A Momentous Night in Revolution

Well then, tonight might just turn out to be one of the most important nights of my life. That feels a little bit silly to type, but I honestly think it might be true because tonight I found a church. I went to a bar, and I found a church. I went to a bar called Revolution which is not a particularly great bar but it is a great name, and some people called Kingsgate Community Church meet there on Sunday nights and eat together and love Jesus together with their whole hearts.

I could write a whole blog trying to tell you all about it, but in a way I think you had to be there. Jesus certainly was, in a way that was very difficult to ignore. I’m not sure if you can sense through these words the ridiculous level of enthusiasm that is pouring out of me right now, but honestly me and my mate Jo walked down two flights of stairs and out onto the street laughing every step of the way. With sheer joy. Because God is epic.

Anyway, I’d love to just enthuse so much that you get it, but I think instead I’ll share some of it with you. The leader of this merry bunch was speaking, and he was speaking about God and how perfectly, how permanently, he has forgiven us and has made us his children – children that he is proud of whatever and forever. And he told this story, from South Africa a few years ago, from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

A frail black woman rises slowly to her feet. She is something over 70 years of age. Facing across the room are several white security police officers, one of whom, Mr van der Broek, has just been tried and found implicated in the murders of both the woman’s son and her husband some years before. He had come to the woman’s home, taken her son, shot him at point blank range and then set the young man’s body on fire while he and his officers partied nearby.

Several years later, van der Broek and his cohorts had returned to take away her husband as well. For many months she heard nothing of his whereabouts. Then almost two years after her husband’s disappearance, van der Broek came back to fetch the woman herself. How vividly she remembers that evening, going to a places beside a river where she was shown her husband, bound and beaten, but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his lips as the officers poured gasoline over his body and set him aflame were, “Father forgive them…”

Now the woman stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions offered by Mr van der Broek. A member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission turns to her and asks, “So what do you want? How should justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?”

“I want three things,” begins the old woman calmly, but confidently. “I want first to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial.”

She pauses, then continues. “My husband and son were my only family, I want secondly, therefore, for Mr van der Broek to become my son. I would like him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining in me.

“And finally,” she says, “I want a third thing. This is also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr van der Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven.” As the court assistants come to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he has just heard, faints. As he does, those in the courtroom, family, friends, neighbours – all victims of decades of oppression and injustice – begin to sing softly, but assuredly. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

In that incredible old woman, I see Jesus. He is that good. And tonight, I am very happy indeed.

Bicycle Crashes (But Only Metaphorical Ones)

I think human beings are a bit like beautiful bicycles that have crashed into walls at speed.

The reason I make this observation now is that I went to a fresher’s free lunch put on by the Christian Union at my college yesterday, and had some really interesting chats afterwards. One of the first things my mate Zoe said was something along the lines of:

“They kept saying how people are bad, but for me religion is about trying to be a good person, that’s where it all starts.”

Now I’ve been thinking about this. And, as I said before, what I think the bible says is that people are like beautiful bicycles after a dramatic crash. Let me explain.

The bible insists that people are epic. We are beautiful. We are positively sparkling with potential, the masterpiece of creation. It insists there is something in us that worth more than the whole world, something priceless and golden and precious. It relentlessly tells us that we are loved, and that we are capable of literally changing the world. We are shiny new bikes, and we have got 97 and a half gears, and we can hit some serious speeds.

But then the bible notices that that’s not quite the whole picture. And I’ve noticed that too. I do feel like something about me seems to have had an unexpected meeting with a wall a long time back, and got twisted. There are still lots of shiny parts, and sometimes you wouldn’t even guess if you saw me that the bike had ever crashed – but somehow the frame is warped, the wheels are bent. I’m sure I’m pointing the handlebars straight forwards but a bit later I look around and I’ve veered off somewhere and I’m thinking “how did I end up here?!” I plan to go somewhere but then I realise I’m actually just going round and round in circles. I make the same mistakes over and over again. Some of the time the ride is just a bit awkward, it’s just hard work, but I get there; and then other times I find myself clipping the kerb and things get properly messy.

I seem to be broken, and I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t.

But then every time, the bible seems to nudge us, and say well, what do you need? And the honest answer is that I need someone who’s strong enough to straighten out a twisted bike frame with his bare hands.

And I know just the guy.

Jane Eyre and a Delightful Evening

Friday 11th October 1:23am.

Tonight I am more delighted than I have been in a very long time, more delighted than I can properly describe. This is a rare and beautiful joy – so I’ll try to share some of it as best as I can.

Prologue 1: Three days into my English degree and I have already resorted to watching the DVD instead! I’m doing Jane Eyre next week and I have read it but a long time ago, so I got the film out of the library today just for a bit of a refresher! Anyway, it was a bit frustrating because my computer kept spitting it out, and then I borrowed a DVD reader from my mate Ellis and that for some reason was working on her computer but then not on either of mine! So that’s prologue one, frustration of my ingenious film-watching schemes.

Prologue 2: I should also introduce you to the other main characters in this evening’s story – Eve, Jo and Mollie. Eve is also doing English, she’s cool and northern and we had a fun adventure the other day looking for her lost phone and trying to stave off cardiac arrest. Jo is doing theology, which is COOL, and is a generally bizarre and wonderful person – and we have already developed the sort of hilarious bullying relationship that made somebody ask the other day if we were old friends from school! And Mollie is my ‘college sister’, and she’s crazy good at French, and learning Russian too, and is generally hilarious and actually does feel a bit like my sister (although of course, I don’t know what a real sister is actually like).

This Evening: So that brings us to the source of my current delight. Jo, Mollie and I came back from a debate thingy at the Union tonight, and I was going to just go straight to bed, partly because I was tired, and partly because Jo was so tired she fell asleep during the debate. But she said we could chill in her room if we wanted, and I realised I had been hoping to try the DVD in her computer to see if it would work. So I did, and it did, and then the three of us got chatting. And I ended up telling the story about my passport (which appears on here in April if you haven’t seen it yet) and then more stories about how I became a Christian, and about the times when God has been amazing and done amazing things to me and to my mates. And we discussed loads of things about Jesus and Christian Unions and the bit in Amos where God shows Amos a bowl of fruit, and it was all just ridiculously good. It felt right, it felt peaceful, and joyful, and full of love. And I could see in Mollie and Jo’s faces that they were sharing the sense of the evening being something strangely beautiful, somehow profound. We’re all Christians, but we were talking about how it felt like tonight God was starting something new. I think someone said, “It’s going to be different now, I think.” And that made me smile so much my cheeks hurt. And Eve joined us for an enjoyable while, and we had great chats until she had to sleep, and then we kept chatting, and in the end we prayed together, and then had a massive, childhood-friends sort of group hug, and went back to our rooms. And in the midst of the warm residue of peace and joy I thought I might as well try Jane Eyre one last time; and wouldn’t you know, it worked fine. And I thought, maybe God wanted me to go and chill in Jo’s room. Maybe He loved that conversation as much as we did. Maybe the smile on his face tonight is as wide as mine and a thousand miles wider.

Apple Cricket and Luna Lovegood

I’ve spent the last few days with my girlfriend, Rachael, stationary shopping, and pottery painting, and blackberry picking, and praying, and baking things that were supposed to be jam tarts but were actually a kind of cakey-biscuity-jam-fusion, because I (ignoring Rachael’s gently expressed doubts) used self-raising flour. And before that I went camping with a few mates in the back garden of someone from my mate Harvey’s church – and we walked places, and drank tea, and overcooked bacon, and miserably, hilariously failed to cook sausages on a campfire (“Urm, Naffy, the grill you’ve fashioned out of sticks has now, actually, caught fire…”), and rode on the outside of Harvey’s car, and talked about God and our lives and what we were scared of and prayed for each other, and played cricket with windfall apples and large pieces of plastic tubing (I highly recommend this game, the apples explode in a thoroughly satisfying manner).

And I had an immense amount of fun. But thinking about it, almost none of those activities would have been particularly enjoyable alone. Definitely not the pottery painting. That would just have been weird.

Things are just better done with other people. I saw two kids cycling around their estate aimlessly the other day. And I remember doing that with my mate Ralph – it is, bizarrely, quite fun. Together. It’s why we go on holiday together, work together, play sport together, it’s why I wanted to play the guitar instead of the violin so I could be in a BAND, it’s why Jesus invited a bunch of random people to live and work with him for three years even though they were all, by their own accounts, pretty much useless from start to finish. All the good stories are about people going on quests together. Imagine Harry Potter without Ron and Hermione (or, more importantly, Neville and Luna Lovegood). How rubbish would Lion King be if it was just Simba, and not Timon, and Pumba, and RAFIKI? How much more awesome is the end of Lord of the Rings because Sam is next to Frodo, going “I can’t carry it for you, Mr Frodo, but I can carry you!”?

Anyway, I’m going on this rant because I was praying today for some people I love, who are going back to uni about now. And I was thinking about what I really want to happen in their lives. And for almost every single one of them, it’s the same thing. I know it sounds like a stupid thing for me to want, but hear me out. I want them to be part of a church. Because probably my favourite thing about my life, especially while I was away this year, is that for a lot of my mates, I get to actually be church. I get to be the place where they come to ask questions, to wrestle with stuff, I get to go on adventures with them and climb mountains with them and listen to them, and stare at sunsets and talk about the meaning of our lives with them. I get to be the place where they hear the truth that they are loved like they’d never believe and there’s nothing they can ever do to change that. I get to be the one that gives them a massive hug to prove it. I get to laugh and cry and pray and sing and do stupid dances with them. (Which reminds me, I really need to show you all my new move, ‘The Typewriter’. Curious? You should be.)

But moving on, (although honestly, it’s a beautiful move), what’s really gutting is that for pretty much every one of these awesome friends that I’ve had, there comes a point where it ends. Where one of us goes somewhere. And that’s when I find myself praying. Praying that they will go wherever they’re going and find a bunch of people who love them and want to do all of that stuff with them like I did – ideally better. And usually better, because one of me was never really enough in the first place. Praying that they will find church. 

I keep saying ‘they’ but to be honest I’m hoping that some of the people I’m praying for are reading this blog, that’s the only reason I’m writing it, so I’m going to start just saying ‘you’, just in case.

I am praying for you, that you will find a bunch of people who love you and love Jesus. A bunch of people who will ask questions with you, and wrestle with you (perhaps literally) and play apple-cricket with you, and stare at sunsets and talk about the meaning of our lives with you. A bunch of people who you can do good things in the world with. Who you can laugh with and cry with and climb mountains with. Who can remind you, with a hug, that you are loved like you’d never believe and there’s nothing you can ever do to change that.

So, yeah. This is me pretty much getting down on my knees and begging you to go and look for these people – they are looking for you I promise. And I know there are some dodgy people out there, and some dodgy churches, but there are some awesome ones too. And if you do watch the video – it’s beautiful, and there are thousands of churches all over the world trying to be like that. And if you’re not sure where to look I will honestly ask people and google it and do my best to help if you want me to. Because you have no idea how happy I was on the day I drove past my mate Tom on a big country road near Alcester, and when I facebooked him that night to ask where he was going, he told me that he was walking to his church, and they were awesome.

Drumming and Freedom

I was at a big Christian festival-ish thing last week, and firstly I should say it was epic. Secondly, I’d like to share two stories about drumming that I really really love.

Number One.

The banjo player from a band called Rend Collective Experiment - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N3h0BKV6gw - told the story of how he got into performing music. His dad was quite a successful, well-renowned  musician in churches in Ireland and England, and his son was obviously keen to play as well. But then, more surprisingly, when he was seven years old – and not particularly a prodigy – his dad made him the drummer in his band. This well-respected, serious artist started turning up to churches and performances with a seven year old kid carrying some drumsticks. And the son, now a bit more grown up, said this: “I wasn’t very good, and I’m pretty sure the music was nowhere near what it could have been – but I loved that he put the people before the perfection.”

And I loved that story because it is genuinely just what being Christian is like. God is immense. We are – Barack Obama and Bear Grylls included – spectacularly inadequate. We’re like seven year olds enthusiastically failing to keep in time with the intricate rhythms of redemption. But we are his seven year olds. He adopts us as his kids and loves us so much he wants us to come on tour with him – and yeah we mess up the music most of the time, but he just loves that we’re up there with him playing our hearts out.

Number Two.

Early on in the week I was mildly annoyed by the fact that when we were all together singing and worshipping God, the big projectors with the words on also had live video feed of the band playing on stage – I was annoyed because I was trying to concentrate on Jesus but I found myself just watching the guy with the guitar all the time. Anyway, near the end of the week, my attitude changed because of this one, five second shot of the drummer. The camera cut to him just as a quiet bit was ending, and he was just sitting there, kind of relaxing, just doing the bass pedal with his foot. And then suddenly, at just the right moment, he comes alive, takes up his sticks, and smashes out this huge fill and goes into some crazily fast complicated beat for the chorus. And I saw this and I was just blown away by how free it was. He wasn’t sitting there, concentrating hard, thinking about which drums he was supposed to hit in a minute, and in what order – he was totally relaxed, and then he just picked up the sticks and went crazy, and it sounded awesome. And you could see when he was playing that he was just giving it everything he’d got – he was throwing his soul into that kit, he was holding nothing back. I know I’m sounding a bit pretentious but honestly, watch a good drummer really drum, it’s incredible.

Anyway, there’s a point to this story as well. When I was thinking about how awesome this guy’s drumming was, I thought about what I would be able to do at that drum kit. I’ve never learnt the drums, I’ve never practised – I’m quite musical, but I just haven’t put the hours in. And if you told me to “just go for it” with a drum kit, I would smash things for a few seconds, and it would be a bit fun but I’d feel quite stupid because it would sound horrendous and I wouldn’t know how to actually do anything fun or interesting or whatever. I wouldn’t be able to freely throw my soul into that drum kit because I just have not practised. I have not trained. And it struck me (if you’ll excuse the very slight pun) that I make a fairly big mistake quite often.

I know that Jesus came to set us free. To make us free people. And a lot of the time I act like that means he wouldn’t want me to do stuff that’s really hard, or frustrating, or tiring, or boring. Because I’m free – I don’t have to do that stuff, right? But actually, I looked at this guy pick up those sticks and go crazy and I thought, I’m not as free as I could be. If he’d come to drum lessons every week, or practice every day, and declared that he was free so he could just sit there and hit things randomly, however he pleased, then he would not be able to play like he did that night. He had to stick it out through hours and years of drills, and exercises, and practice pieces that made him want to find the composer and smash his head between two cymbals – but that discipline has set him free. And if I want to be able to actually live the epic, wholehearted, powerfully beautiful life Jesus offers me, then I have to train. I have to be disciplined. I have to spend time with him and learn from him even when I find it boring, practice things and un-practice other things even when it’s frustrating, serve him and his loved ones even when it’s exhausting. Because of course I am already free – but I want to be like that drummer. As free as he made me to be.

Mountain Huts and the Slipperiness of Joy

At the time I couldn't work out what to write about climbing Mount Mulanje. It felt like something profound and beautiful had occurred, something worth writing about, but I wasn't really sure what it was. I realised today [last Friday] that I knew what it was all along - it just didn't seem 'deep' enough to write about.

It was this: sitting around in sleeping bags on a wooden porch, drinking sugarless tea and eating plain rice out of a big pot, exhausted and excited, with friends.It was the feeling of walking a long, hard day together, and then sitting down together to breathe, and be tired together, and laugh, and listen to arty acoustic music off someone's ipod. There is honestly no more beautiful thing than to be able to relax with people you love.

But here's the thing - I'd been trying to relax with people I love for years - a hundred days and nights and a hundred different parties. But rarely, maybe never, has it felt like those evenings in the mountain huts. And I reckon it's because that experience - the real peace of friendship - is one of those frustrating slippery things that disappears when we look for it, but seems to turn up unexpectedly when we're concentrating on something else. At parties, or going out, I've always been so intent on having a good time that something inside me is tense. I'm so keen to enjoy my friend's company that I can't just be with them and love it for what it is.

But on the mountain, it was different. We were there to climb a mountain. And it had been a hard and beautiful day and tomorrow was going to be harder and more beautiful, but in between there was this incredible, wild-flower growth of gentle, unshakeable, love. We were truly comfortable in each other's company. We could talk about nothing at all or the meaning of the whole universe and in a way in made no difference. Because whether we were spooning for warmth or shivering outside with someone having a fag, we were together. And it was good.

And the happy ending is that I found this again recently. The other week I was helping to run a kids' camp thing with some mates from various churches all over the country (cool, non-posh bits like Wigan and Sunderland). And it was properly exhausting. But the snatched moments, after the kids had gone to bed, or in the kitchen, or when we were really supposed to be working - the stumbled upon minutes of delightful togetherness - were just beautiful. I love those people, and I love them so much better because we have done good, hard work together year after year. I trust them. I enjoy them. I laugh at them. It's friendship how I reckon it was built to be, and it's epic.

Five shiny things I've stumbled upon...

I had a read through my old notebook from Malawi today (I still haven't finished, there are two big notebooks and I've read about five sevenths of one). But as I was reading I came across some bits that I really liked, and I don't think I've blogged previously! So I thought I'd give you a little highlights package - apologies if any of this makes no sense out of context to anyone other than myself.

Number One.
I’m watching Michael play catch with the kids. And it’s a beautiful thing to behold. The delight in these kids faces just to get a throw to them from “SIR!” (or “SALA!” for the younger ones) is just awesome. The joy is infectious, and Michael is messing around doing stupid dances and throwing dummies, and it makes me think of what heaven is going to be like. The best Father ever playing with his kids. And I like that thought a lot. Because on that day, I’ll get to be one of the kids.

Number Two.
How awesome is a sunrise? How glorious are the stars at night?

But what if they were just a picture, a shadow, a pale reflection of a greater glory? What if they were waiting to be replaced by the Star of David, by the Son?

“The sun will no more be your light by day,
nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you,
for the LORD will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.”
What if every night of weeping and every day of toil in a too-hot sun melted away at the sight of a greater light? What if darkness and pain finally fled, never to return?

“Your sun will never set again,
and your moon will wane no more;
the LORD will be your everlasting light
and your days of sorrow will end.”

Number Three.
THERE IS NO ONE ON EARTH WHO NEEDS ME.
This is never going to change.
All I ever am or ever can be is a bringer of good news.
A mirror.
A window.
A volcano.
A remember of old songs sung by our great grand-mothers and fathers.
A metaphor.
A likeness.
A child.

Number Four.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.” 1 Corinthians 15:10. Jesus, it’s a beautiful mystery that your grace is effective. I love that you are so powerful and awesome that even your acceptance brings transformation. Even your forgiveness provokes repentance. That is utterly beautiful. That by loving us as we are, with such intensity and beauty, you transform us. Your grace is not efficient –it does not aim at this effect – but it is effective. What is the aim of grace? Maybe it has no aim, it is more essential than that, more personal. After all, what is the aim of love? It has effects, it has consummations, but no aim. No intention. It just is. Your grace just is, before, and beyond the entirety of the universe. You are the Alpha and the Omega. And like a great, great mass it bends the whole of space-time around itself, so we come closer to you.

Number Five.
Hope changes everything. Does it actually change the things themselves or just how you experience them? Maybe it doesn’t matter. Hope is strong. To live in hope is to go without fear into a future that is not clear. It is to walk forward with arms out and eyes open – anticipating beauty. Hope is not telling your mum and dad what you want for Christmas. Because you know they know you so well and love you so much that if it isn’t what you want it will be better.

To pray in hope is to love God enough to know that he probably has a better idea.
To live in hope is to know that we are characters in a story that we are not writing. But the writer is a good writer, and the story is a good story.

Of course there will be moments of drama, of pain, of struggle, of anguish – but no good story is all happy ending. And the ending is coming, and it is good. It has already been written. It was born in tears and built with scar tissue, but the golden city awaits.

A Dad and a Daughter

I'm supposed to be doing a workshop this week about 'Why do we pray?', and I sat down the other day to try and plan it. What came out of my head however, was a story. I read it to my brother and he said, "You should blog that." So I did. Enjoy.

Once upon a time there was a Dad who loved his daughter. He loved her very much. But she made him very sad indeed. She made him sad, because she never talked to him. When she came home from school he would always be waiting for her, sitting in the kitchen with two cups of tea, one for her, one for him, hoping to hear what had happened that day. But every day she walked in, picked up her tea, and went straight upstairs to her room, or into the living room to watch TV. He would cook dinner each night and sit down with her to eat – and he could see from her face that some days she really liked the food, but she never told him that it was delicious, not once.

And every year when it came to her birthday, he would make the most beautiful gifts for her. Once he spent weeks carving a present for her out of wood, another time he planted a whole garden of flowers just for her. And every year he would give her the gift, and she would take it, and almost always she would play with it, or admire it, or show it to her friends, but she never looked into her father’s eyes and said thank you. Not once. Sometimes he wondered if she even knew that it was him that had given the things to her. Sometimes he wondered if she really knew he was there at all.

One day she burst into the house in floods of tears, make-up smudged all over her face, and her Dad was so upset, he ran out to her to give her a hug, but she just ran up the stairs to her room and slammed the door. Her Dad went slowly upstairs after her, and stood for a long time outside her door, listening to her crying, with tears of his own running down his cheeks. And then he grabbed some paper and wrote a little note:
I’M RIGHT HERE, IF YOU EVER WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
SO MUCH LOVE, DAD
and slid it under the door. And he sat down on the floor outside her room and waited. It got very late, and very dark, and he couldn’t hear her moving or crying anymore and he knew she was asleep, but he kept waiting just in case. Until eventually he fell asleep himself, curled up on the carpet.

But as dawn broke the next morning something new happened. As his daughter woke up, and came out of her room, she noticed him. She saw him lying there on the carpet and wondered why her Dad was lying on the carpet outsider her room. So she bent down and shook his shoulder gently. As he opened his eyes, she asked:
“Dad, why on earth are you sleeping out here?”

And he looked at her, and he smiled the biggest smile he had ever smiled. His heart beat faster and he felt like if he’d had a tail he would of wagged it.

“Dad?”

She looked at him closely and he looked back at her.

“I was waiting for you. I thought you might want to talk.”

As she looked at him she could see that his eyes were red, and his cheeks had that weird wet look that only comes when people have been crying.

“But, you’ve been crying, why were you crying?”

“My daughter, I was crying because you were crying. And because you didn’t want to talk to me about it. You were upset and I didn’t know why and I wanted to help but you didn’t want to talk to me about it. And I could have helped. I could have listened, and I don’t even just mean that I could have actually done something, I could have actually fixed it. But I was crying because you wouldn’t ask me to fix it. I was crying because you wouldn’t ask me anything, because you never want to talk to me about anything. Because I wasn’t sure you even knew who I was. Because I missed you. Because I love you.

And as he spoke she could see that there were new tears running down his face, and she could feel new tears on her face as well.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, “I never – I didn’t – I didn’t think. I didn’t think there was any reason to talk to you. I knew you were there, I knew you did all those things, all the presents and everything. I knew it, I just didn’t really think there was anything for me to say. You knew I liked them, you could see that. I’m sorry I just didn’t think about it. I never knew... I don’t know. I suppose, I never knew, how much you cared.”

And so, since she had run out of words to say, he hugged him tight. And he hugged her back. And from that day onwards the daughter and her Dad talked about everything. Every day she would come home and sit down with him and tell him all about what she’d been doing, and how she was feeling. And then she would listen as he told her stories of his own life, and gave her advice and wisdom. And some days he would share her happiness, and some days he would share her sadness, but every day they would be together. And every night at dinner she would look him in the eye and tell him just how great the food was, and what bits were her favourite, and every day – especially her birthday – she would say thank you for all the things that he did. And her Dad loved her very much. And it made him very happy indeed.

I'm not in Malawi anymore.

I’m not in Malawi anymore. But I am in my grandparents’ back garden. And it is, much to my surprise, beautiful. The sun glitters on the dew, and the birds dance in the still, blue-white English sky. There’s a mossy stone sun dial, a lopsided bird-feeder, a huge great apple tree heavy with fruit. And yeah, maybe I can’t give God all the credit for this place like I could for Mulanje plateau, or the lake, or the rolling bush, but then again maybe I can. Because God created birds, and flowers, and the kiss of dew, and apples, but then, even better, he created my Grandpa – and he created him with the imagination and dedication and patience and creativity and skill to grow this garden. And isn’t it the mark of the greatest genius to be able to inspire brilliance in others?

This has, actually, been a big part of what it’s been like to come back for me. I’d love to write you a blog about how horrendously materialistic and wasteful and lonely the western world is – and if I thought about it I could probably generate quite a bit of material – but that hasn’t been what I’ve noticed coming back. I haven’t had time to notice it, I’ve been too busy spending time with wonderful, wonderful people. People are awesome. They’re funny, and loveable, and loving, and they do nice things and say interesting things and do stupid things. And sometimes, just sometimes, they understand. They take a beautiful moment and they dance in it with you. I’m getting pretentious now but I’m just trying to express the incredible privilege we have in other people. And when people ask me what the best thing about Malawi was, it turns out the answer is “the people I got to love”.*So now in just the same way I discover the best thing about being home is not any of the stuff I had been so eagerly awaiting: fresh milk, my awesome shower, bed and no mosquito net, carpets, cars with less than seven people in them, cheese, cheap fruit juice, transport that works... The best thing about being home is loving and being loved by my family and my friends and Rachael. It sounds a bit silly because it’s so simple but it is that simple.

The one challenge that I am struggling with a bit, is not being lonely often enough. At Chimbowe, there was a lot of time where I didn’t really need to do anything, and no one was really around, and I could go and sit on the back step, or walk somewhere, and properly spend time with God. I could sit down and talk to him about how I was doing, and tell him what was hard and how I was messing up, and ask him to help me and ask him to change the world. I could read about Jesus and listen to what he was telling me, I could try to find the challenge, I could ask him to help me help him, I could remember what I was born to do and who I was born to be. I loved that time. Sometimes it was boring and flat because I was tired or distracted or whatever, but other times it was the most beautiful, most profound, most exciting bit of the day. And I haven’t really found the time for the last few weeks, and I miss it. I just wrote in a message to my friend that it feels a bit like when you’ve been with someone all week but you’ve been too busy doing stuff or with other people all the time and not once have you sat down and had a proper chat. And it’s great, you’ve had great times, but you kind of miss your mate. It happened last summer when Rachael came with my family to see Dad’s family in Northern Ireland – we were all together all week and by the end I was really missing Rachael! It’s like that.

Anyway, the last thing to say is this. I’m going to keep writing, and just hope that a few of you want to keep reading. I know I’m not in Africa anymore, but I’m determined to live a life worth blogging about. So, perhaps good bye, but hopefully, au revoir.

 

*That includes Jesus, who I grew to know and love a lot more. And in fact, the best times I had with my friends were whenever they asked me questions about my Best Friend, and I got to share him with them a little bit. Footnote over.