Ice on our Lashes

So, continuing with the precipitation theme of the previous blog...

I wonder how many of you have heard a phrase, a verse or maybe just a word that completely encompasses who you are and how you feel in that moment. Well today I found these:

Oh Annie,

I will think of you everytime I see the sun

Didn't want a day without you

But somehow I've lived through another one

These aren't words from my journal, or a liturgy from her funeral. These are lyrics by Brooke Fraser from her song 'Ice On Her Lashes'. Brooke Fraser as in Annie's favourite singer. This song that mentions her name so explicitly is on the album, whose conception and release date we followed so closely on twitter. This album that was released only days after he death includes a song about 'the cycles of grief' and calls her by name. The whole concept is just to stunning for words.

It's so clear to me that song writing, like literature, like art, is an anointed vocation. There is so much power in words for they will continue to speak for years to come, transcending the generations with their meaning. When I think about this with my God-goggles on I can't help but get excited about how when we put our talents and gifts firmly into God's hand, he just expands them beyond our wildest dreams. Brooke didn't know Annie, she doesn't know me or my friends or the family she left behind. That song was written and recorded in a studio in Australia about a year ago and that same song is overwhelming me now as I sit in the corner of Bristol University Chaplaincy drinking my coffee and trying to read about Italian crime fiction.

Grief can be such a lonely place, sometimes it borders on self-pity and self-indulgence, so when we are reconnected with a community of grievers through song, through words, through prayer and even through silence, God's peace that transcends all understanding filters through the developed toughness of our skin, seeps into our frigid hearts and applies deep heat to that dull ache that we force to lie dormant in our souls. It prepares us for love again.

I'll leave you with the bridge of the song. I hope and pray that it will comfort those of you have lost someone you loved, whether that's through death or through the end of a relationship. Take comfort in the fact that you are not the only one with ice on your lashes.

Did you find it hard to breathe at first?

Were you wounded and in disbelief at how much it hurt?

Now the aches still burning

But the world's still turning isn't it?

Currently listening to: Brooke Fraser - Ice on her Lashes

Rain.

I love everything about summer rain; the smell of the warm, wet pavement, the refreshing relief of cool water penetrating the muggy atmosphere. I love wearing raincoats without jumpers underneath and wellies without socks, I love how the bright summer colours of trees and flowers become stronger, almost to the point of being overpowering against a grey, cloudy canvas.

I love that I can walk in the rain without getting cold. It's like having a warm bath, just ever ever so gradually. Saying this, I only like summer rain in cities and towns, perhaps it's to do with the whole pavement thing. I don't know. But I can say with absolute certainty that I really don't like summer rain on beaches, the sand gets all gross and your picnic gets all soggy.

I don't know what it is about today's rain that seemed so special - it just gave me such excitement and such joy. I love how the rolling of the thunder interspersed with the pitter-patter of raindrops echoed in my heart and were reflected in my emotions. It was more anticipation and the sense of adventure than sadness, a weather meditation rather than pathetic fallacy.

It reminded me of the Nooma video 'Rain' by Rob Bell, where he carries his baby son through the woods in the rain telling him that everything's going to be okay, emulating the way God carries us through the stormy patches in our lives. When I heard the rain outside my window this morning and as I opened my curtains to the tumbling precipitation I had an overpowering sense of being held tightly by my creator. In that moment the heavy, earthly matters weighing down my heart and my mind were replaced by a heavenly lightness, something which has undoubtably carried me through the day.

I guess there's just something gorgeously holy about rain.

1st May - Adventures of Bristol Linguists.

I'm sitting in a train station in Leipzig full of drunk natives and weary travellers waiting for our delayed train to Berlin. Wait, not, it's not even delayed, the train we booked a ticket for doesn't actually exist, which means our hideously, eye-popping early start (5:30!) was completely in vain.

Lucy is pacing up and down the platform, partly trying to find a magazine stand and partly rehearsing her angry train-woman spiel for when the ticket officer realises we don't have the right tickets for the next to train to the capital. I'm remaining optimistic although it wouldn't feel out of character for me to either dunk my face into this cheap, bitter station coffee or run around the station breathing imaginary fire into the faces of drunkards and the people with the annoying dogs. Outwardly a polite english language student, inside an angry dragon.

5 mins later...

Lucy just told me that this train spiel is going to be a test of her German and my acting skills. She just leaned across the table excitedly with the line 'Oh my, your eyes leak. YES, you HAVE to cry'.

In all seriousness, this trip has been an ecclectic mix of awkward situations that have required an exhaustive use of Lucy's big, fat school dictionary. Including the time, when, after forgetting my pin, Sparkasse swallowed my card in the midde of Wittenberg. Terrifying.

Overall, nothing will ever phase us again. We are no longer fearful or apprehensive about our year abroad. We know we can jabber our way out in our undergraduate Deutsch whilst fluttering our wide, sleep-deprived eyes, or we'll just cry, or maybe just hide in the loo, or maybe God will be gracious and no one will check our tickets. OHHHHH I JUST WANT TO GET HOME.

2 mins later...

Quote Lucy: 'If they tell me to get off this train, I'm going to pull my pants down and pee' (desperate times call for desperate measures clearly)

2o mins later...

(after the train man had accepted our train-tickets without questioning us - thank you Jesus!)

Lucy: 'Oh, and I so wanted a chance to use the subjunctive'