One Little Piece Of Grit
What am I but grit and dust? Broken down shell and stone, washed over the shores again and again. I am one small grain of sand among hundreds and tens of thousands. I am insigificant, I am harmless, I am not of great value nor great beauty. But still, there is a chance, that I might crawl, claw, beg my way inside an oyster shell and find myself there stuck in, expanding and transforming and one day be a pearl of lustre, depth and quality.
Don’t Keep Me Waiting Too Long
I have this ongoing connection to the full moon. Something about it constantly stirs in me a deep sense of expectation. This is probably a little bit dangerous, but regardless, the full moon will either be tonight or tomorrow night and I can feel it in my bones. There’s a achingness to the light that shines full into my bedroom window from that moon. It’s clarity and white light that’s nearly as bright as daylight was streaming in at 1am this morning. So much so that I had to get up and take a look. I pondered my old prayers again, and said how long, Lord, how long. My Psalm 40 is getting more worn as the days and years go by. However, even though I’m not always sure what it is that I’m waiting for, this verse from John 12.24 keeps appearing to me.
24″Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.
24I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
24The truth is, a kernel of wheat must be planted in the soil. Unless it dies it will be alone–a single seed. But its death will produce many new kernels–a plentiful harvest of new lives.
24Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.
24I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains [just one grain; it never becomes more but lives] by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest.
24verily, verily, I say to you, if the grain of the wheat, having fallen to the earth, may not die, itself remaineth alone; and if it may die, it doth bear much fruit;
24I tell you for certain that a grain of wheat that falls on the ground will never be more than one grain unless it dies. But if it dies, it will produce lots of wheat.
Interpret that. It ties in very much with what we were talking about at Queens Birthday. The cycle of life and death, growth & decline, building and taking down that is chronicled in Solomon’s reflection in Ecclesiastes. Wok proposed it as a valid cycle of ministry and life.
That under the pressure of a secularly-based, exponential time-profit ratio mindset, we have neglected the value that a death-conception-birth cycle brings to us. We look to borrow and adopt other people’s lifecycles in order to maintain our own.
But.. he says, based out of Ecclesiastes and observing creation all around us .. there must be cycles of barrenness, that lead us to desperation on our knees before God, that then allows for utter emptiness, then a new conception, the preparation for birth, the labour & birth itself (the hardest part beyond barrenness) and then the new life that follows. These ‘new lives’ then continue to grow and develop completing their own life cycles, that eventually end in decline as well. The struggle then, is realising that the cycles of barrenness to new life happen in small ways all over the place, especially in ministry environments, and to understand that they overlap each other. Different aspects of life take hold, while other things decline, only to be born again in new and different ways.
So.. in my life.. where is barrenness? Where is my Sarah-like desperation before God? It comes to me when the moon is full and I feel empty and hesitant, expectant and yearning. Longing for a deeper vision and deeper satisfaction. In letting go of dreams, in holding on to hope despite my weakness.
Lord, make me with the spirit of a barren woman
ever ready to pour out my oil, a vessel empty
and awaiting your gift
a dangerous prayer
for emptiness is dangerous territory
but with all my heart and soul
I entrust to you a seed
that is willing to lay down in the soil
and lay out it’s life
anticipating a less than easy death
but a restorative, worthwhile conception
help me, Lord
to lay down in the soil
and be buried
and also to die
not just go on living
in damp darkness
Control
Take control of the atmosphere
Take me far away from here
There is no better loss than to lose myself in you
In a parachute to glide, I am captive in your sky
Surrender has somehow become so beautiful
Take control of the atmosphere
Take control of the atmosphere
You can take my world you can fill the air
Take control, take control
It’s such a beautiful surrender
It’s such a beautiful surrender
It’s such a beautiful surrender
It’s such a beautiful surrender
Move me up through the darkest clouds
Till I’ve lost in the sun every shadow of doubt
There is no better find than to find myself with you
In a fog you are all I see
I’m inviting you closer with each time I breathe
Surrender has somehow become so beautiful
Take control of the atmosphere
Take control of the atmosphere
There is no reason I should breathe unless you’re in the air
Take control
Its such a beautiful surrender
Its such a beautiful surrender
And I’m calling out
would you take control
And I’m calling out
Sex and the City
I’m working 3 days a week 8am-5pm for the next five weeks. Above is the building I’m working in, the delightful Phillips Fox Tower. Even the bathrooms have views. Today is a clear winter day and I am absolutely struck down with love for this city again. I’m such a strange girl. I love Paremoremo and the bush, water, dirt, peace and earthiness of it all. And I adore the rush and bush of the city, the old sweatiness of the concrete, marble, granite skyscrapers. The mad rush of pedestrians carrying takeaway coffees, talking on their cellphones. Black and charcoal suits, briefcases and laptop bags brushing past student satchels, carry-alls and sneakers. Fine italian leather shoes shining up from the ashen, dank asphalt.
I took lunch and just soaked it in. The sense of speed and power, movement and momentum. For a moment I just breathed in and remembered that people do find meaning and peace in the rhythm of a city life. In arriving at work, juggling carparks, gym memberships, Starbucks, banking. Jewellery stores, CD stores and any kind of ethnic food I like all in walking distance, all in the space of a half hour lunch. Bookstores, galleries and just a hint of Albert Park in the distance. This is the city.
I stepped inside Whitcoulls on the corner of Queen & Victoria, opposite my tower. Walking through the sections well laid out and displayed, I found a surreal little world by the poetry shelves. I was looking for something obscure and native, preferably Te Reo poetry translated. Instead I found insipid love poems from every ear and unpleasant covers. The delightful thing about poetry books, is that they normally escape the pop-culture, supermarket read cartoon cover art. Or the softly focussed, overly made up cover model shots that grace Danielle Steel, Penny Vincenzi and so on. No, as much as I enjoy Marian Keyes and Jane Green.. they are a world of fictional merriment and their cartoons suit them. I like my poetry to feel dark and real, bold and intimate from the moment I look at the cover, feel the weight and texture of the paper in my hands. Then the words and timbre can capture me and take me an sacred place.
Today, the surrealism wasn’t helped by a poor selection of ‘contemporary’and ‘classic’poetry. But the moment was saved. I was engulfed in a double pitched clunking rhythm overhead and all around. The internal escalators in that building must be near on ancient now, and sure enough.. the droning bass clunk and the doubletime treble clack clack made a rhythm enclave for me to dive into. The vibrations through the floor travelled to the very end of my fingertips and made even the dullest of offerings seem a little alive. It made me want to record the sounds and play them over and over, maybe even as a loop on some anthemic lovesong to the city.
It’s less than a day spent in her clutches and I am utterly swept away again. The pulse and rhythm, life of it all takes me back to New York and brings me home again. I need to live with a camera on my arm, capturing every moment of these days. In the darkest of spaces, my city reinvigorates me.
I remember now.. the love affair I have with this place. I’m going to prescribe myself more city time, remembering my culture from out in the sometime desert of the North Shore.
Hmm.
© Tash McGill
Paradigm Shifting
Sometimes you have these moments in life when you realise the sands are shifting beneath you, and you have limited time to choose your response. I sense this process is beginning in me. And this time I’m wiser and softer than I was before. Hindsight offers the choice to engage in the process and be shifted along as I need to be, or to simply dig in. But the choice is not really mine.
As I’m writing this, I’m also viewing pictures from Luke and Katie’s wedding and admiring the love that they have grown for one another. It’s beautiful to see how they have grown together and to believe in something precious for a moment.
I see now, how in all of my career movement and development, right alongside it, has been this deep drive and need to build a home life. I’m reminded of that John Mayer song actually. The deep longing for a place and community of belonging, that owns me and loves me and keeps me and desires me. A community of people who are friends not parishoners, family not colleagues. A place to celebrate and be celebrated in. And so here in what could be the twilight of my time at Windsor Park, I am seeing signs of this little haven coming into being. Not altogether as I would imagined it, but slowly in small and quiet places. I love my house and my connect points, special friends that are growing deeply into my heart. I love seeing progress and development with some of the things I have been doing here finally taking fruit. And there are of course other things not going as well, that I want to see through and fix. Or at least learn from.
So .. with some dreams having been put to bed by recent developments; I’m looking around and asking God what next, and where to. It seems that age and gender and experience will ultimately prevent for the foreseeable future my ongoing growth or development into the ministry role I feel so called to.
Edited on Advice
I am looking at the reality of accepting a minimal token payment job here next year, with increased ministry workload, albeit some of the very dreams and ideas I had wanted to run with in my internship period; but having to combine that with a role with Eastercamp that I’ve been told won’t be developed beyond what it already is. That would still leave me financially crippled for another year and also in the very kind of volunteer position that my would-be employer has disregarded as ‘countable experience’.
Or I look to be employed somewhere else, and put down my responsibilities with Eastercamp, the passion and call there. I could go full time or partime and continue to study and pursue some things. The optio of staying in Auckland in a position like that is at least one that would allow the songwriting to continue and not remove me entirely from the homelife I have built.
Or, I take my mother’s advice and move overseas. Looking at a position maybe in NSW where I have some contacts and opportunities are available. There are positive things about this. The whole ‘prophet without honor in his own land’ would be easily removed for a season, an opportunity to explore and develop and build. If leadership is not empowering, then it’s either managing you for it’s own benefit or.. it’s disenpowering you altogether.
So there are some smart decisions, and extremely painful ones in my future.
Pray for me, that God’s will be done, and not my own unless the two correlate. Pray for my fears to be held in check.
Song Of The Moment : Home Life
John Mayer
I think I’m gonna stay home
Have myself a home life
Sitting in the slow-mo
And listening to the daylight
I am not a nomad
I am not a rocket man
I was born a house cat
By the slight of my mother’s hand
I think I’m gonna stay home
I want to live in the center of a circle
I want to live on the side of a square
I used to be in my M-Z now
You’ll never find me cause my name isn’t there
Home life
Been holding out for a home life
My whole life
I want to see the end game
I want to learn her last name
Finish on a Friday
And sit in traffic on the highway
See, I refuse to believe
That my life’s gonna be
Just some string of incompletes
Never to lead me to anything remotely close to home life
Been holding out for a home life
My whole life
I can tell you this much
I will marry just once
And if it doesn’t work out
Give her half of my stuff
It’s fine with me
We said eternity
And I will go to my grave
With the life that I gave
Not just some melody line
On a radio wave
It dissipates
And soon evaporates
But home life doesn’t change
I want to live in the center of a circle
I want to live on the side of a square
I’d love to walk to where we can both talk but
I’ve got to leave you cause my ride is here
Home life
You keep the home life
You take the home life
I’ll come back for the home life
I promise