The Long Walk Home

There isn’t a more appropriate phrase in my head to sum up the end of this blog. For the time has come for Hoveactually to be packed up in a box and put on the top shelf of my wardrobe (along with other boxes of memories, letters and the like). It’s been fun but there is a new ship to be sailed and I’m getting ready for that.  I no longer live in Hove for a start and it’s about time I acknowledged that. This blog feels very specific to a time and era, a UCCF Hoveactually kind of an era, and it’s time to be off to pastures new. Time to acknowledge the change.

So much has happened in the last year that it feels odd to carry on with this blog. It seems to mark a very definite period of my life that is coming to an end. I am embarking on a different path and want to reflect that. Life looks very different and whilst I remain Kath the context of being Kath has shifted a little. I’m getting married in 3 months time (exactly to the day) and that has rocked my world (in both senses of that phrase). I’m still working out what that means in my head and I guess switching blogs is a minor part of that process.

I’m still going to write, still going to blog, in a once a week way, over at thepensive. I love writing and having a space somewhere to express thoughts, ideas and pretty things I like. That’s not going to change. The context has. But dear reader, the one that is left after the neglect this blog has suffered over the last 6 months, I invite you to join me in this new context. Come along for the ride.

So there you go. It’s been a blast. See you around.

Welcome, have a seat.

To explain or not to explain?

Look around the room for a moment, breathe, maybe put the kettle on.

OK. There is little room for explanation.  A few lifetimes ago, or possibly just last week I wrote a blog. It was good while it lasted but times have changed. I no longer live in Hove for a start, and that’s a pretty good reason for ones blog not to be called “hoveactually”.  There are few people who read my blog anymore, and many of the people I enjoyed blogging around don’t do this thing anymore, the age of the old blog is pretty much dead. It was fun while it lasted, we had a blast back in the day (oo about 3 years ago) but times have moved on.

So why? A good enough question, another good question being: “what the heck are you doing here when there are other things to be doing, sunshine to be enjoyed, a wedding to plan, people to love and food to be eaten?”…

Well, fundamentally I like thinking and I like writing. When I wibble on my computer with no-one to see I become lazy and can’t be bothered to even think about writing properly, if I think one person might stumble across this page late at night and actually want to understand a little of the content I try harder.

I aim to write one thing a week. Be it about cake, tea, life, a list, hope, work, what to do in your lunch hour when there is no-one else in the office or some such other thing. To help me write. To give me a discipline. To help me have fun. To help me reflect the wonder of living in this world. To help me unwind. A myriad of reasons. Yes it’s pretty much about me.  But in the it being all about me you might almost find out that it’s actually about Someone Else as all of me reflects a tiny fraction of the One who made me.  You are welcome to sit with me, comment on, agree or disagree with anything here.  You’ll find I love tea, beauty, Jesus, people, deep chats, fire places, wine, pretty notebooks, big fat waves, mountains, music and a myriad of other things.

It’s time for something new. Everything has changed and yet, you’ll probably find that many things have really stayed pretty much the same.

One of my many and varied problems with life is the constant desire of my brain to live for the next thing. You know the senario, to get through the day you think of the great thing that will happen in the evening, to get through the week you ponder the weekend, to get through the weekend you think about the next weekend and so on. The problem is I fail to live right now. Right here.

Why is that a problem is a fair question. There is nothing wrong with looking forward to the weekend, nothing wrong with planning for the future, nothing wrong with anticipation. The problem comes when that is ALL I do, when all I think about and focus on is stuff that is not happening right in front of me. I fail to be present in the moment right here and now. That’s a massive problem because it drags me away from experiencing God, from loving people, from being focused on what I am doing, from a whole host of relating to people moments.

I wish my work day away and fail to love and honour my work colleauges. I wish church meetings away and fail to love the people in my family, I dream of fantasy futures and yet fail to love the person in front of me today. I escape this life right and now because it is too hard. I also miss out on the joys and wonder of this present moment – I feel guilty about all the people ‘out there’ I am failing to love but miss out on the person God has put in front of me today to love and serve. I worry about the millions of injustices in the world (well I do sometimes) and fail to act and treat the colleague in the next desk over from me with love and justice.

We’re called to live right here, right now. To know that the One who rules creation, who made us and chose us before the creation of the world has the future in His hands. And the only way I can experience His work is to be in this present moment, not wishing it away but asking for the Spirit to guide, to enable me to love and take note of the people in front of me. I am SO bad at this. A fact I am realising every day. I constantly plan for  future events, constantly work out my weeks so each moment is planned carefully for maximum enjoyment and comfort. By doing this I think I may be missing out on stuff God wants me to do that I am not in control of.

What happens now? What is the way forward? My ultimate future is secure. There are several possible futures of my life until then, some more likely than others. I know none of these for certain. What I do know is tomorrow I will get up, I will go to work and I will face the challenge of working hard, loving my colleagues, being there with them, or whiling the hours away until I cycle home, until the weekend and my birthday fun. It’s a flipping battle to do this, to stay in the present, but it’s one worth fighting, because I might just catch a glimpse of what God wants me to be doing tomorrow. I might just catch a glimpse of His love, power and glory because he dwells in This Moment. Future in His hands, Past dealt with. He is here. The one who was and IS and is to come. We live in the ‘IS’ and I long, I long to experience that now and tomorrow as I wake and know that He is still with me.

I also have a sneaking suspicison that the elusive Shalom that we all crave in our lives might come from this way of living, less running around trying to prove my worth in all the many things I am doing and more loving the people in my life today. Hmm.

5 Things I love about summer.

1. The sound of wood pigeons in the distance. Don’t know why, but the soft cooing sound makes me feel safe and happy.

2. Never wearing socks or shoes.

3. The ridiculously pretty golden, pink and red and green and blue skies when the sun sets.

4. The relief of cool breezes, cool drinks and cold showers after lots of bike riding home.

5. After getting home from work the feeling of there being another day to live and enjoy because the sun is still out.

Every now and again my brain double de clutches (no idea what that even means but it sounds bad…) and rejects a word or phrase that Christians like to say a lot. When I say reject, I mean groan inwardly at, moan about it’s overuse, hate everyone who says it too many times etc etc etc. This might not seem like a huge problem but when you realise that these words are like, gospel, grace and others, things get a little tricky. These are big words that need not to lose their meaning. These are big fat words that need to stay fresh because what they describe is mindshatteringly vital to the whole of life.

So a bit of a problem, I’m sure you’ll agree… (unless you really don’t care and have gone to make a cup of tea, make one for me whilst you are at it please…)

The latest phrase, which if I’m honest has lost all meaning to me for a while now, is “the Glory of God”. Which is a problem on the level of no longer being able to read a John Piper book without getting annoyed at his constant obsession with the ‘Glory of God’. It’s a much larger problem on the level of our whole lives being about the ‘Glory of God’ and if those words have lost all meaning I need to find someway back to the mind shattering reality hiding behind them.

I’m not sure I’m there yet but due to listening to this rather excellent lecture by the lovely Andrew Fellows from L’abri I’m starting to ponder again what on earth doing things for the ‘Glory of God’ might mean. Mostly we’ve been told it means to give Him the glory, (helpful eh) which usually translates into us mumbling back at an encouraging person, “no no it wasn’t me, it was God, it was all him, nothing to do with me” (which is, well, true on one level, but he USED YOU so, accept the encouragement gracefully, ok? ;-)).  We then think we’ve given Him glory. Hmm

Or we think its about mentioning His name, doing Christian stuff, and, it might look like that in practice. But I’m beginning to think it might be more than that, more than what we say or do, and really about our whole orientation of life.  Do we exist to give God weight, (that’s what glory is about after all)? Do our actions give God weight? Do our choices give God weight and worth and demonstrate to all around us that we have a flipping incredible Maker who is full of unconditional love, might, grace and truth?

Do our lives reflect how full of reality and meaning they truly are because we belong to the King of Kings? Do we embrace beauty, cry at sunsets, fall over in awe at music? Are we left gasping at the full big fat picture of what it really is to be human, to be able to love, to write poetry, to explore the make up of the physical world, to touch and taste and see and smell and make tunnels, roads and bridges?  Do we stand amazed at the intricacy of a small insect, the beauty of a maths formula and the human brains ability to comprehend how to do brain surgery? Start doing that and you’ll pretty soon find yourself on your knees before the Maker of it all.

My BIG thought (and it’s taken a while to get here so bear with me a few more moments) is are we encouraging each other to take on the weight of this? Are we spurring each other to delight in life and our Maker. Do we long for each other to taste the depth of our God, Lord and King? Do we pray that each other would encounter this God each day and be transformed because they have felt their smallness and His Big Huge Overwhelming Presence?

Might things change if we did?

Hmm.

Your correspondant, high after an evening in, walk with her Maker on the downs and generally realising real Rest and Safety are only found in one place.