uncontainable love:

he is wild and free and cannot be held by anyone

his love is too passionate and true

it is the creative spark that birthed the planet

it tears apart nothingness and monotony

and births a universe of life, fun, vibrant and real

this cannot be fitted in the old ways

but comes into the new place and fresh revelation

memories are grace not to be lived on

always there is more always, there is more

tradition is death, there is no script

we cannot write one, to much changes always

he always wants to be in conversation

living out of us

dear near, dear deep,

learn to be the future

step forward into destiny

wild and free

wild and free

wild and free

Coming back from the wild

Its Seven years almost to the day from when I donated my last $200 to a charity in mexico and set off trusting that God would provide a way for me to travel 1800 miles in 7 days to make a flight home. It was an adventure that was taken alone, one at the time I felt was the only alternative to denouncing the reality of my faith...

I just read "Into the Wild" its a book piecing together the account of another young idealist who sadly died on an extended adventure in alaska.

However, romantic and exciting such trips away from normal life and civilisation seem, there always seems to be a necessary element of self-indulgant escapism, or maybe just simply running away. I think a perceived failure to live up to other peoples standards can leave a burning desire to prove "I can make it on my own" "I fear ill fail you in this relationship so Ill keep you at a distance"

but the cost is high as loneliness is the only possible outcome of avoiding intimacy and no amount of passport stamps of gigs to thousands of people can replace that...

So maybe its time to come in from the wild...
To trust people enough to let them close...
to realise that its relationships that really matter and that they are costly and hard work, but they are also the most beautiful gift God ever gave us...

God never plays it safe

From the mystery of the incarnation to his passion and now how we as individuals are challenged to be the love of God in this life, God has always been on a high risk strategy.

Why trust your son in the womb of an uneducated cultchie jew? there we're plenty more "developed" "civilised" options for how Jesus could have been born onto this planet.... why there? why those people? seems a bit irresponsible to trust the entire salvation plan for humanity into the hands of a couple of teenagers, especially when the king of the country is out to kill all the babies....

but who knew... it seemed to work out? but what about when he was a bit older, in his early thirties surely a bit of respect for the established church is what we expect from God's son? The envoy of love just seems to love a barney with his clergy. All well and good but when they turned nasty surely it was time to chill out. Certainly Jesus keep doing all that stuff with the poor, we all support that but how about you calm down on the temple confrontations? we don't want anyone getting offended do we?

and what about those people around him, since when did God's son wander into a tradesman's workplace and invite them on adventures? surely there would be some kind of official invitation to an application procedure, maybe after the 4th round of interviews you could carry Jesus sandals? Instead the guy who deserts him and pretends not to know him is trusted to establish a whole new way of doing church.... surely not God, surely there was someone with an MBA from rome who coulda made sure it all went off well....

so what about this christmas, where is our adventure? do you feel "useless" enough to appear on God's warped head hunting hit list? it seems He loves trusting clowns with impossible missions... high risk strategies....

that sounds a lot more fun that socks and mince pies...

ignorable failures awesome opportunities

everyday when we get up we can make a difference to the world by making a difference to somebody's world.

unfortunately we often fail to grasp these opportunities, which results in continued suffering for people who could really do without it and a little bit of our humanity ebbing away...

i just put the heating on cause im sneezing from the rain last night. we were out walking the streets of belfast and met a few people who were also soaking wet.

but with no home to go back to and our city's homeless service providers passing the buck of who should be trying to get them into a shelter it was looking pretty bleak. Jack was considering an industrial bin as his best chance of some sleep, the streets like us were sodden...

They may not have been angels, pauline had been evicted from a house, jack had been in and out of jail and colin didn't say much but from the way he flinched any time anyone moved around him im guessing his story wasn't so happy... but does that make them any less human? does that mean they should be left to rot on the streets. These were kind and generous people, warm and welcoming souls. Jack's brother had been found frozen to death and his sister murdered in 6months... they are real. I would say not just a statistic but belfast doesn't even bother to try and count its rough sleepers so their not even a statistic here...

and yeah its great to talk to these people for a few hours or give them some food or money or even take them home for a night but it does fuck all in terms of addressing the bigger problem... they still wake up with nothing to do, nowhere to go and huge addiction issues which are relatively simple and cheap to feed...
why do we tolerate it? why when the stockbrokers have a bad day do they get offered 700 billion when about 20 would give clean drinking water to the poorest of the poor?

i think we mostly tolerate it because we don't know what to do and our elected candidates don't know what to do and there are lots of pressing issues which take up more than the time we have. but thats not good enough, what are we going to tell our children when they ask us why we let the more vulnerable members of our society freeze to death outside our workplaces and shops?

human rights

A bunch of ppl are making a lot of noise about china's human rights policy etc around the olympics, and they're probably right, but i was out walking round the streets last night with a few friends and we came across plenty of injustice on our own doorstep...

first there was dino, who couldn't speak any english, so with only a very few words of romanian between us we'll didn't hear his story but there he was sat against a bin, holding out a crippled hand for some change, a middle aged man destitue in a foreign land...

next was gemma, she butted in while we were praying with her friend aaron, she had been having a few drinks with her friends in a park, well dressed quite pretty, cap pulled low over her face. "Are you guys really praying? Cause im getting mad panic attacks and i want them to go away" Then she pulled up her sleaves and there were about 30 little cuts the whole way up each forearm. She said it was the only thing she could do when the panic attacks were making so scared she couldn't even leave her room to sit with her mum...

finally there was ahmed, sitting in a bit of town we dont normally find people, i would have walked past him but some of the other guys stopped. ahmed is 17 he's been seeking assalum for 3 years, during which time he has been bounched around from libya, italy, france, switzerland and england with no passport and only a basic grasp of these countries languages he has often ended up living on the streets. now here in belfast he was selling himself to men try and make a few quid...

we spent time with each person, giving them food and a hot drink, prayer and hugs, all of them appreciated it and a couple cried on someones shoulder. but what kind of a society do we live in where minors from war-torn states are forced to turn tricks for perverts to get by? somehow i dont feel so justified in pointing the finger at china or bush or anyone...