Beside the manger

Who will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honour, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Brick Lane

I was in London at the weekend visiting my dear siblings and i noticed a bit of street art by Swoon. I've posted some of her work on here before, but never actually seen any in real life, so i was quite glad to notice a piece pasted up in Brick Lane. I like her style.

Grace

‎"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the play and the opera, and grace before the concert and pantomime, And grace before I open a book, And grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, And grace before I dip my pen in the ink." G. K. Chesterton

Back to the start...

To say that my life has been strange in recent years would be an understatement; it's been more than strange. And at times my mind has been like a maze of confusion which i have felt more than lost in. This has meant that i haven't written so regularly and when i have it's tended to be quite heavy. But i miss writing, and i especially miss writing about the kind of things i first set out to write about. It was my aim back in 2007 to use this as a place to help me practically outwork my desire to think about whatever is true and honourable and just and pure and lovely and gracious and excellent and worthy of praise (phil 4.8). And so i'm going to restart this blog, with my original aim in mind.

I love noticing tenderness and grace and beauty in the every day things.. and i love noticing it in the not-so-every-day things too... i also believe that sometimes tenderness can be seen in and through the most obscure and bizarre situations and i think such expressions of tenderness are worth noting and celebrating.

I'm pretty sure i have no readers any more, so i feel free to start writing without the worry of saying silly things. I'm doing this more as an exercise for myself anyway.. an exercise to keep me focussed on things outside myself, to remind me to lift up my head and keep my eyes open, and to re-train myself to speak about all i love, rather than all i fear. So, here we go....