Psalm 117

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Kath

This Psalm is a small one isn’t it? One of those ones you can actually memorise, the small child to the big daddy of Psalm 119 ever looming on the horizon as I wonder how to summerise that into a pithy blog post. This one is tiny and it’s simple. There is no messing around. No long list of complaints to the Lord, no pouring out of fear, grief or pain. There’s not much story here, not much we learn about the Psalmist, no talk of running from enemies or details as to how God has been at work. Just 2 verses so small I’m going to quote them here:

“Praise the Lord all you nations, Extol him all you peoples. For great is his love towards us and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord”.

That’s it. And that is enough. Whatever we are faced with in this life. Whatever rubbish happens. Whatever we think we can’t deal with one more time. Whatever joys come our way. Whatever amazing things happen to us. Whatever the months and years ahead are full of. This is the bedrock of our lives. If we belong to God, this is the reality of our lives.

I don’t meant to say that life is this simple, that this is a sticking plaster that we all have to go around repeating 5 times a day and everything will be ok, that this is one of those truths that doesn’t seem to fit over the gapping hole of our doubt, fears and unbelief. Nope. This is really the bedrock of it all. This is the Truth that wraps around us in the dark, this is the Truth that holds us on nights where we can’t cry anymore. This is the Truth that enables us to dance on mountains and sing deeply and with real joy. This is the Truth that keeps us walking home when every other trace of Him who holds the universe together has gone. This is the Truth about the One who really is in this world.

What is this truth?

His love is great, towards us and His faithfulness endures forever. 

His love is great towards us. That doesn’t mean we have an easy life, that doesn’t mean crap doesn’t happen but it does mean that in all of the crazy stuff we face, we are loved. Whether everyone else abandons us, whether we have all the friends in the world, we are loved by the One who could choose to blow us over with a single breath. We are loved through the storms, through the easy waters, through the highs and lows of this world. We are loved.  I don’t know about you but that makes me want to cry with relief. I spend so much time trying to prove my worth, earn love from those around me and worrying if I do something awkward or weird in front of people in case they run away. But I am loved. Great is His love towards Me. Towards You. You are loved. That’s the only truth I’ve ever known that has really set me free to love others. I can beat myself up for being selfish, I can worry about my narcissistic outlook but then He creeps in the back door and bundles me up in his arms and tells me that he loves me, tells me that he came, tells me that He died so this could be possible, tells me that I am forgiven because of a Cup, a Cross, a Tomb and an empty grave one sunny morning. Then I want to run and dance freely and bring others to His love. Then I want to dare to whisper his name, then I want Jesus to really be known around this messed up world.

His love is great towards us and His faithfulness endures forever. We struggle to know we are loved, we struggle to keep remembering that the cross works for all our sin and shame. We struggle to believe and we struggle to keep fighting to be dependant rather than running out in the rain and thinking we can do this life better ourselves. We are deeply rebellious and we daily act as if there is no God. Yet His faithfulness endures forever. He remains faithful to us. When we are faithless and our love grows as cold as the morning frost he remains faithful. He sticks with us, he will not be moved, he does not grow weary of loving us. He does not grow tired of forgiving us. His faithfulness endures forever.  When everything else has gone He will not let go. Faithfulness is what we need in the face of the amount of times we forget who He is and the amount of times we get it wrong. If his faithfulness did not endure forever I would not be sitting in this cafe typing these words. He doesn’t give up on his people, he will not give up on me or on you.

Want to praise the Lord yet?

That’s the point of this Psalm after all. Here we have the bedrock of our lives. Here we have the two great truths that will hold us to this road home. Go on. Join me in some thanks. Join me in knowing that these truths aren’t plasters over the mess of our lives but deep reality that holds us in the mess of our lives, they are deeper than our mess, they remain even as we fall apart. God’s love is great towards us and his faithfulness endures forever. Praise the Lord O my soul, O my friends, Praise the Lord.

 

Posted in Life on the journey, Songs along the way | 1 Comment

Look deep into the darkness…

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Kath

I know I’m not the most positive person in the world.  I’ve been worrying about this more than is strictly necessary recently. I’ve been listening to myself as I talk, worrying that all my reflections on my day are full of despair and frustration rather than the joys of life.  I then think I have to hide away my despair and frustration, that I have to put a positive spin on my day, that I have to cheerily count my blessings whilst hiding away any pain of this weird world in a box deep inside me.  I know I need help to remember that when things are bleak, hope is a reality but there is a better way to do that than putting a smiley face on and forgetting about the hard stuff. (ah the joys of an all or nothing outlook on life).

Real hope isn’t found in suddenly developing a positive personality. Real hope isn’t found in thinking 3 positive thoughts a day. Real hope doesn’t call us to ignore the problems and pretend it’s all fine when we are faced with a new situation that is tough and hasn’t solved the problems of the old situation. Real hope is a strange beast. Real hope calls us not to ignore the pain we feel or the struggles of this world. Real hope calls us to look at the darkness deeper. It calls us to feel the pains of this world, to feel that there could be no light again. To know that there is no perfect situation, nothing that is not vulnerable to being ripped up in front of our faces and to know that there is a reality even deeper than that darkness and pain.

Cynicism forces us to stop staring into the deep darkness, cynicism forces us to despair before we have truly felt the pain. Cynicism self protects and cynicism dulls our hearts. Hope leads us to gaze and gaze at the dark and then brings us through the dark to the One who knows this darkness and who has taken on the darkness. Hope leads us to the one who cannot be crushed by the darkness. Whose light carries on shining stubbornly and strongly. When all around has fallen and is stripped away there is still the reality of the Father, Son and Spirit carrying on their redemptive crazy dance in this stinking messed up world.

I struggle with depression, I struggle with thoughts that want to destroy me in a pit of despair. I struggle to see that situations could change, I struggle when they do and the same problems cling to me. I feel embarrassed that I still struggle even when jobs have changed and circumstances have changed. I wish I was different. I worry that people look at my life and hear my thoughts and write me off as a ‘negative’ person, someone who just doesn’t know when to be happy with life. I struggle with me. I will probably always struggle in some ways with these things but trying to hide away from these thoughts isn’t going to help. Heading to the world beyond these thoughts just might. There is deeper truth than these despairing thoughts.

Deep down at the bottom of the mire of my darkest despair is a love that will not let go. This is no sticking plaster answer. This is reality that we must fight to find. Deep down through the shattered shards of the hopes and dreams of our lives is a hand that holds us in the fear and pain and enables us to stand on mountain heights again. Only by facing the dark, ploughing through dark can we find the one who has conquered the dark. Only by gazing through the dark can we find the one who leads us from our self absorption to the freeing joy of love.

The weird truth is that positive people are sinners too. Those of us from the negative side of the fence of personalities in this life need to deeply believe that God isn’t about transforming us from being a negative person to being a positive person.  He is all about transforming us all from being a self absorbed person to a person of love.

Posted in Life on the journey | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Books of the week

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Kath

This week I’ve read two books lent to me by the excellent Mandy Taylor. They couldn’t be more different. One was the trashiest novel I’ve read for a long time, each character was introduced by the clothes they were wearing and sweeping statements were made about their prospects in life based on their level of attractiveness. It was a book that made me grateful that there are a whole host of people who don’t judge on appearances and who have depth in this world.

The second book couldn’t be more different. It was a series of essays, reflections and poems based around the Yaak Valley in America (nope, I’d never heard of it either). It was written as part of a movement to save the last few roadless areas in the valley. It was a beautiful book that reminded me that silence, stillness and being around nature are vital things for the soul. It reminded me that life is more than the hours I spend in front of this screen staring at the comings and goings of other people. Strange as it may seem, life can be lived to fullness in a cabin in the middle of no-where.

I ache to go and see mountains and valleys on truly epic scales one day.  My soul thirsts for vastness and for the perspective that only looking at something so much bigger and other than me can bring.

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60 years of My Mum.

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Kath

Well the time has come for another one of those I love my family posts.  If you’ve been hanging around this blog at all you’ll be familiar with them.  One was the start of my brother’s road to marriage and a family of his own, you’ve heard the stories of my Dad’s (MBE) struggles to get his tunnel built enabling you to drive through the Hindhead tunnel thinking of it as Kath’s Dad’s tunnel. Well now it’s the turn of my excellent Mum. Today marks 60 years of Marjorie Arnold.  She’s brilliant and here are some reasons why.

She still loves Jesus. I think that’s a pretty good state to get through after 60 years of what this life can throw at a person. She still loves Jesus and is fresh and alive in the battle to believe he loves her too.

She won’t be beaten by her stammer. Stammering is one of those issues that needed Colin Firth to wake everyone up to the fact that it’s not comedy gold, it’s incredibly frustrating, at times humiliating as people make crass comments as you try and get a word out. It can be tempting to sit in a room and never speak again. Mum hasn’t done that. She keeps wanting to deal with it and keeps on getting back up off the mat when it floors her again and again. I’m humbled by such perseverance. I know she’d dearly love this thorn to be taken away. One beautiful day it will be.

She thinks that most of my problems can be resolved by a bath or going to bed

She’s probably right.

She likes to talk about birds when I’m weeping down the phone to her. Admittedly I haven’t done this for a while but when I do it’s her way of saying ‘I love you and I can’t solve your problems so hey, look, a robin has just flown into the window.

For someone who is so outwardly calm she can belt it out at someone when pushed. One of my favourite memories of such a time when growing up is her shouting, ‘this is ludicrous’ at a train guard. I can’t remember why it was ludicrous but it was entertaining to see Mum lose it in such a way.

I’m a lot like her. I used to fight against this but now I’m pretty proud to be like her. It’s a great help to have someone who really gets the weirdness of my head at times.

She didn’t give up when I was being a mental teenager, her unconditional love over the years is a thing of beauty. (I’m sure it didn’t feel like a thing of beauty as I ranted and raged over the house but it looks like it from this view point)

She always told me one of the reasons she married my Dad was because she knew he’d be a great Dad. I really like that. He is.

Everyone around her thinks she’s some kind of superwoman, I’m glad I know the real Marjorie underneath the composed efficient exterior 🙂

She’s brilliant at hugging.

I still like holding her hand when we go shopping.

She’s my friend. One of my best ones.

Happy Birthday Mum, I love you.

Posted in From the basement | 1 Comment

Sunny Day. New routine.

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Kath

Today is experiment day, I’ve been in a new routine for the last month as I adjust to working three days in a row and having 4 days away from the office. Working Monday, Wednesday and Friday helped the week feel like a week, working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday helps me focus on my job more but also leaves me feeling like the weekend has begun on Wednesday night. I’m not all that convinced of the living for the weekend culture we’ve created but I’m also aware I buy into it with all my heart most of the time.

I don’t want to think of the weekend starting on a Wednesday evening, it makes me a lazy ass when it comes to Thursday and Fridays. These are days I’m crazily aware of the privilege of. I’m in that position where I can spend two days a week doing the things I love (I know, I know, some of you do that in your actual jobs but you are even more privileged and I’ll try and not to covet your life.).  These days are set apart for writing, involvement in my church, being a little bit useful around our flat and generally for encouragement of people (come visit if you want some Thursday or Friday love). Mainly they are set apart for writing. I have to tell myself this because I want to fill them with lovely friends and watching Spooks on Netflix. Nothing all that wrong with that but there is more I want to do in this space. That something more requires a level of intentionality.

As January comes to it’s welcome end, as my job seems slightly more manageable, as I feel less like I want to hide under a table and wibble, as the sun comes out I have managed to dig some intentionality up from wherever it was hiding. And so I find myself in our favourite local independent cafe in Brighton. Moksha provides a fairly chilled environment conducive to writing, good coffee, amazing cakes and generally warm feelings of joy.  I’ve long said, I’ll go to a cafe and write, knowing the distractions of life at home, but I’ve never quite managed it. Well. Here I am, with a massive latte on the go. Lets see what happens.

Posted in Life on the journey | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment