25

1. I love old black and white movies more than any other kind. Timeless classic quality that never fades.

2. 80% of my text messages over the course of a single day come from one individual.

3. I want to ride a camel quite a lot, and own a 16 hands white stallion. In fact if I had to be any animal I would definitely be a wild horse.

4. when it is raining hard, the best thing is being totally drenched, then returning home to become cosy and warm

5. I wish I could play the piano like a dedicated pro. And i would quite like a baby grand.

6. I study French sporadically, but not enough to become good at it :(

7. I have a lot of thoughts which I would like to make into a book one day. Although I don't really know how that would materialize, as my attention span can be lacking.

8. i like to learn about a persons heart.

9. I am scared of being wasteful with life.

10. I think sometimes I dream the future, but non exact things, such as a particular gathering of particular people in a particular place; mysterious inklings of actually having experienced it before

11. On average it takes me under 5 minutes to fall asleep each night. Once every 6 months or so I wont be able to sleep, and it makes me stressed.

12. I love Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and wish I were a dancer. Although sometimes I think I over idealise life.

13. I just finished reading Blue Like Jazz and I love the challenges it brought into my life, especially about selflessness.

14. One of the things I enjoy most is the culture difference between the British and the American. Oh how dearly I love it. I adore living in community. And cultures. And European History. And world History. Really I would like to see the world and learn about it and immerse myself in its lifestyles and people. And this point is really many joined together.

15. I take my tea any way you wish to serve it

16. I have realised that life is actually pretty short and only done once on this earth.

17. To me the ocean is one of the most terrifying and most incredible things on the planet

18. Today I wore my slippers to the corner shop and accidentally stomped in a puddle in the dark.

19. Every time I visit the Theatre I feel it call me home

20. I am very sad that distance is of such a nature that it prevents me from being at some dear ones weddings. If I had 2 wishes I would wish for unlimited free airfare and to speak every language ever spoken and then some.

21. My hot water bottle is called Sebastian

22. I recently started drinking coffee, which has expanded my starbucks order choice significantly, if not somewhat irritatingly.

23. One day perhaps I will get involved more with music and singing, I don't know how though really.

24. I want to live a kind of an adventure. But I scare myself sometimes with my restlessness and fear of being tied down.

24.5 (cheat) I miss San Francisco and its essence with so much of my heart. There are people I wish I could always be close to, and places I long for in the core of my being. Life can be tragic-beautiful.

25. I want to be better than I am. Always.

What are they worth to you?

This is something I read. It made me cry.

Children as young as 6 are cutting themselves. The average self-harmer is aged 11, and 1 in 10 adolescents are thought to have cut themselves deliberately at least once. A typical 16-year-old girl says that most days she cuts into her arms until they bleed, explaining that 'the pain proves you're human...'

Suddenly I find myself in a giant hall. Surrounding me are thousands of young people, battered, bruised and broken. Then a voice says: "What am I bid?"
A Young girl stands out before the crowd of leering, sneering men. "What am I bid for this piece of flesh?"
The men start to cheer and shout figures: "Ten...Twenty...Fifty...One Hundred."
What can I do, God?
I start to bid. I have to save her. The cost becomes huge and I begin to waiver. Can I afford this? What price will I pay?
The dream stops. I'm alone again. But the faces are real enough: Sarah being sold into prostitution; Mike with a revolver in his mouth; Kat covered in cuts and bruises; John falling into crime; Laura alone and desperate; Steve, heroin needle bulging into his vein.
"What am I bid?" The voice shatters the silence. The auction is on again. The bidding has begun. It continues day and night until the end. Most of the bidders desire only use and abuse. Satan drives them on.
And so I find myself in the auction. Will I watch or will I bid? The price of a single life is huge. The currency is prayer. The cost is massive but the prize is glorious. A life for a life.
"What am I bid?"

I have seen it. I have wept for them.

But, surely these people deserve more than just our tears...

City of Crushed Vision

A city with the power to deflate dreams. A terrifying thought. Each day spent dwindles into monotony. Passion lost amid the fatal mundane. Quenching the very hope and life to which we should so frantically cling. Our grip loosens, teased away by alluring forces we cannot recognise. Blind to the face of resignation, we follow him freely. Led into acceptance of a lesser existence. Racing heartbeats slow to the steady doomfilled march. Eyes cast down. Hearts contained. And we do not realise it, but vision has been tamed. Dreams with potential to change the world, reduced to the ordinary. The attainable. The realistic. How did it come to this? How can we have been so unseeing. So fast asleep in our own minds not to have noticed the subtle departure of meaning and purpose from this life.

Let me remind you.

You live for something. For something far greater than yourself. You have been redeemed from death by love. By a love which conquors death and renders the powerful powerless. The love which onced caused your feeble heart to dream and become alive. You have the vision within you to change the world. Radical passion with the strength to endure all the hardships of this life, and conquor.

I know something of struggle. Of the utter devastation life can bring. Insufferable pain. To watch a teenage girl unable to lead a normal life. To feel the effects of a family broken in two. To wonder why you can't remember what it feels like to be really happy. To reach the depths of emotion never even conceived of and catch no glimpse of the end of the tunnel. I am tired of being strong. I am strong. But I am tired of being it always.

But this I know. The hope we have is not in this life. Build your hopes here and watch them crumble into nothingness, dusty remnants of good times turned to bad.
But there is hope in Jesus. In the love more real than anything ever known on this earth, yet more ethereal than the highest thought the human mind can convieve of. His love is saving. His love is strong enough for me. Strong enough for you. And strong enough for all the troubles of this world. The more my heart aches, the more I cling to the joy I find in Jesus. Happiness is temporary. But joy endures. And love and joy together, will save this word. If only you and I step out to bring it.

Wake up. Shake off the dust, heaped high upon your shoulders. Do not let the place you find yourself in limit the scope of your dreams. Look beyond the horizon, to the distant unknown. This time and this place are but moments. You have an eternity to live for. Begin today.

Loose ends

These are a few blogs I had begun and never followed through with. But they want publishing. I don't know why. They just serve no purpose as they were. Stagnant. It's as if they were still inside my head. And in there its getting way too cluttered.
So I apologise. This won't flow well. None of the following will be connected to one another. It will be random. Some of it may not make sense. It has to be done.


Dear Jesus...
Please, let me be a part of your story.
I don't want my own.


"If music be the food of love, play on..."
The food of love? Perhaps in part. But maybe more accurately, music is the food of the heart. It strikes me in the centre of my being. It flows inside of me and becomes a part of who I am and how I feel. Music affects and heightens every hint of emotion within the heart.


I didn't feel like this when I didn't know you.
Why is nothing ever easy?


"We humans have many weaknesses. We feel too much. We die. But we do have the chance of love."
I feel far too much for my own good I think.


You leave an imprint
"Like the color that stays in your eyes after you've caught a glimpse of the sun"
I miss you.

The Dream and Reality. Should we strive for one or realise the other?

I am tired of being strong. I am tired of being strong. I am strong. But I am tired of being it always. I want to be weak. I want to lean. But I can't.
I am impatient. I am reluctant; not ready to make a decision. But I am still impatient.

Isn't it funny how friendships grow from nothing, to everything, in a matter of moments, long or short, many or few.

"All will turn to silver glass. A light on the water. All shall pass."

This is me right now.

I was writing a message to a dear dear friend. This came out.

"Aren't emotions weird. And feelings. And the way different memories make you feel. And the way different places make you feel. And the way hints in your heart of times before make you feel...so wonderful, yet so so very tragic. I feel like my heart is full and overflowing of times I miss and crave.You ever feel like your heart is resting in your throat, so that every breath feels tender and deep and real? And your heart heaves and the memory is so perfect, but you can't get it back. And your heart breaks over and over again, each time the sensation kicks in. But you are still where you are in the present moment. And it makes you want to cry. But you don't, because really you are thankful there were times in your life that were so wonderful for you to even feel this way about. But sometimes...you do.


Ha. That all just came out. I am trying to find what I feel... I may copy this into a blog. What can I say...you bring it out of me.

I LOVE you. That much I know. And I miss you.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

Thank you Audrey Elizabeth Smith. For helping me put into words the sensation I entertain so often, without ever knowing exactly what it is.

Right now ...

...someone, somewhere else, is smiling, moving, weeping...


I can't believe there is a "this very moment" anywhere but in this very moment.

You know?








.

Alone.

Depressing choice of heading? Sorry. Isn't it strange, I only ever seem to blog about the solemn times. At least that is what it feels like recently. But I have come to know hard times, in recent weeks. And sometimes I forget quite how hard hard times can be. I take love for granted. I take the people in my life for granted. I am so alone. And I realise that in a place where there is no love and no depth, the only thing to cling to is Jesus. Unconditional. That is the nature of His love for me. But not passive unconditional. Sacrifice as a result of real and passionate love. Trancendent. Not in keeping with the ways of this world. It may become clear through the chain of blogs published to this date, I hold love in somewhat high esteem. To me it is the centre of everything. And one day, if you find yourself in a place entirely devoid of love, you may find it hard. How can people survive without love? I know no other purpose to life, be it in the giving, or the recieving of love, no greater power on this earth.


Love.


But where is it? I can't see it anywhere around me. Why? What is wrong with this world? I have no answers. Though I seek them desperately. This place drains me. I feel I can never learn to live here. But I will. I will struggle through daily. And learn. With God. And I will try with all my might to do so with love. If its the last thing I do, I will love, no matter the cost.