Friday 31 October 2008

I feel like I don't want to sit down and pray - if I did, I'd have to face what's happening.

Wednesday 22 October 2008

Love - and some venting

It's very weird. I don't get it but have come to accept it... Every time you mention the word 'love', you get a busload of listeners. You get listeners who want the details - who miss the details when you leave them out, for goodness' sake. You get talkers who won't stop telling their story. I love it.

But it also goes against the grain - a bit, that is. Aha they're not that interested in love if it doesn't have me sighing over a member of the opposite sex, now, are they! Try it - you can probably count on your fingers the people you know who will actually disinterestedly listen to your love stories of friendship, of family, of sacrifice, of worship. Rather annoying, eh?

And why is it always 'do you have a boyfriend?'?! Has it ever occurred to the interlocutor that one may not always want a boyfriend? That one might be sticking out for the real thing - if that EVER happens - and quite happily single? That some people (yes, it is in the plural!) would rather not go out than go out with the wrong one? And to avoid that situation are quite happy to wait forever if necessary until God makes it pretty much obvious? AND seriously - must I, of necessity, be happy with your hints? MUST I be married if I don't feel compelled?

AND MUST I MUST I allow you to button my coat and have private walks with me whether or not you have the right? Surely it's not entirely weird if I said no? Or entirely hurtful? After all, we were never great friends. Surely also it's not unreasonable to expect you would say things outright instead of hoping I'd say them? I jolly well am going to use the fact that men were always the ones who were expected to do the work historically - well, at least to begin with. If you're going to make things uncomfortable - why is it my fault?

Gggaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

ALSO BOY AM I GLAD NO ONE WHO KNOWS ME AND DOESN'T KNOW ME VERY VERY WELL READS MY BLOG.

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Moments Like These

There isn't long we've got to hang around where we are... something tells me it's even shorter than I suspected. And all this spending with what isn't yours and hasn't been given to you, or storing up for what may not be worth all that much in the end seems completely crazy to me. Btw - anyone seen Credit Crunch the movie yet?

So from that starting point I've decided to redefine everything I'm doing and thinking and saying and planning. To take a long hard look at it and come up with its purpose really. A more realistic purpose.

I am doing what I do because I know it's in God's perfect will! He has several brilliant reasons for all of it... I'm afraid I don't. I have a few good reasons - one I've mentioned. The other is that I'm having fun. And three - it gets to me. If something makes me narrow my eyes and smile and my inside goes 'churny' in a certain sorta way and I know tears are a possibility as are unexplained grins on alone-time-walks... well then, PUHLEEZ believe it's worth it!
!
And God help my unbelief.

Metablogging

Humph. There is sooooo much trash on this blog - have been going through it. Also there is so much intense-soul-searching that no one's ever gonna care to read all of it... It's probably time to make a few rules. Maybe open a different blog that is more user-friendly. I am glad EH loved reading it. It is rather interesting in parts... but.

I mean here I am - procrastinating. And I need something funny to read and the little funny bits are stuck inside huge bits of rant and whine and love and poetry and... I mean honestly - when a girl wants to distract herself from important work, there's no place to go!

RM sent me a lovely little organiser with flowers on a pink and green layout. Come to think of it, it's a bit like what Grafx's done with my blog... Got another lovely parcel from foreign parts - well, NYC as always but hey, foreign to me. I love the feel of an awkward brown paper package in your arms as you trundle down the road home from the Porters' Lodge wondering what's inside. And how the slip of white paper with a number circled on it for you to find your little package on the porters' shelves makes you grin and sparkle... L'ma always writes on the description - 'cookies and candids'. I like that.

It takes me flipping aeons to make myself sit down and work on a paper I have to submit in two days. It's lovely in my head and then I just find it hard to sit down and write and by the time you're on your 5000th word, don't you forget precisely what you wanted to say at no. 7000? Aaahhh, academics!

Friday 3 October 2008

W-H-Y

I don't know, Lord, I don't know.

Why quicken something in my heart? I have obeyed except for once. I have obeyed even when it's hard and confusing. Except of course those times I forget I need to know what you want!.... Except, except, except. But why when I have obeyed, it still has not come through? Why! What did they do that I haven't done?

Like - why was the nun raped in Orissa this week? Why was the one most precious thing to her, precious because she'd given it to you, taken away from her? Why was she allowed to eat dust before her assailants while the police watched on?! Like - why? Why her, why that, why now? I ask forgiveness for ever letting the thought cross my mind that she 'deserved it less' than anyone else. No, that is not my point... Just... Sometimes it's as if we're clinging to you hardest, and you train our fingers to cling even closer. Is it because we - you and I - get closer and US is the most important thing there is? Or is it that you know something about my reaction to the blessing I ask for that I can't imagine?

Probably both.

God, I hurt. And I love you. So much.

And yes, my prayer still is - you. You're all I want.

Thursday 2 October 2008

Every Day

"The music played in a slow relentless background to her self-vindication... What she had done, she didn't know. In bits and pieces, yes, but never fully. And she always remembered the pieces. Because if she let herself forget, meaning would be lost. Meaning must survive even if it is painfully false.

But today, there was a strange difference. The memory of a song when she could sing without the shadow. There was beauty in the shadow but it was stagnant. If it was never to be gone, never to be pure sun, the beauty of learning is over. She'd forgotten that.

The latticed window cast patterns on her recumbent figure. The book was near enough but she was afraid that she would have to think if she started to read. If she started to keep silent, if she started to look around. All she wanted was to wash the dishes, change the linen, switch the furniture. Anything but let herself hear herself. You know what I mean.

But if she could even hear her tears, see her apathy for the defence mechanism it was, if she could look long enough at herself, shut up and sit still - she would hear me. And it's all I want. All I ever wanted and thought of when I looked at her that day. The day she couldn't look at me, wouldn't look at me. The day I died. And she's been dying, little by little. Yet I am here and she will not look at me. When she does, she brings so much love to us-two. But it's hard for her to take more than she gives. It hurts. And it hurts me.

Oh, Father!"

Wednesday 1 October 2008

Hands to the plough...

Yes, bear with me while I spew some more. Not quite sure what's bringing it all on - well, several things, I'd say.

So I'm here and I'm rather weepy about leaving. Not just because I won't see everyone for a long time, but because I simply don't know. I don't know what's round the corner. Not just for me this time, but even for the old folks.

I know that I know (preacher-style ;D) the ones I'm thinking about specifically will not choose to reconvert if it comes to that. To start with - they wouldn't be reconverting if they were asked to to Hinduism. We haven't been Hindus for more than a couple of generations. The first man to take the step made a name in Tamil literature whereby to witness and then simply walked into eternity. Since then we've all been Christian at least nominally.

Which brings me to point le deuxieme. They wouldn't be reconverting because they haven't stayed nominal. And when the time comes, the God I've prayed to to keep my hands to the plough, will prevail. The thing is I am sure my old folks share the exact same sentiment. And I guess, deep down in my unspoken and unthought-out irrationality, I was hoping my what-ifs would be answered while I were here. I am selfish. Entirely. While communicationless aadivaasi-ing in the forest would be fun with them, I cannot imagine what I would do if it did come now that I am leaving.

I know that the true church in other parts of India have suffered and are still hiding in fear of their lives. I hurt for them. You know my pain. In fact, when I first heard it blew everything else out of my mind. Tertullian was right - the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

AB (a Hindu) promises she will come and save the day to be with my parents. LOL - I love her for it, but the truth is, how many of us can really save the day? We won't have the choice. I will probably run like the wind back to where I hope to find them with or without the means, as I see it. But the only certainty if things should come to a pass (imagination overtime atm perhaps) is those everlasting arms underneath. I have asked my what-ifs like I said a few days ago. And unbidden and unhesitant, I know the answers. I know the answer. I know they are big what-ifs. They might never happen. Or they might be sooner than I think. It has come to my state. The one my history books told me were a peaceful people... And I know the answers I need. I have been given them.

But all I can think of in reaction is to hold them close to me as hard as I can. And know in that moment that God holds them dearer than I do.

Sunrise

I fell in love with Switchfoot's Only Hope a couple of months ago... When it seems like my dreams are so far, sing to me of the plans that you have for me over again...

Zeph 3:17 - GOD does sing over us. Duh. He loves us.

Jer 29:11 - He also has a definite idea of the song. So if He did take Switchfoot's suggestion (or mine), then listen well! He knows the plans HE has for us.

Ever missed the sunrise or sunset on a flight? I did the last time - after beautiful views throughout, a decent dinner and lights-off put me promptly to sleep. And I missed the one thing I was hoping I wouldn't on this flight. Bah. And I woke up, to a cloudy I'm-the-only-one-awake sort of feeling. Except I wasn't. I love having someone who loves me so much that He wants to watch over me as I sleep! I love that after everything I do - over and over again - because I am entirely stupid and forget so often, He can still look into my eyes with so much love that it's not long before we both have tears. Someone so perfectly wonderful that I don't ever want to walk away from Him...

I didn't miss the sunrise that day actually. It was there in that smiling moment.