flint

Sonlight

2010-03-05T10:51:00.003Z

The Sun shines brightly all over the world.
It is no respecter of wealth, title or situation
No matter who you are, it shines on you

You can pull the curtains and hide indoors
but once you step outside... BOOM
You are bathed in glorious golden rays
the sudden warmth brings out goosebumps
You stop to let your eyes re-adjust...

In that moment you are united
with all people everywhere,
past, present and future,
who were briefly arrested
in this bright shiny moment
all troubles, pressures & demands...
Vanish
We are
simply
human
alive
in glory

I love the son and the son loves me.

A massively distant and spectacularly huge
perpetual, cosmic,
explosion is positioned perfectly,
to remind me of life's simple beauty
however fleeting, it whets my appetite to discover more

An old middle eastern scroll promises sunlight's
instant of light and lightness is not a cruel tease
but a hint of a glorious light.

A supremely huge & tenacious power
who shines his light of love
just as indiscriminately on all people.

Not a distant explosion, He is a personal father
who counts the hair on your head,
excited and delighted
by the simple humanity each one of us possess

So step in that bright sonlight
let his love warm your bones
he loves to lift trouble pressures and demands
and set you free
to be
simply
human.

uncontainable love:

2009-02-06T22:01:00.002Z

he is wild and free and cannot be held by anyone

his love is too passionate and true

it is the creative spark that birthed the planet

it tears apart nothingness and monotony

and births a universe of life, fun, vibrant and real

this cannot be fitted in the old ways

but comes into the new place and fresh revelation

memories are grace not to be lived on

always there is more always, there is more

tradition is death, there is no script

we cannot write one, to much changes always

he always wants to be in conversation

living out of us

dear near, dear deep,

learn to be the future

step forward into destiny

wild and free

wild and free

wild and free

Coming back from the wild

2009-01-08T13:44:00.003Z

Its Seven years almost to the day from when I donated my last $200 to a charity in mexico and set off trusting that God would provide a way for me to travel 1800 miles in 7 days to make a flight home. It was an adventure that was taken alone, one at the time I felt was the only alternative to denouncing the reality of my faith...

I just read "Into the Wild" its a book piecing together the account of another young idealist who sadly died on an extended adventure in alaska.

However, romantic and exciting such trips away from normal life and civilisation seem, there always seems to be a necessary element of self-indulgant escapism, or maybe just simply running away. I think a perceived failure to live up to other peoples standards can leave a burning desire to prove "I can make it on my own" "I fear ill fail you in this relationship so Ill keep you at a distance"

but the cost is high as loneliness is the only possible outcome of avoiding intimacy and no amount of passport stamps of gigs to thousands of people can replace that...

So maybe its time to come in from the wild...
To trust people enough to let them close...
to realise that its relationships that really matter and that they are costly and hard work, but they are also the most beautiful gift God ever gave us...

God never plays it safe

2008-12-22T13:58:00.005Z

From the mystery of the incarnation to his passion and now how we as individuals are challenged to be the love of God in this life, God has always been on a high risk strategy.

Why trust your son in the womb of an uneducated cultchie jew? there we're plenty more "developed" "civilised" options for how Jesus could have been born onto this planet.... why there? why those people? seems a bit irresponsible to trust the entire salvation plan for humanity into the hands of a couple of teenagers, especially when the king of the country is out to kill all the babies....

but who knew... it seemed to work out? but what about when he was a bit older, in his early thirties surely a bit of respect for the established church is what we expect from God's son? The envoy of love just seems to love a barney with his clergy. All well and good but when they turned nasty surely it was time to chill out. Certainly Jesus keep doing all that stuff with the poor, we all support that but how about you calm down on the temple confrontations? we don't want anyone getting offended do we?

and what about those people around him, since when did God's son wander into a tradesman's workplace and invite them on adventures? surely there would be some kind of official invitation to an application procedure, maybe after the 4th round of interviews you could carry Jesus sandals? Instead the guy who deserts him and pretends not to know him is trusted to establish a whole new way of doing church.... surely not God, surely there was someone with an MBA from rome who coulda made sure it all went off well....

so what about this christmas, where is our adventure? do you feel "useless" enough to appear on God's warped head hunting hit list? it seems He loves trusting clowns with impossible missions... high risk strategies....

that sounds a lot more fun that socks and mince pies...

ignorable failures awesome opportunities

2008-10-01T09:08:00.002Z

everyday when we get up we can make a difference to the world by making a difference to somebody's world.

unfortunately we often fail to grasp these opportunities, which results in continued suffering for people who could really do without it and a little bit of our humanity ebbing away...

i just put the heating on cause im sneezing from the rain last night. we were out walking the streets of belfast and met a few people who were also soaking wet.

but with no home to go back to and our city's homeless service providers passing the buck of who should be trying to get them into a shelter it was looking pretty bleak. Jack was considering an industrial bin as his best chance of some sleep, the streets like us were sodden...

They may not have been angels, pauline had been evicted from a house, jack had been in and out of jail and colin didn't say much but from the way he flinched any time anyone moved around him im guessing his story wasn't so happy... but does that make them any less human? does that mean they should be left to rot on the streets. These were kind and generous people, warm and welcoming souls. Jack's brother had been found frozen to death and his sister murdered in 6months... they are real. I would say not just a statistic but belfast doesn't even bother to try and count its rough sleepers so their not even a statistic here...

and yeah its great to talk to these people for a few hours or give them some food or money or even take them home for a night but it does fuck all in terms of addressing the bigger problem... they still wake up with nothing to do, nowhere to go and huge addiction issues which are relatively simple and cheap to feed...
why do we tolerate it? why when the stockbrokers have a bad day do they get offered 700 billion when about 20 would give clean drinking water to the poorest of the poor?

i think we mostly tolerate it because we don't know what to do and our elected candidates don't know what to do and there are lots of pressing issues which take up more than the time we have. but thats not good enough, what are we going to tell our children when they ask us why we let the more vulnerable members of our society freeze to death outside our workplaces and shops?

human rights

2008-08-20T10:43:00.002Z

A bunch of ppl are making a lot of noise about china's human rights policy etc around the olympics, and they're probably right, but i was out walking round the streets last night with a few friends and we came across plenty of injustice on our own doorstep...

first there was dino, who couldn't speak any english, so with only a very few words of romanian between us we'll didn't hear his story but there he was sat against a bin, holding out a crippled hand for some change, a middle aged man destitue in a foreign land...

next was gemma, she butted in while we were praying with her friend aaron, she had been having a few drinks with her friends in a park, well dressed quite pretty, cap pulled low over her face. "Are you guys really praying? Cause im getting mad panic attacks and i want them to go away" Then she pulled up her sleaves and there were about 30 little cuts the whole way up each forearm. She said it was the only thing she could do when the panic attacks were making so scared she couldn't even leave her room to sit with her mum...

finally there was ahmed, sitting in a bit of town we dont normally find people, i would have walked past him but some of the other guys stopped. ahmed is 17 he's been seeking assalum for 3 years, during which time he has been bounched around from libya, italy, france, switzerland and england with no passport and only a basic grasp of these countries languages he has often ended up living on the streets. now here in belfast he was selling himself to men try and make a few quid...

we spent time with each person, giving them food and a hot drink, prayer and hugs, all of them appreciated it and a couple cried on someones shoulder. but what kind of a society do we live in where minors from war-torn states are forced to turn tricks for perverts to get by? somehow i dont feel so justified in pointing the finger at china or bush or anyone...

revival is hitting the fan

2008-05-07T10:41:00.004Z

im not sure if anyone has heard about the stuff going on in florida, but basically a 3 day 700 people conferance has now been going on for 33 days! the reason it has continued is because God has been showing up and performing amazing miracles, people have gotten out of wheel chairs and healed from all kinds of sickness and disease.

all very exciting for florida, but this as they say is where the plot thickens. a few excited individuals from ireland have gone to see it first hand, they have had the faith passed on and are now kicking out the jams here.

last night i went to a fairly rough bit of belfast to a very ordinary elim church which is almost impossible to find! but when i got there i found group of people who were hungry and open to God. and when He showed up it all kicked off, in that meeting alone there were people healed from deafness (actual bones in the ear which had degenerated were replaced with new ones) arthritis, back pain and a couple of people got to know Jesus for the first time. i was with a guy who is partially sighted and i got prayer for my hips, neither of which were healed on the night, but man it was exciting.

it was so beautiful to a rough belfast accent talk about having received healing and being full of God's love and power, it was free and available to everyone, the main guy was totally honest saying he would have loved to have said they had all been praying for this for years but actually he was totally surprised by it and had no reason why God should have shown up there like that; "im just a skinhead from tigers bay who was a glue sniffer, why should God visit me?"

but its on its there and im feeling like this is the tip of a most awesome iceberg....

choose where you bleed

2007-12-03T00:45:00.000Z

Life cannot be lived too far without picking up a few cuts and wounds. It shouldn't be surprising to sometimes feel like crap or a bit lonley. Instead of holding it in and having it brust out on someone find a safe envirnoment and express the issues. Choose where you bleed. For me it was going late to church even when i didn't really want to but on the floor in prayer and frustration, surrounded by beautiful music, i was able to let out and begin the healing... maybe its a group of friends or ur family but if your cut you have to bleed...

sometimes you best isnt good enough

2007-09-28T11:40:00.000Z

i was working really hard to get some visuals finnished for a band last week, so i didnt have any time to promote our clubnight... the gig went well, but on tuesday night we had 5 people show up. i had been doin my best but it wasnt good enough....
got me thinking that sometimes life is like that, i have hung out with ladies in africa who work physically hard all day and still cant feed their children and when they can the food is so poor it still leaves them mal-nourished. sometimes your best is not good enough.
for all those jobs, positions and courses, there are thousands of applicants per place, there must be hundreds of people who do their best but it isn't good enough.
sometimes in a relationship you can make a mistake, and after it do your best but its not good enough, its still broken...
maybe thats what hope is for, to look at the same situation the next time and say my best will be good enough...

to live... ?

2007-09-11T18:26:00.000Z

to live we must make a difference, we must attack the darkness and injustice we see in our world in our city, in our family, in ourself. A mindless pursuit of affluence, comfort, security and status will leave us restless, unfufilled and worn out. Each of us has a destiny and can radically change much more than we would ever dare to believe.

We are familiar with our desires and hungers and how to satisfy them but its temporal and shallow without understanding them in the bigger picture of who were made to be.

Such sublte and complex issues require a deeper understanding, we are more than the sum of our parts, fate, hope, chance and gut feeling are much more than passing feelings. They are pointing us in the direction of spiriuality and beyond a maths equation or physics model. We need to be in touch with our creator, understanding his passionate love for us, His Son's passion and Spirit's inspiration... we need to do more than scratch the surface to journey into who we are.

understanding surpasses intellect

2007-08-13T10:02:00.000Z

Intellect and knowledge are generally triumphed in the western world as being the best and most useful elements of humanity for reasoning, living and proving points by. But when it comes down to it I dont think they are nearly as important as we make out. How many times do we make a decision in our mind and then do the total opposite? Ill just go for one drink we tell ourselves, because logically we have to get up tomorrow and we're a bit skint. But then in the situation the connection of friends, the craic, the new experience of that night over powers all reason and we do what feels right.

In politics etc how many leaders state their manifestos on honour and caring for the working people and schools and hospitals, but when it comes down to it make choices out of fear and self preservation.

In the context of Christianity, i have recently been having a few discussions about particular theological points, which may or may not be that important, these people argue that we should strive to discover as much as possible intellectually, as if it was the highest form of human knowing.

However, I think it has to be deeper, it has to be more mysterious, behavoir modification through reasoning is powerless in the face of all consuming passion. The greatest acts of humanity, of bravery of hope of tolerance and love, flew totally in the face of reason. Therefore to limit knowing God to the intellect or claim these other aspects of humanity are not important or trustworthy is to live in denial of how we really live and are.
Jesus was alive he burned and hurt and raged, he wants to give us new hearts that will provoke us against our own intellect to act in love. To be in relationship with Him is an adventure that connects with every fabric of our being not just logic or reason.

sometimes we can all use a little deliverance

2007-07-17T23:46:00.000Z

so this one is pretty far of the ricther scale. ill keep it vauge for the sake of all involved but basically on friday in a house in the western world i and a couple of others prayed for deliverance for a person from at least one demon who was in control to some extent of their body.

to give a little background on this seemingly incredulous event, its day to day for a lot of people to deal with in most of the non-western world, its spoken about over and over by Jesus and i have seen it over myself in africa etc. People can have a normal life and have a couple of extra passengers that rear theire ugly heads at times. God's supreme authority dwells in the form of the Holy Spirit in anyone who knows Jesus and that gives them the right and power to command a demon to leave.

Now although i believe all the above it wasnt till it was taking three of us to hold down someone under 10stone, who had a difference voice speaking out of their convulsing body that i started taking it serously. i was on the verge of freaking out as we commanded a demon full of aggresion, hatred and disgust to leave whilst reassuring out teary eyed friend, depending on who was in control of their one body at the time. this zoning out from one to another would happen in a matter of seconds and our friend would struggle to hold onto his concisousness or complete a sentance, whislt the demon would cause him to try and poke his own eyes, punch himself in the face or pull his hair.

We went through a number of prayers breaking unforgivenesss and other agreements he had made which might have given the demons power to stay, and fought with it for several hours, in which time it was weakening and he getting stronger, but in scripture Jesus tended to do it with a word, or the demons would just leave trembling in His presence, so I havent quite untied all the theological knots as to why it was so hard work for us. but one thing is for sure I havent prayed like that for the Holy Spirit to come and fill me for a while. this is a bit of a mad one so ill happily answer any comments as best i can peace g

suicide sucks

2007-06-15T00:14:00.000Z

i was at a thing tonight in west belfast called solidarity against suicide. it was pretty powerful, a bunch of people from different churches coming together to talk about the issue, pray, give and consider practical steps to stopping the spiraling suicide rates in west belfast and ireland as a whole.
it seems really twisted to me that even the most broke person in belfast is like 1000s of times richer than over 2 billion people on the planet yet life can still get so hopeless they kill themselves. not that money = happiness but more suicide = despiration and dispiration means a lack of hope on job / life / money front. i dont know its a kinda deeper thing too i guess.

the question i have is how have we let our city get to the point where 26 of every 100,000 people would rather be dead?

its easy to point the finger and the "problems of the world" and moan about how powerless we are, but here i our city there is something really really wrong that we need to address. a part of our destiny lies in the hands and lives of all the people of this country and if we say just cause they wear tracksuits and have bad mostaches we dont want to know them, then we are missing the point of who Jesus was; we cant deny the humanity in another induvidual without losing a bit of our own.

but more, much more than this, God's heart is for hope and freedom and destiny, and he longs to use his people to set the captives free and let the down-trodden know God is on their side (see luke 4,18> for details). and its on these adventures we discover who we are and see him move in power to do miracles and bring that freedom...

so maybe the restless middle class church goers, myself included, that seem to overrun this city / country should stop watching dvds and drinking coffee and start getting involved with the least of these on our doorstep....

a non performance based realationship

2007-06-03T18:02:00.000Z

fresh hard rain, ran down the back of my neck, as i sauntered back across the road with a warm coffee. sipping the steaming brew as rain water fell in sheets its amazing how much on can become aware of in a reflective mood on a sunday afternoon...
after spending the dregs of a night on half a tiny sofa with a friend I had been much more than friendly with, the strange reality of Jesus love took me by surprise.

the sofa having been preceded by a day including praying for healing and vjing at a christian event, there were definitely a few hypocrisy alarm bells ringing. but then in church having told all to some unsuspecting member of the prayer ministry team, the guilt trip i was probably twistedly hoping for failed to kick in, instead they encouraged me to realise how much Jesus delighted in me and who i was...

and that is the truth of grace and why Jesus death on the cross produces this most beautiful non-performance based relationship. he understands we will continually make mistakes and break any rules our society or religion might suggest. these disasters are almost irrelevant to how much he completely loves us.

design pain and some grade a junkies

2007-05-29T21:45:00.000Z

i did this today which im pretty pleased with...
i also got two wisdom teeth out, it was pretty brutal the guy had the slice my gum open and drill the mofo to pieces, lots of winching, trying to be a man and listening to loud dance music and top volume....

the junkies is reference to sunday morning and hill street fellowship, i use the term in the holy spirit sense of the word, ie they loved Jesus and werent afraid the get blasted. it was cool, a disused warehouse on the way to being a music venue, old rickety wooden seats, a shoddy amp and single guitar, hardly enough people to form a huddle... and BAM! the spirit of God falls and the little group of average joe's are singing, laughing, prophecying and generally hopping on the good foot and doing the sunday thing... thats what im talking about...

ps went surfing yesterday with claire, nail and ruth anne, it was a fine days craic... if you really want to see the pics she's ruru on bebo.

4talent and a festival

2007-05-24T16:11:00.000Z

Yo bit of shameless self vj promotion but sure... click here to see my artical on 4talent, also got booked for this festival:

yo!
tekumah on tuesday went class next one 14th of june...

opportunity

2007-05-13T16:22:00.000Z

i was on my way for a bacon soda this morning and bumped into ben. he's a homeless guy i have met a few weeks ago. as he chatted about the state of homlessness in belfast and the way in which the system, intenionally has him jumping through hoops and sat in catch 22s it seemed a bit ridculous. here is a diagnosed manic depressive forced to wake up soaking wet cause it rained last night. is this the society we are proud to have created?

its all great the assembly is up and running and we're all moving forward, but ben reckons belfast has gone from one of the best cities at providing advice, care and support for those without a home to one of the worst.

why do we accept homelessness as a part of our countries? there are many parts of the world where it simply does not exist, where people are prepared to do what it takes so that any induvidual can be housed.

i do think the governement has a role to play and indeed it has the greatest power when it comes to delivering serivces, but what if we had a more creative attitude to spending our money.

what if a holiday home in spain was a bit passe compared to having you own 4 bed mini hostel for down and outs? forget a jag and bling bling, i fund a support worker who has helped 20 people find housing this year... oh really well my peanut factory in madagasgar recently won a national award for health and safety...

i dont think we should feel guilty for enjoying the wealth that we have been given, instead we should get excited about how much potential there is for good in all our wallets.

i know we're not all at the point where we are buying second holmes or even one, but 50p can stop a child going blind, and you ask the next homesless person you buy a coffee for if that 1.80 wasnt worth it.

the world is only as we make it to be

sweet video about the worlds cultures

2007-04-17T11:30:00.000Z

check it out here and be inspiried

o, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!

2007-04-10T16:39:00.000Z

sometimes its hard to hold on to everything thats possible
when ur surrounded by those who only care for the plausible
sometimes its hard to offer to pray when cold dark eyes just stare right through you
sometimes its hard to hold on to promises of love and life
when your feeling drunk and its right there in front of you
a quick fix even when you know its not what you really want

sitting in hungover desolation as the ugliness of your actions
circle round and accustaions fly...
not worth of a single drop of his prescious blood,
yet it all gushed out to wash away even crap like this on a grey day
but a clean slate seems to quick a solution,
will it really be any different, can i have a greater level of devotion?

no, no i cant,
but he can
he loves me still and it will be enough
to set me free cause
goodness is stronger than evil
love is stronger than hate
life is stronger than death
and hope is stronger than fear.. .. ..

back in belfast

2007-04-08T15:29:00.000Z

A wee shout out and thanks to Jesus and all the guys who were praying and sending the love over the whole america trip. It was most excellent.

The maddness didnt stop after that last post... On the sunday chilling in the spa of the hotel the first gig was i met a guy and ended up going for sushi with the dude who runs the microsoft crossfader site (where coldcut and the light surgeons some of the orignal uk vjs do stuff).
I also had loads of conversations with people and about spirituality and stuff the guy who took me to that meal was really interested in the healing and deliverance stories from mozambique, as they were all into yoga and healing to hear of Jesus doing it they were really open.
After miami i hung in birmingham alabama and nashville tennesse with some of the orignial mozambique homeboys ty-ty and alex, as well as pris and mal, who are all superstars. I got to go to gracecentre church, which was some much good vibes and jesus love it was pretty breath taking. I also enjoyed the delights of smokes and brus.
Then i popped up to new york to stay with a friend from hungary and see what all the fuss was about. I had a blast and through some more connections ended up having dinner with the biggest / only vj booking agent in america. Although over all i was a little disappointed, kinda got a bit distraced by running round trying to do new york and in the end its the big love hugs from jesus that make me happy...
So all in all another fantastic God adventure which if you had told me what would have happened it would have laughed at you a few weeks ago, it was also amazing free of girl type temptation. i seemed much more popular with the boys... but seriously cheers for all the prayers and hope to see yous soon.
peace g

yo yo

2007-03-25T21:36:00.000Z

sorry the whole updates have been a little sparse, the last few days have been mental. since the last update,

i met up with Tim Hirst, one of the original 24/7 homeboys who was out here with his label which was really cool

i played at miamibent the gig i got before coming out. It was cool and although the new software im using crashed a few times it was really cool.
But the big news of the week was that i got a stage at the ultra music festival its a 60 - 80,000 people two day dancemusic festival a big like homelands mixed with oxygen :) i played on an up and coming stage, but got whisked around the park on golf buggy and generally felt excited yet amused at the whole experice.
Then, it gets even better, i first went to the wrong stage and got to meet another vj called omni, who marina, the girl who got me the stage arranged for me to go to the afterparty with. He was playing the d n b room and so i ended up playing back to back with him doing visuals for Goldie, Grooverider, Fabio, ShyFX, MC Tali, Skibadee!!!!!!
Who for those who dont know are probably the most famous Drum and Bass djs in the world.
During all of which i was totally free to put up visualisations of Jesus, words, scripture and all that good stuff all over the place :)so a massive thanks to Jesus for pulling the strings, and all you beautiful ppl who have been praying..
im heading to birmingham, alabama tomorrow but thats a whole differnet story...

wmc day 1

2007-03-21T21:20:00.000Z

bingo bango, this is a quick pic taken in the lobby, since yesterday leaving for my flight i got to pray for healing with a muslim guy in the heathrow prayer room, met a vocalist playing with eric morillo tonight in space, hung out all day the the onbeat vip area after meeting psyperpixie the vj, met a cool local guy called gaberil who does minimal techno, spoke to sony ericsson about vjing, met a chiliean promoter and the owner of brasil's branch of el divinio. which looking back on it is quite a lot going on :)

on the down side its not that sunny... right off to dinner, please pray for boldness with these ppl so i can get the jesus love all in them.

getting ready for the launch

2007-03-20T00:53:00.000Z

its about 12hours before i get on a plane for miami, i;ve about 30% of a set ready, my midi controller hasnt showed up and i cant register the softward im planning to play with.
but on the plus side the last two days i have been chilling with the mozambique massive getting totally blasted by God and ready to bring some kingdom of heaven into the the wmc.
to be continued...

stretching the truth

2007-03-04T21:27:00.000Z

how far is too far? if a conservative sermon talks about us as sinners and that we need to dedicate ourselves to christ and try harder, at what point does it sufficiently collide with the truth of grace and the holy spirits desire to lead us into deeper commitment and love with jesus that we can no longer reconcile? is it two perspectives? or is it a lie that leaves the western church robbed of its opportunity to fulfill divine potential and unleased to love the world around them?

if jesus and his followers lives were characterised by people coming to understand God's love for them and demonstrating that love supernaturally through healing and deliverance. and our contries experience of christianity isnt that right now then where does the change need to take place? with us personally, with our churchs, with whats being preached? with all of it?

a fine betrayal?

2007-03-01T10:40:00.000Z

so its been in the news that the director of the divincy code movie was claiming to have found jesus and mary and joesph's bones in the middle east. from what i understand its pretty much cause he found those three names on the tombs, but there were really common names at the time so its pretty much balls.

anyway i was reading a bit or mark's book about jesus life just before the crucifixion and a couple of bits struck me for the first time. Firstly peter his mate denys him three times, but i was thinking if he hadnt he probably would have been killed with jesus, the other disciplines who all fled, if they had stood their ground the same thing. in the end they formed the first church and the beginnings of christianity, so if they hadnt of been chickens and run away then who would have done it. So basically what looks like a totaly failure on their part was actually part of God's bigger plan, which give me a lot of hope ;)

secondly im kinda starting off freelancing and its pretty clear that who you know is a lot more important than anything else, but think about jesus when he was crucified, the way he went from each court to the other and finally before the crowd, if he had spent time getting to know even one priest or palace official they probably would have been able to pull a few strings and get him off... but that would stopped God's salvation plan for the world. So basically im kinda floored by that instead of running around making "connections" and building "networks" Jesus just loved each person with a perfect equality, it didnt matter to him what job or position or money they had, he NEVER chased influence, his afirmation came from his father in heaven and he just loved the people he came across each day...

mini cd stuck in mac book pro fix

2007-02-19T18:27:00.000Z

this is a bit random for the blog but just stuck a mini cd into my mac book pro and then nothing happened so i pushed it further in with another cd, then i searched the internet and got told that was a really stupid thing to do.

i paniced for a while then turned the think off and give it a big shake and praise the lord jesus the wee disc dropped on to the floor.

the end

wondering round ground zero

2007-02-04T14:42:00.000Z

i had a lot more inspriation to write this post about 30mins ago but now have been fruiting around trying to get stuff to work and lost the imputus a little.

i played 3 vj gigs in the last three nights, which was fun but totally knackering and the last two nights were pretty thankless. thursday was for an up and coming band called The Tides who were cool, although ended up at a cultchie holy lands house party. friday was a night i put on for cutting off the long locks to raise money for iris ministries who i was away with before christmas. A good few of my mates came and some cool ppl played and although we made £185 it felt like a bit of a wash out as the venue was quite big and never felt anything like full. Then last night played at the opening of an underage night club / super youth club, again awesome location and cool ppl but just not really enough.

that all lead to me feeling like crap driving home, but once there i just chilled out with Jesus and after a little while he showed up and loved me back to life, mozambique really has ruined me for satisfaction in anything other than Him, now matter how hard i tried, got some good Holy Spirit jiving going on too.

then woke up this morning just in time to catch a lift to church with my parents, a while ago i felt called to be involved in the place i first encountered God again. The church is Jesus bride and not matter what state it is speaking ill of it isnt goin to get us anywhere, but it just felt a like so little of our potential in God was on offer, we arent slaves to anything anymore, there is no need so encourage ppl to show up at church, God's interaction with us is a love story, He things we are awesome and although there may be some areas of our lives which arent perfect He is MUCH more excited about getting to know us and love us than He would like us to try and sort ourselves out.

the Holy Spirit will mould us more into Christ's image but right now we are master pieces of God's handy work (eph 2) and He is longing to do miracles through us right now, not when we have quit smoking or stopped having lustful thoughts. look at the disciples, went around healing ppl and casting out demons (matt 10) then a wee while later are aguing about who is better, and then denying then even knew Jesus when the pressure was on.

i highly recommend the mosaic podcast its an awesomely creative church in LA.

but yeah where do we go from here, its all a bit like hard work, i dont min workin away at stuff but i dont want to waste time floggin a dead horse, but then there must always be hope, or rather there is always hope, and its all worship....

some rambilngs

2007-01-19T15:52:00.000Z

Mashed up in the ireland:
went over to catch up with mozambique crew last night in coleraine, it was pure awesome, we ate, chatted and then on got blasted by the Holy Spirit yooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Rocky Balboa:
i accoumpanied a good friend to the press viewing of this on wednesday night. its whack for the first hour, then the training montage kicks in and i was nearly in tears "go on rocky son"
verdict: take you da, it will give him great hope that "its not over till its over"

Tip your fecking waitress:
was hanging out with my mate and his girlfriend who are manager and supervisor in two different restaurants on the same road near a cool church. but apart from lots of funny stories it kinda sucked that they both were of the opinion that christians were the worst tippers they came across. its such a simple way to bless someone, who has to serve you. dont spend all your money leave enough for a decent tip (10% is average aim for 15%) i mean God gave us the riches of heaven and we wont even pass a little on.

5 things you dont know about me

2007-01-06T17:05:00.000Z

so after mozambique its all hard to describe, despite my best efforts a bit of culture shock has been experienced, probably mostly how important sex is in this culture is a bit wierd, but hard not to e affected by it. its been nice to have the old comforts back, but my perspective has definately shifted so its all fun now ;)
just went to street reach leaders training for this summer, basically 3000+ ppl are going to clean up just about every estate in belfast for the love of Jesus and transformation of the city. i would highly recomend you either stay in the country till after the 7th of july or fly over here.

ok so to the title tagged by jo shannon
5 things you might not know about me

1. i have super long hair at the minute and will be cutting it off for the charity locks of love and iris (who i was in mozambique with) as part of a big night in early feb

2. i have been drinking lots of aqarius lately, its a new "heathly" soft drink coke have made, my mate jo (not shannon) is workin for them and gave me a case free YO

3. when i was at school i was in cadets and we won uk competition for marching, during which time i would have thought nothing of shining my shoes for 3 hours. (you could have shaved in those bad boys) i also ironed creases in all my uniform and generally looked A LOT more neat and tidy than you are likely to find me now

4. i quite enjoy a good shesha pipe, apple and mint flavour being my favourite

5. i just joined a frequent flyer program and it made me feel grown up.

i tag lambert

4.

a little bit of news

2006-12-06T14:23:00.000Z

rightso
whats the criac? more laughing on straw mats, helped chill me out a bit today,
a prophet called mark dupont was speaking and called me amoungst a few others to the front and prophencied over us
it was pretty sweet, he said i should read william wilborforces (the stop slavery dude) book and would doing education and general freedom for the people stuff,
quite fancy in a masters in harvard or somewhere.
apart from that i found the nearby reef so i can go swimming with the fishes in the mornings, and we are off to nampula another area this weekend, to check out a chicken farm, its kinda a fairtrade vibe so looking forward to it and a bit of chillin.
peace
g

hungary

2006-11-20T13:13:00.000Z

i was in a cross cultural class the other day, which is one where the mozambiquian pastors and the students of the school (us) get taught together,

Hedi was teaching about hunger, from the sermon on the mount where it says "blessed are those who hunger and thurst for righteousness for there will be filled"
she then asked any mozambiquians who had a family member or close friend die from starvation to stand up.

about half the room did.

including the guy sat beside me who i had eariler been chatting to. it blew my mind and heart apart, she got them all to stand at the front of the room and pray for us to impart a sense of hunger for God.

but seriously can you imagine being so poor that your own mother died of starvation before you and you couldnt even buy her a bit of rice or something, the only reason you didnt die was cause of your youth. that means you both had nothing and i mean nothing to eat for about 30 days. some of us miss breakfast or a few meals, but try doing a 24 hour fast and you'll be feeling it, and the debilitating cycle of trying to find work or water or whatever as you starve. And here are these guys who we are living with who have gone through it, there are guys who have seen God moving in miracles like raising the dead, there are really chilled out friendly guys. Its ridculous, like you can get a meal in local restaurant for 17p so in that room of say 50 pastors like 25 of their friends and familes lives could have been saved for 2.40. a pint. If thats not enough for us cause a relovution i dont know what is.

in other news 200+ people got baptisted yesterday, including me, took part in casting out a demon from a girl, have been smiling lots and enjoying the sun.

coughing demons, eating ice cream and other tales of the pemba underground

2006-11-09T12:55:00.000Z

another we while has passed in this sublime and magnicient poverty. on the down side i got 18 bites for a certain fly which lays eggs below the skin and as i innocently itched my "bites" the eggs hatches and grew into little worms. I only discovered this as in the shower (of which the water has only been running long enough to have two of on the last two and half weeks) i squeezed one of these bites the the strange looking pussy thing that came out began to wiggle, nice. Despite this is the closest i will ever come to pregnancy no maternal instincts develped and i killed every one of the beggers.

apart from that have been having some good banter with the other nutters who travelled over for the craic. crazyness includes a guy who helped out behind the scences on a trip i did to romania in 2000 (represent to kairos krew) and a girl who learned spanish in turrialba, the base of my expedition in Costa Rica (big up)

spiritual stuff is still on full throttle, currently "having a healing" of my hip, after some nice and spicy prayer last tuesday i considered myself healed and promptly burned all the medication i had with me for it (a couple of hundred pills) it has then given me reducing pain up until today when post some more blasting prayer i was able to sprint around the base, not just a crap jog but full-on pelting it, the elation was slightly marred by the blisters incured running around on hard african ground :) the hip is still a bit stiff but its definately the best state its been in over 5 months so thanks to Jesus for that one.

post the run i went back into the tent where we all meet and there was lots of deliverance going on, and as a guy prayed for me i felt weird coughs come up from with in me and then like i was bringing up and spitting up something nasty, this happened three times and i felt all the better for it so i guess the casting out demons thing is a bit more normal than i had imagined to.

for those who are interested Mark 16, Mat 8v16+17 amoungst many others might help any questions of what the funk am i talking about. otherwise peace out.

I stand up but i get knocked down again,

2006-10-30T15:19:00.000Z

its only been one week, but it could have been a year or maybe longer, not so much spiritual growth as explosion.

church now involves falling over laughing, which is pure brilliant, there is a sort of mad simplicity to Christianity out here.

Jesus loves you, all thats going on in the world is a little to much for comprehension, so simple trust in God and enjoying Him is all that is required. Compared to the stern nonsense of much of my attitude to faith, its a total breath of fresh air.

I went on outreach last wknd, which involved packing up a truck of westerners mozambiquen pastors, a sound system, projector and generator, driving two hours into the bush and getting involved. it was a truly humbling experience to live alongside those in absolute poverty even if for only 48hours, seeing women pound millet for half an hour to get a crap rice substitue which, will not even nourish her 5 or 6 kids. The ground so dry and hard, the people so beautiful yet desperate, i ended up crying my eyes out, broken. but then that night when we showed the video and people understood that jesus loved them and that that meant he could heal them. A bold statement from a western perspective, not so bold as you watch an old man touching his toes to try out his newly healed back, or you watch a man could fingers from his 10 minutes earlier blind eye. Yes miracles happen, I have seen it with my own eyes, you and can see it with yours. Not everyone was healed and it was hard to understand why, but the healing is Jesus business, all we do is pray and the longer i am here the less understanding seems to matter, only trusting.

mozambique pt 1

2006-10-24T08:40:00.000Z

alright the world
just landed in pemba after a bit of a monster journey
its all good out hear, just how i like it sunny, no running water for the last three days, eating rice and beans with my hands, carrying blocks and meeting new ppl
seriously but more pastors graduated from their school than have probably trained in ireland in about 10years, then there were about 10 batisms, then feeding the local communitythen distributing food to widows. its pretty immense but in a very normal way, met some cool people, a dude who sold his house to buy a plane to be a missionary,talking to a guy from norway who the last time he was flying through dubai (where i flew threw) was to smuggle bibles ;)its like a world select of hardcore christians out here.
but yeah all is good, its a bit of a mission to get to internet so might be a while before i do this again....

chineese with mista jam, dj hix, pete and oliva

2006-10-13T11:32:00.000Z

last night at about 3am i went for chilly fried squid with misterjam (radio 1 xtra dj) hix (an AMAZINF local hip hop /rnb dj - and you know he's good for me to apprciate those tunes) pete ( a super hero who introducted me to hix and this night) and olivia (who was running the front of house with pete) it was after my first gig in my new vj residency (YOOO) at a night called vibe in the sugar rooms at the pothouse.

it was all a bit short notice - i was only back from london on sat and heard on sun, and had major complications from my vj laptop being the one that got stroked in london, but it was alright on the night and i definately played my best set to date, it was another 3hr marathon but i generally lloved it :) so get down there on a thurs if you are in the 'fast

althogh i wont be there again for two months cause im off to Mozambique next friday, awesome.
its a training school with iris ministries who generally roll like Jesus, miracles, loving the poorests of the world and all. i imagine it will be quite a trip, physically mentally and big time spiritually. i cant wait.

thats about all except to say that my profile photo is a lie and i now have hair longer than most girls, which when it isnt getting in my eyes is also most excellent and i would recommend it to all guys who have the opportunity

isaiah 40 revisited

2006-09-24T12:29:00.000Z

come close,
come close to my friends
says your God

talk gently to belfast,
and tell her the hard days are over,
the selfishness and violence has been paid for,
double the price has been paid,

it was on tv last night
in the countryside, in the sticks
get a road ready for the Lord,
make it wide and smooth,
and motorway for our God

the valleys will be filled in
and the mountain flattened off
the marsh land drained
and the bracken cleared

then the brilliance and mystery of the Lord
will be clear for all to see
God has spoken

someone said shout out, protest,
i said "whats the point"
"what difference can i make?"
"whats just one lifetime"

things move on everytime i look around
there are new buildings and old ones knocked down
new shopping centres and different places
nothing stays the same

only God is constant his words last through everthing

artists, musicans, dancers, promoters and organisers
you who bring a good time to belfast
put on the greatest show on earth,
perform you hearts out, showing everyone
"God lives and loves you"

He looks out for each one of us,
He's got out backs and we can
always rely on him

He picks us up and carries us
in his arms, gentle taking care
of teenagers and kids

Who is like Him?
can anyone hold the ocean in their hands?
who can measure the universe in the span of their hand?
who could hold all the bricks of a city?
who has put skyscrapers on their bathroom scales?

who understands everything?
or know how to comfort us in every situation?

who taught God what he knows?
who showed Him wrong from right?
who explained destiny or purpose to Him?

everything is nothing beside God,
everything we know, see, make and strive for,
humanity is nothing
compared to the scale of God

as for celebrities, the rich and famous,
manisions and limos, diamonds,
private jets, tv series, private islands,
of just the simple things we save up for
and look up to holidays, cars, houses

dont you realise,
havent you know since you were a kid?

He sits above it all, people a like little ants
scurring around, he spoke this planet into existence
he birthed the universe and spins the earth round the sun

he turns movies stars milkmen,
brings rules of this world into line

no sooner than they're elected,
no sooner than they're at number one
they are turned out by their people,
and cameras have swung somewhere else

who is there like God?
who would you put up to him?
who equals him?

look up at the night sky sometime
who put those massive burning gas balls
millions of light years away to twinkle nicely as stars?
they are not just random either he knows each one by name
because He is God they are always shining down

who do you say "no one cares about me"
"nobody knows what im going through"
do you think this might God could get tired?
do you think he would fail to love you?

he built you from cells up, bones, blood, nerves,
eyes, ears, he knows how many hairs are on your head
and you think he is going to get tired?

no chance, just look to him,
he gives you a pick up when your down,
gives you the strength you need,
the poor and weak he loves to help

even the young people get tired,
they make mistakes and hit rock bottom

but if you look to God, hope in Him,
then its on, chill with Him and you
will be soaring like an eagle,
unstopable no matter what life throws at you

in london at the moment working for a friend, the hotel room we're staying in got robbed lost laptop, phone, money, but above is what matters not that crap

holding back from the full embrace

2006-08-16T10:21:00.000Z

I have been thinking a bit about the darker side to my character, and not so much about trying to ignore it or deny it, but to understand it and embrace it. In an understnading of my weakness and imperfection, there is a freedom. I have often heard people laying the guilt trip to allow God into all our lives and not hold anything back. But I think its the opposite if you hug someone halfheartly you will never feel the fullness of their embrace. Instead of worrying about the dark parts of our character and how God mite not like them, we instead need to trust him when he says He loves all of us and abandon ourselves to the full embrace.

vj your face off

2006-08-13T23:03:00.000Z

loads of stuff goin on at the mo,
kat and amy from my cell in southampton came over with ruth and emma there and now my friends, i got my first proper vj gig in belfast and put about 30hrs into my set complete with newly learned after effects and priemer skills to play the best set i've done so far, which was cool. even better was that gav my mate was djing at the same time, saturday, was a bit of a trip met some afticans who i did street reach with, got a strange good deal on phones with cash back and then met a random brazillan missionary who got the cash back. one of those truly bizzare moments when you meet someone and know its not by accident and the whole phones thing was probably all invloved in some divine conspiracy to get this chick over to england, but whilst telling me encouraging stories about living by faith and praying for me.
then went and say andy rambo from my costa rica gap year djing in a bar in lisburn called distill which was actually pretty cool, desite cigarettes and a situation where a little kindness was misread. just about to pick up a car tomorrow from a mate, totally free of charge, awesome, big up to Jesus and the old lady who had it, so all being well ill be the prod owner of an automatic 91 metro tomorrow evening awesome! then its off the edinburgh to enjoy the brief few days left of ryan's bachelor life, he will be hitched on sat which is a scary and exciting prospect, with the added bonus of getting to go comando in skirt for the day in a totally socially acceptable way, whoever invented kilts knew a thing or too about freeedom, but then i suppose all scots do...

one monster of a post... 8days of silence... missing the point.... graduation in heat.... fear and loathing all over the place...

2006-07-31T08:55:00.000Z

in homage to hunter s. thompson (you need to watch fear and loathing in las vegas) this will be a gonzo post, with no structure or organisation beyond the various moments that thoughts cross my mind...

first a follow up to a post way back near easter (two one night stands) i had most alarming text message ever when the girl from that trip informed she had clamidia and i therefore mite to. first point use a condom, shouldnt we all carry them just in case? when we go driving we have absolutely no plan to have an accident yet we wear seat belts just in case. anyway the waiting room of the sti part of the hospital was funny in the darkest sense about 20 men sat round a room that was a little too small all trying to avoid eye contact, feeling uneasy and a little condemmed. The actual examination seemed grand until the swab bit... whatever else anyone says I will gladly be keeping sex until im married to avoid that again; a slighty camp nurse sticking a plastic stick up my little friend... Ouch!....

which leads neatly to an 8 day retreat in dublin, with the jesuits who are a seriously rocking order within the Roman catholic church. The R Cath. church has its bad points no doubt but just trying to get my head around the depth of my spiritual director's relationship with Jesus was head melting. having nowhere to go and nothing to do will seriously chill you out. it took a day or two to get used to silence (apart from the wee chat with the director once a day, no talking) but then reading luke 15 the parables of the lost sheep, coin and prodical son. In which Jesus tells these stories to explain that God is not just standing around with his arms folded because we make mistakes but He is out searching for us, tenderly trying to find us. And when he does there is no reckoning, no "what did you do THAT?!" instead he is overcome with love picks us up onto his sholders and calls a celebration just because he has found us.

to feel that love was pretty mind blowing, it makes me giggle. i scrambled down to the belfast vineyard yesterday morning, pretty hanging and feeling guilty, and by about halfway in i was just laughing and smiling. of course i am a mess of course God knows this of course he still loves
me, i have nothing and He is everything.
for far too long i have been on some sort of death insurance policy trip, the whole christianity thing just making sure i dont end up in some firey pit after popping my cloggs. but that is monumentally missing the point, the confidence and beauty of the love of God accepting me just who i am, and opening up awesome adventures for this life, giving me hope and a super chilling perspective, is well worth jacking in a selfish journey to affluent bordem.

in fact i challenge this whole school>(uni)>work>house>?? cycle, whos idea is it? its like some sort of unquestioned mantra built into our "free" democractic livestyles
the worlds a pretty screwed place, when our world leaders back up a country bombing innocent civilians, when everyday 10,000 kids die of treatable diseases, do you not think we should prehaps consider changing this place instead of just floating along till we have to explain what a mess we have made to our kids?

when world war two was declared everyone had to choose if they would stop their normal lives to go and fight or sit back and let hitler advance. this time round our governments are profiting far too much from the victims and corporations who exploit these countries to ever blow the whistle, so we are going to have to figure out how to effect change ourselves. thankfully these same people will do just about anything to win votes and maintain their power so if we did stand up and make it clear that we will not accept bigger profits in return for the blood of those living in absolute poverty, they would pretty sharpish start responding...

thats quite a swing of madness, i dont really have the engry to tell you about wearing a cape and strange hand shakes in southampton, or a fine pair of trainers i recently acquired. but i will say this lets get richard and ashlene out of the house and leave pete and glynn to win.

pure genius

2006-06-22T13:47:00.000Z

barry white saved my life

2006-06-19T19:10:00.000Z

The fun loving criminals played at my grad ball which was awesome, and sang the classic "Barry white saved my life" but yesterday at noah, my Godson's christening my memory card packed up and claimed to be unformatted :( no amount of taking out putting in or batter swapping helped) to it to town today and it wasnt up for any craic at all

come back home, bit of a google about and find photosaver which for £10 got all the photos back - genius Photosaver saved my life.

technorati tags:life, photography

I can’t tell you what has happened

2006-06-13T14:44:00.000Z

It’s between the worlds, between souls and reality, somehow described in brush
strokes yet burnt on hearts. Pain and
desertion, self destruct and eloquence.
Beauty so much beauty. In form,
in flesh, in light, surrounded and drowned in beauty.

Selfish grabs and misunder-standing by myself.
Different countries and consciousness and consequences, different food,
drinks, currencies and still one hunger. Broken cisterns instead of living water.
Attempted substitution of real love for lust, adventure, sex and extravagance,
running savage burns across people and places, moving fast enough
to fool everyone and thing except my own heart.

Finally, today
when the sun has hidden behind ugly clouds and I have nothing, nothing left
except to be face down on my carpet.
Here is where I find the answer, the one that makes all questions
irrelevant, that is fitter than any girl, more messy than any night out; the
raw love of God, the passion of a creator who split his son’s blood so that no
matter how hard or far I run he still wants me.
Craves me, loves me, loves me, loves me.

I can’t really express it, it’s beyond words, brush strokes or musical notes:

unconditional love.

ps.
cool new free album by a dude called draco

just a viva away...

2006-06-01T14:13:00.000Z

today ill be graham "no exams ever again robinson"
tomorrow ill be graham "finished" robinson
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

There are risks and costs to a program of
action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable
inaction.
John F Kennedy

things i like

2006-05-26T18:46:00.000Z

just downloaded, the performancing plugin for my internet browser (mozilla firefox) it means you can type up a blog from any webpage, which makes rambling a lot more accessible.... so big up to it. But also today i found video downloader, so you can get google videos and u-tubes (again firefox extension) and notepad++ which is a pure geek accessory for writting xml in a very handy way. Sad i know but good if you have an xml exam next week :) have a good weekend party people

quote for the day

2006-05-26T13:48:00.000Z

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. This will be the beginning. (Louis L'Amour)

this is the end

2006-05-23T21:35:00.000Z

last ever lecture was attended today. as ever i planned to be on time and somehow managed to be 5 mins late. it was weird because it seemed so normal. just another nail in the uni coffin, will be sad to lower it 6ft under but am ready to step outta the bubble can cause some trouble in the real world...

not so stoked

2006-05-19T16:43:00.000Z

after a weekend trip up to check out stoke and i dont think ill be going there after all. it was cool and mark is a dude but he works in a wee village with a very old skool church so i dont think i would survive!

so the current plan is to replan, but return to tha hood is well on the cards and it would be sweet to be back in bfast proper.

keep it real

oh yeah and check out shakinda.com if you fancy watching the video about my project or readin the report.

next move

2006-04-28T15:26:00.000Z

next year is beginning to take a bit more shape, my mate mark from by ibiza 04 team called me to fill me in on a few details. turns out in small town called endon (could u make that up?) which he described as a local place for local ppl (league of gentlemen stylee) has planned a huge multimedia and specifically Vj orientated program for the next year!! on top of that there is lots of dj led worship about 1/7th of the local high school have been to the youth group and it generally seems awesome.
i had been thinking hard about what to do, cause going to stoke on trent of a year seemed like it could be a step back not forward, but then God goes and sorts it out so that its all good:)
only bad thing is i have to go northside, which as a belfast southsider will be painful

not too sure

2006-04-11T12:20:00.000Z

i nearly pulled yesterdays post today, i dont want it to be offensive of some attention seeking nonsense, just an acurate description of how i was feeling then...
peace

two one night stands

2006-04-10T13:51:00.000Z

a simple glance, eyes meet, hold and move away. then they come back, a marker pen and jambon written on her tummy, the reason why irrlevant the intial ice broken. later she returns to ask something the music is too loud, it does matter we are together again, the kiss is soon inevitable and well timed, not too long not too short, retreat from the dancefloor, ask her name who she is where she is from. do you want a drink? no thanks. chat some more, a tune comes on whisked off to the dancefloor once more, in the maddness and colour its only her that matters, jumping up and down bouncing off the others our connection is never broken. her friend checks in for approval and to offer the diginifed exit, but its far too late for that she dissmisses her friend and once more it is only her and i. we drift back off the dancefloor, this time drinks are given and recieved vodka and whiskey as if any more were required but that fresh taste of alcohole on her lips when we kiss makes it worthwhile. the night majestically vanishes in her eyes and now the sublte moment of exit is required. a wet t-shirt contest is no fun so lets get on the run, mini-bus waiting, you place or mine, oh its the same place great, on up on up the hill, now would be a good time to escape leave it as it is a fun night no harm done. but not now not tonight, kissing outside in the cold till the air bites and we escape indoors, rising to the fourth floor. into apparment, quick nip to the gents and chat on balcony before its time to come together, clothes slip off as vertical becomes horizontal and soon the kissing takes second place to the sex. nails dig, faces scrunch as once, twice, three times a lady, the strangest sensation as we share all within hours of meeting, well aware that she leaves tomorrow and this night is all we have. the pointless futile abadon of all is fragile and precious, did that mean anything to her have i just been used? fear and insecurity abound as sleep takes over.
morning comes that burning acid taste of hangover and sin, is more than can be tolerated, water please, ah yes water, now bleary eyes focus and a reassesment of the mysterious beauty from clubland, in cold day light... but still a beauty, awkwardness overcome with last nights jokes and memories, friends arrive and banter begins, exit stage left or remain? breakfast is suggested so why not, lets follow this path a little further and see where it ends.
it does soon, me too afraid to appear desperate and hang around too long, so off i go, to depression and emptiness, come play with me, just a while, i dont last long, i dont want you to know me, just tonight i can be whoever i want you to think i am. what sense do i make a beloved son of the most high God throwing away everthing for nothing.
i ponder this still days later in the chapel of gatwick airport waiting the final step back to belfast, i know i cant survive without Jesus, so i say sorry once more, in the completeness of his love he welcomes me a grace i never deserve is still there for me. and just a suddenly another kind of madness kicks off. as i pray in that place a man arrives frightening and confused, "tonight i will be tortured" by who by what, he is half spanish is this a misuse of phrase or is he for real? sacrificed and tortured, "pray with me" is what he wants, but how can i be here now to meet him, surely there is someone much better qualified than me to help this man in his darkest hour? i cant refuse, so off we go into the heart of God, as the rubbish is stripped off we both cry out afresh to Jesus, make us like you, give us strength. Passages of the bible take on a new impact in the face of death. My flight comes and goes but i cannot leave this man, if he is to die tonight. closer we are drawn, total strangers now hugging, and sharing who we really are and supporting as fear steps back and love and peace come in. no perfect answer but with courage he leaves assured that Jesus loves him.
did he die that night? i dont know i had flights to rebook and he wanted to left alone to face his fate, but i cannot forget his face or story. a couple of hours in one night shared in God's love, gives hope and life. how can Jesus love a hypcrit like me? i dont think he should, but he does so very much.

yesterday i arrive back the swirl of reality a little hard to take but eventually bed and 16hrs sleep seems to reset normality... a least for a while.

sleep :: max :: sleep

2006-03-25T00:06:00.000Z

right now is project land in my life, the final part of my degree is pretty much due and as ususual i have left a lot of it till the last minute. I am working to link music to colour and visualisations, using colour and music theroy from all the way back to newton, scriban and kandisky, to make a computer prototype to process a dj's audio to make everyone have a better night out when they are clubbing.

unfortunately it involves quite a lot of complicated maths and annoying computer problems, but on the plus side my demonstration next wednesday is in a night club. (Soul Cellar 9pm if you are within "can be arsed" distance of southampton)

i am also really looking forward to my first ever snowboarding trip next friday :)

apart from that i might be youth worker in stoke on trent next year and have a couple more weddings to take photos at in the summer.

go buy some photos

2006-03-22T00:35:00.000Z

for anyone who knows jimbo and janet, there wedding photos are now online yo. 50% of profits will be going to my home church's new halls program and i am skint so go buy some photos :)

for anyone in southampton soul cellar next wednesday my first true vj gig, demoing my 3rd year project audio visual software thingy. it should be monster

Godfather pt1

2006-03-15T00:12:00.000Z

Amongst many other things going on I am now offically the Godfather to one Noah Price, cheers to ben the legend for asking me and danielle for having him :)
i will be going over to dote over him some time soon...
also booked to go snowboarding and hit the dry slope last night, its was awesome, by the end i had managed one or two decent wipeouts and can turn left but not right... bring on the snow :)

sam who

2006-03-10T01:48:00.000Z

There is a nation which is trying to work with its people and stabalise its economy but it is attacked by foreign rebels and because its farmers must fight falls into drought.
One night the bbc have a special appeal for the situation...
A minister is watching the program, feels sorry for the people but remembers he has a sermon to write for sunday and switches off his tv.
A youth worker is watching the program and thinks how the kids arent so different from the ones he works with, but deciedes he had better stay in touch with youth culture and flicks on to MTV.
A gay junkie is lying on his sofa zoned out, when the program comes on, but it touches him, he hunts around on the floor, finds his mobile calls the number and gives half his dole money to the appeal. A few months down the line he reads the news letter from the charity he supported and gives away another half share of his months money to the replanting of fields to prevent drought in the following year.

which of these people was a neighbour to the people caught in drought?
Jesus said "Go and do the same." luke 10v37

monks kick ass

2006-03-08T12:22:00.000Z

Click on the pic for an awesome animation from some random frenchies. The clip is good enough to justify a whole post but I have also now applied to go an do the spiritual excercises of St. Ignatius in the summer, which would be awesome, its 30 day retreat down in dublin run by the jesuits... BLAM!

cool stuff

2006-02-23T14:11:00.000Z

also in the music vien Erol Alkan has loads of mixes to be downloaded as podcasts from his site including essential selections and glasto stuff, if you dont know who he is or what eletro is, I challenge you to get one turn up the volume full blast and dance your ass off. (it might take a wee while to get into but stick with it - trust me)

Annie Mac

2006-02-17T01:29:00.000Z

This is a wee bit of design i did tonight as a tribute to Annie Mac's set on boxing nite, which although is ages ago now was brilliant. She is a radio one dj and you can listen again to her thurs nite show here She blew Jacques Le Cont out of the water that night, and he's a legend.

head dump

2006-02-11T12:56:00.000Z

Its been a while and a lot of stuff has happened, i have been on and off the rails although i think i am learning things all the time.

I think by definition there is a wildness and passion about us, a inclanation to take risks which presents the opportunity for our greatest achievements and disasters. To kill this off is to kill of a part of who we are and the dead stagnation that leads to is disgusting.

"Love the Lord you God will all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and all your mind".
"David... danced before the LORD with all his might"
The first few chapters of Mark's gospel

At the minute my experience of organised religion makes little room for us to be undignifed, to loose control in God's presence. This can be done one on one with God and that is cool, but a corporate experience is healthy, to be surrounded by a mass of two hundred people all going crazy to intense music is a beautiful.

Basically i think that our current attitude to faith makes no allowance for the full breath of who we are, and as long as we pretend we are logical machines refusing to acknowledge our passion, we can never step into our true destiny in God. Jesus went forty days in the desert the devil tempting him in everyway, but he came out of it fully knowing himself, fully understanding who he was and his identity as God's son, and he performed miracles, exposed the phirasees hipocracy and generally was a legend. Not afraid of what might happen when he hung around prostitutes, or embraced lepers.

How can i say i know the first thing about Jesus if i have never healed anyone, reading the start of mark, its like saying im training to be a footballer and never kicked a ball...

So above is just where im thinking now, but ulimately so far id say my discipleship hasnt really started

silence

2006-01-19T18:03:00.000Z

got a bit on with exams, courseworks and all that so have been and will continue to be quiet ;)
however still loving...
releveant magazine now with free music videos the only consistently cool christian website in the world?? stick any you know in the commetns, particularly loving the streets being on there..

the stuff that goes on...

2006-01-06T12:33:00.000Z

The NRA(national rifle association) are scumbags check this artical about how they helped fund an ad that turned public opinion in brazil against a gun ban in their country. I dont understand why people love guns, I was in cadets I have fired guns, it is fun, but it kills ppl. Statistically the most likely ppl you are going to kill if you own a gun is family member. The whole yank issue runs as deep as their nation is old from shooting indians off their land, etc and like if they all want to run around killing each other then go for it, but brazil! feck aff, its an awesome country and their interferance has undoubtedly meant ppl are going to die needlessly, because they are afraid they might loose their rights in america.
but i mean what is that a right to carry a gun? thats not a right, food water and air are rights and at the minute several billion people struggle to get much more than air to breathe and die cause of it and they are running round the world going you all need a gun. seriously
right rant over
apart from that christams has been great it has been a bit derailed but i have once again been feeling the love from my friends in belfast, you guys make it home. the highlight was boxing night hearing Annie Mac totally upstage Jacques le Cont in the spring and airbrake. She was immense, had the whole crowd going crazy and between the two of them we were dancing for over 4hours, love it.

the chrismas story so far...

2005-12-19T16:31:00.000Z

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

2005-12-12T16:50:00.000Z

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

2005-12-04T00:12:00.000Z

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

2005-11-30T23:37:00.000Z

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

2005-11-25T15:11:00.000Z

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

2005-11-21T14:27:00.000Z

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

2005-11-10T00:59:00.000Z

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?

2005-10-28T09:45:00.000Z

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

2005-10-22T15:11:00.000Z

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

2005-10-17T22:13:00.000Z

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

2005-10-09T23:36:00.000Z

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'

2005-09-27T15:21:00.000Z

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

2005-09-22T23:02:00.000Z

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

2005-09-19T00:13:00.000Z

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

2005-09-12T10:27:00.000Z

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

2005-09-05T20:19:00.000Z

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

2005-08-29T20:16:00.000Z

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

2005-08-17T15:55:00.000Z

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

2005-08-12T08:06:00.000Z

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

2005-08-08T14:13:00.000Z

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

2005-08-04T11:55:00.000Z

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

2005-08-02T11:22:00.000Z

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

2005-07-23T21:26:00.000Z

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

2005-07-16T10:54:00.000Z

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

2005-07-14T10:11:00.000Z

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

2005-07-07T12:01:00.000Z

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

2005-07-01T11:49:00.000Z

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?

2005-06-30T12:18:00.000Z

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

2005-06-27T09:32:00.000Z

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)

2005-06-24T11:21:00.000Z

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

2005-06-17T09:46:00.000Z

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

2005-06-13T13:09:00.000Z

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!

2005-06-09T14:02:00.000Z

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.

2005-06-07T12:21:00.000Z

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!!

2005-06-03T09:56:00.000Z

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".

2005-06-01T09:24:00.000Z

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?

2005-05-30T09:29:00.000Z

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

2005-05-26T09:10:00.000Z

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.

2005-05-22T15:16:00.000Z

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

2005-05-20T09:08:00.000Z

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