A faulty light

(just a warning, this post has been written in a time of high emotional stress)
Once, ages ago, someone gave me the verses in Matthew 5:14-16, saying that they were verses meant for me. I guess at the time it made sense. Sitting in bus today, driving past these Christmas lights in a tree got me thinking. They were blinking on and off, making the tree look like it was full of fairies flying around. It made me think of those verses though, and illustrated exactly how I feel and see my faith at the moment. I am such an on and off Christian. I am such a faulty light that I don't know how God puts up with it. I'm like a light connected to a faulty wire, or a candle that keeps burning out that constantly has to be relit.
I know that God uses people who are weak so that He can be strong, I know that His perfection is shown through our imperfection... I know all of it but I just can't see it for me. I want so much to be the best I can be, I want to do things out of my own strength. I am so full of pride, I find it impossible to be dependant on others. I refuse to accept help when offered and most certainly won't burden others with my problems.
God uses broken people. That's good for me because right now I feel like I'm on the edge. Someone said today that they feel like they are either always falling into or are already in a huge black whole and all I could think was, "I'm right in there with you". I guess the question is, am I ready to be pulled out? I guess the question could also be "am I ready to have my connection fixed?"

Do we want mega church?

Alright, someone is going to have to explain this to me. What is a mega church? I walk past this sign a couple times a week in Peckham and every time either Ben and I, actually usually the both of us, wonder out loud what makes a "Mega Church". Is it the size of the building? I doubt, the building it's in isn't particularly huge, nor does any other feature on it seem to be deserving of the title "mega". I don't know if the people are especially great, or big for that matter. In fact, I've never seen anybody go in or out of "The mega church". I can't think of any other feature that this church might have that others haven't, that warrents the title "mega", but maybe I'm missing something.
However, this sign makes me think everytime I pass it. Have things become so dire for the church, that we have to market ourselves, trying to outdo the others down the road? My mom challenged me this weekend on the thought of Kingdom. I love it, but how can it be lived out if churches feel the need to sell themselves like the newest mobile phone? I'm certain that God never wanted us to get to the point where churches are given ranks "I go to a great church." "So? I go to a mega church!" That just doesn't seem like the way forward to me.
Whatever happened to one body etc.? One thing that I never want to happen to me is for me to love my church, it's building, the institution, more than I love Jesus and his vision for church. Church could be such a beautiful thing, it has so much potential, but we have deformed it and turned it into a competition. That's just gross.

A nice day

Mom woke me up at 5 with a kiss goodbye and then she left. I slept for ages, had a team meeting and then took a bath. We had done loads of things on the weekend (I will write about that later) but the best was the Christmas shopping.
Now, here is where my day turned interesting. I needed to get some molasses for the cookies. So, as any normal person would assume, I walked to our neighbourhood Tesco's to get some, thinking that it would be easy to find something so normal. But, seemingly, molasses isn't so normal in the Elephant and Castle Tesco's. So, thinking that it just doesn't exist in this country, I made my through the Elephant and Castle market of illegal goods, and back home. Arriving at home, it turned out that it's not called molasses here, but treacle. So I left again, hope growing, thinking that I would find it at last. But I didn't. Being hardcore though, oh yes I am, I decided to walk looking for it. I walked and walked, beginning to feel desperate and a little teary. But then, looming out between the buildings, I caught a glimpse of something beautiful A Tesco's, not a little piddly one like in Elephant and Castle, but a huge one, a Taj Mahal of Tesco's. Filled with elation, trying not to break into a run lest this oasis would disappear, I walked through it's not quite so pearly gates.
I found everything I needed, and floated home. Once I got here, I baked up a storm, some for us here, some for school on Wednesday. Then, enjoying the beautiful silence, took the first minutes that I have since the weekend to be completely on my own. I'm now lying on my floor in my favourite place, watching Jerry Maguire (you know the "you complete me" and the "you had me at hello" movie) and licking out the pot from the truffles. Ah, beautiful.
Well, that's all from this front. Trying to relax and trying to block out workish stuff.

troubles on the home front

things are going a bit pearshaped it seems at work right now. feel free to pray. im at a bit of a loss.

Effective youth work?

Is that what I'm supposed to be doing? If so, I today I feel like I've completely missed the mark. Albeit, I've only been here barely 2 months, still in the relationship-building, needs-sussing faze. Still, I feel like I've got my hands in so many things and I can't do any of it properly. There is so much that I would like to, but no time to do it.

I don't have time to just go hang out with some kids in the neighbourhood and get to know them on their terms. There is no time for the things that I think would be really good. Programmes are not what make effective youth work. But what if that is all you have time to do? I think that I am doing something wrong.

It's so frustrating, barely seeing our youth once a week properly, and then in a poorly-organized, thrown together time. It's sickening how crap some of it is. Alright, it's just starting up, I'm supposed to be empowering etc. but I'm finding that really hard right now. That is probably why I've been feeling sick and out of place recently. I've wanted on a couple of occasions just pack up and go back to Berlin, where I know what I am doing, people know what I am capable of and respect me for it.

I'm finding it really hard to work under the constant pressure of trying to prove myself to my team, my boss, the parents and the kids. Is this what youth work in a church setting is always like? I hope that it is just birthing pains or something of the kind. I really hope that it is something that gets better with time. I need to get some sleep sometime. :)

I'm not asking for advice really. I never could take that well. I think that this is something that I need to think about and try to solve myself.

1:30 am

alright, here it is, one thirty am in the morning. i got back about an hour ago from prayer, which was really good and havent been able to sleep. that is probably my own fault, i brought the laptop to bed.

do you know that feeling of unsettlement? the one that makes you want to throw something against a wall for no reason, or throw-up out of sheer frustration, or cry although you know you can't, or scream although you know you won't. the darned knots in your belly that just won't go away? the one that is not helped by listening to music that seems to be saying exactly what i want to say to someone, but can't because that someone doesn't exist. there are some things that no one really wants to hear.

did you ever want to be someone else? i always wanted to be anne shirley from anne of green gables. hm. right now i feel like the girl from the song "so beautiful" from dashboard confessional. "your smile is in place so that everyone watching can see".

the world looked so beautiful tonight, in a sad, distant kind of way. it wasn't the kind of beauty you could be a part of, no matter how hard you tried. it has finally become cold enough to have a delicate frost, the kind that announces winter with a whisper. it felt like if you touched a part of it, it would disappear. i celebrated this beginning of winter by twirling on the sidewalk and almost hitting a passer-by, much to ben's horror. im so afraid of my soul aging that i do anything to keep it young. physically i don't mind growing old, but if i were to realise that my soul were old... often i do this at the most public of times, much to the embarrasment of whoever is with me (sorry if that happened to be you...)

God is so easy to find outside. does anyone else feel like he made sunsets just for them? or snow? or autumn? i can't help but celebrate and rejoice (for lack of a better word) at the beauty that i find everywhere, even in the concrete world that is elephant and castle. maybe the unsettled feeling comes from wanting to be a part of that beauty. i wish i were something more than i am.
ah well. it's almost 2 now, so i'm going to go to bed.

Ghost of a good thing

I hate the few minutes before falling asleep, and yet I love them as well. Those few minutes where real life and the beautiful world of dreams mingle with each other, like mist over a lake, close but not quite touching. I love that time, but it is the time just right after that, that I hate.

I am more often than not, just while I am beginning to enter the dream world myself, brought up short (kind of like when I jumped into Grandma's sliding glass door when I was 12).
Last night this happened, so close to sleep, I suddenly was wide awake with a thought on God, Jesus and suffering. It wasn't, as far as I can remember, a ground-shaking thought, but it was one that I thought was pretty good. However, being silly and lazy and really wanting to sleep, I didn't get out of bed to write it down. Now it's gone. That's why I hate those times. It happens to me all the time that I think of something (to my mind) really smart, or important, or insightful and then I think "I should write that down" but I don't and then I'll spend the rest of the morning trying to remember what a great thought I had had in the night.

Ah well, just another one of life's frustrations. I'll have to add it to the list.

The new laptops

Today was pretty uneventful. I had a good mentoring session with Catherine at 10. then i came home and had a pretty good team meeting. there are some frustrations but we'll see what comes out of that. we now have had new laptops delivered and the great news is: they're wireless!!! so, I am sitting in the living room now, watching tarzan on tv and typing in here. There isn't really much to write about. mom is coming to visit me soon, that will be really cool. I've been a bit homesick cause it's christmas time and i always get homesick around Christmas and I've been making my Christmas shopping list. I will have to start saving as of next week.
other than that, I am starting to get used to being single again. its been alright so far. we'll see how that goes too.
well, that's about all today...

An Amazing day

so, i woke up today in a pretty good mood. had a good and challenging meeting with jonny in the morning, mad team meeting after that (how 6 people in a room can create such maddness i dont know) and then went upstairs to do some work. jonny asked me to write his feedback thing (having only known him in a face to face sense for about maybe 4 weeks now, this wasnt the easiest thing to do. i think he came out sounding like the godfather of all church leaders or something) but anyways, then i went to lunch with darren, who is a great guy and who doesnt mind talking to me about things which is nice.
i wanted to write to essays today but didnt get around to it because of the following reasons:
1. I had to go with my flat mates to buy some dvds and guess who.
2. I had completely forgotten about going to Southwark for Jesus meeting at Southwark town hall.
now the first thing was great enough, but it was really the second thing that knocked my socks off. being there was only what i can describe as an "acts" moment. it was amazing. to be honest, i went in thinking "wonderful, another thing to keep me from getting my essays done" which, by the way, are due wednesday. i didnt really think that much would happen, kind of thought that we would sit and listen to the churches explaining why we need to pray for Southwark to the mayor.
it wasnt like that at all. it kind of was at the begining, but it was really interesting. then, it was time for us to pray. that was when the amazing thing happened. there we were, christians from every thinkable denomination (well almost), sitting in the middle of the chambers in town hall, and what do we do? we begin to pray! many in tongues and it was just such a noise! people crying out for God to move and to change Southwark. the angels in heaven must have been shouting for joy at the sight of all of us, united in prayer and thought and deed, crying out to God! This happened a second time later on when we prayed for the schools that we have in our areas.
God was tangibly present in those chambers. it was a breath-taking, heart-quickening way to kick off what, to my mind, will be an amazing week of prayer. this borough needs God so much, and has given the churches here like mind and spirit and that is just amazing.
so, im so excited about going into the school to read tomorrow. it is notorious for its violence, but it was prayed for today and i am confident that God is going to do great things there.
sorry for the crap style of this, im just so glad that i could be part of something that has the air of being something groundbreaking here in Southwark.

Vinyl or A Track?

don't you hate it when someone is always right? i don't know about you, but there is rarely something that frustrates me more. for some people, it is when someone presses the button at the traffic light again, for me, it is constantly being proven wrong. i just hate being wrong.

the most aggravating type of these people are the ones who think they know how it feels like to be you. they think that they can read you like a Dr. Seuss book, full of rhythm and rhyme and a simple story line (though slightly quirky). no real depth, or if there is it's seen in a "been there, done that" light. they always have the answer, they think that they have the assembly manual to your life and can put you back together like a not-quite-so-broken humpty dumpty.

the problem is, that though these people are often off-mark, they can surprise you with insight, pointing out things in your life that you have been carefully avoinding, using as a veil to protect the real you. these things that you have conciously put on over the years to create a better you. a less vulnerable you. a more solid you. these things that you have carefully assembled around yourself, are to these people, visible and surprisingly repulsive, which of course they are, but who wants to hear that?

i really hate it when that happens, which is often enough. i know it's wrong, but i kind of like my veil of nothings, i at least am kind of afraid of what i would be without them.

anyway, this whole massive thing comes from being told that i was either a vinyl in a false sleeve, or an a track that can only be played by an a track player. the only problem is, the person went on to say, is that a track players are few and far between. lucky me :)

this is all rubbish anyways. ive just had a frustrating, paradigm shift-like week, with no one to talk to about it (or at least thats how it feels to me) sorry for the ramble, i'll try to keep it to a minimum next time.