Musings

Okay, let's face it - I m-i-s-s blogging even after only two weeks. There was this Facebook thing (yes, I allow myself to use 'thing' for any word I cannot decide on!) doing the rounds with my friends this week. Yesterday I finally succumbed and am now writing 25 random facts/goals/whatever-else-it-specifies about myself.

Can you believe I was nearly 18 when I first used the internet? For a college project. It's also rather depressing to think that that was nearly six years ago.

There are things I remember about my life that make me incredulous now... more serious things. Things I grew out of, things I didn't even get to because I was being protected. God is so unbelievably busy loving us and making it right for us, eh! God, he's amazing.

I am still worried about church. Correction - I am not worried; I am just not at home. The things that I need to get working on - Church and my inherent laziness and procrastination about work... Actually it's not inherent. It's just been with this degree and now and particularly some weeks. I am going to kill it. Period.

Found John Waller this week. Love some of his work. Really listened to Newsong - beautiful lyrics on their 'Arise, my love'. It is a tear-your-lungs-out desperation when God isn't in your life anymore and to think that Jesus, who was so in union with him, agreed to do that for me... still blows my mind away. MR, our pastor, said there was something about God looking at God and saying 'Arise, my love' that gets you 'here'(and he held his stomach, lol!) - he was right.

I miss my dad.

Had my first ever doner kebab last night. Danced for the second time - well, I dance where no one can see whatever clumsiness I have... lol, but this was in a bop (an Oxford college party) and I actually enjoyed it. Because it was with people I love. The last time it was in a club that I was forced to go to because my erm countrymen declared I didn't want to spend time with them if I didn't. I hated it. This time (I never thought I would say this about a dance) was so much fun. There wasn't the least non-innocent smidge upon the evening and I actually kept time... Lol. There was even a chap who asked if I knew I was gorgeous like he meant it and even that remained innocent. I am not quite sure I liked it though.

Not for the first time, I am tempted to move blogs. I broke my rule of not giving people I know this address. I love you, guys. But I'm wondering what would happen if I stuck to the rules. It would be lonelier - but more to the purpose. No? What happens to this content though? Hhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........

<3

Does your Fb relationship have to say 'In a relationship with ...' before you can put down <3 <3 <3 as your status?!!! :D :D For that matter, mine does say 'In a relationship' for semantic, technical reasons... I'm in the biggest love affair of them all with the best friend ever - Jesus. And I know you understand me :)

I just feel so much in love today. Loving someone and being in love - I think - are two different things. The former is constant and the latter... well, the oftener it's there with the person you love, the better!

Laughter

I've got a random fit of the giggles... I'm thinking of stuff we said and did at meeting, or conversations I had with friends, or just laughable circumstances! And for the life of me, I cannot stop grinning.

I love it when I am happy in God and however much the storm may be brewing around me, the fact that we're in love keeps me smiling - to the point, that I annoy myself for acting rather idiotish! Recently I know my posts haven't been supremely sunshiny me. I apologise for the whining and the ranting. But hey, my space to abuse, as I seem to remember having said before. And I know you guys (the few of you out there) won't begrudge me my raving-lunatic act once in a while.

I am happy today and feeling more like myself in God than I have in a long time. The church question continues. I've been hugely lazy. If you've been following, you know something of what I mean (er, okay, humour me while I imagine a loyal readership ;D). But still the joy that being in his presence brings is simply the most gorgeous feeling I could think of. MK has always remarked on it... he's a pastor, so I guess he's allowed to peek at people when they wroship! It has always been there but recently I've been afraid it'll leave... I am pretty foolish in my image of God, I box him up and fit him into the (very square) corners of my mind - and every time, God breaks out of it and I am in awe. In fact, by now I know I'm limiting God and I know He is bigger... except sometimes it takes me a bit longer to feel it. What can I say? - I'm slow :P

So I have a deadline to meet and it's 2 am in the morning and I am considering a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon tomorrow and I cannot sleep or concentrate because I feel like jumping up into the father's arms and laughing with him. And I wouldn't exchange this for anything in the world.

Happy new year, everyone!


PS Grafxgurl, I really do want to respond to your more-than-generous tagging of me... This post-script is an IOU. Enjoy home doubly seeing as I can't be there! xx

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.

Glad glad glad

So here's a late-night two minute spew spree that had to get out:

I am in INdiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! Can you tell? Extended my stay by a week. I haven't stopped eating since I stepped on that flight. It was deep fried prawn today, will be chenna idli tomorrow - anybody ever try this absolutely delightful southern Indian deluxe version of idli?! I used to call 'em pregnant idlis. Too true. And biriyani, and naan, and amma's curry and periamma's curry, and non-sweet corn on the cob, and MANGOES (God is good ;D).

And the family - the amma-appa-periamma. The dogs. Tassi makes this gorgeous grunt-purr when you carry her... And comfortably slumps into the crook of your arm, for you to roll her little sausage-body whichever way you please. Prince has learned the trick of late. He has the grand melancholy that afflicted the Romantic poets. I believe he would have had much in common with the likes of Byron etc. But not a lot to say, the poor darling. He is too overawed by the incessance of Tassi's talk. Talk, she does! The puplet has so much to say to Appa these days. I am not being an overly crooning, gushing pet-owner. She actually lets loos a stream of multi-tonal and elongated sequences of trills... they could be growls if the word did not carry with it such a measure of unfriendliness. Even when she tells people off for leaving her on her own, she grins.

Yes. Dogs grin. So there.

Well, the weather's brilliant. Rain is always ace here. And I like the excitement of thunder. But the sun is out every other day in its scorching intensity. Madras is Madras, you gotta love it.

So, interview done. Data ends tied up. A week of pure study to do. And I am sooooooooo unsure of how to deal with the stats. Anybody wanna volunteer to help? *Brave smiles* Please :D

I am now rather like chocolate cake - dark brown and lots of fat. There is much more to write about. Almost as much as there is to read - all my old friends of my girlhood are begging to be revived and they are! But oh, there's so much to do.

God, gimme grace.

Also - this persecution against Christian minorities that's been spreading in the nation for a time is sorta heavy on my heart... I have all these questions of what-if. Most of them are answered pretty quickly. I am so thankful for the family that I was born into. Even more thankful for the time when Christianity took on new meaning for me. Glad it was a personal and not a familial decision. Glad that it wasn't a lonely decision either - glad my parents were clued in too.

In the words of Pollyanna: I'm glad glad glad.

Helllooooooooo

No, grace is not a pretty picture. It involves the biggest messes humankind can imagine and then implement. But grace is beautiful. Like when you look in the mirror and you see that spot or blemish, the disproportionate features or the kinky hair or the need for a haircut or the need for some make-up or a need for something to take the tiredness away.... and still God looks into your naked eyes, still God sighs: It is good.

That is the kind of picture grace paints. Not the kind of glossed-over fashion magazine product. No, not pretty at all. But beautiful.

Would you believe it? I am still taking my time to get over whatever happened to produce my previous couple of posts. I believe it is a people I do not understand, and yet and yet and yet - I understand a few of them from that place. In a few, I saw sparks of recognition. I believe God is teaching me something very permanent from all this. I still have 'romantic notions' as Mrs Lynde would say if I were Anne. But there may not ever be a Gilbert - at least from my point of view down here. I learn too much from people and people learn too much from me, I suppose. I don't know what God wants in the area - so this is very human prognostication... But there has to be someone who is sure enough of what God wants to wait for me to be sure of God and of him - boy, that will take some patience! I mean I need to be sure enough of it all to let myself love. It's probably a shortcoming, but it keeps me safe and I'll stick with it. And only then would I be willing to consider beginning such a relationship - and you read and hear about people like that, but it will probably never be that way with me... particularly if it is true that opposites attract! LOL. I love logic, btw. So I still haven't fallen in love with anyone else since I was 10. And I've never fallen out of love with Him since either.

Meanwhile I am also a bit concerned about my studies. With all this it has taken a beating. I don't think such a thing has ever happened before. But I don't lay it entirely at this door. I think the main problem has been that as my supervisor put it: "We've gone about this the wrong way". And that observation came a whole term too late unfortunately. So I am left with the beginnings of ideas of what to do just coming up. And basic books I still feel I ought to read. And a whole assignment and a half completely un-upto-scratch!!! I was in this position at the beginning of my Master's thesis and I had three months to go. I now have one and a half and need to be slightly higher than a Master's level to sufficiently impress. I have come to the conclusion that 'worry' is the wrong word to use. I believe I can do it - I know how in a candle-light rather than a lightning-flash kind of way. But I know that I cannot do it. If that makes any sense.... I know that God is the one who will fight this battle for me. I am also greatly indebted to my parents and aunts. And often fight the feeling that I have let them down. But suddenly light shines - and I know that I am doing the best possible if I am doing what God wants!!!

In fact, it may not be the problem I think at all. And may be due to Oxford's special ways of dealing with teaching and guiding. From what I hear, everyone's just as worried and has been clueless, and they have not been living in 55G, have they? LOL. I miss P&ST and the Ms at church, especially J. She's become very dear to me and I know that she is growing up and things may change. I know that I might move from the place depending on how it goes. But I wish loyalty to 'A' church did not come before loyalty to God's family. That remains to be proven. But Bangor has stood me in good stead and made it very clear that I will always be family! So, I am more than blessed.

I have both my parents in a strong godly family, two aunts-like-parents, and then these surrogate mums and dads in Bangor and a grandmum for good measure!!! More people to tell me off - true.

For AB

Here I am humbled by the love that you give
Forgiven so that I can forgive
Here I stand, knowing that I'm your desire
Sanctified by glory and fire


I rarely ever quote lyrics from somewhere else... perhaps it's pride. I think 'I write my own love songs to God' and I quote from the Bible. But now and again, a song written by people desperately in love with Jesus.

A long time ago, it seems now, I wrote a post when I was really tired. I'm tired now. And - completely incidentally - sleep-deprived. But I am also tired of ranting. I think I give so much love, sometimes I give more so obviously that it hurts... but I find my levels for myself are so often broken by people who surprise me (amma, AB (you made me think of this in the first place just now), CK, VP). But then you look and you find youI have always known the greatest love of all. It has always been yours. No amount of distraction can take His eyes off you.

But I know also that so often I look away. When Jesus looks at me, He knows I will turn away, be hurt by other things. And then in a heart-rending moment like this He reminds you that nothing and no one can make you laugh or cry like His love can. More fool me that I forget it.

S'more Growin' Up

God loves me. So. Much. And every time I naively forget, He lets me know in no uncertain terms. Sometimes I forget to let myself be hungry enough for him that it can turn my world upside down and cause me to cry with an inside-pain that fills me with joy.

Having got that outta my system, I am only back after a couple of weeks but it could be a decade judging from at least the amount I think I've grown. I've learnt that within the church we can all be faulty and I've learnt that while I can hold onto the fairy tales and the goodness, not everyone wants to. And that that's OK. Really. I've learnt how some people can be racist - and that it can happen even when they are Christian. I've learnt instead of raging at the injustice, I can laugh at it. I need to rage too - but I need to know that I can make a choice of reactions, and that the choice need not always be the same. I've learnt how people can forget that they've been wrong. I've learnt how I can't always forget that about myself or about others and need to. Mainly about myself. Because when I go to heaven and order two cafe lattes and have that chat with God, it will probably go something like this:

Me: Jesus, you know on the 17th of May, at 11 o' clock...
God: Hang on, which May??
Me: 2008, of course. Well, anyway, you know what I said to Claire that must have really hurt her. I want to explain___
God: (interrupting and laughing pretty thunderously) Subiksha, I have no idea what you're on about!!!

In case, you're wondering - nothing was said that hurt Claire on that date and Claire is one of my best friends atm and I've shared the joke with her. However it is quite likely and easily verifiable that I have done and probably will do pretty damnable things. ANd God has actually chosen to forget all of them. Already.

So yes, I've grown up (although AB insists I grew down!). I didn't want to, and I hope to God I'm not all done yet as I quite like the Disney movies and the naivete. Especially the naivete. It's comforting. Although it's not that pleasant when you're shocked that Indian girls get drunk, Christians smoke, 'friends' can actually get jealous, Christians flirt not-so-harmlessly. Don't get me wrong - I am shocked at all of this and probably excuse it conveniently in myself. But yes, when it's there, the naivete is comforting.

I love you always!!

xxx

PS Hello, amma, BO, SD, Grafx, Ta'fxkz, DA, Skinny, Switchblade, LT and everyone else!!

Where I come from

I am always not quite sure what people are expecting when they ask me how I was saved. My testimony is dramatic in that all testimonies are - you're born again, how much more life-changing can it get. I am radically saved. But story-wise - I don't know. You decide. There is not much of a plot, climax and denouement. But God requires us to testify of His love (love that song!), so I'm going to do it here. Because although I've blogged for some time now, I've never properly introduced myself!

When I was 10, I must have been a bit of a pain. Telling my testimony to a worker at church this morning made me realise - I definitely had some attitude problems back then! I'm sure I still have a few :( My dad was first in our family. My mum was always the one who read more, and consequently read the Bible more... But I think appa was the first to realise there was something more to being saved. That God meant what He said about no one coming to the Father except through Jesus, and about being born again. So as my father was beginning to get more interested in a personal relationship, he started to play these tapes and CDs over and over and over again. This would eventually result in my mum or me walking out of the room at some point. Moreover, my father also looked disapprovingly on our telly interests which did not help. Still does not make sense. But eventually he and our neighbours convinced us to go to this evangelistic prayer meeting - big event in the city, lakhs of people arriving from different parts of the state and neighbouring cities, must go. So we did. The evangelist is still a very popular, though sometimes controversial personality!

When we were there, I was very impressed with the message and with some parts of the worship. I was a sceptical 10 as to worshipping God openly or personally so when the person onstage asked us to allow the Spirit to minister and lift our hands if we felt like it and just feel free, I opened one eye to see what my mother was doing! I felt like I wanted to lift my hands and say this prayer that he was saying as I did feel a gentle breeze just after the man prophesied that we would. But I was not sure how cool that was going to be - so I peeked. My mother was lifting her hand(s) in prayer - it was the first time I'd ever seen her do it. I have always been very influenced by my mum and then my dad. So I was intrigued. I didn't open my eyes after that but I prayed and I welcomed the Holy Spirit. And minutes before the preacher had said some of us would feel a gentle rain - I did! I thought that was brilliant. I was only little so I had no trouble believing God could and would make the weather obey Him. Jesus in the storm had always been my favourite story.

I am not being denominational at all. But that God and I could have a working relationship did not actually dawn on me before that time.

Not everyone felt the tiny drops but everyone felt the thunderstorm in an hour! The people had dispersed and everyone was walking home, when the rain poured. It was unexpected and since the meeting was on the beach, it was quite cold. They were going to remove my tonsils because it was pretty bad. Lol, I couldn't leave anywhere without carrying my mother's dupatta (a shawl about half the size of a sari) - and needless to say, I was facing major fashion crises. Unbeknownst to me, our neighbours were walking behind us and telling each other I was going to be healed. Our home was about ten miles away and we only had a motor bike. When we went to my aunt's house, she was out and her flat was flooded! So we borrowed a towel from her neighbour to dry my hair. And then we set off home on the bike. I was very wet and my parents were worried by this time.

We took one of the preacher's books home with us. I read that book for the next month. I still hadn't asked Jesus into my heart. I don't think I did that in conscious rebellion though. About a week or two later, my mother asked me if I realised I hadn't sneezed once since. I hadn't thought about it. She told me I was healed and I said 'Yeah, I am!' and replied at once that I was indeed ready for an ice-cream :D. It was probably quite a minor thing but hey, I was excited... :D

The healing and the saving happened in my life simultaneously I think, looking back at it. But the latter took a bit longer to materialise perhaps. And I get weepy every time I think about it ;D!

By the end of the book was a prayer for salvation. I said it. I believe it was the 5th of June '95. I asked Jesus into my life and told Him I wanted him to be a real part of it. I also promised him that I would be there at a certain time every day, just to spend time with him. Today's blog is part of that time! Gave my life to God and surrendered to the working of His Spirit. It's the best thing I have ever done in my life because today I can't imagine living without him. In fact, I don't think that's possible. I'm still completely in love with the God who's turned my life around!

Facades, Inadequacy and a kitchen table conversation

I'm in this place with people I completely sympathise with and am ready to love entirely. So are they. And I am part of another place where people try to be friendly. Some of them succeed, some don't. Homesickness is a funny thing. I am, after today, more homesick for Bangor than India at the moment, I do believe! But then I miss India. I am honoured to be a part of OU, but wondering if it just could be that all the offhandedness is only imagined. It is not snobbish - but it is not protective or helpfully forthcoming either. It is very hard to be away from home and on your own, and not have people coming forward to help or look after you. I am finally required to grow up. Just when I was afraid of growing old. But people are people. Everywhere.

And I do feel inadequate as I have absolutely no idea how to begin and no idea if I can ask how either. It doesn't feel like I can - or sound like it. It is a beautiful city as I remember it. My friends here are lovely - they are so warm and welcoming. Will I find friends who like me for me - or will I have to morph into this posh fashion-swinging brain-box.... I could try - I wouldn't succeed or at least not very well. Let's face it - I am inadequate. God isn't. And let's face it - I knew I was taking all this on before I came here. I miss the fatherly EW, the motherly PM, the hundred little family things of BCC, the completely open friendship and little-brother person's role GJ played and just the number of people I could call on if I didn't want to wallow in some emotional warp. Yes, I can call on people here but they wouldn't know what I need because they don't know me. These people at home here though know I need God's love and we give and take of it - and for that I am infinitely grateful.

I am here and I have no idea how to begin. But I will do it.

Added to what needs no addition is my mother wondering if I will find Prince Charming. I can't afford a Prince Charming and spending quality time with royalty at the moment ;D but even if he were to show up, I don't want one if God doesn't want that as His first option. And I am worried about how much our desires may be able to skew our vision for where we're going... Besides it's hard enough getting over imagined Princes Charming, he he... But seriously - hard enough getting over hurting Princes not-quite-charming or charming-but, and then ripping oneself apart now and then to see if you really really do have a 'but' in the picture and then ripping oneself apart because you had to rehash it for the nth time and not realise how happy you are and that there is no need to have felt guilty in the first place. I think conscientiousness can be a hard driver sometimes... And there's a difference between your conscience and conscientiousness if the Lord's in it.

Thank you because it is lovely to have this conversation with all of us - mum, Sunflower Girl, Grafx, Ta'fxkz (heh they rhyme!), Dinesh, Greeta, Switchblade... hmmmm dunno if anyone else would on the offchance read my blog but that seems to cover it - and you listening to it, Lord. Thanks for chipping in too.

Who let the dogs in? - Misty

Long ago - well, not so long if I didn't feel so old - we had a dog called Misty. She was hilarious. She also took it into her gorgeous Alsatian head that I was the younger member of the pack and that I could therefore be bullied.

Misty had a name for me - when she wanted me, it wasn't 'bow-wow'. It was, for some odd reason, 'Ya-woo'. Misty also pulled the warning stick out of my hand any time she wanted to. Misty jumped on me, pulled me and wouldn't let me go downstairs from the terrace when I wanted to. I mean, who was I kidding? Let it be known - she called the shots. I just called mummy. Misty never apologised - she just grinned. Elsa, my special sweetheart, scratched me in an enthusiastic frenzy just once in her life and then nuzzled me for a long time afterward in my lap with mournful eyes. Misty was always daddy's dog. But hey, we were siblings after a manner, and she was born with the right to bully me. No, she came after me but dogs come with this whole octal thing, huh.

Misty was also my protector from crows. We took an intense dislike to their violent and hostile antics from the days of our romps on the terrace. Shadow took the baton after her. Shadow, my Shadow, defender of the corvidophobic (yeah, I just looked it up), and all-round good dog. I will write about her. She deserves it.

But so does Misty - I cuddled Misty and once in a while she agreed to cuddle me. When she was much older, and just a teeny bit wiser, the girl would smile a more gentle smile instead of that war-cry-like grin she greeted me with. It was like we were playing Red Indians all the time (not that I've ever played it, and not that I don't know they're about the most peaceful people you could look up - so much for hashed metaphors).

Recently this memory came up again - when I was rehashing an old sin, fearing an old fascination, brooding over words whether two days ago or two decades/ and enjoying the feel of victimisation. Misty had another very curious habit.

We often tied her up with a leash instead of putting her in a kennel because it gave her much more room to move about. Rest assured we only ever did this when people visited. Er, Misty didn't mind tasting their ankles with of course the friendliest motives. What's a little nip between friends - she'd say. Her fashion sense was impeccable. Any uncool sunglasses, people walking about in night-clothes as if it were the fashion on the day, big straw hats in your yard - Misty was on it like a bullet. I mean, we've got to maintain some standards, puhleeeze.

So the friend who brandished his sunglasses in his hand got nabbed. As did any of us venturing out in those very fashionable hussif-y nighties, or me with a hat on ala my mum. Also as a pup, if anyone was leaving casually, they had it. Who did they think they were leaving without so much as a mention to the members of the family? - in Misty's opinion.

Well, yes I am coming to the curious habit... So with this propensity of Misty's to be law-maker, police, friend and terrorist in one, we would have to tie her up. There were times when, as a creature of habit, she would insist on it. Mealtimes. When Elsa was in. After a bath, maybe.

Misty was weirdly wary of her freedom though! When we let her out or untied her, she would just stay put. Much as if she had never been freed. I mean, we could stand outside with treats and cajoling but she would look at us quizzically from that entrance to her kennel with an eminently kissable face. We could have called all day but Misty would not have left for most of the morning, I suspect. No, she was used to being inside. Also she was suspicious in this one thing only. She never really believed the chain was off. Misty's special kink, this was!! Dumb dog! Bleh.

We had to put the end of that leash over the top of her door just where she could sniff it. Then she would sniff it and satisfy herself that it was gone. She never accepted it when the chain was just off her. I understand though - I mean she must have acclimatised herself in the space of those minutes to thinking she was a tied dog. Like me with my fears and guilt-trips! And you couldn't know for sure, you couldn't just believe that it was off without definite proof. So she would wait patiently - she must have concluded we were so stupid - and she would stay inside that kennel until that chain was under her nose, reminding her that it was the same one she'd been tied with.

All she needed to do really was step out of the kennel, just a little further than the leash would let her. But she had to see to believe. Dumb dog!

But it was finished.

Word

You search in so many places for the real me because you cannot bear the silence of waiting. It is the sort of silence one dreads. The silence in which you can hear yourself. But it is in the silence of waiting that I am found. In the truth about yourself, I come. Where I have always been, but you have chosen not to see. Vulnerability is the cost you must count.

Altars on the journey

Recently I have had what we shall call 'misty moments' rather more often. I suppose in seeking God, brokenness must come. It hurts. I've heard people say love hurts - that's probably why we don't spend enough time on our relationships. Well, I don't. I tend to think the more I love someone, the more secure that relationship is aaaand (here's the real cringer) therefore the less work and time it needs... And Jesus warned about losing the ardour of my first love. It brought a song out of me, once. In the words of Cliff Richard (lol, okay, okay I know, don't hit me ;O) - He knows me better than I know myself, eh? Because, you see, I have this idea that I've got it all together... and when the going's good, I somehow get it into my thick skull that I've got less cleaning up than some... Ooooh boy, I know I'm wrong when I think about it. But complacency happens - far too often.

By the way, on a lighter note, maybe I'm just wired that way!! My mum would probably agree - I leave a couple of clothes on the bed telling myself it's only a couple. I will use it soon enough. Makes sense, doesn't it? Why shove it into my already ready-to-deliver-at-a-nudge wardrobe? Well, there's a couple more tomorrow because something happens and I can't wear just what I thought I'd wear... so the clothes wait, until I need to sleep on the floor and not just out of choice! Sigh! Sometimes I'm so all-girl-stereotype, I could laugh. I mean why can't I wear what I thought I decided to wear? Beats me.

Anyway, that's about what happens to my life often. Thankfully because I am being taught to listen - I am able to see the clutter more clearly. Not because I'm particularly perceptive (sob!) but because... well, what Cliff Richard said. Lol, Jesus knows me best. And I'll admit, I panic sooner and much more when I hear the distance than when I see a messy bed... The trouble is learning to listen takes a lifetime. But God is good and He speaks.

In seeking and listening, as I said, a lot comes out in the raw... And I am so grateful for it. It shakes me out of inertia. And when I feel as if I am reaching out for God, and I know He is holding me so close and holding out to me what He wants for me just before my eyes... and yet, I grope because I am crying... Well, those times it pays to remember the altars on the journey. That's what this blog is about - to say how thankful I am for the times God has led me to write. Because when I want to speak, but can only sob (in a quite-unromantic-big-snivelly way!) or when I want to pray and words will not suffice - and I am waiting on the tongues - when I am overwhelmed - then God, like today, shows me the altars we have built along the way. To comfort and rest and refresh and maybe even give me a cuddle :O!! God holds you when you're breaking, you know... So nothing falls away. So He takes me along and says Okay, it's time to remember. Not relive, not glory in the past, nor bark at a memory just remember what happened that made me write that something, or made me feel that way or what I had heard or seen or learned or received. Yes, I am glad for the altars. Because they trace out a cross.

?

Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.

What, then, do I do? As I seek the answer, I am learning and unlearning. But I need an answer! But as I seek answers, I come out with peace - no answers yet, but Jesus. Strange working indeed.

My world this week ;)

At this point in time, I am really finding waiting on your will hard for me. It's as if you don't hear, and yet when you speak I know you have. And you do speak. Even now.

I'd love my blogging friends who share the faith to pray for me :)

I have had a fantastic week. There has been so much fun and being together with friends and family. And yet both my mum and I feel that just the one thing has gone quite wrong, which is bad because satan's trying to take away the best.

I have this habit of saying to myself and others - life has a way of working itself out. As if life were a self-willed knot, that tied and untied itself. It would take years and years of wearing away and aging for the threads to loosen themselves. Life needs God to work it out.

The three or four full days also mean that I haven't had much time to myself. By the time I get to bed, I am so washed out, I can only pray and read a bit and go to sleep. But I've so wanted to talk to God for a long time and cry. I don't know, LOL, maybe this is just a girl thing. But I am not UNhappy. I have been sad at moments, and I do want to cry but still it's not as if someone's taken my sunshine away!!

Thank you, Lord, that I can blog because this feels so much better again. Lol, yeah, the blog wasn't working for a couple of days either! But even a blog, impersonal and open as it is, is not sufficient. I need God, more of Him I mean. It's funny - beyond a point, impersonal just doesn't cut it for me. God does.

And it would be good to hug my mum again.

It has not all been fun, it has been hard work. And I found out that I was working with two homosexuals. I cannot get over how wrong it is. I pray they would know Jesus. But even a few years ago, you would be laughed at for accepting homosexuality. Now you are laughed at if you don't. As people, I would give the same care to them as to any other person. They are precious to God and he would save us all. But it is sin in the eyes of God. There are several arguments against it. But I am not going into them. Someone who was a friend once said - it's making a mountain out of a molehill. The Bible says it is sin. Then it is sin. And if that makes me a 'bigot', so be it - I agree.

On a different note, I graduate in less than a week. I am rather excited! God has been good - well, what else would he be anyway eh? Lol. It is also perfectly fantastic to be back here and meet everyone and be back in the church here. It's a heart-tripping-quiet-smiling feeling. Well, sometimes it's more like a grin.

Maybe God's plans for me are entirely entirely different to what I think. Nothing he has promised will go unfulfilled. But I have a lot of questions, and no answers, only Jesus. And you know what? That makes me blessed. :D

This is not a sad post

It is as if I search for you, but I have lost the way to you. I know I haven't - the way to you is you.

As though I were speaking and speaking of nothing, until I forgot how to listen.

It is as if I am lost because you are lost. And my way to anyone is lost - or I fear that it will be in the brain-warp that I have stupidly created.

I know this moment is of my making and I know these feelings are only premonitions which will be real if I don't let myself be nothing, give completely and wait.

This is emptiness that only you can fill. The deer to water - that's been done. This, this is just me to you. Speak. I'm listening.

I am like any average person. I think relationships don't need work, I think decisions of commitment come heralded - violin concertos and sunbursts. I keep thinking until I remember or stop thinking to listen. You're good at this - you teach me. I just pray I will learn when it happens with others, when we're both learning, and you still teach. That you will not teach to the unteachable, not for too many moments.

The song I've been listening to over and over again for the past couple of days!

I know my Redeemer Lives

- Nicole C Mullen



Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning
Who told the ocean you can only come this far?
Who showed the moon where to hide 'til evening
Whose words alone can catch a falling star?

Well I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
All of creation testify
This life within me cries
I know my Redeemer lives

The very same God that spins things in orbit
He runs to the weary, the worn and the weak
And the same gentle hands that hold me when I'm broken
They conquered death to bring me victory

Now I know my Redeemer lives
... He lives

To take away my shame
And He lives forever I'll proclaim
That the payment for my sin
Was the precious life He gave
But now He's alive
And there's an empty grave.

Bubble and squeak

Here I sit in my little Christian bubble, using 'faith-speak' and hoping to speak to the uninitiated. I don't want to 'convert' people, I am not trying. Yet I am inadequate in expressing the vastness of a love that is beyond telling. A love that flows into you and makes you love other people. A love that is so strong that it changes the definition of 'unrequited', and always nullifies it.

When I blog of these feelings, are they too intensely private to share with everyone? I am not talking of this post at all. If they are, am I being exclusivist? I don't mind making this URL my little confession box of sins and non-sins. But I do mind making my visiting preachers feel left out in the cold.

Here I sit in my little Christian bubble, with the colours that make me happy, rolling around inured to the air around me. Maybe there is bubble-time and broken-time. I suspect God prefers broken. I break it, and I am me. As much me as I was inside the bubble. But bubble-squeak and bubble-gloss are gone. And the people happen.

Barking at a memory

Tassi, our 'middle' dog, is a feisty little dachshund. She is like one of those people who never run out of interesting things to say - interesting, at least to themselves (I wonder where she gets it from, not me for sure ;D)... So she's always talking, not just barking, but in a continued non-bark syntactic sounding sort of way. And she will never stop barking at people or animals outside our gates. Usually she calms down a while after they're inside the house - except for some people.

But I will write about Tassi in length, another day. There's a little story I want to tell. There is a family with three little boys near here. Whenever they visited, Tassi's whole day was ruined. Her world would crumble into dry, sour lemon flakes before her very beautiful eyes. She could get used to most people, but not the three boys. It must have been a season of peace for her when the sight of those three boys became a rarity. We loved them - they stayed here for hours, eating, hearing my mother's and my stories, playing with Shadow, chilling with my father, even sleeping on the odd occasion... perhaps to Tassi they were competition. Their presence was a bitter pill. To her, they had no right of entry. She felt victimised. I think we were good with her on that score - we made sure we petted her and played with her. I usually talked gibberish to her afterward so she'd understand my tone. I was basically asking her why she had to feel let down. It is inexplicable and extremely funny too - no one else had such an effect on her, and the three boys did not have that effect on any of the other dogs. They were just children, when she was a pup herself. They were therefore the enemy, a threat to her favoured position. She resented it, she was hurt, she was angry and she was not going to forget!

A few days ago, the oldest boy came over. I guess Tassi never did get over them. She had a lot to say. She stood at the gate and tortured herself by watching her hated enemy constantly; she denounced him, abused him, rebuked him. Maybe he wasn't the enemy at all. Funny. Because when S left, Tassi was allowed inside the house, to make up for her bad morning. She came in, the wrinkles on her worried little forehead and snout clearing cautiously. And then her eye fell on the armchair and she rushed to it in fury, her hair bristling along her spine! It was laughable - she was so cute and funny, but so nonsensical! It was the chair S had been sitting in. And she barked at that chair for all she was worth. Make amends she said - I was angry, redeem that time!! Perceptive little girl, she knew she would get a cuddle if we saw her hurt. Funny little sweetheart, barking at the old chair! LOL

I am like Tassi sometimes, barking at memories, old hurts, pain I carefully preserve to give myself a feeling of righteous victimisation. But I know my Redeemer lives.

Ancient paths

I just read a post by 'Lord Veritas' called Heaven Without Christ and it hit home. Reminded me of something I have always held a dear cause... Why preach if you don't preach Christ? Surely philosophy and theory and opinion have their place - but I'm guessing people already know or have their own opinions about it. I am probably going to go off on a completely wide tangent here - but hey, hence this blog's convenient title ;) This is perhaps not a take on Lord Veritas' but just the expression of something it triggered in me - which is what good writing does.

I have a friend (whom I always seemed to be arguing with, until God decided I needed to hold my ahem peace!) - and he believes that God has called him to provide for the intellectuals. And that they can only be reached through expositions of philosophy. My issue with this friend is not that he is right in not including me in the band of intellectuals ;) but that he often makes assumptions of situations, that I (perhaps arrogantly) claim to know better of simply because I am in them. Sometimes even assumptions about being female, or being in my family - in good spirit, he explains what he believes is Truth. LOL Yes, he capitalises the T ;). But that is my point - I would only capitalise it if in reference to Jesus. Some things are absolutes - I live in a country that reminds me of that everyday. The Bible is. But there are interpretations and opinions that are militant against another's - they are not salvation-stealing or power-pilfering, but they are discounted nonetheless. I suppose I have been guilty of having rejected another's view summarily, without listening for God's take first... But in our urgency to give our truth to the people we meet, we forget to give God's truth; forget that at the foot of the cross the same God changes and speaks; forget that the Spirit's discernment is far more understanding than our own. And we are also guilty of universalising personal revelations - no, we do not just share them. We 'absolutise' them. To me, the Bible remains the bottom-line on drawing lines... as does the God of the Bible. No, I am not speaking for those arguments that allow and liberalise everything the Bible says - face-value is not dispensable in our search for depth, is it?

I am, in fact, arguing for the ancient path. I am no post-modern, although there are remnants of truth in nearly every philosophy. I don't entirely hold with co-authorship... I long and hope that the Author will speak sooner than the readers of the Text. But that capitalised Truth? Lol, I believe we will find it here. Here in India, I belong to a church that because of its structure has someone at the top giving it its sermons. And because of its structure, there are several visiting pastors and theologians who preach. Theologians who preach philosophy... forgive me for the pun on those two words, but the wisdom of man is foolishness to God, and vice versa...

Many times you will find me ranting on the opposite side of the track (I have said I was a BoC) - that face-value foolishly forsakes the Spirit for the letter, but not when the Person is lost for the principles. The reason Christianity is different is because it is personal. In my responses to my Muslim students who chose to take the offensive on quite a few occasions, the one point at which they balked is when I told them fuss-free that I knew this fantastic, wonderful, entirely lovable and so-let-down-able Jesus - and that He loved me even more. And the gospel of Christ and the cross, God's love and sacrifice cannot be compromised. God's love not ours... I think that our relationship with Jesus is the centrifugal force that gives our Christianity its validity. Call me old-fashioned. I probably am. But the Bible is never out of fashion. And the Bible has copyright on love, not you or me. When I think of 'old-fashioned-ness', it's not about ideals and values - fashions are much more about the self.

Yet in my worship and in my meditation - if life and truth are not real, then I have lost my way.