Monthly Archives: February 2009

Crazy Pete’s got wisdom

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“Things will happen in life that you can’t stop, but that’s no reason to shut out the world. There’s a purpose for the good, and for the bad.”

Crazy Pete in Now and Then

It’s a quote imprinted in my memory along with many others from the same film. Now and Then was the ‘coming of age’ film among girls my age. We watched it at many sleepovers, all of us have copies on DVD and those of us who have younger sisters made them watch it as soon as they turned 12.

But tonight, trying to come up with inspiration for tomorrow’s Sunday Scribbling, I put it on in the background. But I stopped typing when that scene came on because I don’t think I truly appreciated the wisdom of those words before now.

As the character of Samantha narrates:

“He gave me the only gift he could, the lesson it had taken him a lifetime to learn. And although I understood the importance of his words; it’s only now looking back that I understand their meaning.”

Crazy Pete is right. There is so much in life that I can’t stop. I can’t control. And hey, I’m not the only one who can’t control this weird existence. When bad things happen, it’s tough to see what purpose they could possibly have. 

In this economic climate, it’s difficult to see what is good. But is it, tough and horrible though it is for many people, perhaps got its purpose? Does it show us what is actually important? 

I’ll admit that I’ve gone through an awful lot of crap in my relatively short life so far. I list it all in my head and wonder if I imagined half of it, because if someone came to me with my story as their own, I’d be like ‘that can’t ALL happen to just one person‘. For sure, sometimes I think ‘why me? why did I have to get this raw deal?’. Oh how I’d love to say that I’m an amazing selfless contented person. I’d be lying though.

But it’s all relative. There are soooo many people who’ve gone through far worse and still are. There’s pain that I can’t even imagine or understand.

For a long time I tried to shut out the world.

It may work as a survival technique. But it ain’t living.

We can be so afraid of the bad things in life that we miss out on the good.

I don’t want to survive. I want to live. Let’s find that purpose…by living.

 

My mind and curtains are open

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I was struggling to focus on work today, as I wrestled with some issues relating to how I live out my faith and beliefs to others. I spent a lot of the day praying for me, for others, asking God what was best, to give me grace….etc etc etc. 

Today the BBC website was down so I couldn’t put the radio on while I was in the office. I managed to log into my last fm account instead and switched on my playlist. I was in the middle of writing a volunteer report and thinking sporadically about what I should and should not be doing in life.

And this song came on by NOFX (glad no one else was in the office – as um, the language used by this punk rock band is well, yeah…not appreciated by the easily offended?)

“Looks like witches are in season, you better fly your flag and be aware of anyone who might fit the description, diversity is now our biggest fear.

Now with our conversations tapped and our differences exposed, how ya supposed to love your neighbor with our minds and curtains closed?”

NOFX – Regaining Unconsciousness

I’m not the same as everyone else. We live in a diverse world. Church should reflect that. I don’t understand why churches are so scared of what is different. I don’t understand why we all feel we have to wear masks when you look at Job, David’s Psalms, Elijah, Jesus in Gethsemane, Peter on the night Jesus was arrested, Thomas who struggled to believe that the man stood in front of him was his teacher and mentor, Jesus. Church should be a place to be accepted, a place of sanctuary. Not somewhere you are afraid to be yourself or voice your fears and doubts. It’s a place where you be able to take your fears and doubts so you can be listened to, loved, accepted, wisely counselled, encouraged, fed, ministered to.

My mind is open – to listen, to show compassion, to accept people as they are whether I agree with them or not. 

My curtains are open – see my life warts and all…

Shock, horror and surprise – I’m imperfect! Even though I’m a ‘grown-up’, I don’t have it anymore ‘sorted’ than I did when I was 15 years old. The only difference is I’ve lived through more and become a little wiser for it.

Some days I’m happy and I have buckets of faith to lend. Some days I’m struggling and holding on for dear life wondering if God is against me more than for me. Some days I’m sad but I find it easy to hand it over, knowing that God is a being that brings good out of the most crappy situations.

My main reason for blogging is to be transparent, and to be honest and real in both the good times and the bad times. I hope I do that. I hope I continue to try to do that even if it makes people uncomfortable. I want to thank the folks that speak to me and comment on posts that have encouraged or helped them or challenged them or made them think. Trust me – today I’ve gone through previous posts both here and there, with 2 wise women who told me that I should keep it real! And I re-read so many of your comments on those posts that were tough to write because I knew it meant people would see my inner struggles, making me seriously vulnerable. You guys have encouraged me so much in that. So thank you. 

A big koala hug goes out to you…hope you can receive it well on the blogosphere.

:)

Pancakes!!

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A bonus post especially for Lucy @ Looking For Something Deeper who requested some tossing pancake action on film!

Yes, I got very excited about pancake day, much to the amusement of other people. 

I had to giggle that during the 5 seconds of tossing pancake film footage the one word I clearly say is ‘Totally!’ – I soooo overuse this word, and get teased for my tendency to not pronounce that second ‘T’ thanks to my Scottish accent! Or should I say ‘Sco-ish’ accent ;)

 

Evidence that I'm clearly in touch with my 'inner child'

Evidence that I'm clearly in touch with my 'inner child'

Bringing on the joy

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The Art of Joy

The State That I Am In has already written something about the venture our smallgroup is embarking on this Easter. 

We were tasked with the job of ‘loving out loud’ for 2 weeks. Not being a smallgroup who likes to do things by halves, we dreamed big. 

One thing I think all of us would like to change is the great British disease of negativity. It’s something we probably all get sucked into, and it’s not until we go abroad that we discover the joy of optimism, contentment and possibility!

We’re challenged as we’re a bunch of people who love to create (or in my case dream of being able to create something – I have great vision, but very little ability to bring my visions to reality). And in doing so, we want to bring on the joy in this city.

Only we couldn’t call it ‘Bring on the joy‘ because that name has already been taken…

We’ve been able to get space in a converted church building in Edinburgh’s Old Town to run some workshops, and use their Bistro as a gallery space. We’re providing a place for artists to share, display and sell their work that they’ve produced that ties in with the broad theme of Joy. Instead of charging a commission for work that is sold, the usual ‘commission percentage’ is going straight to local charities. 

I got tasked with the job of creating the webspace where we hope to have some pics of the artwork, a little bit about the artists, the workshops and how it progresses.

We hope this isn’t going to be a one-off, but a pilot to see how things go…perhaps The Art of Joy will be a catalyst for new ways of creating and engaging with culture, but also being different at the same time.

A little extra bonus…one of our volunteers noticed when I wrote down the web address for her that not only is it ‘The Art of Joy‘ but when you write it without spaces ‘theartofjoy’ it can become theartofjoy.

So now I’m off to do a Danny Boyle and bounce away with a joy filled heart.

Especially as today is one of my favourite days of the year….PANCAKE DAY!

toss

catchPancake Day 2007 at ‘Number 29′

Spot Winnie the Pooh and Cookie Monster who had their prime spots on my food cupboard!!

The art of corrupting children

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Having been over visiting my gorgeous godson/honourary nephew who by the way has 2 teeth, 2 more coming through and is now walking (and trying to run) at the tender age of 10 months old (he ROCKS!!), as well as spending an afternoon with ‘Timothy’ – a girl that I’ve been “mentoring” for over a year now, I got to thinking about my ‘malteser moments’ and the various ways in which I have been a bad influence on the younger generation.

Some reflections and examples…

1. My sister’s 8th birthday party. I taught all 20 girls in attendance how to eat Milky Ways ‘the proper way’ (it started out with the girls sitting at either side of me, and the next thing you know, word spreads down the table and they’re all doing it). By proper, I mean picking off the top layer of chocolate, the bottom layer, then the sides and then eating the sticky fluffy bit in the middle. Very messy. Very bad table manners.

2. Telling one girl in my last church about how there’s always room for pudding because everyone has 2 stomachs – one for main course, one for sweet stuff. Her Mum (who I didn’t realise was trying to cut down her daughter’s junk food intake) was not best pleased when her daughter used this as an argument to why she should be allowed ice cream. “But Mum, we have 2 stomachs! Laura Anne told me so!”

3. Teaching Elastababy (honourary nephew) how to mosh and headbang. He was about 7 months old at the time? Oh, and trying to encourage him to have ‘Jambo‘ as one of his first words… Gotta start them young…

4. Blowing up ready brek in the microwave and basically turning it into plasticine, and then attempting to make a fruit smoothie with frozen fruit and jamming the blender. “Mum! Dad! You’ll never guess what Laura Anne did at suppertime last night?!?!” To be fair, I didn’t do either of those things on purpose. It’s just that I seem to lack common sense when it comes to kitchen appliances and utensils.

5. Teaching many of my sister’s friends how to do the Macarena. And various Spice Girls dance routines (and dressed them up like Spice girls – we had fake tattoos drawn on with eyeliner and everything!), Time Warp, Saturday Night…

6. Telling teenagers how I got away with doing no work throughout the whole of Standard Grade Maths making it look to my teacher like I had been doing work. What a great role model for them to have!

7. Encouraging 3 boys to bring their toy lightsabres to a church weekend away so we could have lightsabre fights and basically pretend like we were jedi/sith. Their Mum found out and said that “was not a good idea“.

8. I do believe it was me who encouraged my sister to fill up empty Johnsons baby bath bottles with bathwater and squirt them at my Dad when he came into the bathroom. End result: bathroom looked more like a swimming pool.

9. Teaching children how to make funny faces involving sticking out your tongue. Parents turn round and wonder why their child is making a rude face only to follow their eyeline and see they’re responding some silly rude face I’m making to make them laugh or smile. (I never do this in church….*cough cough*)  I think this is my act of rebellion from all the times I’ve heard parents say “If you stick your tongue out one more time, I’ll cut it off with the kitchen scissors”. Or “You know if the wind changes, your face could stay like that”.

10. Teaching my brother and sister (and many other children) how to make a slide on your staircase using duvets.

Travelling Tuesday: Balmedie Beach

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imgp09751
I remember this night vividly. We met in my newly painted living room and headed round from Number 29 to Number 10 so we could all stay up and watch the sunrise on the longest day of the year, in one of Aberdeenshire’s most beautiful places.

Balmedie Beach is just a few miles North of Aberdeen. Home of many Ultimate Frisbee tournaments (which I still maintain is a sport that only seems to be played by Christians…!). It’s amazingly peaceful with gorgeous sand dunes and if it weren’t for the subarctic temperatures you might think you were in some gloriously hot climate!

Together we piled into Cassie and Daffodil (my friend’s bright yellow 2CV). We sang songs, played tin whistles and guitars, chatted and just had fun being silly together, before we climbed on top of the sand dunes to watch the sunrise. It was breathtaking, and I remember how we all felt the need to whisper

It was also the beginning of the end of an era. Two of us were about to graduate. 3 of us were about to get married. 1 of us was about to start a PhD. Within a year, several of us had left Aberdeen for good as we ‘moved on’.

I remember feeling like one of the luckiest people in the world. I felt settled and accepted for the first time in I don’t know how long! I had an amazing family of friends who had stuck by me even when I seriously sucked to be around. I had finally finished uni. I wasn’t sure what lay ahead, but I felt like no matter what came next, I could get through it because I had this incredible community behind me that I could trust.

All travelling is a journey, and sometimes I think it’s not all about the experience, but who you share the journey with.

Koalabrella
Balmedie Beach

Jud & La’s South African Adventure

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Welcome to another MBC blogger…the lovely Judith (not that I would ever normally call her Judith). Jud and I met a couple of years ago at Imagine, and a few months ago over a hot chocolate in Beanscene we got talking about how both of us were feeling a few nudges to go out to South Africa. Just at the start of the New Year, Jud sent me a message to say ‘I can go to Soul in the City’, and at that point I knew that was it. There were no more excuses not to go too.

picture-11Jud and I are going to  be documenting our adventure on our blog

http://scotlandmeetssouthafrica.blogspot.com

It’s not just about the few weeks we’ll be spending in Durban, but the obstacles we’re going to have to overcome to get there. Like how we’re going to get to the training and orientation day in Watford next month, or how we’re going to raise the funds to do all of this.

And then there is the plane factor. Jud’s terrified of going on the plane in case she is sick. I’m terrified of going on the plane in case someone I’m sitting next to is sick. Yeah, we’re going to be great travel  buddies. Lol.

I will of course still be carrying on my usual rants, links and banter here on WordPress.

 

And completely unrelated:

Happy Birthday!

to an amazing friend

(both ‘in real life’ & on the blogosphere)

:)

Flower of Scotland Friday: If and Irn Bru

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t I love Irn Bru adverts. And this one (which I posted a while ago on my previous blog) is a great ‘Flower of Scotland Friday’ one…

If you can bounce in six inch heels all night, and still walk home in your bare feet

I used to have approx. 2 mile walk home from town centre if we’d been out clubbing. My shoes would be gorgeous, but man by the end of the night my feet would be so messed up. So I walked home in bare feet. On the manky pavement (one time I stood in seagull poo – yuk). In Scotland. One time my boyfriend tried it, and he lasted about 5m before he went ‘HOW CAN YOU DO THIS?! IT’S FREEZING!!!’

Yes. Yes it is.

If you can keep two passions burning bright and still see there’s some romance in defeat.

Man, I would have been skinned alive if I’d ever gone out with a Celtic supporter (I come from a long line of Protestant Rangers fans). But if there’s one thing we’ve got in sport, it’s passion. We’ll be decked out in saltires, tartan and all the rest. We’ll be singing and partying – and keep going even when we lose. We’ll be partying right alongside the people that beat us. You don’t see that from many countries. Especially in football…

If you can hit a foreign beach without a tan, or brave the howling sleet in just a shirt.

Scotland never really gets hot. Seriously, if it reaches 18°C (64°F) in summer. We’re like ‘HEATWAVE’. We’re stripping off, getting out paddling pools, because we know in a couple of hours it will probably be pouring down with rain again.

And it never ceased to amaze me how little clothing some women wear in an Aberdeen blizzard. (Would you be out in strappy heels, bare legs, mini skirt and sleeveless top when it’s blowing a gale, snowing in freezing temperatures? Me neither!!)

And it’s because of our cold weather, that we look the colour of milk bottles, and a suntan usually means we look like lobsters because our skin isn’t used to that thing I think they call sunshine. :)

If you know you’re easily the better man when side by side with suits in just a skirt.

A common sight in Scottish hotels and airports everywhere. And yes, I’ve got many friends who wear their kilts like ‘true scotsmen’ (ie they don’t wear underwear).

If you can party in the summer rain, with kamikaze midges in the mud

Summer music festivals. One giant mudbath (although I don’t think it’s all rain – some of it is from the the guys and girls using the world as their urinal). Lots of midge bites (seriously, how do they get through your jumpers and everything!?!)

Or grit your teeth and put up with the pain of seeing in the New Year in the scud.

January. In Scotland. Let’s go jump in the North Sea naked! Yes, lots of people do this. People go to North Queensferry to do the ‘Loony Dook’ in the Firth of Forth – pictured in the video!

If you can wait and wait for 1p change, then proudly give the lot for charity

You know, I ordered pizza the other night, and they never gave me my 1p change. I was a little bit annoyed about that! 

But yes, we do wait for it. And because 1p is pretty worthless and they clog up your purse/wallet/pocket most of us pop it straight into the charity box at the till.

And know for certain it’s not strange to call your lunch ‘dinner’, and your dinner, ‘tea’.

Although I call my lunch ‘lunch’. But I get so confused when I’m in England and they call ‘lunch’ ‘tea’. Tea is at 6 p.m. people – not the middle of the afternoon!!!

If you can handle people that call you ‘Jock’, then you’ll have really earned your Irn Bru

Well, I’m a girl. So people don’t tend to do that. But for some reason people call girls ‘hen‘ here? That really  bugs me. But what can you do? Other common ones are ‘the bairn’ (child) ‘Big Yin’ (big man) ‘Wee man’ (short man or somebody’s son)

You’ll thank your Mum for keeping you in stock, and what’s more, you’ll feel phenomenal too.

Several of my male friends at uni had parents that would bring them crates of Irn Bru when they came to visit. And Scotland’s oldest man swears that the reason he’s lived so long is because he drinks a glass of Irn Bru every day.

(I’m not totally convinced on that one…!)

Sunday Flashback: My confession

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 At smallgroup on Tuesday, we were discussing…um…something…(what were we discussing…?!?! We go on too many tangents)…but somehow we got talking about learning styles. 

I’m a kinesthetic learner, which means I learn by ‘doing’. I have a very difficult time trying to learn by just listening. I just don’t take it in.

My smallgroup friends were asking me what the sermon was about on Sunday night and all I could remember was that it was ‘Mark 5 – the story of the bleeding woman and Jairus’s daughter’. 

I couldn’t remember anything more than that.

Want to know why? Because while our Senior Pastor (who incidentally is a very gifted teacher, and is actually one of the few people who can engage my attention so that I learn something) was preaching his heart out, I was transfixed by the post-it notes we’d written names on and stuck on 2 blackboards, in my own little world, and having the following conversation with myself:

“…those post-it notes are really bugging me. Could I get away with nipping right over there and sticking those post-it notes back on? Oh…another one is flapping….oh….it’s going to fall off…..oh maybe it’s not…..hmmm…..oh hang on, I should be paying attention. Or at least I should like I’m paying attention. Oh, crap those Marriage course people are behind me. They’ll think I’m an awful Christian if I’m not paying attention. Oh no! There it goes….oh, look how it just kind of floats to the floor like an autumn leaf…that’s kinda pretty. Hang on, there are others on the floor now too. When did they fall off?  And look how those pink heart shaped ones are next to each other. It would look so much better if they had a blue or green one in between….I wish I hadn’t started thinking about that. Ok, Laura Anne, stop staring at the blackboards…………I wonder if any more have fallen…..yeah, there’s another one about to go……It’s really, really bugging me now. It’s like when people hang their washing up with and have clothes pegs of the same colour next to each other………yeah, why does Jesus do that to the poor bleeding woman? Oh no, are they going to use this as reason why we should up to the front for prayer or something. That would be awful…every time I end up crying and it’s always when I’ve got mascara AND eyeliner on so I look a right state, don’t want people…..uh oh, there goes another one!…..I wrote 5 names on that post-it note, should I only have written one, maybe I should have written that person’s name instead of that person…it’s too difficult….but then….oh I don’t know…I wonder what other people wrote. And I can’t believe I had to write on a pink post-it note. I hate pink. Why do people give ME the pink post-it note because I’m a girl. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I like pink. I DON’T LIKE pink. It’s all sweet and sickly. Hang on, what am I thinking, does it really matter what colour post-it note I write on? That was hardly the point of that whole exercise! Ok. Pay attention……………….. Nope, I’m totally lost. I have no idea what he’s talking about now…focus, Laura Anne, focus!…………hmmmmm………..maybe before we go back on the stage I’ll have the chance to fix the post-it notes...”

Oops. It would seem that my friends are correct in their conclusions: I’m far too easily distracted.

And I’m a basketcase.

Yes, I am ‘that person’ who starts rearranging things in shops. I have been known to go into friend’s houses and put their DVD or CD collection ‘into order’. 

I’m really sorry for not paying attention. I hang my head in shame… :(