Uncategorized – Page 2 – by heart and hand

May 4, 2022May 3, 2022

Nudged

There’s a very long string of reasons why I found myself in this exact location, under this giant leaf canopy at 7.30 this morning in Whangerai New Zealand…. The last three of them being – the allure of coffee at a local cafe, the cafe being closed for Anzac Day and then the onset of rain sending me for the cover of this tree to see how serious the rain was planning to be. It wasn’t very serious at all but I was so glad the uncertainty sent me hurrying to this incredible spot.

This photo cannot convey how glorious it was to be in the filtered light under this sprawling umbrella. The photo is as an onlooker instead of as an immersion.

Nudged.

Covered.

Enveloped.

Shadowed.

Sheltered.

Lit.

Immersed in beauty.

Loved.

December 30, 2021December 30, 2021

about lifting the needle and strange names

It’s the 30th of December 2021. The second last day of the year. A strange year for many reasons for many people. Yet the repetition of this week between Christmas and New Year is striking to me… the week when the days of the week are confused, where time matters little, days stretch long in the heat looking forward to the cool of the night and that strange feeling – that I once would have labelled ‘boredom’ lurks around the edges.

December 7, 2021December 7, 2021

Multiple Choice Mary and the Ramifications

Option 1
Advent-Reinventium 1:1-7
So Gabriel went to the little country town in a hilltop far far from Jerusalem to see young Mary and he greeted her with fancy words. Mary was a suspicious sort so she narrowed her eyes and looked at this messenger of light with crossed arms and a fair degree of sass.

November 22, 2021November 22, 2021

Posting Pictures

While the world turns and turmoils, I post pictures of beaches.

While suspicion rises and opinions gain momentum, I paint another picture.

While fear whispers unheard but felt, I’ll play another song.

When I see my children online, I want to blow the whistle, ring the bell, honk the horn, call them in. “Time to go home now!”, give them dinner and baths and tuck them in with kisses and goodnights and “see you in the mornings” – but instead my heart holds and loves and lifts… and His Spirit hears my love as prayer.

The Cross is bigger than the mess.

April 28, 2021April 26, 2021

Undoing

Once upon a time there was a girl who repented, and determined to never again fail her Lord in the manner of presuming upon His later forgiveness.

Problem was that her white knuckled determination to do the right thing became its own heavy yoke.

She forgot her Jesus wanted to share His strength to her so she soldiered and she soldiered until one day –

– she couldn’t.

And then she saw Him waiting to share. And she let Him.

Now her repentance says something like:

“Oh Lord I’m sorry.
I can’t undo [ – fill in the blank -] and I can’t not need your blood regardless of how I try to put things right, or work at living right.
Whatever you say now… I want to do.
I want to hear you.
My resolutions and determined ways of pleasing you might even have made me miss what you were saying.
My resolutions and determined ways of making sure I didn’t disappoint you were a distraction – and a weight you didn’t mean for me.
Oh Lord, thankyou for waiting.
I want to hear and be where your Life Words are”.

June 17, 2020June 18, 2020

*Maya

I started getting to know *Maya about 18 months ago and here is a *post from her heart just this week. Gosh I love this girl. For who she is and the light of *Whose* she is that shines.

There’s a joy that encompasses and moves with and flows out of her. And it’s not that she doesn’t still know hard times, but she knows The King who is bigger, Who came and got her, and Who walks with her daily.

There was something about this joy of hers that sang to me when I first saw her. Inaudible but un-ignorable.

June 13, 2020June 13, 2020

A time to shed

I remember the headlights cutting through the rain and fog and I remember screaming. I remember waking up to ambulance lights flashing intermittently through the night and hearing my name called. I remember the pricklebush under me and a vague annoyance that no one would move me off it.

May 31, 2020May 31, 2020

From Offence to Fragrance

I’m not much of an outdoorsy person nor much of a pet/animals person so spending time on an uncles farm as a kid had very clear boundaries of interest/tolerance to me. I was always happy to go see cousins but one of the main functions of the farm was the pig shed which to me had an aromatic ‘do not cross this line’ force-field around it which I neverevereverever could pass though. Even eating bacon (which I love) beyond a certain thickness has associative memories of steak-thick bacon at breakfast on the farm = pig shed smell/bacon origins, that I cannot cross to this day.

May 24, 2020May 24, 2020

Mirror Mirror

And the religious leaders came nigh-on bleating with the pre sense of triumph at nabbing Jesus with an impossible situation. But when He turned their malice and opened their eyes a crack – they saw their own hearts and went away quietly.

It’s not that they were wrong about the adultery- it’s that their hyper focus, motives and hard hearts meant they missed the power-pole sized logs in their own eyes until Jesus himself became their mirror.

April 3, 2020April 3, 2020

Bring a candle

I think a cry of friendship is not “fix it”, but “do you care?”
The “do you care” place though can be a place of stuckness *if* we assume empathy is the *total* solution. *Sometimes* empathy becomes a wallow in the mire, a bath in swill, and even a shared entry into falsity.