I was made for Afternoons

thanks for the comments dear freends it warms me ole heart to know that (a) someone reads this thing and (b) they actually care what is happening to me so in response... mike, great words of wisdom which i needed to hear with both ears, head and heart Antony, your monastic inspired friendship and prayers are more valuable than you know Coralie, love ya and know you want the best for me re -reading this reflection made me want to dwell a little more on some of what moving inside me for once in my life it seems like this is about truth and I don't say this lightly all the resonance i have with the monastic and liturgical traditions is useless if they are not truthful (to me? to us all? feeling a bit postmodern right now...) so my thinking is about truth where i truly see the spirit in both a personal and community sense using my heart and head all the while realizing that i use my own "frame" (thanks mike) or paradigm to see things through and this truth has become beyond w...

so here's where the truth comes out many of you know that I was received into the catholic church nearly 5 years ago now at New Norcia Easter 2002 it was majestic and beautiful the right thing for me in all ways and then... finding a catholic home has been harder than i could have ever thought i love the monks the liturgy the silence the sacramental life the beauty of the worship a noble simplicity but local parishes give me the whoops good liturgy in Perth is hard to find... so i drifted back to my wife's parish whilst i couldn't stand the "worship" the new minister is a good guy accepted me for what i am and needed my help for ideas about the church year and structuring services and taize and all that is good and great and i felt needed and useful but... in that lies the rub. not finding what I need but just putting up with where they need me not being true to my confirmation beliefs especially eucharistically but settling for something else than what i believe...

Off to Church we go and then the day really begins children to be taught endless forms for checking distributed this morning gotta control all we see gotta get it all on paper i have written about all this before see how the themes come around again ------------------------------------ i didn't plan on lent being this way but it seems like this year away from the themes of balance n prayer n stuff into displacement and angst unsettled thoughts about the world and the future about the church and what the hell I think I'm on about about upsetting the apple cart of my all too comfortable middle class existence listening to ancient words applying them to new contexts think outside the shape which we are conditioned into perhaps this is real lent to live on the fringes of yourself listening to your long lost dreams holding on to promises and imaginings and becoming new in the process