Month: <span>May 2005</span>

We were discussing spiritual discipline in CL (Creative Living) today. It came about through a discussion of ‘being ready’ – the ‘watch and pray’ verse, somewhere in Matthew I think. A question also of: how much have you seen God at work in the stuff of your everyday life. Aside from stating my obvious response… ‘smile’ am I getting too used to this all coming up? mmm. Warwick mentioned ‘stillness’, which I though – oh yeah this is what is going to be the standout factor for me as I’ve been recognising taht I’m getting a little slack of late on setting aside time. So yes, it is important however, the following ‘listening to God’ was the notch up on the significant scale.

Again I had a conversation about this with other person (and I wrote: should I let him know how conviently God is using him? 🙂 )
It was a re-emphasis on the act of prayer – it being a two way thing, and chosing to listen and let God go first. I guess the biggest thing that jumped out of me here was reading ‘the word’ – which is an in your hand way to listen to God. Bible reading’s become really slack of late.

Ask God what does he want me to read. Do it. Have that interactive God conversation.

And that is a spritual discipline I need your help God to nail.

Christian Doctrine – interesting stuff about the sacraments (baptism/communion etc…) I spent the morning break… (thats about 40mins on a Monday) discussing stuff through with Rowan, Elyce, Dave, Nathan and Tom. I’m still not entirely sure…. it’s a hard concept. Too tired to think now.

Dawn’s 18th. Pancake Palour about 20-25 yits people there. Funny how conversation flows stacks easier with some than others. Ah… or maybe it’s because you had your hand in things there God… phenomenal reoccurance of answered prayer – even stuff I mention once. Thank you God for being the best listener, for knowing my subtleties, my every need before I ask.
Make yourself real to me as the greatest conversationalist. Relationship grows through communication. I think I’m missing part of that at the moment.

I wrote this post for part of a gush thread… but due to server problems I couldn’t reply:

I’m very much not the person to express things physically… like
running round madly etc. I’m not a huggy person.

Yes there are many occasions when the situation requires more than words… I guess I just generally tend to empathise differently (although yeah… attempting to speak
someone elses love language is a rewarding thing to do, it’s curious how the
general principles seep into other areas of your life.)
I’m a ‘be there’ person… an ‘advice’ giver (:) words and time). I’ve never been overly good at letting somone cry on shoulder kind of thing, I shy away from it.

I can stand back, see how it works with others. I can understand, because I’ve had brief insights of it in my own life. Generally speaking, physical stuff its not really
my way of expressing how I feel.

Now I don’t know. I wonder if along the way some of that expression of self through ‘physicality’, what? disappeared, or is a lesser known side of myself, even to myself and not one that I excercise frequently.

I have felt the need before.

All I could do then was run. (yeh ok a 12year old’s grief over a pet. still significant)

To scream at the world at God… but that is still using words.

Being keyed into reading body language… maybe it’s more an interpretation of understanding, and adapting to fill that role, to love the person in they way they are loved best. It’s fulfilling. But I don’t know.

Expression.

how do I express myself?

The Cider House Rules

…I haven’t come away from a movie so quietly disturbed like that for a long time, not since Dead Poets Society.

Are the base layer issues too close to home?
The idea too align with what Mon’s been through… no it wasn’t an option for her, but did the thought cross her mind?

So strange… so rich in symbolism but passive.

Pro-choice

a rethink on tolerance, on understanding.

an acknowledgement of my foolishness to ever offer advice.

a warning to not assume the depth of feeling or comprehension.

the importance of life.

no words.

Psalm 139
fearfully and wonderfully made. I know that full well.

who justifies the wrong?
you do.

not angry, just…why?
what’s it like God to know their hurt?

I’m sitting here, the sun is over my paper. The light shows up every slight pit and texture. Is that how it is when you look at me? Your light, your holiness exposes me. What looks smooth – white, ready to fill with words – when under close inspection looks rouch, is marred and dented. I could go on about metaphors – my mind creates them constantly. What do you see when you look at who I am? You know every detail, every smooth, every rough, every covered section. You know what words my choices will write on my life, you know what words I will let you write and those I’ll scrawl in my own impatience.
God you remind me over an dover how you chose me, how you love me. When I went to walk yesterday, to be alone, to even maybe spend some time talking with you – you were reminding me just how much you love me. It was strange but I hardly got a word in edgeways. You slowed me down. It wasn’t an overwhelming sense of anything, it wasn’t audible, it wasn’t filling, crowding my mind. Just a heightened sense of being right where I was, a greater reality. It was an understanding. Your still small voice. You don’t work like we do.
Those words fail to explain it, it wasn’t surprising or magnificent. I felt like me, not anything more.

This is how much you love me. More than experience here will allow me to understand. More than anyone can tell me, stress upon me. More than a walk and a faint idea. More than the words that can be written. More than a touch. More than a smile. Much more.

Nice discovery. Write in pencil and snoopy look over shoulder people on the train (I’m not one of those, I just eavesdrop) can’t see what you’re writing – although neither can you when you get home late and the lighting in your room is not fantastic.

After an extremely rushed 15min wake up (2nd time). sitting on the train mostly alseep I get to the Box Hill area and see the White Horse City Church – which stands out as it looks so… clean. I had been looking at the graffiti as you do when you stare blankly out train windows. There was a sign for their youth group: Xtreme Youth, painted graffiti style on their massive whitewashed building. I almost laughed, it struck me how in an attempt to ‘fit in’ they had created one massive barrier. Now I don’t know if people think about such things, but against the general mess and art of station wall graffiti it looked simply weak. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great youth group. I’ve been several times as one of my really good friends goes there – they have a fantastic community drop in centre etc… but yeah.
Does anyone stand back and look at a simple thing like signage objectively… because I do.

…half an eavesdrop, bought to mind the topic of ‘Boundries’. It’s interesting when you see a ‘couple’ on the train – whom you strangely admire. Not talking about physical boundries or anything here… but the guy was talking to the girl about setting some boundries – I don’t know what about – but really stressing something to her that she needed to mmm set boundries (mmm words are coming thick and fast tonight). I doubt I would have noticed it had I not been told this week’s lifeskills topic was, “boundries”, had a conversation with Jo about wanting to find out a bit more – not the physical side of things, that’s always kind of obvious. But the mental, emotional boundries -something I wonder about on and off, but never come to any conclusions on.
Frankly I don’t have a clue.

When I hit a point of having more than 6hrs sleep the night before I might decide to think about it.