by tashmcgill | Jun 23, 2005 | Uncategorized
A Tall And Ivory Tower
I’ve been working these past two days in my city job again, and then last night had a Q&A night. Questions folded up in a box and passed around. Some funny and others serious. It was an opportunity to talk about the culture that my young people are embedded in. One very honest question was as follows;
How are you meant to react when it seems like everyone around you is shutting you out and the only ones who love you are God and your family?
Afterwards, one of the students gave his testimony, and then we prayed. It was a simple night but it felt good and solid beneath my feet.
Then I went to meet the luscious Wendy because she was up from Hamiltron, collecting a TV and moving potplants for her crazy brother who was meant to come and have a coffee with us. He didn’t though, which I was sad about cos I was looking forward to seeing some more of his crazy martial arts moves! We just talked and enjoyed each others company.. and accompanied each other in our little stories.
I like her image of the campfire, and these amazing times when we get to be face to face is like Wendy bringing her logs to the fire, and me getting the marshmellows and the guitar, and we just bring our stories alongside each other, keeping one another more.
I miss my Dani girl. I miss Wendy and she’s only been gone for less than a day.
A Mid-Winter Hymn
Some glad morning when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away
To a home on God’s celestial shore, I’ll fly away
I’ll fly away, O glory, I’ll fly away
When I die hallelujah, by and by, I’ll fly away.
When the shadows of this life have gone, I’ll fly away
Like a bird from prison bars has flown, I’ll fly away…
I’ll fly away, O glory, I’ll fly away
When I die hallelujah, by and by, I’ll fly away.
Just a few more weary days and then, I’ll fly away
To a land where joys shall never end, I’ll fly away…
I’ll fly away, O glory, I’ll fly away
When I die hallelujah, by and by, I’ll fly away.
by tashmcgill | Jun 22, 2005 | Uncategorized
Hot In The City
© Tash McGill
This is the view from my building today. The photos aren’t great, they are taken on my little PXT camera, which is horribly convenient but terrible for my reputation. I just thought it would be cute to put them up for y’all to have a look at. I do love this city. The picture of the Metropolis building bathed in golden light reminds me of the autumn light in New York last year.
The sky was impudent last night and hid the full moon from me with swathes of cloud and mist. The rain fell for most of the night, leaving me feeling washed clean and refreshed this morning when I woke. A terrible hair day, but a small price to pay for the comfort of being surrounding in wet raindrops falling like a cocoon from the tin roof. Tonight’s moon will begin it’s waning process, and for another month, I’m left wondering and waiting for it’s significance.
Song Of The Moment : Fix You
Coldplay
when you try your best but you don’t succeed
when you get what you want but not what you need
when you feel so tired but you can’t sleep
stuck in reverse
and the tears come streaming down your face
when you lose something you can’t replace
when you love someone but it goes to waste
could it be worse?
lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
and i will try to fix you
high up above or down below
when you’re too in love to let it go
but if you never try, you’ll never know
just what you’re worth
lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
and i will try to fix you
tears stream down your face
when you lose something you cannot replace
tears stream down your face
and I…
tears stream down on your face
I promise you I will learn from the mistakes
tears stream down your face
and I…
lights will guide you home
and ignite your bones
and i will try to fix you
by tashmcgill | Jun 21, 2005 | Uncategorized
Blog Hopping
::UPDATED:: I’ve added some new folks to the sidebar.. please go and read Mark Pierson’s ongoing reflections and stories from Urban Seed:church in Melbourne, and most of you probably already read Stephen Garner and Andrew Jones. I’ve tried to stop myself from becoming one of those blogdom clichés who simply links to all the cool kids, but I do actually read them. So there. Now I’m just cliché in terms of who I read.
Later on this afternoon I’ll probably write a little more, but in the meantime, I’m archiving this for myself..
Maggi is gracious enough to share this prayer from her reflections..
Disturb us, Lord,
when we are too well pleased with ourselves;
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little;
when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess
we have lost our thirst for the Waters of Life;
having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity;
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly –
to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery;
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
We ask you push back the horizons of our hopes,
and to push us in the future with strength, courage, hope and love.
by tashmcgill | Jun 21, 2005 | Uncategorized
© Tash McGill
Daily Prayers
I have officially and finally moved into my new office at church. The final touches are nearly in place, just curtains and some extra shelves to come. But the last few times I have been in here, I have lit the candles on either side of my laptop, and written/spoken some prayers as each one has taken light. It seems like a good ritual, and something that will ground productivity as well as spirit into my daily grind. Something about candlelight makes this place feels more peaceful and habitable. So, in the unpacking of the final box, my candles are in place, and there is also a little cardboard giftbox to hold the burned matches, folded prayer slips and bits of wax. It’s going to be a joy in weeks and months to come, to unfold and re-read prayers, knowing some have been answered and some answers are yet to come. Knowing that those small wooden matches may be charcoal dust really, but they symbolize my heart burning for those around me.
by tashmcgill | Jun 21, 2005 | Uncategorized
Displaced Levites
If Easter is my annual liturgy, my offering for my people, then for the rest of the year, I am a displaced Levite.
I have a sermon coming up in a couple of weeks. Well, it’s more like four weeks. I’m going to speak about Reverence, and the Sacred Space within. It sounds fluffy already. It’s probably pearls before swine in terms of the young people and young adults that I’m speaking to. But I hope that part of it will take hold, and a root will go down. I might for a short season call these people, my people, and spend the next few months of my time with them, being a Levite for them.
In the truest sense of the word, I desire to prepare the temple for them, and lead them through rituals of deep meaning, liturgies of deep reverence, profound repentance and precious adoration of a spent out Lord. I have dreams of this people estatic in praise, not because of a pendulum swing in expressive style, but because if the Lord will bring us to our knees, surely he will give us cause to raise our eyes to heaven.
I was thinking about how luscious and rich our worship services are for me. It’s almost selfish, the way in which I layer my thoughts and practices, so that if nothing else, the people have had opportunity to dive into a rich pool of intentional corporate praise, personal prayer and repentance. The only part that sometimes feels empty is the response from people.
I instructed and asked for silence and reverence in one part of our service this week. I was critiqued by one of our young adults that silence and reverence should be by invitation and choice. I was stunned. For a moment, I questioned whether to take on a Levitical approach to the preparations of this work is presumptous. But I have remained sure in my footing on this one.. it is sometimes appropriate for the people to take instruction in how to offer praise to the King. There are times where no instruction and all freedom ought also to be given, but these things must live in tension.
However, I still feel a displaced Levite, making temples out of tents in the desert, and offerings out of skinny sheep. This thought is increased in me, as I spend more time bringing music worship offerings in other places. At Northgate, in our morning service, and this week we go to Te Atatu United Methodist .. something. Going to strange places where I don’t know the people, the story, the ambience to lead them in rituals of deep significance. May the Lord be with me, as I go.
