The winning try last night when my Rugby League team beat the Pie eaters

The winning try last night when my Rugby League team beat the Pie eaters hey hey

She came to talk. She is so beautiful. She could be a model.

She came to talk.

She is so beautiful

She could be a model.

She was living in a hostel.

Abused and almost a slave to be sold to men - maybe she had been.

She had been in her hostel room for four weeks.

The security she needed after trauma.

NOW she was 'climbing up the wall' she said.

So she came to my group work session - a brave step.

Leaving security

for the unknown.

Growth does not reside in a place called comfortable.

I loved her from the first minute.

Giving her attention.

Not gushing but gently affirming, welcoming.

I feel deep love for her.

I get this deep love as I get to know BHPs.

As I get to know their abilities and disabilities.

And they discover mine.

She took some time to be emotionally present.

But she was physically present always.

Eventually contributing from her richness.

Her strengths and weaknesses.

Her wounds and current hurting.

I felt like I could trust her with my life.

I did regularly.

I am anybody's if they are willing to get close.

Emotionally bonding.

Spiritually knotted together.

Everlasting - eternal.

We parted as she moved on eventually.

That is good - but always a bereavement.

We are not in contact.

Like so many others.

But they live with me internally.

They jump into my head unexpectedly.

I feel the same deep love.

A privilege to journey for a while.

And eternal presence ............

© www.pipwilson.com

It is a privilege ...........

=It is a privilege to have BHPs on my facebook who are racist and/or homophobic 

=it is a great privilege to meet and talk with, and know, and share with an ex top business man who is a shaking alcoholic. 

=It is great to know someone who regularly want to borrow £1 to get by.

=It is fantastic to know and love an ex heroin addict who is only an alcoholic now. 

=It is a privilege to be in contact with so many who hate Moslems.

=It is great for me, a privilege, to know and love Moslems.

=It's a privilege to know messed up fragile Christians.

=Great to know a heroin user who has returned to methadone. 

=It is a privilege for me to know gang members who have yet to discover a different life.

=A joy to know young woman who from a life on the street and lost in a life of chemicals is now moving on in life with emotional and focused stability. 

=It is a privilege to know a young bright educated articulate young man with no self confidence.

=It hurts like hell to be close to a young woman who is hopelessly lost in inedequacy and unable to make a decision. 

=it is joy to meet and share hurts in a group when they have been sleeping on the street, then to a night shelter, then the ymca .......... and to hear determination to be honest with self and step onwards.

=It is a privilege to keep contact with a range of BHPs because it is a reality of life.

=It is great for me to learn from everyone I know, especially those who are so so different. 

=It is a privilege for me that you have clicked this way and read so much today. I will add you to my list.

=You are a beautiful human person.

A poem from Prison

False 

by Anthony Murphy HMP Ltttlehey 

To tell the truth in prison, 

for many seems so hard 

Why do people feel the need to put on this facade? 

Everyone's a hard man, a gangster or a thug 

Has every watch, drives every car, deals every kind of drug 

Everybody knows him, he's famous in the ends 

Never short of money, there's thousands in his spends 

His prop boxes are bulging, with all the latest things

He swaggers round talking in slang and shouting round the wings 

He makes out that he's running things, that he's the one on top 

But one day he gets found out, and all that swagger stops 

Prison is a small world, but changing all the time 

And soon somebody comes along that knows him and his crime 

Now the truth is out there and he has to avoid 

All the ones he's lied to, threatened or annoyed 

This gives him some problems, he can't go off the wing 

No work or outside exercise, no access to the gym 

They know he's not a hard man, a gangster or a thug 

His watch is Worth a fiver, never even seen a drug 

He has nothing to bargain with, and nothing left to swap 

His prop box is a Ghost Town, nothing special to his name 

He didn't have to tell these lies, there's no one else to blame 

They create these false personas, but it never gets them far

Why can't they not just show themselves for who they really are.

Over 3.5 million children in poverty in UK

The Children’s Society: The Heart of the Kingdom

Nigel Varndell, the Director of Church Partnerships at The Children’s Society writes:

The current programme of welfare reform has pushed issues of poverty back into the public consciousness. There are over 3.5 million children in poverty, 27% of children in the UK, and that figure set to rise by hundreds of thousands in coming years. Against this background much of the public debate over child poverty has centred on whether feckless parents or cuts to welfare are more to blame; a descent into tit for tat political point scoring between left and right that has generated much more heat than light.

What has been much less in evidence in the public debate is a clear vision of what kind of society we want our children to grow up in. And, if we really want children to grow up without the scourge of poverty, what roles should the government, the church or the family play? It is this kind of debate to which the church is uniquely placed to contribute. Unencumbered by a five year political cycle or the need to pander to popular, but frequently ill-informed public opinion, the church can place the narrow and urgent debates about welfare into a wider context of the role of society in the face of rapidly deepening poverty and inequality.

But if the church, both local and national, wants to get involved in the struggle against child poverty then it needs to answer a range of connected theological questions in order to know how and when to get involved.

Is the retreat of the state an immoral abdication of their responsibilities to citizens or the reassertion of the appropriate role of civil society in areas where the government has no right to intrude? Are our attempts to ‘help the poor’ nothing more than a naïve paternalism that denies the reciprocity that should be at the heart of human relationships? Can a public rhetoric of deserving and undeserving poor ever be justified in Christian debate?

In an attempt to answer some of these questions The Children’s Society has published The Heart of the Kingdom, Christian theology and children who live in poverty – a collection of essays from theologians, academics and practitioners that aims to shed light on the current debate around child poverty. With essays by Revd Canon Dr Angus Ritchie, Professor John Millbank and Krish Kandiah, the collection brings a range of different church perspectives to issues. The collection is available free of charge on The Children’s Society website, to anyone who wants to deepen their understanding.

And if you want to find out more about child poverty, visit The Children’s Society stall in the G-Source at Greenbelt this year.

I never intended .........

"I never wanted to be famous

I succeeded

I never wanted to be rich

I succeeded to degree level

I never wanted to be this age

It sort of came with experience

I never wanted to be good looking

Achieved at birth

I never wanted to be educated

I achieved in every school

I never wanted to believe in God

I tripped and stumbled into him

I never wanted to be a writer

I just started to reflect on life

I never wanted to be imaginative

It just happens as I strive to love

I never wanted to be comfortable

I had it once, before the faith began

I never wanted to be restless

I now choose it and yearn for it

I never wanted to be irritated

but now I refresh that irritation

I never wanted to be thirsty

then I discovered it in ever sense

I never wanted to be sexy

Thank you very much God

I never wanted to have a sense of humour

Then I discovered more than five senses

I never wanted to be vulnerable

I discovered it was a strength not a weakness

I never wanted to marry a rich woman

I think she is rich beyond compare

I never wanted to be beautiful

It took me 40 years to know

I was a beautiful human person

I never wanted to be in a band

I now have a great band of friends

I never wanted to be imperfect

I now know it is in synergy with beautiful

I never wanted to be on a road less travelled

I discovered it goes along with human development

I never wanted to be a great lover

I found it as a life mission

I never wanted to be disabled

I learned that I have abilities and disabilities

I never wanted an idol, mentor, guru

I met someone who said follow me 

And that was all I ever wanted...................."

Pip Wilson

Red Pill - Blue Pill

t h e 
r e dp i l l

"This is your last chance.

After this there is no turning back. 

You take the blue pill: 

the story ends, 

you wake up in your bed 

and believe whatever you want to believe.

You take the red pill: 

you stay in Wonderland 

and I show you how deep 

the rabbit hole goes."

.....Because life is love and love is life.

We sat in my favourite London Cafe and sipped a coffee. Alise had come over from Norway for a few days to see the big smoke with her family.

We met in the cafe and I met her Mum and sister before they shot off to leave us time in a precious 121 hour.

We had only met in a sessions of mine amongst 130 students in Norway but we had connected emotionally and it was great to have the chance to meet up. 

This was a preplanned 121 and divine time.

She caught me up with her story - she like you and me had a story well worth telling - and always ongoing. She has had a unique life. Inner one. Outer/visible to the eye one too.

So have you.

She is brave enough to live that life and work at it. That means digging into all those bits around 'growth does not reside in a place called comfortable.'

We connect in a place called beautiful.

We are both keen to discover become and live beautiful 

(my Greenbelt session will be about that in August - be there!)

We had already shared 121 messages through facebook but now it was precious time. We may never ever meet again but the shared experiences we have had will be lasting.

Alise is writing. Reflecting.

She allows me to share this one (and more coming I hope!)

Love is a mystery so is life.
You care about someone, or, you care about life.
You don`t want to miss a second of love.
You don`t want to miss a second of life.
Because life is love and love is life.
Nothing more, nothing less.

23.11.2010 By Alise E

I want to pass on this to you.

You are beautiful 

not for the shape of your body, 

but for the volume of your soul.

Life is a story you can`t stop Reading.

In the course of my work

I call it LOVING people

I meet beautiful humans.

I always encourage people to write

write their feelings

write their reflections

write their lives.

It brings out the art in them

In brings out the summary

the essential

It undresses the soul.

Humans are different when they write.

Reflect on life.

It becomes a beautiful journey.

Even the wounds

Even the hurts on top of the wounds

are eased and understood

rather than hidden and buried inside - 

but buried alive.

Some give me permission to publish their creativity here.

I am privileged.

There will be another one or two to follow sometime.

***

LIFE...Life is a story you can`t stop Reading.

A book you can`t put Down,

a book you can`t take your eyes off.

A masquerade mask you can hide behind,

and be whoever you want to be.

Life is a caterpillar that turns in to a butterfly.

Flying high on the sky.

A feather shows you how light and how heavy life can be.

A pencil can show you how many colours there can be in life.

And the art, and beauty, which comes with life and turn in to a story. 

That turns in to a beautiful book.

The clock is controlling 

Our time, but I wont let it control mine.

The mysteries in life is life itself.

 by Alise Ellevset 

( i was 16 years old) 

30.12.2010