laughing in the darkness

Fear.  Sometimes it swoops down on me out of nowhere in the middle of the night. I have no idea what I was dreaming last night but my fictional nightmare become entangled with audible reality in the early hours of this morning. It was still dark outside and helicopters were hovering outside my window, blades whirring, windows throbbing, engine's roaring. I couldn’t place my own body, I forgot where I was-for a few seconds. Was I in a country at war? Where was my family? Who were they after? Deep fear physically shook my body.

The noise became so loud I thought it had landed on the roof of our building-one, two, three helicopters, hovering thunderously right outside my bedroom window.  I realize that this sounds irrational but my imagination is incredibly powerful especially in the midst of sleepy confusion. Of course eventually I realized where I was and that I was safe. After the fear dissolved and my heartbeat slowed, I wished the daylight could arrive so I could laugh at my fears. 

…And it does arrive and I do laugh at my fears…but I always forget when I’m in darkness that the daylight does come. I've had nightmares since I can remember and I know that the effects of them during my waking thoughts expose disobedience, anxiety and distrust in my heart. I forget that God is near and brings peace if I speak the name of Jesus. I forget that He gives his beloved sleep. I forget the protection and counsel of his Spirit. I forget that the light of the WORLD has shone in the darkness but the darkness has never put it out. 

And so I hold fast to the promises I learn in the Light. 

Zechariah 14.7 “It shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light”

be not silent

“If I am afraid to speak the truth lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say, "You do not understand", or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put my own good name before the other's highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love.”
―Amy Carmichael 

painting skies

It was quiet today inside my grandparent’s house on the hill with it’s rolling lawns that stretch down towards the city. I was filled with sadness. I don’t really know how today was different to any other day I have visited. Maybe it’s that since being here last I turned 22. Maybe it’s that I’ve just spent the last 2 days flicking through boxes of photographs, images of my past, framed memories. Maybe I was mourning what has already been lost or what will be lost in the future.  I think because I was so aware of the past, my present, my Granny’s present, seemed so real, so vivid, and more fragile than ever.


In that house on the hill, movement and sound define time, not minutes and seconds. The clock in the hall chimes every hour, but the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece don’t move. Time here is measured in celebrations and birthdays, the seasons and weather, people loved and people fed, babies born and children disciplined, bicycles ridden and logs chopped, travellers rested, the elderly nursed, landscapes painted and books read, games of hide-and-seek played and running races won. This is a place where time isn’t measured. A Physiotherapist by trade, a mother by heart, I noticed today that my Granny doesn’t measure time, and I’m not sure she ever did. Her soft wrinkled hands, like my own mama's, have nurtured so many children and nursed so many wounds. I remember at Christmas just after her stroke, she lay in her hospital bed, and I asked her if she was afraid. No, she replied, just grateful. Grateful for more time, I thought with a smile. 


 My Granny sees beauty and potential in everything, and in turn makes people and places beautiful. I have spent so many happy summer days following her around the garden, watching her tend to tiny seedlings, planting daffodil bulbs, pruning rose bushes. I know this is one of her greatest gifts and one of the greatest things she has taught me-that care and hard work causes the ordinary to blossom and flourish.I remember when she once held my hand that clumsily held a paint soaked brush and carefully swept it across a page of crisp white paper, “This is how you paint the sky”. I remember the tiny jar of water she used to carry inside her glove-box and the little cubes of paint that would colour my damp fingers.  “I like to think I can paint wherever my journey takes me.” My pen and my camera have become tools that I now carry wherever my own journey takes me. 


I see her in me. I love her use of words. Her words illuminate a wealth of poetry beyond the realms of my knowledge. I see that my love for words, writing and poetry, derives from her passion. She expresses herself with carefully chosen words, precise and meaningful. Her sentences echo the sentiment of a generation where words aren’t cheap and promises are priceless. I become aware that my sentences echo the tendencies of my generation, too many words, too many images, too many pixels, too little listening. And so, we sit bound together by the present moment and our intertwining pasts, but distanced, too by our separate journeys. Real life is what matters to her-laughter and tears, being near to those that she loves, hearing stories, singing songs, sharing fragments of her childhood, holding hands, holding my hand. Although thoughtful, my Granny is never afraid to speak her mind. I see this in me too, and see how in her case, as in mine, it’s sometimes hard for those around us.  But, she always makes me laugh.


 She showed me her dusty photograph albums today. Small, square, scratched images fill the pages, faded in comparison to my own boldly colourful photographs. Kenya, America, Salisbury, Oxford. Colonialism, the Second Word War, evacuation, farming, a family. I thought about how so much of her life is what I read about in books and watch in films and write about in essays.  One picture shows a girl with delicate features, wearing shorts and a sun-hat wandering around a compound in Kenya playing with a puppy with her friend Toto by her side. Her presence in Africa is what my education has taught me to condemn, but I look at these photos and realise there is a stark difference between criticising a system and the criticising children who are born into it.


This evening, I sat at the edge of her bed reading her “The Lady of Shalott” as she fell asleep. I grew sad watching her tired face and my words slowed.  


But who hath seen her wave her hand?

Or at the casement seen her stand?

Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early

In among the bearded barley,

Hear a song that echoes cheerly

From the river winding clearly,

Down to tower'd Camelot:

And by the moon the reaper weary,

Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers "'Tis the fair
Lady of Shalott." 


The bookshelves have become dusty, the silver has become tarnished, and the wall paper is slipping away from the walls, the garden has become overgrown, and the sweet peas are gone. But she, Faith, has taught her grand-daughters more than they can ever thank her for. 


Who is this? and what is here?

And in the lighted palace near

Died the sound of royal cheer;

And they cross'd themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:

But Lancelot mused a little space;

He said, "She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace.

The Lady of Shalott."

I am more.

I am often printed in black and white ink. I am the one that makes you turn the page and look away. I am the child you pretend not to see in your newspapers, while you sip your organic coffee and eat your wholemeal toast. You assume my flesh is made from pixels and that I am can only be found behind a glass screen. In fact, you assume alot about me.

You assume that I have tattered clothes or skinny arms. To you, I am often malnourished and black. I am the child you come to visit in Africa, photograph with your expensive camera, and then leave. I am the child whose whole education could be paid for with the cost of your aeroplane ticket. I am the child who you give sweets to, when I haven’t eaten a proper meal for three days. I am the child whose hand is held more times by a stranger with an agenda, than a friend without one. I am the child who doesn’t understand why you seem to have everything you need, but you want more. I am a child of war who was made to hold a murder weapon before I had lost all my milk teeth. I am found in a cramped cot too small for my growing body and too cramped to hold the other three children I share it with. You are sad and surprised when you find me and you take it upon yourself to solve my problems. You assume what I need but you don't ask me.

You find me in unexpected places but you could find me in every country and city in the world.

Yes I am sometimes these things, but I am also much closer to you than you realise. What if I was the child who lives on your street. What if I was your son’s classmate, or the child you walked past in the supermarket while you bought your salmon. I am the child who was spoken about in the phone-call when the social-workers rang late last night to see if you had space for me in your home. I am the daughter of a refugee living your city. You think I want to be here, but I miss home. I miss home. I am the victim of abuse and violence that you think only exists far, far away from you. I am the child who only eats one meal a day brought from the chip-shop because we had to top up the electricity in the house. I have a father who can’t buy me gym shoes for PE at school. I have a mother who is ashamed when she comes home from work. I am not a child that exists only in the scandalous newspaper stories. I am not Baby P, or Baby M because I have a real name. I am more than a number on a council report or a tick-box on a register. I am more than a figure which drags my school down in national rankings.

I am more than the crimes I commit, the pain I can inflict, or the words that I don’t say. I am more than the silence that fills the room when they ask me why I am the way that I am. I am more than the defensive words and threats that I throw at them when they give me an ASBO. I am more than the system which has trapped me but set you free. I am the one they condemn because they don't understand me. Their pity, if it exists is short lived, and I am betrayed again and again my empty promises.

I am more than any idea or definition you have of me. I am someone who thinks and dreams and imagines. I have intelligence and wisdom. I am not the totality of my circumstances. I am always curious and always creative. I get angry when I am patronised. I am not defined by suffering but by optimism and my desire to survive and to enjoy surviving. I am a victim but I am resilient. Actually I do not see myself as a victim. You make me see myself as a victim. I think I see you as a victim because sometimes you don’t understand the meaning of pain. Anyone who does not understand the badness of pain does not understand the goodness of healing. Or the power of hope. It is a hope that pulls me through a day and tells me that tomorrow will be better. I think you know that today is good and so you fear tomorrow being bad. I am humbled by my past but you are arrogant because of yours.

I think you fear me. Maybe you fear meeting me. You probably have met me.

Or Maybe you have never thought about me at all. Its most likely that I am probably the child that has never existed in your thinking until now...

because I am the child you would prefer not to know.

stronger and weaker, further and nearer

It has always amazed me how the gospel is full of so many paradoxes. I have a postcard above my desk at home that a friend sent me two years ago. It has a photograph of a sheep on the front of it. He wrote, "It made me think of the sheep "lost then found" (Luke 15.24) but also losing our lives for Christ's sake (Mark 8.35) in a practical sense...another of those bemusing paradoxes."

The girl in this could be me or it could be just a young girl who understands the gospel but is troubled by the opposites or paradoxes that are embodied in communion. Read and interpret how you wish :)

__________________________

Her young hands are cupped to receive

this gift of sacrifice. Thrice he was betrayed,

slayed by the words of his loved one

who strayed, trading peace for war

in his heart: torn between himself and his Lord.

She bows her head to pray remembering

that the word of the Lord is a sword

dividing spirit and soul, exposing the holes

where she always falls short and forgets

that she was bought with a price.

Not thrice, not twice, but once.

For all and forever.

His body broken in pieces

In submission he pleaded

with God for our needs. Our needs?

This is why he bleeds.

She thinks of the generations

of men receiving the invitation

crowds open-handed across nations

remembering Him who gave

his life. Unimaginable.

Unspeakable she lifts her lips

to the bread of suffering.

The flesh of an impoverished offering

echoed by the cries of a man-King.

Litter and treasure,disgust and pleasure

silence and noise,created and destroyed.

His and mine. The bread and the wine.

The sweet wine trickles on her tongue

like the delight of praises sung

to her Saviour. She savours the taste

determined not to waste her breath

speaking words of judgement and death.

The blood from his head and the feet,

unites the haters and cheaters

the wounded and the beaters

the hungry and the eaters.

She, stronger and weaker, further and nearer

Her vision dimmer but clearer,

Wanting to dance but trapped by the solemn stance

of the people around her.

Him, the invisible but appeared, loved and feared,

present but gone, right to some but to many wrong,

powerful but mild, pure but defiled

adopted but exiled.

She lifts her small head, the dread dissolved

and the conflict in her heart solved.

This is the paradox of the cross

where her gain is his loss.

More flawed than she ever dared to believe

More loved and accepted then she dared to hope.

Wine as his blood, bread as his flesh

In this bitter-sweet mouthful of life and death.

King David

"How long will the enemy mock you, O God? Will the foe revile your name forever?But you O God are my king from old; you bring salvation upon the earth." Psalm 74.

I love parts of this ancient book filled with poetry of a humble king singing before his God in worship. Davids journey is one of trusting in God, then struggling to see God work, then God showing him who He truly is...and then David has to choose to see God for who He has revealed Himself to be.

David speaks of God to anyone who will listen, and trusts in the unfailing and unchanging character of his Lord. He delights in his God's justice but mourns at the victory of his enemies. "How long?" he asks his God, will you expose the deeds of darkness for what they truly are. "Where is your God?" his enemies taunt him,while he shelters in the compassionate presence of His God. He knows his flesh and his heart may fail but that God is the strength of his heart and his portion forever. He knows that God is good but that he does not understand all of His ways. He sees the corruption and the malice that flows out of the cities around him, entangling him in it.

He who knew that God kept his foot from stumbling, fell. God kept his eyes from weeping, but he wept. God strengthened him, but he was weak. His God gave Him everything he needed, but this king found himself in want. He would speak of God's goodness to anyone that would listen but in his heart his vision of God sometimes became dim. He longed for purity and steadfastness but was captivated by lust and temptation. To me this man, appointed as a King, renowned as a sinner, remembered as a saint, gives me hope. His stories of His God match my stories of my God. Our God. Our stories.

Everything is not what it seems, and what life seems to be sometimes, is not what it will always be.

You are my King of Old. You bring Salvation upon the earth.

I gave all I loved

I know that you forgot.

You forgot I blotted out your transgressions

You forgot I stopped the curse from spreading,

You forgot I stemmed the shedding of your blood

and instead, shed that of myself, clothed in flesh.

You forgot I drank your iniquity like water

that I led my Son as a lamb to the slaughter

that I gave all I loved, to make you my daughter.

You forgot my pain and only saw it as your gain

to use your freedom in half-hearted struggles

and apathetic intentions. Bound by conventions

and the inventions of men, you forgot

my promises, your place, and my loyalty to you.

Your poverty and my royalty were exchanged

on that day, where I asked you to lay

your own crown of ashes aside

and to wear the crown of my flawless bride.

Did you forget?

You betray your allegiance to me in the words

that you don't speak, in your conscious silence,

in sighs of discontent, in empty whispers.

Did you know a flower cut from its life-source withers?

You forgot that I don't measure your obedience

or your diligence in fears and dreams,

in the unseen and seen.

I don't measure your adherence to law

in words or in deeds, in fruit or in seed.

I don't measure your penitence

with scales, or your negligence

in black marks and fails.

I measured it on that day, between nails

and innocence, between the harmless

hands of the one Hailed as King.

On that day when

pain lost its power and death lost its sting

on that day when the mourners could sing

and the flightless birds grew wings

and the lame and the cripples had spring

in their step,

and the your rebellion was intercepted

and your unrighteousness was swept

from my presence.

This is love, the core of my essence.

But you forgot how to love. You forgot

how to limitlessly give, and simply live

you forgot how to seek justice for the poor

you forgot how to give but just stored

wealth for yourself.

You forgot how to bless your enemies

and pray with surrender on your knees

You forgot I carry your burdens with ease

and that I do not change if you disagree.

You forgot why you were made to live in the light

You've crept towards the shadows of night

because you

forgot the power and strength of the Spirit

and you tried and strived in your own merit.

You forgot the beauty of my grace without walls

or the majesty of my mercy without laws

so you thought you were in control

and that life was your own to worship.

You didn't call on my name and your shame

overcame you. But not me.

You forget the present, resenting that you

You live in the past, forgetting every fresh

start I give you and every lesson I teach you.

I beseech you, reach back to me.

The I AM, who will always BE.

For now

I am not asking you to change

But I am asking you to remember.

I miss you

Last night I dreamt that I was in your land sitting by your side. The fresh morning sun was burning the dew from the dust at our feet. I was at your home, with the people you love, and we were drinking sweet tea without milk and you had grown into a beautiful young lady. The scars on your skin had healed, and the battle-wounds of your country were healing too. You knew I was next to you but you also knew that I was nothing special or unusual. I liked the way you looked at me in that dream, not with curiosity or dependency or expectancy, you just accepted that I was there, and that soon, I would be gone. Pure content was in your eyes. Your hand rested on my leg while you drank your tea and every so often you would look up from your plastic cup and smile. It was that same smile that taught me so much, and the same smile that I often see in moments of my day when I forget that loving people around me is important.

I woke up with the same sun from my dream streaming through my window. How is it that while you live your life there, I live mine here. How is it that I almost forgot about you, although I promised myself I would never forget...you reminded me of people I miss. You reminded me of people I have been separated from by distance or by death; you reminded me of my foster-sister, of Grandpa, of Annabel, of Liz. All people once so close, but so very far away now. You reminded me that most things do not stay the same and that time passes, children grow old and nations can change. You reminded me-the way your hand was resting on my leg-that its ok to be close to someone you love even though they won’t be around forever.

I miss her playing in my room, I miss her squeals of delight, her clumsy vocabulary and her cuddles.I miss her clinging to my hand because she trusted me and she wanted me to show her how to walk, she looked to me for guidance, with all my flaws, she trusted me. I miss that. I miss his smell, his soft white hair, his stature and his wise words. I miss her bright lipstick, her optimism, her intelligence and her freckles. I miss their lives and the way their lives wove into in my life and changed it...and changed me.

...there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to tear down and a time to build. Father, teach me, when to uproot and when to plant, when to tear down and when to build. And teach me where.

walking home

My coat is zipped up to my neck, my hair is tucked inside my coat collar. It keeps me warmer that way. The air is cold. My music is playing in my left ear, my right ear is free to hear the traffic around me. My glasses are loose, I pull them off my face mentally reminding myself to get some new ones refitted. I squint at the traffic lights. I know I am free but I am trapped by what I have just witnessed. It is gone. But it remains.

I’ve just spent the last two hours watching scenes of oppression through a camera lens. Flickering images of injustice and pictures of pain, the narration stained with twisted authority and unrighteous piety. I clench my hands tight inside my pockets. How did this happen? How did people isolate other people because of skin colour? How can one life cause another’s death? Fading scenes of apartheid swim before my eyes. District 6. “The only common friendship is between a white child and her black nanny”. She feeds the plump white child in the high chair, hiding the pain inside her, from the grief of losing her own son to malnutrition. Afrikaners eating in restaurants and drinking with crystal glasses while black South Africans feed their babies with bottles crouched on pavements. Post-apartheid voices mock: “We are supposed to unite and be one. But we are not one” he laughs, his dark dreadlocks blowing in the sea breeze. The homeless man wanders through the coastal streets, “You’re never welcome anywhere. But I’m not something that came up from the sea..” his facial expression flashes with pain... “The only thing I crave is peace. But I cannot find peace without fighting” It is gone. But it remains.

And God? I wish I could climb into your mind and see what you see. You know this hurts me, but it must have hurt you more. I despair. I despair at desperation. I despair at my own apathy towards righteousness, at my own blindness to my barren spiritual state. I’m tired of thinking and analyzing and complicating. I'm tired of despairing and never looking to the solution which He has placed before me. And then I see him. I notice him because he is wearing a metal leg-brace and wearing a dustbin man jacket, holding his daughters hand tightly. She is dressed in a little pink puffer jacket and she walks and laughs with her dad. His legs looks painful-his limp is noticeable. They are chatting and laughing. I’m cold. I quicken my pace and overtake them, the scenes from my lecture overtake me, and before I know it I’m halfway home.

“Darlin’ it would cost you a thousand pounds to lay your head on a pillow in central London” I'm standing at a pedestrian crossroads, and I hear his voice loudly in my right hand ear, the ear without music. I turn around to my right. Its HIM, the man, and his daughter, still smiling, still holding hands. At least 10 minutes later. I smile at him, as if to agree. “And six pence” he adds in his thick Irish accent smiling at his daughter. I turn back to face the crossing. I hate this crossing. People always run across it not seeing the filter lane or the indicators of the cars coming up from behind on the right. Two men run across it, missing a moving taxi by a matter of inches, playing with death. Why would you leave what you know to be safe because of impatience? My hair has fallen out of my coat collar but I tuck it back in. The other side of the road is full of people waiting to cross. My music is loud, the traffic is louder and sirens are howling nearby, my face feels cold.The pedestrian light turns green.

I step out, walking fast.

“Ask and you shall receive.”

Father? I haven’t asked for anything. The words ring in my right hand ear, clear-cut and totally distinct from the traffic as if someone is saying them leaning over my right shoulder.

I hear her voice, “What did you just say Dad?”

I hear his smooth, calm and crystal clear once again, “I said, Ask and you shall receive”

We reach the other side of the road and I want to see them again. I want to see his face. I take a few steps into the pavement and quickly glance behind me. They are gone. They must have taken the sharp left alongside the front of the pub on the corner. I carry on walking slowly, his words plain and simple echoing in my head. I consider the hours and days before that moment, infact all those moments where I have over-complicated God. I view him in light of my desires, wants and needs, not inspite of them. I recall how I am a wayward child-my grip on his hand cramped by cynicism, weakened by pride. Inhibited by fear of future pain, recollections of horrific injustice, or doubt of His control-not a child filled with adoration or transparent trust. I let go, for a moment, and that was Him calling me back. I know it. Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. I realise at the impossible chance of me noticing anything at all because I wasn't wearing my glasses. I realise I never looked at his daughter once. I never saw her face. I saw his leg-brace, his toothless smile, his dustbin-collecting jacket. I saw her pink puffer jacket, but I didn’t see anything else.

Ask and you shall receive.

The man is gone. His words remain.

The lesson is learnt.