The Long Walk Home

Yes I know, I promised no more from me for a while… But as I was talking to a good friend this evening I realised the stark omission from my pitiful review of 2008 was this: This year I made a choice to do something weird, to change church, leave a great house to live with another good friend and two random boys I hardly knew, to try and live in a way that expressed the unconditional love of our Creator to the mess of Brighton.  To live as family in a broken world, to try and love the people around us where we live. It’s been the most intense experience, full of joy, reality, pain, gain, loss and lessons.  I’ve learnt more about my pride, my inability to be lovely and perfect for even 5 minutes a day, I’ve gained two brothers and a sister, I’ve experienced the weirdness of leaving something great for something else great but in totally different ways. I can’t believe it was nearly a year ago that we decided to do something a little bit crazy.

We’re still a work in progress, we will still be a work in progress 5 years down the line, we won’t get this community thing right, we will be broken and messed up and not neat for as long as we live here. I hate that and I love that. I hate not being in control of this thing, that we aren’t perfect and can’t show the world nice neat things we have done.  I love that God is at work inspite of us, in us and through us and that he has a plan in this whole thing which we can only dream of. I love learning these lessons and I hate learning them, I want to be perfect some of the time, I don’t want people to see my moody fickle weirdness. But most of all I love that God is more concerned that we know Him, bathe in His love each day, love Him and each other more than anything we could ‘do’ for Him in this house. Oh to enjoy that more…

Right that’s it, no more I promise, just pretty quotes.

As much as I love lists and compiling them, the top 10 list of best films I’ve watched, cds I’ve listened to, books I’ve read or gigs I’ve been to this year will take too long.  It’s clearly bedtime and I’ve yet to post my real reason for blogging tonight. But I feel a taster is in order. So for no real reason:

The best film of the year, for watchablity, was Juno, and meh pretty much the best cd I bought was the Juno soundtrack as I did play it over and over and over again, and inspired my Mum to make an unprecedented move and download the song “All I want is you” from itunes, I am proud. Best book, um, probably ‘The Book Thief’ for fiction, ‘Watching the English’ for non fiction and ‘The Shack’ for the God botherer one. Best gig was Martyn Joseph, hands down.

And there you have it, a pointless non listy list to completely fail to sum up the good things I saw, listened to and read this year. And now with 2008 thankfully put into the draw marked ‘not such a good year’ onwards with this life, this blog and into 2009.

In the interests of wrapping up this year, here are some moments of my 2008, it’s been a weird year, so much change, which I’m still attempting to work through in my head, but there have been some beautiful moments within the strangeness. Here are a few:

Click away to see in full detail. They are scenes from the last year.

Me, Anna and Sarah all turned 30 this year and joyous celebrations resulted. Snow at Fallowfield was unusual. A teapot was given to me from students I had worked with and the sun set on my job with UCCF. Moving twice in one year is not to be recommended. New paths, new church, a new way to live and the pain and wonder of it all. Leaving lovely housemates was ridiculously hard, tea at the Grand Hotel in Brighton was the setting for some good final times together. No year would be complete without a visit to the Lakes and a lush holiday in France provided me with the much lacking sun in the summer. I discovered I’m going to be an Auntie, cue much excitement in the Arnold family.

The final picture is that of a winter tree. They look dead and empty at this time of year, stark against the winter sky. I’m coming to the end of the year feeling a bit like one of those trees, not sure of so many things, battered around by all the change, glad of so many things, weirded out by so many things. The good thing about winter trees is that they aren’t dead. I trust and hope that there will be blossom to come and full green lushous leaves to grow. I trust and hope that there will be fruit ahead even though I can’t see it right now. I trust and I hope that there is One bigger than me who knows what is going on and can turn my dark dry branches into beautiful fruit.

I’ve been re-reading my old Christmas blog posts (it’s Christmas eve in the office ok, there is nothing else to do..).  It’s been a tour down memory lane, of remembering things that once were, good times had and all the ways God uses this time of year to step into my hard stubborn old heart and soften me to the wonder of Him.

Last night in our house was no exception to this theme. We had house Christmas, lots of presents, Larry’s amazing roast dinner, Kevin’s slightly scary present he got from his secret Santa at work and lots of fun and wine. Half way through we put down our knives and forks and read out John 1 in four different versions of the Bible. (even I can’t call the word on the street a translation 🙂  What stuck out like a large neon sign in my heart was the middle bit, where it says He came to his own and they did not recognise Him, He came to the ones He spoke into being and they turned away from Him. Heart wrenching, soul gutting stuff. How stupid and yet a perfect description of our messed up lives. Rejecting the One who called us into being, turning from the spring of living water and prefering the darkness.

And yet He came. Residing with us. Emmanuel, the word guarateed to sweep through my dark hard heart full of jealously, pride and bitterness. The word that is stamped all the way down to the scum at the bottom of the pit I attempt to hide from all.  Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus come to earth.

Jesus has come and Jesus is the name that calms our fears, Jesus is God with us, Jesus the Light, the Word, the Hope of all, Jesus is my friend, my Lord, Jesus is the one who leads me to my Daddy, Jesus is the one who sees through my pretences, my lies, my hopes, my fears, my joys and is my peace. That’s what had me in tears once again last night as we cried out to Him in gratitude, sorrow, awe and joy.