How strange

Remembered this from M. Scott Peck (who died last week) after writing my blog below - he writes rather more articulately than I !!

"How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled to hide our wounds when we are all wounded! Community requires the ability to expose our wounds and weaknesses to our fellow creatures. It also requires the ability to be affected by the wounds of others... But even more important is the love that arises among us when we share, both ways, our woundedness."

View from the hole!

Er hmmm!

Considering R's comments on Monday. Am I stuck up my own arsehole?

I feel that analysis is a part of who I am. Thinking and feeling my way ahead is what comes most naturally to me, and I am not going to deny that side of my character. Can it be unhealthy? Of course, if done to the extreme and without a broader outlook/perspective.

I have been working this year on making the unconscious conscious, realising things I never knew about myself before. Knowledge can bring understanding.

But I want to be a man who is deep as well as wide. This refelctive process is, I think, moving me in that direction. There are no short cuts to maturity. Therefore to chew stuff over and work it through is, for me, healthy. It feels as though it is for a purpose too when people ask me a question and then listen to what I have to say. I haven't sought that in itself, but it is a beautiful bi-product when what I've learnt from my slimy pit (rhyming) experiences can help someone else when they are in theirs. So, this is (literally) the view from the hole!

Am I stuck there? When I have decided to be there alongside a friend. - yes.

Will I get stuck there unintentionally? Well, the journey I am on is to try to prevent that...

Surely life is meant to be about carrying one another? I've needed people to do that for me - Richard you've been one of those in the past.

So perhaps a question for all of us is: "Whose arsehole are you stuck in?
Whose shit are you in just so they don't have to be there on their own?"

Still want to know me? (see "You don't know me" 19/09/05)

Don't Give Up

Though it is one of the most haunting and beautiful in the history of music, I had forgotten about this song. The lyrics are very real right now, and also remind me of Garry (see Uno, dos, tres.... 2/11/05).

Stayed with wonderful friends over the weekend and Chris was reliving how he helped a suicidal woman leave her position on a bridge over the M25, and climb back over the barrier to safety, to life. Remarkable. Life is precious. Life hurts. Shit happens - yep, fair enough. The way it happens sometimes though...

Don’t give up
’cause you have friends
Don’t give up
You’re not the only one
Don’t give up
No reason to be ashamed
Don’t give up
You still have us
Don’t give up now
We’re proud of who you are
Don’t give up
You know it’s never been easy
Don’t give up
’cause I believe there’s the a place
There’s a place where we belong.

Pip writes: "Alicia Keys and Bono have recorded Peter Gabriel’s ‘Don’t Give Up’ to benefit families in Africa living with AIDS. It’s exclusively available as a download from iTunes with proceeds going to the charity Keep A Child Alive." Thanks Pip for blogging about this and helping me see this song again.

"You are getting too stuck...

...up your own arsehole. " Is a comment made by my old mate Richard to my blog below!

Level 5? Absolutely! I really appreciate what Richard has said and want to think about it and respond in due course. Please add your own comments. Love ya Rich.

Bad to worse

Have blogged less the worse I've been feeling, and since 29/11 (below) things have been really up and down.

I seem to be more prone than ever to feeling pain for those close to me. A friend and colleague has just had a roller coaster time - it's not my place to say why at the moment - and it rocked my world last week. Another friend and colleague had similar, grim news on the very same day, and yet another friend has fallen foul of temptation and his marriage is hanging together by a thread. See him this week to talk over...

I started the morning with prayer, reflecting that the very fact of being alive today means that whatever purpose I am here for remains incomplete. There is something I am meant to do today that will make a difference. I hope it will be to bring light into someone's darkness.

I feel I have become isolated of late. I have been so busy with parenting, work, Trusts, meetings, study and exams as to have neglected to be out with and meeting new people. Gonna change that. Had a 'blind' coffee with a friend of a friend on Saturday, who herself has had a tough time. Bit scary but good to get on and do it and it was fun. The Greenbelt thing last weekend would have been great but didn't feel up to it. Still fighting off this cold - damn tickly cough that has me choking and wretching sometimes.

On the up side, recently I got to spend time with a dear friend who (again) has been struggling with various issues. We prayed together and the feedback is of healing - physical and emotional/pyschological. God is good.

Not what I wanted for the weekend

To feel ill and miss football, but not looking good for tonight.

Some good stuff on Sunday hopefully - seeing my sister and two nephews and later one of my god sons to whom I'm known as Uncle Vito - he's called Little Dan - after me! How cool is that !!!!! Feeling better just thinking about it.

Hope to get to a Greenbelt planning session tomorrow too.... Enjoy every breath you take bro'