the soil I tread

My current residence is a small town in Northumbria called Hexham. Click on HEXHAM to read about Hexham.
I have seen the Abbey and walked around the golf course along the river, so I am getting to grips with the place! Look for details on life here soon.

by Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others won't feel insecure around you.
We were all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

through passport control

As I write I am sitting on a bus on the M25 just outside of London. Come to find out this bus has internet. I think its the first bus I have ever been on with internet. I could get used to it and certainly not a bad welcome to the country I will be calling home for the next couple of months.

Last night I had originally I had intended for the first words of this post to be the following: For the foreseeable future these will be the last words I write from Spanishland. Time however ran out on me and I find myself on this historical island wondering how there can be so much traffic on just one road.

Last night I said goodbye to my home for the last four years. I was a weird moment, very weird. Without going into at the moment let it suffice to say that I don't think it has sunk in yet. As if in a dream I am surrounded by English and the only Spanish I hear is coming through my headphones.

This was unexpected until only about two and a half weeks ago, though I had begun to suspect that my time was drawing to a close. My legality ran out on Wednesday and on Friday afternoon I was exiting the Iberian peninsula as an illegal immigrant. (That in itself was a small bonus as it was a new experience, one that I will take with me for the rest of my life.) There is a lot of mileage in this whole living as aliens and foreigners in this life. I wonder if it can be stretched to include illegal ones as well?

But to hono(u)r this amazing country that has treated me so well I decided that I should not abuse the privilege and stick around too long. That and God spoke and I am excited to see just what he is up to through all this. Whatever it is, it is good, because he is infinitely good. Amazingly good. Yes, let it be known in the whole earth that my FATHER is good.

So I'm in England to work on my English (accent). There are some directions and ideas floating around in my head but that's for another post, in another part of England.

comings and goings

There are changes in the air. It started as a whisper, a soft breeze, an intuition and slowly grew into something more tangible, speaking into my ear, blowing across my face. Leaving me there alone to step out and into the heart of God.

This next Friday I leave Spain. It's not forever but its the end of an era, a season of my life that has marked me forever.

I am headed to England for a couple of months to spend some time up in Hexham. God has spoken. He has shut doors and he has opened doors. He has spoken and he has asked me to follow, to shut some doors myself.

What lies beyond I don't know. I have some thoughts and ideas but if I have learned nothing else over the last month, it's that what it says in Proverbs 16 is true, A man's heart devises his way: but the LORD directs his steps..

So it's the beginning of something new but rather than the end of what is finishing, it's the continuation of what has already begin.