dogs

Loyal
Originally uploaded by Nad.

Dogs are wonderful things. The three we've had over the years as a family all had different personalities; each was a God-breathed gift, a unique and soulful part of creation.

The last of them, Jemma, passed away yesterday. I know that 30,000 children die needlessly in Africa every day - but still, I'd forgotten how much it hurts when someone you know dies, especially when it's your dog.

apprenticeship

canary wharf, london
Originally uploaded by damian tokara.

I can understand why the young blades in the news series of The Apprentice will stab each other in the back to succeed. After all, you don't get to be mentored by someone successful every day. The question is, can I match their passion, but help to redefine 'success' in the process? The energy and creativity people release to make money can surely teach us a thing or two about how we try to change the world for good.

walls

balloongirl
Originally uploaded by Patient Boy.

...are there to be scaled.

step on

Manchester Street
Originally uploaded by gridrunner.

I returned to Manchester for the first time in 16 years the other day. It was a formative year that I spent there; a crucial fork in the road of life and faith. I wonder what I'll feel one day when, long in the future, I return to where I am now. It's strange to think you're living in the past, the present and the future simultaneously. Hope I make this presence count.

fulfilled

simple life
Originally uploaded by Buttersweet.

Does it matter more that I am fulfilled, or that my vision is?

swans

the dance of love
Originally uploaded by The Norwegian.

Apparently, swans find a partner and stay together for life. This evening I was running in the twilight around the lake, and at the far corner I passed a family of three swans - mum, dad and youngster.

One of the adults was on the ground, dead - feathers everywhere. The other two were standing quietly by, not moving, just standing, staring.

I wondered how long they would stay there for, with their dead parent and partner. I wondered what they were feeling, how they were registering their pain. I wondered if they had any idea about the magnititude of what they were experiencing.

And I thanked God, in a painful moment of helplessness, for the words that I've always applied metaphorically to myself, but not literally to God's creation: 'Are not sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father knowing.'

And I sensed, in that moment, Creation groaning within the silence of a broken family.

believing is seeing

Capture_00026
Originally uploaded by Nick Harrison.

'Perhaps the only people who view the world realistically are the cynics and the saints. Everybody else may be living in some kind of denial about what is really going on and how things really are. And the only difference between the cynics and the saints is the presence, power and possibility of hope.' Jim Wallis, God's Politics (Lion, 2006)

looking back

P8060021.JPG
Originally uploaded by Dshot.

I glimpsed my reflection in a window the other day and its slight blurriness revealed something I'd never seen before. There, glancing back at me, was the grandfather who'd died when I was seven. I didn't get the chance to know him well, and so, perhaps, have been unaware of his presence in my present. But now I'm intrigued to wonder, How much of him is there in me?

q&a

untitled
Originally uploaded by andrewflavin.

We're often searching for the answers to our questions; but there comes a point when we also need to search for the questions to our answers.

I've become so used to doing certain things in certain ways that they've become invisible. The answers have been so well formulated that I've forgotten what the question was in the first place.

I know it's a lot to ask, but I must learn to ask a lot.

living the i-Life

DSC01180.JPG
Originally uploaded by escdotdot.

I went for a run by the canal while listening to Bell Jar, a band from Cheltenham. The combination of surroundings, exercise and music brought me to a 'thin place' - where heaven and earth seem to meet, where boundaries seem to blur, where God's presence flowed like water through the present.

My first i-Pod epiphany, then, but hopefully not my last.