This is gonna make my blog messy but seein as I have been really cak at keepin in touch with loads of people for ages am gonna stick a load of recent emails I've rit up here so as people can read them.. apologies everyone, this blog represents a new effort at communicating in a better way than a 6monthly email or phone call.
(for my life in present tense just skip this whole entry)
Firstly an email in which I attempted to sum up my first year in Scotland and ended up not really sendin to many people:
"Seek Asylum; Beech trees; Edinburgh Castle; midges at
the skate park; a giant giant ghost fighting rat(i got
payed);sunbeams; empty the ashtrays; Sam lives
on a canal boat; etymology; sleep.pray.eat.dance.roof;
subterraneandreamscapes; "There's just something
about Old St Pauls that's different to Scotmid Co-op";
mist so much mist but you can go above it;
theres a humpback whale in the firth of forth; am i
going arty?; belgian radio; elderly greek orthdodox
monks; we need to rediscover the concept of 'play'?;
light blue midnight sky; rusting ship loading rigs;
CYNICISM IS DEATH; MC battle-the book of Job; Iona has
delicious air and lots of it; do you understand
suicide bombers?; hieronymus and me paintin walls in
our flat different bright colours until some1stops us;
REPRESENT the Church of Scotland.
Love humans.
as much free organic bread as we can eat -forever!
have you ever felt so much weight of the world that
you have felt completely crushed, flattened?
what was left? eat whales,
Drum and Base 180bpm waterfight. WHAT IS A CITY?
Irn Bru and deep fried battered pizza.
business people want to be our friends,
we live in the sky.
embers of a fire ont beach kept us alive as the sun
didnt come up.
hospitality
prayer
creativity
rest
work
play
drugs and priests and photographers and carnival
costumes at BBQ on the roof.
'I CANT DANCE WITH ALL THE PLANTS'
pause..
Taste hear smell touch see feel -find God.
there are 6 known types of quarks: up, down, charm,
strange, truth and beauty.
voluntarily graffitied a tunnel
I have decided not to be a druid.
To underestimate the significance of football is a
mistake.
VOYAGE in the North Atlanic,
GOD LIKES YOU MORE THAN YOU THINK
what makes you feel alive? ...excited, sad,
angry?
Life is rich.
love peace and energy
Tom"
ok yeah i know it's weird.. and now a couple that I wrote over the summer:
"Am writin from a dingy internet cafe in Reykjavik full
of kids in a warzone with big explosions going off
from some weird internet game that they´re all into.
some physical fight going on too behind me..
First email of pilgrimmage so a million things have
happened.
Enjoyin ourselves. Alive.
Went up West Coast and along North of Scotland -got
over 800 mij bites -saw incredible things from a
mountain top -Ben Hope, most Northerly munro at
sunset.
Stayed on a dairy farm on Orkney -got so well looked
after, arrived Shetland early on a sun morn so found a
church ended up gettin cooked amazin dinner -result!
Finn ill one day I went explorin -hitched a lift with
a guy who had nothin to do so gave me a guided tour of
whole mainland -even bought me publunch and a pint
-turned out he was the dad of the couple who gave us
sunday lunch -lots of things like that keep happening
-think its doin us good to be here. Somehow sometimes
easier to think about Edinburgh when you´re not
there..
ON the Boat flukily bumped
into the brother of someone we met on Shetland who was
on his way to the Faroes, gave us some contacts.
Pegged it round Torshavn for a couple of hours while
the boat was stopped.
Iceland in mornin sun.. it is amazing.
tryin to hitch out of town with a Fin we met and Finn
wearin Criminals T shirt wonderin why not gettin
picked up. Eventually got lift with English people i
met ont boat.. hitchikin is a laff -met some amazin
people -and got to Reykjavik in 5days from East coast,
BIG waterfalls, lava flows, moonscapes, glaciers, sand
deserts, hot springs with weird blue mud. places where
the land is yellow and blue instead of green and
brown. steam, mountains, fjords, lots of new friends,
I like Iceland.
plannin to live clubbin lifestyle here for a few days
until we head back into the wilderness and towards
home
lots of good grafitti.
hope you´re all well,
Love Tom
ps on 16th August 2003 at 9.25pm Tom Kirby and Finn
Dorman swam in the sea off the North Coast of Iceland.
pps if anyone has my flatmates´ email addresses cud
they forward this them?!"
"crazy -in a good way,
one day lasted 38hrsish met very amazing people who am
v glad i now know -travelled several hundered km, met
an old friend from uni, danced all night in Reykjavik,
cleaned a cafe, then in another town made dinner for
12French tourists including boiling them eggs in hot
spring. Went to a big waterfall you can walk behind.
I think God likes hitchiking, just makes it so easy to
connect up people completely randomly, lots of stories
to tell. day ended when an eccentric museum curator
semi adopted us and let us sleep in his garden -slept
15 1/2 hrs..
next day started a 5day walk over mountains glaciers
lava flows hot springs sand deserts, big rivers you
have to wade across, and rocky moonscapes, got lost
for a day, ran out of food and fuel, it rained. Slept
without tent when it didnt -remains of sunset in one
side of sky, a full sky of stars overhead and the
Northern lights dancing across the whole thing. Only
sposed to happen once every 28days and not in August
-we´ve seen them 5nights, keep asking God if we can
see them again.
Having a day of silence today in good monk tradition.
Faroe Islands tommorrow.
Love Tom"
and another snippet just to be slightly less unthorough..
("am writing from Torshavn -the Faroes.
have free broadband unlimited access
in my luxury flat with leather sofas, a well stocked
kitchen, bathroom with amazing shower and best of all
a WASHING MACHINE! Going round to my friends house
tommorrow to watch Scotland vs Faroes then coffee
and possibly whale meat.
is amazing what praying and sitting in a church car
park can do.
first night under a roof since Orkneys about a month
ago.
stumbled off boat at 5am this morn and mumbled some
prayers which God answered spectacularly!")
I got back from the far north a couple of weeks ago and then headed straight out to Amsterdam for 24-7prayer round table, back now and banned from travelling for a while.
me mate matt who got me into blogging is a monk in manchester england this is his blog which is better produced than mine
an interesting a particularly well written pilgrims account is me mates John and Will's (who got a one way plane ticket to Athens and then tried to busk back using violins) (they went the wrong way and ended up in Asia)
(for my life in present tense just skip this whole entry)
Firstly an email in which I attempted to sum up my first year in Scotland and ended up not really sendin to many people:
"Seek Asylum; Beech trees; Edinburgh Castle; midges at
the skate park; a giant giant ghost fighting rat(i got
payed);sunbeams; empty the ashtrays; Sam lives
on a canal boat; etymology; sleep.pray.eat.dance.roof;
subterraneandreamscapes; "There's just something
about Old St Pauls that's different to Scotmid Co-op";
mist so much mist but you can go above it;
theres a humpback whale in the firth of forth; am i
going arty?; belgian radio; elderly greek orthdodox
monks; we need to rediscover the concept of 'play'?;
light blue midnight sky; rusting ship loading rigs;
CYNICISM IS DEATH; MC battle-the book of Job; Iona has
delicious air and lots of it; do you understand
suicide bombers?; hieronymus and me paintin walls in
our flat different bright colours until some1stops us;
REPRESENT the Church of Scotland.
Love humans.
as much free organic bread as we can eat -forever!
have you ever felt so much weight of the world that
you have felt completely crushed, flattened?
what was left? eat whales,
Drum and Base 180bpm waterfight. WHAT IS A CITY?
Irn Bru and deep fried battered pizza.
business people want to be our friends,
we live in the sky.
embers of a fire ont beach kept us alive as the sun
didnt come up.
hospitality
prayer
creativity
rest
work
play
drugs and priests and photographers and carnival
costumes at BBQ on the roof.
'I CANT DANCE WITH ALL THE PLANTS'
pause..
Taste hear smell touch see feel -find God.
there are 6 known types of quarks: up, down, charm,
strange, truth and beauty.
voluntarily graffitied a tunnel
I have decided not to be a druid.
To underestimate the significance of football is a
mistake.
VOYAGE in the North Atlanic,
GOD LIKES YOU MORE THAN YOU THINK
what makes you feel alive? ...excited, sad,
angry?
Life is rich.
love peace and energy
Tom"
ok yeah i know it's weird.. and now a couple that I wrote over the summer:
"Am writin from a dingy internet cafe in Reykjavik full
of kids in a warzone with big explosions going off
from some weird internet game that they´re all into.
some physical fight going on too behind me..
First email of pilgrimmage so a million things have
happened.
Enjoyin ourselves. Alive.
Went up West Coast and along North of Scotland -got
over 800 mij bites -saw incredible things from a
mountain top -Ben Hope, most Northerly munro at
sunset.
Stayed on a dairy farm on Orkney -got so well looked
after, arrived Shetland early on a sun morn so found a
church ended up gettin cooked amazin dinner -result!
Finn ill one day I went explorin -hitched a lift with
a guy who had nothin to do so gave me a guided tour of
whole mainland -even bought me publunch and a pint
-turned out he was the dad of the couple who gave us
sunday lunch -lots of things like that keep happening
-think its doin us good to be here. Somehow sometimes
easier to think about Edinburgh when you´re not
there..
ON the Boat flukily bumped
into the brother of someone we met on Shetland who was
on his way to the Faroes, gave us some contacts.
Pegged it round Torshavn for a couple of hours while
the boat was stopped.
Iceland in mornin sun.. it is amazing.
tryin to hitch out of town with a Fin we met and Finn
wearin Criminals T shirt wonderin why not gettin
picked up. Eventually got lift with English people i
met ont boat.. hitchikin is a laff -met some amazin
people -and got to Reykjavik in 5days from East coast,
BIG waterfalls, lava flows, moonscapes, glaciers, sand
deserts, hot springs with weird blue mud. places where
the land is yellow and blue instead of green and
brown. steam, mountains, fjords, lots of new friends,
I like Iceland.
plannin to live clubbin lifestyle here for a few days
until we head back into the wilderness and towards
home
lots of good grafitti.
hope you´re all well,
Love Tom
ps on 16th August 2003 at 9.25pm Tom Kirby and Finn
Dorman swam in the sea off the North Coast of Iceland.
pps if anyone has my flatmates´ email addresses cud
they forward this them?!"
"crazy -in a good way,
one day lasted 38hrsish met very amazing people who am
v glad i now know -travelled several hundered km, met
an old friend from uni, danced all night in Reykjavik,
cleaned a cafe, then in another town made dinner for
12French tourists including boiling them eggs in hot
spring. Went to a big waterfall you can walk behind.
I think God likes hitchiking, just makes it so easy to
connect up people completely randomly, lots of stories
to tell. day ended when an eccentric museum curator
semi adopted us and let us sleep in his garden -slept
15 1/2 hrs..
next day started a 5day walk over mountains glaciers
lava flows hot springs sand deserts, big rivers you
have to wade across, and rocky moonscapes, got lost
for a day, ran out of food and fuel, it rained. Slept
without tent when it didnt -remains of sunset in one
side of sky, a full sky of stars overhead and the
Northern lights dancing across the whole thing. Only
sposed to happen once every 28days and not in August
-we´ve seen them 5nights, keep asking God if we can
see them again.
Having a day of silence today in good monk tradition.
Faroe Islands tommorrow.
Love Tom"
and another snippet just to be slightly less unthorough..
("am writing from Torshavn -the Faroes.
have free broadband unlimited access
in my luxury flat with leather sofas, a well stocked
kitchen, bathroom with amazing shower and best of all
a WASHING MACHINE! Going round to my friends house
tommorrow to watch Scotland vs Faroes then coffee
and possibly whale meat.
is amazing what praying and sitting in a church car
park can do.
first night under a roof since Orkneys about a month
ago.
stumbled off boat at 5am this morn and mumbled some
prayers which God answered spectacularly!")
I got back from the far north a couple of weeks ago and then headed straight out to Amsterdam for 24-7prayer round table, back now and banned from travelling for a while.
me mate matt who got me into blogging is a monk in manchester england this is his blog which is better produced than mine
an interesting a particularly well written pilgrims account is me mates John and Will's (who got a one way plane ticket to Athens and then tried to busk back using violins) (they went the wrong way and ended up in Asia)
