today you dont need to drink. just breathe it.

We did thanksgiving! 18ppl. we done good. I like thanksgiving.

I served an ex-lifer in bongo last night, he was a bit scary but bought a drink for me mate Duncan, who is scary too but he's my friend.

KB is also my friend, she is the one who gets me and my friends our ideal employment. we used to share a roof. She got handed a book in the cloakroom by a random punter on thurs and told she had to read it. I started reading it on the upstairs bar which was quiet. Very interesting, is by the guy who wrote Fup.(?)

90kids in Gracemount last night and 4workers, and one's just left and we dont have a replacement.

Radiohead are a good band.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
am going to go and buy more veg,
there should be more food festivals in a year.

"you cant fool all of the people all of the time.
But in a democracy, you only have to fool enough of the people enough of the time."
-Jem Rolls

yesterday I walked and splurged written word, felt drained at one point but then got to the bongo and had a good stint in the cloakroom to sit,
with my feet up
a pint of pineapple juice
a candle
the backs of a load of cloakroom ticket sheets
and a biro
and the drum and base going over, round and through me
having to get up every now and then to take/give coats from smiling/confused people who appeared out of the dark/smoke/dancing.
not sure what I wrote.
havnt read it in the cold light of day yet.

soup good today, there was enough, I think touch less good than last week tho.

I emailed the head chaplain yesterday's post. OOops.. she asked again if i minded bein quoted. i said no.

"Hey you stupid moron, just think.
If there was somewhere more important than the cloakroom, you'd be sitting in that right now."
-cloakroom graffitti (Gabe).

football and fish a good combination,
so i have to move out my flat, i knew that already,
had an amazing chat with a Church of Scotland minister today, i think he can understand me better than most people in my own generation in some ways.
Nearly went canoeing today, its postponed for a week. Canoeing matters to me. It used to comprise the one of the best parts of my life for several years. there's good surf and whitewater in Scotland but its COLD.
I have to write some stuff that might get quoted in the preach at the official Edinburgh uni Carol service next month.. its on hope.. i might try it out on here.
(this is long, for a continuation of the subjective selective narrative of my life in nearly present tense please skip to next post)


*********
Chapter 1

I have hope because:
unexpected good things happen more often than they should. Something unimaginably good, could quite easily come out of nowhere at any point. It happens.

One way I try and understand the world is to look for the flows that go through it. We can choose which flows we go with or fight against, they can go in all kinds of directions. I have found that choosing to trust God with my life is like choosing to jump into one of the fastest flowing and unpredictable streams. It takes conscious choices to try and stay in the middle of the flow but it takes me to really good places I could never work out how to get to on my own. It flows through some difficult places but as long as it keeps flowing through then that can be ok. And it seems to have the kind of momentum and purpose about it, that it's flowing somewhere beyond the horizons of all the possible scenarios I can imagine. From my experience of where I've been carried by it before I have a deep feeling that this might be a really good thing. I feel in some sense of the word: safe. I have hope.

*********
Chapter 2

Early morning in the raven flat.
"Mornin, how r u tdy?"
"Fine, its the rest of the world that's fucked up."

6billion people in a fucked up world..
If you look at sytems and structures and overarching powers, governments, multinational corporations, the WTO+IMF, capitalism, communism, religion, the education system, the health service, there are problems.. I'm not gonna talk about them here.
If you look at the way people relate to eachother, war, hate, fear, jealousy, families fall-out, friends lose trust, there are more problems, its not all bad but it is messed up badly.
If you look at yourself, it can be more difficult than it feels like it should be to live perfectly..?
But I have a sense, and sometimes I feel it more strongly than at other times, that there is something that is underlying, often forgotten, but then when noticed seemingly so obvious. That the world is actually really good. Zoom right into its physical structure, to a molecular level or smaller if you can, it's flippin INCREDIBLE! And then zoom right out, galaxies upon galaxies upon galaxies, star clusters and nebulae, an ever expanding mysterious glory of colours and lights. The view is so awesome its difficult to take it in at all.
And as you read this it's there.. right now at this moment, a massive nuclear explosion of fire storms 700times the size of the earth, the sun, it's there existing now!
You can see it on a crisp clear morning lookin over hills. You can taste it in a cup of tea after being out in the cold. You can feel it in the bass going through you as you dance in the smoke.
It's life. Really full and overwhelmingly cynicism-defyingly pure, our senses struggle and try to ignore it. And the source of this life that flows and spirals through it all.. there is a part of us that wants to dare to be touched by it? Though even to acknowledge its existence for some reason scares us.. It doesnt scream at us like a newspaper headline. But it's there, always.

I am a part of the world that is messed up. I am also a part of the world that has galaxies and intricate molecular structures and some strangely undefinable aliveness flowing right through. It flows through each of us.

I cannot not have hope. It just doesnt work on the days I forget to fit my blinkers properly.

The world is messed up but I think the power for redeeming things is dangerously underestimated.
I've heard resurrection is quite strong.
The world is bigger than I think, it is genuinely messed up, it is deceit not to recognise that, but it's bigger than I think.

And I havnt even managed to suss out the present tense yet..

a weekend off, I needed that..
We're good at something!! In fact we're the best in the world!!!! Being English is one of the more tricky Nationalities to live life to the full as, but on Saturday we were allowed to smile. oh yes.
Went to a big party in Glasgow, was really good, got bit ill from dog chemicals, nearly better now.

"Students of chaos, complexity and relativity started to get curious about how life had managed to organise itself so effectively"
-(McNeish 2004)

i sometimes walk around.
yesterday i climbed across a canal on a plank and sang under a bridge, then sat on a pavement until a friend walked past. its not really a good way of copin with lowness but hot ribena is. and that happened too.
today is different.
sun tunes dancin goodnews on the airwaves.
sometimes the world is like a massiv club -blue sky silouetted branches angels dancin.
and the beat makes your spirit jump around everyonce in a while. it can surprise you.

No one is allowed to read my blog unless they choose to.

yesterday improved.
in fact it got quite good. Saw some people I like; Matrix3 wi Frank; Thanks to people who lowered my expectations enough that I cud enjoy it, tho thought it struggled for coherence and didnt quite succeed.

I like flowing golden light, somtimes it's everywhere.

today we made soup so good.

Today there is just so much air, and it's ASSERTIVE.

there is one less mouse.

solar radiation deficiency.

I sometimes feel like i need a life-force transfusion.

och well..

Today. Today the air was grey.

wrote off my bike on friday, its locked in two pieces to a railing in part of town with a doj reputation. I'm fine. Dont tell Joe! (hi Joe!)

got up at 8am on sat (after4hrs sleep) to get bus to Portobello: Welcome to Edinburgh's Seaside. to get a lift to this place with really good trees and sky to do that panel thing i was talkin about, had an amazin day; then went to pub in failed attempted to meet a random travellin guy from Canada who myt know lots about monks+monastries, worked at the Messenger Sound System.

Sunday 10am got up to go to church cos me mate blonde laura was preachin, was brilliant. Churches that let 20yr old vets preach can be worth the time of day. And there was good free food.

last night Fingal kicked butt at the Big Word Poetry slam at the bongo. got to the Semis.

I slept last night.
just finished work in chaplaincy, now going to play football and work another night.


"read in a newspaper about these monks who came from the bronx to brixton to do a basketball youthclub, they looked really cool" -Hew

(Gabe is from the bronx. there is a good bar in brixton called the dogstar thats open late on sundays -its just round the corner from where linda lives. i work in a youthclub. Basketball hurts your fingers. my sister was in a newspaper for running really fast. we're monks innit. Hew looks really cool. its a small world but i wouldnt like to have to paint it.)

i dont normally ever put 2 blog entries on for the same day but thought it was a worthy occasion to inform you all that our all time favorite website: WILL AND JOHNS EXCELLENT ADVENTURE HAS NOW BEEN UPDATED!!! NUTTERS! with the photos for stage4 and the whole of stage 5: Croatia..
the future of pilgrimmage? i think so.

friday 14th cont....

Im technically an illegal immigrant at the mo.

(Joy BE CAREFUL!)
(she's still gettin tear gassed every once in a while but it's not as regular)

Wednesday night I got payed to sit and watch+listen to the Quantic Soul Orchestra, an 11piece live funk band, all i had to do was take peoples coats everyonce in a while and give them wee tickets (which normally have something like 'you f*****g moron' written on the back by Gabe) I got some good dancin done on my break.

Yesterday I seriously considered whether I might be allowed to start dreaming really big again -had some good chat with Colin (our resident business entrepreneur) and Rebekah about it; had some crazy ideas a while back that felt like God was givin us for things that could happen in Edinburgh+beyond, couple of months ago they seemed to feel a bit heavy and seemed God was asking to trash the 'epic to-do list', so for two months I have had a 'big-dream ban' (which is surprisingly hard to live with). Maybe things are changing now.. anyone who has had God say anything to them recently that might help, plz email me cheers (if this makes no sense leave me sarky comments to that effect+i'll try and clarify)

Today I am working youthwork then bongo, then getting up really early in the morning to be on a panel at an enneagram (way of studyin personality types) weekend for my friend Dorothy.

I have recently lost more hats than I've found.

"There were 4 subjects all connected to numbers:
arithmetic -pure number
music -number in time
geometry -number in space
and astronomy-astrology -number in space-time
Together these were known as the Quadrivium." (Strachan 2003)

just made a vat of veg soup in the chaplaincy, i think we have a new wee tradition, if anyone's around between 12-2 on a weds lunchtime call into the chaplaincy, Potter Row, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. it's normally good,
someone had some amazin photos of the Northern lights of a couple of weeks ago.
band night in bongo tonyt.

havnt blogged since thurs,
fri: went and prayed with random people a priest friend of mine had got together in Gilmerton near where I do youthwork, all people who live/work in the area. Did youthwork, the boss away so we winged it and it went best ever. som1 gave me a christmas dinner as was passing their house.
Got to bongo, at midnight, had to barge past queue to get in, 5 deep at the bar, suddenly realised the music was incredible, found out Aphex Twin had turned up at our bongo (so mental electronica/drum+base/trance/intense-experience)! an amazin night, Me and Gabe found £20 each on the floor.
a day with exceptionally high occurence of random unexpected wee good events, felt prayed for.
sat: sleep eat work
sun: open mike night: Frank Finn and Robin all performin at Cabaret Voltaire, Went to an aftershow party with the stars.
mon: a geomancer turned up at the chaplaincy, ate, played football.
tue: slept 12hrs, did washing up,
going to official opening of the chaplaincy's multifaith resource centre, there'll be free food.
i'm hungry.

Also, on the journey, I saw my first errupting volcano!!!

(Joy again)

Last night I worked 7.30-2am at a hard core punk night.. och well, ears heal, highlight was me mate Dougal/Ross (the names both work, they'r interchangable) from Livingston introducin one of the bands. He's massive and has lamb chops stuck to his face, has an amazin accent and an exquisite poetic radar-evading comedy interplanetary ovary juggling form of speech. I can't really do him justice in this description. He is an avatar of rock.

I learned that I can survive 5hours of loud and fast ANTI-CULTURE.

spoke to John last night at 2.30am, he has started a breakdance society in Leeds and is coming to Edinburgh on his scooter in the near future and he will bring his samuri sword oh yes.

We welcome homeless urban monks here.

well that was a weekend.
Two big nights in the bongo, home at 5 twice in a row.
Not really sure what else happened, just remember it was good.

"War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."
-Karl von Clausewitz (Prussian soldier, lived 1780-1831)

just booked train tickets to Exeter, if anyones around there 21st-31st Dec, give us a shout.