2013

2013 started off in a cell for me. A cell I wasn't sure how I got into, and one I did not know how to get out of. One I had put myself in, but never intended to.

This cell was dark. It was quiet. It was predictable, structured, controlled. I knew what my days were going to be like. I could decide who could come visit. But no on knew what it was really like. I cleaned before they came round. I straightened the curtains and made my bed. I pretended like it was great in there.

To me, it was familiar. I knew the cracks, which floor boards creaked, the number of chips in the ceiling. It was peaceful in there. My home.

Something wasn't right though. My body wasn't working the way it used to. Sleep wasn't restful. There was a constant blockage in my ears - like they needed to pop. There was pressure behind my eyes. My hair was thinning. My bones felt sharp. My clothes hung off me. My energy levels - low. My eating - disordered.

My doctor suggested I put on weight. My housemate asked how the thought of that made me feel. Petrified.

I became aware, then and there, of the cell. That being in the cell was making my world a small place.

Over the next few months, the parts of my cell I had found comforting were now a threat. The cracks weren't just quirks - there were hazards. The solitude wasn't just peaceful - it was isolating. I wasn't just hungry - I was starving.

The walls were caving in fast, and my therapist's mention of the word "hospitalisation" resonated loud - I needed to get out before the cell crumbled with me in it.

A plan is what we worked on next. A plan to get out safely to reach a healthy BMI. A literal food plan, careful note-taking and monitoring of the progress, establishing the safest moments to move forward and the times I needed to lie low.

Adrenaline and vulnerability like I'd never known before.

Some days I looked back, craving the drama-free quietness of my old home. I longed for the peace again, to not always need to watch and keep track of my every move.

But somehow, memory of life on the other side of the prison walls spurred me forwards. The hope people carried for me on the outside kept me running towards them.

And I did.

Towards the end of the year, I reached those walls. The BMI considered "normal". I began to climb, ready and rearing for life beyond.

But still, something not right. I could hear no birds chirping, no gentle trickle of a stream, no wind in no trees.

Instead, the world I knew before had turned against each other, it became so obvious when I reach the top of the wall. A civil war had broken out, and I needed to pick a side to fight for.

Two options. Go back to the quiet. Go back and risk never knowing a larger life, an adventurous life.

Or jump. Jump down and face the wide open space ahead, full of uncertainty. Of decisions. Of choosing which side of the war to fight on. Of risk. Of wrong turns. Of anxiety. Pain. Battles. Threats. Carbs. Identity. Purpose. Forgiveness. Love. Hope. Rest. Joy. Dinner parties and chocolate.

2013, I'm deciding to leave you behind. Deciding to be grateful for where you've brought me. To remember you as a battle won, strengthening me to fight 2014 with victory on my side.

PS. I wrote a story for Tell it in Colour last month. Read HERE

God is not loving, nor is He powerful...

I haven't blogged in months. Months and months. Let's not delay any longer...

I'm in the air at the moment, sat in a seat really high up above Wales. I'm headed back to Belfast via Dublin after a wonderful wonderful trip home. My soul needed it. I fell in love with Switzerfrance again.

Somewhere amidst all the beautiful food and scenery and weather and faces and car rides and wedding fun, I had stunning conversations. I'm going to tell you about a couple of them now.

An old friend and I were walking around a park with fenced off grassy patches because the Swiss like to fix things that don't need fixing and grow greener grass where it's already greener than most grass. As we were doing this, she was telling me about how she couldn't deny the existence of a powerful being anymore. She described how large and vast yet intimately linked with everything the being had to be in order for the world to be as it is and function the way it does. She said she can't call the being God. The being is too big to be the God of the Christians.

A couple days later, on the drive through the alps back to Geneva from the spa we had spent Tash's hen do at, our carload talked lengthily about the scars Christians had left them with. About the unloving, alienating nature of churches so far removed from the message they preach. The desire they all had to be loved was not met by what Christians had to offer.

Both these conversations initially blew me away, and then they upset me. Disturbed me. This is what the world thinks of our loving God. Our beautiful, grand, almighty, powerful God. They see a weak and careless being. One that has limits. One that falls short. That will disappoint. They're being fed lies. They're being fed lies because we are failing to show them our God.

The Jesus of the bible left heaven (which probably wasn't a very easy place to say goodbye to), came to earth, did a whole load of loving, conquered death, and then went home leaving Christians behind to represent Him until His return. We've been left with the HONOUR of wearing His name, carrying his flag, illustrating who He is with our lives. From the conversations I've had this week, it is pretty evident the real Jesus is not known. His reputation is being influenced by cheap tabloids. It is tarnished. It is wrong.

So now I'm headed back to Belfast. Rumour has it we are due 1 month's worth of rain in the next 24 hours. People often ask me why I live in such a place. I have spent most of my summer asking myself the same question, trying to figure out the purpose of my life in Belfast. I still have no real answer. Instead, I now have a new question. How can I be an ambassador for Love? Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing. How can I paint a true picture of who God is with my life? 

I refuse to live in a world where my God is not known as the loving and almighty being that He is. I'm willing to endure the rain for Love.

Enough with your lies, Mirror!

I looked.

It was like seeing an old, familiar face I hadn't seen in while (maybe because it was just that). I felt all the similar things you would feel when you see an old friend again after having been apart. It was like I was reunited with myself. I really enjoyed it. After I'd caught up with myself for a while, I noticed (unsurprisingly, really) that I didn't look all that different. Then I got excited about how long my hair seemed to be getting. And then I noticed just how much my eyebrows needed sorting.

The first forty-eight hours of mirror reunited life were peculiar. Every time I came across a mirror or a reflection of myself I had to double check whether or not it was ok to look. I would glance at myself, look away, and then realise I was allowed, so look again.

It's been 5 days now. I've looked at myself a fair few times now. It scares me a little that I'm going back into old habits and come away unchanged. This is why I've decided to no longer have a mirror in my bedroom. Being able to go back to my room in the evenings and get changed without thinking about what others thought about how I looked during the day has been one of my favourite perks of the challenge. Sitting in my bed and not getting distracted by my thoughts triggered by a glance into the mirror has also been wonderful. I want a healthy relationship with my mirror. I want to use my mirror as a means of enjoying my appearance, enjoying my hair style and my make-up and my outfit and my face and body and skin. Not as a tool that musters up and reinforces insecurities. Not as a critical presence in my life. Not as something I dread looking into. Not anymore. 

So I'm going to keep looking, but only when I'm using it to get ready, and only when it is conjuring up positive thoughts. I'm aware I'm not always going to like what I see, and that's ok, I'm just going to have to learn to walk away. Walk away when I'm not using it for any real purpose. Walk away when those 'not good enough' thoughts creep in, because staring at them is not going to help me understand that I am in fact, more than good enough.

Day LX (that's 60): Happy Distractions

I just did my hair for the last time without a mirror. I am now sat on a train travelling from Basingstoke to London Waterloo (not looking at my reflection in the window next to me) having spent a wonderful time with a wonderful friend (and her husband), on my way to spend some time with extended family, and can smell my shampoo, extra strongly aromatic today for some reason. No complaints.

I've come to the end of two months without mirrors. And I feel refreshed.

I've relied on my inner mirror for 60 days. The image of myself I have in my head. The one that has memories of what I look like, that imagines up a picture of me depending on how I groom myself. These images are inaccurate at times. Like the time a couple weeks ago I rocked up to a lecture thinking my makeup was presentable, but was greeted by a bunch of (honest) friends who leaped onto my face, fixing the explosion of eyeshadow that had somehow spread across it. If they had been a little less honest, or had a sense of humour closer to that of my father, I would never have known I looked like a 5 year old who had raided her mum's makeup bag and used the contents to craft a less than intricate work of art.

Until I was told I looked off, I had no idea. I contently walked about with my mind on something else.

That's how these couple months have been. I haven't been showed what I look like, and so the image in my head is what I had to go with. Thoughts did arise making me feel insecure, but not being able to look meant I was able to shrug them off quicker. I couldn't obsess over trying to fix my look, because well, I haven't been able to see how to do so. Not being able to look meant I looked elsewhere, got distracted, and spent less time thinking about my outward self.

Do I still have insecurities? Yes. Do I still care about what I look like? Yes. Do I want to start looking at myself again? Yes I do, and I'll let you know what has changed after my first look tomorrow!

Day XXX: Even in a good year, there aren't 30 days in February!

Today marked the final day of my challenge. I made it. I haven't seen myself in a month. So to celebrate, I'm going to not look at myself for another month! Bear with me, there is some logic behind this insanity:

1. I can't think of any other crazy challenges for the month of March.

2. I quite like the feel of my room with my mirror turned around the way it is.

3. I feel like if I stopped now, I would quickly slip back into my old vain habits.

4. I'm tempted to go a month without makeup, but i'm too chicken right now so this is a way of putting that off.

5. I have learned a lot, and I'm too fired up about learning more to stop now!

Now all I need is someone to pluck my eyebrows and trim my hair. Any takers?

(ps. Though I've hardly mentioned it, I've loved being off facebook. I loved how many more interesting and productive things I found to do. It's good to be back in touch with the world, but I'm setting myself a 30 minute time limit per day to stop me from partaking in any unhealthy, unnecessary activities)

Day XXVIII: Crooked Toes, Painful Prodding and Promised Joy

I looked in the mirror on Friday.

I was at the physio, because apparently I have shin splints caused by crooked big toes which are making my knees hurt when I run, and she made me look at my reflection to see what my knees do when I perform one-legged squats (after I figured out how to do a one-legged squat, it was evident that my knees bend slightly outwards). I wasn't aware of this before she pointed it out, nor did I know they weren't meant to bend that way (FYI I didn't look at myself above my knees in the mirror, so the challenge has not failed. I was also pleased to discover my mirror fast hasn't had an effect on my knee-hotness).

The physio gave me two options:

Numero uno - Not bother doing anything. Ignoring the problem isn't going to kill me, it just means running will always be a struggle.

Two - Go to the physio on a weekly basis to fix the shin splints by undergoing various forms of prodding(ouch!), get orthotics for the inside of my shoes to straighten my toes out, and eventually be able to run again.

Running is something I enjoy greatly, so the first option would pose a bit of a problem. Opting for the latter, though more painful and costly now, means I will run again.

I was shown in the mirror what needed to be changed, told how to change, and now the choice to change or not is my own to make! Changing is not the easy route, it's not the cheap route, but it's the route that'll allow me to run again!

Changing is central to living the life God wants us to live. We're called to change ourselves, and then join the fight to bring change to the world (Stay tuned: I'll talk about changing the world in an entry coming up!).

A common problem people have with Christianity lies within the "rules" the bible sets out. Dos and Don'ts and everything in between can overwhelm the reader, and failing to meet them leaves one basking in a pool of guilt. This is not the intention. The bible is more than just a mirror reflecting our bad sides. Its intention is precisely that of the physio: to show us our flaws, give us instruction on how to correct them, and provide us with more support than we will ever need to set them in place. It is not going to happen over night, or in one go, it's going to take sacrifice and patience and stumbles and pick ups and let downs and baby steps and tears and pain and sweat. In Luke 9, Jesus tells us to pick up our crosses and follow him. Daily. When Jesus picked up the cross he was killed on, he was battered and bruised and torn up all over. He picked up a massive tree-sized object and lugged it up a mountain. And he lugged it up a mountain all the while aware he was carrying the thing he was going to be nailed to for hours until he died.

Telling us to pick up our crosses daily in no way implies the ride/hike up the mountain is going to be an easy one. Quite the opposite, there's a daily challenge to face, a challenge not necessarily oozing excitement.

There is hope though. Not the airy-fairy kind of hope we play around with when we talk about the weather in Northern Ireland. The kind of hope the bible uses. A strong and confident expectation, a CERTAINTY that what God has promised will occur. There's a treatment with 100% recovery guaranteed. There's a freedom guaranteed. And that's the reflection God has planned for your mirror.

Question is, do you want to run?

Day XXII: Another uneventful entry

I am experiencing quite a dilemma (fun fact: dilemma and enema are the only two words that rhyme with my name, neither of which have terribly fun definitions).
I have 5 blog entries lined up, each of which is incomplete, each of which I'm undecided on, each of which could be merged with another of which. Truth: I'm feeling a bit uninspired. So uninspired in fact, that I'm not entirely convinced what I'm writing right now is important enough to blog about, but I figured you could do with an update on my challenge.
I'm still plodding along with it; only a week to go now! Today I went for an "unbrushed" look, a daring enough look when I can see the mane to tame it, so I struggled a bit more than I usually would with not being able to check the face out. Key lesson so far: learning that learning is not something you can necessarily see in the every day.
Now, to ensure you don't completely give up on this blog, here're a couple extras for you:

1. This prayer is doing me a world of good these days:

"Oh God, I have tasted Thy Goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing, I thirst to be made thirsty still. Show me Thy glory. I pray Thee, so that I might know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, 'Rise up, my fair one, and come away'. Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long" - A.W. Tozer

2. This video is stunning

xx

Day IX: I haven't given up!

I've had a spot this week. I rarely get spots. It is located in between my eyebrows, eliciting countless semi-racist Indian jokes from my so-called friends. Because I've banned myself from mirrors, I couldn't check it out at all. This annoyed me a bit.
Otherwise, the urge to look in the mirror has been virtually absent. The number of times I automatically search for a mirror drops with every day that passes. And though still conscious about how I look, the thoughts about my physique are not as harsh and damaging as they were.
I know that's not a lot of information to give you about the progress of the challenge, but it is after all a progress, which by definition implies my world isn't going to flip over night (even though I often wish it would).

Day II: My crappy self-portrait

So, this whole mirror fast is full of lessons, apparently. This morning, I was jogging along the river. It was one of those crisp, bright mornings, where the sun shone bright, frozen puddles needed to be avoided, and ducks wandered the path in front, refusing to step foot in the cold cold water. During my 3rd mile, I noticed I was casting two shadows ahead of me; one from the sun, the other from the sun's reflection on the water. They were sat on top of one another, following my every move. The shadow cast by the sun was below the other, and was darker, more defined and showed my entire body, head to toe. The one cast by the reflection was above it, and was hazier, flickered, and only revealed me from my shoulders up. I thought it was pretty sweet, and kept on running. When the image cropped back into my head later today, I realised it painted an accurate picture of me.

When I look at myself, when I think about myself, I don't see the whole of me. When I look in the mirror, I see what I look like at the moment I look in the mirror. As soon as I remove myself from the mirror, I no longer know what I look like, I have only what I saw in the mirror to go by, and won't know what I look like until I next look in a mirror. My image of myself flickers. I only see moments of who I outwardly am throughout the day. Honestly, this outward part of me is the part of me I spend most time working on and thinking about, but it's only a part of me. There's a whole bigger part of me inside. And this part, I can't fully understand. I am a complex human being, acting in ways I often don't get, with capabilities beyond my knowledge. If I did fully know me, my actions would never surprise me. I would be able to predict exactly how I would react to everything that comes my way. Like the shadow cast by the river, the picture I paint is incomplete. And more often than not, I can't bring myself to love this incomplete me.
When God looks at me, thinks about me, He sees all of me, inside and out. He sees my personality, my past, my thoughts, my limitations, my potential, my face, my stomach, my hair, and all the bits of me I don't even know are part of me. His view is complete. He created me, he's bound to know how I work! He sees all of me, and LOVES me all the same.
Yet I ignore what He thinks of me, and I put my perspective, largely determined by other people's perspectives, above His. The perspective I pursue in the mirror, in other people's opinions, is an incomplete version painted by imperfect me! The only way to love me is to drop all other paintings and pursue the masterpiece image drawn up by a perfect God, who probably finished it and framed it, and has it hung up straight!

I'll end this one with a challenge: tell God you don't want to know what you, or anyone else on this earth, thinks about you, but you want to see you from His point of view. Every day. Every time you feel inadequate. Every time your insecurities creep up. Tell Him. He wants to hear it, and I'm fairly sure He'll know what to do with your crappy self-portrait.

Actually, I'll end with this: "For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago" Ephesians 2:10

Day I: I have 2 mirror radars

My first taster of life without mirrors has been insightful. I woke up, did my hair and put some makeup on from the warm comfort of my bed (perk number 1: not having to get up for the mirror), got dressed (went for an outfit I had tried out before - no daring wardrobe moves today!), ate breakfast, and set out of the house for possibly the first time ever without even a glance at what I looked like.
The walk into town was an interesting one. You know how people say that when someone goes blind, their other senses compensate for the loss and become heightened? Well that's kinda what happened. Because a part of me was set on not looking at myself, another part of me immediately became aware of every window, puddle and shinny car surface I could check myself out in.
As soon as Charlotte appeared, the radar switched itself off. I was well aware that I didn't know what I looked like, having Charlotte check I didn't have mascara up my forehead, but the distraction of interacting with someone took my mind's focus off mirrors, and this happened throughout the day.
I went to my cleaning job soon after, and the house I clean would give the house of mirrors a run for its money. The sinks are mirrors I have to polish, as are the dressers and bed side tables. There are grand mirrors hung about the place, and where mirrors aren't, big windows are. Despite all these, I found it relatively easy to focus on the dirt on the reflective surfaces, and not on what they were reflecting. When I thought about not looking, I resisted. When my conscious radar was on, I didn't look. It was when I got distracted that the challenge became real.
I saw myself once while cleaning in the master bedroom, once at Gemma's house that evening in her kitchen window, and once in my taxi driver's rear view mirror. I would be talking, or daydreaming, and that's when I would automatically look at myself, see myself, startle myself, and quickly look away, all in about a trillionth of a second. I'm surprised at this. The subconscious radar is the one that's going to be an issue. I thought the difficulty would be an inner wrestling match with myself, me fighting with me to stop me from looking. This problem may still arise, I have another 28 days to go, but for now the issue is getting myself out of the habit of subconscious glancing, a habit which seemingly expresses the sizeable concern I have with my outward self.

Le Challenge Begins...

I just flipped my bedroom mirror around, hung some decorations on it to make it look like a more exciting plank of wood, threw a towel over the bathroom mirror (thanks for the permission, housemates), and removed facebook from my easylink tabs on my browser. Here it goes, a month without two central aspects of my life. Right now, it feels like it's going to be a breeze. Doubt I'll feel the same way when I'm getting ready in the morning. Seriously excited about the learning curves about to be thrown my way!

The Big, and the Frustrating Bible

Lots of things I read in the bible frustrate me, reading it itself frustrates me. It frustrates me that my mind wanders when I read it. It frustrates me that I find it boring at times. It frustrates me that I don't remember what I've read. And the fact that all that frustrates me, frustrates me.
And then when I actually do read and understand it, there is a lot in it that I don't want to do. Some of it offends me. I find it restricting. Some of it doesn't fit in with what I want.
Let's take sinning. Sometimes, I wish the bible said it was alright for me to have sex before marriage. I mean, it would save a lot of awkward conversations, a lot of trouble. It would be easier to relate to my friends. I would be able to have some fun along with the rest of them. I could let loose a little.
And then there's the golden rule. Where it says to love our neighbours. Not just the ones who run up and down the stairs on the other side of my wall at all hours of the night, but everyone. Every rapist, every criminal, every big issue seller, every backstabbing person in my surroundings, every strong accented Belfaster. Everyone. Now sometimes, I think my life would be easier if I bent that rule and held a couple exceptions, a couple grudges. Not only them, but we're to love God too. A God who doesn't put an end to slavery and hunger and cancer. A God who is all powerful, all knowing, but lets me bask in my own doubt and doesn't just come knocking at my door, greeting me with a hug, saying "hey, let's spend actual time together!".
Why bother?
Let's get some perspective. I'm 2 centimeters taller than the average woman, but I'm actually rather small. Put me in a field, go a few hundred (thousand?) meters up into the air, and you won't be able to see me. Take a look onto our galaxy from one of the other ones, cause there are loads more we don't know about, and there won't even be a view of our earth. We're small. Compared to God, we're ridiculously small.
And he's big. Immeasurably big. He's so big, we can't exaggerate how big He is. To try and exaggerate Him would be an insult to how big He is. We're small, He's big.
So then, naturally (not!), we pick and choose bits of the bible we like. Francis Chan puts it like this: if you say there cannot be a God because you suffer, we suffer, then you're right. There isn't a God that fits the mold you want Him to fit. He's independent of you, and far greater too! So if you take certain aspects of who God claims to be, and refute others, then you're being your own God. You're not letting God be God. If a five year old decides she likes her dad's rule about being able to stay up an hour later on weekends, and is happy to obey that one, but thinks his ideas about not being allowed to walk on her own to school are preposterous, then tough! Her dad isn't going to step back and let her have her way because she doesn't agree with his philosophy. If he did, he wouldn't be acting as a parent. As a loving wiser being with her best interests in mind, he has a more accurate idea of what's good for her, regardless of what she thinks.
We hate this. In the world we live in today, intellectually minded, with an obsession with logic and being "open", the idea of putting what we think aside and surrendering ourselves to what God wants is so offensive. But ponder this: does the fact it's offensive make it wrong? Is it God who's wrong, or is it our cultural incline? Is it a God who is beyond time, ever constant, never changing, who is mistaken, or a trend that has only really been popular for a century, that will probably evolve into something new before 2076? Is it about what God thinks, or about what you think? How much more enriched would our lives be if we communicated our frustrations to God, told him what our problems with Him were, gave them over to him, and obeyed him anyway, trusting and knowing that we'll benefit from it?
He's big, we're small. But like the five year old's dad, He wants what's best for us. We may not agree, we may not want to, but He knows what's best for us. God is FOR us. Our small minds can't handle His bigness, hence the frustrations creeping in. Which is why we need His help to understand Him. Pouring out our frustrations to Him is what He wants us to do with them. We don't need to worry about the small things, we've got the big with us. So we can be big, and do big, we've just got to give up the small.

Um, what do I look like?

I've decided to have a different resolution for every month of 2012, make it more interesting than one thing for the whole year doomed to be broken in the first week. This January I've gone without two "necessities", diet coke and Boojum burritos. For February though, I wanted to raise the bar, do something a bit more challenging.
I've given up a fair few things in the past several years, and they've always revolved around my diet in some way. Partially because I love food so much, but mainly because I wanted to combine my resolution with toning up, looking good, with feeling better about my outward self. It never worked. I never felt better. So this time, I want my resolution to be about getting to the root of my insecurities, shedding my worldly identity and focusing on my heavenly one. Since my previous blog entry, I have been pondering ways I can learn to love myself more. Love myself the way God loves me. Unconditionally. My insecurities too often get in the way, but they don't get in God's way. I want him to teach me how I can get over and beyond them. So I'm kicking two of the things that stir up lies about myself for 29 days; facebook, and mirrors.

I've hesitated a fair bit about this, the idea of not being able to see what I look like, not being able to look my "best" for others and for myself is daunting, but all my reasons for not going for it are precisely why I think it's important I do it!
I check myself out in the mirror more often than I'd like to admit. It hit me a few weeks ago that I spend more time in front of the mirror getting ready on a daily basis than with God. After I got over the ridiculousness of this fact, the fact that it can't be good for me, I decided to do something about it. Mirrors reflect how YOU see yourself, not how others see you. The funny/ironic/somewhat sad thing about spending excessive amounts of time ensuring you look good enough for the eyes of others in front of the mirror, is that the end result isn't actually how they see you. They see you through their eyes, not yours. On top of this, you aren't the you you see in the mirror. The mirror you is just a reflection of what you look like when you stand in a specific way, pout in your favourite way, grimace in a particular way. You are so much more complex, intricate, elaborate, wonderful than that reflection. So if the person you think of yourself as being is in accordance with who you see in the mirror, it's bound to be incomplete. If you spend more time working on your mirror image than figuring out God's image of you, then you're bound to feel insecure and obsess over your looks.
Facebook, beyond being a sweet, entertaining, useful way to keep in touch and network with folk around the world, has become somewhere I show the parts of myself I want others to see, and somewhere I compare my whole self to the parts of others they want the world to see. There's something not quite healthy about that. And if I'm going to give up mirrors, it makes a lot of sense to simultaneously give up my virtual mirror. The mirror reflection of myself and my "reflection" I can share with others by updating my profile and commenting on others'.
For a month I want to loose the mirror focus, my superficial self, and replace it with one that actually matters. My identity is too tied up in what I look like, and it's getting in the way of my identity in Christ. I know it's not going change my life to the point where I'm not going to have a care about what others think, but I hope it'll be a step further in not letting my thoughts about what their thoughts are define me! It won't be an easy task. I rely on facebook to keep me occupied, to keep in touch with people. And my reflection isn't something that's going to be easy to get away from. I'm bound to catch a glimpse of it every once in a while, but I'm going to commit to not focusing on the image I see, to getting out of the habit of taking a sneaky glance when I walk past a shop window, to tame my hair with the help of my shadow. This woman is doing it for an entire year. AND she got married this year! Here's to getting through the shortest of the months!

You can't do it alone, by definition.

God calls us to love. To love Him. To love ourselves. To love others. Seems difficult. Flipping daunting. Like He's telling us to climb a mountain, and then cuts our limbs off and ships us off to holland where there are no mountains in sight to climb.
Loving god is something I've struggled with a lot in the past. The thought of falling for someone you've never actually physically met seems beyond impossible. I've written about it before, so to save some virtual paper, you can read about it here.
Loving myself. Now there's a tricky, uneasy, insecurity-reering and downright ridiculous thing to have yourself do. I've heard the christian message time and time again that says God "made me the way I am and loves me for it and there's no need to get myself down because I have a loving father who cares". Now all of that is true, but it never really helped me actually love myself. The reason being that my identity was wrapped up in all the wrong things. Or just things. Lots of things. Like being known as the skinny one.
For years I was the one everyone envied for being able to eat I could and not put on a kilo. I liked it. It became a big part of who I thought of myself as being.
When my body shape started to change, and I started putting on a bit of weight (normal, healthy, nothing to be afraid of weight), I freaked out. I couldn't not be that person anymore. I didn't want to no longer be able to chow down thousands of delicious calories and have my metabolism not bother effortlessly burn them all off. While fully aware I wasn't fat, I became down about not being able to be so carefree in enjoying my food.
My identity was so wrapped up in being the lightweight that losing it meant losing part of myself.
I was afraid of becoming something else. Being viewed differently by the world. And it was only when I lost this part of who I was that I realised it was part of who I was. That's when it clicked. That's when I realised I wasn't going to be able to love myself the way God calls me to if who I see myself as being is SO FAR from who I am in him. We were made to find our securities, joys, greatness and well, all of who we are in god. So it's only natural that we fail to love ourselves when we're so caught up in this world. We were made for so much more.
Loving others was something I always secretly prided myself in being able to do. I'm not really one to hold grudges. I don't really have any enemies. My life in terms of loving others has been quite blissful. Or so I thought. Until this summer, when listening to a series on Leviticus by Rob Bell. He got to the bit in chapter 27 that revolves around the year of jubilee. In this year, God's people of the time were called to have a year off. A year OFF. No work for a year. A year full of celebrating and feasting and worshipping and loving. My kind of year. As soon as the trumpet sounded to mark the beginning of the year, everyone was called to pay off the debts of those in debt, give them their land back, feed those who were without, extend a helping hand to those in need. Free of charge. Regardless of how they'd acted or behaved to get themselves into debt in the first place.
Now not only was this a beautiful thing for the people of the time, but it is also a picture of what Jesus did for us. He payed off our debts. If we choose to accept the offer, we're free from our debts. Out of the red, into the black. Love. And we're called to do the same to others. We've got to LOVE the people in need who are in need because of their own mistakes. Because of drugs, gambling, selfishness, sin. Our place isn't to judge whether or not they deserve love, we're just to love. Harder than loving an annoying brother I think.
So now here's the good news. The news that allows us to love. To love God, ourselves and others.
God is love. Love is God. We're not to do ANY of it alone. As if we could love without God. By definition, it's impossible. If God is love then wherever love exists, God exists. We don't have a choice if we want to love, God'll be there. I suggest we get our knees grubby and dwell in him, hear what He has to teach us on a daily basis about love. We do that, we do love.

Burning bones and poisoning chickens.

One of my modules this year is on Religion. It's not the first time I've studied the topic from an anthropological perspective, but a whole new level of learning is happening this time round!

Previously, I freaked out when doing some of my readings. Hearing theories on how all societies have a religion of some sort, beliefs that help them make sense of the world. Reading about the role of witchcraft in societies, and how it works to help them function. Learning about witch-hunting by Christians back in the 16th century, who decided particular groups of people were witches, and convinced a majority of people, including intelligent thinkers of the time, the stereotypes were true. About witch-watering in America, "justified" in the bible. About the cognitive-science perspective on religions, about Richard Dawkins and the God Delusion, about how religion is merely a coping mechanism, a comfort, to deal with death, and how others use it to frighten people into behaving "righteously". I was scared I was going to read something really good. Really convincing. Really disproving the existence of the super-natural. That the God I've thought to have believed in for so long is actually a hoax. A social construct. I feared the truth.

Today, I was sat in the library, after a morning of lectures and conversations about belief-systems, reading about more divination practices, and was overwhelmed with a sense of peace. Relief. Joy. That God is a rock. That He is consistent. A constant. The constant. That regardless of religion, rituals, my fears, my doubts, the intellectual trend of the moment, He remains unchanging, steady. Not boring. The furthest thing from it. But at peace, wanting us to forget all about religion and rest in Him. Well, not forgetting about it altogether, I have an essay to write!

Five and a half miles south of Comber

This time last week, Ariel Body and I returned somewhat exhausted but 100% refreshed from our micro-adventure. She on her not-so-trusty bike christened Murray, whom we have become experts at putting back together, and me on my rattling old-lady love of my life bicycle Hilda (48 quid on ebay).
We set off, with only a rough idea of where we were going, in that horrible kind of rain that feels like a wet cloud is chilling out on the earth, and stopped at the bottom of our road to put Murray's back wheel back in its place. We temporarily sorted that, and within the hour found the road/greenway that lead us to Comber (which we still can't pronounce properly). We made it there, stopped off at a newsagents to ask for directions, and more importantly purchase chemically enriched beverages. Then we set off nobly into the countryside, with the idea in mind that we were going to find some trees on a beach to set up camp under/in. It took us a while, what with the hills and the rain and the temporarily losing each other, but we eventually found a leek field with trees and a beach. After "tossing" the bikes and bags over the barbed wire, gathering leaves for my bed, careful tying Ariel's hammock, chowing down our low-budget pitta sandwiches, and excessive clothes layering, the sun was starting to set, and we welcomed the darkness. It took me a while to get to sleep, it was either because of how difficult it is to get into a comfortable position wearing so many layers without anything going numb, or because I was on a bit of a sugar high with all the haribos Ariel had thrown my way, but I didn't mind. Watching the tide come in in the glow of the distant city lights was reason enough to miss out on sleep.
I woke up at 7 with a coat over my face to Ariel telling me we couldn't see the sunrise because of the clouds. I ate breakfast (another banana, honey and peanut butter pitta sandwich) and fell asleep again, arising at 10 with the taste of peanut butter in my mouth. We got up and packed, and boldly went for a dip in the sea. It was cold, but the sun was shining so drying off was less of a drama than we had anticipated.
The return was pleasant, with the sun gleaming off the beautiful Irish greenery, and burning my face.

Twas a highlight of the summer.


p.s. If you read all that, you wasted your time. Ariel skillfully put together this video which sums up our trip far better than my jabbering ever will!

I've been the other son.

The parable of the prodigal son is one of the most well known stories Jesus ever told. There is an incomparable beauty in a father warmly and lovingly greeting his son, a son who returned after having seriously dishonoured him. There must have been some serious man-weeping going on when they embraced.
It’s a story I’ve heard a lot, a story I find wonderful, but a story I could never really relate to.
I’ve never dropped everything and ran away from God. I have been through “stages” with a “what’s the point?” attitude, I’ve been overwhelmed with doubt, but I’ve never slammed everything down and ditched God. I’ve stuck at it for the most part, though a lot of the time half-heartedly.
Two summers ago my dad’s brother, uncle Andy, was diagnosed with cancer and given 6 weeks to live. He hadn’t been terribly “tight” with God for about 20 years, but in his last weeks he prayed and said that he wanted god to use him, dead or alive, cause he felt like he hadn't given God the chance to over the years.
After he died, I toyed with the idea that he was now in heaven. It didn’t sit right with me that he’d spent his life, well the majority of it, away from God, and then got away with crawling back to Him in his final moments. Felt like he was taking the easy way out.
But check it. The father in the story of the prodigal son has an older son. This son portrays someone I can painfully relate to. When his brother came home and was welcomed wholeheartedly, he didn’t think it fair. He couldn’t bring himself to celebrate with everyone else as his brother had wronged the family, and come clambering back deserving punishment, but receiving huge festivities in his name instead. When his dad noticed his eldest son’s not-quite-partying mood, he told him his brother was dead, and now is alive. Think again, what’s not to be excited about?!
So here I am, two years late, on a sticky summer’s afternoon, celebrating along with God the return of my brother, Andy!

Love Actually

A mate challenged me about a year and a half ago with the question “would you still love God if Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead?” At the time I blurted out some intellectual-sounding answer. Behind the "right" words coming out of my mouth, the rest of me was panic-ridden with the possibility that I didn’t love God to the extent I always thought I had. It was the first time I’d properly questioned why I loved God. If I even loved him. How I could possibly go about learning to love him. The more I thought about it, the more impossible it seemed, to love someone who wasn’t concrete. Who wasn’t about. I started pushing him away from my world. Pushing him further up into the sky. Viewing him as a powerful being chilling out above us somewhere who loved us dearly, but who expected us to work insanely hard at loving him back. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I didn’t lose face, I kept the Christian act going, but I didn’t understand how to love Him. I begged God to teach me how to go about it, but the distance I’d put him at prevented me from seeing him anywhere.
Not sure entirely when or how it happened, but I accepted the situation. Or I just pushed the problem to the back of my mind and stopped thinking about it. I figured I would persevere with the whole Christian thing and have faith that it would make sense one day.
“Allah Allah Allah”
This song came on my iPod. By mewithoutYou. It’s a pretty feel-good song, singing away about how God is in everything. The penny dropped pretty loudly in my head. I had the whole concept of the nature of God muddled up. I was envisaging Him as being separate from the world, as a powerful force that looked over us. Major underestimation. God is in everything. He’s intertwined IN this world. He’s in that moment when I slowly feel myself warm up after I’ve got into a cold bed in a cold room. He’s in that first sip of a cup of tea. He’s in that excitement when I’m plummeting down the side of a mountain on a board. He’s in everything I love already. He’s the beauty of it all. I don’t need some secret theological doctrine to love some seemingly inaccessible God. He’s in me. He’s in the people around me. He’s in what I see. Now there’s a God I can’t help but love. God is love. And according to Hugh Grant, love actually is all around.

Sunday

Rob Bell is an author, Christian speaker, and pastor. He's got such refreshing insights on the teachings of Jesus. This video, one of many in a series entitled "nooma", addresses the common misinterpretations of religion. Inspiring stuff he has to say, despite the somewhat cringe Americanness of the video itself!

NOOMA 04 - Sunday - Rob Bell (Legendado) from Marcelo Mioto on Vimeo.

June Strangers

Right so the month of June has been over for a while now I know, but I'm only just coming to terms with the fact that summer is over. It proper hit me today when walking home from a lecture I didn't understand on the economy, in Belfast's best wind and rain. Miserable. But somewhat expected.

We tend to think back on our lives in terms of the people in our social spheres. People who are close to us. People who drift from us. People we don't like. People we can relate to. We hardly ever take into account those who are unknown to us. We acknowledge their existence, but we do not remember them.

At the beginning of the month of June, I met quite a few interesting strangers, which is why I decided to keep track of them all for a month. I wrote a few notes down at the time but am only getting round to putting a blog together now, when I actually have better things to do. The point? To account for a few of those I would normally forget all about within 24 hours.

- I was on my way home from having had lunch with Josh. This elderly woman with a walking stick and crazy teeth got on and decided she was going to sit on the seats that were highest from the ground. She got a bit stuck, hanging somewhere between her chosen seat and the floor in front of it. I shouted across the bus asking if she needed help. She screamed YES. I threw down my ipod, phone and bottle of diet coke and rushed to help her. Not as easy as I'd hoped. Frail elderly women are heavy. Another guy had to come over and help out too. He was rather attractive so his assistance was welcomed for many reasons. We finally got her onto the seat, she mentioned something about us having to go through this when we were her age as well. We chuckled. And went back to our ipods and phones and diet cokes.

-Danya and I were sat in Plainpalais sipping pints and catching up on some outside tables one evening, when the woman sat at the next table started talking to us for about half an hour. Her name was Anne and her eyes wondered a little. She was about 30. Actually she was 29, as she mentioned something about having been 19 ten years prior to the conversation. Anyways, she was a little drunk, would have able to beat me up if she wanted to considering her build and was Swiss through and through. She was rather chatty, telling us about the jewelry course she was on and how she went traveling a lot in her youth and was a hobo for 10 years and how she always wanted to get out of geneva and how she always wanted to find 'the one' and how she found someone and had a kid but how she hated how much he loved her and how tied down she felt and how she wanted to break free of it all but that she wasn't the kind of person to do that and that we should make the most of being free and single and not settle down ever! Then she moved on to the people sat on the other side of her.

- Short, drunk, homeless man with a Father Christmas beard, only it was a dark beard not a white one. In fact, he looked EXACTLY like J. K. Rowling's description of one of those goblins in Harry Potter who guard Gringotts bank. Only fatter. Not much taller though. He was stumbling round the bars asking for money. I spared him some loose change. He kissed me on the shoulder. Tit for tat I guess.

- Zambian man. He overheard us speaking English and proceeded by asking where we were from. After my response he said 'Your country colonised mine'. I appologised. He walked away.

- Mr. G's dog. Walking back up to the station with Jiwan and Dustin after having watched Australia get smashed by Germany. A dog caught our attention. It had no back legs and therefore had a 'wheelchair'. A weird contraption was strapped around its lower body with wheels attached to it, whereby it pulled itself around. Its owner was German and had four other dogs with her. She was friendly. Ja.

- One of the highlights of the month of June, possibly one of the best moments of the whole summer, was when the Swiss took Spain on and won! The low-light was when the Honduras match was played and the result meant the short-live Swiss glory was over. Thais and I were sat in Brasseurs as per usual for the game. At the next table were sat the most improbable threesome. One was a giant. He was from Nigeria and had become a successful businessman in Geneva. He looked and dressed however as though he had lived on the streets for decades, and was quite intimidating. The second was a scrawny white-boy aged 20 who didn't even need to tell us he was Swiss. The spiked up hair he should have grown out of when he was fourteen, the silver chain around his neck and matching one around his left wrist engraved with his name gave his nationality away at first glance. The third did not speak to us, in fact I am not convinced he even spoke to other two. He was French, at least I think he was considering he was dressed like a chav from Marseille, and was the only person in Geneva obnoxiously cheering for Honduras. The Nigerian was endlessly purchasing Colones of beer, and kept snatching our glasses and filling them to the brim. As soon as the match drew to a regretful close, Thais and I rushed out of there, much to the disappointment of the ones we left behind who were clearly hoping to get something from us in return.