newcreation=newlaw

I will praise you with an upright heart
    as I learn your righteous laws. Psalm 119:7

It has been a fabulously, on the edge of the seat, nail-biting ride, these last couple of years, culminating in the throwing out of the rule-book earlier this year to which I had anchored myself for over forty years.

This in itself caused problems, being free from the rules meant I was without rules for the first time ever. If you have lived by a set of rules, to not have them, brings with it freedom – yes, but also responsibility. I missed that bit for a little bit.

I knew it meant change, I just didn’t know how the change would be shaped, what it would smell like, how would it feel. I rested, waiting for the change to happen, whilst being exhilarated by the possibilities.

The rules that I lived by, were ever changing: what was okay one day was berated the next, the rules were dependent on an unstable rulemaker. Hilariously I joined a writing class with this rulemaker two years ago, just for one session and in a free writing or stream of consciousness writing I wrote about the “Throne of Rule”. My rulemaker didn’t get it (big surprise) and I wasn’t consciously making a parallel to my own life. Only now in hindsight can I see and smile wryly.

I found my new rule-book, sure I had it on my table in front of me. My bible. All the rules I ever need are there, they don’t change with the wind, with society, with the foibles of humans. The rules are there.

My favourite rules are TO LOVE and TO GO. There is such beautiful fragrant freedom in those two rules. To love everyone, including yourself, means to see everyone as equal, equally loved. The junkie in the park. The heiress in the mansion. The abbatoir. The bus conductor. The child… My friend Karen Des.. All are loved equally. All are capable of love. All can accept this wonderful love.

When you think or know you have messed up, all you have to do is go back to scripture and see if the rules apply. The rules are unchangeable. They are part of the Lord. They are part of the Word of God. They are righteous, just and truthful.

As I learn more about scripture, more about the rules I adjust my behaviour. A breakthrough occurred this week, in a group of people, I didn’t conform, I didn’t go with the crowd for fear of appearing odd, very quietly I stated I wouldn’t be joining in, I wouldn’t partake in the event, I didn’t give my reasoning. The people there assumed it was faith thing, not an addiction thing, not a past behaviour thing. Just as an alcoholic who cannot touch liquor, I cannot begin on a slippery slope for me.

The Lord wants more for me, he wants more from me. I submit to him alone and he gives me the strength to say “I won’t” and “I will”. His rules are priceless, his words are law. He has given me discernment so I can know what is right for me to do for Him. I may be living on the edge of my seat but Lord, what a ride you are giving me.

forward jump

Someone told me we can only move forward if we understand where we have come from. God made me cry today, a base emotional response to that overwhelming love, immeasurable grace and infinite mercy. I am an adopted daughter in the family of the Lord and sometimes the love is so raw and real that I cry my thanks.

Of course I wasn’t in private, sitting on a devotion stool, or on my knees in prayer, I was walking along on a road and singing to my Lord. Did I mention I don’t do pretty? I don’t do pretty anything but certainly never pretty tears. So with swollen eyes, red and runny nose and sobs I listened instead of singing. I heard as if for the first time, I was enveloped in a beautiful sweet love.

Last night I was reminded of dreams, bad dreams showing a person as two different people, one good (seen from afar) and one bad (intimately known). The assumptions made about these dreams were twisted in fantasy for many, many years. We are given facts by our families that are full of their assumptions and we add these to our list of assumptions.

I was told that the dreams meant I was scared of being without the person. I assumed this was true. As an adult and with the Lord’s help I revisited the dreams and discovered the exact opposite was my truth. I was scared of the street angel because they were false, I was scared of the house devil because although real, the reality I lived in was frightening.

In another conversation today I explained that if someone said they didn’t love me, which would validate what I have always known, the assumption from the past that I am unlovable. That “known fact” from my past, who could love me?

God loves me! I can just jump up and down all day long saying this, knowing this, feeling this. No longer digging my heels, I am all in.

JUMP                                                                                     JUMP

JUMP                                     JUMP

JUMP

I understand where I have come from, not the official family version, but where I really came from, my truth. In this understanding I can sit in this present, content and joyful.

BUT

Sitting is not what is needed or wanted. I must move forward, heel-to-toe. Jumping, skipping, hopping, whatever my Lord requires.

Psalm 8

¹ Lord, our Lord,

    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory

    in the heavens.

² Through the praise of children and infants

    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,

    to silence the foe and the avenger.

³ When I consider your heavens,

    the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

    which you have set in place,

⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,

    human beings that you care for them?

⁵ You have made them a little lower than the angels

    and crowned them with glory and honor.

⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands;

    you put everything under their feet:

⁷ all flocks and herds,

    and the animals of the wild,

⁸ the birds in the sky,

    and the fish in the sea,

    all that swim the paths of the seas.

⁹ Lord, our Lord,

    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

{step}family

Last August my stepfather died, I was in England the day of his funeral but not at it because I did not know he had died

fragmented

was there grief, I cannot honestly be sure, there was oddness, certainly

broken

a dialogue began between his gf and me (or I as my Grandmother would say)

damaged

a memory fragment and a piece of information = knowledge that he stayed for a few days less than two miles from my home here in Kerry

ruined

did I meet him? No did I see him? Yes did I choose not to meet him? Yes

demolished

for a while I wanted to know who he stayed with, make a connection, ghostconnect

mangled

I realised today I haven't thought about it in months and I no longer care who he stayed with

fragile

why? because of the four fragment memories I have, one is me cowering, one is of his genitals (go figure) and the other one of drinking tea watching Charlton Athletic draw 4-4 at Turf Moor.

healed

 

 

everyone has a backstory, even a character in a book, some of the story is sweet (for some people), some of it is bad and then there are all shades of emotion between

thank You Lord for teaching me what being a father is.

cut

shaved legs in bath, I was girl, thirteen,

scraped too firm along the shin; shed skin

water turned pink

what a relief!

Many times in many ways; pink came

relief continued to repeat pink

my secret joy

my secret life

reality{bites}

I am writing a series of vignettes of the characters that will form the core of characters in {no sorry can't say it}  and I am busy knocking them into shape, making them well rounded individuals with different character traits, goals, dreams and reality.

We all carry a slightly different reality, an obstacle to one person is something to be trampled on by another. We all react differently to situations; if someone hurts me I become insular until it is resolved within myself with the Lord's help and guidance, other people have to share their hurt, spreading it out amongst other people, other people are quick to turn hurt into offense.

Yesterday I was with a group of people on an outreach mission. Such blessings, all these people were. I brought my camera and took photos of the team as I found them smiling, shining the light of the Lord in their personalities. It was captured. Still images of a light that never stays still. As we live lives for God's glory and His light shines through us, it moves to other people whilst staying within us. 

We all have the same goal, the same dream, the same reality and yet we live out that goal in different ways. Like my characters we all have different personalities, we have all come from different places literally and figuratively, different life experiences, cultural differences. Once we understand each others' motives based on personality we can rub off on one another in a good way. One person is good at organising, one person is good at teaching, another at preaching, another is a gifted musician and more are able to do the jobs that need to be done - mopping a floor, clearing a table, greeting, chatting, taking a photo.

I knew when I took the images, where they were going, that they were going to be published on the internet so I was careful and sensitive of whom I took pictures. When the people we were outreaching to arrived I put away my camera. I knew when I started to write about my characters where they were going and what they were going to do. They have been in my head ever since the incident that took Denise's life. The characters of a cojoined childhood and disjointed adulthood.

When we stop, stock still and just breathe in and out, just be in God's presence, focusing on Him alone, we feel the goal, we feel our place in it all. The byline that is increasingly becoming mine "my God wanted me, wanted someone like me to be in His family, if he wants someone like me, he really, really does want everyone, he wants you too"

And that is the bottom line, end of the contract, signature stuff. We are holy people working for God's glory in all we think do and say ready for Him to return, loving the relationship, bonded to Him.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV

 

Roo

Roo was tall, blonde and for a few months of the year tanned. His real name was Roderick, in primary we called him Roddy. The very first time I saw Roo he was completely naked running down the back cobbled alley behind our house, he was six and in big trouble.

He was always in big trouble, just when we thought he could breathe easy for a while, trouble would come and find him. He would come up with crazy plans that always went awry, but we didn’t care because he was fun to be with. He taught us how to shop-lift, pickpocket and house burgle. He was a natural charmer and his frizzy platinum hair made him look even more angelic. He conned neighbours, teachers, peers, he would have made a fabulously charismatic politician.

As he grew older girls would hang around at the edges of our gang, giggling and preening, trying to get Roo’s attention. Mazpa, Trace and me never thought of Roo as attractive, or maybe we didn’t want things to change we wanted to be thirteen forever. Roo and Pea went to the local secondary modern school and then at sixteen came to our school, the grammar school. That’s when we started living in each other’s pockets, Pea’s house was the usual meet up place unless my parents were on one of their trips and then everyone moved in to our house with AJ pontificating on cleanliness and Scaly Meg wafting through in diaphanous layers and her new-age entourage.

Looking back I think we were so bad to compensate for being a bit brainy, Milton joined us when we were twelve. She and I had been in the hockey team that got kicked out of the league for drinking at a county knockout and it gave her the reputation that allowed her to hang around with us. Trace never trusted her, because she came from a different part of town and she always believed Milt was there for Roo.

Roo only had eyes for Scaly Meg. Tall, skinny and appearing aloof, Scaly Meg like Roo and Pea was four years older than us. She is still alive, although she must’ve gone through ten or twenty cat lives. When I think of her, I think of a smug cat. She could ignore you for years but if she wanted you to do something she’d be all over you like a rash and make it seem she was your best friend. The stupid thing was she was so good at it, you knew you were being manipulated but you didn’t care, just were grateful for her attention.

Roo would do anything Scaly asked her, eventually as a man in his late twenties he went to prison for her and her common law husband. Trace and I were at Crown Court for that, Scaly Meg didn’t even bother to turn up. Roo was no longer lean and muscular, he was ravaged by years of injecting heroin. Pasty, flabby and his gorgeous curly blonde locks, shorn and grey. Scaly did that to him, oh I know he could have said no, he could have moved away, but he was obsessed with her so even as young as thirteen was making forays into a more adult drug life.

The first girl that did manage to stick to Roo was Milton (we were so academic and nerdy we renamed her because she was Elizabeth Minshull and Mazpa was going through an androgynous period.) In retrospect knowing she hadn’t a notion of keeping him, she did do well (she didn’t snivel or change anything in the order of what we did, later in the evenings when everyone did couple stuff they went off) and we did end our school years really good mates. She was always trying to prove herself to Roo, Pea and Trace particularly, so she would jump highest, throw furthest and party hardest. This led to the gang’s first split, although temporary, and allowed Trace that ‘I told you so’ moment.

Philosopher Todd started sniffing round me at the same time Roo and Milt got together. It was my first couple thing. I’d had one nighters and bits of fumblings but this was proper being a couple stuff. We were together one whole month, it was intense and took us both months to get over. Roo and Milton though, they went a few steps further and managed to make a baby. None of us knew until after the abortion and the group split into those who still talked to Milton and those who dismissed her. At the same time two new faces joined us, Olivia and Saar, both discovered that being bad was much more fun than studying and playing nice. They added some balance but through the rest of that school year there were tensions, arguments, fights and posturing. Our class was more of a nightmare for teachers than usual as we weren’t just against them but we created factions and counter factions, setting each other up but when the chips were down we all stayed quiet.

Milton spent the rest of her teens drunk and that’s how we ended up friends. We kept a bottle of vodka in the top bogs at school and we would meet there for French and German. Trace and Mazpa would drink in the evenings with the boys but me and Milton we drank anytime day or night. For me it was to take the edge off life, for her, I think it was the sadness. Sometimes she talked about it as if the baby lived. She was our first and only teen pregnancy, surprisingly the “good” girls got caught one after the other in 5^th year. We kept in touch for a few years but distance changes relationships. After I got sent away to college it got more difficult to go home until the visits were down to births, deaths and marriages oh and of course the odd cry for help.

Roo died last May, he was an old man of forty nine. I saw him a months before he died, he remembered he knew me but couldn’t remember how. He had no recollection of his youth and most alarming he didn’t remember Scaly Meg. He had burned and bruised his brain, too many hits and too many hurts. I visited him in the hospital, Trace asked me to go, she needed to see him because their son wanted a new photo of daddy.

It is only in the hindsight and the distance of years that I can look back and see the nuances. All those times Trace had fought Roo as children and young adults, she had a secret crush on him that developed after he got out of the nick. Galen, their son, is seven, skinny and curly blonde with Trace’s sallow skin. He is going to be a stunner. Trace is philosophical about the whole love thing, they live in a kind of commune with Todd and Olivia and various walkthroughs.

consonant{tetragraph}

There are some concepts that come under the category of ‘too hard’ or ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘don’t want to go there.’ When I was asked to think of some consonant words I got to sky and wyrd (which is from the Dragons of Pern so may not be a word in use) and then had to add in vowels to get other words such as eighty, eighth, heights, weights and my longest … eighths. I managed to get a consonant pentagraph but wasn’t sure of the rules. The book I was reading was written in 1865 and was a grammar primer for university undergraduates of dead languages and it was like there was a whole pile of rules that the intended reader already knew.

I feel like that in church sometimes, that I missed the giving out of the rulebook. I don’t in my everyday life use expletives however I do in my writing if the character would speak in the vernacular. Since attending church regularly I have noticed that other people don’t swear either so it got me into a quandary for my main protagonist in a story I was writing. She was steeped in Celtic mythology, she was an urchin from an estate where the only colour in her grey life would be the blueness of the language.

 

Parenting, and my lack of wisdom in that area has always been an issue for me even before I attended church. I am trying to raise independent young men that can take care of themselves, give generously and love well. In church I found that the rules include corporal punishment, include not being allowed an opinion, in some cases include kowtowing because it is a man. I still don’t understand the rules but am failing as a parent anyway. (see prev posts)

 

I certainly have no concept of the rulebook regarding being a wife, we married young and had for our reference: a Catholic abuser/enabler/alcohol model and failed relationship model. The main issue we had our entire marriage was financial virtuosity. It is impossible to give generously if there is no concept of fiduciary. I still have no concept of the rulebook, we got a partial divorce and it has made our marriage stronger.

 

Then there is the whole set of rules about being a Christian. I just don’t get the rules I am shown by regular church going. I have had to go out and seek people who are willing to get ‘real’. For example x shares to y. y keeps the share but lets a, b and c know that x shared and that x shouldn’t have shared. Or there is an elephant in the room x is addicted to blah, no one in the congregation tackles x about addiction just pats them on the back like a good Irish mother and enables the addiction. When I was asked to write a five min testimony I struggled, really struggled on how to word it so I wasn’t sharing anything.

 

My male friend travelled to England with his married sister to be there for her whilst she had an abortion. My friend is eaten up with guilt over doing that, his sister is having another fling, the guilt is making my friend bitter, his heart is hardening, he is blaming, he is shaming but is keeping the secret for his sister. So it is manifesting in other ways, he is angry, but it is internal anger and he is getting more and more self medicated. That is real, that is reality for him. It is not my story, it belongs to him but he would never share that in church, he wouldn’t feel comfortable, he doesn’t feel it is a sharing environment.

 

Rules and who makes the rules?

God given rules I try really hard to follow, some of the ten commandments are really hard for me to maintain, I struggle with them. The two rules from the NT, to love and to go – I can do this, I do it, I am so thank full that God wants me in his family and if he wants someone like me, I know there is a place for everyone else in the world in his family. It is getting past the human made rules, jumping over the hurdles humans make, and to be honest that I make for myself – that is the hard bit. To keep the heart soft, unbitter, unhardened when surrounded by hard, bitter hearts.

 

Church is good, it is good to come together to glorify our Lord, to praise and worship him with others as they did in Acts and the epistles. It is good to fellowship, to share, to say when you are struggling, to say when you are thank full, grate full, praise full, worship full but is just as likely as anywhere else to have Satan trying to get in, trying to twist things, to make offense.