sealed box, bolted door

this strange bed

these distant walls

in this sleepy hollow house

for which i paid but barely played

and this door that i can unlock from the outside but its bolted on the inside

this build up of dust and mould on possessions i don’t have time for

these drawers, shelves and boxes of things i have forgotten about

forgotten love in dark boxes

they have no home

because i have no home

and can i drawer these curtains

and why don’t i open that window

is it ok if i lock this door while i change

am i an owner or visitor

and yes i’ve paid those bills

still some zip lock bags of my frozen goods

and yes i’ll take that back with me

and no i don’t need that

and hey we never needed any of this

and hey i need to sleep

and hey i sometimes wonder how i am standing

and this ziplock of frozen rye in an extravagantly large family sized freezer

filled with more space and light than is in my heart

and beyond these walls, neighbours i don’t know

and sounds i dont recognise

and when an old man in the neighbourhood shouts at me, telling me to go home

i want to ask him if he can tell me where this home is

i want to show him this place here

i want to take him back to the beginning

and walk him to each bed i have laid in, each room i have fought in

each shelf i have built badly and left behind

each guide book i have fumbled through and dumped in defeat

each word and punch that has been hurled at me

each night i have wrestled sleepless

each mine i have stepped on

each foot that has tripped me

each curse that has bewitched and fooled me

each moment i stayed beyond my capability

then maybe there will be silence and stillness

and maybe he will sigh with me

and welcome me over for tea

and maybe that will be more like home than this

he might want some of these books

he might talk of china

while my son plays with some of his old toys

and speak of how he has never been to the motherland

and only now realises that he has never had a home

and never had any power

and his heart is a sealed box

an empty freezer

a bed waiting to be lied on

a curtain drawn

and window not open

a possession no one has time for

a useless vote

a pair of crushed balls

and a mostly useless soft member he was told had promise but never lead to anything much

A Letter to Myself

Sean,

Here are a few things i want to tell you. Try not to forget them, and try to allow your loved ones to remind you of the following. Hold onto them for as  long as they hold true. These are things that you have discovered and should try to remember.

1) people will be as kind or as nasty or disrespectful to you as you are to yourself. you have heard it repeated time and time again that you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but no one ever taught you that you should also do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you. stand firm on this. respect and protect yourself.

2) you can’t blame anyone for anything. make your choices and live with them.

3) if there is a God, you will find Him if you look for him. if you don’t find him, He is not worth finding. If you don’t find Him, He either isn’t there or you didn’t really earnestly want to find Him. if you temporarily cannot find Him, it may not mean He is not there.

4) pain won’t kill you. neglecting yourself will. when you are in the pain, don’t lose sight. its not over. its not everything. its not the end.it always passes. but pain is an indication that damage is being done, or has been done. treat it as an alarm and learn to take care. but pain is not the end.

5) relationships are only what you make of them, you get what you put in.this, as you know takes time and effort and a good relationship takes time to prove itself worthy. but sometimes you need to make a choice to step back, to pull away, pull out and walk away and not turn back. some relationships are simply not worth investing in, and they are those that are not mutually respectful and beneficial.those that have proven to fail. learn to surrender them and walk away as respectfully as you can. the other party may never understand, but if you understand that its the right thing to do, then do it.

6) there is no such thing as perfection, not in yourself and not in others. when it gets too much, your expectation, promise me you will sit down and review your expectations. you only do yourself damage by letting yourself get worked up by unrealistic expectations. when you find yourself getting bitterly disappointed and frustrated, give yourself the time and space to find the source of your frustration, and see if your expectations can be reviewed.

7) be as honest as possible. lies breed lies upon lies upon lies. honesty brings light. honesty is the real hope. truth is the real  existence. truth is a life worth living.

8) listen, listen and listen. listen more. seek to understand. speak less and listen. try not to anticipate, put words in people’s mouths, read their minds, second guess them, or read their subtext. if you don’t understand, keep listening.

9) art is truly wonderful but never let it get too big in your head. it is only a human-made mirror. A human-made mirror can be a truly wonderful and valuable thing, but it is only a reflection, a selection, a snapshot of perspectives. it can hold power but in itself is not the power.

10) you are not meant to be competitive. you hate it. so never let yourself get caught up in the game of comparing and schmoozing and name dropping and being seen. significance lies in the lasting impact you make on the heart and soul of others, not in where you stand or who you stand next to. having said that, competition can be healthy and some people are naturally competitive. don’t judge them or hold it against them.

11) stop worrying about what people think, unless you know that their thoughts match your values, and that their views are a healthy check on you. worrying about what others think is a kind of avoidance, a cheap shot, a shortcut, an escape, an easy way out, a procrastination. if you are worrying about what people think, there is a chance you have been sucked into brainwashing and you need  to reset.

12) learn to pull away and wait sometimes. be patient. sometimes you need to not send that email, not reply to that text, not answer that phone call, not rebut in that conversation, not beep that horn. learn to stop, remove yourself, take time out, breathe, have some water, reflect, pray, take some time to consider whether you are getting disproportionately caught up in an idea or an emotion. you will be amazed sometimes how much your perspective and response can change when you do this.

Sincerely,

Sean

 

 

Beautiful Mess

I can’t run away from this one, but God how i try, and i suspect its not just I.

Life is not about being ‘together’ or striking a ‘perfect balance’. Its not to say they are not nice things to think about. But its not what life is about. Its not what we meant to aim for.I would argue these are mere distractions and actually complete myths.

The aims are love and truth…. for me anyway.

To pretend that we can strike a perfect balance, or that we ‘have it together’, is just a game which does nobody any good.  (yes i use the word pretend for good reason) Its a cheap shortcut, an imitation.

We want life to be like television or the movies, or perhaps the fairytales we grew up with, neatly selective and tied up. We want to be something nice, harmonious and comfortable to ‘watch’.

In reality we might think we are living a bit of heaven on earth. But is heaven on earth really about appearing perfect? Nope. If that’s what heaven is about, i suspect hell would be a better destination.

The path toward love and truth are tough, but i am hoping that the more i let go of pretending and ‘appearing to be’, the more energy i will have to concentrate on the real love and the real truth, as opposed to the pretend stuff. I am not interested in the virtual reality game. I am interested in the blood and the dirt, the wind and the sea, the heavens and hades of it all. Love, truth and heaven are about vulnerability.

Religion pisses me off. Religion (as opposed to faith) is about elevating yourself to the level of God, instead of giving space and honour to God. Religion and religiosity is about blindly thinking (and letting others think) that you are perfect i.e you are God.

‘Christianity’ has become about trying to appear perfect. I am reminded of the warning not to judge others lest we also be judged in the same light…for surely if we all judged in that light we would ‘fail’? I see these words of wisdom and advice not just as being about judgment but also a bout perception and priority.

i am reminded of the broken mess that we see in all the ‘heroes’  of the bible. I am reminded of the great ministers who ‘fall’ into disgrace. What beautiful disgrace though, when it all comes out. Well perhaps ‘all’ is not the right word. Perhaps its better to say, how beautiful when we see some more of what that human being really is. What if we see a little bit more of what God sees? What a great sacred honour to share an insight into someone’s personal life and an insight into the true state of human nature!

I am not condoning the unforgiving press who love to make money out of people’s private lives. That is not the point. Sensationalism is another thing altogether. But what if we all had a t-shirt that involuntarily advertised our inner struggles – “i want to kill someone”, ” i drink a bottle of gin every night”, “i’m attracted to dogs”, “I’m having an affair”, “i hate my body”, “i hate my mother”, “i feel anxious in crowds”, “i’ve been thinking about suicide”? Or when we met people, instead of talking about our job, our house, holiday destination etc we said stuff like ” Yeh im ok although i’ve been watching way too much pornography and have been wondering if God is real or I am just imagining him, and i really struggle with my body image at the moment. How are you?”

The first thought could be, oh that would be so uncomfortable and completely inconvenient and without dignity.

Well I am not yet convinced that it would be any more uncomfortable than what we put ourselves through now.

Are we really so comfortable in our gussets and girdles? The glue, the tape, the sticks propping us up? The masks and make-up. Walking around thinking we are models of beautiful togetherness when we are perhaps nothing more than embalmed corpses?

I am reminded of some of the words from Psalm 51 – a psalm of David, a song he wrote in repentance towards God because of his affair with Bathsheba.

V6 – “Surely you desire truth in the inner parts ;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.”

I am trying to learn to love and care for the parts of myself that i have neglected to look at. I am trying to open them up to God, to shed His light on them. How can they be understood in my deceptive heart just holding onto them alone, in my dirty fist, in my pocket? How i be known truly if i am not willing to show it all?

Continuing with the psalm…..

V 16-17 “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;

you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.The sacrifices of God are

a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.”

How beautiful are the biblical images of the woman at the well, the woman at Christ’s feet ‘wasting’ her precious oils on His feet out of adoration towards him, in complete openness as to who she really was. How beautiful the dark image of the criminal on the cross crying out to Christ in naked dirty desperation and the promise from Christ that today he would see paradise. If paradise is hanging on a cross naked, accused, vulnerable, honest and desperate but with Christ hanging there next to me in the same state, then that is where i want to be. (dare i say)

A Letter to my Mum

Mum,

On Sat May 22, It will be four years since you passed away.

I sometimes think i am still in a constant state of shock. Shock that you have gone. Shock that it happened so fast. Shock that life can vanish so quickly. Shock that with loss, the inclination is to just keep going even though the impulse is to simply fall apart.

Sometimes i think its comforting that i miss you so much. Sometimes i worry that i will always carry this grief and emptiness. Sometimes i worry that the busyness of life itself, and all its stress will increasingly erase the precious memories i had of you. I feel my memory fading so fast. Will there be anything left of you in ten years time? Will the stress of life have completely chewed me up?

And isn’t that what happened to you Mum? I sometimes feel that it was life’s disappointments that just drained you of your life until you were empty, and then you were gone. But then i know that is not completely true, as i saw your strong will to live at the end; your stubborness, your resistance. You had such a will to stay with us. You had started to show us more and more just how much you loved your life with us as a family.There was so much in your mind and heart that was wonderful and hopeful.

One of the greatest pains of my life is that Jackson and you did not get to meet (as far as i know).There have been so many connections between you two. While i don’t swallow the reincarnation theory, there have been times that somehow it seems that somehow there is part of you in him. There have been some defining moments where it siezed me and i broke down.

When Jackson was first born and he had fluid in his chest and his eyes were puffed up and often closed, there was an uncanny resemblance to you on your last day in the hospital, where your lungs were failing and only a machine kept you going, and when your eyes were mostly closed but your vision had apparently completely gone as your organs were shutting down one by one, finally leaving your heart. That vulnerability. The uncanny connection between a new born child and a dying woman. It was beautiful and painful. God spoke to me so much through it. It was about frailty. It was also about letting go. A reminder that life is a cycle. That its not forever, at least not in the flesh and on the earth.

Many a night i sit with Jackson as he goes to sleep, and i sit on the chair next to his bed until he sleeps, praying and sometimes singing. I hear him start to breathe more and more heavily. One night recently i just broke down, as i was stroking his hair and i was brought back to those final hours at the hospital bed when all we could do was pray, sing to you, and stroke your hair. And how we found warmth in the fact that after your most recent rounds of chemo your wish had come true, that your hair would grow back curly (after a life of perming hair since you hated your hair straight) and finally you had that one curl, that slight wave in your hair. There it was, proudly on your head. The head on the shoulders of the body that was failing, that was shutting down.

When i was still in Australia after you had gone, for those couple more years, you were often with me in the garden. I never got to spend the time i wanted there. But when i weeded, planted, pruned, watered or fertilised i felt close to you. Remembered lots of our gardening journeys together from my childhood until my teens. After you had gone, the gardening was somehow in honour of you, your memory. Each time a rose bloomed, i remembered how you loved roses, and how we loved them together. As i stopped to smell them, and sometimes snip and arrange them in the home, i was somehow inviting you in and honouring you.

Mum, how i loved our times together in the living room, when you played the piano and i sang. You were never affectionate or tender with us in anyway. You never expressed your feelings. Those times we sang those beautiful songs, i felt the closest i ever felt. Que Sera Sera, Moon River, Edelweiss….

I’m not one for speaking to the dead. That is not what this is about. In writing this i think its been important for me to find a space to let out some of the thoughts and feelings that have sat in my chest, and to put them somewhere. To voice them.

God knows there is so much love and gratitude in my heart for the mother that you were to me, and to my sisters. The love that has grown between us and the love that is in our life would make you proud. We keep facing the struggles of life in a way that i know would honour and excite you…. as far from perfection as it all is.

I imagine you as a princess in God’s presence. I imagine you looking over us, praying for us. But of course i don’t really know exactly what you are doing. i don’t know that its in my faculties to comprehend, even if it were to be revealed to me. All i know is that you are not here. And that a part of me is still in a big tail spin since you left

A Letter to my Son

Dear Son

I watch you all the time and i think a lot of things. Its quite overwhelming in fact. Its like you alone are an entire universe right in front of me and i am just basking in it. You are  a cosmos of possibilities and curiosities. Its like you are perfect just the way you are. Your singing, your dancing, your stories, your questions, your points of view, your paintings and installations.

Of course there is no such thing as perfect! (although your Mum and Dad do try very hard to be perfect, deep inside knowing its not possible) But i do see perfection in you.

But I’ve been thinking. I’m so scared the world of what the world will try to steal from you. You have everything you need. I see it now. Your face, your hands, your feet, a big loving heart, a sense of humour, curiosity and a sense of abandon and purpose. I see all of it in you. More than you will ever need.

In life, whether at school, at work or in your relationships you will find that people will generally want to take from you. And perhaps even more frighteningly they will want to reduce you to less than you are. When people see fullness, when they see any hint of perfection, or they see pure joy, their instinct seems to be to try to ruin it, or at least to dominate and control it. Now its not very easy to ruin but overtime it can eat away at you and it can be easy to succumb.  Often it will feel like people are in fact expecting MORE of you but even then most of the time they are simply expecting LESS of you. Much much less. You have the potential to be so much greater than anyone can expect of you, and that is mostly because we have narrow vision. We have fear. We have jealousy and territory and insecurity.

You are great my son. For as long as i can i want to be here to protect you, to make sure you are all you can be. There will be times that i do not realise i am underestimating you. That’s wrong. I hope i will see it or you will see it and let me know. I want you to be all you are designed to be! and your design comes from God, your maker who is much bigger than I. There is no way we can ever understand His plan for you, His hopes. His ways are bigger and greater.

So when you are in school and perhaps a teacher tries to make you feel small or undervalues your abilities or looks down on your struggles, don’t let the teacher take anything from you. Be yourself. A teacher will rarely truly understand or truly appreciate or respect you the way you deserve.

When you start to get older and friends get more and more important to you. Don’t let your friends push you into doing things you aren’t really interested in, just to fit in or impress them. Be bigger than that. Be who you know you are meant to be. Be who you truly want to be. Friends will want you to be like them, or even less than them.

When girls (or guys for that matter) start to chase you they’ll want to fit you in a box. One minute they will want you to be almighty. Next minute they will want you to be vulnerable. What they want will keep changing and if you try to change it will do your head in. In the end they may disgard you because you have changed and then you will realise you should have just been yourself.

When you work, people will want to possess you too. They will want to polish you up to do exactly what they want to suit their own personal agenda. People are mostly very self-absorbed and you can rarely take them at face value. Be who you want to be. Be who you are meant to be. Be who you dream to be ! Don’t let them reduce you. Don’t let them take anything away from you.

The media will often cause you to feel pushed and shoved everywhere with all sorts of pressure to be this and that. Ignore it if you can. Stay as far from it as you can. Its all lies. Just people trying to make as much money as they can by trying to make people feel small and weak and dependant on their products. You are not weak and you are not small and you do not need anything they are trying to sell you. You are strong and you are beautiful, just as you have been created.

Perhaps what i am painting sounds bleak. I don’t think it is. And these words, by no means, sum up my total view on life and people. But i want you to think about it. I wish someone had shared some of this with me. I hope i will listen to this advice myself. I want to be all that God has planned for me, and stop letting people push me here and there to be who they want me to be.

Seek love my son.  Its become a cliche but its true. Love is all you need. Figuring out what love really is, is perhaps the biggest, hardest (yet simplest) and most important of life’s goals.

“Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
never selfish, not quick to take offense.
There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith,
its hope, and endurance.
In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope, and love;
but the greatest of them all is love.” – Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13)

Why this blog?

After two blog entries i thought i should try to clarify for myself what this blog is aiming for.

* i want to only share things that i have really spent time thinking about and experiencing for myself

* i should be open and honest, not guarded and comfortable

* i won’t rush my blogs or do them for the sake of it. i want to carefully weigh up what i say and how i say it, which may mean that blogs are irregular

* i will aim to only share things that i think ultimately have some potential life-affirming value for readers, although it doesn’t mean it will always be rosy

* while its from my perspective, and its from my heart and my sleeve, its not simply a blog about me

* while at times the blog will include some christian perspectives, as i am a christian, my aim is not to influence or convert people with my spiritual views. it will, however, often play a part in the lense i am looking through

Besties Become

Relationships. I’m not sure what has happened to them. Or perhaps I have some idea. Well I have my suspicions at least.

On this planet, with our limited time there is much and there is little to enjoy. I suspect that the original idea was that existence be about love. The pinnacle of it is surely relationships. I guess we try to epitomize this , with the phenomenon of Best Friends. But how close and real are these friendships? What is our best when it comes to having and being a friend?

The most wonderful and the most painful things in my life have always been centred in love, in relationships, and in our engagement with ‘best friends’.

But what happens when relationships disappoint too much, when the risk of pain or disappointment is too great? Do we give up? Well yes we seem to. What happens when the gratification of relationships does not come fast enough or consistently enough? Do we give up? Yes we seem to…in different ways i guess.

Some people jump from one friendship or relationship to another when they hit walls. Some shop. Some work. Some aim for success and power. Some look for NSA encounters, hoping to pick the parts of relationships that are seemingly the most gratifying.

Movies and music in mainstream culture don’t seem to shed much light or power on these matters. We feed off their worship of the immediate and the easy. What is celebrated is often the initial parts of a relationship where things seem easy. Or the stories are streamlined so there appears to be no challenge. Or we venerate heroes who either do not seem to need relationships or do not seem to need to play by the same rules that we do. They are beyond it, above it. People are commodities and liabilities.

Then we have the new expression BFF (best Friends Forever) and forever is relative by the way (last i checked the definition, ‘forever’ means ‘at the moment’). Paris Hilton has even indulged herself (and us) in two seasons of a delightful show where she hunts for a new best friend. Its kinda like the Messiah coming down to earth to befriend us, except the Messiah wasn’t a slurry, although He hung out with them. But I digress. Here is part of the write-up for PARIS’ Season 2 –

“Last year, the world’s premier celebutante thought she had found the ultimate best friend in Brittany, winner of Paris Hilton’s My New BFF. After running Brittany through a gauntlet of challenges specially designed to reveal a potential bestie worthiness, Paris lifted the velvet rope to welcome Brittany into her world of glamour and celebrity, where they attended all of the hottest parties together. The two were best pals, but as time passed, the newfound fame went to Brittany’s head. No longer that cool confidante Paris thought she had discovered as her new sidekick, she was cut loose. Once again, Paris found herself on her own.”

Now who did they say had celebrity going to their head? hmm anyway…

Another TV experience that i recall, but a much more positive one, was on the show ah hem FELICITY , on Season 2 Episode 4.

(don’t ask me why i was watching it. no i was not a fan but often found it was on at the time of night i just wanted to see what was on tv. this is back in early 2000s btw)

Felicity had been having a huge fight with her ‘best friend’ To cut a long story, at the peak of their argument when they had stopped talking with each other, they ended up in a train carriage which suddenly came to a hault and they were stuck in there together for a length of time. Of course in being stuck there, all the passengers got involved in their dilemma lah lah lah but anyway i loved what this old guy ( a stranger on the carriage) said to them to close it all… it really struck me and i’ve found myself sharing it with many people since, especially young people as they fave struggles and disillusionment with friendships.

Old man: The way I see it… you two best friends were never best friends to begin with.

Felicity: Actually, sir, I really think we were.

Old man: Hmm If I’m understandin’ right and I think I’m understandin’ right you two met when you were both seriously lonely and maybe a little desperate, when you both needed a best friend. You shared a few things together, started to refer to each other as “best” , but that was premature, wasn’t it? ‘cause what you had never really earned that little. I had a best friend for 63 years, played in the Minors together, went to war together, 63 years. And here’s the fact: you can’t get a best friend. Best friends become. They don’t happen in a meeting or a year or 2. It’s a package deal—friendship. Only as valuable as what you put in, come through. Judging something like that after one year, even if you got all the facts, that’s like looking for the final score before you’ve seen the second inning. I don’t think you two were best friends to begin with. Now one of 2 things is gonna happen. You’re either gonna come through this on your way to becoming the kind of friends you thought you were or you become memories, memories that will fade into nothin’.”

Yeh i thought that was good…

I’m kinda at a funny stage in my life when it comes to friends, and well… ‘best’ friends. Parenting and professional life takes over. Distance makes things tough. Its hard enough committing enough time and energy to your spouse let alone keeping things intimate with your bestie. (i hate that term bestie btw)

So, well in ‘conclusion’…. i just plug along. I appreciate my relationships for what they are, for the precious people they are. I give what i can, when i can, i support and share where and when i can and i also find myself letting go, standing back and looking forward to seeing who i will be close as skin to when im 63 or 83. Will they be people i have just met or people i have known for a long long time? I don’t know. But all i know is that while i desperately clinged to the idea of a best friend when i was 14, i now realise it was out of a desperate fear of being alone and now i am happy to take it as it comes. And instead of trying to grab and hold onto a best friend now, i instead i try to appreciate those around me, those who have been around me for a while. I try to think of how friends and family have worked hard in their love and affection for me, and how i have done the same to them, but also how i have disappointed and been disappointed.

And here is another thing. I am realising in adult life, in work life, that life is no longer just about friends but about ‘enemies.’ But perhaps thats another blog. But before i close off… yeh.. enemies. I’m thinking about what Christ said about loving your enemies, that anyone can love their friends and family but a real child of God will love His enemies. Perhaps i need to focus on that. And perhaps one day my best friend will be a former enemy.

(Anyone know how i can edit this properly so i have the same font throughout? Cos i sure as heeck cannot figure it out and am tempted to shift my blog to another site. This site baffles me).

Happy? New? Year?

I think i may tend to start the new year a bit like a trembling mouse and i have been thinking that perhaps many of us do.

It has troubled me for years. The perceived chance for a fresh start, and it seems to come as an exclusive and limited opportunity. The chance to ‘celebrate’ in a special and unforgettable way with an equally special and unforgettable group of people and hopefully the location is on par with it.

I am paralyzed. I think this has always frozen me.
And i suspect that those around me are similar . But people deal with it in different ways. Some like to ‘celebrate’ by numbing themselves and sometimes their memories, by over-drinking or drug-taking. Others find other types of drugs, such as the hype and rush of partying, the music, the lights, dressing up.

I think beneath it all is a big sense of being stunned and potentially disappointed. A sense that what we hope for and dream for will inevitably not happen. We won’t lose the weight, find the partner, get the balance right, clean up our act, break our addiction, learn that instrument, travel to that dream location, renew our spiritual state. So we perhaps run away. We give up. The very pressure of this mythological window of opportunity is enough to ruin our chances of hope and change.

What if we start off on the wrong foot? What if we smoke on the first day of the year? It means our dreams and aims are now ruined? We will now smoke the whole year? What if we don’t write down our resolutions? What if we forget to crystalise them? What if we are so busy with the madness of New Year we do not even get a chance to think about what we want and then are left ripped off, aimless and directionless. Destined for an empty lost year?

And then there are this big spectacular corporate ways of going into the new year, the official city countdown with the celebrities, the music and the fireworks and sentimental music. A promise of being more connected to those around us, a sense that we belong to something bigger. And soon we realise it was just for that moment, that it rarely extends beyond the promise of the big budget show.

A friend the other day said he was going into the new year meditating with a group of friends. That sounds good to me. No hysteria. No noise. Just resting and listening. Another told me she was attending a night of prayer. Fantastic, as long as its not filled with the voice of others, but instead a chance to listen together to the voice of God and to rest and to open our hearts.

Before you think i am completely cynical, let me say this. I think each day is a day to dream, to hope, to share, to celebrate and there is always something to commemorate. I just think our notion of New Year is a dangerous and crippling one and its often no more than a lot of hype and hysteria which can inevitably cripple and restrain us even more. Every day is a new day. A fresh start. Every day is a chance to start again, to grow to learn, to surrender, to give up that unhealthy addiction.

Its similar to how i feel about Christmas.  A mixed bag of christian spirituality, capitalism and paganism and another time to try to convince ourself we are all part of something bigger and better when we may in fact not be at all. Dare i say that the big thing we are often plugging into or playing into is someones capitalistic dream. I believe in the Christian meaning of Christmas but then i struggle with its pagan ties, its chronologically inaccurate time, and the fact that deep down what i really love about it is that its a special time for family and a time that is filled with rich symbolism and ritual that we so lack in our day to day life. And then i carry this guilt that I’m not celebrating it for its ‘true’ meaning, when in fact each day is a day to celebrate the birth, death and resurrection of Christ, if i truly believe in Him.

I believe that God is timeless and certainly not limited to man-made time, a calendar first created in ancient times but still way after God’s eternal existence.

from savagechickens.com