Insight into humanity

What I would call a Very Telling found poem, that I read on Verbatim (link) (which I've told you about enough already).


I want to

I want to die.

I want to break free lyrics. I want

to be anorexic.

I want to break free.
I want to be skinny; I want

to be a model.

I want to be thin.
I want to lose weight; I want

to know what love is

lyrics. I want

to get pregnant.

Google searches speaking of people searches, much? What is this world a-coming to.

Stranger Danger

Some people say that strangers are just friends you haven't met yet.

Most of my friends are strangers I only just met.

2.5 years ago my life got flipped turned upside-down and I'd like to take a minute just sitting right here and tell you how it happened... but I don't have time.

In that quarter decade I never have.

And though there have been moments where this is a symptom of over-working I don't think it is the main reason. Almost everything I do just feels so "right" and the things that aren't are difficult to spot but I'm working on it. I am living an amazing existence: my job has exciting potential to make a real difference, and open some major doors; I've started a "subversive" Christian newspaper that 2 weeks ago didn't exist but will (prayers said) be printed in 3 weeks - counter to all possibility. I'm coping quite well at the moment, having gotten past some massive internal struggles, and am seeing incredible occurrences on a daily basis. Church is flippin' fantastic and by golly I'm even starting to believe once more that good stuff can, nay will, happen.

But I haven't slept in the same bed continuously for as long as 2 weeks since I was in Russia this July.
And I don't know if I will until I go back.
Which is probably in 2 years time.
And it is foolish to plan that far ahead anyway.
Yet I've still got to at least try to learn the language, just in case...

I was hanging out with my equally busy, work-consumed missionary friend tonight for about 20 mins. We vowed (though accidentally broke it several times) to not talk about work. Here was our conversation:

Him: So, what sort of animal would you get?
Me: Well I was planning on "borrowing" one of my parents' cats but I'm too busy with...
[Pause]
Me: What's your favourite colour? Red?
Him: How did you know?
Me: Well, it's your car. But then you didn't choose that did you, you just had to get what you were given 'cause you're a poor missio...
[Pause, where we insulted Luke for talking geekily about Dr Who, before realising that he did, at least, have a hobby]
Me: Errrrr... what's your favourite reptile?
Him:

End of conversation.

I feel like I have no time for friends. I have nothing to talk about with friends apart from "business". The people I do know are all so relatively new and life keeps moving on so fast that sometimes I sit in the same room as them and feel like a stranger in my own life. Am I a friend I haven't met yet?

Sometimes I wish there was someone there to be my stability in this place of huge change. To know about the different parts of my life and be able to feel my pain and get me, even when I don't. Someone that doesn't feel strange. How is this even possible? Just supposing I had the time right now for a "significant other" to come along - which I don't - that level of closeness would still take ages to develop.

Then I remember this poem (that Nathan (link) posted on his blog a little while ago and gives a little bit of the info for it here (link)) and I think that maybe things will all be OK...

Abigail Burdess – All Kinds of Trouble

I’m in all kinds of trouble now,

The kind where you wake up on a train

And everything, everything’s strange

And where am I? And when did the season change?

I must have been asleep.

I’m sure I must be late.

I’m in all kinds of danger.

The stranger on the platform is not a proper stranger.

“You’re here with me,” he says, “isn’t it great?”

And he’s right.

The kind where there’s too much meaning on the edges of sight

Because he might be there.

The kind where you randomly weep.

I’m in deep, deep hot water.

In a boiling hot geyser

In the mists

In the midst

Of ridiculous Icelandic snow.

Y’know,

You should give up the fags and eat fruit,

Because life should last longer, this life should last longer

If someone like him exists.

Everybody. Lock away the razors and save your lovely wrists:

Someone like him exists.

I’m in every single kind of trouble now

The kind where a kind man could write himself a significant part.

I’m in very grave danger

Of a change of heart.

"The best way to strip the allure and dreaminess from a lifelong dream is, very often, simply to have it come true"

I read this on 22 words (link) and I thought it was apt. Partly because it has a vague Russian link and I'm going there this Friday. Mostly because with all my talk about dreaming and all my dreams falling through I like the comfort!

This is a pretty personal blog post. I don't want to dwell on me too much but I haven't much else to write about and I wanted to say fare-thee-well properly before I sign off for a month. Perhaps do a brief review of the academic year and spend a moment on self-analysis, if you'll allow.

Been a pretty intense week. Lots of hopes not being fulfilled, actually that isn't just this week. Having tolerated this for a time the thing I have started saying recently is "I want it to be the time when blessings aren't a consolation prize, I've had enough of this refinement" and it seems that what I am being reminded is "in the upside-down kingdom good things don't always look like good things as you might expect". So I stand once again corrected and, actually, it is an OK place to be. My situation may not change but my perspective must.

I got my hair cut this week and it looks quite different but it also isn't hardly any shorter - just more styled and no longer getting in my eyes. The analogy on my old blog (link) was that my hair is akin to my spiritual journey and back in September I had to cut it all off and wait for the bob length (and also "bob length") to arrive; I now have almost the same style I did when I left Geneva but this time it isn't bleached and dry with a dodgy dye-job. Being significantly reshaped can hurt but it is not getting rid of the good stuff, just crafting it, and it's so shiny now that the hairdresser even commented. Good quality, genuine colour: I may not look significantly different but it shows on the outside some and on the inside the difference is immense.

Learning to dream has been amazing and disappointing. I come out burned from doing it wrong by holding on too tightly when I know I shouldn't but I think I come out ready to one day dream again... though perhaps in a vaguer way! Hope does not disappointed but only when it is done in perfection. Until I hope perfectly I must be prepared for sometimes reaching in the wrong direction and clutching onto thin air. But I will still dream. If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it (link). Pure imagination is good but if it's all just a fabrication then that is a sad state-of-affairs.

I'm going to Russia with love. Then when I get back I'm doing what I feel like for as long as I am free to, before God shows me something else to do. We'll dream again on the other side of the trip but first I must pack, sleep, escape, recoup and... tell you what have a poem. I wrote it on the theme of 'Unweave, unwind, unravel' and it was, I admit, a bit rushed and apparently is not up to scratch for the magazine, but the great thing about having my own blog is that I get to choose what is published and if no-one else likes it I know God does, which I've decided is enough for me.


Undone. Redone

Undone by grief I can but wait
How to make it ok?

Like a mess of wire, tangled but live
When something gets cut we lose the light
and have to trace back the thread to find where the circuit was broken
Where we need to repair
Heart laid bare

Unpick the knot inside
Rewind
Let it unwind
Unravel your mind, risky
Sublime

Exposed copper thread like a glimmer divine
in this tapestry we call life
Truth in the deepest and bitterest strife
The journey before is a wending path
Horizon now dim casts shadows at dusk
but the dawn is coming. It must
As we walk-on the way is unwound and so we are able, despite it being rough
Sometimes we even laugh.

But the cable is severed and current can’t flow
Blinded, fumbling. No love. No glow.
Even replacing a fuse needs a torch,
how can I see to restore what is lost?
Stripped naked. Taken apart. In the dark. Where to start?
Theory sounds good but alone I remark in a bitter tone
No chance

With no external power source any hope we have is false
So, let there be light!
Desperate cry.
Love replies.

Sometimes it takes shock to unblock
A cut in the line to loosen the knot

Now fearless, released, redone, wound tight
Until the sun rises, ready to fight
We’ll yet make it through the night.


Apparently in St P's it is the time of year when the evenings are so long and the morning so early that it doesn't ever get properly dark. It's called a "white night". I'm up for some of that.

The love is key though. There's a pretty great passage in the ole Bible about it: 1 John 4:7-19 (link). I'll write more about love when I get back though I probably needn't bother since that sort of says it all. It's the reason shattered dreams don't matter, the reason broken hearts can be restored, the end and the means and the driving force to get there.

I part on a BRILLIANT analogy for love. The Tape of Love (link). If you're only going to follow one link today then let this be it.

With love,

Kat(i)e x

More an apology than an analogy

I'm just touching base to say that I was tired, hungry, hormonal and a little bit grumpy last night. My project is going much better and, though I stand by the premise that things are not to be held onto tightly and sometimes we should only look one foot ahead of us on the path (or one junction on the M25), I should not let this be mixed up with being in a Bad Mood. So sorry. Adding that sort of emotion in makes my worthwhile point see a lot less worthwhile. Basically, make sure you read the last post with a filter...

Back to the Dissertation of Trust, as I am currently calling it. I don't quite know where I am going with it so one step at a time is the strategy and I can only hope that'll get me there. The Good Thing is that the general message of the paper (hope in love) is the very thing that gets me through; so if I am right it'll be fantastic and if I'm wrong it'll be disastrous, which is basically how I feel about life anyway.

Oh and, just in case you don't follow the same blogs as me but wanna read stuff that I write (mum and dad), the Verbatim blog I evangelised about (link) a while ago just put up one of my poems! Check it out (link). The hope that everyone else on my course needed this advice is one of the things that is getting me through...!

evangelism

I am defining the term "to evangelise" in the language of AT! I haven't had a major rant about language and how exciting it is yet but only because my head/schedule is too busy to go into all that. It's all inside waiting for the right time to burst forth.

I just took a French exam today see and next week I have one about creating different mathematical languages so these are pretty relevant examples, nay analogies, of saying the same thing through different expressions. It's an analogy for an analogy!

But I'm late it's tired and this post is not meant to be for anything apart from spreading good news. Hence being an evangel - the word was adopted by Christianity because we tell people the Good News (i.e. Gospel (link)) but linguistically it just means general good news (I think, that's what my inbuilt dictionary tells me anyway). So henceforth I'm taking it literally and going to use "evangelism" as a word to denote telling you about good things I've found.

And the good thing I'm going to tell you about today is this rather fabulous blog I just discovered through an online-community member (life's all about the organic networking) called Verbatim (link). Fabulous idea, brilliantly named creator. Gabriel Smy (I call him Gabe though and he's cool wid it) is the author and 'poetry formed from found text' is the concept. It's sort of like Analogise That! with the noticing stuff in the world to be something more than what it is but with a much more limited (or should I say honed) scope. Finding beauty in the mundane. It has an air of the ridiculous walking hand-in-hand with the sublime that I like. I think this one (link) rocks because it is about computer programming (language in it's most boring form :-P) and the idea of bringing beauty from that textbook is totally analogous to the incredibly beautiful things that programming (which can appear dry to those of us that can't grasp it) creates all the time. Which in inself is analagous to how we find beauty and truth in unexpected and seemingly mundane places, perhaps moreso when there are no trappings... and that brings me full circle to the idea of 'poetry from the ordinary' as both an actual thing and an analogy for life, Ulyssees and the set of numbers between 0 and 1.

If you aren't confused then my hat is way off (metaphorically speaking). I think I may be about to exlode with inexpressible and widely scattered synaptic spasms. The land of bedfordshire is most definitely calling...

Oh and one more thing: small point to BIG, yeah? good points to Good, life points to Fullness of Life, love points to True Love... There is a Reality that all the analogies are just expressing a bit of, showing one aspect of that Truth. A truth but not the whole truth. Well, when I say "evangelise" it's an analogy too. sharing about good news is like Sharing about Good News. Things with a capital letter are the destination to which the analogies all head, so when it's "Evangelism" it's not a simile anymore and you should Listen...! But that is a whole other post/thread/Analogy...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to Fly?

I wrote a poem time ago, like January or something, and I nearly put it on my old blog. Don't quite remember why I didn't but a couple of months ago I was prompted when I saw this picture at my friend Claire's house:

I was delighted to hear that she had painted it and under some "God-inspiration" no less. The analogy for her was the idea of trust. She was stepping out and trusting that as she let go of the old swing the new one would be there to catch a hold of. (For those interested, her particular area of trust was the decision to following Jesus.) I saw this and was instantaneously reminded of flying and the poem I had written about it. Letting go and soaring through the air, believing, or perhaps rather hoping, that in that step of faith one will not fall but rather reach something new, exciting and quite brilliant. I decided then that the two went too well together not to make the match. Many weeks have since passed but I eventually got round to emailing her and now, tonight, I unexpectedly found this in my virtual mailbox and feel it is finally time to share them both.

I think the timing might be perfect too. I was talking about hope last time, I do believe, and have some more things to say about that when I get a minute. Hope has been on my heart a while actually, in part due to this verse:

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:31 NIV (link)

Hey, it even has running in there. Flying too! And walking, though I don't think I've analogised that yet... I will soon :-)

Do you want know an interesting thing about hope? A few of us were sharing thoughts about this passage one time and a lady who spoke Portuguese say that the verb actually meant trust as well. So I've been doing a bit of research and it turns out that in romance languages (as in those that descend from Latin, but we can talk about languages of love if you like the analogy!) this is indeed the case. The Latin root is sperare. For hope this becomes a transitive verb, which means you hope in a direct object - that is something specific that will happen. For trust it is intransitive, you Just Trust. Incidentally it can also mean waiting in both the transitive and intransitive sense...

So that hope we need to have for a brighter future - perhaps there is an element of non-specific trust? We imagine it as bright but the source of the brightness is unclear. When the details are not apparent, instead of being confused or impatient, Just Trust. This translation of the same verse actually uses trust instead:

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31 NLT (link)

To be fair though, I think the idea of hoping specifically in the LORD is basically the same thing as general trust, given how very unpredictable The Big Man can be! As for waiting being both particular and general: one thing I never do know is if I am waiting for what I think I am waiting for, so I reckon that might be quite apt!

Well. That was an interesting sidetrack, I hope you didn't get too bored! I'm not sure I have reached a particular conclusion mind, just thinking out loud. I've heard hope defined as "the joyful expectation of good things" and I like that. Good things: is that specific or vague? In my experience people tend to need particular desires to focus their heart on because we're not motivated to act by pure theory, indeed how can you act without a plan? That is what I take to mean "Imagine a Brighter Future" (see the Pants of Prophecy (link)) However, one never can be sure if what they put their hope into is the right thing and I suppose that is why it's good to stay pretty open minded too. Hmmmmm? Hope doesn't go just because our direct objects fail us. Those transient things may fade but the intransient will not.

I didn't do the poem yet did I! Here you go:

rigid
frigid
scared to be Explicit
loving
caring
just not too Daring
Wanting
Dreaming
but caught in reasoning
telling you to stay pristine
never breaking the routine
don’t need to be too Extreme

Deep down you’re Cool
Like “old school”
yet skins, they get tighter
What about the Radical?

it’s not that I despise you
I don’t want to divide you
But have you ever wondered what it would be like to Fly?

Funny. It absolutely doesn't seem to fit with the linguistical analysis of general hopeful waiting. Trust means we can relax and be confident of receiving good things but it also means we sometimes have to brace and leap and trust is that active place. It doesn't sound like waiting at all, and it doesn't sound non-specific. Is this another "both/and"?

Sometimes it's either choose to fly or choose to dangle on the old swing. If the momentum goes then we may never make it across to the other side. That's an analogy for being bold and courageous and not missing important opportunities - we were talking about that tonight incidentally, me and some friends. It seems everything everywhere is actually linked...

My heart at the moment is definitely inclined in the faith growing direction and I wonder how best to do that, faced with these two opposing choices. In some ways I reckon that trust, and also hope, can be a lot better demonstrated in the letting go rather than in the sitting and waiting in ambiguity. I've heard it said that faith is being sure of the things we hope for. How can I be sure unless I let go and have it proved to me?

Yet, well, I also think that as an impatiency-inclined, proactive person my trust is sometimes best exercised by not having or seeking the answers and being assured that that too is ok... In this case maybe I'm not even supposed to be up on the trapeze?

I reckon it depends both on character and specific situations and that there is no one strategy that can be applied. However, I think it is not really "both/and" and more just a case of "either/or". Do either this or that, but make the decision. How? I suppose that we Fly when we rise above our ground, base-instinct behaviour. Perhaps the approach is to examine each choice for what we would be inclined to do when we aren't really hoping or trusting... and then do the opposite... thus exceeding our mere humanity and soaring on wings like eagles.