Monday, April 13, 2009

Life on a mountain


I have tossed and turned as to whether to write this blog especially with the eclectic bunch of readers that read this, but anyway “it’s better out than in!”

“Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.” Paul Tillich

There have been moments in the last 3 months where I have flitted between a sense of loneliness and solitude, this has not always been real just a feeling that creeps up on me which in reality I know isn’t true but due to a few problems we are having with communications has given me a feeling of isolation.

In isolation your mind plays tricks on you, when you can’t talk to people freely or just get hold of them easily you end up getting low because the people who you normally bounce things off and talk to are distant.

You want to talk but you don’t want to burden people, you’re sitting in a marvelous farm on the top of a mountain getting to live out your dream yet you feel unsettled and not yet comfortable. Why should I be seen to be complaining when we are very definitely living in a place that is a gift from God. I have an overwhelming undercurrent of insecurity and inadequacy threatening my emotional stability that I am suppressing with the hope it will eventually dissolve, however it only increases within me whilst my capacity to hold it at bay appears to be rapidly diminishing.

When we first left for Ibiza we played this song by U2 in the car as we drove away from our home to start a new life here, it was poignant then and is feeling equally poignant today.

I'm 'round the corner from anything that's real
I'm across the road from hope
I'm under a bridge in a rip tide
That's taken everything I call my own

One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
Knowing, knowing

I'm on an island at a busy intersection
I can't go forward, I can't turn back
Can't see the future
It's getting away from me
I just watch the tail lights glowing


Please don’t mis read this as me wanting to give up or come home, after all I don’t know where home is anymore! I’m not even uber depressed I just have this underlying current of unease about being here and the future.

Give me a year when I can see it all working, the centre and the farm harmonizing in effectiveness to extend the kingdom, but right now it is just a massive adjustment.

This verse is sustaining me at this present time:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

Psalm 84: 5

3 comments:

northern girl in the south said...

Sounds like Abraham, who had to go to an odd place to get the blessing. There are times when pioneering when it feels distinctly uncomfortable, but it will get to feeling more 'normal' soon I bet, once God shows you what its all about and why he wants you there. It'll be ace for sure!!

You don't know me but I keep up with your news every now and again and you and your family, and the move to the farm, have been on my mind quite a lot lately the last week or so. Weird eh? I'll pray, hang in and hang on :-))

kiwipaddy said...

good, honest stuff ... and we respect you for sharing it.

wilderness scares me too ...

iceland scared me so much i booked an early flight home, crying for joy when i saw london (and I'm irish!!). on our epic drive around the country to get back to reykjavik we encountered blokes with no nostrils and rotten teeth in fishing villages, fell asleep in the middle of a lava field and saw some of the most breathtaking landscape ever.

all that barren beauty freaked me out and upon return, i missed it.

journeys can be isolating and strange. it isn't always easy or what we think it is going to be!!

looking back provides a totally different perspective ... a few years down the line and this could be remembered very differently.

Anonymous said...

thanks for sharing this brian been readin your blog on and off for 2 years now. about 3 months ago my husband sold his business to work in our church although its something he's felt called to do and something he s dreamt of for a long time there has been times he s felt out of control and afraid. reading this blog has helped to know that even when you know youre in the centre of Gods will you still have adjustment to make.
Often people are afraid to voice these feelings and as a result the feelings intensify.