Merry Flamin' Christmas

Note: I am not depressed.

I am actually quite a bright little individual dazed and slightly confused by the bright lights of God in my small town naivety.

I ignored God when I was a kid. If I could change that I would. I would go and get into God. I would pray with freedom rather than rigidity, and sing when I wanted with all the heart that was in me.

This evening I went to the beach, turned my ipod up to full volume and praised God. Standing on the rocks embracing the bracing easterly wind, God was my audience.
I'm beginning to understand.
I'm beginning to get a grasp on the passion that has been placed within my heart.
Slowly awakening.
Slowly breaking out.

You see boys and girls...it is about Jesus. The basis of ALL of this is Jesus and what he was sent for. Just thinking about some of the things that I have been hearing about Jesus makes me want to go outside and sing again!!...but I won;t because it's 1130pm on Christmas Day.

I've wondered why o why am I not passionate about God? Why does it seem as though my prayers are not from my heart?

Once you grab a firm hold of the cross and the Christ that died on that cross and rose again to make me and you and everyone as white as snow...then life gets meaning.
That is the meaning of life. Ultimately that's the meaning of Christmas...

I could go on forever...

One day God will put words and songs in my mouth...well...actually they're there.
Now I pray that God will help me find a way to get these things out.

Amen.
Happy New Year. x x x

Buying someones heart...

...can't be done...I mean...if you could, would it be a heart worth keeping and knowing as it was bought?...what price have you placed upon your heart?

Words steer a conversation. Our every word determines the course and tone of what could well be described as a conversational journey.
Scripts never work. You can build an 'idea' of what you want to say to someone. But until you see and meet that person you never know just how your heart feels.

Time allows a person to raise and hype situations.

Peace.

I want to stand at the top of the Spinnaker tower for an hour and just pray.

From whom am I hiding?
Is it God?
I hide from confrontation. And the transgressions of my past. Yet still they haunt. Still they jaunt. Still the visit in the hour which I least suspect.

Hammers and nails do little to aid the process.
Turn it up. Maybe that'll get rid of it...
But the days go on. Shorter then longer then shorter.

This is 21.

Keep Going.

Not having the internet at home sucks. It means I cheat work out of their internet when on lunch and I never remember anything that I wanted to say. Most of my genius occurs when I'm out and about walking or coincidentally at home on my computer.
I'm struck with a sense of frustration but at the same time a sense of ease.
So I'm 21, In full time work, and living life. I live in a lovely house which I still havent completely moved into yet... but I'm on the way.
But it's the feeling of being on the way that is both comforting yet frustrating beyond belief.
Nothings changed. Besides the fact that I am comfortable with the fact that I'm 21, single, about to get the travelling bug, earning and playing music.
What more do you need?
What does the world tell you that you need?
What does God tell you that you need?
Who do we listen to more?
When did it become ok to be comfortable with faith and christianity?

Selected for...

So I'm sitting in my office at work...trying to hastily update my blog with whats going on in the world...and provide a suitably individual perspective on it all.
First off I led worship at church on sunday which was an awesome experience. It's amazing what you can do when god anoints you and you obey. Leading again in January.
Woo
Then my cheques cleard today...and I spent 730 quid...on a flight. You know the flight that I never though would happen. The flight that I thought would bring a completely new perspective on God and bring me to a different place with life?...Yep I booked it. This morning. 2nd March I'm off. For 3 weeks. Sun sand and God. Do you need anything else?
Christmas is coming scarily soon.
So's my 22nd birthday. Which happens to be on the same date as my degree celebration. So that will mean being at the union with degree mates celebrating getting old. Awesome.
I also got a desk in my room now...slowly but surely it's beginning to feel more like a home and a place where I can spend some time. All I need is a bookshelf and a cd rack. Argos.com.
I watched Lucky Number Slevin last night...interesting. Quite pulp fictiony in the way it was put together. Need to watch again...ooh and am FINALLY finishing off series 4 of 24.
Now all I need to do is grow up. Get some bible commentaries on my book shelf and buy a boe tie...and dinner jacket.
I want to stay young...but I realised that through always working on a saturday and not ever going out on a friday officially SUCKS. If I ever go out I just feel funny...like I worry about getting up the next day...I need 6 months of Saturdays off.
OOH I also got my uni staff card...it looks so weird.
Hope you are all well.
Dan xx

73

I really want to say something worthwhile in this post. I want to make this one count.
Chances are that I'll end up deleting it becase I don;t think that it runs with the profound tone of the other entries of my blog.
I decided ot start taking pictures again.
I went to Wisley garden centre with my parents on Saturday and decided that I wanted to go again at some point this week with my camera...and probably some enjoyable company...if not then I;m quite happy to go on my own.
But I want to start creating. Taking photos.
Looking for those opportune moments.
Trying to capture the beauty of the world around.
Finding inspiration.
Have you ever looked at a photo?...like really looked and cosidered the before and after-moments?...and also what that photo is implying purely in itself?
Art.
Thus begins.

I ate a muffin wrapper...home school?!

I sat in my living room in an oversized blue t shirt I bought when I was 16, and some white running shorts. I then proceeded to skip mens prayer, watch the film Crash (an interesting look into various racial tensions that are present not only in LA but I would say the world) and then the Devil's Adovcate. Which I must say creeped me out in places.
I must say I was getting a bit concerned...I read RB's blog and she was saying about not getting many comments...then she got 16 in one post...HA. I just figured out how to show comments that I get...but alot of them are from anonymous...saying 'great work.Thanks for your time' or 'I've seen better'. I mean...what?!?!

I realised something interesting when I was writing in my journal...in my new lounge...in my 5 year old t shirt. God's word is important.
Yeah thats right...the guy who works in the bookshop selling people faith on paper realised that the word of God is important.

I went for a few days reading a chapter of Matthews gospel in the morning and praying. Praying. Praying for life. For blessing. For forgiveness. For babies to be healed.

And I think it worked. The baby got healed. The baby came off the ventilator. The baby is digesting. Hallelujah!
But you know what happened. I bought tickets to Incubus. And as soon as I clicked 'buy' I preety much felt the presense of God escape me. I was in my shop at the front desk looking around...'God where have you gone?' He wasn't in me any more. I couldn't just open a book and hope he would be there. For a couple of days it was as though I had become an empty shell. As though I didn;t know where to look. A customer would approach me...and have of me is just like 'whoa whoa whoa whats going on?!!' and the other half is 'can I take a contact name and number?'.
I'm trying to get back into God. It's just so easy to blink and be out of the fold. How to you keep yourself in?

I never wrote a manifesto and would no idea how to...but I kinda want to...but don;t know what I'd write about.

Done

I remember

This is my work office. This is me...pretty much all the time now. In an office drinking a meal deal or packaged sandwich. Wasting my cash. This is a sad but true existence...but I'm not unhappy.
I pop into the smoothie shop up the road. I say hello engage in a bit of freindly banter with the sports science nutriitionist behind the counter and wonder if it's all an act or if she truly is this friendly with everyone...the i begin to wonder whether there are any other twentysomething guys in guildford that wonder into the smoothie shop...not because theyre concerned about their physical upkeep but because they want their day to be uplifted by that little ray of sunshine behind the counter.

I bought appletise this morning. A can. I remember the old school. When appletise was gold dust. The nectar of the gods. About once a fortnight I would get to walk around with my parents on a saturday morning in newport on the island and i would eat a sugar cube...a cheese scone...maybe another sugar cube and then my bottle of appletise. I couldn;t have coke because that rotted my teeth and made me hiper as anything. Just tdrinking the stuff I can remember the sights...the crooked floorboards of this coffee shop we used to go to as a family...the staff dressed up in 1930's maids uniforms...the sneeze guard...the cakes so tantalisingly placed behind the screen calling out to me. So many different ones...which would I stuff my face with first?
But i did not.
I would sit down. My family would sit down. A prehistoric-like game of shotgun would go on between me and my sisters as to who got to sit in the chait with the arms.
The big chair.

I played at this talent exhibition in woking last night. There were many displays of dedication and some great things to be seen.
The thing that moved me the most...strangely enough yes...I was moved...was this school choir. They were exactly like the choir I was in in year 5. And I could just imagine my parents watching us. The proud smiles on their faces. I mean...me and the people I was sat with were laughing at little bits and what not...
My kids are gonna be extravagant. HA.
I don;t want my kids to be afraid of displaying their talents...My kids can sing dance or play and go as far as they want...but I pray I dont use my kid as a channel of my own frustration...that I didn;t go as far as I wanted...


Life is good.

God is good.

Have you ever...

Gone out on payday...and bought some brand spanking, lovely new shoes?
Then you stop off in a park...or work...or starbucks and try your newly purchased shoes out for size. You didn;t want to try them on in the shop because when you shop you shop with a great sense of confidence. A smirk on your face that indicates you know what the cr@p you're doing.
You don't discard of your old shoes right away though. They stay in the box. And you carry your smeel y old shoes around in a brand spanking new box the whole day. You ever noticed that your old shoes, however similar to the new ones, never ever quite fit into the new box quite right?

I bought a cardigan today...I don;t have that much awareness when it comes to colour co-ordination

Paint...go on...PAINT!!

From one hectic combination of omployment to another. I've gone from working 6 days a week between Mcdonalds and wesley owen to working 6 days a week between wesley Owen and working as a research assistant on campus for the people who I was doing the sleep study for.

It's something quite cool to put on your CV and will be a welcome change.

My room in the new place to be is not looking that good at the moment. I have my bed in one corner, a stack of boxes with the crap that before you move you tell yourself you'll be able to get rid of...but can;t because it bears some tiny emotional significance, a suitcase with some clean clothes and a pile of dirty clothes that have settled into roughly a third of the floor space.
It;s not that I can;t pile them up...I'm not that lazy...there are really that many clothes.
There are a couple of things that I can;t wait to get doing.
You shall find in due course.

I have forgotten how to play football.

I have forgotten how to write.

Lesson: keep in the habit of doing things regularly...otherwise you;ll forget how to do them.

How do you stop being tired?

I wonder how many people feel that they have been done a great dis-service by god.

I wonder how many people reject god because of the picture that has been painted for them by the so-called shepherds.

What is my picture? I don;t know.

I just watched a short dvd which is part of a series called Nooma.

The word Nooma is an English phonetic spelling of the Greek word pneuma, which is commonly translated to “spirit” or “breath”.

In this short film the author, Rob Bell, tells the story of a stolen white ball. His eldest son stole the ball from a family assumedly while he was visiting. When questioned about the ball he reacts in a somewhat questionable manner. Acting strangely denying all knowledge of this ball.

Days later the boys are at home with their mother playing when a fight erupts. The younger son gets hit and runs to mum.

Again the older son denies the accusation of committing the act of hitting.

His mother calmly responds 'just like you didn;t know about the white ball?'.

Busted.

He then proceeds to run and hide.

Then dad comes home and searches for his son. Not in his bedrooms. Not in his brothers bedroom. Not in the bathroom. But under the covers of his parents bed.
Dad draws the covers back (and here is what I'm getting at. This is what rang clear with me) and his son has a choice. He can either pull the covers back over and hide or he can lie there on the bed exposed to his dad. He sits on his bed with his son just saying 'There's nothing you could do that would make me love you any less'.

I have spent years running and hiding from god. Getting tattoos to reassure myself of gods presence, and yet still making the same mistakes.

And approximately 5-6 years after all of this started I'm still on the run.

Imagine a bank robber. Smashing through the front door of a bank in his prime. He seizes what isn;t his and makes a dash for it.

Years later still on the run he has grown weary and tired. Spent his winnings from that fateful day.

Bottom line. I don;t know how to get right.

I don;t know how to make it right.

It's so dark in here I can barely see my hand

Ok so that's a bit of an over exageration.
But I'm participating in a study of the body clock which goes over 4 weeks and for this weekend I am in a dark room sitting in bed. How could life get any better you ask? Well I get paid and am gonna put the cash towards a ticket to sydney.
I've been spending my time working between Mcdonalds and my bookshop. Oooh did I mention that I'm hideously addicted to 24 season 4?...well I am and I love it!!

I move house this week. Just down the road..but I must say that I'm really looking forward to getting into a home. Not that my present accomodation isn't a home...but whenever I'm at home I just don;t feel as though I can relax. Whe I sit in my sty of a room I'm almost itching to do some work and I feel guilty for just sitting around watching dvds because I associate that room with my degree for which I am due to get the results very soon!

Man it;s all kicking off at the moment...I'm hitting the job search hard. But if you want a full time job in retail in Guildford - quite a large university town just after all the freshers arrive in town then you;re gonna have a hard time working through all the crap and getting that one job that you really want.

On Wednesday I was at work and as usual in the morning we sat down with a luke warm cup of this time peppermint tea as I had brought in some tea bags which I have now haphazardly left there. We looked through some devotional notes and the quote unquote word for wednesday was about checking your ego. Just about being humble. Before we get gifted the larger things in our life to do we have to work through the little things...and have to be obedient in the things that god appoints us to do. Like work at Mcdonalds.

Then the word for thursday was abvout being under construction. 1 John 3v2 says in the KJV bible - ...it doth not yet appear what we shall be...
Which to me is a great concept. Not so I can go...'right...God I believe that you are gonna give me...a ferrari even though it is not I call it into being' or something to that extent.
Which when put into practise is a great action of faith.
So I'm calling into being the things that I believe God has for me. The salary. The Girl. The voice. The songs.

I start reading encounter with God tomorrow. I promised someone I would read it...last time I tried to read something with someone it didn;t exactly go too well...didn;t really agree with alot of stuff in the Purpose Driven Life.

Life goes on..God got me out of Mcdonalds in time and granted me favour.

Faithworx

(Listening to Bill Withers on someone elses laptop while I;m blogging and being antisocial...score)

Love y'allxx

Five Thousand and counting

The internet has spawned a new age of addiction and loneliness.

Myspace, faceparty, islandoo, all this stuff..has spawned an addiction to sitting infront of a screen in a barely lit room formulating conspiracy theories and drinking diet Dr.Pepper.

With computer has come desperation and sore square eyes.

Generation X would have had a simpler time going to a park every sunday afternoon with their sweetheart once a week and chatting about this and that slowly but surely falling in love. Times were simpler.

Now it's all you are not complete unless you are with someone.

I am complete in christ.

I have all I need in the promises and deeds of the cross.

But what it is to hear the words we want to hear from that pretty girl we like. What it is to be close. To bury your head in the arms of someone who wants to be in yours. To feel the heartbeat of anothers breast...God didn;t create man to be alone.

But until my time I shall strive to be all that God made me to be.

Ouch

So I'm at work...but I had to get this down.

I've just been struck be a stomach wrenching revelation...

I'm very much fearful that actually...I'm not going anywhere.

People I admire and respect and love dearly as friends are getting engaged, putting bands and musical projects together, travelling...the whole lot...but I'm working 6 day weeks between McDonalds and a Christian Bookshop.

I want to go somewhere...who took my road map away?

Boys and the Beats

I feel like a care-free teenager.

20 minutes of clumsy hap-hazard foot ball then the real wildness kicks in.

A thunder storm begins with the pitter patter of small refreshing drops that fall upon our sweaty heavily slothed bodies. The decision is passed that we don't want to get too wet while we're trying to keep ourselves going for the evenings activities.

It was one of those scenes where we should've been drinking refreshingly cool white lightning cider and smoking poorly rolled cigarettes taking a 5 minute fag and drink break every 2 or 3 goals.

The usually beautiful game was barred by the inconsiderately parked cars and unamuzingly placed pillars in the bottom carpark.
Then a true act of vandalism happens...a clumsy shot...that one tiny lapse of concentration...that tiny little surplus rush of adrenaline...

death to the security camera...we won;t be playing there for a while.

Damn kids.

Poetic Justice...

I have a strange sense of deja vu...except in the deja vu my room was the other way round...but circumstances were the same...I was watching smallville and typing something on my computer...well admittedly that's most days...to my shame.
I've got box-set fever. Isn't that what life boils down to? Mundane jobs, dvd box-sets of a life we always wanted and dreams of a life less ordinary.
It shouldn't have to...but...how on earth do we morph the mundane to the purposeful? Can just being a credible person in a workplace be a supernatural feat?
I want to paint. Not with a brush on a canvas. But with a pen on paper. I want to capture peoples imaginations and help them dream. I want to see natural beauties and then share them with anyone who cares to read.
When in Zoolander the blondie woman says that an aboriginal said that a picture steals part of your soul. Is that why the pen is mightier than the sword?
Here's an exercise that maybe I'll take up in private of taking a photo and then just writing about it...trying to incarcerate (you see the thing I have with words is that I'm not sure what they mean but I pick up on words in conversation and then try and put them in context in a series of trial and error moments of...genius) the image within a readers mind....


This is a journey that I want to embark upon. I want to travel. I want to go to Paris, Devon, Moscow, Kenya, the Grand Canyon, Sydney and New Zealand.
I have many pictures to paint. I have many things to sort along the way. I want to go sit on a beach with my camera and a pad of paper.
I have this feeling that there is a vision that God has for me to run with. And I want to go and spend some time chasing the heart of God.
I've been putting together a little plan of the next year or so. And I'm not going to tell you what it is as I think that it's something I need to keep to myself.

So...Lana Lang huh?

Just a thought

How often do we hear songs, learn the words so that they are second nature to them, and then spew them every week in church as part of the regularities that occur? Well...I think quite a lot...
When was the last time we thought about what it is that we sing on a sunday. What it is that we are confessing to on a Sunday?
For me this is quite an issue. Where I work, I listen to christian 'worship' albums 7-8 times a day sometimes varying, sometimes it's the same album time after time!!! And I become de-sensitised to what it is that I subscribe to as a faith. I lose a sense of genuinity and just find everything that I hear and see contrived, false and quite honestly...plastic!
God is the ALMIGHTY...as a good friend of mine said...not the ALMATEY. Has christianity got too cosmo? Has it crashed through the sensible barriers of consumerism? Are christians more consumed with pushing books, cd's and dvd's from shelves than delivering a spiritually reputable message?
I'll leave that one out there.

Love God through all the sh*t...there's a concept. That's what we're called to do is it not? Not just when things are going our way. Whether prayer is answered or not...still love God.

Still love God.

It's harder than it looks.

The Farse Show

That's right...I can play with words.

Against advice, I've been reading Disappointment With God by Philip Yancey.

What am I disappointed with?

I don;t know...To be honest, I can;t quite place my stubby little finger on the precise factor, but all I know is that it surfaces every so often and I enter into a recession.

A recession. Like Recess. A 15-20 mintue break from the plastic glamour of life lessons. Recess. The time when problems boil, tempers fray and romances for some unknown reason bloom.
It's a time of social activity. People huddle together patting themselves on the back telling each other just how good they are and how much better they are than the other kids in the playground.

Recession. A setback. A sleeping Policeman. A speed hump that tells you, even though the road is clear, the sun is setting and the geese are migrating south for winter, that you must SLOW DOWN.

Or a Recession. A lapse. Like a broken Burt Bacharach 12" record. You get to the bridge of 'What the World Needs Now', you have your tumbler of whiskey, open log fire, beautiful tabby cat sprawled across the fire rug when all of a sudden...a jitter. Burt and the whole Burt orchestra are stuck in a 3/4 second loop.
A Lapse. An emotional turnover.

Month End.

Writing on the Walls

Theres something awfully compelling about the sky at dusk. As soon at the clouds glaze over with the yellow of a sinking sun it's almost as if there;s a race to go and find that beauty spot where for the alotted time spent there, things fit into place.
You don;t need a 5 year plan, you don;t have to learn to drive, your martial status means nothing because for those select seconds time is dead.

Reading books is all good and fair but they offer stale and impractical hope. I;ve never been much of an application kinda guy...does Christianity require you to be a certain 'type' of person?

I;m just pissed off because I feel left out.

Better luck next time.

Musings of someone with nothing to do

This is an entry from my journal:

The beach is a place of discovery. It's a place where kids learn all about boundaries and the power of the earth. Children stand at the edge of the tide ankle deep clutching their parents hand, staring into the depths of what could be.
Sandcastles are an early artistic expression. It's almost like they're building their first home. They learn about foundations - that unless you build on something solid, what you have made gets washed away.
Parents are security, shelter, money, warmth, provision.
It's almost as though the beach is a place of tuition, exploration, freedom.

Where did I go wrong?

Are there opportunities that I'm going to wish I took? I don;t want to wish I'd travelled, played, written and loved more. I want to do as much of these things as I can while I'm young.

The beach is also a great place of recollection. Elderly couples who have seen wars, fought battles and experienced death walk along the prominade. While the young are windswept, cold and wet, the older are well prepared and always, always dry.

The sought after existence of a kite is over-rated. Everyone longs to fly wildly in the wind but as a kite you are forever at the mercy of your pilot rooted on the ground.
I remember flying my kite. Many a time i would let the diamond go to the full length of the wire and struggle to hold on. But I do remember thinking about setting the kite free.

Setting the kite free.

To fly it's own path.

To navigate the winds as it chose.

To fly as a bird.

Where did I go wrong? When did my innocence turn to ignorance instead of wisdom? When did a full piggy bank cease being important and the courtship of possessions begin to take it's place?

When did I stop having fun?