2013-2018
As I mentioned briefly in my previous post, last month I attended a festival in Belfast hosted by author and speaker Peter Rollins, entitled ‘Wake’. I didn’t know much about the event when I signed up, my friend had mentioned it to me saying she wished she could attend and on a whim I decided to sign up. The festival explored radical theology and was designed to mimic a wake, for us to mourn the death of God.
Whenever I had struggles in life, my faith was something I could cling to. When things got tough, praying about them made it easier. If I needed guidance, I could look to the Bible. When I asked God to help me make an important decision, I’d feel like I was being told what I needed to do. My faith was a comfort in times of need, a hope amongst the hopelessness, a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. No matter how shit life got, God was with me.
I’ve always been impulsive. I’m the kind of person who lives in the moment and follows my gut. That’s just the way I’m wired. I hate the idea of making plans in advance because, inevitably, plans fall through, and after getting myself really excited I will be left feeling disappointed and let down. Lately, I’ve started to find myself planning into my future more and more. When I look on Facebook and see SO MANY of my friends getting engaged, their dream job, or jetting off halfway around the world, part of me feels like I’m missing out. I feel I need to be working towards something more, that by now I should have more to show for my life. So I start making checklists in my head of things that I need in order to be content with life. An ever growing list of expectations; a solid relationship, a house, a stable job, a car, a driver’s license, the list goes on and on. My eyes are set on the perfect life, and in my head this is only possible once my expectations are met, once I’ve got through the endless list of things I need to do.
I love travelling, as I write this I’m sitting in ‘Jardin Majorelle’, Marrakech. I’ve spent the last three days travelling through the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara Desert. In the mountains we saw the snow and threw some snowballs, before travelling to some traditional Berber villages and drinking copious amounts of tea. We then travelled to the desert (frequently stopping along the bumpy roads for cigarette breaks, chicken tagine and more tea), took a camel two hour camel ride from Merzouga into the Sahara and settled to camp for the night before heading back to Marrakech the next morning.
Recently, I spent a week in Jerusalem. As far as holidays go, this one (I like to call it my pilgrimage), was one of the most interesting, intense and insightful trips I’ve ever been on…
Bleary eyed, we got off the coach after the nine hour journey from Berlin to Amsterdam. It was 5am and the only place we wanted to be? Bed. By the time we made it to the centre of the city, after trying to understand the ticket machine (and realising we don’t speak a word of Dutch), it was 6am. We went in search of breakfast. We realised that nowhere in Amsterdam is open for breakfast before 7am, so decided to explore the city. With no wifi, mobile data or any idea where we were going, we somehow found ourselves in Amsterdam’s infamous ‘Red Light District’…
It’s not often in London that we stop. All day, every day there is so much noise, so much action. My life is full of it; working, seeing friends, socialising. When I have nothing to do I’m trawling through social media, playing games on my phone or binging on Netflix. None of these are bad things, but so rarely in life do I stop, sit in silence, and enjoy that moment…
