Audience Of One My favourite song of Bruce’s whole album and the 2nd single to be released is Long Lost Friend. It’s a song of hope & loss. The clip above is just pleasurable. I’m listening to this track and most of the CD on repeat with single malt and crying a lot.
My friend Simon Moore was laying tracks (guitars) for this long awaited album over Easter weekend 2006. It was the first Easter Si wasn’t at for a number of years. We had written the Sola series in the week prior and Si was emailing updated scripts for me to shoot at camp from the studio. Later, we were to name our company after that weekend’s pivotal output (Sola Fida – the first of Luther’s creeds).
It seems that this weekend, as the news is starting to penetrate amongst friends, colleagues and my family of easter crew… this song takes me back to beginnings and ends and is so appropriate.
This week I accepted the news that I will no longer be working on Eastercamp. It’s a hard goodbye, too fast and too soon. But God is present in it. In the weeks to come I’m going to endeavour to chronicle the time as a way of saying goodbye and honouring all that God has done and that I’ve been privileged to be part of.
In the meantime – if you have a special Eastercamp story – I’d love you to send them to me, even with a photo or two. I’m going to collect as many stories from 1999 – 2008 as I can to remember this season that’s been so important and beautiful in my life. Feel free to pass this around as many people as you know who have been part of or impacted by Eastercamp in some way during my involvement.. I’d appreciate the help. Email to tash at solafida dot co dot nz.
Song Of The Moment : Long Lost Friend by Bruce Conlon
goodbye my long lost friend i’m glad to see there’s no bitter end cos it’s a long time we spent in our lives and now it’s time to go
i won’t see you tonight cos now it’s time we must say goodbye cos it’s a long long time til we can say i’ll see you again someday
no need to make amends i’m glad we parted the best of friends cos it’s a long time we spent in our lives and now it’s time to go
i won’t see you tonight cos now it’s time we must say goodbye cos it’s a long long time til we can say i’ll see you again someday
stay with me tonight and all these memories inside you stay with me i want you to stay with me
cos i won’t see you tonight cos now it’s time we must say goodbye cos it’s a long long time til we can say I’ll see you again someday
“All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.”
This one true thing I can say of my life : that in it’s entirety, my life will always be a collection of great mistakes, small mercies, faithful dream-chasing and great comebacks.
In times of sorrow and confusion, I often return to the deep favourites. Mike Yaconelli is my companion through this current journey, not because he comforts my grief, although his words are full of compassion – but because he reassures me of a Grace that is radical, beyond boundaries and refuses to make me the broken, the poor & the hurting. Regardless of my sorrows and struggles – I am not the least, I am still the rich young ruler, I am still the servant with talents. I am not the least or the last and so whatever processing I want to do in this place – I refuse to allow my suffering to be over-exaggerated in the light of present and true suffering in this world.
Also, Yaconelli’s words have proof about them. A life of messiness lived out loud and lived well, so that he gave freedom out of his own self, also messy, to others.
Four Nonprinciples of Spiritual Growth
1. Spiritual Growth Encompasses a Lifetime of Decisions Nothing is over yet – in other words, growth doesn’t stop unless you stop choosing it. Sometimes your choices lead you forward, sideways, backwards.. all over. Deep, rich, textured layers.
2. Spiritual Growth Looks Different for Each of Us I have my own pathway. So nothing is necessarily what it appears and the journey to the destination is just as likely to be as unique and personal as the final destination is. All of it is likely to take some if not all, by surprise.
3. Give God 60% (Or Give God 100% of Whatever % You Currently Have) I’m not shaken in my faith, or questioning God in any of the current circumstances. I’m certainly wrestling with questions but not of Him. So today, maybe I only have a little bit to give, but I can give all of my little piece. I’m a widow with two coins.
4. Reluctant Growth Is Still Growth Growth isn’t made up of spiritual star charts or memory verses. No matter how many Scriptures you can quote or how invested in your understanding of the Talmud you are – growth is where God is crafting you, not solely the application of spiritual disciplines.
Time And Silence Time and silence have this thing they do together. They make a chasm that has no bottom to it. And there you are, standing right on the edge of it. Aware that any moment you may be falling and falling and falling, with no hope of recovery.
I can’t say too much yet, but suffice it to say that it in the current climate of sadness and struggle – there is the bright light and strange possibility of a brief sojourn back into a former career. More details after Thursday, but stay tuned in cos they were some fun old days.
UPDATE Things are progressing nicely. The first meeting went well. There’s some listening to be done and then a few more perfunctory things before there’s a contract on the table.
there are the dark days that cloud the mind right from the start there are the eulogies i compose for my own goodbyes there are the melodies i’ve learned to sing by heart when i’m alone, afraid my life has been a song of sorrows
there is a quietness that i have never shaken a terrifying absence and depression that most of what i dream of will never come to pass cos i imagine life too big before i even start
and my ambition is to make a difference as large a one as i ever could concieve and my name may never be made known my ambition stays the same i’d make a difference to your heart
i’ve read ten thousand names and whispered them aloud i’ve spent long nights awake perfecting every part i’ve listened to the heartbeat of a thousand lives and heard the same refrain, and i’ve tried to make a difference
there are the words that stick within the corners of the mind there are the tears that start with any memory of long hard nights there are the sad songs and poems that walk me through the days my life has been a song of sorrows
and my ambition is to make a difference collecting all the stories my life is made of and if i could somehow remember all their names my ambition was to make a difference to your heart and their names would make the finest start
my eulogy can start anytime you like as soon as you feel satisfied, i’ll take the walk i simply ask to see a thousand faces beside the Son and remember me where i made a difference to your heart
Why Sometimes A Haircut Is Better Than Sex.. And Men Are So Good At It
Amos Lee sang “I am at ease in the arms of a woman…” and he’d be right, I am. Growing up in a family of all women, there is nothing unusual or even second thought-y about experiencing extreme levels of intimacy with a woman whether trying on wedding dresses, underwear, sharing a bed during sleepovers, plucking eyebrows, waxing.. you name it.
This last week I was a bridesmaid, which meant two things. Firstly, I had to get my hair sorted out for colour etc (can’t quite believe that there are grey hairs on this head, but it’s true) and then go back for the ‘do on Saturday.
Well, colour sorted on Thursday last week and I was shampooed, conditioned, treated, massaged and rinsed by Joel. To be honest, I don’t really care what his name was. There was something seductive, raw, beatiful and utterly sensory about being in the hands of a man. Then on Saturday, I lucked out again with another man doing the shampoo thing.
So.. excuse the analysis for a minute but… I’m so used to holding my own head up all the time, and there is something reassuring about the strength and the capacity of a man’s hand. I relax utterly because there is something secure in it.
There is something powerful in it because I am being served by a man – it’s an unusual proposition for me – being physically cared for, served by a man.
There is something honest in it because so much of what women do for beauty, they do for the sake of men (and themselves, but men have a lot to do with it) and so it is well-balanced to engage men in the art of making someone beautiful – because who better to know that craft.
There is something sexual in it because it suggests that in one non-sexual act both male and feminine are somehow entwined in a strange reversal of roles. It was a strange intimacy but it was intimate nonetheless.. as one man ‘prepared’ me for an encounter with a world of them. If he was pleased with his work.. well, it’s reassuring.
Tash McGill is a broadcaster, writer and strategist who works with people and organisations to solve problems and create transformation. She believes people are the most important thing and that stories are powerful ways of changing the world. You can find out more at tashmcgill.com or by visiting her LinkedIn profile.
