jamie's wanderings

 These posioned tables have been like the scene in C.S. Lewis book, The Silver Chair, which is an often overlooked part of the Narnia Series. The Prince is enchanted, and by that, a bettter more modern word would be bewitched, and the Silver Chair is controlling him to stay underground and not possess the kingdom that is rightfully his, and instead and Evil Witch rules over all. The Prince is so bewitched, so possessed by this Silver Chair, that he cannot see what is really happening, and that is he is completely bound to it with chains. It takes courage from a creature called a Marshwiggle, who burns his feet and snuffs out the incense-laden fire which is poisoning the air. The Marshwiggle pays no mind that he might burn his feet, but understands he must do so to end the enchantment. The first poision I realized that so many people have drunk, is that to be a Christian in a respectable church with dignified ceremony and theology, is to give away the freedoms they have. This can be...

I mentioned in the previous blog that we have been removed from various tables at which we were being poisoned. I wish to delve deeper into this, but first some thoughts as to where I'm at now. One of the things that is giving me more courage to do this, was last week meeting an old friend who has worked for The Kingdom of Heaven for a long time. As a very young almost woman, I went and visited him and his wife in an exotic place. He and I had several pivotal conversations during that time that made me think deep thoughts and almost 30 years later, have continued to form my thinking about what this world is and isn't. One of his main complaints then and even now, is that most of the organizations that call themselves churches or the church are just that, organizations. They have lost their true ideologies or missions, and have instead sunk to the level that many institutions do, working at controlling those men and women dedicated to their growth. I have agreed for a long time,...

In 2011, I began my postgraduate journey at the University of Granada with an MA in English Literature and Linguistics. I chose my emphasis to be linguistics and my MA thesis deals with shame and how it directly affects those of us learning to speak a second language as we do so in our adult stage of life. This blog isn't about my MA, but, to deal with a minor topic within it, one of the main critiques of it, and my writing later in my unfinished and unpublished, PhD, that I lack my own voice. Since I can remember, I have read and written. I can't hardly remember learning how to read, and I started writing shortly thereafter. Journals and poetry as a kid and later young adult, and now I do more personal writing on social media and occasionally here. I've had all sorts of horrific critiques in my more formal writing. I don't have a voice, I use too much passive voice, I need to write more, I need to be more concise, blah blah blah blah. And since I finished, or rather, s...

 I sat last night in Andrew's office as we listened to several voice messages sent to us by my uncle Peter. Twenty years ago, we were packing our bags and giving away our life as we knew it to move to Spain. The first night we arrived it was chilly and rainy and dark and we cried ourselves to sleep not knowing what we had gotten ourselves into. The next morning with sunshine and snow gleaming off the Sierra Nevada, we knew it was going to be better. All my clients, both long and short term now, have reams of knowledge due to the internet/social media, and more about the city they are coming to see. We had a shaky picture of the Alhambra and mountains in 2003, and a bit of knowledge having been to Malaga in 2001 for two weeks. What we did know was that an apartment was waiting for us. It was ok, too big and furniture in which lurked Franco's ghost, but we called it home, even with the worst mattress we had ever lived with. And not only were these popcorn walls waiting for us, bu...