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

Family - and er etc

I've been reading some of my rants on romance or the lack thereof... and giggling some more! It seems like most of my blogs on the subject have been when I need to complain about it. Rather sad, that. I have met guys who are interesting to talk to, love God and actually care about what you think. I have friends who are fun to be with and easy to make conversation with and who are passionate about the right things. I'm not a 'misandrist (?)'. But unfortunately, my blogging on the romantic front in this country seems to be tempered by my reactions to the Indian-single-abroad-must-marry syndrome or by the it's-natural-to-be-jealous syndrome... Now the first shows symptoms such as:

Hey, you're Indian and you're beautiful. Can I have your number? OR I love you. OR God gave me a revelation last night... [to the uninitiated, this can happen two days into having been introduced, if you happen to be a single woman and Indian ethnically and living in, as it happens, the UK].

The second has only ever happened once but apparently in certain unnamed (non-Indian) parts of the world, it is the general way of life!

It was my parents' wedding anniversary yesterday. I have truly seen love that grows more with time... PErhaps my perception has also grown and changed. They're extremely different but have been so committed to making a family that they have stayed together and learned to love and grow and I will always be grateful for that! It's given me a pretty clear idea of what I want if I do get married as well. You get married, you stay married... and learn together. You put God first. You make the gestures - it's rather pathetic if only one of the two does, and the other doesn't show that he or she cares at all! It's even more pathetic when neither do. I have learned from what I've seen and what I haven't seen. If I ever do find the man God has for me, I want us to share a vision... not bargain about it along the way. If God says something, we both need to learn to obey - implicitly. I could go on and on.

But mainly, I want to thank my amazing parents for our family.

Traditions

My rough patches with God seem to be coming in droves because mainly I ignore them and assume they're done and dusted. Or they ARE done and dusted but I am eternally inventive problem-wise... I feel bad not talking about it and talking about lighter stuff... a bit like True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet... I'm obviously making my usual messes but happily going to the fair. But I can and shall go to the fair because an AA meeting is bloody boring when that's the diet ALL the time.

I've often been asked what Indian Christmases are... You know what? These are odd questions. It's a home Christmas, okay. The best kind ever ;D But I'm gonna try and paint a picture of what I'm missing (colossally) this year...

There are carols around a bonfire that the kids get excited about even though it's hardly cold. We have loads of biriyani - we visit each other without invites. We are disconcerted when people don't invite themselves... however silly and annoying a cousin can get, family's still family. We listen to Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole and yes, dangit, BoneyM. We LOVE BoneyM this time of year... we still even sell them. However much freakish blondes in somehow voluptuous Santa hats scream out of magazine and CD covers, we will have 'Zion's Daughter' crooned over us. It has never mattered to us whether we weren't Christian professedly... We still prefer Jesus in a manger in a wisp of a girl's arms to Mariah Carey lilting for you for Christmas! Not to say it's not a lovely song - but we're mainly homebodies and maybe we quite like tradition.

Christmas to me conjures up memories of my mum shining with make-believe stories and my dad grunting amused agreement to Santa's sleighbells... Of one memory of a distant bell and a telephone call and a completely empty street that clings to my mind like suction pads on the end of tentacles! When my dad picked up a phone but no one answered, of how it came a minute after I heard those random bells (either because they were ringing or my mum fabricated them into my easy imagination) -- and what stays with me is the fact that I (still) can't forget its excitement :) Christmas conjures up memories of whispering 'Merry Christmas' across the pew to the family - while the Bishop preached. Of hearing my father so-nearly honk his horn at 11 pm in our colony because I am STILL in the bathroom looking at my face or dress or whatever needs the most attention! Of cutting into rich plumcake at 2 am. Of debating whether we open our presents now or at breakfast. And we always have this debate, instead of having decided one way or another over twenty years... I used to wonder why the heck we didn't work ourselves out a tradition and stick with it. Lol - I guess the argument IS tradition!

Some traditions have taken a beating, some stuck around. Some ideas, my father says, should be passed on to me now. Me - I don't like change. If they didn't want to do it, why'd they do it just for me? I ask. And why should I do it when appa's done it every year.... ooohh no, now that is change. So some years we don't put the seed in soon enough for the grain to sprout in front of our little crib. And some years we don't decorate all the windows in time for Christmas eve... And we have our tugs-of-war... And we have family. And family goes like this:
Every year, my dad says: "Finally, Pilgrim can put that tree up now she's all grown up!"
Every year, I say: "But no! We're supposed to do it together!"
And every year, my mum says: "Hey, don't look at me!" or more literally, "Naana? Iye! :P"
And every year, that tree goes up!

In my Christmas prayer, every year of course, I remember to be glad because Christmas CAN be special to our family... because in all the tradition, its joy of birth and beginnings has meaning in our personal lives!

Luuurrrve

God is simply sooooo ace! I break his stuff and his heart and get to climb back on his lap by the end of the day. I'm challenged by the forgiveness I need to show in return.

In reference to my last post - I am back. ~Unfortunately I have this habit of measuring my distance to God - stupid, because He is infinitely holy.

Been listening to 'Mi primer amor' by MArcos Witt. And it's made me think - I'm glad no one ever really had a chance at that in my life. Ten was pretty young to fall head over heels in love and I am glad it was with the right person! Not that that made life hunky-dory afterwards... I make my fair share of messes. And my testimony does not end with the day I was saved - it probably only begins there. Salvation is the end of the beginning, I s'pose.

Picking up the pieces

Broke God's heart today. Not for the first time. Did something I've done once before in my life - just one afternoon of reading romantic fiction... And my bloodthirst for a story led me on to the end but unfortunately one of the links wasn't particularly romantic. So I read completely God-dishonouring stories today. I need to check into the local library to save my fiction-hunger. I knew it was wrong, I guess. There is the Song of Solomon but that should be enough! I am not proud of today - wasted my time and read crap. The two are intertwined. I would be all for reading good fiction any day.

It's funny. As soon as I knew that I'd left God's presence and it shook me up, instead of letting my heart be broken and facing what's worse - that I'd hurt him - I took to bartering. I was thinking dismally that without God's intimate presence, my poetry wasn't going to work. That there may be far-reaching consequences. And my first thought: God, take it; take the poetry... just don't take yourself away. In itself it wasn't a bad thing, I suppose. But sometimes you want to give something up so by beating yourself up, you save on the real pain. The real pain is that you hurt God. Kneeling on cold stone floors or paying absolution money doesn't cut it anymore... you know? He wrote the whole payment chapter. And signed it.

I want to be back, again. I don't want to wait for a far-reaching consequence. I'd rather have the consequences and get back in his presence quicker. But the two don't go together, I'm learning. And as much as that scares me, it also reassures me.

You break his heart, and still only he can pick up the pieces of yours!

Today, I had the best meeting ever with my supervisors... With both of them in the room, EP is very quiet and DC is ... well, abrasive, sometimes. For the first time, DC said 'you can' without any qualifiers and without the noticeable lack of a smile...

And it came after I decided it didn't matter. Doing well is a good thing - right? God wants it for you? But what if it grows to block the way? I said to God that I didn't want my concepts of glory and 'success' standing in the way, and while I wanted this DPhil, I was surrendering everything to His glory, without any disclaimers. And I really gave up my idea of doing well, not in a way that lacked faith but in a way that wanted to hold nothing back.

It wasn't a go-away-and-have-nothing-to-do meeting. There's a lot to do and work up to within a short time.

But I am humbled and happy.

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