A Year in the Life of My Small Corner

Having been the pioneer of the 365 movement on the Emerald Isle (she declared modestly), I’ve decided to endeavour to inspire you to include something else in your small corner of the blogosphere…

New Year’s Eve – the day to pause and reflect on a year gone by.  In this, the first full year of my blog, this is an attempt to draw a blogpicture of that year.  I have selected one post from each month of the past year in My Small Corner for your reading pleasure (well, its always nice to have something mindless to read on New Year’s Day, right??)

January: the calm before and after the storm of a few difficult months: Precious

February: this poem –  I am Right

Your arrogance makes me uncomfortable
Not just because it is wrong, but because I am right.
Your certainty that you’ve got it makes my blood boil
Like milk seething quietly then
Exploding
Bursting boils of white which rapidly run out of steam
Leaving behind the sticky, wrinkly skin of my own certitude.

March: a lighter interlude as Kicked by an Elephant decided to get Vomited over by a dead cow

April: I realised

Life is big,
And I don’t get it.
And I’m kind of tired of not getting it.
That’s a little sentence, but really its big.
Very big.
A bit like life

May: an entry flowing out of an April visit to France where I left another little piece of my heart

June: the nature of joy and sin

July: A conversation to remind me to keep praying:

242 Days

“Its been eight months,” he said.
“Eight months?” she replied. “Gosh, time flies.”
“Its 242 days, actually.”
242 days of life without his wife.

I wonder how long it takes before you stop counting.

August: An interesting take on leading worship – sock-spinning…

September: The Credit Crunch – I wonder now that this economic downturn is continuing if these people realise flying cheaply to their second home is the least of their worries?!?

October: The monumental end of a Gilmore Girls era

November: Inspired by friends describing their lessons from living abroad: Thirst

When I listen to you live my throat feels dry

My lips crack and dry up,

Thirsty for water that breathes deeply

Into my longing.

…

Lifting the cup to my mouth I hesitate,

Pursed lips tentatively gasping,

Drawing you in like hot tea that might blister my tongue

Rendering all else tasteless.

…

But I’d rather drink you down

(with

–     no fear of getting burnt     –

reckless

gulping

drafts)

Drink you down to the depths

Of sweet Spirit, and of Truth

And of grace.

December: A flashback which comes to more sense in retrospect.

What about you…?

Second Rate: A year on

Its been a little over a year since I first blogged about my fear of being Second Rate and about 18 months since my heart first broke about the issues surrounding the role of women in the church.

Its been a long, slow journey which is far from being over, but one that I feel strangely content to be on.

The initial fear of not being what I should be and a resulting wavering in my confidence about the character of God still visit me from time to time.  The pain I feel over generations of gifted women being judged, excluded and made to doubt their worth continues to throb deep within me  and I’ve realised that that is regardless of which side of ‘the debate’ (or kerfuffle!) they reflect.

The pain, the tears, the conversations… I have been pushed to think through something which is a crucial issue to my life journey in more ways than I ever would have imagined.  The battle to walk alongside the high horse as opposed to climbing up on it or lying down under it is never far below the surface.  When I meet certain people, hear certain jokes, encounter certain issues, there is a struggle not to judge, exclude or hurt; a struggle to take each person as an individual whose ideas about one thing does not automatically mean they think the other, a person to know rather than a debate to avoid; a struggle to root myself in what God says rather than what others think of me.  I need constant reminders that the goal is to love, not to prove that I am right.  To love and serve Jesus, to glorify him – make the character of Yahweh known – in everything I am, just as He did.

As the journey goes on, I am more convinced that my footprints are not alone on this path.  I am more confident in the harmonies I’m singing in the great choir.  I am more concreted in the love my Father has for me…

But there’s still a long way to go.

Flashback

“God’s got all the time in eternity.”

I’d forgotten you’d said that.  I wonder do you remember?  Its strange how these things take on new significance as God’s time goes on.  How many people have said “First time I saw her/him, I knew we’d get married” only once the ring is on the finger?  Its easy to be confident when looking back with new perspective.

This is similar, but not the same.  No rings are being exchanged here.  No definite, once-for-all ceremonies nor promise-giving and keeping.  No immediate change from one state to another.  No romance, no whirlwind.  Simply one more step along a path that I’m discovering began much longer ago than I ever knew.  I only see it now because time has passed over the shadows of before.

I told you so!

I don’t read much about the news, but my friend soapbox does, and he discovered an article on the BBC website which claims to have evidence that rom-coms and Hollywood mush seriously affects how we think about relationships.

What can I say – I’m a genius.  Read me.

An Apology…

In response to my birthday rant, some felt hard done by and therefore, this is a formal apology to all those currently writing very entertaining and hearty blogs who don’t make it onto my wordpress blog surfer reading list…

I’m sorry you chose blogspot rather than wordpress.

😉

Its all about ME

Its my birthday.  I like people knowing when its my birthday.  So I thought I should just let you know that.

Its probably the ‘baby of the family’ thing.  I like the attention.

Seeing as its my birthday, I get a free rant…

The blogosphere is largely a cold and lonely place at the minute.  I mean, no-one is writing anything.  Even I have been reduced to pretentious displays of my poetic ramblings into situations very few people would understand.

I say ‘no-one’, but really that means no-one is writing stuff I understand plus the actually rather limited scope of my whole blog-community is hardly worldwide.

I say ‘even I’, but really that’s hardly surprising considering one of my first offerings on the alter of self-adulation expression was a poem about a teddy bear.  Hardly the groundbreaking stuff this world needs.

At which point I need to remind myself of the humble beginnings of this blog were tagged as the ‘random musings of a self-confessed un-intellectual’ (from which heated disagreements quickly ensued).(I say ‘heated’, but really I mean mildly spiced in a coconut and buttery non-heating korma curry kind of way).

Thus it is I come full circle and present to you this random musing from me in my small corner.  And you HAVE to like it because its MY birthday.

So there.

Thanks! 🙂