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I came into church on the 10th of May feeling deeply distraught, the overwhelming sense being that all was not well. Two main issues drove the sense of disjunction I felt; uncertainties around work and an inner turmoil around a decision in my personal life I had wrestled with for nearly a year. The message on the day was by Rev Charles Achonwa - one of the first things he said being about surrendering to grace. This spoke directly to where I was at the moment, as I had taken time off a month before to come up with what I felt was the perfect plan with multiple backups and redundancies but had made little progress which fed the sense of frustration I felt. ...

In his seminal essay Why I Blog, Andrew Sullivan reflects on the subject of blogging; it’s similarity to - and shared etymology with - a ship’s log, its rise in step with the proliferation of the web technologies which have made it possible, and the unique niche it fills in the online space. Its overarching and enduring quality, he surmises, is due in part to two things; the informal, almost instantaneous nature of blogging as a reaction to news and events, and the intense, if sometimes unforgiving, interaction between blogger and reader that blogs enable. The conclusions he reaches are from considering a specific form of a blog, the sort that lies at the intersection of personal reflection and journalism, much like his (now retired blog) Daily Dish. Overall the numbers are mind boggling. Back in 2005, Technorati estimated that a blog was born every second, with 14.2m blogs being tracked by them back then (For some context, Tumblr which didn’t exist back in 2005 was home to 261 million blogs as of the 1st of November this year). The vast majority of this blogosphere is made up of blogs that are far less serious in nature and content than the ones Sullivan’s comments concern primarily, however his conclusions apply, perhaps more-so in this personal, less formal space. ...

You’re a Good, Good Father It’s who you are, it’s who you are, it’s who you are And I’m loved by you It’s who I am, it’s who I am, it’s who I am

It has been that sort of month since I was last here, the sort where the only possible response once the worst of it has passed is one of navel gazing self congratulation, at having survived without too much out of kilter, like a slight limp instead of a compound fracture…Between two trips offshore, a sore foot which required a pitstop at A&E and busyness multiplied exponentially, the past three weeks have sped by like a blur. My continuum? 12 hour work days, deadlines coming thick and fast, and weekends spent trying to catch up on the week’s backlog in time for a fresh load of things to chase for the new week. ...

I chalk it up to the much vaunted persistence of vendors, when T. insists on coming into the office to drop off documents that require my assent rather than pop them in the mail. Part of me is more than mildly irritated at his insistence, given how much I have got on my plate at the moment - and the hour or so I will have to carve out of my day to attend to him. He comes bearing gifts, two large, sturdy umbrellas with alternating green and white panels; splashed with a large copy of his company logo. That does little to mollify me, but I manage to be courteous enough to make small talk and have a quick whiz through the documents I need to sign off. Just before he leaves, he enquires about the potential for future work, a subject I am unwilling to discuss given the state of the industry. When it is time to go home later that day, I leave the umbrella, that decision my nod to its unwantedness. ...

[ Source] Three chance occurrences over the space of the last month have done a lot more to unsettle me than anything else in the year so far. Not in a bad way by any chance, but in an ask-myself-hard-questions way. Of the myriad of questions bobbing around in my mind, ones that relate to authenticity, passion and faith and how these can be melded into a coherent practice have come to the fore, inspired by how the people in question are doing life in their real worlds, leaving marks in ways I can only aspire to at this stage. ...

In chess: a situation in which the obligation to make a move in one’s turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage. In real life: a situation in which one realises that life is speeding by in a state of unstable equilibrium with all the possible moves only likely to lead to more instability, or possibly a catastrophic event… The solution? To stop, tear everything up and begin again… Maybe..

The view from 26F as we descended towards St John’s International was great, not particularly dissimilar to what one might see at a similar stage of the journey towards Aberdeen, the West Coast of Scotland or Ireland; which must now be a travel objective for me over the next few years. Once safely parked and disembarked - to 19°C weather - my first impressions of the airport were of how hastily put together it all seemed, with construction continuing in various parts. That lent a rustic, uncomplicated - perhaps even idyllic - air to everything, the sort of chilled, back water one might go to escape the lures of technology. Before travelling I had searched extensively for a duty free shop at YYT, walking the short distance to the arrivals terminal made the reasons for my futile googling apparent. ...

If all goes well, by the time you read this, I will have spent just over 18 hours in St John’s, North America’s oldest city, depending on who you listen to. As I type away in Evernote on my laptop, my view is considerably less fascinating than what I have been looking forward to; the 3 day ginger stubble of the fellow in seat 26D, my notes and the tepid remains of coffee in a Styrofoam cup occupying the full extent of my vision. The map on the entertainment console in front of me indicates that I am now half way across the expanse of the Atlantic stretching between the western edge of the Republic of Ireland and St John’s, not entirely a comforting thought to be surrounded by all that water. ...

For the first time since July, I have begun to run again. Once a week - I’d like to make it twice - I don my bright orange jacket, shorts and running shoes and begin at a leisurely pace down Urquhart road, up Links Road and then gradually pick up pace until my feet are pounding the tarmac on the long stretch that is the Beach Esplanade. Sleep, or more accurately sleeplessness, has been one of the drivers for running again. Once awake sometime between 2am and 4am regardless of when I hit the sack, I find my mind far too active to go back to sleep. That is how I end up awake till it feels like a less ungodly hour to hit the road and run. What running does is afford me time to think - headphones plugged in, I can focus on the rhythm my feet make and the beat of whatever I am listening to. I am not alone in the pursuit of running zen, sometimes I pass other runners in different phases of their own runs, walking a dog or on the odd occasion an elderly couple out and about strolling. ...