the chrismas story so far...

back in belast once again, this time i was very glad to see home, last week was mental. since wednesday morning when i arrived home in my tux from the waterpolo christams dinner at 9am until last night when I arrived in belfast at 9pm I had had about 18 hours sleep, thats 18 in 108hours and most worrying of all only saturday night was it a result of being out. the other whole time was consumed with doing two huge courseworks. One a paper on Audio visualisation for VJing, and the other creating a martian landscape using computer graphics, but no drawing allowed every thing had to be programmed in maths, ie if you want the car to drive down the hill you have to work out the heigh of the hill at that point from a matrice of the landscape, compare it to the size of the car and work out what the new poistion to draw it at.

on the plus side it was only the second time i have actually felt i had given a good shot at something i was mean to be doing and i have also seen friends in london and birmingham on the way.

which is where the title come from, on sunday I had lunch with the betel community in the uk, a friend on mine has been living with them for a while. The Christmas story of Jesus being born to reunite people with their heavenly dad and remove what the world and selfishness has stolen suddenly took a new level of impact. The leader of my friends community was a category A prisoner under 23 hour lock down for armed robbery for 7 years. He now is, becuas of his relationship with Jesus, working in this Betel house helping about 30 people recover from drugs and alcohol addiction, with a beatuiful wife and young family.
Everyone loves a bad guy come good story at this time of year, but when you consider the power of Jesus in his life to take him from hopelessness to being a leader of hope, its pretty inspiring.
It is also challenging, I met a guy who was healed of hepatitus, after being a junkie for 20 years he had been tested positive, they guys had prayed for him and he is now all clear.

waves

Had an aweseom weekend, houseparty with 5 DJs all of who have residencies in southampton, me vjing, loads of people and a 5am slow down, saturday flew out to asda with ed in his toyota mr2, I woul definately kill myself driving that. saturday night did photography of gojira playing at the brook also saw the aweseom kid carpet and electric method who are dj/vj mash up kings. then was doing the sound desk at church, so really appreicated everyone's music as i was listening out all the time. then did photos and on out to jonny's stag do with Brown playing the sweetest funk since 1975 in the fat cat.

now for something completely different.

reading my "Visual Music" book doing research for my project and its talking about the discovery that music and colour are both waves of energy that the ears and eyes interpert to give us sound and sight. This kinda makes you see how its natural that they be closely related in our minds (ie if asked to play a note on a piano to represent yellow would play something high or low? answer in comments)

but that then made me think even more especially in relation to infa-red, its a colour on the specturm that is beyond what our eyes pick up, or a sound above 20,000Htz is beyond our ears. Spiritual experiences are almost always described by those who have had them as "energy", "warthm" or somes sort of having receieved energy from somewhere else. What if spirituality is a waveform of energy we have not tracked yet, one that we use our souls to recieve. God promises to reveal himself to anyone who would seek Him, who would wait on Him. Prehaps this is not just some sitting in an empty room, but a learning to recieve another waveform that is ourside our ears and eyes.

maybe its not that foreign or wierd, "where did that idea come from" is a common phrase but what is it actually asking? i dont think creativity is an internal process, "where did your inspiration come from?"

tune

hats off to the blog father charls for another first tunes on the blog, so if the wind is in the right direction (you have speakers jacked and media player installed) you should be enjoying the mighty snow patrol.

apart from that i've been posting on jesus :: cube :: us cause its been going off a bit, and did have a legend fry today

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anywhere, anything

i would go anywhere do anything just to prove myself to anyone. sometimes that leads to great adventures, other times disasterous consequences, but ultimately it robs me of identity. what would i do if i really didnt care what anyone thought? dont know never been there.

sometimes i dare to be different, but is that partly cause i like the idea of people seeing me as someone who dares to be different? i think this is also very true of my religion, what would Jesus do? what would these ppl think Jesus would do?
cause Jesus left his job, made wine, trashed templets, hung out with prostitues and got killed by the authorities. yet somehow that gets equatedd to being nice, getting up early on sunday and not doing anything too risky.

that means lots of me is bottled up, only to be released in rare occasions that have to be appologiesd for afterwards. thats not a life lead by a loving relationship with God, sometimes maybe when no one's lookin i might be genuine, or carry a passion from my heart beyond these bounds of opinion, but these are the exception not the rule.

but no more, if God's grace and power are all conqueoring, which i belive they are, then out of the bottle i come all the bits, exposed to his light that which does not benefit will go, and in the mean time i will not be listening to any voice that says what will people think...

free

its all good over here in the head of graham.
went to chris' on wednesday my head wreked with work and stuff to be done, had got a letter from a friend telling me to wait on the Lord, like isiah 40. went and chilled then chris stuck on the passion of the christ dvd on mute, while mike played an amazing some about Jesus being King of Glory and it is finnised. Over the next hour got a new understanding of how Jesus life and death were to put us and me back with God, so trying to be good to show God i deserve his love, is totally pointless, it can never be done and its an insult to Jesus.

I am free to do anything at all, with the Holy Spirit inside us transforming us, it is His responsibilty to change me, to influence people to work miracles. mine is just to go along with it. Jesus power is greater than our desires, so if we are trying not to sin we've missed the point, our desires to do will be delt with by God. so that instead of repressing ourselves we will be transformed into people who freely do all they love and those things are amazing things.

the short term side effect is slight chaos, having been in a place where i have been repressing feelings for a physical realtionship with girls, trying to prove myself "holy" to him as i have realised his total love for me i allowed temptation to get the better of me last night. which throws a much controversial light on the whole situation...

but i really cant cope with the concept of trying to measure up to some mental image of what God's standard might be, so ill journey down this road a little further...

for great talks and bible stuff on all this go here its long but so good. check the whole gracecenterfranklin.orf audio stuff.

yo comprendo nada

abition exceeds talent.

just had a fight with my house mate joe, we were wearing ian and martin's kungfu headgurads and mitts but it was still pretty sore :)

apart from that all a bit busy and confused at the minute. so much going on i want to do, then other stuff suffering then me getting tired then flying off to fabric on friday for a mad one with just me and Jesus. crazy friends falling over laughing in the holy spirit, ppl getting married good music, food ,sleep loosing swimming trunks and googles, letting people down making a crap wesite tooo much

need to stop

dont understand much

welovestudents.blogspot.com

alright the world,

its all going off in southampton, a few of us have begun prayer clubbing in our students union the cube, the revolution's online home is here

it was pretty awesome of friday, one girl got prayed for healing of chest infection, nearly all of us had God chats with ppl, lots of dancing like we didnt care, laughter, fun and prayer. love it.

apart from that usual up and down stuff, internet still doing my head in a bit, joe my house mate got baptised and waterpolo is going well.

taking photos at a wedding this weekend which will be stressful / fun...

love?

Reading 1 john 4:7 - 5:5
My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. In cell last night and again today.




What is love? Can we understand it? Can I understand it?

Is love proved in life? in death?

We all seem to want to, need to be loved, it calls from deeper than consciousness...

Should it then be left undefined? Allowed to flow freely in us as a true heart cry, a true desire?

Is there a balance? To wrestle with our minds to try and understand what we seek,

to dream of love without trying to put it in a box and rob it of its mystery....

on a lighter note

Our bathroom just got done but the shower is kicking out cold water, so after a fine fry up barn and I decided to sort it out... A truely ingenius use of a tap to shower attachement, a funnel, string, clear tape and the tin thingy from a chinese take out and bobs your uncle shower de funne has been born.

kayne west and the craic

the legendary relivant magaine are now doing a broadband tv and if you click the picture or here you can watch Kayne West's Jesus walks video. I know its not exactly hot of the press but it is very relivant to what i have been thinking about recently.

Many a further detachment from traditional christian views, reason and rational thought as fundementals of my world view. It is the logical conclusion from a philosphey which places greater value on the spiritual than the physical but that doesnt mean it doesnt feel a bit wierd.

i felt really uncomforable at a christian union meeting last friday where they were talking about focusing on "preaching the gospel" not social action, but perfectly at home in the 24-7 boiler room in london, where people were talking about giving up their jobs to work in dodgy bars because they feel God's love for the people there.

what do yous think?

hello

This is a wee bit of design I did for a friends band, who are awesome, live vj, dj, drums, bass, 2 vocalists and one genius at the helm of it all on synth and mac. Now thats a band,

Anyway i am about to start uni again tomorrow. I am a bit disorgainised, which probably wont surprise to many of you, but this being third year and me wanted and chilled out productive year is a bit annoying.
On the plus side my room is totally transformed from a damp minging mess to a chilled out bright airy little bit of home.
Spiritually things are cool, went on a little mission to bristol cause i felt God say go. It was awesome, nothing spectacular happened just went up and hung out with emma who is a legend. We had some great chat. Was once again challenged by the grace of God. Was sitting out the back having a great chat over a cigarette with emma. Im no big smoker and obviously the damage it does long term is well known, but just in that monment to enjoy a smoke and have a deep chat felt like it was almost the reason I had come. Although I would be the first to say that smoking etc arent core issues to faith in Jesus, when it came to a moment when I was faced with the situation it was a little weird to do it and feel right about it...


anyway on a much light / cooler note here is a chance for you and me to get a free mac!! you just follow this link and sign up then do a trial eg rent a dvd from a company called Screen select. Then you will be given a link so you can get 10 friends to do the same. THEN YOU GET A FREE MINI MAC. You have to have a credit or debit card, but my house mate got an ipod from a different company for free so it does work!

you should be dancin'

I stuck a few new photos up here from a not too recent night out in belfast. but it ties in nicely with a advertisement for the below:

Sat 15th October - Clubbers, DJs, missionaries, musicans, punters, prayers, dancers, creatives & church planters will be gathering at the city of London Boiler room (The Basement, 4-14 Tabernacle Street, London, EC2A 4LU) to pray, dream & scheme about influencing the underground scene. We've in Ibiza, Ayia Napa, & Tenerife among a few places, but Britain needs breakthrough too!--> you are a part of an underground movement in the making.

blam!

blam

alright the world this week has been, creative, productive, messy

i did this pic for rae and chris' wedding present which they havent got yet so if you know them dont say...


listened to a cool talk on Grace Franklin its the living in the spirit one,

goes well with some of that stuff in the post two down called Hope of Glory

back in the hood

after a marthon drive from stranrar in scotland down to southampton via lemmington (to drop off soph) i am now in my student house. yo. looking forward to the year.

the photo is from rae's wedding yesterday, it was very beautiful with great food and jazz. wierd to think one of my halls mates from first year is now fully married, but i suppose thats the way it goes.

was at a church this morning called oasis in the south of london. really awesome. just very average looking people genuinely chasing God, with a fantastic understanding of how little it has to do with us, and so the time spent with God "soasking in His presence" is really good for you.

feeling a bit tired so going to slide off...

Hope of Glory

this is a picture a drew in my journal today.

It kinda sums up how im feeling. Pretty crap but sure that God has "the love I
need to get me through" (olive - your not alone TUNE)

On Friday I was driving too fast, skidded around a corner and cracked the front
wheel off the kerb. Thankfully I didnt hit anyone or thing else but for the sake
of putting the brakes on two seconds earlier it is costing me £150 I dont have
and so much grief with the parents.

Basically I perpetually damage the car, say sorry, help out round the house and
then a wee while later do it all again. It got me thinking about how
many of the mistakes I make in my life over and over and over again.

Everytime its like, "Well at least I wont do that again" but really I do.
How do I learn my lesson how do I change? I think on one level I need to wind
my neck in eg dont drive like a lunatic, but then on a deeper level and for
loads of the other stuff, its a bit like paul when he said

"I decide to do good, but i dont really do it; i decide not to do bad, but then i do it anyway.
My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong
deep within me and gets the better of me every time." - rom 7v19>

he then goes on in romans 8 to give a hope for how this might be changed,

3God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.

5Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God! 6 Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. 7 Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God....

12 So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it--yourself life one red cent. 13 There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. 14 God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

I think this is the hardest part for me, to trust that there really is a God who cares about each moment I am alive, that He has little adventures in each day, and that I dont have to run around trying to achieve something on my own but just listen to Him.

but two things I am sure of I really dont want to ding the car again....
I really dont want to do to cheat on anyone else...

a wee bit

Belfast's local radio across the line which is legend, not just because i have won their competition a bunch of times (about 4 ppl enter :) but tonight they are doing a chat about the relivance of religion to their listeners (age range prob 15-25) so i thought id blast in my 2p (feel free to throw yours in the comments)

christianity:
im not big on religious institutions but Jesus is the most important thing in my life, i find it easier to worship Him on the dancefloor of shine than by singing hymns written a few hundred years ago. i think that Jesus' love for everbody for who they are not what they have done has not really been publicised over the last 50 years and instead there is a general, big school teacher in the sky image of God, which probably stops a lot of people from considering religion in their lives...

however a i think that a relationship with him requires a selfless decision that is probably an increasing culture shock to our self-centerd society.

the photo is part of the adobe design awards taken by a mr david field

2many djs not enough time

last week flew by, doesnt seem like i have been back for a minute, yet it feels like a few months aswell.
did a VJ course which was amazing, making the visuals for a dj's set from computer animation, 3D modelling, film making, flash, grahpics and of course photography.

went on the traditional trip to cushendall with a few friends on friday, which was sweet, except for forgetting what time it was and laura very nearly missed her flight.

my wee sis had her 18th birhtday party, was pretty disappointed by the fellas drinkin alco-pops instead of beer, and mad to see her mates from when she was wee all grown up.

then last night went to shine for 2 Many DJs it was totally legend, about 4 taxi's of us went together and danced till sweat ran in my eyes the bass was all in our face and the boys from belgium rocked our world.
highlights
*two of them twiddling drum loops for a few minutes, working the crowd up and then droping "teenage kicks" - brillant
*having communion with anna and catherine at the side of the dancefloor
*everyone chanting one more tune for about 5mins and getting them to come back on for another 15mins
*went back to a party at alex & helens apartment until 11am this morning

so now im tired and i have to put together my first vj set for our course graduation tomorrow....

trust me on the pin number

in baz lutherman stylee if i have one piece of travel advice for anyone...
dont forget you pin number. especially if you are in ukraine where no one speaks english, especally if there banks dont take chip and pin, especially if it costs a bomb to use the internet or ring home, especially if you need to book a flight home, especially if you have to get buses between travel agents, internet and banks etc ad infitium.

there has been loads happening since siget some good some bad. i nearly went to russia but the visa was $300, so then i have to refund a plane and train ticket i had to buy to prove i was going to leave the country to get a visa. i have basically spent the last four days trying to sort it all out and contunally banging my head off language barriers. i have been flapping like a big bird. which is not really what i had in mind for this trip / pilgramige. but the few times i have chilled and listened to God have been cool. was singing folk songs with a drunk outside a church last night - he did one ukrainian i did one irish.

today i visited a set monastry site that was about the size of Dungannon, it was mad, so many churchs and caves and paths and lanes. didnt really understand much cause the english guide was $30 which is more than my hostel costs for a night!
it was mad, but definately felt the beard went down well. I havent shaved for about 3 weeks now, so even not so manly me has grown a fine ginger snot catcher. lovely

right im gone

what a feeleeng

Sziget for president.
forget Glasto or Oxegen, its the biggest festival in europe 350,000+ on an island in the middle of budapest, pure maddness. I have been along for the last two days helping out with amnesty international(free tickets) with my host nora. its been great craic and we finnish around 5 before any of the bands start playing. monday saw morceeba, nice and chilled at sunset, then last night went with bunch of hungarians to see their local heros Anima Sound System - kinda drum and bass, with a flute... nice. But you aint seen them till you seen 50,000 hungarians dance to them :) after that i lost one group of friends and found another (all these ppl had been workin at the stand too) and went to see Underworld, its was class.
the best big was when some random girl asked me to hold 3 drinks while she called her friends, after an unsuccessful call she gave me a drink and a smoke - pure grace.

then around 11 those guys were leaving so it was looking like an early departure until.... "ole ole OLE OLE" a big crowd of irish marched past, score. It was a group of about 10 or so who were collected up from different twos and threes to make one big crowd of craic. No sooner could you say "what part are you from?" and we were all giving it stacks in the techno tent until about 4.

I dont know any other nation who would just pick each other up along the way like that. go on ireland

we eventually made it down to a campsite to see dawn and listen to a cork man rippin the piss out of sean de paul, which was pure genius. i fell asleep in someone's tent around 7 and had the hardest cycle of my life back to the aparment just now, hanging, with my first ever hay fever and the killer sun beatin down on me for about half and hour, missions....

the adventure continues....

the end of the team

So after the last post and general considerations plus a night out wine tasting with the team I ended up kissing Sarah, one of the girls on the team. She is someoen who i had liked since I met her in April but hadnt really got to know her until the team.

Anyway, it was a none to sublte affair and when we got back with the "help" of Mick, it all kicked off big time. Ruth my co leader went mad at me, which is fair enough, but i was not really hearing it, Sarah got upset, my wee sis started backin me up and it all ended in tears.

The next morning everyone was hung over and still angry, plus it was our last day in Csurgo and still raining (so we couldnt do much on the site. It was all looking pretty grim, and that the cool team was finnished, but after some appologies, prayer, time to sleep and the weather improvin so we could do a few more hours on the site in the afternoon, we were back together.

It made me realise how much a leader's actions affect a team, instead of just Sarah and I having to work things out the next day it was everyone. I never anticipated such a negative reaction. A cool thing was that I didnt get the usual panic and ignore / leggit feeling after being with Sarah, just felt chilled and spent some time with her over the next few days, i dont know what will happen because she is just qualified as a teacher in dublin and ill be in belfast and heading back to Southampton.

Apart from that the end of the team was good in budapest, but I was pretty tired and glad to have been chillin today. I am staying with a couple Nora and Bryson from america who live here, they have an awesome apartment and have given me a set of keys, and an open invitation... sweet

better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all

thinkin deeply the yesterday on the bus, reading Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning, it has a bit about gratitude and being grateful for all of our lives not just the "good" bits or people. it really challenged me, it feels liberating to think that God has been working through all things but then can i really say that some of the stuff i have done to other people was somehow something to be grateful for?

when in a vaguely disconnected way brought me on to thinkin about whether or not it is better to love and loose than never love at all? like if you are in a situation where you could get into a relationship with someone, knowing that ultimately and probably quite soon you will have to go your separate ways, is it better to do that for the good times with each other or does the risk of hurtin the other person mean its better to leave it?

is that loving and loosing?

Csurgooooooooooo

alright,
so its already tuesday of week two, in hungary that means time is flyin, but then it always does when you are away/doing somthing cool. we have been doing some hardcore building, hammerin like theres no tomorrow and by the grace of God not hitting or hatin each other yet :)

so cheers for the prayers and keep it real.

eagasheagrada(cheers)

gone

in about 10 hours ill be boradin a plane to hungary,

i am going with 7 others, from dublin mainly ages from 19 to 31, a random band who agreed to let me be their leader and go house building in csurgo.

its cool cause i can remember when i felt like God challenged me to lead the team, sittin on a sofa in homegroup and now 6 months and €15,000 later we are all set, for some it will be there first time on a plane, most first time out of the western world, and adventure for sure.

you can keep up to date with our team blog

andfor me its my first time leading a team internationally, so please pray :) afterwards is going to good craic too, going travelling with no fixed agenda, just see what God is saying....

the pic is a bit mad, i searched google images for "gone" and it came up, so i thought id stick it on :) check out more here

rise up

I watched the film The Corporation its pretty good / mad. Mixed in with Pete Greig's Arise and build talk from Transmission, and my general feelings...

The way in which international corporations are currently functioning, with no accountability or independant montioring body, is naturally leading to them doing all sorts of seriously heavy and bad stuff, as the saying goes "Power corrupts and absolute power corupts absolutely".

But how could they be truly held accoutnable? most of the countries where they do some of the worst stuff, the government of that country bent over backwards to try and attract the corporation because overall they know it will help their economy, so therefore have no power whatsoever to try and hold them accountable.

If the WTO or World Bank stopped trying to represent these corporations and started worring about what sort of a would they are creating, maybe they could do something, but that would require a 180 degree turn in practice. A revolutionary change.

I think that to wait for those with all the power and wealth to give that up will not be within this generation. I think this is the challenge of our generation. We could enter these bodies and try and redirect them from the insdie, however their structures and beaucracy coupled with the level of change I belive to be essential means that i think an external opposing force will be the only way to effect the neccessary change.

Im not talking about some fight club stylee homework, more in the line of martin luther king or the fella in the photo. What if we formed and international coalition, and in the same day all travelled to our major ports and blocked the road? You see no matter what the company if they make it for cheap over there, they have to get it to the shop to sell it for deer here. That means there is a bottle neck of all these things at our ports.

To block the roads for a few days or a week, would be sufficient to get the worlds attention. It would take a lot of careful planning and communication to try and get the message through corporation owned news networks but could it work?

transmitted

what happens when you loose control?
where do you go?

i dont mean driving a car too fast but if you let go of everything that weighs you down or pisses you off and focus on one beautiful concept, person or being.

i was at Transmission for the weekend, I have never felt like I did there. Intensity of emotion, passion, dancing, prayer. It was raw and it didnt belong to a 2D spiritless reality. On the saturday night shakin like crazy to some awesome music, I felt like I touched the celestial realms. It didnt sound crazy when a lady later challenged us to pray for physical healing for each other, nor did the perpetual rhythm that we need to do something, not just pray or say something....


http://del.icio.us/starry_sal/t-shirts

london crying

just arrived in london last night, staying with a mate, he woke me up with a text after leaving for work asking me to find out why the tube wasnt working...
suddenly there are 6 bombs all over the underground and bus system of london. my mate ended up having to walk to work took him about 2hours in the crowds, its all a bit mad.

but its also a bit scary i grew up in belfast during a lot of terrorism but this is different, they didnt try to kill people but to stop the traffic, the FTSE dropped and the pound lost a cent against the dollar, that probably cost the country more than cleaning up after a huge bomb blast. also from a pr point of view in the middle east people who hate what the us and uk are doing in their part of the world are going to be a lot slower to condem something that cost money instead of lives.

but also the government response was a bit mad, they were called it power surges for the first few hours, properly trying to cover it up, and looping the same 3 minute clip all morning.

i am staying out at finsbury park which is about 20mins from the centre normaly but the streets are a bit subdued, everyone looking at each other a bit different...

laughin

this is a world time first, someone sent me something funny enough on email to link it from my blog, its Pulp Fiction in 30 seconds retold by bunnies, genius. check it out
its also my last ever day in work, it doesnt feel like nine months ago I first sat down at this computer and now its over. was it worth it? defo, year in industry teaches you a few things no amount of uni can... actually i hate it when ppl say stuff like that. "oh you wouldnt have any idea" I learnt a bunch of stuff here, I didnt learn in lectures, you might well not have your head as far up your own arse as me and not have to spend a year in an office to discover the stuff i have.
the most important thing i think i learnt, is that no matter what job it is on what scale(from head of the UN to the office cleaners) its still a normal human being, and therefore there is no reason why you and me cant talk to them on the same level, or get a job like them.
dont ever let anyone else tell you what you are going to do, from Paddy the sound heroine addict on the street to Juan the education minister of Cuba, we are all the same.

if you could pause reality tonight, where would you wake up tomorrow and what would you be doing?

warm up to the weekend with Timothy Wisdom, this guy is genius get involved on the low down dirty sound mix... sweet

rockin,

last night a church was sweet, God really showed up, such a sense of freedom I try to break dance at the back without worrying what ppl would think:), the dude who spoke was great, about prayer a of Habakuk's (in Hab 3), who was a prophet in the old testament, who was saying to God, "rightso I heard you did all this amazing stuff in times gone before, but will you do it again now?"

Contrary to popular/my belief everyone in the old testament didnt cross the read sea, see goliath be killed and build the temple. Some were around in times that had nothing but the stories of God's great miracles and works.... sounds familiar

the dude who was speakin was fairly old and was like, "yeah I would be dead but Im hanging round to see God move miraculously again". I suppose I have always had that distant hope or wild dream that we could rock around like Jesus or the disciples and just heal people, raise people from the dead. Hanging around this part of the world those ideas kinda slip into the "and i wish i could fly like superman" part of the brain.

but i think its coming, i truly believe that Jesus power is the same, and that He loves people enough to want to heal them, and tell us special things that only He knows to encourage them and let them know who he is. Its happenin all over the world, laura my mate is seeing it...

the greatest miracle is definately salvation, this guy came to church last night on his own for the first time, and at the end was at the front in tears saying "this is mad this place is like nowhere else, i never thought i could come to the front of a church" but why can we believe that the God of the universe can make a personal connection with someone, speak into their heart, and yet not he can correct a part of their body that is damaged or hurting?

so whats stopping us? lets get involved, instead of trying to argue with people and convince them God exists, allow Him to show Himself in you, He lives in you. get close enough to know what this is:
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (col 1v27 NIV)

STROKED!!! I have just driven the car down from belfast, taking me three hours the last one stuck in city traffic jams, got into work parked in a pay and display, its cost ?2.50 / hour here which is ridculous, paid in all my change, got till 11:18, glace out the window at about 11:40 and see the clampers about to do me. Sprint down the 3 flights of stairs across the road and get "sorry mate its already been done" raging. granted i was pushing the boat out, with it over 20 mins expired but i mean COME ON ?80 stroked a weaker

nothing much has happened in the last few days, felt the need to drop a wee post, just to ease us all into the weekend. it funny how life flows sometimes, people come together then break apart, everyone left hurting. smoke and mirrors, lies and truth, the he said, she said bullshit. watching big brother too, its kinda wierd seeing them all trying to relate, gain the upper hand, be popular, to avoid nomination and eviction. i can kind of relate, i would like to say that God's opinion of me is the only one i pay attention to, but really i am influenced by those around me, to fall from grace with a particular group or my perception of how they expect me to behave makes me do crazy stuff. i do hope i am on my way to greater security and character, but i saw a wee poster on my wall the other night

"your blessed when you are content with just who you are, no more, no less, thats the monment you find yourselves proud owners of everthing that cant be bought".

and the main man said that; Jesus. So life is messy and flows and ebbs, but we cant live in the future or the past, we are only live in this moment, so be happy in who you are, enjoy the people around you, now is all we ever have.
peace

Back in southampton for another whirlwind weekend. The last one with a good few friends who have now graduated, but also felt like the beginning of next year back in the soton hood. Really looking forward to the student life. Was flying kites on the common on sat, forgot how much fun it is, managed a kiteloop handlepass too which aint bad for not doing it in a year. unfortunately also hit a woman pushing a pram with the lines.... doh!

genuis,
this site called Global Giving allows you to find projects all over the world to give money to, its kinda aimed at businesses but if you are minted you could probably help a bunch of mexicans start a business, or some african girls go to school, or some hungarians research stuff. brilliant.
i am excited because the boss of my work agreed to setting up a corporate social responsiblility policy which bascially means the firm will set up a process of doing good stuff for the comunity, enviroment etc etc. Yo, especially cool are the fact that it all has happened in response to prayer and that our company is actually not profitable (we are a new software firm so you make a loss for the first few years) COME ON :)

found this site too, its pretty cool have a house party and change the world, now thats what im talking about... The New Heros it has a cool trailer bit that takes a while to load and i think its made by the yankees but its sweet.

roll with the punches but stay on your feet


i like that phrase, means your fighting, means your taking hits, but as long as your on your feet there is still hope that you can throw sweet punch & knock 'em down.

friday night i went for a couple of drinks after work, went to cool wee bar in the middle of a housing estate in the centre called "scruffy murphy's" but it was, in the way that every pub in ireland seems to be, totally full of all sorts of people. was outside with my manager dude standing with him for a smoke, but it turned out to be a joint, and i had a couple of puffs, it was pretty light but just weird to feel stoned. Like in belfast when there are any number of drugs on the go, I am never interested but here, taken by surprise I just went with it.
Anyway met chris(a good mate from church who i can always be straight with) in mcDs for burgler before we went to a gig, he was slagging me for being rubbish. So we rocked into Amon Dorns and after agreeing we werent going to start on the pints till later, we started on the pints... saw a REALLY cool funk band called "Creamy Goodness" they had these two backing singers and the lead man had dreds, reminded me of "the committments" We met Chris' old work mates from Virgin, who are pure comic genius, so the craic was flowing and we were dancing to the funky music... one of the girls was pretty nice but it was all going grand. Then it was suggested we head to Ri Ra a club nearby, I was feeling pretty knackered and was drunk, and could see that the chances of things getting tricky with the good lookin girl, were high. So like a true lemming i agreed. And so on arrival on the dancefloor I was suddenly in one of those "only happens in the movies" momments as everyone seemed to vanish leaving graham and girl alone, needless to say, it was only a matter of time before I was doing my best to choke her with my tongue. DOH, but somehow in the moment if felt so good and natural, the simplicity of shallowness, i dont know who you are, where you come from what you believe, i trust you here i am take me.
Eventually the hollywood effect wore off and everyone once more appeared on the dancfloor with another round of drinks, great, this time I realised I couldnt handle any more pints and in my infinite wisdom had asked for a whisky. bad to worse ensued and then in a moment prehaps of guilt i said "dont let me leave wit her" to Chris. To which he replied "Dont let yourself!" and slowly as my desire not to do what happened in St. Andrews ever again broke into the mist and collided with my almost insane "all or nothing" mentality; I pegged it out the door into a taxi and home.
The feelings of desire for the girl after having been kissing her were almost unbearable, I was shouting at God, myself, everything, "how I am meant to not do this till Im married"?
Saturday passed without me leaving the house, moaning a good bit and generally feeling a bit hard done by but glad i had bust the move, coupled with the realisation of how many bad decisions I had managed to string together.
Sunday evening Eoghan, steps up to preach, from James 1 about considering it "Pure Joy" instead of poor me, when we face trials and temptations! Perspective flooded back into my head, God loves me much more that I do, he is developing my character. The only reason he wants us to save getting giggy for the wife, is because He knows it will be at its best then. I am not stuck in a vicious circle but hard journey, mind you it doesnt need to be as hard as i make it sometimes!!

Watched a heavy film last night, danish in subtitles called brothers. really well done, but basically one brother ends up a prisoner in Afganistan. The Afgans force him to choose between dying or killing the other danish solider with an iron bar. Under the pressue he flips out and beats the other guy to death. When he is later rescued but cant fit back into family life because of his guilt. The tag line of the film is this soilder saying to his wife:"there is no longer wrong and right, life is not good and bad, i love you is all that remains"

not exactly sweetness and light, but it struck me that without a way to forgiveness(self or otherwise), without a sense of something greater than the immediate, hope rapidly vanishes. I think no matter who I become or what job I do im still gonna have to be able to say: "Sorry lads I messed this up".

Grace vs. Law

since sunday i have been debating in my head about whether i had too much to drink or not. basically i am still detirmined to never do to anyone else what i did to kelly.
i had a few on sunday and i had been trying to definately not have more than two. i had been working on none aswell. so i had been kinda focused on rules to keep me in the clear, but then chatting to dave my mentor and listening to God this morning i realised that the one person who doesnt want me to go back down that road more than me is Jesus. If i would just let Him work in me and rely on His grace then i can be transformed in a way that no amount of rules will ever achieve.

i still think it can be good to say right for this time im not going to drink at all, or something but its about why im doing that, is it to try and make me better or is it in response to pure love?

hanging...

im dead, went to bed at 5am in belfast, got up at 6:30am got to train station 1 minute late, had to try and sleep on hard metal benches till 8am when the next train came, sat on that train for 2hrs then got inner city train straight to work.

i have already completed some great acts of incompentancy. going to be a good day.

why do this? the 3rddan were playing in belfast and i hadnt seem rory a good mate and front man of the band for ages so had to do a bit of partying after. all good, as they saying goes "a good night is always worth a bad day" i got a little be carried away with the sparkling wine and definately paying the price.

derrick may interview for the spiritual beginnings of techno

LIVERPOOL LEGENDS

simply incredible, beautiful, glorious. I am no liverpool fan but last night was one of the greatest football matches I have seen.

For anyone who isnt football crazy, Liverpool were in the final of the European Champions League against AC Milan - the best team in Italy and some would say the world. Liverpool have had a rubbish season, and it was something of a fairytale that they made it to the final, it was truly an underdog versus golaith situation. On paper liverpool's chance were laughable, and in the first minute they went a goal down. Shevchenko, one of the greatest strikers knocked it in past Dudek, a dodgy keeper if ever there was one.

As the first half went on AC skinned Liverpool, knocking the ball around with class and finesse. The liverpool got a break, but lost it and in the counter attack it was suddenly 2-0. Then just before half time in about 4 amazing passes and 10 seconds Crespo cheekily chipped the ball over Dudek, 3-0 and it was only half time. There were talks of 5-1, all the liverpool fans, famous for their support, were totally shell-shocked, dispondent and silent.

Then the second half begins after 5 minutes of all AC Milan, suddenly liverpool get forward Riise whips in a cross and who rises up? Steven Gerrard, the teams captin, a man who has liverpool fc in his veins, heads the ball into the back of the net.... COME ON he runs round the stadium demanding the traveling fans get up and start believing once again. two minutes later Smicer cracks a shot from outside the box.... BAM 3-2, and the stadium is on fire, surely they cant? the milan players look confused. Then literally two mintues later Gerrard goes through into the box, takes a dive and wins a penalty. Alonso steps up and its saved but wait he pokes the rebound into the roof of the net and every one in every pub in the whole of liverpool, england, ireland goes mad. 3-3 can you feel it?

From then on the match settles down a bit andf liverpools defence become hero's, the fans move the staduim from Istabul to Mereseyside(liverpools home ground) Milan dont know whats happening somehow their world-class players arent so immortal anymore.

Normal time ends - extra time, liverpool players cramping up all over the park, having chased the best team in the world 90minutes they are showing the signs of exhaustion, but still they get up, Jamie Carrigher super hero, stretches out to block a ball collapses with cramp comes back on and they play the exact same ball and somehow he blocks it again. His body is finnished but he is just playing from his heart. But still if this goes to penalties who's gonna hit for liverpool, when the pressure's on AC Milan's world class players will surely mop up...

Then in the 27 minute of extra time, the 117th of the match Shevchenko gets a free header, this time Dudek saves off the ground, but it bounces back to Shevchenko who blasts the ball at the empty net, but somehow in that split second Dudek gets back up the ball hits his shoulder and flys over the bar, still 3-3

And then the penalties begin, the atmosphere in the stadium is incredible it seems like it only has liverpool supporters, on their feet, everyone of them signing at the top of their voice...

And Dudek, the liverpool goal keeper, looks different not the guy fumbling the ball at the start of the second half, but a hero in waiting...

The first AC Milan player walks to the spot, the crowd is whislting the pressure intense.. over the bar, he's missed.
But the Milan keeper is Dida about 8ft tall and already saved Alonso's penalty during normal time... Hamann the defener steps up 1-0 come on!
Pirlo for Milan Dudek saves!! Cisse, the best hair in football, but not the best skills - SCORES!!
Milan score Riise misses, everyone gets a bit nervous, Kaka scores again for Milan, so does Smicer for the 'pool.

Shevchenko the wonder player comes forward to Dudek who he easily scored past in the first minute, to take milan's last penalty, Shevchenko the kinda guy i would be my house on to score a penalty. Dudek waving his arms playing mind games...
Saves his penalty!!!!!LIVERPOOL WIN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!

unbeliveable, if you wrote the script no-one would believe it, Arsenal who dominated english football for the previous two years, setting the record for longest unbeaten run, never cames close to winning the champions league. Chelsea this years champions dream of it. But Liverpool, who were beaten by the religated teams in the premiership, WIN.

back in belfast for an non-existent 3rddan gig(a mates band based in manchester who are playin NEXT weeknd), kinda felt a bit annoyed not helped by united losing the fa cup to the dirty gunners. but kinda fell into going to shine, for a friend's boyfriends birthday... and it was soooooo good :) jon carter was playing the atmospher was really good, and spiritually its was one of the best nights in there in ages....

come on to the darkened dancfloor,
here no one expects anything of you,
you dont have to justify or introduce yourself,
if you are here you are one of us,
just open your ears and let your soul connect
to the bassline,
bam bam bam,
its does matter where you come from or where you are going
leave it all behind and dance,
dance free
eyes closed, face grinning, feet moving, head bobbing
let the high pitched elctro resound deep in your bones,
the nonsense of life drowns away
in this place i here God's voice i see why they
called Jesus Lord of the dance,
all distractions smashed to pieces by huge waves of techno,
i float in bliss with my dad

keep it real party people

Making babies....

Some geezers in a lab in south korea have produced Stem cells from patients! if that means nothing check out the bbc artical here but it basically means they can take a bit of your skin and grow a new you! Right now they are reasearching it with a view to grow new heathly bits for sick people which is sound, but whenever einstein created nuclear fusion, it didnt take long for someone to rip off the idea of making nuclear energy to make nuclear bombs.

its all a bit jurassic park, just because we can, doesnt mean we should, i mean how long is it before the yanks start making an army of clones? it sounds ridculous but the technology is now there for it to happen.

and the worst bit is the church will stay silent until all the laws have been passed the society has moved on and there is very little can be done, a al abortion and many other contenious issues. WAKE UP

just had a great couple of days with friends from uni, hannah, est, kt all took rae over for her birthday, just really good to be hanging out, forced everyone to drink a pint of guinness, which did almost kill a few of them, and was kt's first ever pint.

did skive the day off work and was feeling quite happy about that but have now realised that it wasnt really the best plan, so am going to have an embarrassing coversation with my manager about trying to make a days holiday out of it.. doh

some cool (geek) stuff going on at
http://www.podish.com/
you can have a rant on your phone send it as an MMS to podish@gmail.com and it gets posted on the site,

and
http://worldmap66.notlong.com is really cool, it takes bbc news feeds and sticks them on a world map that you can zoom in to city level, and each place then has a link back to the artical. think global :)

a few muckers from dublin,

shakin stevens.

more life wave ridin since last post,

tuesday night,
needed break, so went for a swim got back was beginning to russle some dinner and lau rang, she was telling me about hedi & roland baker leading a conferance she was at and how amazing it was, she was "laughing for like a hour in the holy spirit" and how hedi was talking about going to heaven and that we should be able to step into the celestrail relems as easy as walking from the shore to the sea, head poping stuff for real. but anyway she was praying with me down the phone for loads of stuff including seeing heaven, so after i was like "right lets go for it".
got down to a bit of praying then felt like i was seeing some spiritual stuff and saw a demon on my back big black fella kinda attached to the back of my neck, it was a demon of alcholism. i have been struggling with drinking forever but particularly for the last while, (NB i am not sayin alchol is bad or in anyway wrong(jesus water > wine), but being addicted is) so im kinda freaked, this is the first time i have really seen something like this. and part of me is saying your full of craziness but the other part of me is praying like crazy and then bits of me start shakin, like me head or legs or upper body. Really intense experience, i didnt really know what was going on but just kept praying to Jesus, and after a while it kinda calmed down and i feel asleep...

still not totally sure what to make of the whole experience but feeling a greater dependancy of God :) i often sit around and wonder about why all that stuff about healing and demons and angels etc isnt seen in our society today, and then when a little bit of it shows up i freak.....

apart from that really excited about friends from southampton coming over on sunday for a couple of days, YO!
have a good weekend party people, and a special thanks to Marko van j for supplying me with another GENIUS set of mix CDs

nothing busy week,
wierd reading the below post, almost seems like a different world... just had a busy nothing week, where nothing really matterd but it still tired me out. saw sarah and brendan over the weekend which was cool, but insisted on going into the dark room for about 4 hours yesterday, which did yield some sweet prints of a battle of the bands last week, but knackered me. got some looking after by a few friends last night, so thats all good,
this week is looking well hecitc and various attempted world changign ideas feeling particularly pie in the sky....
my mentor has gone off on a four day retreat, which to be honest sounds like a plan...
need to be doing some
"furious rest"
to quote the legendary ms hume

gave the auld blog a bit of a face lift all that dark green was getting depressing!

check out this guys video blog kinda makes you wonder about the future, and possible rise of a true anti-hero? or maybe its just a pain in the arse

super swede anna (on the right) send me some photies from miami, including my baptism check out my photo blog for more...

fo shango,

this weekend i was up in belfast, went to layo & bushwacka at shine sweet, good to see ben and mike.

then yesterday managed to get up after 4 hours sleep to do church where it i grew up and it seems God is on the move..

but in the evening went down to ballynahinch and was just smacked in the face by the love and grace of God. it just felt like the whole room was being washed around in a big warm sea of love. and the singing and music, i just sat really still at the end and listened and felt... like oil running over my head and fire shooting through my viens and just wanted to be there forever... and a great friend and inspiration prayed with me and spoke incredible words of grace and forgivness and excitement for the future... hairs on the back of my neck are standing up just writing this, felt like a really long time since i had felt like that BLAM!

real wee(a)k,

this week has been pretty up and down, at the start of it in church, i prayed that i would actually do what God called me to do and try and help out some homeless people around dublin. I was really scared and worried i might end up loosing loads of stuff or something..

on monday, i felt like i should talk to this guy but i ran for my bus instead, then at home i felt like i had to go back into town, i ended up chilling with this really sound guy called paddy, he was dead straight telling me he was a junkie he got benifits from the state and he begged to get drugs and then when he needed more he begged more.

so i was praying for him later, i didnt know what to pray but just prayed God's will,
on tuesday i ran away from another homeless guy i had talked to before, and felt like a total lapper. but still that God loved me just as much as the night before

on wednesday i heard this INCREBIBLE woman speak called Betty and did some networking with SUAS people but stayed out to late waiting to talk to this girl and in the end i never did - loser, and was feeling really proud about habitat

yesterday, had hectic day with habitat meeting in evening and had to make handbooks and do c programming in work(hate it) and was knackered. on the way home i saw paddy sitting at the phone box, had a smoke with him and he told me he has got a place on a long term rehabilitation programme !! it was the best news ive had in ages, the waiting list is really long and to quote Paddy "someone out there must be looking out for me" SWEET praise the Lord.

if you in the mood for some breakdancing and you got broad band slide on over to
high.tv once it all loads up go to the highlights and check out the red bull one on one world championships with Rahzel on the mic, thats what Im talking about....
the most incredible moment has to be when a guy does push-ups in the air, i mean no legs touching the floor, holding his whole body rigid, he does push-ups, the guy clearly has no understanding of what gravity is... mental

the mother frekin revolution will not be televised.


ok so to change the world...
take one serious freedom fighter funk album Gil Scott-Heron.

one book by one of the worlds most respected macro economists Prof Jeffery Sachs about how to end poverty

and mix with a chilled weekend and volia! you will be a ready: with the heart that won black people their civil rights and the knowledge of a frekin genius

right so this isnt a fix but we can all have IPODs for free :) here is a bbc news artical about it. Basically you need a uk address and to sign up for a trial of a service when you have done the trial(cancel it), then you get a bunch of other ppl to do it, and then they send you one. So its a bit of hassle but, if you jump through the hoops the coroporate losers buys us ipods? i like the sound of that.

right so to register you must follow this link http://www.ipodsgiveaway.co.uk/?r=81864 so that i get a credit. then you get a link so you can get your credits building up.

sweeties

UN for president

the last couple of days have been hectic, exciting, ridculous, inspiring and loads more. I was at the United Nations Information Communications Technology Task's Global Forum which meant i wore a suit for the first time in about a year, and got to meet various international hero's, private sector big wigs, eg accidentally set jacket on the Education minister of Ghana's stuff :)

i got invited by this crazy old guy(brendan) i know from here, who works for the irish government and is vice chair of the taskforce, so he blagged me an invite. it was cool to be back in the place where i was expectant of what God was going to do and had no idea what i was up to :)

so brendan is the greatest networker in all the world, within about a minute of arriving he has introduced us to about 50 people (us - another guy, Mike who is researching learning techniques, but brendan litterally bumped into on the street one day)

anyway there is a small group of youngish people there (20s) the youth caucus of the WSIS Jenifer from canada, dieogo from brazil, titi from nigeria, mija from serbia, jullia from germany. So after a bit of riverdance at a reception they are clearing off to have meeting (this is at like 9pm!) and they invite mike and i along!

so here we are being asked to input on a slot that they have addresses the whole forum the next day! so we chat away and Mike brings us a few views on education and then they decided that they would like an intervention from an irish person (intervention means that you personally address the whole floor - all the ppl) mike said he was leaving the next day so that meant it fell to me, i very very nearly bust out laughing at the concept me addressing the UN ICT! Anyway Mike realised the opportunity that it was and changed his plans so that he made the intervention (which seeing i havent a clue about education was defo for the best)

but yeah we continued to hang out with these guys and who knows what will come of it in the future, but it was crazy, ill write some of the relflections i have about how we can pray specifically into certain areas and stuff but another great adventure :)

miami photos up

miami ocean drive,
originally uploaded by grahamx.

i lost my wee camera in miami, so alot of the banter photos are lost, but i did have my real camera so i have uploaded a few nice shots of trip follow the link on the right hand side or if thats too far to move your mouse click here

the perils of velcro....

the other bits of miami are kinda past now so i wont post big man ones. just to say we met some guys who had the same dream of opening a club that would be the best in the world and known that it was created to the Glory of God, except that these guys are in the place financially to make it happen!! so i was once again humbled by God's amazing power and my lack of faith.

the baptism was really cool, the whole team was there the two swedish girls travelled 40 blocks (a mission) and the two american crazy horses were there. There was loads of communian and prophecying after and I was really incrediably blessed. I think I am also feelin the benifits kinda flowing into life back here.

right so a story to make you smile...

yesterday i went swimming and cause i didnt want to look like a loser in my speedos i was wearing my boardies (shorts) The pool is all laned off and I was doing my usual swimming fast trying to look cool start to the swim. So a few lengths in I am doing the breaststroke (lots of wide leg kicks) and i get this funny feeling that my short's velcro has come un-done and i am kinda hangin out... but obviously that couldnt happen, no no it has......... panic thankfully there were no olympic cameras on the bottom of the pool to expose my nakedness and i got all things tucked away before anyone seemed to notice but you have to laugh....

finally
last nigth i was at pastroate (kinda like a group meeting of 3 cells) and kelly's best mate, who had been (rightly) spitting fire after my infadelity, was there, as we started the signing i could just feel the bad vibes, but as we went on it seemed to get better and then i looked up and she was there offering me a hug. It meant alot to me, to be extended that grace and forgivness was really awesome, to thanks jesus adn thanks bex

what happened in miami... part B

part A is the post below incase you are wondering...

cheeky one on the bus
so we went to the "international dance music awards"(IDMAs) which were pretty crap, no one was there for their awards the live acts were lame and the sound levels were all wrong... it was a pretty depressing event for anyone hoping that electronic music will be around for a few years yet...

but the new day miami beach was girdlocked and when we got on this bus there was a guy there looking totally out of place and was chatting away on his phone tryin to organise a gig. As we rolled past a club called mansion i noticed that Mos Def was playing and got excited, so the guy looks up and says, "man if you like mos def you should come check out my party, its down at the opium lounge(a really cool club) and its happening now." So we were heading to nikki beach (radio 1 party) and i was WELL up for re-routing but Mark was like we should at least check out nikki beach for a bit. anyway i got chatting to this guy and he was like " the WMC is for loosers, its all about the M3 thats where the real business is done thats where the future is. Which was brilliant to hear cause if the IDMAs stole all hope, re-inspired me that the future is still bright.

for me its not really about super clubs and glo-sticks, trance and pvc, teenagers and dave pearce, its about fusion of sounds from all over the world, about dark dirty underground clubs in rainy cities, where the music sets on fire the hearts and minds of the filthy and gorgeous crowd. about dj's who take you some where with their set, pushing limits and smashing the greatest music of the last 40 years on funked up electro beats. its about the 3am look; sweat smudged miscara and big smiles, ultimately for me its about all this being done in worship of the Lord of the dance, Jesus Christ.

actually i think thats plenty for one post, so still to come blown away and baptismo de la maxismo

so what happening in miami then.... part A

the team,
call to sacrifice,
got frustrated,
lapped the show?,


the team
So who was on the team? leader was mark a londoner 26 really sound and wise and mature, birthed and turfed a church already, knows the score but likes prog house and trance :( Steph total legend, she is ginger, has done a dance degree and works for 24-7. Charlie a really funny, joyful girl who is full of raw spiritual power. Then there were two swedish girls anna and josefin who werent with us all the time but had a habit of showing up at just the right moment...

call to sacrifice
when the four of us got together and prayed for each other properly it was pretty cool, definately feeling the prophetic flow, then when my turn came mark, said it was a time of challenge, where i needed to be sacrifice, and that i could have a grand life just living in my talents and gifts but it was just costing compared to what could happen if i was prepared to let God do all He wanted. scary! i started reading ezekiel during some quite times, and had a bit of a mad head on me, feeling the weight of what it would mean to say yes to this and frekin out a bit...

frustration
during days before we were chilling and walking and the conferance is just so big (30 events everyday and night) it was hard to grasp where to go and t o feel like we were actually being of any use. mark's philosiphy was one of a chilled approach and doing life there as a natural expression of mission, but super intense graham sometimes found that a bit difficult...

lapped the show?
outside starbucks on the way home one night were this couple from Ohio (where i spent a month in the summers of 99 and 01) who told us this story of how they were moving down south with the girls brother when they got involved in a high speed police chase (her bro was a bit dodge) but when the police caught the car arrested the brother and found the couple were innocent, they just dumped them on the road and they had no cash to stay anywhere or get home.
the bro might have gotten out the next day so they could at least have gotten some $ from him or whatever so they wanted to stay around for another day, but were scared about sleepin on the beach again. mark bought them dinner and we prayed with them, them the four us left and discussed what we might do, charlie was up for getting them a room and it just reminded me so much of me back in mexico, so i was up for getting them a bus and/or giving them one of our hotel rooms, mark, who has professional experiecne of working with the homeless decieded it was too big a risk of us maybe being thrown out of the hotel if they tried to steel stuff or whatever. Steph felt the same as mark and they were in charge so we went with the conclusion that we would try and see them tomorrow and maybe get them a ticket if it hadnt gone well with brother. it really sucked walking away from them, i respect mark as a wiser older more responsible Christian and he was the leader, but im yet to be in that place with other christians where the risk means nothing and the heart everything. I dont know if thats because its not the right attitude, or the situation wasnt right, but jesus ending up on a cross doesnt seem very sensible.

still to come
cheeky one on the bus,
blown away,
baptismo de la maximismo

in gatwick

i am nearly back now just 6hours to kill in gatwick....

whats happened between last post and this is massive, thanks for all your prayers and support, we definately got immeasurably more than we could have hoped for or imagined...

welcome to miami,

in the mac store in a big mall using the free internet :) cause the hotel charge loads..
most of whats going on will be on the now official miami blog at www.24-7miami.blogspot.com
and there are some photos up of the journey etc,
but its all good and some big new personally i am hoping to get baptised on sunday, it something i have been thinking about for about 3 years and then decided to do around november time, and kept putting off and now i just realised that its not some massive event where i have to wait for the planets to aling for, just when i feel God calling me to do it, so that should be exciting :)

welcome to miami,

in the mac store in a big mall using the free internet :) cause the hotel charge loads..
most of whats going on will be on the now official miami blog at www.24-7miami.blogspot.com
and there are some photos up of the journey etc,
but its all good and some big new personally i am hoping to get baptised on sunday, it something i have been thinking about for about 3 years and then decided to do around november time, and kept putting off and now i just realised that its not some massive event where i have to wait for the planets to aling for, just when i feel God calling me to do it, so that should be exciting :)

Daft Punk have made a new album called Human After All, i was in Hmv shopping for a birthday present for a mate and am now "testing" it before giving it to him, more french electro genius. A bit harder than "Discovery" their previous album (Digital Love, One More Time etc) but well worth the pennies, cant wait to hear it out :)

lapsang in the bath

decided to have a bath last night and to make things extra chilled i brought up a wee pot of lansang souchong tea and a book, i was chillin out enjoyin my lapsang in the bath, reading the book "vision and the vow" by pete grieg, which was sparking some pretty intense thought about past and family, when i accidentally knocked the tea pot, it wobbled and feel into the bath :) i was just laughin at myself for a while cause i now was definately having lasang in the bath...

10 days

the last 10 days have been mental and included so high highs and my lowest low.

last tuesday i asked an amazing girl called kelly out, and she said yes. it was the first time i actually felt like, scarry as it was, i could commit to having a proper relationship. it was awesome, exciting, an adventure of a totally new kind beginning...

then last weekend i was in st. andrews visiting my friend ryan, we were out on the saturday, i had decided not to drink (cause he doesnt) but in the bar changed my mind, when he left i stayed, i kept drinking, went to a cast party with another friend from belfast (who had been in the play) and ended up kissing another girl then went back to hers had sex with her...

since then my heads been wrecked, i had to tell kelly what a selfish scumbag i had been, had to look myself in the eye and realise how messed up i am and how i ruined what could have been something beautiful, but i have also had to accept that somehow Jesus still gives me His grace...

does this make me a bad person, a hypocrite, a fake? maybe, it definately makes me human and broken, for anyone who has read this blog for a while you will know that this isnt the first time i have thrown everything out the window for one night with a girl.... but it had been a long time and i had thought i was over that, but i guess the truth is you still have to make the right decisions no matter how long it has been.

it has all made me realise i was spending a lot of time talking about God and hanging out with Christians but not much time chilling with Jesus and allowing Him to be number 1 in my life. i had built a religious house of cards, where me being a christian was much more important than Jesus, and all the while frustration was building up because i was not satisfied...

so here i am at the beginning again, me a broken mess Jesus saving me and loving me...

ahh the flor de cana, thanks to Maurice at work who recently took a trip to Costa Rica (where is spend a couple of months of my gap year) i am now the proud owner of new bottle of the good stuff. Its a sugar cane rum a bit like Mount Gay great with coke, ice and memories, the good times with the 3 musketeers, Lynda and all those other awesome ppl, adventures in the sunshine open roads of mexico... seems along way from snowy cold dublin... roll on miami; 2 weeks today ill be airborne oh YEAH...

come on ireland :)
despite many heavy things happening this weekend and that i am walking like a cowboy again, the boys won yesterday and there are few things better than watching ireland beat england YYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOOO

thinkin...

I have been reading the di vinci code and thinking about why there always seem to be more motivated women about than men and i think i have vague theory...

woman was created last, more mysterious and beautiful than all, the pinacle of God's creation, from the rib of man, in my opinion, to illustrate our dependancy on her, that man is not complete without woman, "it is not good for a man to be alone" "a man should leave his mother and father and be united with his wife"

in the middle ages pagan goodess worship was rife and to stamp it out loads of mad stuff happened witch trials, murder of smart ladies etc etc. a lot of women were killed needlessly and to look up to woman at all could have had your head on a block, now this could be hugely inaccurate but i reckon a whack of traditional church doctrine was written around then...

so here we are a good few hundred years later, woman not understood or honoured as they should be and men lacklusture and uncertain... but women instinctively know they have been robbed of their right to understanding and respect and so in the western world over the last 50 years, they fight for equality and achieved it. Man's lack of belief or understanding in himself is conpounded as women are now being better men than them, but still some areas of the church hang on to a women-inferior attitude and sexism survives in the background....

so i am suggesting that womens fight for equality was right but ended up in sameness, i actually think we need to go one step further and truly revere the Godly beauty of women (beauty as a character not just a physical word) understanding that man cannot be man without woman, not neccessaryily in a personally intimate relationship, but to generally rejoyce in and healthly repect their unique qualities and heart.

Allowing ourselves to be inspiried in this way, allowing God to talk to us through them freely will rejunvinate us, allowing us to be inspired to greater things. And in this process women will be rightly elevated so they are not becoming hard in the process of forcing men to appreciate them but are free to achive all they can.

this is all loose thought so please gimme a comment


on a much lighter note click here for a double dragon type flash game, its not quite right but will definately bring back a few happy gameboy/NES/arcade memories...

CHOKE

had a great weekend, erol alken on friday, brilliant mash up and dancing proper. chilled sat, herad are REALLY inspiring woman talk about global change and tackling the issue of rolling out AIDS drugs in africa. Out dancing again, but a bit more chilled and chatting to kel for a bit. more sleep, chillin, church, bumped into a few guys i hadnt seem in a while. kel had been talking about callling in sick on monday cause she was wrecked, she was joking but then later i text her, challenging her to call in and we could go on an adventure. spent the next 2hrs trawling the internet for pirate stuff to do in ireland (the condition on the trip was that it had to include pirates)
find loads of stuff on the west of ireland (4hr drive) so start looking at hiring cars and taking boat trips closer to dublin, go to sleep with the makings of a masterplan...
wake up and choke, didnt want to lie to my manager, it was snowing and now just sitting in work doing nothing.... so now having a much worse day that would have because the opportunity was there and i didnt take it...

i hate regreting not doing something. like in someways it was a stupid idea dommed to failure but in other ways it was sheer genius

ah well back to the drawing / dreaming board

challenge for the day

attempt to fit "visa-v" into as many sentenances as possible,
bonus points for when it makes not sense
extra bonus for making the person you are talking to starts using it ;)

"The Glory of God is man fully alive, the life of man is the vision of God"

I think I saw a bit of that glory last night, a friend Jill was playing in a bar and to hear her voice was unreal. A wee girl physcially, last night she filled the room. I only made it for three songs but they were incrediable...

its almost as if i hadnt met her, like hadnt seem her till she sang last night like her true existence is somewhere between the body she is in and her voice...

maybe we never really meet a person until we see them do what they were designed for, or really passionate about...
but that leaves the question of if i havent discovered that passion am i really alive?

for anyone in the mighty belfast and wants to engage God in a different vibe to church etc, check it out:

Just a note to let you know godspace is back on this thursday (17th) but at a
new venue - at a room off the common grounds cafe at city church on university
street. Kick off is at the usual time of 9pm. Hope to see you there.

All welcome.

The theme of the evening is 'comfortably numb'


godspace - a place for reflection, meditation and contemplation

www.godspace.co.uk

me heads wrecked

feeling a bit stressed out at the minute, just got one of those 10 things to do at any second feelings coupled with a the thing i am doing inst really important...
need to sleep a bit too, i cant believe i have totally destroyed the peacful chilled existence i once had in dublin, it was so nice....

saw a dutch film last night at the Jameson International film festival here in dublin, it was good, quite subtle and complex and in danish so the subtitles required a lot of attention ....

"when the chips are down.. eat rice"

the underground is breaking through,

the church i go to in dublin(core) is cool, and has some very talented worship leaders/ musicans, i often feel totally priveledged just to be there. But i suppose sometimes I like to say, this is a "worship church" so the teaching isnt so good and this is a "preaching church" where the worship is dry but the word is always sport on.

and i had once or twice slated the teach at this church... but yesterday, hold on till your seatbelts cause you are in for a ride.. the fill in leader and then the worship leader in the evening rocked the joint... i will post links to the mp3s of what they said when they get them online but this was serious... radical calls to discipleship uncomfortable words to make me squirm and feel uneasy... briefly the challenge was not to be a "vampire christian":

"ill take a little of you blood jesus, but i dont want to be your student, dont want to learn your character, just leave me alone and ill see you in heave"
is this who we are? is eterinty with someone we didnt really want to spend much time with what we want?

but a disciple:
"someone who is learning from Jesus, how Jesus would be living your life, if He was in your shoes" not quite the exact quote but i think its the vibe.

and just to add to the head wreckin beauty of this

"The Glory of God is man fully alive, the life of man is the vision of God" St Irenaeus of Lyons (quoted by pete grieg in the vision and the vow)

lets push things forward,

since last post i have been to southampton, seen a whole load of people I love, got accepted to lead a habitat team to... somewhere and eventually finnished the 24-7 Miami Team blog (please link it)

Brett the canadian legend has also moved into my house, so its all a bit hectic
anyway some photos from weekend will be up sooner or later...
peace g

grandma's underground....

went to training tonight to volunteer with Grandma's Ireland, which provides simple practical care and babbysitting for families dealing with aids.

This nights training stuck me in a differnt couple of ways, i am gonna rant about each one cause i dont want to forget my current emotions or what God has been saying.

1. There are 6000 people diagnosed hiv positive every day, 60 million have died so far. but stop thinking third world this is happening in the uk and irelnad. right now there are huge numbers of people living with Hiv, like on the bus, only reason we dont know is because, funnily enough they dont shout about it. Stop thinking gay the biggest growing spreader of the disease is unprotected heterosexual sex. To parapharse the Rev Jesse Jackson, heavily involved in the movement that won black people equal rights, this is our generations challenge, this is our great injustice this is our world war II.

2. Where are Jesus' ppl in this? it was His people abandoned to Him who listened to the whisper and began education for children, built hosiptals when they didnt exist and generally shaped the things in society we take forgranted. How can the ruined church of europe recover from sex scandals and totally loss of relivance to the average person? could it be by loving the people the world wont touch? could it be by returning to the concept that church is listening to God's heart beat and meeting ppl where they are with the Love of Christ?

3. There were about 10 people in the training tonight, there are 30 families on this charities waiting list, a charity which by any statistical assement is working in with less than 1% of the people affected by aids in ireland. where is the army?
but most worrying is that i was the sole male there. Where are the guys? Although you might say that child care comes easier to females, I would be tempted to say there are MANY fatherless familes crying out for a father figure(which there are) BUT instead i ask you where is the equivalent ministry going on that guys do easier? There isnt one!

The simple fact is the guys arent doing anything.

In every church i have ever been to guys walk in the pale shadow of thier sisters, they might preach and lead worship but when it comes to getting hands dirty, getting creative, serving, they are no where to be seen. What sort of a body are we if one half is carrying the other?
WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP.
The God who dreamt up this universe has a destiny for you that is an adventure beyond your wildest dreams with higher hights and lower depths than you will experience outside of Him.
and we miss it, one day at a time, sitting on a sofa scratching.
we dont have to have this dream or big plan, God is waiting to give it to us, all we have to do is listen...