I am someone who curls into a foetal position when I pray intensely. I kneel, or crouch over the seat in front of me if I am seated, shut out the world and its noise. Or I lie flat on the floor if I am alone, or in a free setting. I would look distinctly odd if I prayed like that in a middle of a big outdoor carnival.

We used to go every year to New Wine, a charismatic festival in Shepton Mallet, Somerset–noise, bands till late in the night, radios with sermons playing in the campsite, loud worship with lyrics with not much substance to them repeated, ad infinitum. I had to sit down and shut out the world to try to concentrate in meetings in which everyone else was jumping and waving their arms about.

Part of the beauty of arriving at middle age is that one now knows what works for you, and what does not. No more New Wine (though I have been 4 times.) It is stress for me–noise, queues, long walks to get to places, The crowds, 10,000 plus, the rat race for good seats, the worship, loud, and hyped, whereas I am a choral music, Taize, Gregorian chant sort of girl, though I do love Matt Redman, Michael Card, Rich Mullins, who have verbally rich lyrics, particularly the latter two.

However, there were some remarkable speakers, particularly the amazing HEIDI BAKER who is one of the zaniest, freest, happiest, absurdest, most eccentric and inspiring Christian speakers I’ve ever heard. Her faith is contagious.

But to endure a week of camping, tents, rain, a good half a mile or more walk from camp site to the venues, crowds, even for the good speakers, is something I am no longer going to do.

Different strokes for different folks. I encounter God in silence, solitude, reflection, in Scripture study and private prayer, in nature walks. I find it harder to encounter him in the midst of 5000–10000 other folk–that after all was the recorded size of several of Jesus’s audiences.

But sadly, my kids do. Zoe had an experience of baptism in the holy spirit, and stayed up till 11 at night praying with her friends. Wow. The passion of youth!!

So I guess, she can go to the youth version, Soul Survivor, and I can stay at home encountering God in my favourite way, with a mug of tea, a Bible and journal, or roaming the fields around my home, alone.

My spiritual activity takes place in solitary walks with God, in solitary prayer, in silence and solitude. Just those very words are balm to my spirit–silence, solitude, peace.

So, if I have to take spiritual holidays, I will take them in contemplative abbeys, or out in the wilderness, not in the noise and loud music of New Wine.

For what wears out the life of mortal men?

That is where blessing and breakthroughs happen–in the undivided heart, the single heart, focussed on one thing. Over the last 4 years, we have had three kettles on the hob. Though I was not really writing, I longed to be. Roy was a mathematician.

And we had a family publishing business.

We have now decided to reduce these things to 1, writing.

And what an immense, immense relief that is. And how much blessing and breakthrough it has brought. Dreams are never brought to birth in divided personalities!!

God is indeed just and his justice pervades all things

I believe there is a deeper fairness, and a deeper justice which pervades things–because life on earth is, after all, God’s story.

Let’s think of the story of Joseph. He was a victim of repeated injustice–flung into a well, sold to the Midianities, rising to the top, betrayed again, flung into a dungeon, rising still higher.

And the brothers who flung him into the well eventually came and bowed before him, hungry, almost starving, while he was high and exalted.

The situations were reversed. They enjoyed home and family, while he, who provoked their jealousy, was an outcast in a foreign land.

But God, who saw everything that was happening, saw to it that they were brought low while Joseph was raised high.

I have suffered an injustice that it appears the perpetrators have got away with. But in God’s story, things are not always as they seem.

I entrust the situation into God’s hands, and am resting.

He loves justice. He will surely see that justice is done, on this earth, preferably–and, if not, in the new heaven and new earth!!

Well, today was our housework morning. We really enjoyed sorting through and throwing out papers, getting rid of extra clothes and books, and putting everything in its right place. Hopefully, since we do this every week, and have for the last two years, we will eventually get to a place in which there is a place for everything, and everything is in its place.

It is so satisfying, peaceful and calming to have everything organized, orderly, and in its right place.

We are always busy, with loads of things to do, so we use the fact that the cleaning lady comes once a week as an excuse to take a day to put everything away and get rid of some things. I don’t know what I would do without her. As a doctor friend of mine was saying to me, her cleaner would be the last thing which would go!!

      Desiderata
         Latin for Desired Things
Max Ehrmann, 1927