ROAR!

Animals, the lot of us. All this hypothesising about mature and dignified ways to communicate and be nice to each other, actually sometimes don't you just want to growl? Loudly?


This one particular little person and I have been roaring at each other for a few years now. It started when I realised at about 8 months she was quite good at primal scream therapy. I'm not sure her parents were glad I discovered this, but it does nothing other than make us smile, a lot, especially when we are in a densely populated place. She always starts it and I can take no responsibility for encouraging her in this free expression. You do understand. But rather than this being angry or fierce, it has come to be a signal like the way lions grumble across the bush, just to check in with each other. In fact, our roaring has become a good sign that we are on the same page. A resounding 'hello you!'

Lots of reasons why we growl at each other, some bad, but some definitely good.

raaaaaagh!

•


If this track isn't used in a slice of beautiful elevating cinema this summer, then I shall eat my various garments and question everything.


{Today's Soundtrack: Phoenix Foundation - Buffalo}

What's Your Impression?

What kind of impression do you make on people? And if someone makes an impression on you, good or bad, do you pass that on?

The other day I had an essay returned in the course of my post-grad studies, and had been given a truly terrible grade. It was so bad I almost believed it was a joke. After exclaiming a few things other than 'Excellent!', I questioned my tutor's rationale for—as I saw it—leading me down a specific track and then marking me down for following that very advice. It seemed as though I had been double-crossed! She left the room, and left me feeling small, stupid and judged. So how did I behave? Small, stupid, and judging. I proceeded to allow things to come out of my potty mouth that would make Jesus frown.

Maybe she was wrong, or maybe I found the topic too boring to stick to the point. Either way, my crushing sense of injustice channelled into a verbal tirade was aimed at others so they would feel what I felt, and take it on for me. Down the chain it went – impression on impression.

Thankfully, people around me are big-hearted, so they stroked my arm and offered me chocolate, and the sting eased. The next day, now as tutor myself marking degree level coursework, I realise I am not small, stupid or thick, but I still feel sad about this whole episode. 

A person making you feel things by behaving badly towards you probably feels those things themself, and the only way things will change is if you love them back.

Impression on impression?

{Today's Soundtrack: singing.}

Cairns : ii

What's this about stones then? Whether you are into bible stories or not, this one is a neat illustration of how to handle deviations in an otherwise darned fine plan.

There's an ancient story about Joshua leading the Israelites across the Jordan into the promised land. God stacked up the water in a heap so they could all cross to the other side by simply walking right across the riverbed; the twelve huge tribes and all their cattle, trudging over, impossibly on dry ground. God asked that each tribe pick up a stone from the dry riverbed, carry it to the other side, and build a memorial for future generations to remember what had happened once that riverbed was underwater again.

When Joshua received his instruction about being a leader of these tribes to take them into their land, there was nothing in there about getting all the people across a deep, fast-flowing river. That part was a surprise. This was the unexpected twist of a significant nature, in which Joshua was to be brave, remain 'aware', and expect intervention in order for the vision to realise. It was not all about him, but he was the one to maintain a strong grip on the vision for the people while they were all kicking off in the face of a confusing obstacle threatening to derail the plan. That was how God used Joshua to birth a powerful, character-building encounter for thousands of tribespeople. When Joshua hit that riverbank with the tribes on his back, I cannot imagine it was an easy conversation. But he persevered and held his nerve, letting happen what needed to happen from beyond him, and a memorial of stones testifies for the rest of time.

Whether Joshua and Jordan, or our own small rivers which interrupt the plan for a couple of hours, the sensation is the same – the vision meets an obstacle. Being strong here is about firmly clinging to the vision even when significant, real challenges crop up, accepting that things will happen in anyone's plan that could not be foreseen or manipulated. It also suggests that those things are a necessary part of the journey, opportunities to prize our fingers off and let intervention play its part from beyond us, and that we might learn something about our character along the way.

Stones represent things that make no sense and appear to be impossible obstacles, but those things have been overcome, and the overcoming builds essential character on the way towards realising a vision. Hold that nerve. Build that pile of stones, and always remember what it took.

'Only be strong and courageous.'


{Today's Soundtrack: Doves - Some Cities}

Cairns : i

Today's is a tricky idea, so I'm going to pull it apart and discuss it in two pieces. 

Waking this morning there was a shadow hovering nearby, like a cloud of junk that was stopping me feeling excited about the day ahead. I work part-time with young folk as a photography lecturer and have chosen to preserve a couple of days in the week for my own freelance projects, of which I feel terribly protective. Today is one of my lizzie-days, and I would usually jump up and get out and about, writing, photographing, plotting. It is a real privilege to have the time and resources to do this, and I do not want to waste a second. This morning it took ages to come round and figure out where to start.

'Boof. A punchbag morning. I am the punchbag; work is the boxer and he's on a roll.'

I come to see most of what I do not as work, but as calling, blessing, gifting, and opportunity – that is a real treasure. Somewhere along the way of having a vision and making a plan, setting objectives and mapping the route, I forgot that the car needs servicing, my students would like their grades, an invoice needs chasing, and that buying some food items coloured other than easy-access brown or orange varieties will stop me getting heart disease. I forgot to 'be aware'* ready to tweak things in the plan as life occurs and alters the twists in this road. I like to forget about the backstage function that allows the show to go on, because it pulls me away from being immersed in the making and doing. 

The problem with not wanting to waste a second is two-fold: first, this forgets the 'elbow a little clearing' idea mentioned in Making Contact, and second it is about striving in my own strength to realise the vision, according to my limited understanding of what today is all about, which ignores the Grains of Sand phenomenon. Yes we need a strategy, and we need to see that strategy in action*. But we need to be humble enough to accept events come and go which affect our trajectory, because what we do is not just about us. We need patience. If it's a good vision, it involves lots of people, so we need to go steady enough to let all those people and ideas and lives dovetail. The backroom is a busy place.

So here I am on a lizzie-day, not wanting to waste a second but occupied backstage. 

Why a picture of B emptying stones onto the beach? I'll tell you tomorrow. x

*For inspiration about being aware in the middle of an A to B vision, thank you Jane Northcote. For Strategy in Action, thank you Jimmy P for being an accomplice. 

{Today's Soundtrack: Doves - Lost Souls}

The Encouraged

Just before Christmas, I went to have a chat with my Pastor about a few things. Not sure I wanted resolution on my musings so much as a wise soul to share them with. There are some ideas about life and what's brewing which are very interesting but to be really honest, I wanted those ideas to go away. I want things to change, but I don't want things to change. 

Get me? No?

Let's try again.

There's stuff that we live with all the time, and it becomes the fabric of us. Some of this stuff is not what you would have described at the dawn of time if the Angel Of Everything You Ever Longed For asked you to describe what you longed for back then. But all the same, it is our stuff, stuff of living, and even if it looks pretty shabby it does honestly describe where we have been and what has shaped us in our lives. By definition, therefore, it comes to inform what we long for. Every day, anew. And some of this stuff is just too wonderful to have imagined in the first place. What I carry now I am amazed by, and would never have thought I would get to carry it. 

I really want to see new iterations of creation and blessing unfold in all sorts of ways, both in my life and other's. I want to get to the end of a windward slog, push the rudder away and breeze downwind with sails wide and full. I do want to see the turning of a corner. But it is not without apprehension too.

Apprehension is to do with fear of leaving the status quo. This is the time to not be afraid. This is the time to remember hearts on the floor, and their being 'scuffed and grubby', full of love and life, with a shimmer and a glint. Everything you carry has tremendous value. Everything you are equipped with is everything you need to pick up and plane when you get around that corner.

Go on, push the rudder away... 

{Today's Soundtrack: Ryan Bingham - The Weary Kind}

The Encourager

One thousand pinpricks in a cloud that hovered too low over a garden of roses and forgot about the thorns.

(Il pleu.)

If you are an encourager, verve occasionally meets its nemesis too large and natural vigour drains from you like rain from a cloud. Why might this happen? You are built and equipped to encourage, surely in all things? The encourager naturally sees possibility where others do not. A fierce grip on all that could be keeps something sparking inside, sometimes long after you should have sensibly backed off. 

I think people who burn with this insatiable, relentless pioneering spirit for the possibility of good in the world are amazing, unbelievable, brave beings. I think to be an encourager—the light in the darkness—is one of the most uncomfortable calls a person can be handed. To shine in darkness you have to go to darkness. It is not so much something you choose, as something you find is happening to you. But this role is also one of excitement, because it means coming in really close to people when they are right on the brink and urging them to keep going, there when the corner is turned. The encourager somehow sees the sense in persevering. There is a glint in their eye; you know it when you see it.

Sometimes—like the cloud—they become so smitten with the roses and forget to be on their guard against thorns. They have love in their gut, and are helpless with it, but that is good for the world.

Do you know someone like this? Be their encourager today.

{Today's Soundtrack: Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell}

Little Wings

People are quite good at grouping together based on what is the same about them, but when we say 'opposites attract', I think it might be because of this thought that duality actually does work to set things in motion. When dual elements unite around a central goal, their movement can be powerful even in tension.

In diverse communities where we live alongside radically different views to our own, so long as we seek common goals then why shouldn't our contrasting experiences serve to hold us together, fluttering with life and perpetually moving forward?

Here, in duality, everything comes together. The left and the right. The east and the west. The male and the female. Shade honours light. An idea that exists in a vacuum has no critical balance and will not grow because it has nothing else to move around. Alone, it will not find its flight-worthy motion when the wind comes. 

Little helicopters — flicker, flicker, flicker — carrying seeds into the places where they will grow. Two wings spread in opposite directions, joined in the centre, perfectly balanced to fly as they fall together.

The tension of duality gives the seed wing.

{Today's Soundtrack: Turin Brakes - Outbursts}

Forests

Forests full of words and thoughts; hopes and dreams and ambitions spread out like thick woodland. The distance is hidden by everything today holds.

I don't want to find a clearing in this forest, I love the shape of the trees too much.


{Today's Soundtrack: Jars of Clay - The Shelter}

Making Contact

When the table top becomes too cluttered with rubbish, sometimes the only thing for it is to elbow some space amongst the junk and create a little clearing, so the thing you thought you had lost might creep out to meet you.

This is what I did the other night, losing time in a darkroom whilst making some photograms. Beautiful old craft, watching the way light falls around objects, capturing the evidence on light-sensitive paper. Standing at the enlarger, gently arranging tiny beads and balancing big glass jars, shining light beams, patiently sloshing the paper through the trays, carefully wrapping washed and dried prints to bring home, sticking them on the wall. No paperwork to file.

Photograms are a form of contact print. Objects pressed onto paper more firmly present a clearer outcome. Punchy, strong true black and true white rely on full contact being made. It is what it is, or it will not be anything. What I hold in my hand is what actually happened, appearing out of nothing because things came together. This immediacy is immensely satisfying. Its clarity is refreshing.

Making direct contact is not complicated. It's all the guff around the edge that gets in the way.

I elbowed space, and it crept out to meet me. I love having made contact again.

Worried about having lost something?


{Today's Soundtrack: U2 - Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For}

Get Your Gumboots On!

Right then, what we need now is a little objective setting. There are ways and ways to approach the turn of new year, making battle plans to obtain the life we wish we lived. But really, the only way to obtain it is to do it.

The last few years, early in January me and some pals have helped each other set 'objectives' rather than 'resolutions'. Time to get your business lingo bingo cards out, I'm talking SMART objectives folks! 

Making resolutions such as 'get slimmer and be more positive' is about a state of mind. You can't induce this anymore than you can induce growing a prize marrow just by thinking about it. These are not good goals to set, and you are likely to end up demoralised because you have not identified how you will get slimmer, or practically what will change to help you with that positive thinking.

Alternatively, setting objectives such as 'cycle to work twice a week, and practice 2 new healthy recipes a week because reducing the amount of crap I eat will have a positive effect on my mood' is about physical, tangible, achievable actions that will naturally lead you to realise those hopes you have to be slimmer and a nicer person to be around. 

To obtain that life you want, you have to do it. Roll up those sleeves and get your work boots on!

What are your top three objectives for a good, practical working start to the year?

*

For more on this, pick up the wonderful Jane Northcote's 'Making Change Happen' for practical and no nonsense advice on identifying, setting and realising objectives. Jane is a business consultant, and commissioned me to illustrate her book with drawings, exercises and question/answer space to make it highly interactive. It is targeted at business people, but I think the advice has a universal appeal. I—an artist—loved it!

{Today's Soundtrack: a blast from the past, The Verve - Lucky Man}

Fire Up

Happy new year everyone! I hope your Christmas time was lush and you are solidly back in the groove – welcome back!

This new year I spent a lovely time with close friends as we wrapped up the year and let the promise inherent in Christmas fire us up for a fresh 2011 start. Curled up around the fire, feasting, chatting, we challenged each other to confront face on what was so hard in 2010, and really, some parts of it were dire. We walked through these experiences to a place of gratitude – gratitude for the fact we faced tough turns in our lives but lived to tell the tale, and are stronger for making it. Further, our faith is deeper that whatever happens God's hand is at work to see us through. So we said some prayers too, unconventionally for a night that supposedly wears the Biggest Party of the Year crown.

What seemed so new about this new year was a resolve that we will not take 'no' for an answer, even after all this. New year is our cultural moment to choose reignition and spark into new adventures, putting the past into positive light and holding torches up for the future. We talked—me and my friends—about what we will remember about making it, and how we will remember, and how these memories will inspire us to grasp all the things we dream of for 2011. 

It's not just the 'what', it's the 'how' too.

It becomes the new year tradition for many, to fill these lanterns with light and float them off into the air. We have gratitude for what has gone before and we have hope for what lies ahead.

Have a wonderful, adventure-filled 2011.

{Today's Soundtrack: Fanfarlo - Reservoir}