Aspirations

There are people in life who make you want to be better, whether that be academically, on the sports field or just in every day. If they tried, I'm pretty sure everyone could think of at least one person who inspires them and makes them want to be the best they can be.

There are various people at various stages of my life who have held that role for me - at GCSE & A-level, there was the Epic Historian. The sheer level of his knowledge and expertise made me *want* to be better at History. He was bold, but ruthless. If you got an A from him, you knew you deserved it, but you also knew that whatever grade you did get, he'd be alongside you putting in the time and work needed to get you the grade you wanted. If I can teach like him one day, I'll be happy. The Huntress (my PGCE course convener) now occupies that position. Her knowledge of all-things English is second to none, and if I retire with even 50% of the knowledge and skills she has, I'll feel like I've done a good job as a teacher.

Then there's RJ. He & his wife have watched me grow and develop over the last five years (not without some fairly hefty input of their own it has to be said!) He challenges me sometimes as often as weekly on my attitude over various things and various people; he tries (more or less successfully) to keep me on the right paths. Same goes for The Godfather. If I let either of these people down, or felt they were disappointed in me in some way, I would feel beyond terrible. I aspire to have a heart like these two. If I manage that, I'll feel like I've done a half-decent job as a human being.

I aspire to these levels of academia, of achievement, of character. I see where I am now, and where I want to be one day, and I see ways of getting there. I can see the temptations and problems along the way, and I can see what is always going to help me most...

"For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not

for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

Jeremiah 29:11

Love, etc.

xx

The Little Things

When I was waiting at the station last week for The Drummer to buy our tickets, the guy next to him, who was clearly in a very flustered rush, pulled out his wallet and dropped his pen. I leaned down to pick it up for him, and, with his reaction of “Oh....thankyou very much!” he seemed more than slightly surprised that I had done so. Later in that same train journey, a guy on a very crowded tube offered me his seat, which in turn left me surprised since that practically NEVER happens on the London Tube, even for pregnant women or older people.

Its sad when doing something so simple for someone else is seen as surprising, but the more I think about it, the more it seems that “self-first, others second” is the way to live. I don’t expect everyone to live to the same higher moral code to which I chose to hold myself accountable; not everyone shares the same religious views, and I wouldn’t expect that they should, but whether Christian, Muslim, Jew, Agnostic or Atheist, surely somewhere in each person there is the basic desire to do good. To do the right thing. To not look in the opposite direction when someone is in need. To just be human and to care.

Let’s change the world. One little thing at a time.

Love, etc.

xx

I am what I am

I am what I am

I am my own special creation.

So come take a look,

Give me the hook or the ovation.

It's my world that I want to take a little pride in,

My world, and it's not a place I have to hide in.

Life's not worth a damn,

'Til you can say, "Hey world, I am what I am."

from "Les Cage aux Folles"

I've realised recently how competitive life can be. Literally everywhere there are people competing to out-do each other - to lose the most weight, to earn the most money, to have the best clothes, to get the best degree results, to be the best singer, to be the best most best, and the worst thing about it - it seems to now be ok to be overtly open with your methods of proof. To make sure that everyone knows that you are the best at or have the most X, Y or Z and to be seen to be at the very tippiest top of whatever heap you've crushed under you on the way up.

I can only speak for myself when I say - being content with what you have is the only way to be peaceful with who you are. Obviously there are practicalities...a little more money each month would be lovely (particularly given the STONKING car bill the garage presented us with this afternoon) but then, how much more is enough? If you have more, you want more. And so on, and so on. Winning these competitions will never make you content enough. Competing is not healthy. Competing doesn't make you happy. Competing doesn't make you complete.

I'm not going to lie: I used to be up there competing with the best of them. Look at me, look at my grades, look at this, look at that. But then I realised there's much more to life than material things. People's adoration is temporary at best. "Stuff" is not the be all and end all of life. What matters is the things that last. What matters is that I have integrity and can stand before my friends and my God with no guilt. To be happy with who I am and what I do.

And I can do that. Come join me...

Love, etc.

xx

Giving it some thought

In today's instant society, it can be all too easy to buy first and think later. To think that you need something and buy it without a second thought. Definitely no consideration of what message you're sending out by owning such and such, and certainly no thought for who is benefiting from your purchase.

I'm probably just as guilty of this as the next person (ironically this thought struck me when I was reading Marie "perfect body at high cost" Claire, of all things) but seeing the latest GHD advert, it really struck me again. I've always been more than a little uncomfortable with the GHD advertising premise of the Seven Deadly Sins, and personally, have never chosen to subscribe to that marketing campaign by buying any. Their latest is to assign colors to each of the seven deadly signs - red lust, green envy and the like with suitably seductively posed models. The colors are the marketing gimmick to pull people in, without necessarily realising what they are supporting with their purchase.

What do your choices say about you?

Love, etc.

xx

Hot Coals and Grace

Being graceful when all you want to do is smack someone is really hard. When all you want to do is shout at them, being graceful is SO hard. Smiling. Laughing. Being normal. Acting as if they haven't gotten to you. Trying to understand where they're coming from and why they act the way they do. Loving them like Jesus would.

Knowing its what you should be doing doesn't make it any easier though. Knowing its what you should do as a Christian. Knowing how lucky you are and realising what they don't have. Counting your blessings and sharing what you have with them. Loving them like Jesus would.

Forgiving them. Starting each day fresh. Not holding grudges. Praying for them. Realising how liberating that is. And wondering why you've never done it before.

Love, etc.

xx

Making Bread

An off-the-cuff comment this morning during the sermon this morning about the widow using a Kenwood mixer instead of making the bread by hand struck me in a way nothing has from the pulpit for quite some time.

In leafy Surrey, breadmakers are quite the thing to have. Home-made fresh bread gracing your table is a statement about your lifestyle, and now breadmakers give even the fullest of full-time workers that little extra homely touch with ease. No more hours kneading the bread mix and waiting for the yeast to rise; just bread in your hands an hour later. You can even get the bread mix pre-mixed - no need to even measure out the ingredients.

And it got me to thinking -a relationship with God is more than a little like making bread. Today's Christian society seems to have fallen into a "breadmaker" sitting, listening, taking rut - we go to church as the bread mix, and have everything mixed up for us at a minimum of personal effort and then expect the end product to be as satisfying as others tell them it is. It works, but how beneficial is it? A child will never learn a basic fact of human life by watching mummy fill up the breadmaker - they'll learn by getting their hands dirty and experiencing step by step the process of making bread. I for one never want to be in a position of saying to someone searching for Christ that "it just is" or "that's just what happens" because I don't have any experience to share with them.

When did society start telling us that the simplest, easiest way was the best? And when did we, as Christians, start accepting that that was true?

I think its time we got our mixing bowls out.

Love, etc.

xx

Open Your Eyes

I didn't even realise until Saturday that I have a side of the train. At least, I'd rather that as an excuse than I've been living here for four years and getting the train to town most weeks without even SEEING half the scenery that flies past the window. I missed artwork, I missed parks, I missed the most beautiful stately home, which gobsmacked me.

What else have I been doing for four years and just not seeing things how they really are? What else have I been missing for even longer?

What have YOU been missing?

Love, etc.

xx

Diamonds and things

"A diamond is merely a lump of coal that did well under pressure"

Its not just because I have one permanently attached to my left ring-finger that this quote spoke volumes to me the other day, although it is symbolic of my perfect ending to the dating chapter of my life.

Heat and pressure turn coal into diamond. Extreme heat and pressure. When you think about a diamond like that, it makes you realise that sometimes, the heat and the pressure can turn out something even better than the original material it was working with.

I sometimes wonder if they people applying the pressure would do so if they knew what the end result might be.

Love, etc.

xx

Waves

Because I'm a little bit of a physics nerd, I know a little bit about waves. I spent four hours last night watching them when I should have been dancing with an *extremely* attractive-in-his-tux Drummer at Mrs Daniel's Birthday Party. Officially. A. Geek. But it did make me think. Because I know a little about waves, I could see how they were going to affect the boat. I could tell the big bolshy Thames Clipper that kept accelerating and cutting across to cause as much wash as they could would rock the boat and I might want to hold on to something; the little tugs that pootled past caused nothing more than a gentle bob; the incoming tide merely a gentle up and down motion that, after many years of sailing with my parents and now with The Drummer and his parents, merely left me with a slight swaying sensation that was still present when I got home and went to bed.

As I watched the lights of London drift past, I got to thinking about how life comes in waves. Sometimes you see them coming, and can prepare by holding on. Sometimes the knowledge of how the wave is going to affect you can help you deal with them. Sometimes you just don't see them coming at all because you're too busy.

Last night's too busy ended up with an undignified stumble into The Drummers watchful arms. We might not all be so lucky all the time to have someone to catch us from the waves.

Love, etc.

xx

Unaware

Last Thursday, I spent the day with Bluebelle at the V & A Museum in Londontown. It was hard having such a lovely girly day in the sunshine while the boys were at work, but we managed. While we were there, Bluebelle took LOTS of beautiful photos, mostly arty ones of the prettiness that is the V &A (and our LUNCH!!) but I managed to sneak in to a few of them (not that I like posing for cameras. at all. no no, not me!)

However, perhaps one of my favourite pictures of the day was this one:

Partly in a "I'm so small and there is so much out there that is bigger than me" (in a metaphorical, getting-a-perspective-on-life sense) but mostly because I was so unaware of it. which really made me think. Unaware of Bluebelle's thoughts, unaware of her artistry and skill in setting the picture. I was completely unaware of anything apart from what I was thinking about, and when I saw the picture back on her camera, it made me wonder what else we're completely unaware of and what we're missing.

Its actually quite scary to realise the things you nearly missed - my decision about uni and what I really felt about The Drummer to name but two of the more important ones that spring to mind. Particularly my uni decision, given that pretty much nothing that makes me me these days would be there if I hadn't gotten over myself & looked at the website.

However, the picture is also incredibly apt for the latter of the two, given that that is the view of me that The Drummer was probably most used to before we started going out - as the drummer of our band, he was watching my back (sometimes, it turns out, literally) while my thoughts were miles away elsewhere.

He waited for my thoughts (and for me) to turn round to him. Sometimes in life we're not that lucky...maybe I should start being more careful.

Love, etc.
xx

Lessons in Time, or, Perspective & Priorities

"Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours
per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa,
Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein"
H. Jackson Brown

And so another metaphorical kick up the backside trundled along today, right on cue (as per usual)

It would have been so easy today to be all "woe is me, work was so hard" but instead, said butt kick reminded me that actually, time today was well spent. Huge amounts of things were done (not least a combined total of 33 rows of those BLESSED seats across 3 assemblies and 2 shows) and not just work stuff, but also the little things, like taking the time to find some Jelly Tots for Little Miss Dance. And in fact, being her runner all day because she had so much to sort out. And taking time to go to "the gym" after school to hang out with (who are swiftly becoming) The Usual Suspects (who take their workouts so seriously they can always be found in the beer garden around 4pm on a Friday) And then finding time to have pizza with Little Miss Dance and Maestro before shoehorning in some one-on-one time with the quieter of my two prefects helping her learn just one more little thing at a time.

Just one of these things should have made it a good day - how lucky am I that I got to do them all? It really is all about perspective. These people were my priority today - helping them, teaching them, valuing them, and somehow, that seemed to bless me too. And hey, I'm *more* than happy with that happening!!

Its not always about the great achievements. Sometimes its just about the little things.

Love, etc.
xx

Guidance

You'd think, with me being an English graduate, this would have occurred to me before, but as someone a little older and a LOT wiser than my humble(ish) self pointed out this evening, you can only guide something that is already moving.
x

Forgiveness

Its all well and good asking for forgiveness, but how often do we accept it once we have it?
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Thought of the day...

Missing someone isn't about how long its been since you've seen them, or the amount of time since you've talked...its about that very moment when you're doing something and you wish they were right there with you
xx

Hugs are like boomerangs...

A hug is just a hug, right?? Wrong. I was reminded last night how simple it is to give someone a hug, but just how much it can mean.

Some soppy goon wrote somewhere that hugs were invented to let people know you love them without having to use words. Have to say...that's totally true: a hug says everything words can't.

And how much damage can hugging do really?? Remember...a hug is like a boomerang; you get it back right away
xx

This is what happens after 3 hours of Philosophy...

So. Plato. Its not often I'm inspired to blog after a lecture. And even more rare for me to have a) done the work and b) agreed with the lecturer. So today is a day of firsts.

The concept is fairly simple...there is TRUTH. Then there is life, which is an imitation of TRUTH (and art, which is an imitation of an imitation...I like this sort of thinking!) But anyway. Truth. And imitations thereof.

Are our lives not just an imitation of TRUTH?? What we strive for, how we try to live, and what we want to achieve...all just "imitations" of the life we aim at...the ultimate TRUTH?

In this life, we will never measure up to or achieve this, but it can't hurt to keep trying. Right? After all, "His truth shall be your shield" (Psalm 91v4)

Or maybe I'm thinking too much
x

Laughter...

Its amazing what you learn when you actually listen in a seminar...apparently by laughing, we're avoiding revolution. Or something. I wasn't listening that carefully, I just like the quote he gave us at the end:

"laughter could never become an instrument to oppress the people. It always remained a free weapon in their hand"

So, Live. Laugh. Love. Can't hurt, right?
x