Tairngir tellings

My life is amazing. Within a year my despair has become hope and His words have been fulfilled in my life in the most delightful ways. A year ago my heart was a train wreck with very few survivors. Depression was ever ready to descend on me; so willing to become my soul mate. I had the phone in my hand to call the doctors on more than one occasion. My new past time of poetry writing betrayed my pain riddled soul and my thoughts about the future were sucked of colour. I felt useless against the onslaught of all the brokenness in the world.

Now as autumn fades into winter and past growth is mulch; once again I am happy. I have met the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. I have a job in which I can actually be excited about the possibility of helping others. I am moving to a city (which has been on my heart for a while.) to be with the love of my life and seek a new life together with her. I might even go to Uni and expand my mind and horizons (cheesy I know). All is rosy on the outside. I am being loved in a way I never thought possible. This is opening up my heart to an illuminating, burning light and softening me in unexpected ways. This all sounds wonderful and if the healing I hope for comes it will be glorious to behold.

But there are dark parts lurking in the deep parts of me and with all this light around they cannot remain hidden. These wounds, dark balls of lies and inner vows are being brought to the surface. I am finding that it is easy to declare freedom from the past and past pain but entirely another to walk out this freedom. I find that declaring truth is a first step and in its self cuts a measure of bondage. In your walk it is that decision to stop moving in a direction that is off the path God has set before you. It however doesn’t encapsulate repentance; it is a good start but only the start. Historically I have found it hard not to get stuck in the mire of my sin and brokenness. I feel God firstly brings up these strongholds, patterns, modes of behaviour, and injured parts of our hearts so that we are aware and can seek his healing. I also believe that God loves these times. As painful and hard as it can be for us in the midst of these storms we can easily choose to run to Him and fling ourselves into his ever embracing arms. His mercy flows like a river of life water into our deep places and His love can work that bit deeper into our fractured hearts building an ever-stronger foundation to our lives. But mostly I just love that I get to be close to him and that there are no hoops or fences to jump through or scale. I really believe this to be true; any barriers are the enemy or man made in order to control and manipulate and keep me from my Father. I know I’m not saying anything new here but with the amount of lies and the frequency with which they are bandied around ever increasing. I don’t think we can here the truth too often.

Right back to task. Saying out loud I have sinned or I have this broken part in me that I want to be healed and made whole is an acknowledgement that you are not perfect. This can be surprisingly (or not so) hard and hurtful. It can unhinge the way you have been forging in the world and how you live your life. It can be really quite distressing. So the fruit of the experience so far can seem bad and rotten. Your confidence and self-esteem can take a battering and you feel like the lowest of the low. And if it stayed that way then the fruit would be bad and your life would have just been interrupted and fouled up for no good purpose.

God is a God of healing and redemption and he will never leave you hanging in limbo. Only you can leave yourself there by not engaging with Him and seeking resolution. The next step we need to take is into His healing hands. That’s it. Once you’re in there: truth and love can be imparted by Him and received by us without measure or bond. The hardness of out hearts is softened. The cold places infused with a heart heat that has to be experienced (it is unexplainable in words). The scarred, broken places healed and made whole. Grafted onto the soul that is His by right and His increasingly by your choice to believe Him and in Him.

Now I am tempted to use the onion analogy here (the peeling of layers of our heart to get to our true selves). But I wont because I feel it leaves out the fact that some things aren’t to be taken away but are to be redeemed. So I will use the picture of a tree. A deciduous tree: for example a great oak. Some branches may need pruning off for the health of the tree and some may be blown off in life’s storms. And other branches, twigs and roots may have been partially severed or be diseased. And these limbs and parts of the tree need healing and grafting back on. I feel that if a part of me is not aligned with my God as I am as His son then it must be in some way detached or diseased and rather than being cut off needs to be grafted back on and healed and allowed to receive life from the good healthy parts: the parts that are in Christ who is the author and source of life.

Now in this analogy I feel that the Father, The Holy spirit and Jesus are the soil the tree grows from and gets nutrients from, the rain and sun that provide the conditions and energy for growth and the source of the tree itself (the seed and all that was needed to bring the seed into being). If God truly loves us and we are His children do you think he would allow a good limb to be torn off without Him bring healing? Would He allow the soil around our roots to become too dry or waterlogged so that we were in peril and not be our succour? If a part of our hearts has become rotten will He not make it strong and vigorous again? And if the world has added onto our trunk or root system or burrowed into our good wood and wreaked devastation will He not drive it out?

Now why I used a deciduous tree as the example can be made more apparent. Another phenomenon I have noticed on this journey through life and the journey towards being all He meant for me to be is this: I often return to the same place in my heart or to a way of behaving after healing has taken place. And it feels clean and new like new leaves on a tree in spring. And though healing has obviously taken place I can come up against the same things, problems again and again and often need to seek more healing. I like to picture this as the leaves on the tree. After healing taking place there is a spring in our lives (and often in our steps) and new growth springs forth and all feels fresh and vigorous. But as the year goes on the world takes it’s toll on the new growth, it can be damaged and bruised. Then our world can become cold and all those leaves (the sing of fresh growth) fall to the ground below us and we can despair that we have not really grown or matured. That we are caught in a vicious circle. But that is not true; during the year in the spring and summer we have grown taller and broader. More able to weather the weather and bear more fruit. So the leaves fall and rot into the ground around us seemingly a waste, a by-product of the growth process. But in the rotting into the ground around us the nutrients that the leaves possess become nutrients the tree can use next spring when another season of growth can take place. I believe God loves process and the brokenness that may take a lifetime to be fully healed is but a breath in eternity. Nothing is wasted or for no gain if it is from Him.

Here endeth the sermon

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/35

Dec 2 2009

Sky overhead not yet black but the darkest blue,
Here silencer comes scarlet in rage knowing this one is true,
Praying’ over and sword is sheathed not even one angel to see me through ,

I watch the judge with envy green in greed’s eyes,
Crowd’s passion’s burnt out orange, lost on the oldest lies,
As he buys lost destiny back from fallen death ties,

Buried dead and defeated in earth’s solid brown,
Head flowered in corn gold this world’s forgotten crown,
May I know that his backwards is forwards and up, down,

The crunch sound of trodden on innocence white,
Powerful seems the black but he always had more bite,
Come all that you are, come you are all that is light.

His Passion……..

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/68

Like an earthly stubble the grass tickles my palms as we lazily lay,
Joy is my strange companion as the sun slips behind the hill waving a bye to the day,
A gentle breath seduces the skin as in a tree a dove sounds a mellow coo,
My restless mind is awed into quiet as my minds eye turns longingly upon you,
All those little lies that whisper “unworthy” turn to dust before you’re passion stare,
The lazy lean of a young tree reminds me that all about has little to worry and needs not care,

Once forgotten summers return in a single beat; my heart athlete as our favourites play along lazily leading,
Basking in fruit’s glory of furrows filled with labours past; a blast the earth gives up it’s bounty bleeding,

We walk in smiles with Him who is All to us redeeming our joy from prisons dread,
Released, our heart’s peace beating as forgotten love lorn paths we silently tread,
In this moment; at this moment all is dream, all else seems pretty pantomime,
Naked in every way my soul, mind and body; shoddy the idea of limit to this time
As the moon silently silver a sliver of a smiling face winking takes it turn,
Sun dips into landscape beyond to bleach new skin, sights and times to burn,

(A piece I’m uncertain whether or not is finished…….. It’s about a couple sitting outside on a beautiful evening and incredibly aware of God everywhere around them.)

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/73

A poem about love lost, found, given and received, brokenness and healing…….

Your sigh reminds me I can’t put her smile to dead-ends past,
Frown contorted face I remember that death night, that cold of been the last,
Tis a mystery why letting go is hardest,

Playing that new world song of a longing unquenched,
I see this future now that will not be keeping me benched,
The two of them refuse to be put out of mind,

That dark 1 in the morning ended past with a silent crash,
Even as you dangerously held onto past love’s stash,
The now is here and real; don’t look away,

Smiling now free of doubt and full of future’s promise,
Sun lit garden of joy drawing me into glory’s first kiss,
In full bloom, at one, alone only by choice.

Longing; an ache lost in the heat of passions eruption,
Praying “God keep love dangerous but away from enemy corruption”,
We seek healing for darker past, looking for light.
We need You in all, redeeming the wrong into right.

Spring, spring is a time of creation, new growth. Spring generally follows winter which is a season in which a lot of living things enter into hibernation. Growth and newness is ceased or dramatically slowed. There are many species however that do thrive at this time, life never just stops. Even when something or someone dies the matter that made them a being, a life form gets broken down into it’s component parts and the chemicals become in time new life, new organic matter. So even those who believe that the physical is all there is know that what makes them never ends. There is no dead end.

Last year my year started off with a bit of a bang I did things I had never done before. I moved into a new flat with a new flat mate. I was a few months into a new job in a completely unfamiliar field. I fell in love for the first time and all was right with the world. My world was as I had seen it in my dreams. I travelled in body and spirit to new heights where I had no idea how to live, in territory I had little experience occupying. Spring had come and was waning into a most glorious summer. I don’t know if this happens to others but amidst all this growth and light taking place the darkness in my heart and in my relationships with others came to the surface; unveiled for what it is. A stench of death arose from these dark balls of pain and hate that I carried around in me. I faced up to some of these and God transformed death to life, dark to light even if it was only a process of another layer being made right.

My heart, faith, spirit was stretched, made bigger somehow. I am getting the sense in my life that it is impossible for me not to be continually growing in some way. I do have a certain amount of choice in what way I will grow. For instance I went through a very tough time as the year neared its end. A relationship broke down my heart was broken I felt lower than I had felt in a long time. My work was sapping my soul of life. It seemed everything that I had sowed into was dying or given enough time would die. I contemplated running away from my home hoping that pain and disappointment wouldn’t follow me. But as the saying goes “wherever you go there you are”. I couldn’t escape what I had been through and what that was doing to me but I could ask God to make things new. I could ask my Father, the creator of all that is good and true and beautiful to bring good from the bad. To shine light into the darkness within and shadow casters without. I did that slowly; trusting more and more in Him, in His love for me and all those I have relationship with; the good, the bad and the unsightly to my human eyes. I know there is so much more to be done in all this and that really excites me where before I would shrink back with doubt in my ability to go through the refiners fire, to play my part.

Back to winter: my work involved looking after people who are physically and developmentally broken and have been their entire lives. How do you believe in a good, healing, compassionate God when you are around those who were never given a chance to be all that their inheritance as sons and daughters promised. But through their limitation I was able; when scales had been removed from my eyes to see the beautiful creation within the broken shell. Yes they needed others to help them with the most basic tasks. Other people had to give in a never-ending way in order that they may receive the necessary to live. As they receive food is it possible that it is for their sprits as well as their bodies. Is it further possible that without using unhelpful and even hurtful (if you’ve ever been burnt out you know what I mean) clichés that those who give really do receive. They get to take part in some of the most holy, sacred moments. Doing to “the least” as they would do to Him who my heart loves.

Anyway back to winter and spring. I recently after much prayer, thought and soul searching decided to take another job as a support worker working one on one with a great guy with mental health issues. It’s a role that suits my personality and believes much better. It is by no-means stress free but I connect with the deepest part of me as I carry out my work in a way that is refreshing to my soul even as I am emptied of the love and energy that I carry within. I have also met someone else who brings me great joy and together we are building a relationship founded on and infused with love that has the potential to become the most beautiful of things. The kind of thing that if it were a physical object would be the most beautiful piece of art. And I don’t mean a static painting but more a moving, living sculpture. Even a living breathing creation with it’s own life. This spring of the soul came about months after I reached my lowest and darkest part of winter. Months! between almost overwhelming despair and a definite overwhelming joy. This journey took place almost in tandem with the seasons unfolding about me in beautiful Wales. I came through I believe because I never gave up on the idea that love wins. Love in the end always wins. God is love and I cast myself upon Him as much as I was able and some more. I know I have not arrived but that I am continually on a journey treading many terrains. There are Mountains, gently rolling hills, flat plains from horizon to horizon to horizon. Sometimes there is great forests of greenery and at others a sandy waste but I always have the choice no matter how slowly to keep moving forward towards Him. There will be times of joy and times of despair. There will be crushingly beautiful moments and gut wrenching death moments. But I know that there is one who has overcome death and that love always wins in the end.

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/74

June 22 2009

The big day,

Everyone in the room sighs with joy, I’m smiling as my heart dies silently within,
Sweet looking lady with pressure gifts deploy, me crying with painted glee grin,

I didn’t drive here I was driven, he and they steered and “guided” gently my mouth and hands,
I say ‘I do’ as a gift from another given, he gets to take home this fruit he commands,

I may be sweet to taste but bitter to swallow,
Can I be full again when my desire is forgotten and heart is hollow,
My reflection is a trick the eyes are distant to the now,
I dream in faraway places; my body’s life’s rich cash cow,

Fine foods are death and glamorous garments leave me naked to scorn,
I am the wife of final breath and from this life only trouble can be born,
Heart cannot be coerced to love,
Your desire was as a hawk and my body your dove,

I am not even a trophy for trophies are for winners,
Give me dreams of freedom not fancy gift dinners,
My family are happier than me with our arrangement,
My sisters shocked, silent foreknowing in our engagement,

I bear the little ones whom pouring my latent love into,
This is why I am: My lambs who bring such joy; they my soul’s glue,
I accept now this is this is this is this is this is…………..

This is a bit random I know very little about this subject but just started writing and felt compelled to carry on. Maybe this is the first piece of many to be written. Also I don’t wish to come accross as slamming another’s culture so I have included a link below that has an interesting article explaining the difference between arranged and fixed marriages.

With that said I cannot abide anyone being forced into something completely against their will and hope I always speak out against such.

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/70

I awoke this morning stretched out like a star fish,
I was cracked shell, I was muscle tasty enough for five star dish,
My body slim as a hermit, mind cockled and my mood crabby,
I crawled, clawed, pincered against the flow looking shabby,
Lobster red my face embarrassed, salty my tears of shame,
They saw soft underbelly as in they went for the krill,
All my honour I prawned, all of these crustaceans fulfil………

Just a bit of fun because

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/75

June 15 2009

The drink makes my tears taste less bitter,
It lies softly like a lover to me saying life ain’t got shitter,
I stumble in my body but my mind now numb to me the unwashed bum,
Vomiting in a door way I don’t care I am the slum, pretending? I am all done,
Could you share some change my good man, no I don’t want no dumb soup can,
My baccy’s all gone god hates me, he’s not my fan, Another night wasted is the plan,
She’s gone again my stray lover, taking with her my last cover, give me another O brother,
Kick, punch and slap, I wish I cared but I don’t give a crap, between my heart and soul is ever widening gap,

I’m asked again sober?, I protest it’s the cold it draws nigh October, my storm don’t just blow over,

Give me another, have another, be another…………………………………..

(Written about a homeless guy……..)

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/71

A poem about love lost, found, given and received, brokenness and healing…….

Your sigh reminds me I can’t put her smile to dead-ends past,
Frown contorted face I remember that death night, that cold of been the last,
Tis a mystery why letting go is hardest,

Playing that new world song of a longing unquenched,
I see this future now that will not be keeping me benched,
The two of them refuse to be put out of mind,

That dark 1 in the morning ended past with a silent crash,
Even as you dangerously held onto past love’s stash,
The now is here and real; don’t look away,

Smiling now free of doubt and full of future’s promise,
Sun lit garden of joy drawing me into glory’s first kiss,
In full bloom, at one, alone only by choice.

Longing; an ache lost in the heat of passions eruption,
Praying “God keep love dangerous but away from enemy corruption”,
We seek healing for darker past, looking for light.
We need You in all, redeeming the wrong into right.

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/77

June 3 2009

This is a piece I wrote after a difficult shift at work (I work as a support worker for adults with Mental health issues, Mental disabilities and physical disabilities) One of our clients (As we have to call them) was crying, hit herself then walked over to a wall to bang her head………….

Bang; you try to beat the hurt out of your head,
Slap; longing for human touch even as you bled,
Butt; my whole life I bang my head on a unwieldy wall,
Punch; wish it could end as quick as I throw,

Hold me I need you, anybody to give me love,
A hug for the humbug of this bottomless unforgiving world
I don’t want this unlovely face to feel tears again,
Each drop a waste of food and you, need me,
Every grunt a loss of oxygen for those, want me,

I guess it’s true that the beautiful are the pearl of this oyster world.
But perhaps I am the grit that makes it all possible……

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/78

May 19 2009

I have felt for a long time that the key to opening a lot of the spiritual doors in North Wales is for believers to live in true community (I know this is a term that is wrestled with a lot in this context I mean community that has Jesus firmly in the centre and His love to permeating all to the perimeter). I also believe that to truly move in this dynamic there needs to be commitment from all who are a part of this community to live and love in Jesus. I feel a real need for people to just spend more time together. I know this is something that does not come naturally to me and I struggle with on a regular basis. I also feel that we need to pray for each other and others more as a people of the flock, always looking to the good Shepard. This requires a real vulnerability and honesty that can on;y be achieved if people feel safe sharing their heart. Safe from condemnation, judgement and mere tolerance. Tolerance to me is an ugly word that is not rooted in love….I digress, sorry about that. I know that fear plays a big part in my inner and thus outer life and vice-versa so I need to know that it is safe for me to be me even as I am in my brokenness. I ask not for people to condone bad actions or bad motives but for people to be understood, loved and not judged according to short-comings. I need to not be merely tolerated but welcomed with open arms and hearts. I am not saying that this does not happen but I feel this in the spirit for myself and others so I know that there are some strong-holds that need to be conquered and lies that need challenging with truth. Most of all I know the deepest longing of my heart is to be loved pure and complicated and I believe it is the base need of everyone for is this not why we were created?

I have been reading a book about 24/7 prayer an idea that has a part of me closing my mind off as soon as I hear it (due to fears of being religious and self pious blah blah blah) but my spirit has been stirred in a way that I cannot deny and I believe that there is real Godly power in this activity. I have many more questions than I do answers as I am a natural question master but I know that answers only start coming when you start moving forward.

This is something that has been whirling around me for quite a while now and I struggle to do it justice by putting it into words but I’ve done my best.

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/82

March 4 2009

Depression is something I know a bit about. I have some family members who suffer with it and I think I do, though I have no official diagnosis. I sense it’s tentacles creeping toward me but I can do little about it. Maybe a little is enough though to see me through without getting stuck down in the mire of my brokenness. I still believe in love over all else despite the open wounds I carry from passions heat and the proverbial back pain from bearing other’s burdens. I can do nothing but live in His love that is the life blood of my soul and all things. I have so much to be thankful for: My friends, my family, my job, all the things I own, every innocent smile upon another’s face, a beam of sunlight breaking from the cloud cover gloriously golden; to name a few. I will not forget these things and the joy they have and do bring. Peace may be something I have little of for a while now but I can know God’s peace that passes all understanding and baffles me into silent rejoicing. I gave all I could to more than one cause and I faced betrayal and rejection I labour under its weight still. But I always have hope because God said yes and carries on doing so. Even in my disciplining I am reminded of His all consuming, jealous coveting of my love and all I am. I AM is in all and through all so I have not far to go to feel His touch. I was forgiven and am forgiven so I can and do forgive even if forgetting is never possible. Hope, Love, Peace, Joy will be the weapons that fight the Despair, Hate, Discord and depression that will try to win ground in the future.

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/85

Jan 29 2009

A cocoon lonely in the corner of an empty room,
That face encased reached up knowing it’s place,
With lips sublime and eyes that shine,
You left feeling blindly in this cleft,
For that night dawn-less with bitter bite,

Coming down am I to be your clown,
From debase in utter haste,
I want to climb to stars that are mine,
Bereft of love the mood moving deft,
Within this plight in the darkest of night
Withdrawing to tomb darkened as womb………

Just some experimenting with rhyme

Originally on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/90

Jan 5 2009