Here there is no one else, here there are no words, none but Yours- falling in my ears, like a Prayer :
I have never heard You pray before, I have never heard You pray over me: Words that breathe life over my ash. This I could not have believed, that God would pray o’er a broken spirit, an outcaste, a one no one sees….
but You pray over me, and I do not know the Words, it is the syllable of a Heart whispering in mine, it is the rush of a Stillness,
These past months I’ve come to a few (21!)conclusions that renew me; warning though…long post.
Appreciating peopleis a craft all its own: it breaks barriers in Invisibility & Understanding of human co-existence. (You being here with comment, follow, share: made blogging a truly creative experience for me. My best liked Post was thishere, where I discovered that my Art Quotes were liked? Thankyou!)
2. We create new experiences : re-visiting a long past ‘Happy Place’ right here in the Now.This Post: Little chapel in Monmouthshire, surprised me> an Instagram friend’s Photograph that provoked a childhood memory with new realisation that I have this beautiful space in me now forever. It never left, I needed a re- visit/ reminder, via blog? Wow.
3. ‘De-cluttering is also giving away some amount of personal space to listen to another. It is life’s sweetest investment. I haven’t been able to throw away old cards, or my kids’ kindergarten scribbles/ their first baby curls- but we’ve been inviting more people home.Over the months of 2019, I’ve had the privilege of watching my first love for God walk back in. Time has been restored. Time spent nursing health issues: the more I stopped sitting in my own personal fenced Pond, the more healing happened. (If you like, there are a few words from there in Heal).
Digital,RN
4. ‘Old’ structures seen again with new eyes renewed my understanding of my own defences (I’m captured by the world around me👀 in blogosphere!) It is beyond belief how a PhotoBlogger’s Capture of Old Cold Bench re-wrote my own indifference to life outside the front door.
5. The Net has some inspiring movies that worked well in my core;listed in my Decade Tag Post. They expose some incredible events in everyday living. Looking forward to more!
7. Praying more for those in my ❤, or not, (again, am deeply stirred by some amazing Blog friends who remind me that we are humans in the most demanding era ever, and old fashioned as it may seem I’m stoked to pray for others as others have done for me),makes this whole connectivity thing worth the effort and time and love.
8. Play Angel unawares {This Upload inspires me to go out and take more real life pictures of my own. (You don’t have to read all of my Posts, but am getting a kick out of seeing what I’ve been upto 🤗). Humans can be angels, every single basic one of us.
10. Go, GLOW : work out, eat healthy, forgive, speak life. I’ve never personally asked myself to do that.😅.
11. ExperiencingSilencewrites new words Sing. Play an instrument. Listen to birds. Squirrels. Leaves. Rain. It’s no easy discipline, when you’re tempted to not be silent.
15. Remember that one line that’s been holding my head. “THERE IS A TIDE TURNING…” < that Post was inspired by the trees outside my house. I know now Natures’ Prompts are from God.
16. Taking inventory of what lives with me : is a critical Must Do!
17. Working on Heartlifts crucial to existence, involves the act of Prayer. Yeah people will find you odd.
“With this being the end of not only a year, but also a decade, I thought I would look back at what the Lord has done in my life the past ten years. Also I would like to make this a tag- The Decade Tag.” quote👇
2- Share some highlights for you over the past decade and if you want a few low points
3- Tag whoever you wish to.
4- Ask them some questions
5- Use any picture appropriate for such a tag.
Highlights for me (@innerdialects are:
Joh.
Miracles we watched as our son went through seizures and healing in the most bizarre, unexpected places and ways, among a host of unexplainable events that led me to start blogging again. It’s all here in this blog. Do browse through.
My questions from Tag:
1- What was your favorite song or songs from this past decade?
RECKLESS LOVE, Cory Asbury. BROKE& DROP EVERYTHING,Riley Clemmons. HOLDING ON TO THE CROSS,Vihan Damaris. MANY OH MANY,Vihan Damaris. COURTESY CALL,Thousand foot crutch. LET THE SOARKS FLY, Thousand foot crutch. GOD IS:(cover Vihan Damaris). EASY,Sarah Reeves. YOUR SPIRIT,Tasha Cobbs. CHURCH CLAP, Le Crae. I BELIEVE, KB.
2- Fav movie/ movies this past decade: THE SHACK, DO YOU BELIEVE?, BREAKTHROUGH, OVERCOMER, WAR ROOM, THE BLINDSIDE, RAGAMUFFIN, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, SHADOWLANDS, CASE FOR CHRIST, HEAVRN IS FOR REAL, MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN, WOODLAWN, GRACE- UNPLUGGED.
3- What was your favorite book from this past decade? MERE CHRISTIANITY, CS.Lewis, WHATS SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE,Philip Yancey.
Hey Tag yourself if you’d like, with link back to source! I really want to say something poignant powerful but there’s a Shepherd’s pie to pie, and a night to fix for the friends who will come in. Take care, stay safe, be blessed, you and I are more precious than we suspect!
The First Noel by Vihan Damaris. A Carol that has our family name(Noel) hehe! And that’s our daughter. Do listen if you would. Crib by Cheshire House inmates, Mumbai: a lady with one arm, Mikai, the paralytic…
We took them out one by one. Joseph has lost his little clay head and there’s no time to fix him back so I cover his torso with a tiny cane head piece. Can you spot Joseph?
Our son Johann is blind and yes he put out each figure like last Christmas, but this time, post seizures/ meds, he cannot concentrate. His hands shake and I do not insist that Joseph goes next to Mary, so it’s all askew. Does it matter, I wonder.
Would the real Joseph have been quietly seated next to new mom Mary? Wouldn’t he have lost his head, even just a wee bit,with this surreal pregnancy of his betrothed, a ferocious Herod, … the details of that divine birth blow my mind each time. My spirit fills with gratitude that over the years, Christ has not stayed in clay, but has gazed into my life with very real presence.
Confusing pic👆? Our tiny Tree from a Shopping complex. I’d love to think those are two fairies legs!
The reality of Christmas is fantastic. A Divine Babe that grew to face a Cross, a resurrection garden, He would walk through walls to get through my heart of stone.
May the heart of you be warmed warmed warmed this season, with Love Divine from the Manger to the moon and back.💓
Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers. –Victor Hugo.
@yomargey
I called this one Street Prayers after a recent Haiku Jam starter, “Corner of the Street,” but maybe it was inspired by a visit few evenings ago, a visit by a little face in a shop window. The face of a small child, not 10 years old, he had these sweet eyes and half smile almost apologetic but steady. Any prayer of mine could be futile. I was staring at Humanity, and It’s hunger was staring back at me.
We were strangers in a month that’s all for shopping, fun, food, laughter. I stood there with my heart load of trouble but the kid in the street looking at me couldn’t see it. And yet if I hadn’t had trouble of my own, with my own sick child, I probably wouldn’t/ couldn’t have felt a twinge for this child with his cheeks muddied, burnt in the sun. When we came out of the shop he wasn’t there. Now I had guilt. I should’ve told him to stay right there, got him at least a meal. Looked everywhere, but he wasn’t there, not anywhere. What was his name? Did he have a home? Will I ever know? Will a prayer do?
@yomargey
A few years ago while at a street school in Mumbai, I met another little child, his name was Raju. We learnt how to draw and skip rope, brush our teeth and hop. He taught me how to walk through the tiny spaces between the shacks that were his colony. He taught me how to smile and laugh and forget that I’d had a fever for three years, he helped me heal. Raju wouldn’t talk to anyone, he was known as a kid that disrupted the hours at the two roomed house that also served as school for construction worker kids. When he drew, he did black circles. I don’t know how we got talking maybe it was during games and skip rope. I wasn’t great at it, he found it hilarious. That stint there changed me from an ambition driven ‘writer’ to an observer. And I’ve been watching the things that make us more human: here’s my finding. Need, shared or personal, it changes the way we respond to each other. Shared need, the need for acceptance, ah that one can start a revolution. And sometimes we pray for one another, and that’s the most powered place between Spheres that Humanity will ever experience. It changes me everytime I pray for another. (My Psychology lecturer in college would have a fit if he read this post).
My Jeff (Noel – no one else would put up with my messy paint tubes and books in corners and centre stage of my life), when he listens to music it’s like he’s breathing it in via ear phones. I’ve not seen someone savour music the way he does; it’s his profession (Sound) yet him soaking it in with palms clasped over headphones makes me realize the gift of music is to be unwrapped, opened to senses and inhaled into spirit… the Balm of Gilead!
We’re listening to a recording of our three children doing their take on Kanye’s Jesus is Lordhttps://youtu.be/p2TuJFlv2Uk
Johann in black Tee, with guitar Vihan next to striped girl Kitsy
(they’re at a carol a day: drummer boy, 3 kings, God resting merry gentle…)
where they get their joy is something to watch; it’s been a month of us battling med induced aggression with our son, I’ve written my nails blue on this one but that’s not the story here. Gratitude spills out my ears that mid all this there can be music? Maybe because its December, maybe it’s that time God’s letting in a new season. This time around I wasn’t able to think on a carol, then the kids do what they do in season and out. Music’s been a norm, a hard habit to break. It’s now a best friend. A gift from God, unwrapped over and over. Jeff gets his headphones out, his brown eyes swim out at me for joy, what else can describe this… comfort,hope,healing….
ay weeping may endure a night but joy comes in the morning.
Thankyou God that trusting You isn’t a myth, You’re not a long ago Shepherd with Psalmist sheep in tow, You’re not stuck in Time- wrapped in swaddling diapers, You’re not even embalmed on iron crosses for us to kiss when we can’t pray. You’re here.
I don’t know when healing will arrive for sure, but this is a greater miracle that Peace can trek thru’ storms with us. It’s a miracle that our son pushing through momentary random aggression can even smile and pause to sing.
Jeff is a warrior. I go climbing walls when am anxious; sure I pray but I turn into a praying spider woman. He’s the calm lake of Galilee thankyou Lord Precious Jesus.
Thank You for people in our lives who have ears to hear Your Music, Your Voice mid all others’. Thank You that Christmas is more than a Season of Decor & Shine. Thank You that though it’s a long trek through Valley of the Shadow of Doubt we need fear no evil, You’re there.
This Bench follows me room to room, down the stairs and out the door. What drew Dave Bignell to capture it?
“Well I used to walk through Hyde Park every morning when I worked in London and of course every season transformed my surroundings. I think in this particular case the bench just looked lonely or somehow protected by the lamppost, like it was standing guard.
It is delicious chilly outside here in Bangalore India, welcome chilly after a humid late monsoon. I’ve been blog writing ferocious after 365 days of waiting for our youngest to heal. My mind is too preoccupied to start December decor officially at home, but this photograph last week pulled me in like lyrics of a yuletide cantata would; you thought you got its message, but nah not yet.
My Ma and Gran went at Christmas like heaven would have a heart attack if they didn’t. I’m not the high octane happy worker bees they were, not me, but this photograph from a place I’ve never been gets my attention just when energy levels are belly crawling. There I said it.
Out in my street by a bus stop, two men in the sidewalk, not 25 years old but with ancient eyes: one spits paan*, the other stares back at me. His friend looks away. They must think I’m waiting for a bus-
Life’s a bus, my Dad would say in his earlier years.
He couldn’t speak much before he went. Illness did that to him. I wish he’d stayed, but you don’t get to order these things. The 25 year olds in the pavement would understand that. Life’s not a bus Dad, its an earth in orbit going on and on. Seasons change, you and I in the beach, you laughing at me falling off the cycle, I was a hopeless learner. You were Unshakeable, you never told me I couldn’t do something if I wanted to. You never lost courage, ’twas seasons that went to winter around you. It got in you almost, like a chill season but inside you were the same person. You and I cannot really change even if I’m quieter these days of rising price, oh fixing salads with no onion, he-he what’d Gran have done with the onion mini-famine we have here? She’d grow her own veggies..
no dad its no bus: we are sitters, walkers, standing leaving arriving. Life is beautiful Dad, you didn’t want to go, who wants to die except my neighbour Mr.Alvarez and his Haiku poems on graves and sweet dying, he reads it out, smacks it out like it is candy. At Christmas Mr. Alvarez misses his two daughters in Kuala Lumpur and Greece, then he wants to hang low and not talk to his round faced wife who will not talk either. Please dear God, keep them from visiting this us this Christmas, I cannot answer questions about new lights, I like the ones we have, a few don’t work here and there but they are milestones of things we did and did not do. Alvarez has to deck his roof with lights to outshine Mars. He says so, that’s how I know. I like my life next to jacaranda trees with squirrel, our muted traffic snarls and manger clay angels with chipped nose and yes, Joseph’s (human father of Jesus) miniature clay head fallen off last Christmas: need to cello tape him back on.
At home we finish a chinese lunch, Kitsy our teenager enjoys playing chef. Jeff my husband is at a river in his easel, he paints rivers, no surprise. He’s from hilly river running Coorg district south of India. Dia and Joh are a few kms away getting the sun. No more seizures for Joh hopefully, but the aggressive side effects of his meds have us running circles to work his chi & chu, or whatever energies are called. Li my sis called last night, she doesn’t feel like Christmas with Dad and Ma gone, she cannot decorate for carolers, her knee hurts. How are you Ray? Just back from a village visit with her carol crew, Li is a village doc. She reminds me of Dad, and Ma in bits. Thel, eldest sis is like her own self + added fizz over the years. Me I’m growing more like my kids, picking their vocabulary and shoulder shrug. Rolling of eyes in particular is liberating but on my generation it looks rude; they get away with it. We hang in together, Haha like parked lampposts and bench, and tree. In season and out.
This Bench. It is park furniture. All the stories and footprints and winters that have gone by haven’t moved it. It is untransformed, though a little worn, yes?
Christmas isn’t the nicest time for those who have lost a loved one, or lost heart; for those feel alone it is easily a time of more than they can bear. I’m thinking about the quality of not being moved. I’m thinking of that Lamp post, the Tree and Bench all there like friends.
I guess December is that time we could spin stories out of threadbare sack cloth but I’m feeling the right to not be moved and it’s a heart strengthening feeling.
…
I’m thinking on something I read about: that Unshakeable Kingdom we all have for the asking; that secret place deep inside where the Love of God stands by us like a Light in a storm. That storm ravaged place where we’re parked? It can feel cold and uninviting, or it can create whole new perspective: Strength that waits out the winter. I’m the bench, the lamppost, the trees; sometimes I’m the snow…
No alarm bell, no burst of glory. It tiptoed in ‘neath my gate. It wouldn’t hold my hand, It couldn’t. I was cold cold cold, every leaf in my garden shrivelled, ashed; Ivy & dust layered the ground and walls of my address.
When Healing came It bled into me. It Crossed boundaries I had built. It broke Itself like Bread over my hunger and poured Itself out like Water over my drought. New metaphors crowd my space. This had been desert with no oasis. Now, this Healing-
growing me into things I do not want to recognize:
a Garden of Shadows where a Lone One prays. Prays as if for me. What’s this. He breaks on two planks where He hangs, I hate this like a personal wound. I’m screaming words with no decibel: He’s saying it for me. Two words, three- I will never forget. “IT IS FINISHED.” He said, smiling stars in His eyes as if we were in Paradise being made over again.
Wait,
wait. He takes my buried memoirs of habits of pain.
No, wait!
But I can’t have them back, He says. Healing takes it all away. I’m blinded by an emotion with no name, Its a Light falling careful in my blind eyes. It grabs my poison ivy with new strong Vine: It inhales me, slamming my dying dead inside, don’t ask how. I have no Theory, no Words wise or pretty. All I know, when Healing came to me I was dead blind, now I see:
I see Scars, Its Body broken. Healing has scars, you get this? I don’t and maybe never will, not till we go Face to Face past that proverbial Glass darkly in the way. Now I peer through Reason, Logic, Theories, Rule. Oneday when we have crossed our rules, we will see the host of things that see us now. Oneday we will break through gravity bound toes: on that day we will see what we question these days. Oh when Healing came It broke Its news gentle to me. It knew I’d be suspicious,afraid,disbelieving…
When Healing walked into me, It spoke things I believed I couldn’t know…..
that gain came in via loss, true I knew, but what else could a human fight for? We needed this. This War for Survival was our one socially acceptable behaviour; it united man and woman and child and nations and bazaars and gangsters and priests, it fed global talks and need. If I didn’t do Survival what tell aunty Maya I was doing ? Or Pastor Sahil. Or neighbour Bishhy. Or Karu Harben my brilliant corporate cousin. What tell Didi Grey my mentor..or art collaborators… that I didn’t care anymore how I’m being received;
who could I be, what of my ‘me‘?
When Healing came It talked into me – sacred syllables of the Father Son and Holy spirit, groans not uttered by the carnal 5 senses: we are heart and mind and spirit soul, beyond flesh and sensor. I had territory within that must heal first*, my Healer said, it began in the acres acres acres (deep in my core where we live or die, there we heal, there we host our virus, our sickle cells, our warrants of life, our predictions of peace. If we die there, how could we survive in the peripheries?) ..
Healing took me to an impossibly narrow dizzy path. When I began to heal- one tiny step at a time, It unleashed me to run my feet like a deer’s in cliff edge sheer mountain. Fear rose bitter gall in my throat and I killed it like a beast is killed with bare hands: something I’d tried an entire lifetime, now it happened with one rapid wish;
here was this desire to thank every mean thing that had ever come my way, hey yes those nasties I’d crumpled over? Them. They were my helpmate, they now proved my brick and mortar needed to build foundation of this impossible route. “Forgive. Go on higher,” The Healer pled with eyes of deathless Love, and the Light of that gaze scorched my last defense, over and over like with birth pangs. How could I have known this detail if I hadn’t needed healing ?
Why haven’t You been here earlier- how much went in wasteland of my nothing. My Healer replied as if I had spoken, He said,”You are more than all this. In these deserts more Gardens could grow, if you go. “
Say what, why? There’s more folk like me, why would I care, but now I did.
When Healing came to me It rained and Its Tear whetted my thirst for Its fact. I used to think with Healing I would be strong again to return to old strengths, I’d be a pillar of fortune, a wheel of Change. Oh look- see how nice healing is, but that is not Its way. It told me things I couldn’t know.
When Healing began I leaned my core on Its Strength. No more great burden of goodness to bear! I was still a torn leaf garden but with new shoot- as if I had wing, the Healer said,”Never mind your Self. Rise..”
When Healing came It did not give me wings, that’d have scared us all.
It is much more than we show and tell, it’s in the way grass grows o’er and o’er and wise men die and babies born will oneday grow to know more than you or I confess. When Healing can, It will come to you and the Light you see will be outside of our incapacities, then perhaps you too will say to another, “…how else could I have known…?*”
..
Inspired by our son(& little brother Joh) as he heals.
Innerdialects 
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