I am so consumed by all that I think to be real

But I am getting nowhere and I need you to be

Right here right now

I need you somehow to take whatever it is away

So I can believe

That you're right along side of me

I stand in an unfamilar place

I guess I've gone as far as I can on my own

So can you walk with me and know how I feel

Well I'll listen to you

So tell me what you see

Right here right now...

(the sundance kids: including the atmosphere: all you need to hear)

ashes

Being in a rut is something that makes me feel like I am slowly suffocating. Waves of thoughts crash and I get stuck in one more drift.

Its been a weird start to Yits for the second semester, when I am still slowly processing things from right back from the beginning of the year.

I have no energy

and that makes it feel like I am being useless.

Every couple of months I get urges to pack up and go anywhere but here. Do something unexpected..try something new. And it has hit again.

I need adrenalin. I am sick of living in a way that doesn't fully express what I believe, what I am passionate about (and even what that is at the moment I haven't the faintest idea) and continuing to live a mundane life with the same thoughts and no actions.

I need change

and the sooner the better.

~photo was taken in Melbourne~

What would you give?

Pain from pearls-

hey little girl-

How much have you grown?

Pain from pearls-

hey little girl-

Flower for the ones you've known.

Are you on fire,

From the years?

What would you give

for your Kid fears?

Secret staircase,

running high,

You had a hiding place.

Secret staircase,

running low,

But they all know,

now you're inside

Thinking today about what my fears were as a kid, i noticed a vast difference from then, compared to now.

My fears back then were real fears for a child....most children are scared of the dark, of getting lost.

Me fears today are just as real. Just as daunting.

Skipping stones,

we know the price now,

Any sin will do.

How much further, if you can spin.

How much further, if you are smooth.

Are you on fire,

From the years?

What would you give for your

Kid fears?

One thing that I remember from doing my cert III in childcare, was that there was no difference between the fear of an 'adult' and the fear of a 'child'. Both are just as intimidating and confronting. Sure, in different ways. But my fear of the dark as a 'child' is just as legitimate as my 'young adult' fear of not having kids.

Replace the rent with the stars above.Replace the need with love.
Replace the anger with the tide.

Replace the ones, the ones, the ones, that you love.

Are you on fire,

From the years?

What would you give for

your Kid fears?

I guess the difference in my fears as a child and now, my fears as an young adult, are not as self centred.

Now, I have fears for my family, for my friends, for the world around me. But I especially have fears for my beautiful god kids.

I don't want them to look around themself as such a young age, and try to understand situations that I don't even understand.

What I would give for my kid fears at the moment...

(lyrics: Indigo Girls: Kid Fears)

Open up my door

The last three weeks have been quite a mind bending time. I am now in my fourth (out of six week) break from Yits. I don't think I have been expecting much from the break... I have heard many people who have done Yits in the past say that the break was one of the hardest times of the year. To this point, I failed to see where they were coming from. In a way I still do.

As a group, we have all become pretty tightly-knit. I have made some amazing (for lack of a better word) friends these past couple of months, and I wouldn't change that for anything. Friends who can tell that something is up when i walk into class...who will come up and tell me that they are going to pray for me. I am awestruck at how much these people mean to me in such a short amount of time.

I thought I would struggle these holidays to not see these people 4 out of 7 days. So far there has not been any of this. That is not to say, at all, that I don't miss them, because that is far from true.

I have been lacking in my commitment to study however. Not that i find the assignments unimportant (to a degree anyway..) but I have failed to see why I should put so much time and effort into working out my relationship with God, who I am in God, when in my head I thought I had it all figured out.

Last night i was listening to Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails "Hurt" and something in my mind clicked...and things started to make sense.

I was not wanting to put time, effort and trust into God, because I failed to realise that I had given God human like traits, I had given him human faults. I didn't want to put time, effort and trust into someone who was just going to move away.
I had put limitations on who God was, when i can never fully comprehend nor understand who He really is.
I have not given enough credit.
I thought if I placed my energy, my trust, my love in God, he would leave.
A consumeristic relationship with the Creator.
How wrong I have been

"Everything I thought I'd learned, ambition and illusion, turned to drawings on a loose leaf sheet, of tarts and cakes I couldn't eat"

mewithoutYou:Brownish Spider

amazing ( because thats what it is...)

I am in two minds at the moment.
One is looking at the world and how stuffed up it is. A story last night on Progeria had me hating that something so fucked up could happen. I look at hurt, how much it affects people that I know and love so so much, how it affects me. I look at pictures of my god kids, and wonder how much they know of what is going on in their lives. I wonder if at their age, they can even comprehend what is happening in their own home, let along the world outside their windows.
In the year 2020, there are predictions that there will be a new pandemic. Not of Aids, but of depression in young adults. Depression already affects far too many people that I know.
And I sit her and get so so angry. At injustice, and shitty things happening to good people. And I question how such a loving grace filled God can let this happen. Why can’t he point a magic finger and fix this bloody mess. And I sit, and I struggle.

But then I look around me. And thru all the muck and craziness, pictures and words are always there. Standing out in all the crap there are things that amaze me time after time. I see people who are not products of this world. Who constantly inspire me with their words, with their actions. And it’s in times like these that I am reminded that life is beautiful. Crazy but beautiful.

experience this

I was not promised anything by becoming a christian, and had verver really thought about it, but there is a sense of being ripped off. In influence a couple of weeks back, Mark was saying how that in life, it is sexpected that if we give, we will will (and expect) get something in return. And this expectation has seeped into christian expectation. That we are approching christianity in a consumeristic way.

Sitting in class, I thought I didn't do that. In reflection this is not the case. When I pray, I expect immeadiate answers. I expect that anything that is 'good' for me will happen.

I really hate it when people walk out of a church service and say 'oh that didn't do anything for me' etc. Church is not an experience. It is not about whether it made me feel good about myself.

I hate how church has become just another experience.

splinter in the arse

Mark 3: 4Then he spoke to the people: "What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?" No one said a word. (The Message)



One thing that has stuck in my mind and has been eating away at me is something that Steven Said said (oh! the irony) in our 'spirit' class at Yits, and again at a youth service a few of us went to last sunday put things into perspective, but at the same time, has made all the excuses I as a christian have used for my lack of action, slap me in the face.



This specific verse is the turning point in Jesus lfe. This was the final nail. He did the 'no-goes' every were he want, no matter the day.. and it was these actions that made him so hated.

This verse is where the proverbial brown stuff hits the fan.



Its the no if's or but's of the bible...there is good and there is evil. Jesus doesn't say its a-ok to sit ourselves on the fence...satan says to dance, a bit over here and a bit over there. There is no third option, no what if's, but's...whatever other shittyy excuses we as mere humans have cdome up with. There is GOOD or there is EVIL.



Simple.

Simple?

Simple?!?



If I continue to take in what i am learning in my journey at Yits and in this, choose to reflect Jesus thru the actions i take, the decisions I make..I have to stop sitting on the fence.

Because Sitting on the fence is a cop-out....it is infact the evil that Jesus gave as the alternative to the good.

Because if I am not doing good....I am doing evil.



There is no third alternative.

There is no third alternative.



Simple.



It is now to apply this into my everyday life, in every choice I make.



God give me strength....

Then he spoke to the people:

"What kind of action suits the Sabbath best?

Doing good or doing evil?

Helping people or leaving them helpless?"

No one said a word.

Bono's NAACP speech

I have looking and looking and looking for Bono's acceptance speech as mentioned in the below post...and i finally found what i was looking for (hehehe.....i couldn't help myself ;p)

A flipping amazing speech that gives a swift kick up the arse...

"......You see, I grew up in Ireland, when Ireland was divided along religious lines, sectarian lines. Young people like me were parched for the vision that poured out of the pulpits of black America, and the vision of a black Reverend from Atlanta…. A man who refused to hate because he knew love would do a better job.

These ideas travel, you know. And they reached me clear as any tune, lodged in my brain like a song. I couldn’t shake that. This was Ireland in the 70s growing up…. And people like me looked across the ocean to the NAACP. And I’m here tonight and that feels good. It feels very, very good.

Well today the world looks again to the NAACP. We need the community that taught the world about civil rights to teach it something about human rights. I’m talking about the right to live like a human.

The right to live, period. Those are the stakes in Africa right now.

Five and a half thousand Africans dying every day of AIDS – a preventable, treatable disease.

Nearly a million Africans, most of them children, dying every year from malaria – death by mosquito bite.

This is not about charity, as you know here in this room. This is about justice. It’s about justice and equality.

Now I know that America hasn’t solved all of its problems. I know AIDS is still killing people right here in America. And I know the hardest hit are African Americans, many of them young women. Today at a churchin Oakland I went to see such extraordinary people. This lioness here, Barbara Lee, took me around with her pastor, J. Alfred Smith. And may I say that it was the poetry and the righteous anger of the black church that was such an inspiration to me, a very white – almost pink – Irish man, growing up in Dublin.

This is true religion. True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom. Love thy neighbor is not a piece of advice. It’s a command. And that means a lot. That means a lot. That means that in the global village we’re gonna have to start loving a whole lot more people – that’s what that means. His truth is marching on.

Two million Americans have signed up to the ONE campaign to make poverty history. Tonight the NAACP is signing up to work with us. And so can you. His truth is marching on.

Because where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die.

And to those in the church who still sit in judgment on the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit for just one moment. Because whatever thoughts we have about God, who he is or even if God exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor.

The poor are where God lives.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house.

God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are shattered.

God is with the mother who has infected her child with the virus that will take both their lives.

God is under the rubble and the cries we hear during war time.God, my friends, is with the poor.

And God is with us, if we are with them.

This is not a burden. This is an adventure. Don’t let anyone tell you it cannot be done. We can be the generation that ends extreme poverty.

Thank you."

-BONO–2 March 2007

*found at poplemon.com

Wow....

Thoes who know me well (anybody who had ever met me really) knows how much i love U2. Their lyrics have such power to them, and so do the words of Larry Mullen Jr, Adam Clayton, The Edge and, of course, Bono.
So there is a button up the top of this blog......the 'next blog' tab...you get some shockers, but then every once in a while you will come across a gem.
I was doing the said action, when i came across a blog that had a youtube video of Bono's acceptance speech from the NAACP Image Awards, for which he was the Chairman Award's Winner.
In a lot of my classes with Yits, the idea of 'loving you neigbour as you love yourself' has been on high rotation. It is one of the most paramount teachings of the Bible...in my eyes thats the majority of what this whole thing is about.

Watching this clip...it really hit home about how much it really means. And as much as we can say it..doing it is what really counts.

Bono's acceptance speech


BYW...if someone (*cough bec) could tell me how to get a clip, such as the above, into my blog...that would be swell :)

And the walls came tumbling down...

Yits today saw us going to see Babel for 'word,' in which we have just finished looking at the creation story, moving onto the fall.

Four stories that are all interlinked because of a specific action undertaken. It was quite interesting the discussions that took place afterwards....specifically who was to blame for starting the chain of events. There were a number of theories going around. It was interesting to see on whom the finger of blame was laid on.

The film covered such a plethora of issuse...from illeagal immigration, sucide to political crap over an ambulance between 2 opposing countries. From communication issues between a husband and wife/father and daughter/different cultures....

It was quite an emotionally seeking movie. And the more I think about it..the more my mind spins at the complexities.

Words wont do any justice for the images that were seen

shine on you crazy diamond

Once again, its erratic postings. The end of last year was unbelievably crazy, with the usual Christmas hustle and bustle, chuck in some extremely late nights (or mornings.....) and it was over before i knew it.

I always find the beginning of a new year slightly odd. New expectations, experiences and randomness are there ready to happen, whether you are ready or not.

This year is going to be full on...there is no two ways about that one. I am really looking forward to the challenges (ha ha..bet i wont be when it comes down to the crunch of it) that Yits is going to bring.

It also scares me to shit, how this year is going to make me take a long hard look at myself...and at the same time..it couldn't have come at a better time then now.

What a year it has been already...parties/bithdays/ weddings and a death have ensured the usual hectic start to my family's year.