regarding Alpha, part one

I am for the most part a scientific sort. I like reproducible results. I like proofs. I like logical conclusions. I like philosophy and science, even though I'm the first to admit I understand little of it.

Regardless, I go to the chiropractor. As a discipline of medicine, chiropractic is a quackery. I have pshwawed it all my adult life. I started going on some free pass and I thought I'd give it a try. I had some symptoms that doctors couldn't solve. I had a strange buzzing feeling in my head. I sore hips. I had dizziness. These things went away after I had been going to the chiropractor for six months. But at the same time as going to chiropractic, I was eating better and exercising more and tackling the stress in my life.

Over a year later my boyfriend and I broke up and he took his benefits with him, and living on my own was far too expensive. So I stopped going to the chiropractor. My hips started hurting again. My dizziness and head "buzzing" came back. I ate well, exercised..... but these symptoms persisted and worsened. I returned to the chiropractor, and they went away again.

I don't know why chiropractic protects me from these debilitating symptoms. I don't care how it works. All I know is it does work for me, and that's good enough for me. I guess that makes me a believer.

here we go again

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/aug/28/religion-christianity

http://biblicalproportionsreview.blogspot.com/2009/01/searching-issues-what-is-christian.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_course

http://www.flameout.org/flameout/islam/gumbel_alpha1.html

The Alpha program is too conservative for me, it's too rigid for me. I can live with that. Here I am once again challenged by the stance Gumbel takes on gays.... I'm thinking I might have to contact Alpha itself, before Knox offers it again..... more later.

Heidi Heidi Hei

We never really know the personal lives of others. Oddly, at the Bank, we get longer glimpses than most people. We have to ask; they have to tell us. Unfortunately, they don't alway tell - and when we hear they've left their spouse, gone into rehab, quit their jobs out of frustration, bought a house through private financing... we sigh because we could have better advised them if they'd told us.
Mostly, they want to tell. Sometimes, more than we want to know. More than we can use to assist them with finances. The mental notes that don't make it into the official notes. The coded notes "client prefers not to bring spouse to any appointments".
And our co-workers - how much do we really know about their lives? We know about their pets and their children and what they did on the weekend. But the knowing only goes so far. Why is she tired, really? Why is she working late all the time now? Why is she dressing so nice now? I'm a people person. I am interested, and genuinely concerned. Only sometimes, sometimes, you kind of don't want to know. And sometimes, you don't want to tell.

Cohabitation

Sharing living space with another adult is an adventure. It's and old and tried experience but at the same time it is all new because the players have changed. I am going to grow so much through this, if I let myself, if I let go, if I have faith and trust.

So much of what piques me is really a reflection of my own ego, my selfishness or my fear.

This dance of intimacy, this dance of fitting into each other: no one wants to be first at a daring step, noone wants to be the fool, the patsy, the mark. My challenge: to be the fool. To jump. To trust.

Just because he can't see God's hands all over this, doesn't mean it isn't true.

And if he thinks I am his fool, rather than God's? What of that, what is that to me if I tell my ego, "shush"?

at my peril

My intuition is screaming at me. I'm not listening. So my body is growing an ulcer to get my attention. My blood is itching, my breath is weak and I'm dizzy, so dizzy and faint.

I will attend anon, Self. Bide thyself.

I am now a landlady. I have cheques and a lease and a family is going to live out a year of its life in my house. In the house where MY little family lived out four years of its life. So many lives must have passed through that little house.
It feels odd - I want to say they can just use it, just live there, enjoy it. But the bank needs me to pay for it, so I need them to pay for it. My hut sitting on Mother Earth's belly.

I'm generating a positive cash flow.

Have faith

"It'll be OK." he said. "Have faith - you're good at that."
"Faith?" I replied. "I'm good at having faith in God, in Life, in Good. That doesn't mean I have faith in you."

A lily in the valley, I'll be OK. We're all OK. I live in a country where most people are always OK. I've never been afraid of starving, or wrongful imprisonment, of torture, of being truly homeless. It's a blessed life.

So I have faith. I am loved. But this has nothing to do with a romantic relationship.