The words we use are powerful, they are indeed mightier than the sword and more inspiring for many than the greatest of image. For words are endless, ceaselessly painting new images, fighting new battles and comforting new sorrows. Words are powerful but also careless, crass and pathetically used. I've spent the last two weeks trying to change the state of my bank balance through words. I've started to write more directly for a purpose. I've started to trawl through the words I left forgotten on partially written electronic documents, the post-it notes of thoughts undeveloped. I've started to read others writing, long pages of symbols forming words and sometimes coherency. I've started to see how words and their groupings effect the way people look at the internet, the way the search engines see the pages they direct us to, the way pages are manipulated to get our attention. At the same time I've been playing with Paul's stripped down word placement program 'Dream'. It's simple placement and fading words have left the power of the expression uncorrupted. I've been ignoring words, words that contain unfamiliar letters and irregular letter groupings (at least to the English eyes). Words that challenge me in their comprehension but not meaning, words that barricade me from society rather than liberating me into it. I've also come back to old words, ancient words. Words that have been reformed from language and study, chosen and debated, understood on many levels and a mystery on others. These twenty-six letters, or perhaps a few more. These limiting, freeing, expressions of life.
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As a seventeen year old I had a conversation with my RS teacher about my boyfriend. It was a strange thing to occur in some ways but it sparked an opinion in me that has been hard to shift. The general theory behind his disapproval of my relationship had nothing at all to do with the character of my boyfriend but with the fact that I had one. He advocated that it is better to remain single while young, for by being so you can be a better servant of God. This week I remain mostly alone in the rambling turn of life, my brother will return home perhaps for a night or two, but my parents are travelling and my love is bound by work to stay in his foreign life. The following weeks are likely to be similar. My mothers greatest concern was that I would find people to be with during the week, that I would not be completely alone. People are a distraction to your aim however. People have their own aims and loves and fears that shape the encounter. I found when I was single it was easier to dream in theological philosophy, it was easier to seek my socialisation in the walls of a church community, it was easier to challenge myself to serve. Now my conversations are not about outreach possibilities but the family I am to become part of. My day-dreams are not inspiration for interactive worship but about the one I miss so acutely. My job title is truly no longer youth-worker (be that employed or not) but something more like internet salvager, finding jobs where I can. It's not that that part of me has gone, nor is it infected and doomed to undergo painful treatment or ultimate death, it is instead forced to compact by the new that had needed room in my life. I still dream occasionally of video ideas and beautiful constructs of prose, I still have that in me, but it's caged in wedding magazines and practicality, and I long to let it fly free again. This morning the words of the hymn brought tears to my eyes, the leaking of the spirit that I'd tried to hold so tight. The church heard again it's founders cry, the rebirth of birth and beginning of forever. I stood amongst these souls in all their frailty and confusion and knew that this time where distraction was slight would allow me to “clear away what was and make room for what will be” (n.nordeman again!) Advice is a hard pill to swallow often. It can pull you up and kill the safety net to reveal reality. My safety net has a date, a time and a pretty dress but it's also fraught with decision, consumerism and procrastination. Today in one of my internet wanderings I came across the advice - “Once you've made the decision, don't covet other people's choices. Oh, the wedding porn. On the one hand, it inspires and guides you. On the other hand, it makes you insecure, uncertain, and unstable. Be very, very careful with it.” it's such a strong concept and evocative word - porn. It makes you want to blush, to distance yourself from it, and believe you are somehow better than those who indulge. It's seen as so week and yet it really is so everyday at the same time. Part of the oldest profession some call it (though I believe the hunter and farmer and mother have surpassed it in my book), for some it's shrouded in mystery and it's very discussion is in some way avoided as titillating and dangerous territory. It's the questions some youth workers dread and yet secretly want to discuss, for the guilt that surrounds the subject means the words themselves are not even uttered. And yet really it's about a feeling of inadequacy in where you are now, an exploration of what it would be like to push the boundaries, a constant need for more. Now I'm not advocating membership to any of those annoying sites that the 'pop-up blocker' thankfully rids us of, but I am wondering if we have put the 'pop-up blocker' on in our heads and missed the point. We have found other sources of indulgence, be that fashion, food, or fortune tellers and used them as our inspiration, insecurities, and (un)certainties! We have continued to glance at that which is out of our reach pouring over magazine articles and google searches. We have played the moral high ground to addiction and made sure our vice is a lesser sin, as such it needs no addressing, for it hurts none but ourselves and our pride or self loathing. And yes occasionally we fall pray to the greater sins and not many can reach a good age without seeing something, but if it is born of inadequacy, of titillation and darkness then it could as easily be church addiction as heroin or those scantily clad. Thankfully we are being renewed, we have a chance to examine our selfish hearts and wipe away the mire that we've covered ourselves in. We have a chance to let the bruises heal and to walk into the world seeing life as secure, mature, and life filled people. Perhaps we may even be bold enough to appreciate the beauty of the human body, the wonder of sexual connection, and the joy of others ideas, churches, even stunning weddings without wanting to make ours somehow equal or better. |
The other siteWho is GfeefGfeef is the name that my writings have been under for some years. As far as I know it's unique to me. Originally from the UK, I now live in Serbia but continue to have a passion for childrens and youth ministry. Archives
October 2014
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