Tairngir tellings

This post has been brewing for a while but now that I am sitting down to write it I don’t know how to begin. 1 month and 3 days ago I moved from North Wales to the beautiful and interesting city of Bristol. I have lived in North Wales since I was 6 and now that I’m a quarter of a century old I have moved back to England. I’ve been here 3 weeks without a job. I believe this is the longest time I have been without a job since I was seventeen. It’s really weird to have that much time to yourself. You discover some things: even as I walked about my new hometown finding important places, beautiful ones and the odd refuge I was finding out more about me and about my relationship with God and therefore all my relationships and well pretty much everything else too. I re-realised my brokenness, vulnerability and limitations. I realised I was scared of the dark places in my heart. I haven’t been scared of the dark since I was quite a bit younger or so I thought. At one time a time not so long past I would have been overcome and subsumed for weeks, even months. Now after gaining some maturity I can carry on with life with a smile even as I feel the rawness of my wounds.

So Moving to Bristol was supposed to be and is a joyous task. I have moved to be close to my love and broaden my horizons and seek love, life and new things. This is all good and makes me smile in wonderment every time I stop to consider what is happening to and all about me. But at the same time I am scared. This fear that has reared its ugly head many a time is back and the prize it seeks? My future, my dreams, me. It is the fear of failure and of not measuring up. Of not fulfilling my duty as a man in whatever capacity e.g. husband to be, in my work, as a son, as a friend, a brother, as disciple of Jesus and all of this within always trying to be true to the true me and wanting to be perfect in all these areas right now. It is a burden created by fear. It is a series of walls made to protect myself from criticism, vulnerability, injury, hurt and judgement. All my insecurity and past pain made fast with lock and key. It would seem good at first glance. The bricks made with a white shimmering stone and the mortar moss and lichen free. But these walls hold back compassion. They hold back love. They take away freedom to live in the name of safety from death.

As Benjamin Franklin said “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

These walls hold back passion from both entering and exiting. These walls have to come down; leaving me naked and vulnerable. All rough edges and incomplete works on display. Scars and all

RT

Originally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/6

In the shadow of despair is greatness born. Even as you feel your heart heavy; filled as it is with a cynical cement. Your hope it at it’s lowest ebb and you realise that you are that fly caught in the world wide web. It’s when you’re head is stuck in the mire and your soul situation is increasingly dire:

That that first tear of true sadness falls. It is like the first drops of rain shed from the storm clouds into the desert that your idealism has become. Slowly that brain fog made up of droplets of apathy; drenching you in a nonchalant affection drifts away. And the monsoon of heaven pours:

large droplets of compassion strike your upturned, bruised face and burden laden shoulders and you are free. You are drenched from head to toe and later a chill will set in; but you are free again. Free to love, free to care, free to be loved and closer to Him.

Surely as you stumble near the coast of a forgotten land a sea mist may drift in and you will be hidden again for a while but those rains come again and clean and then clear the air. The sun will shine out ever brighter than before and you will catch sight of the tapestry of greatness and the strand you weave; though you catch but a glimpse and you forget yourself again.

Orignally posted on http://tairngir.tumblr.com/page/10