So How Do I Find The Words To Say I'm Sorry?

As the year draws to an end my thoughts are drawn to the sad fact that I have let so many people down; but not just people, friends, friends who deserve so much more than I. So to my family and friends I would like to apologise for me in 2009.

So how do I find the words to say I'm sorry? I think I'll plagiarise myself again for the upteenth time...

You make the world a better place every time you smile
You flood my world with a thousand colours when all around is grey
So how do I find the words to say I'm sorry?

What is hope, what is fear, what is it that I hold near?
What is love, what is lies, what is it I feel inside?

You make the world a better place by letting your light shine
This glory that glows within you has touched this heart of mine
So how to I find a way to say I'm grateful?

Hypocrisy or A Strange Dichtomy?

As I sit here in the office working away (aside from this subtle "break") and at the same time I feel like I'm just waiting...

I find within myself this hypocrisy or strange dichtomy, I can't quite put my finger on it exactly though. For example I will quite willingly miss out something on a point of principal, the hypocrisy is that the thing I will miss out on I desperately want and then I will be all down about what I am missing out on.

To be fair to myself principles are a good thing and something that should be encouraged. Infact without principled people the world would be far worse than it already is. However, too often I am principled on small and inconsequential things which then have annoying personal consequences. So am I a hypocrite or is there a strange dichtomy within my character? This question is possibly rhetorical, but maybe not... I dunno!

The second thought is, how does one move forward? What am I learning and how do I use this new found knowledge, if it is indeed something of note...

Come All You Weary This Christmas

These are the lyrics to a song called "Come All You Weary" by one of the truely amazing bands of our times, Thrice. I aspire to write lyrics and music that is so truely awesome.

However what struck me though is that at this time of year (Christmas for those who missed it!) this is what Crimbo is all about. Lil baby Jesus born into the world, to experience what we experience and then to carry all that we cannot, to pay the price for what we cannot pay. So that the grown up version of that lil baby can say "come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest". Be inspired my friends and let that inspiration and light bless those around you.

Come all you weary with your heavy loads
Lay down your burdens find rest for your souls
Cause my yoke is easy and my burden is kind
I'll take yours upon me and you can take mine

Come all you weary move through the earth
Surrounded by rest stones and kicked out of church
A couple of loaves sit down at my feet
Lend me your ears and break bread with me

Come all you weary
Come gather round near me
Find rest for your souls

Come all you weary, crippled you lay
I'll help you along you can lay down your canes
We've got a long way to go but we'll travel as friends
The lights growing bright further on towards the end

Still Fail At Dealing With Disappointment Well

I still fail at dealing with disappointment well.

Stupidly, I get my hopes up, and then get disappointed over silly things which are probably of very little consequence and yet in my mind they are...

Oh well, best get back to wrapping the Christmas presents.

I Am My Father's Son

As I lay in bed last night a thought really came home to me, I am my Father's son. For the most part I identify more with my mum than my dad. Mainly because our personalities are so similar and our shared strengths in areas such as creative and verbal pursuits. However as I lay there, head buried under duvet, I realised that I am very much like my Dad.

First point, head burying under pillow/duvet. Second point, predisposition to bright coloured shirts, ties and slightly eccentric clothes in general. Third point, consuming vast quantities of tea. Fourth point, love of a good novel. Fifth point love of staying up late talking. Sixth point, love of happy or satisfactory endings in movies. Seventh point being slightly shy.

I suspect this now means that I sometime soon I will start to watch Time Team and discover I really do love steam trains!

All joking aside, I am so very blessed to be my Father's son. I could not have asked for a better role model. If I turn into half the man he is then I will have done well because I see in him someone who is the very best. He of course would not be so vain as to say such things. And yes he does have some faults, and I probably share some of them. But his merits vast outway those. I hope that one day I can live up to the example he has set as a husband, a father, a leader, a friend and a human being. The world is a better place for men like my father, men of honesty and virtue, and I am honoured to be his son.

I probably should tell him a bit more how I appreciate him.

Confessions...

There is a biblical principle of confession; usually it pertains to sin, but I think that limits the scope that could be applied somewhat. And it occured to me that perhaps there are somethings that I probably should confess. So here we go as I lay bare my soul.

I like donuts, I think maybe a bit too much.

Safe

I really am somewhat at a loss to succinctly and eloquently express what has happened over the last 24 hours, to say how I feel and what I have been through. Maybe in time I will be able to put something together.

Bottom line, I'm in the 2 out of 5 pool, in fact I was number 1, so I have effectively been given a promotion as opposed to being made redundant.

I'm happy about the good news I've received but gutted for my friends, some really close, who have not been so fortunate as I.

So my thoughts and prayers are with others right now...

And my thanks goes to everyone who has helped me through this time, you all have played your part and I would have been lost without you. Much love.

It Got Me Thinking So I Thought I Should Share...

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/component/content/article/135-blog/19233-is-it-ever-right-to-not-give-to-the-homeless

"Bullet With Butterfly Wings"

I had written this whole spiel about this song by the Smashing Pumpkins but maybe I'll just let Billy speak for himself:

The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game
Even though I know - I suppose I'll show
All my cool and cold - like old job

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage

Now I'm naked, nothing but an animal
But can you fake it, for just one more show?
And what do you want? I want to change
And what have you got, when you feel the same?

Tell me I'm the only one
Tell me there's no other one
Jesus was the only son, yeah.
Tell me I'm the chosen one
Jesus was the only son for you.

Love Covers All

I was reading a friends blog and he had linked to a song on youtube called How He Loves Us (by John Mark McMillan) and as I listened to this song I was brought low in awe of how good God is, how amazing love is and how that we can't have hold on to grudges, bad attitudes and stuff so when we say love covers all that's how we're supposed to be... it covers over grievances, wrongs and hurts, it forgives, it accepts, it carries, it's strong, it's so flipping amazing I cannot give it justice with my words and actions and I don't want to not do it justice with my words and actions.

And I deliberately left that as one stupidly long sentence because that's kind of how it felt, it all fell out of "heaven" and into my "heart". I hope I don't lose this. I pray I remember how I feel right now.

Oh how He loves us.

If You Don't Take Your Chances You're Likely To Lose

Clinical? No. Enough said...

Continuity and Inspiration in the World of Creation

This year I have written one song, back in February, so I am in a bit of a songwriting drought to put it mildly.

I am currently attempting to write a novel which is going um well it's going in a vaguely forward direction.

What I have noticed is that "inspiration" is a great thing when it comes to creative endeavours but it is impossible to maintain creating on inspiration alone. There comes a point where hard work and continuity is needed to maintain the creation. This continuity I have struggled with and thus I have found song writing this year very difficult and novelising (my new word for the creation of my story) a struggle to put it mildly.

Intrinsically there is a link to my mind at any rate between continuity and hard work in creative pursuits, and hard work is not really my forte.

To thrash out my thoughts here with an example. On Friday I was sitting on a train back to London having visited a beautiful friend down south; I used the 90 minute journey to work on the novel, I finished off one chapter and began another. I was pretty pleased with the creative exertions. However since then I have done nada, and that is the frustration. No continuity.

Am I a 2 out of 5 or 3 out of 5?

Next week I will find out whether I am in the pool of 2 or 3.

If it's the 3 I've been made redundant, if it's the 2 I'm safe.

Either way things will be strange, 3 out of the team of 5 I'm in will be leaving so that will be a huge change but also whatever happens we'll all be working together for another 6 months while the work gets outsourced and we train up the new people. Potentially weird ole situation.

I'm not really nervous about what will happen. We wait and see if the management rate me as a 2 out of 5 or a 3 out of 5. If it's not the former then so be it, my identity and peace of mind is not determined by them. My hope is in the Lord, to borrow from the psalmist, I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from, my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.