A Curious Girl: Beauty is on the inside

On Friday, Christina and I went to London, which was nice. We saw the Aztec Exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts. There were some amazing artefacts, but it was very hard to imagine what life as an Aztec would have been like.

Then we went to the Natural History Museum and saw a photo exhibition called 'Earth from the Air'. It was quite amazing - I gasped at an awesome picture of the World Trade Center, but I also marvelled at a glacier that looked just like a footprint. The beauty of the world is stunning. I regret not buying a poster (everyone has Salvador Dali and the Mr. Men and Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, and even Dangermouse too...). There was a large map of the world near the exhibition which you could walk all over. I jokily remarked, 'Look, I'm in Peru!' Chris knows I have a thing for Peru. She suggested that maybe I have a calling for Peru. I don't know. It would be nice :) I want to see the lost city of the Incas!

Saturday... hmm, oh yes, I went to James's party. It was great to see my old friends again, I got to watch some of 'Toast' (Ricci's film) and chatted to David (he got into Cambridge!) and Will, and Richard told us all about his time when really drunk when he got covered in eggs and flour... It was nice. Matthew called during the party, Ricci practically seized the phone - they get on :)

Sunday. Staff meeting. Argh. We got to try the new products, which were OK but nothing special at all (all the products I really like are always limited period only! Why is this??) and I avoided a certain person who is being very weird at the moment. We went on about selling techniques, Adgie told us that the promotion behind the new product is going to be really big, as if this is the best thing since sliced pizza. Wahey. It's not like we're saving their souls.

My trouble is, when it comes to selling, I always want to be nice about things. Let them look through the menu, give them space, and help them out if there are cheaper deals that would suit them. Somewhere along the line I foolishly thought that being nice to customers was a better selling technique than pushing a particular product.

Sooo... this dizzying rollercoaster ride (!) brings me to Church.

I'm pretty certain that this term at Uni exposes me as a bad, bad Christian. Not getting involved with the Christian Union, barely reading my Bible, not praying often, and not making the regular church commitment. It doesn't look healthy, and it's probably not. Although having said that, God has blessed me in lots of ways this term, I got housemates (yay!) and I learned a lot of important things about myself.

For one thing, I learned that I am much more powerful than I originally thought I was. Trust me to finally notice this when I realised I was hurting people's feelings by being snappy or bossy. Weird that. But in a bizarre way, it's encouraging that people care about what I think. It means that if I'm positive, I can help people! Cool!

Also I figured out that friends are not necessarily people with the same interests as you. Well then, what are they? After the whole 'writing notes' incident, Laura's comment was, "Have you thought about the way this corridor is divided? Think school groups." She was right, observing that 'they' are a bunch of girls who are popular and have probably been popular all their lives - and then us. It does indeed seem like a lot of my friends are 'different', in dress or thought or history. I don't mind this, in fact I love it. I like hearing different perspectives and open minds - but most of all, I like the fact that we're different but we're still friends. I love how Matthew and I can be annoyingly couply and yet we're still very much ourselves. Friends may be popular or they may be not. Doesn't matter - I do have friends who were 'popular' in school but that's not the deciding factor. It sounds dreadfully trite but friends are those wonderful people who accept us for just being us, not the people who 'help' us by trying to draw us into their ways and making us like one of them. They take us as they find us. I know it sounds so obvious, but it's a revelation you can only start to realise when you understand that you are beautiful as you are. Whilst we should all try to be kind and patient and gentle and caring, we should never be ashamed of our clothes, hobbies, interests, taste in music because frankly it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. And true friends know that.

So before I went off onto this tangent, I was talking about Church. I went to church feeling full of need, which is sometimes the best way to go to church. Sometimes. I almost got very frustrated when it was suggested that people who wanted to get back with God come kneel at the front. I was thinking, "I want something real not just the run-of-the-mill symbolic repentance!" The amount of times I have been part of one of those "If you feel X then please do utterly symbolic gesture Y" type things, it suddenly seemed very empty indeed. (I think Frank could technically be considered one of these, but on the other hand the way it was done meant that I could quietly pray and meditate on the words, rather than standing, kneeling, putting my hands in the air et cetera, like some sort of spiritual Hokey Cokey.

I felt a little guilty when I remembered Naaman (I think) who was told to go bathe in the Jordan seven times to cure his leprosy. He said it was ridiculous when he could go and bathe in a river at home, but in the end he followed the advice (I do believe it was the wise prophet Elijah) and was cured. So I decided that if God wanted me to kneel at the front in order to help me, then well, do that I would. So eventually I did.

Jackie, one of the Ministry team and the mum of one of the Brigaders I know, came over to pray for me. "Would you just like a blessing?" she asked. I nodded.

I actually thought of an incident Steve Chalke described in He Never Said.... He was part of a Ministry Team, praying for people who needed it during some event or other and was instructed to 1) not ask for the person's name, 2) not ask the problem and 3) not spend too long on one person. Steve Chalke, being the good Christian he is, broke all three instructions in offering the man who wanted prayer a chat over a cup of coffee if he wanted. The man agreed, and they left for coffee. Which, to be honest, is what I would have liked too. I would have liked to talked about the things that are bothering me (one I talked to Dad about in the car, but I can't really talk 'God stuff' with him).

I'm so frustrated with platitudes and buzz words (I'm probably sounding quite venomous today, I'm sorry! Anyway, if it annoys you, please depart whilst I sound-off). My current least favourite word is probably 'revival'. I know it's used with good intentions but so often it means 'Let's convert lots of people and have a great spiritual high and congratulate ourselves on how we're truly God's people.' It was quite refreshing to say to Keith how I felt discouraged by people saying that they had a revival at university, and he said, 'What's a revival?' What a relief.

My strugglings with the whole church system are part of what seems to have thrown me off track at Uni. I miss God. Next term I think I might brave the CU small groups (I've all but vowed never to go to another big meeting again). Because I want a relationship. It seems like the people who think of God as someone they can talk to and be intimate with have strange wacky and generally clumsy ideas that I can hardly believe are linked to God, whereas the nice normal Christians seem to think that God is like a very distant boss they're serving under. They want to do a good job and they send him memos occasionally, but they're afraid of looking like a fanatic.

Am I a fanatic?

I want to be full of God and his purpose. I want to do what's right, I want to know what's right and I want to have the strength to do it. *Sigh*. And I want to shake the feeling that I'm a secular disappointment because I don't use the word 'just' in my prayers and I don't go around giving leaflets out and holding theological dinner parties. I'm sick of things for appearance's sake. Beauty is on the inside...

Random word for today: glossolalia

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