sharing god's nature...

read this morning [in my 'good as new' bible] that we are the rightful children of god because we share god's nature. later in the same passage it says that christ is "the one faithful likeness who shares god's nature [and] has shown us what god is like"

when i look at myself, can i truly say that i share god's nature? like christ did/does??

can i honestly say that i even aspire to that in the everyday course of my life...?

my head's down so much of the time, bogged down by mundanity; again, i need to lift up my head and aim higher...
i need to actively work out what it means to share god's nature.



[that's not meant to sound like i'm beating myself up over it btw, more that i'm a bit staggered and excited and possibly a bit daunted at the thought...!]




['so here we are' - bloc party]

From afar

Thank you Si for making an effort to write. I decided to take a quick look at the blog to see if anyone had written and wasn't disappointed...

I love the macabre but sensible way you're ensuring your favourite tunes get played at your funeral too. We will all hold Sue accountable for it.

Just incase you're worried Sue - my tongue is close to my cheek right now.

I'm not giving myself a lot of head space right now either. Oh I have lots of time and plenty of opportunity but it's incredible how distracted one can get even miles from home and with very little to do.

However I will keep trying. I have a couple of books here that contain prayers which may assist me. I could at least try reading one those every day.

By the way, thank you Si for letting me know about John O'Donohue's death. I think I'm in mourning for him a little... and it feels strange considering his words helped me to come to terms with the other deaths that have happened recently. Like a horrible kind of coincidence.

Well. That's all anyway. Just wanted to clock in for a bit.

Esther

nothing much

nothing much to post this week. feeling a bit uninspired, spiritually speaking. work is taking up a lot of my headspace and my time at present.
the good thing is that i feel uncomfortable about it. in times past i don't think that i'd even have recognised the inbalance...

(funeral playlist = 'jimmy james' - steve lawson)

quiet

spent the day yesterday more or less in silence - no radio or iTunes - and enjoyed it.
heard birdsong and distant police cars and builders doing stuff up the road and kids playing in their lunch-hour.
found it hard to be still in myself though - i'm too used to thinking about stuff; as sue likes to remind me, my head is full of rubbish...!
so no great insights here, just that i need to practice silence much more - to spend more time in the quiet, to learn how to be still.

song for my funeral = 'down there by the train' by tom waits

si

resolve!

happy new year!

i have already broken my first monk-y resolution - namely to get back into the habit of my weekly post here and to stick with it.
ah well...

meantime i've been looking back at the things that we said that we'd look to do in 2007, and which we'd gently hold one another to account for - maybe we can talk them through when we next meet. for my part i started to get somewhere with silence and solitude and the work-life balance but then totally lost the plot sometime in the summer.
ah well...

so this year the aims are as follows -
1. to add another song to play at my hopefully-not-very-imminent funeral each time i post here. for starters - 'vapour trail' by ride [though i'd like the version by trespassers william played too, please]
2. again, to lift up my head, both metaphorically and physically. it occured to me today that it'll mean that i step in some poop along the way, but it's worth the risk.
3. watch at least one film a week [on tv if not at the cinema. we don't make the most of film4]
4. to read the bible. not all of it. maybe just the gospels, for starters, over and over.