A good thing about working where I do is that occasionaly the ‘staff freebie’ tub yeilds something half decent. I took advantage of this yesterday when I spotted a copy of A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. It is minus it’s back cover – as are most of those they are getting rid of, but you do not need to read a blurb when you are going to read the book.

A month or so ago we had this minor obsession from customers about getting hold of this book. It was recommended by Oprah (and I confess I’ve never really watched any, so I can’t complain legimately about how bad it is). The book is an autobiography about a drug addict.

The validity of ‘autobiography’ has recently come in to some speculation. My world will not change if 100% of the novel is not entirely true. I ususally read fiction anyway so I will treat it mostly as fiction regardless.

I have spent a goodly part of today utterly consumed.
This is not a good book, because that would be the wrong word, but a powerfully written book. My mind hurts from concentrating too hard and attempting to keep feelings arms distance away.

The Young Man came to the Old Man seeking counsel.
I broke something, Old Man.
How badly is it broken?
It’s in a million little pieces.
I’m afraid I can’t help you.
Why?
There’s nothing you can do.
Why?
It can’t be fixed.
Why?
It’s broken beyond repair. It’s in a million little pieces.

I assume you have all entirely forgotten about this because it nearly slipped off my radar for explaining.

Any expectations, which I never quite worked out what they were, were situated in a slightly idealic setting. Hence a good slap of realism was necessary. I got that slap.

Iain rocks up around 6pm. Sam, Jess and I are already there. I get a message from Dan saying he’s on his way. We spend a goodly bit of time killing ourselves over a humorus discussion around Brokeback Mountain. Sam entirely lost it. I was very close. Dan shows up minus the friend he was bringing.

We head down to Jessies for Pizza. They do this satay chicken one (which I have secretly come to like rather a lot). Dan calls Cameron (his mate) and gets another pizza. While we wait, we sit in the car because it’s cold and air some ideas. Before we start I suggest we’d probably better pray. Jess makes me do it.

After some James Boag galantry, we get the pizza and head back to Jess’s. Iain has to leave (yes already!) and Dan goes to find Cam – who has no Melways and is a bit lost.

I’d never met Cam before. The others had briefly up at Soul Survivor. It’s rather nice when I realised I wasn’t going to be the only introvert present for the evening. He’s nice enough. Majority of time was spent getting to know eachother all a little better. A little discussion, but not much around the whole point of being there. I asked Dan if he had any ideas on it all. He decides he needs to think through things more, pray about it etc…

So we didn’t get a huge ammount accomplished in the sense of working out what we are/might be on about. It was fun evening nevertheless.

I’ve realised how entirely unprepared we all are for something like this. A lot more exploration of ideas, thought and prayer needs to go into it.

We’ve determined to spend the first good while just doing the ‘share life’ thing. Get to know eachother all a bit more. Bring in being real about what God is doing or has shown us through the week. No one has fully commited to anything.

Prayer for this as we stumble further into an unknown would be great. I hope we can get a few others there next time and that we haven’t scared Cam and Dan off for good.

Jess and I both need to be content to let the planners, the J;s in us be harnessed by some hefty restraints. Structure is exactly what we shouldn’t be on about. We also need to uncross some wires with Iain, who has some slightly different ideas.

All good. We shall just have to see.