Days of Gratitude - Fun is Banned. Cybermen and Leaving Church.

Another four days from my gratitude diary.  This one contains something big for me.  The entry for March 26th is life changing.  It feels like I've ripped out the thing that has been at the core of my life and my reason for living.  It's been there for 26 years.  And now it isn't there any more.  There's a gap and it's a big one.  In time that gap can be filled with things that mean more to me, things that inspire me with a greater love and passion for life.  Or it might turn out that having a gap is okay, that it doesn't need to be filled.  Or maybe even I will find out that there isn't a gap at all, just the unfamiliarity of loss and the grieving process that accompanies it.

24^th March

Grateful for a random cyberman on a wall in Newcastle.

25^th March

Grateful for the stunning weather and that I was able to be out and enjoy it.

Grateful too for conversations with my magic friend and for all that we have come to share.

26^th March

Grateful for the journey. Eleven years ago tonight (for Easter was the same date in 2005 as 2016) I was received into the Catholic Church. I thought I had come home, found the answer for the rest of my life and the most "proper" version of Christianity.

This is the end of my official fast for Lent - fasting from church services. And I am grateful to have been able to give myself the space for it and grateful for the discoveries I've made over the 46 days.

After 26 years, it looks like my journeying as a faithful part of various churches is over. Lent showed in stark clarity how little it was giving me and how much it was costing me.

I am very grateful indeed. Easter is, if nothing else, about new life and new hope. It's about resurrection. It's about dying to the things that don't serve us. It's about walking away from darkness and into a greater light. It's about being set free. It's about forgiveness and an end to condemning ourselves.

I could preach and Easter sermon now and I think it would be a good one! Anyway, I am grateful. Because this Easter I walk into light, into freedom, into self-acceptance, into new hope and away from what had ceased to have any meaning or benefit to my life. A new day is dawning. Hoorah!

(photo not from now but from sunrise on December 27th last year)

27^th March

I saw this on a wall near where I was heading tonight.

Grateful that I ignored it and had a great time doing something I have never done before.

That something was 5Rhythms dancing.  Except it was Live Rhythms because there were musicians playing live for all the music.  And it was wonderful.  I will be going back and doing more.