by tashmcgill | Nov 9, 2008 | Uncategorized
I’m at home on one of those nights where I wish it would rain so I could hear it on my tin roof and let it soothe me a little. I’m devouring media – both listening to iTunes (currently playing You Are My Sanity by Tim Reynolds, from the recording Live at Radio City)… I’m also watching TV in silence, flicking between news reports, the Sunday movie and generic dramas. I’m intermittently catching up on blogs, facebooking and youtubing all at once.
Here’s my list of contemplations.. none of which I have processed any great thoughts on yet, just stuff i’m thinking about…
List (In No Particular Order)
1.
Can two people really have one heart split between two bodies?
(inspired by Dave Matthews track ‘Sister’ and the Buddhist saying that a true friend is one soul in two bodies).
“sister when you cry i feel your tears running down my face, sister sister you keep me”
“i hope you always know it’s true i would never make it through cos you could make the sun go dark just by walking away”
“i feel you beating in my chest”
2.
The beauty of a friend who is far away and a love that leaps over years to unite one who is old with one who is young, and how I am the younger and the older in more of these friendships that i should deserve… i am blessed and cursed by my age, for i love more and less than i ought so many that i have… dearest.
i am an old woman
as old as the sea, battering the coast into submission
her shattering shoreline falling into soft, buttery pieces
foamy and chaotic
i am an old woman
as long and wrung out as old cotton
in danger of yellowing and wrinkling in the light
stiff and harsh
i am an old woman
laughter and frowning written in the same lines
my face framed by unruliness i no longer care to tame
wild and ruthless
i am an old woman
my youth vanished from my womb and skin and eyes
mirth replaced with wisdom of children that never arrived
lost in transition
i am an old woman
standing still with the shock of it realising
i have arrived at the moment of farewelling life for what it never was
bed empty, full heart
i am an old woman
who loved with the heat of one thousand suns
loved and loved and loved without pretense and knew your every heart
beating and whole
i am an old woman
who grew so waiting on you
who i so loved when i was young
3.
Reconciliation – the ministry of the deep heart, where one must fully accept and be accepted into whole relationship with another.
4.
Morrie Schwartz – A Teacher To The Last, a lesson in the value of social psychology and sociological practice.
“The little things, I can obey. But the big things – how we think, what we value – those you must choose yourself. You can’t let anyone – or any society – determine those for you.”
“Learn how to live, and you’ll know how to die; learn how to die, and you’ll learn how to live.”
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
by tashmcgill | Oct 21, 2008 | forgiveness, Uncategorized
‘Say’ Music Video from Matthew Singleton on Vimeo.
Build a Strong Bridge
The first Turkish proverb I remember hearing was in a gathering of people who were concerned about human rights and religious freedom in Turkey. Too many stories of churches being padlocked shut and leaders being detained caused us to question what we heard from the upper echelons of the government or from the headlines in the acceptable newspapers.
One amazing young Turkish woman was there who spoke with dignity and grace. She spoke slowly and what she said was all the more poignant for the speed of delivery.
“When truth is heavy, you must first build a strong bridge.”
She spoke of many other things, but that phrase has stayed with me.
Think about it. Sometimes there are truths we do not want to convey, or to take delivery of. Speaking truth can be awkward. There can be risks involved. So could be the testimony of many a prophet or medicine man.
My warning then is, not that we avoid speaking truth, but that we build strong bridges.
by tashmcgill | Oct 14, 2008 | god ideas, Uncategorized
‘Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you.’ – Kahlil Gilbran (Sand and Fog)
From the beginning, we lived in the presence of greatness. We lived under the constancy of light but we barely understood what it meant. We lived with great provision without realising the character of the Provider. We were treated as sons and daughters by the Master, when really we were still slaves.
Slaves not to Him, but to ourselves. Slaves to fear, to darkness, to false truths. Slaves to our own bodies, created for a wide open lives but squashed into terrifyingly small spaces. We lived in the presence of completeness, of wholeness and yet we never grasped the fullness of it. Our slavery led us away from the light until we were so far away from the original intention of our being, we were cast out into the darkness and the light longed for us, called out to us but was not with us as the Light had been.
You see, we share it in, equal parts, the slavery that led Adam and Eve, the first man and woman into abandoning the presence. We share in the same humanity that led us to suspicion and distrust of the only Loving Father we had ever known. We choose to walk in opposition to the only thing asked of us and we walked straight into the darkness, the bloodiness of human history.
Adam, from the word “Adama”, literally named of the earth, chose slavery over freedom, and cast out from the garden, walked onto the earth to cover it with bloodshed. The very blood which gives us life, became our undoing, our brokenheartedness, the scar of our history on this earth… acres and acres of bloodsoaked earth.
But we weren’t left alone out here. In fact, God barely left us for a minute before redrawing the path, the Way back to Him.
Time and time again, he re-drew it in the earth, the sky, through the history of humanity as it poured out its story on to the planet. And still it faded from our view because we so easily turned our eyes. We washed out the path with dirt, blood, greed.
Again and again, He, the great Father, used his own hand to lead us back to him and our history of words and stories is the history of our enslavement and our freedom, being captured and set free, choosing entrapment and crying out for salvation again.
We still live in the Presence. His light is all over us, the footsteps of the Way before our eyes. Through blood and war, peace and beauty He still points out the Way and welcomes travellers onto it. Whatever you do, once you find the Way, don’t lose it as so many are prone to do.
We are still sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, still making our way through the human story and wandering the earth. Hold to the constancy of light, the character of our Father, do not take your eyes from His hand drawing us home. Don’t lose the Way.
by tashmcgill | Sep 23, 2008 | Uncategorized
I come down a lot
I turn on the lights
Making promises of peace tonight
I shut the door
Quick I tell my lies
Before I bend my knees
Oh I refuse to give or take an inch
And I won’t bend or break
Oh I come down a lot
I shut the door to keep you out
I lean myself against this wall
Do anything to keep the weight of the world
From falling down, from falling down
Around me
I am terrified of falling
I feel myself burning
I am buried with confession
I can’t get the words out
And I’ll fall apart if it all comes down
And I am scared to be broken
But you can take the fear apart
And you can break me
I am swallowed up by pride
I live inside myself
Telling lies and it’s so cold
I won’t bend or break
I won’t give or take an inch
And all these promises I break
They take my strength
I am slowly dying
I die a little every day
Oh I come down a lot
I am terrified of falling
I feel myself burning
I am buried with confession
I can’t get the words out
And I’ll fall apart if it all comes down
And I am scared to be broken
But you can take the fear apart
And you can break me
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.
