by tashmcgill | Sep 22, 2008 | forgiveness, Uncategorized
there is a thread of silk
weaving through your heart
at the end of a needle sharp
pierces skin and flesh and
draws deep and near, threading
silk through the wounds
know this, it weaves through mine as well, in fact maybe, same thread wove through mine first..either way, by the time the end comes near.. it’s the same thread ties us close together..share a little wound with you, share a little wound with me
lend you a little of my soothing balm, spend a little love on you
Forgiving
There are some days recently where I find myself on the edge of a wave. Sometimes it is breaking, other times I’m adrift in calm seas. In the in between days, I can sail past in the slight swell, content to feel the ebb and flow of everything that passes through my mind.
Some thoughts are longer and deeper than others. I’m moody, aptly labelled by dear ones, and it’s ashamedly true. When relaxed and with friends, give me a tangent to dwell and there I go.. but I’m not a hopeless case.
I’m the glass half-full when it comes to circumstance, which comes in handy when you want to forgive. Recently I’m prone to forgiving type circumstances, not always of my own doing. There are days that I still feel the weight of Eastercamp upon me in it’s absence and it’s presence. She stays with me in memories heavier than my greatest loves, to date, she is my greatest love. She is moving on, into new and beautiful forms under the hands of other lovers.. there is forgiving there but its an abstract distant kind.
There is another kind that creeps under your skin, where you come to know truth in ways you wish you didn’t and things you’d rather never know but still in knowing them you have only the greater opportunity to love. Loving so deeply that the marrow of my bones is given to it. I am partly invited to forgive and partly I take the opportunity.. but either way… In this circumstance, I am glad of being glass half-full. Sometimes it gives you the opportunity to step outside immediate pain and remember the most important things.
The one irrefutable thing about the past is.. it is always behind you.
But you do have to choose to walk on from the spot you’re in, or risk being stuck there for much longer than you intend. It’s in late night moments, in moments of carelessness that I forget about loving someone else and stepping forward with them, and stop for a moment, letting some sharp little tongue slice it’s way through words in my voice but not from my heart.
The difference here of course, is that I want so badly to forgive, to wipe clean any memory of our misdeeds to one another, that I press forward into the break and make is so.
Why so happily leaping into the breach here and not there? Both will be slow forgives… Here, I can forgive fast and spend a long time in the making it right, there.. is more of a slow forgive and quick put right. For some reason, there are some things you just can’t love your way through.
But am I too strong in this? Should I be softer, take more time, be less resolved to have fortitude? Should I be needier and require more? Have I done the wrong thing by trying to make the stepping forward into the future easier? So many questions brought about by the parallel comparatives of forgiving.
by tashmcgill | Sep 16, 2008 | god ideas, Uncategorized
Adj. 1. humiliated – subdued or brought low in condition or status;
Adj. 2. humiliated – made to feel uncomfortable because of shame or wounded pride;
When I was about 14, I was part of an inter-school competition for smart kids and problem solvers. My team from the girls school was fun, but also pretty quiet, kinda mellow. I was all about expressing my extroverted self. We were staying at a campsite out in West Auckland, in bunkrooms that had connecting doors.
Imagine my delight when the door to our bunkroom opened and on the other side – was a group of smart, funny and entertaining boys from Kristin School on the North Shore. This central city Epsom Girls Grammar girl was delighted with the opportunity to converse and laugh and spark with like-minded but very different teenage males.
One of the group ringleaders went by the name of Adam, a dark-haired rascally type who was clever and witty and political aware (as you are at 15). I found him somewhat enchanting and interesting. And I thought he did me too. We spent long dinners and afterhours programmes laughing and joking.
The other members of the group were full of fun too, except one kid, who even know, I can’t even remember. He was the geek, with body odour, glasses. He was pretty quiet and definitely not highly regarded by the rest of the team.
After the heated final competition, Adam and I traded numbers and promised to ‘stay in touch’. Already my delicate teenage self-esteem had bloomed a little in the short few days of attention. But I wasn’t foolish enough to assume that I would hear from him.
It genuinely took me by surprise when he rang within the week, to invite me to a BBQ his parents were having the next Sunday.
Sundays were always difficult days in my house. They were Dad Days, usually begun with some measure of tension and stress from the maternal end, endless waiting and hoping for Dad to arrive (invariably always late) and then spent in the nervous tension that the eldest sibling lives in .. wanting to make sure that everything’s ok for everybody. So I nervously asked Dad if he would drop me out to the address in Greenhithe, which in those days was simply forever away.. over the bridge. For my often-unemployed and very often broke Dad, I felt the burden of the gas, the journey, the time. It was a really big call.
So the morning came, and I had invited my friend Tere to come with me. We picked her up and Dad dropped us off. Me, being foolish and shy, asked him to drop us off at the top of the driveway. And down we walked.
Adam had given a precise description of the house and the surrounding garden, which featured a large flagpole. I’m not sure why that sticks in my mind but it does. We got to the door, knocked on it, and who should answer.. but geeky, smelly kid.
And when we explained what we were there for – assuming that Adam must have invited his friends from school as well, he looked more and more confused. He blushed redder and redder and went inside. It seemed like an age of confusion before his mother came to the door.
She brought us inside and explained that there was no BBQ, that this wasn’t Adam’s house. She looked at me first with incredulity, disbelief and anger until she finally came to see that I really had no idea what Adam had been playing at. Then the pity in her eyes took over.
Soon, it became obvious what was going on. Not only was the geeky, smelly kid the victim of Adam’s bullying, but I was too. I wasn’t meeting with a like-minded friendly funny guy, but actually had been the butt of a well-played joke. Adam had revealed to his cabin mates late at night during the competition week, a plan to ‘trick’ the girl from next door into really liking him, then playing a prank.
Geeky, smelly boy revealed all under the prodding of his mother. Poor kid hadn’t realised that he too, was going to be the butt of this practical joke. he had thought it the perfect scam.. win over the ‘ugly fat-face stupid slut’ as he had called me to the others, then really make her feel a fool by sending her to Geeky’s house under false pretenses, thus humiliating both myself and his schoolyard prey.
Finally, a phone call to Adam’s house revealed nothing but a laughing teenage boy on the other end. While Geeky’s mother promised to ring Adam’s parents and get an apology, I never heard another word.
Worse still, was the inability of contacting my Dad. His cellphone (at that time a brick) simply rang and rang and rang. I rang my mother but she didn’t answer the phone. In the end, in utter humiliation, having already suffered this crisis in front of my best friend who had heard me excited and full of enthusiasm for this teenage crush, we then had to call her mother to come and retrieve us then wait the 45minutes it took her to get there.
How I wanted my dad to come and rescue me from that moment. By the time I got back to school on the monday – the story had travelled plenty far. I so needed someone to crackdown on the arrogance, impudent boy. I needed someone to be furious at the injustice of a young boy’s prank. I needed someone to act quickly enough to restore the crushing blow to my self-worth and refute the words “ugly fat-face stupid slut”.
The Power Of My Helplessness
The feeling of public exposure, the feeling of my foolishness at being duped into the fraud, of somehow not perceiving the lie, the rathood of the cad, the visiblity of my shame.. being exposed in front of those that knew me.. those whose opinion mattered most. The shame of the rejection, the cruelty of the names and the lack of their refuting… that is the power of my helplessness. I end up crushed into humiliation and remember that girl, so frail, so tenderly holding onto the ledge of value and reputation. I remember the trust that was broken and rebuke my own stupidity. I remember the loneliness that stuck in my heart in that moment… the sorrow of unworthiness that crept into me.
There Are Moments Of Memory
For so many reasons the past few days have been full of insecurity, and it’s at these times this memory creeps up on me again and I remember Adam and what he did to my Eve. In her blossoming hope, how he devastated her.
I sometimes wonder if I have spent the last fifteen years waiting for Adam to strike again, wrestling me into public shame again. I know that this is my moment with Christ in front of the Pharisees, where I am the woman of shame brought before their judgement. It doesn’t matter whether I’m a criminal or not, just that the humiliation and fear of public rejection is equally strong. The ‘not being loved’ lie that crept in so young… renders me sometimes undone, and I have to restitch myself with words of truth.
Who is the Christ? Where is the defender, truth-teller, lover?
I don’t shy away from the utter revelation of self.. public humiliation I wear and have worn in the public eye before… but don’t leave me standing alone. All revelation is secure in the eyes of the one who stands despite the Truth.. whether it be my lack of beauty, my overpowering strength, my weakness, my sin, my sorrow… know all of me, every breath and beat and embarrassing truth.. and stay.
Stay and your love conceals me, covers over my sin and heals me.
Stay and your love reveals me, all that is beauty and truth and goodness.
Song Of The Moment : My Lover
by Melissa Etheridge
No one conceals me like
No one reveals me like
My lover
No one can disconnect
No one can resurrect
Like my lover
My lover makes me weak
Gives me breath to speak
My lover takes me home
Cools the rolling stone
My lover’s thorny kiss
The reason to exist
I wonder
No one can saturate
No one manipulates
Like my lover
The sensuality
It’s immort
ality
My lover
My lover needs to seize
Bring me to my knees
Reads me like a prayer
Calls the spirit there
Secretly inspires
Strips me to desire
I wonder
No one can visualize
No one can make me rise
Like my lover
They dream of paradise
They’ll never ever pay the price
My lover
by tashmcgill | Sep 15, 2008 | god ideas, Uncategorized, youth ministry
I’ve been ruminating around some ideas with discipleship now for a while, and a coffee break with Rich helped me to find the phrase I was looking for…
Behavioural Modification vs. Awareness Nurture
A traditional model of both youth ministry and discipleship in broader terms, boils down to a set of objectives easily rendered into bahavioural modification theories. Ultimately running the risk of producing ‘disciples’ who are only equipped for navigating through previously simulated experiences or lessons and produced socially acceptable choices. Perhaps a 50% attrition rate has been experienced in my own youth community relying on these more traditional ideals and ways of thinking.
Example: Sex Education
Traditional: Here’s why Christians Don’t / Here’s why you shouldn’t / The Line
Recently: Let’s teach and encourage healthy sexuality & awareness with young people regardless of faith precepts focussed on healthy choices, identity awareness and social cognition of influences, pressure and expectations.
What if youth ministry and discipleship addressed it’s core principles on the long, slow, developmental tasks of emotional/spiritual awareness, social awareness (implications of my community & community identity), self awareness?
One of the ongoing issues we face within our own community is the insistent pressure fo the discipleship timeline.. a series of measuring sticks that address behaviour as guides for spiritual development along the lines of baptism, spiritual information and outcomes like mission service etc.
We introduce people to the character of Jesus and then his behaviours and teachings as a model of behaviour before we teach or encourage the fostering of Wisdom. Jesus, as the embodiment of Wisdom .. only ever pointed us to the Father, yet in the Western church, we find Jesus at the apex of our teaching and worship, rather than the Truth. (I’m not 100% concrete on my ideas here yet, so bear with me).
Slow
Around the world the “slow” movement is gaining momentum (haha). But what if we took a slow approach to discipleship. One of the more significant seasons in my life was underlined by a daily reading of Proverbs. A chapter a day, of every month for about 5 years. Once you begin to understand and recognise Wisdom, all of sudden the person of Christ makes more sense.
I guess, I’m really exploring the idea of saying, ok, if Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life – how are we introducing people to Truth in such a way that it becomes part of their being, rather than part of their behaving?
So – instead of pushing kids into the Gospels when reading Scripture.. pushing them into the wisdom books, illuminating Christ through that lens first. My understanding being that by manner of approaching wisdom and truth so dominantly we might resettle the scales in favour of a Father-centered worship, through Christ, than worship of Christ.
Slower, longer but hopefully deeper? Wisdom ways of living that help young people or any disciple to navigate their way through any waters, because they are underpined in wisdom teachings rather than behavioural concepts? Jesus’ actions are only truly revealed to us through our understanding of the Truth he was in flesh, and the Father he points us toward.
My suspicion is that too much emphasis on Christ-like living started as a great idea but has lead us to far into Christ the man, rather than Christ the Divine, who never points to himself, but only the Father.
by tashmcgill | Sep 15, 2008 | Uncategorized
“And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.”
My accountant calls me benevolent. I’m too generous with my time, my grace, my patience. Sometimes I believe him, when my heart is breaking with the weight of all that I give away.
Sometimes I’m glad that I’m stubborn enough to hold to the fervent belief in my heart : I have been given one true gift, the ability to love someone well. Call that benevolent, call it foolish, but one who is worthy of love, has always been my sweetest downfall.
So down, down, down I go.. down to the spaces again where I am needed with my healing words and peace. Places that feel like a privilege, moments that ache like a wound but are full of warmth and life.
Of course, something happened. Something that involved a re-wrapping of truth, for the sake of dignity, privacy, fear.. probably many things. That’s not mine to understand or outlay. And when the truth comes out, as truth so often does… I am left now responding to truth, finding love-words to bring things back together…
My only regret is that I was present enough or strong enough or good enough to stay the deed that caused the pain. I would have taken all of my strength and heart to the cause.
I am found again, ready to love with all that I have and to be Incarnate, where I am presently allowed. And I love again and again.
by tashmcgill | Sep 12, 2008 | Uncategorized
play me a minor chord, i have a sad song in my heart
and there is not a thing that you can do to ease the tide
there are no notes that match the dissonance of sorrow
the beauty of the darkness falling, the sad little tune
play me a minor chord, follow it with thirds and then a 7th
by the time the dawn arrives, we’ll be through me and you
me to go my own way with this sad new song and you, to where you go
down to the dark, lonely depths that i cannot, will not go
i have a sad song in my heart
i have bought you sunshine
tattooed wisdom on my shoulders
til i’ve been going backwards
but we’ll be through, me and you
enjoy these final notes, this last reprise another chorus line
i’ll write you one last soaring melody with notes of gray
shading blue along the wake, stay up all night to finish off the ache
wine bottle emptied alongside the minor chords we’ll write tonight
we’re so much better in the melancholy a sad retreat wasn’t fooling anybody
for i am magnet to the foolhardy, fools and i am the biggest fool of all
there is a foolish colour to all these minor chords and fooling words
nobody gets fooled anymore, the melody of my love is a breaking curse
could i be sent, sent out into the night, by the dawn a parcel of light
play me a minor chord, i have a sad song in my heart
and there is not a thing that you can do to ease the tide
there are no notes that match the dissonance of sorrow
the beauty of the darkness falling, the sad little tune
