by tashmcgill | Dec 12, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, Prose & Poetry
In the beginning there were words. Words that in their being, brought earth and all creation into being with them. Words that shaped land and ocean, sky and heavens, words that placed stars into the atmosphere and brought water out of springs in the earth, to water the ground. That the ground might bloom into life, and the walking, breathing life that lived upon the earth might eat of the blossoming of the earth. All this came from words.
At the end, there are always words. Heavy ones, filled with sadness and loss, words that endeavour to bring meaning to a series of repeated breaths, repeated motions that construct a life. We describe people in all their broken glory, painting pictures of younger, more productive years. Words that make small triumphs from failures, words that give us the power to influence and change the purpose of a life, from smallness to greatness at the moment of death. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Dec 12, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, Mind
It’s possible, you know, to get stuck in a moment. To get stuck in a feeling. Reliving the words someone has spoken to you or about it. Reliving the experience you’ve just had. Constantly re-imagining how it may have gone differently, worked towards a different outcome.
It’s possible to just get stuck by running a thought to it’s final destination and not knowing where to go next. Or to forget to change the tape in your head that labels you ‘failure’, ‘loser’, ‘not good enough’, ‘unloved’ … or conversely, ‘hero’, ‘person everything relies on’, ‘fix-it man’.
Stuckness has a lot of layers. At first it can seem like you’re trapped, closed in, prohibited from moving. But the truth is, you’re not entirely prohibited from moving, you’re just unable to move in certain ways. Or, stuck in certain patterns of moving that you can’t change without some external force or intervention.
Internal self-talk is one of these moments. Whether the tapes playing in your head are on just one theme or 12 different ones on repeat, often you can’t change the tapes without further input and help.
Same with rebound relationships and holding a grudge. You know it’s not a good idea, that it can’t get you closer to the end goal. But like a soccer ball covered in glue, these emotional habits can be so sticky that once you make contact again, you can’t let it go.
Then there is stuckness that is good. It’s the kind of stuckness you get to when you’ve been waiting for a while. It’s the kind of stuckness that slowly enables you to open your eyes and see what’s really around you. Spend enough time being stuck and soon, pathways and possibilities for becoming unstuck might appear where they weren’t obvious before. Being stuck gives you time to really observe your surroundings.
Being stuck is a great time to acknowledge how you got to where you are.
Sometimes, when heartbreak comes along, our natural tendency is to find someone to soothe the wound, to heal the break, to make us feel loved again.. but in these times, it can be better to be stuck for a while and get to know ourselves again.
Being stuck is actually, more often than not, a good thing. It’s an opportunity to call on those we trust and rely on to intervene in our situation.
A little unsticking strategy will always require a little effort and patience.
Not unlike writers’ block, a little waiting time is sometimes necessary for the right ideas and new opportunities to shake themselves loose. In the same way the gate and fencepost swell with summer heat and moisture, requiring effort and patience to open. Long walks in sunlit valleys lie beyond that fencepost, but not without time and work.
The trouble is, being stuck can feel like going nowhere, but a lot of the time, being stuck is just the break your sub-conscious needed to figure out what’s next and how to navigate it.
It’s like taking the precious seeds we carry, our hopes and dreams and then burying them down in earth, waiting and hoping for it to come back to life. It’ll take 6 weeks before that seed takes on a life of it’s own above the surface of the soil. It might even take longer. But Stuckness says, embrace the darkness and damp of the soil. Learn to be patient in the absence of light. Learn (and trust) that your time is coming.
That seed will likely sprout and look nothing like the seed’s skin it shed to become a plant, vegetable or flower. But it was never stuck. It was just the unseen growth that happens when it feels like you’re standing still.
by tashmcgill | Dec 10, 2013 | Church, Spirituality
We are well into the Advent season – the four weeks that count down into the celebration of Christmas; and the powerhouse months of the liturgical calendar that follow.
For many of us, our days and nights are quickly becoming consumed with Christmas shopping, elevator music version of carols and songs that may not have been that good to start with. Christmas services, family dinners, gift exchanges and the ongoing advertising that seems to have once again, started earlier than ever.
A friend and I are engaged in healthy discussion at present – because I love Christmas, and the opportunity it offers to talk about the wonder of the miraculous in the everyday. He is not such a fan of Christmas, at least, the over-commercialised and sanitised version, both advertisers and the Church is at times guilty of presenting.
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by tashmcgill | Dec 7, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, Friendship
Bruce and I met when he was in his late 50s, and I was a 17 year old school girl. He was a worldly musician, I was dreaming of serving God in youth ministry. How did we become friends? Well, because we chose to and we lived better for it. He wasn’t a Christian, although we talked about spirituality and philosophy endlessly. He never held my faith against me, in fact – as the years went on, he seemed more intrigued by it.
I thought he was intelligent enough to ask questions if he wanted, and I was intelligent enough not to give answers where they were unnecessary. We talked about people, sexuality, growing up, learning from your mistakes, trying to find your way in life and we talked of writing. We always talked of writing. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Dec 6, 2013 | Church, Spirituality, youth ministry, Youth Work
I’ve been reflecting recently, on a number of problems I see or experience in the Church (global). In my vocational work, we wouldn’t call these problems. We’d call them opportunities, a chance for someone, somebodies or some new method to get involved in creating a better outcome.
As I was thinking about the various ‘opportunities’ I can see around me, I realized a lot of these ‘opportunities’ have been sitting in front of us for a while. Since I was a teenager at least, maybe even further back. I think these are opportunities to drastically improve the manner in which we do Church, community and generally go about our business.
Not all of these opportunities will seem initially apparent, but here’s my crack at the first one. Censorship. Let’s knock that one on the head. ‘What?’ I hear you say. ‘Censorship? But how else do we keep our minds and hearts and eyes pure, the eyes are the windows to the soul.” Yes, you’re right. (more…)
