I’ve been feeling the need to put my back into a piece of writing for awhile. But, determining exactly what to put my back into or ram my shoulder against has been evading me. Not a lengthy piece but something with a little intense purity. More for me than anyone else. So, I have been wandering out of Lego-town in search of something undiscovered within myself. Sometimes in church related settings and sometimes nature.
The world feels to me, more and more, like a city built of Lego pieces. Stepping into it for long or taking it seriously seems faintly ridiculous. Dangerous even. Quite often, I write about the goings-on in Lego-town but mustering lasting emotion for the characters in it escapes me most of the time. Anger bubbles and boils over, here and there, but it lives only as long as the length of time I choose to absorb the lies of Lego-town’s fantasies.
Sure, I scribble down things functionally about Lego-town and sometimes diligently, then hit the publish button. But, more often than not, I sit back down somewhere else. I often ask myself why I bother doing this anymore and the best I can come up with is that hopefully someone might stumble upon my writing and use a piece of it as a map to find a road out of Lego-town for themselves. To point out there is a road out of the fluorescent town - possibly many - and by extension they can always come back into it if they so desire. With this in mind people might then dare to muster a little courage to at least consider leaving the city limits once in awhile for a look around and consume the world a different way for a day or two a month. Or more.
Other than that type of writing and digital recordings of some conversations, I am usually somewhere on a hill, or in a forest, or in my car, or elbow leaning on the railings of a causeway leading out to an island.
Silently somewhere is a good description of me and these places I ghost into in quiet joy, sad tears and peaceful understanding of the laughable limitations of myself as a Lego-town man and yet experience too the limitless possibilities that beat within me as someone other than mortar and plastic bricks. This other world is signposted with invisible paintwork and translucent lettering, hanging from the branch of a hidden forest tree, or the gentle sponge of step on a bog’s path or even the heavy beam of powerful sunlight from a setting sun divinely framed by a gap in some bushes. Telling me my true existance lies in this lightly and nightly misted village picture-frame called Somewhere Else. Sometimes, I find villagers and meet fellow travellers on the road in this place called Somewhere Else but often I do not.
Of course, God shows up more often than he doesn’t. For, it is all God really isn’t it when you escape the distractions of Lego-town. He comes not to prod, or cajole, or guilt, or to boast.
No. Never.
He appears just as a reminder that there is no escaping him. And often, comes disarmed with that kindly and knowing smile of his, to let me know that he knows all of the ways and all of the places I’ve tried to out-run and out-fox him. You might say, I am getting tired of my own needless exercise and mental resistance. More frequently.
Meanwhile, back in Lego-town, the last month or so has been taken up with two separate cases involving Brigid vs the Irish state. Specifically, the courts service attempting to remove my driving licence outta my wallet and call a halt to my moonlight moseying around the West of Ireland with Brigid, the two of us on the look-out for Somewhere Else. Someday, I might write about this period of time in greater detail but for now, suffice to say, I have been the beneficiary of a couple of quite remarkable miracles. I bring this up merely to highlight a feature of my life I am noticing more and more. Somewhere else is where I most regularly encounter and surrender to the divine will and reap its unexpected benefits. Actually the only place. Where the divine world pours and flows into this one.
Although, I occasionally write about this aspect of my life, I find it increasingly difficult to find the words. Spirituality and religious practice are such entrenched positions in the modern world and quite often business practices nowadays. I don’t want to ever become either. I have my own practices which I adapt frequently and the sole reason I am comfortable with them is because they challenge and wrestle with me every single day of the week. They are demanding, and whispering and exciting too. As a result, I’m not who I was two years ago, I am not who I was one year ago, and I’m not even who I thought I was going to be three months ago.
I get enough confirmations when I’m traipsing down the right path and plenty of warning signals when I have veered off course. I’m sure I have written words to that effect before but it bears repeating - if only to myself - this is how spirituality feels to me and should feel. Entirely my own. I don’t want anyone else’s and I’m sure they don’t want to inhabit mine.
So, in these terms, the future is something to be prepared for and embraced rather than a prediction game of ego fulfilling prophesies in Lego-town. Something to think and reflect upon further during my next stumbling visit to Somewhere Else with Brigid, along with hopefully a wallet containing a driver’s licence. Although, one of these fair days or nights I might never come back and cast it into the gently lapping waves on the far-side of the moon and Mutton Island.
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I have two kitchen chairs out on the canal for people to sit on if tired etc , I put them out in March and was surprised they were left undamaged , anyway we were out there yesterday evening and the chairs were gone lol , we ask a few people walking did they see them and also two people canoeing , they all knew the chairs , which was interesting but didn't see them along the canal . So this morning I was going to get two more out of storage to replace them . I went out with the dogs to the canal for their early morning walk and there the chairs were left outside my gate undamaged . Well that just lifted my soul with joy , not for the chairs but for the goodness of some person or persons to bring them back and leave them beside the gate . So the chairs are back up on the bank .
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If that 'somewhere else' is to be found anywhere in the world, it is surely in the west of Ireland. Keep searching Gerry. It's bound to be over the next ridge.