so be there in the moment

Great gig last night. Good company (including chatting to nelly and a few others I haven't seen in ages... seriously though, I wonder if Foy knows he's got so many christian groupies?!) and of course, great music. Lowly Knights songs are growers... so definitely liked them even more last night. My favourite line for some reason is 'you can tell a man by the way he lifts his hands...'

Foy was fabulous as always... so good live; his cd doesn’t do justice to the one-man-wonder's sound (singing into his guitar for the reverberation being a highlight!). Introducing two shades of hope, he said that the greatest legacy his dad gave him was hope. And from two of his newer songs, these lines stood out for me...

“And when you run, far from my eyes, then I will come, in dead of night
But I wont speak, till morning light, I’ll be the song, just be the song”

and

“But I showed you that every mark you made, painted hearts and bleeding scars, is something that you needed to create, so be there in the moment...
Blood gets on the canvas, stains you cannot hide, are the truest indication of what’s going on inside, so be there in the moment”

And then ending with a bit of belfast slagging (as only someone who truly loves the place can) and the chorus of Van Morrison's Spirit... classic. All round great night.

One another note, I’m having slight withdrawal symptoms from not running a leg of the Belfast marathon today (first time in about 5 years I haven’t!). Although standing and then running in the cold / rain with 27,000 others maybe doesn’t sound that appealing... but then anything would be more appealing than revision...

belfast city

I'm feeling hopeful tonight...



My church has a new pastor and he wanted this song played for his induction service tonight. My God is the God of this city that I've come to love... this song just resonated with new beginnings as a church and also with advent - to be able to look forward with expectation...

scribbled notes and old photos...

I learned something about my grandfather this week. I knew he was a man of God and man of prayer, but I think that I missed out on a lot of his wisdom by growing up 1000s of miles away from him. He died the year I moved to Belfast. This week, I raided his bookshelf (a trait I picked up at home). The thing I've discovered (which I love) is that my granda's theology books are full of wee scraps of paper and backs of envelopes that he scribbled notes on as he read, which are still scattered through the pages. I feel like I'm retracing his steps, seeing what resonated with him as he read. It makes me wish I had known him better.

One scrap reads, "the danger of introspection p19..." which led me to this marked quote:

"Our thinking about who we are as Christians should not begin with what we can discover about ourselves by self-analysis. Rather, it begins with what God says about those who trust in Christ."

Sinclair Ferguson's Children of the Living God

And underlined and written again at the top of the first page of the next book is scrawled, "union with Christ is the root of holiness" in J.C. Ryle's Holiness.

Speaking of the past... loads of old images/photos (from 1750s on) from LIFE have now been added to google... Here's one from belfast in 1941:

A view showing the junction of Royal Avenue and Donegall Place with the City Hall in the background. Photographer: William Vandivert

glimpses of grace

Today I had an “indiscriminate act of kindness” moment. I had decided to go for a bike ride while there was a wee bit of rare sunshine at lunchtime. The first half was perfect, gliding along the shores of Belfast lough, feeling slightly sentimental about this city for some reason. On the way home again, it all went a bit pear-shaped when I hit the curb trying to get out of the way of a big lorry... and my tire jammed. I thought I had bent the rim of my tire or something so thought I’d just lug it home and figure out what was wrong then. After about ten minutes of getting a bit fed up with this ‘lugging’ idea, a random guy (who looked about 80 and was definitely someone’s wee granda) pulled over in his ancient red fiesta and fixed my bike (in about 2 minutes which made me feel like such a girl...) and sent me on my way! How nice is that? I have to say, people surprise me sometimes.... maybe wee glimpses of grace.

surprised by sunshine

This was the perfect way to spend a morning - reading in the sunshine at the park five minutes down the road. (so far, good book by the way...) Sometimes I think I forget that Belfast can actually be really beautiful when the sun shines...