When a scar becomes a feature...

"When everything's grey - colours become really evident."

I was really aware of this in exam-time where things like bumping into someone in the library or a nice dinner become a huge treat. (Though now my exams are over, I'm having to work harder to enjoy little things with all the post-exam fatigue and busyness I'd put off for after exams hogging my time!)

I'm also really aware of this looking back at the last couple of years, after a long time of feeling like Humpty Dumpty. Tis such a sad nursery rhyme really. When I was really really little I used to sing those last two lines with my saddest voice possible:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king's horses and all the king's men

couldn't put Humpty together again :(

I don't think I am always aware of my scars, but then something triggers off a painful memory or an uber-emotional response that catches me off guard and I remember again. They are scars accumulated over the last couple of years in particular, that lie dormant just under my skin and that have always been easier just to ignore. And it's easy enough to ignore them in busyness when everyone else is oblivious to them. Still when I am aware of them, they've always seemed so permanent, making me feel like a Humpty Dumpty. Anyway in recent months, some healing has finally been taking place. The King can put Humpty together again :)

The bizarre thing is, I'm starting to realise that the scars will be a permanent fixture but this is actually a good thing! The acts that caused the scars were most definitely not good, but the scars themselves are playing a part in defining me. They keep me aware of my brokeness and aware of His grace, kinda like it says here, because I am aware of my fragile broken jarofclaylike nature, I am more aware of the fact that it's His power working in me that makes things happen... and it's as though pieces are being put together but in a different and perhaps better combination to the way they were before.

Things also seem brighter before they did before, because I went through the grey, because I did break into many pieces, I am able to better appreciate wholeness and sunshine when I have it! It's a bit like with Glasgow and sunshine: on one of those rare beautiful days, the whole city is out soaking it up because they are rare. We appreciate the beautiful days so much more!

What is amaaazing and what I do want to draw your attention to is that, He's able to regenerate, restore, renew, resurrect and yet what is made whole again is always better than before!!! It blows my mind! Tis crazy that we have such a powerful yet compassionate God! :) Thankyou

blue sky patches in the cloud that is exam-time

Sunshine, wearing flipflops, jamming/studying/wandering in the park (of which I do have pretty photos, but these are on my flatmates computer which is currently down in London with her fiancee, doh!), heartbreaking news, playing in the pitchdark planeterium with the band, new beginnings, giggles, silly late nights, scrabulous, getting fed, plenty banter, bonding over exam pains, fluishness forcing me to have a day off when I needed it so much, hearing and being freshed by the gospel yet again at one of those leader days run by them, sunshine, good jazz (both live and on lastfm.com)...

And I finally finally saw Once! Bizarrely realistic! :- from that first jamming encounter where everything just clicks, band practices in tiny bedrooms, the jamming dinner party... and all so beeeeyooootiful!

And the cloud ends (at least for me) on Thursday afternoon.... oh yeah :)

Animated Iranians

I'd originally intended not to blog until exams are over. But to be honest, I need a brain break!
Plus this film (which I saw on Tuesday) was truly amaaaazing, I've been dying to rave about it!
Why is it amaaazing?
Because: (in bullet point form)
- It's aesthetically beautiful
- The characters are so real and well depicted
- It's witty and often very funny
- It's highly educational! I didn't know anything about Iranian politics or political history yet didn't feel lost at all since it explains it all really well!

Amazing I tell you! Go see it!

Wanted: Polaroid

A fellow sortofGlasgower Emma is going to Uganda/Rwanda in 8 weeks. I definitely recommend checking this out

gems

Lastfm.com is genius... especially when one is procrastinating :D
You stick in an artist you like into a box and it generates a whole load of music that is similar to it!

And through this I have fallen in love with these gems...
- Fionn Regan=purty!
- Adem=ohsobeautifully constructed music
- Kings of Convenience= very chilled but luscious harmonies
- And I've been a fan of Beirut, which I found via 3hive, for quite some time now

And then I've discovered that artists I'd originally dismissed as boring have actually made beautiful songs, notably KT Tunstall with the song "Silent Sea"

Good music does help me to study! Honest!

What would I do without bbc i player?!

Completely forgot about this until someone "beboed" me to tell me they'd seen me on tv yesterday! Doh!

It was filmed back in November to be fair! Songs of Praise (episode 2) - from 14 minutes...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00b099r.shtml

I've got cabin fever...

This is what silly long hours in the library does to me...




Cabin Fever ah!

At the age of 40, by 9' o clock

Just to give you background on this post. On one of our many french lesson tangents, I was challenged by him to write a story with that first line...
Now just to inform you, what a lot of people don't know is I used to be a compulsive story writer. I was addicted! It was better than TV, better than reading, better than music (maybe that says something about how exciting my life was back then :S)
Anyhoo I tried to write a story based on that title and didn't do so well. In fact I realised I couldn't anymore, there is too much going on in real life to escape it anymore or to make a new one for myself, which is what writing had always been to me. It was, back then, in childhood, escapism. And now I don't want to escape, I want to live! And all I can manage is this jarbbled prose-esque poetry. See I still love words but I've forgotten how to lose myself in another character. I can only write as myself. So this is what I came up with... a genuine fear...

At the age of 40, by 9' o clock, on a Tuesday morning, when the rain has stopped, and the kids have just left for school and the husband for work and the people carrier is sitting vacant, still, after a morning's work, what will I be? What will move me?
If I get a stable job, "career" I should say, a comfortable life, "settle down", will I still be living? And when I say living, I mean really living... breathing, wide-eyed with each breath. By sunsets, scrumptious chords, silly words, real smiles.
Or will I just be numb? Settle for little. Half-hearted days, hollow nights. Comfort having blunted the tips of my nerve-ends. Content just to stagnate in a detached house, drive the kids to music lessons, dance classes, day job, kiss my man good morning, good night. Content that my chat is just gossip, my friends just middle-class, drifting along with what comes easy. Never to engage with the world beyond my front doorstep, beyond what I can see and hear, beyond this suburban dome. Content to give money but never my life. Never to reach up, reach out, yearn for more, love, knowledge, truth, understanding, likeness, lifeblood of my maker.
The very thought strikes chords of fear in my heart, phantom of the opera-esque. "To die slowly" and not . To never have given my all...
Even if I choose that suburban lifestyle, though right now I can barely imagine myself in it... I want to stay here, on a rock that is higher than I, in awareness of brokenness, always in need of that which I do not deserve, always seeing more that needs to change, yet always ever more amazed, ever more in love with Him, in love with them... I don't want an ordinary life, I want one full to brimming.
A prayer to the God of my life... At the age of 40, by 5'o clock, on a Tuesday morning, when the rain has stopped... that's where I want to be.

In need of pruning

These are my roses which sit by my (as you can see) grubby window, hardly get watered, yet still seem to flourish regardless. Or at least that's what they looked like a couple of days after I returned from a 10 day long stint in Edinburgh last week. At first they'd looked very sad and wilted so I gave them some water hoping that they would spring back to life as they have done in the past which they kind of did - well as you can see... they became this mixture of dead and living leaves growing from the same branches. It was kinda like the dead leaves were getting in the way, just hanging on even though they were dead and impeding new leaves from sprouting. "in need of pruning" was my first thought...

And then that got me thinking... that's kinda like me. I'm a mixture of living and dead bits I think. There are some parts of my life that are flourishing, where God has been moving and I get excited and feel alive just thinking about them. And then there are other parts... they need to change or just go. I can't grow anymore when there's all these dead leaves getting in the way, just like the plant.

So what are these dead leaves? There are a lot of them and I don't think I could put a name to them all or am even aware of a lot of them. But I think most of them stem from pride and selfishness, and that in turn stems from not fully understanding or always being aware of the fact that God is the centre of the universe not me. In Him all things hold together, everything is sustained by Him, depends on Him and that includes me and everything I do.

I think one of the biggest traps I've been falling into of late is thinking that what I do and how well I do it defines me. I find myself drawing identity and self-worth from this. And those thoughts hinder me. They hinder me cos I think I need to do everything, I start doing things just for the sake of feeling useful or used. Sometimes I start doing too much and man oh man are my motives throroughly messed up!

I've been learning over the last while that this is my identity. Not what I do or how successful it is, though God wants me to do everything as well I can and use what He has given me. This tells me that God doesn't actually need me to do His work at all. He's God after all, creator, sustainer, author and perfector of everything. But out of His grace He chooses to use me, to use any of us. Though we mess things up and don't always do things His way and make mistakes which are often humungous. He still wants to make us a part of His plan! Wow!!!
I read this earlier and noticed this:- God uses the Samaritan women to spread the word about Jesus! I mean, a Samaritan woman! She would have been undesirable in every sense of the word; because she was a woman, because she was a Samaritan, looked down on by Jesus' own countrymen and probably looked down on even by her own people because of her loose morals and messy marital history. Yet Jesus gave her the time of day. And people believed in him "because of her testimony"!
That challenges the way I look at myself and also the way I look at others. Even amongst people who are "marginalised" and my role is to love, it is so easy to take on a patronising self-righteous "I'm helping these people" attitude, not treating them like the equals they are, and I will still find myself drawn to those with decent banter or looks or even with "potential". Yet Jesus sees worth in everyone that we can't always see. He sees people as people, made in God's image.

I'd like to see that too.

P.S Apologies for the length of that! Those were a lot of thoughts building up over the last wee while. And I am spending loooooong hours in uni library right now!

Lied

This post has been a long time in coming... I gush enough about these guys in person I may as well do it in a blog.




So from left to right...
Loik - Breton guitarist extraordinaire (also has a remarkable talent for french pffffffffffffts)
Ilhan - dutchman with east kilbride accent is provider of pistachios, also perfectionist drummer (I forget what kind of drum it is), recorder and author of the "bits analyses"
Elaine, scottish lass with beautiful voice and remarkable talent for making up melodies on the spot to beautiful chords that Loik plays
I cello and giggle (both of which get caught on cheap mp3 player) and eat most of the pistachios (they're as addictive as biscuits ;P)

Together we jam and laugh and eat pistachios and jam some more, and everytime we jam a new song is spontaneously sparked. So we record it, Ilhan emails them to us complete with a bits analysis e.g "3.56-3.58 - perfect guitar bit" and we can then play and refine and play and refine some more...

aaaaaaaah I love it! (in case you hadn't already guessed) :)

decompartmentalisation

Pheeew... that's a long word to describe what I'd like to achieve in life!

I came back a couple of days ago from a weekend where everything went click in my head. I remembered who I am and how that works out in life and felt like I was looking at the best news there ever could be i.e God's grace shown to us in Jesus, with fresh eyes. But now I'm back in everyday life I'm remembering how difficult it can be to put these things into action.
If only I was always aware of...

God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping
God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything

God in my hoping
There in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting
God in my laughing
There in my weeping
God in my hurting
God in my healing

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
You are everything

I like this song because it reminds me that though I have such trouble including God in every part of my life and not compartmentalising, He actually is in everything, whether or not I am aware of Him. He is there in the unexpected and the expected and the clean and the messy. He is there whatever my state of mind may be. I guess it's the awareness that's the key and also what I struggle with - living in continual awareness of God and of who I am in relation to him. I cleaned my desk a couple of weeks ago, and it's still clear today! (though the rest of my room is not so clean) and I have recently discovered the joy of sitting at my desk by my ohsosunny window, drinking green tea and just being with God. Those times just seem to be getting less and less frequent as I am getting busier and busier though they are becoming more precious as a result. I do appreciate most of the simple pleasures in life, like a scrumptious chord or a collection of crocuses or uncontrollable laugh or an understanding glance between close friends and I know it's good to enjoy these things. I just want to be more aware of God as I go about enjoying them so I can remember that they come from Him and so that I'll thank Him because He is the source of all that is good and love in this world. I'd like to live in continual wide-eyed grateful awe and appreciation...
And that's only one side of the coin. What about when I'm down, agrieved, stressed, guilt-stricken... I want to be aware of God and love Him in that too - by trusting and continuing to love others regardless of my internal state or situation.
It's a challenge, but I want to try and love God in everything...

banter of the last wee while

photoworthy banter of the last wee while

- much jamming (there will be a post devoted to that shortly) and getting acquainted with a jembe at a haggis party (now I can't stop drumming! Got in trouble for drumming at the table the other day)
- Global Village - many stalls manned by international students with many dishes. Things I may have sampled the cuisine of roughly 10 different countries, needless to say the french couldn't get themselves organised to have a stall there. We paid four quid and could sample them all and then were treated to live music and dancing. I discovered that Iranian food is really quite a treat!
- a couple of gigs with the strangers
- a couple more birthdays of the psychology crew, another one coming up on Saturday
- pictionary with a random collection of native and non-native english speakers
NB A. It helps if there is some secondary language in common (in our case french and dutch) then if a word comes up that some people don't know, it makes it easier to explain

B. overcomplicated drawings may be funny, but do not win a game... take for example... Jellyfish

- Nor do abstract interpretations of concepts... here are two drawings to illustrate...
one is literal

the other a little more abstract

both mean "revolution"
C. one must add on looking the word in the dictionary time i.e "Ah I know what the word is but I don't know it in english!" to make things fair
D. don't drum on the table unless you have a deathwish

Slowly getting used to me new camera and so to illustrate these bullet points...

For those of you who found us sitting and smiling with blank faces comedy, you can now watch the unedited version of that interview, gaelic, english and all here under "agallamh"...

saturday

Mmmm... I love Glasgow Saturdays! :)

Time to catch up on things and chill and sort myself out and enjoy quiet...

Last night I saw Juno - amaaazing film! Definitely almost on a par with that comedy gem Little Miss Sunshine! As per usual did a shed a tear or two. I tend to get somewhat emotional in films. What surprised me was what happened to me this morning as I was standing waiting at Glasgow International airport before picking up and redirecting 19 Canadians. Was watching all the people drifting in through the International arrivals door from a Toronto flight and it was more moving than watching a film... there was a mum smothering her small boy with kisses and a couple of cuddly couples that blatantly hadn't seen each other in a long time and friends reunited with delighted grins and digital cameras everywhere. It could have been a scene out of Love Actually, though (thankfully) a lot more believable! And before I knew it I found myself getting weepy! Completely took me by surprise and had to stay composed to greet the pile of Canadians that soon followed out of the door.

Oh and all this sunshine after so many months of grey... I feel truly photosynthesised! :)

"do not give way to fear"

On Friday night at the stall, I was listening to a lad (who was highly intoxicated I hasten to add) rant about his ex-gf and how, since they broke up, in order to make herself "feel hot" i.e desired and loved, she apparently goes out in the most revealing of clothing or whatever it takes to "pull". He told me, in very drunken terms, that he respected the fact that I didn't feel the need to do that. But being completely honest with myself, I don't think I'm completely free of those inclinations. I think most girls have a teeny-skirted, overly-flirtatious, sometimes desperate, silly girl somewhere inside of them. We want to feel beautiful and to be desired and wanted. But we often miss the point, thinking that to be desired is to be loved.
This is one of those bits of the Bible that most christian girls know in theory. I know I always gloss over it, thinking I don't need to hear it. But when I looked at it the other day I spotted something I hadn't noticed before. The section ends "...do not give way to fear". What fear? The fear that most of girls have of being single? Of never being loved or desired? Why should we fear that? Perfect love drives out fear... and this year I have become more and more convinced that "perfect love" is the love God shows us. The kind of love that doesn't fail us or disappoint us or is unfaithful. But one that lasts in spite of our weakness and no matter how we look, think or act.

Got to quote this again... says it better than I could.

"I ask him to satisfy my longings and fill my hollow places with his unfailing lavish love, this frees me from craving the approval of others or requiring them to fill my 'cup'. Then if someone does demonstrate love to me that's overflow! I am free to appreciate and enjoy it, but I didn't emotionally require it." Beth Moore

Another kind of fear that I struggle with a great deal more than the inner silly-girl and is definitely not exclusive to females is the fear of doing wrong or messing up and disappointed myself, other people and God. It's a fear that stems from my forgetting grace and think that by doing lots of stuff for God, I can earn His favour, or stop myself from losing it. All nonsense I know. And yet it crops up from time to time. Perhaps what I need to remember is this and not only that but this.
For the last week I've had this kids song in my head, dunno who it's by, and I can't seem to find it on google... think it sums up the concept of grace pretty well though:

There's nothing, nothing I can do or say
to make God love me more.
He cares for me in such a way
that lasts forever more.
The Bible says that it's called grace.
I see it there in Jesus' face.
There's nothing, nothing I can do or say
to make God love me more
to make God love me more.

There's nothing, nothing I can do or say
to make God love me less.
I need forgiveness every day
and Jesus' righteousness
But when I turn to Him and pray,
He gives his mercies right away
There's nothing, nothing I can do or say
to make God love me less
to make God love me less.

What a wonderful Saviour!

The reason why I dropped english lit...

... is because so many writers of literature and even more often, people interpreting literature think this...

"The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"

Ah the wonders and wisdom of Calvin & Hobbes :)

You've got 6 days left to watch this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b008vsxw.shtml

quotidien

I like that word...

Realised I hadn't blogged about the everyday in a while...

- Like the fact that it's been raining constantly for the last couple of weeks but for the first time in 4 years I have waterproof trainers to keep me dry!

-Handed in the last of my run of deadlines so was able to just hang out with folk with a guilt-free conscience, yaaay! :)

- I spent a quality Saturday night/Sunday-day in Edinburgh. Had the best dinner for a wonderful friend's 21st... breadcrumbed brie with yummily dressed salad for starters, steak with pepper sauce and tomatoes and mushrooms and sauteed potatoes for main and profiteroles for desert, all washed down with water, a glass of red wine and a lovely cup o tea, and then a night of dancing and catching up with ol school friends... wonderful... Got to hang out with the family and folk at Bellevue West too on Sunday which was more than an added bonus!

- And there was an evening last week when Jenni and I got a little carried away with Salvaar Kameez

God is good

... tis one of those facts that at least I, as a christian, take for granted!
-> The very idea of a God who cares and has forgives and loves with endless abounding love and grace with mercies that never fail and are new every day sounds positively insane in this messed-up human world. It just sounds almost "too good to be true".

When I look at human constructed gods; the gods who in many religions and cultures are selfish and flawed and unsurpisingly human or the gods who are "infallible" but require laborious effort and often tremendous sacrifice to approach, even the more abstract gods of materialism or sex are in themselves, selfish. When I contrast these gods with Yahweh, I realise that this is exactly what we humans so often think. We think that the existence of a God of grace, a God who is truly good and unselfish and far beyond and above human is nigh impossible. And so we have constructed our own gods or box the living God to fit into what we think is legistical. When, for example, we can't get our heads round this idea of "grace", we become legalistic and laws, sometimes even laws which are trivial and man-made, become the be all and end all. We miss the point and we hurt ourselves and others in the process.

The reality is that we have a God who has sacrificed all for us, who loves us extremely and has a heart for the downtrodden in society, who desires, more than anything else, that we act justly, love mercy and walk with him every day. We only have to look at Jesus to see all this en actualité.

Mind-blowing! And because He is good, there is hope for this aching world...

I guess what I'm re-realising here, is how important it is that we get to know the true and living God. Knowing Him, what He is like, His character does and will change our perceptions/mindsets/hearts in everything.

The very fact He can change anything, to me means hope.

the joys of january

And it's fast becoming a late night in the GU Library writing up the spoon-fed project we did, testing whether Dweck's Entity Theory can be applied to our level 3 psychology class... It's due in tomorrow. I also have 3 hours of exams on Monday and a french essay and translation to hand in on Wednesday...

meh