odd

Things have been striking me as odd recently. Here are a few examples.

On the train back today a man came and sat next to me. Fine. He then started talking to me because he saw what I was reading (an English book - shame...) and then told me lots about himself and because I was polite and smiled and nodded he asked if he could ask me out for dinner. I said no not interested and started reading my book again. But out of the corner of my eye I saw him reach into his pocket and get out a wadge of hand-written pieces of paper in the shape of business cards, with his name and phone number on them. I mean, there must have been about 25 in the little pack. What kind of a person carries round that with them?

We went as a team to Stralsund at the weekend on "retreat" which basically meant we slept loads and ate even more and did lots of discussing and planning and looking back on how things had been. It was great, the little holiday cottage we rented was really sweet, small and perfect for what we wanted. On the way there, though, we went through what looked like the back end of the back end of beyond. It really was quite ghastly looking out of the train most of the time. And a couple of towns that you pass through house old concentration camps. Why would you choose to live there I wonder? And there was one quite nice town - can't remember what it was called - that made me rethink these ideas, until I saw a small stadium with a statue and a kind of collonade adorning it with the words "Strength in Youth" and it made me realise that deep East Germany will take a long time to get away from its communist past.

And then we went to church in Stralsund on Sunday. It was joyous because the congregation was really diverse in age and in type of person, so different to what I experience here in Berlin. It was fascinating talking to the old people at the end of the service and I dearly would have liked to ask them how they lived out their faith in the communist times, but that, again, is a question you just have to wait for them to answer themselves without asking so starkly.

I am also learning more and more fundamentally how I have to stop thinking so concretely about the future: in terms of when I move back to the UK I will do this and that, when I move house here I will do some exercise and stop eating rubbish, when I feel more excited I will want to be a Christian more than I sometimes do. Because sometimes it takes me a while in the mornings to realise why I'm here and what I'm doing. And sometimes I resent the way I have chosen to live. And sometimes I think it's not true and then I lose the thread that has brought me thus far.

And when I sit and I think, or I don't think, or I think about how I should be thinking but don't think like it, or how I try and try and try to make myself think more about God and more about how I live in response it can sometimes overwhelm me. I know how to "get over" these kinds of feelings. I know in my head, but when I know in my head it often means my heart won't let me put the thoughts into action.

The psalmist felt this too, and it is always great comfort to me in my hypocrisy. I quote it from The Message version, because even though I do prefer the more literal translations in most other situations, this seems to convey exactly what I feel and need to hear, because my brain does not articulate itself in poetry.

Psalm 32

Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be — you get a fresh start, your slate's wiped clean.
Count yourself lucky — God holds nothing against you and you're holding nothing back from him.
When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans. The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up.
Then I let it all out; I said, "I'll make a clean breast of my failures to God."
Suddenly the pressure was gone — my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.
These things add up.
Every one of us needs to pray; when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts we'll be on high ground, untouched.
God's my island hideaway, keeps danger far from the shore, throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.
Let me give you some good advice; I'm looking you in the eye and giving it to you straight:
"Don't be errant like a horse or mule that needs bit and bridle to stay on track."
God-defiers are always in trouble;
God-affirmers find themselves loved every time they turn around.
Celebrate God.
Sing together — everyone!
All you honest hearts, raise the roof!