Friday 21 October 2011

Walking Away by C. Day Lewis

This is one of my favourite poems of all time, written by a father for his son. 



It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, ebbing away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.

I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still.  Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

Wednesday 19 October 2011

Guess I............

Guess I’d fallen in love already



The ground lay clothed in linen, silver grey
Then I saw you standing there beneath the bare, willow tree guess I’d fallen in love with You already.
Silver linings of snow hung from Your chin as though You had just eaten a ripe fruit.
Smatterings of glitter add surreal beauty to this already beautiful landscape.
All that I have known of love is as cold as winter yet now it is as beautiful as this winter wonderland.
Your eyes as clear as gold, refined, your hair silver as the clouds during a festival of rain, YOU
Guess I’d fallen in love with You already.
The bare, willow trees arms are outstretched in might and the snow carpets a frozen floor.
You stand staring into the distance and I stand staring at Your divinity, clothed in white, decadent in frosting;
Guess I’d fallen in love with You already all that was left was for You to take my hand and so You did.

Tuesday 11 October 2011

A touching picture behind the story

Last night I read the story again of the woman who washed Yeshua's feet with her hair and tears and then took costly perfume and anointed His feet.

I often think of Yehezkel (Ezekiel's) proclamation of "woe is me! woe is me!" upon seeing the Son of Man in a vision. Truly when we see our uncleanness and our own sinfulness against the Holiness and Beauty of the One who created us, we cannot help but loath ourselves and be ashamed. Even our good deeds are as filthy rags.
I love You Yeshua so much, You have given me everything that I have and I fail so often , in this too I know how much You love me. Truly the anointing sinner knew the Love that only You could ever have in Your heart for the heart of a repentant sinner. I really love You my Saviour, My King, I really love You. Please lets sit together while, me the sinner, You the Holy King and just be together; me anointing You with my tears; You changing me with Your love. You are so awesome Father, You are so amazing, I give my heart to You, to You alone forever, Abba thank You I am so grateful for eveything I have and everything that You are! I love You.


Tuesday 4 October 2011

Domestic Violence in South Africa

The Institute of Security Studies (South Africa) did a research project in 1999. They found that:
  • 90% of the women interviewed had experienced emotional abuse: being humiliated in front of others was most commonly reported.
  • 90% had also experienced physical abuse: being pushed or shoved and being slapped or hit were highlighted.
  • 71% had experienced sexual abuse: attempts to kiss or touch followed by forced sexual intercourse occurred most often.
  • 58% experienced economic abuse: money taken without consent was most common.
  • 42.5% of women had experienced all forms of abuse.
  • 60% of all cases of abuse were committed by partners, lovers or spouses.
  • -Emotional abuse-either as a category on its own or in combination with other types of abuse was referred to by 63% of women as being the most serious.
-According to a Medical Research Council study, young women are more subjected to assault (ranging from slapping to beating with objects and stabbing) and sexual coercion by partners and others.

Monday 3 October 2011

Eternal Shabbat

It is only Monday (a blue one at that!) and already my mind and heart are telling me "It's Shabbat!"
The pressures of life and the stress of this world indeed wear one down so that eventually you are left a "stump"

My heart cries out to be with my King in the day which will always be "Shabbat" and I cannot wait for it!
I have a good life, no complaints but our lives are conditioned by worry, fear and anxiety (and just yesterday someone reminded me that worry is a sin, mmmmm). But how do we flee worry when the things we hope for are never realized or things we have to do, are the very things we have the inability to do? Such as paying bills.

Three weeks ago a candidate who was forced to learn English in my class, begun to make my life unbearable so as to be excused from my class. He is a young, Indian guy from India and has been here 3 months. He battles incessantly to speak English properly and although I am trying to coach him in English, he is uninterested because within his own mind he has all the answers already before the questions are even answered. Unfortunately this individual has succeeded in lying and making false accusations about the class - all of which have been proved to my supervisors as false.

However this individual has singlehandedly forced me off course. Yesterday we were doing a Yom Teruah study on the 31 sins people commit, one of those sins is bringing false accusations against people and lying. I realized that I was the recipient of someone else's sin, no wonder the weight is too heavy to bear.
I am now struggling to bring order to a new course, which I am suppose to start this week simply because of one individual. I just realise how our own selfishness, guilt and conniving bring other people's lives under threat and how sinful this is! I look up to my King and ask Him for help, I have no strength He has it all I really need your help Abba!

Ah and so my heart still longs for the day of Shabbat - the day of eternal Shabbat, where there will be no more fear, worry or pain, no more sorrow, strife or tears and where I will be at liberty to sit at the feet of my King without saying a thing - I simply cannot wait!