photo for the purposes of pinning it to Pinterest (of which I am heartly obsessed with) but isn’t it such a brilliant idea. Tea in a scientific beaker. Photo taken at the Firehouse, Ringwood. Sadly I had a weird reaction to the avocado (I think) in my breakfast and spent the rest of the day not feeling so dandy. But today is a new Saturday and this is a still a damn fine idea.

I did need the space. Lent. However the time was so full of other ‘must dos’ and now that is over and finally I can shuffle things around things to where they can be re-evaluated.
So I am shuffling. Somewhat slowly. Shuffling and re-evalutating.

Perhaps words will resurface to the top again?

Did I mention I got an iPad (1) for my birthday, it’s uber fun. Perhaps it is not helping me find space directly, but it is new and fun. Did I mention that it is fun? It’s really the most fun present I’ve ever received.

And the Enneagram email was a beast the other day:

As a One, you are part of the Frustration-Based Group. Ones are frustrated that the world is not more sensible and orderly. The antidote for your frustration is acceptance of reality. (Understanding the Enneagram, 318)

Act 1

And whomph, the tiredness monster fly past and knocks me over and I can only sit.

I hate performance poetry – it is obnoxious and turns lovely words into melodramatic harpies. Cruel perhaps, but this – thine – then is how I feel. Point in case? (art is subjective, yes? this is art that I don’t – although not exclusively dislike)

I dislike disconnect – although there is some kind of false safety in staying busy.

Service I understand somewhat better. Although understanding is not tangible without doing – perhaps service can only ever be understood at the present moment of the act?

Hype gives me hives.

Tea, words, solace is peace and there I find God. It is not as if loud, dancing joy is hype (not in the slightest), but to me it is foreign and that swell of soul makes itself known better through moment and surprise-in-quiet.

I fill my life with too much noise. I must relearn being still.

(I’m sorry if you like performance poetry)

…

Act 2

Perhaps life flickers as performance poetry? Expanding our experiences into deep-hollow words of longing. Expression that is not met. False conclusions that wrap things up neat and tidy like. Conclusions that are conclusions.

Where is our conclusion?

Our conclusion is still longing and interacting with those moments of awareness that God drops into our lives via somewhat delightful and sometimes disturbing means.

We are disrupted. Words stop following so nicely. We step out of time and lose pace.
It is in this mess of boring prose that we find truth.
And it’s conclusion is both in this prose and beyond it.

and the finish is

We ought not to think of building holiness upon action,
we ought to build it upon a way of being.
For it is not what we do that makes us holy,
but we ought to make holy what we do.

Meister Eckhart

This year is the first time I have ‘actioned’ Lent. I have let up with Facebook for the entireity of the time (no Sunday reprieve for me). I mostly don’t miss it, but I do catch the impulse daily where I do the ‘bah-humbug’ I can’t just go and stalk that picture of my friend’s wedding or baby. I tell you, so many significant events!

In terms of doing this whole Lent thing I am somewhat of a rookie. The whole no Facebook thing has certainly afforded me more time, oh how gloriously long the evenings! But I am terribly wonderful at filling up said time with other things: internetty things mostly, and I am not so great at using this relinquished time in perhaps more beneficial ways…

I’m not sure I fully physically understand the purpose of Lent. Self denial I can do. Here. I am doing it. But taking something else up: curating my time, priority setting, stillness. No. not so good. But trying to try.

Eugene Cho has a great post on Lent, well worth a read

This post is part of the 100 Theme Challenge

I got to pray with a small crew – one of the guys had left his world behind (eg. possessions) and was seeing where it would take him, and it was good. I did a stint at the Soul Survivor stand, and a was somewhat accosted by a 9 year old asking about Soul Survivor. I did my best to  but he came back with a frustrated, ‘But what’s it all about?’ (followed by, do they do graffiti workshops?).

On the way home, I spent chunk of time thinking about the evening and then the question: ‘But what’s it all about’ for me personally. And to be honest it’s been a bit bland. Not sure what things really look like/where they are going and frankly I’ve been quite lazy about asking/finding out or thinking about things deeply (or just at a bit of a loss because things have felt at a bit of a lull) about what I should be doing differently/where to. I happened to also have been listening to a terribly old Sixpence CD (note that Geoff wasn’t in the car… otherwise it would not have been playing) I turned on the CD as I hit the Eastern, and the Lines of My Earth came on.

Well.

The lines of my earth
So brittle, unfertile, and ready to die
I need a drink, but the well has run dry
And we, in the habit of saying the same things
All over again
For the money we shall make

This is the last song that I write
Till you tell me otherwise
And it’s because I just don’t feel it
This is the last song that I write
Till you tell me otherwise
And it’s because I just don’t feel it anymore

It should be our time
This fertile youth’s black soil is ready for rain
The harvest is nigh, but the well has gone dry
And they, in the habit of saying the same things
All over again
About the money we shall make

This is the last song that I write
Till you tell me otherwise
And it’s because I just don’t feel it
This is the last song
Till you tell me otherwise
And it’s because I just don’t feel it anymore

This is the last song that I write
Till you tell me otherwise
And it’s because I just don’t feel it
This is the last song
Till you tell me otherwise
And it’s because I just don’t feel it anymore

The well is deep. I have been told ‘otherwise’.

I am not sure what this looks like. My suspicion is that this is the nudge to get things moving again. He is good.

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