24-2...

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”
- Mark Twain


The copyright of following text belongs to Joe,
but as I don't think I could have wrote it any better
and it's partly my story too, read either original
Joe's blog entry from here

or just continue...:

"I jumped when I woke up this morning as the thought raced through my head – I’d slept in – and missed (not for the first time) my shift in the prayer room…slowly, sense crawled itself into my consciousness. “The weekend is over man; it’s Monday” it seemed to whisper. I calmly put my head back on the pillow and, from the comfort of my bed I thanked God for the many highlights during the last 48 hours of prayer…

I remembered:

- thinking we wouldn’t get the hours covered and then having to fight each other (playfully) to find time in the prayer room because of the high demand


- the writing, poetry, painting, using all the senses to worship and spend time with God

- Ella telling her story…“I was walking around the prayer room, and started praying. There was someone else in the room and I found it hard to focus at first, so I sat in the corner, and then lay down. I was praying for lots of things, but then I started to pray and ask God if we could see more of Him, and I asked God to give us a sign – not because we need one, or to show that he’s real – but just to know He was with us. I looked up the tower and the sun had been rising, as it moved I saw the light on the wall from the opposite window. The windows are round. But when the reflection came on the corner of the wall, the shape was not a circle. The room had distorted the reflection into a perfect heart shape. The frame of the window made a perfect cross in the middle of the heart. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I told my friend but he couldn’t see it. The only place where he could see what I had seen was if he lay down in the same spot where I had been lying”


- Andy Freeman and friends from Reading visiting. The hearty lunch and awesome conversation. Praying together. Sheena reminding us about old and new wells, which was great on it’s own, but when you add that to the fact that this theme has been an ongoing source of motivation for the past 7 years, starting when myself and Chris first met some guys from 24/7 prayer, and this one guy prayed the same prayer for us, way back then, and now to hear it again, it is Amazing.

- the youth event on prayer on Saturday night, watching a couple of inspirational 24/7 shorts and the great response to the challenges of living a life of prayer.

- the ‘random’ playlist on the music system strangely following people’s prayers and the scriptures they were reading.

- hugs, laughter, tears, the sense of love and oneness and community amongst believers from different churches

- the depth of the prayers spoken, cried out and whispered to God on the prayer wall in a mass of creativity.

- the challenge to devote ourselves to Christ and to be open and willing to be the answer to our prayers …

… and, I remembered us praying together, arm in arm, as we reluctantly closed the prayer room only a few hours earlier – that this was only the end of a small beginning; a preface for what’s to come. To ‘pray as if it all depended on God’ and now to Go and ‘live as if it all depended on us’ – to keep breathing Jesus in and Jesus out …

I took a deep breath. And as I drifted back off to sleep, I realised I had at first been wrong: the weekend may have passed, but this? … this is far from over."

...holy living in messy world or messy living in holy world..

Hello people,

greetings from lovely city of Gloucester...
where I have a huge privilege and pleasure
to stay with wonderful Joe&Kim Knight.
Their hospitality is true and loving,
as they have not only offered me a place
to stay and food to eat but also
invited me to share their day-to-day life.
Their home feels like place of shalom.

I've been reading a book from C.S.Lewis called
Mere Christianity, which I recommend if you haven't read it yet.
I love being able to read books and look forward
to get a hold of some more books that have been
sitting on my "to read" list for ages.
But here, a quote from Lewis, something that I read last night...

"Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience,
is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect."

I have been reading also Paul's letter to Romans, which currently
is one of my favorite pieces of scripture...
Listen to this...

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy,
to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—
this is your spiritual act of worship.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve
what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
Rom. 12:1-2

I love how in Bible promises and commands are tide together.

Few thoughts I want to leave for you
for the coming weekend:

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Heb.12:2

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." Col. 3:1-4

I'd like to search deeper what this would mean to us, what is holy living,
how do we fix our eyes and hearts on things above and still keep our feet and hands firmly on the
mud of this earth...

Have a good weekend!

park life.

to live under avocado tree.

I just bought 5 israeli avocados for £1!!! Bargain! And got to pick them all by hand. Nice and ripe, but not yet too soft.
Yum yum. Now just need little bit lemon juice and salt.
And I also bought organic 100% rye bread for £3.75 which is rubbish expencive,
but it was fun coz guys who sold it were nice.
They also had beautiful italian cheeses, like parmesan reggiano,
pestos, olives and salamis. *sigh*

I like food markets, I would like bargain about the price,
know the people who sell my food and to know where
it comes from,
I would love to buy fresh bread from bakery, pick my fruit from the tree
in my garden...

one day.

there is something in the air tonight.

I am really really scared, almost terrified,

but also at the same time super excited,

hungry for more and sure that things

will come out all fine, from the other end

of this next phase of adventure where I am at.

This morning I wrote down a prayer...

And if you resonate to this or

have any clue or hear from Lord

where this could come true,

just let me know...

"Jeesus, mä haluisin mennä paikkaan, jossa voisin ottaa valokuvia, harjoitella piirtämistä, ja tehdä koneella kuvia ja ehkä kirjoittaa, ja tanssia, asua paikassa mitä vois kutsua kodiksi, olla ihmisten kanssa ja jutella ja tehdä juttuja yhdessä, syödä terveellisesti, hedelmiä, salaattia, vihanneksia ja lihaa, tehdä jotain työtä joka olis innostavaa ja älyllisesti haastavaa, mukavien ihmisten kanssa, liikkua ja pelata, ja olla auringonpaisteessa ja ehkä uida, rakentaa ihmissuhteita ja tavoittaa ihmisiä ja rakentaa siltoja maailmaan, rakkaudella ja ilolla ja rukouksella ja viisaudella . Herra johda mua, Aamen."

"Jesus, i would like to live in a place where I could practise arts, photography, learn to draw and paint, dance and create illustrations, to live in a house that I could call home, to live with people called family, to talk and do things together,
eat healthy, fruit, veggies, salad and meat, work in something that would be both intellectually challenging and emotionally exciting,with nice people, to exercise and play games, to be in sunshine and swim, to build relationships and reach people
with love and wisdom and courage and prayer. Lord lead me on. Amen."

good points by my mate Jack...

...who is also better known as C.S.Lewis in some circles...


"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
...
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
...

...that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
...

I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.
...

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.
...

I have found a desire within myself that no experience in this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
...

It is no good asking for a simple religion. Real things are not simple. They look simple, but they are not. The table I'm sitting at looks simple: but ask a scientist to tell you what it is really made of - all about the atoms and how the light waves rebound from them and hit my eye and what they do to my optic nerve and what it does to my brain - and, of course, you'll find that what we call 'seeing a table' lands you in mysteries and complications which you can hardly get to the end of. A child saying a child's prayer looks simple. And if you are content to stop there, well and good. But if you are not - and the modern world usually is not - if you want to go on and ask what is really happening - then you must be prepared for something difficult. If we ask for something more than simplicity, it is silly then to complain that the something is not more simple."

sunday afternoon poem

Black clouds brush over
and i can't see silver lining
where did i put those
sunglasses that made the world look
yellow and pink

don't know how to talk to you
you make me very conscious
of myself
and not sure if i like
what i see

hope that when time goes by
i can earn your trust and
friendship
that is what i pray

but see things are done very differently
here
girls don't have place in this world
not that we can't play
but there is just no space
or they don't want us there

he is my shepherd i shall not fear
i shall not lack
that is good
otherwise i might just loose it
and go and run and hide

who wants to take care
and care
please let there be someone

o God.