Stuck With You - the late but finally existent story of the adventure Carmen and Kate (didn't) have one day.

Suddenly Carmen and Kate's stifled giggling is cut short by a loud noise. Something like "ba-boooo-creeeeeee-ee-e-k-k-k-isssshhhhh". And the lift stopped. They stared at each other wide eyed. The lift meter says it's on the fourth floor, but when Carmen pushes the |< >| by her hand, the door opens to reveal only a cement wall, a floor between the levels. Kate hears a girl gasp behind her.
She looks over her shoulder and sees a petite brunette clutching her face in terror. Kate quickly pushes the >||<.
Stunned, she looks around the lift. There were five of them. Kate, Carmen, an old looking man - assumingly a lecturer, a boy with purple headphones around his neck and the frightened girl.
The lecturer sighs and, without looking at anyone, slides to the floor, pulls out a book and begins to read.
Kate and Carmen raise their eyebrows at each other.
"So...." it's the boy. "I guess someone should call the lift service."
He makes his way to the lift control and pushes the emergency help button.
"Dammit," whispers Carmen in Kate's ear, I've always wanted to push one of those!"
There's a ringing noise and then a Zulu-ed voice: "Uh, hello?"
"Ja, we're stuck in the lift."
"Which level?"
"4."
"Ok, just wait there, ne." And then the shuffling sound of a reciever being replaced.
"As if we have a choice." Kate jokes. The girl in the corner begins to cry, collapsing down to the floor.
Carmen sidled up to her and rubbed her back. "It's ok," she mumured quietly.
"Ah great, no signal." the boy moans, jamming buttons on his cellphone. "Anyone go any food?" He sits down too.
"I have some ... but wait, we should ration it, we don't know how long we're going to be here." The boy stared at Kate's practicality. His Volcom t-shirt screamed the need for instant gratification.
"Great, should we ration the air too?"
"Better idea," proposes Carmen, "I have a pack of cards. And food. Let's pool it and gamble it out."
"No we should share!" Kate protests.
"I'm all for survival of the fittest." Offers the boy, and receives the acute type of death stare administered by females.
"What do you think, Milly?" Carmen asks the girl. She still had her arm around her. Kate wondered how Carmen got a name and then sees that it's written on the girl's backpack.
Milly continued to sob quietly.
"Milly, do you have to be somewhere?" tried Kate.
Her face buried deeper into her hands.
"Maybe she's claustrophobic" the boy suggested.
"'She' can hear what you're saying," Carmen throws back.
"Great! Milly, nod if you're claustrophic." Carmen punched the boy on the arm.
"Ow! Fiesty." The boy grinned at Carmen, who promptly punched him again.
Kate glanced at the lecturer. He had not shown any sign that he knew they were there. The novel he was reading was called "Stuck With You".
"I guess now we have no excuse not to learn for the test tomorrow," Kate shrugged at Carmen.
"No! Procrastinate forever! Put those notes away! This is quality time."
"How romantic." Kate rolled her eyes but smiled.
"Let's make it a picnic," the boy urges.
And so into the middle of the circle was piled all the food they had. The plunder includedone packet of Cheddars, two apples, a ham roll, a banana and then...
"I also have some," Milly's voice is soft, punctuated by her sniffing. She keeps her eyes  down as she slowly adds to the pile a tupperware filled with cupcakes. They are iced pink with glitter and big bright white marzipan stars shine from the top.
Everyone shouts in delight, the boy high fives her and she is proclaimed Carmen's new favourite person.
"Milly did you make these?"
"Ya..."
"They're too pretty to eat!"
But everyone (except that weird lecturer) eats them anyway. The mood of the lift was suddenly like a rainbow smacking into a unicorn who was rolling about in a green meadow and there was sunlight everywhere and lots of fairies and butterflies bigger than your hand and so much shininess and smiliness...the cupcakes were made with magic.
After everyone returned from their brief visit to heaven, Milly admits she is studying to be a chef.
"So we could basically live here," the boy says happily.
Confused silence met this remark, then the lift rang with girlish laughter.
After a while, Carmen sighed and started pushing random lift buttons above her head. The lift suddenly began to lift itself up and they were sliding their way into freedom.
"Yaaayyy!!"
When the doors opened, the building was entirely empty.
"Wow. We were in the lift so long we missed the end of the world," the boy whispers in awe. the lecturer walks away crisply without a word. Milly gave a nervous giggle.  Then someone was running past them to the exit. "Snow ! snow snow!"he was screaming wildly.
The four lift campers look at each other in disbelief and then broke into a run. A crowd had formed outside, surrounded by soft, drifting snow.
Turning their faces to the sky, the snow was black against the bright white of the clouds. It could have been thousands of tiny insects hurrying, flurrying downwards. Swift: it came down and came down, like dry and friendly rain. Every flake whispered joy and the world seemed to reverberate and radiate with the magic of the soft mystery.
Carmen took a breath and sighed, "I love Wednesdays."

I believe

I believe...

...that there is a God
...this God is holy and perfect
... this God is three in one, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit
...God created mankind to be in relationship with Him
... He created the world to be inhabited by mankind.
...mankind rebelled against God and resist Him out of pride and desire for personal glory. We have and served created things rather than the Creator Himself who deserves all our attention.
...mankind are full of filth and greed and are entirely selfish.
...mankind don't deserve to go to heaven or to know who God is.
...God loves people and He loves restoration and so...
...Jesus was sent to earth to die the death every person deserved to die.
...Jesus was perfect and didn't deserve to die so He rose from the dead
...that in Jesus's death, all my wrong-doing against God is accounted for
...in Jesus'death I am without blemish and free from accusation
...I will go to heaven when I die.
...I have the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of heaven, and to lead me to live like Jesus.
...the Bible is the perfect word of God and is 100% true, to be entirely accepted and obeyed.
...while I'm on earth, God wants me to tell people about what He has done for us and the plan to rescue mankind.
...church is where God's adopted sons and daughters meet to encourage each other, to be united in love, and to prepare ourselves as one bride.
...Jesus is returning soon to earth to end all misery for once and for all and to start a new and perfect world where God is center.

Outgrowing Stuff

So I know personal poems are supposed to remain personal, but it's just what I'm writing right now. So here goes!

Haunted House
Haunted house, my breath is shy.
Rotting shadows consuming rotting shadows.
With flightless fear, I caress abandoned you.
My dark, looming treasure,
I hold together infested floors and doors,
Tape shut gaping holes.

With you perishes hope.

Now my Alice-limbs stretch out your doll-house windows
Because the springy world pushes back against my soles.

Going Back

The following poem I wrote after a 2 week visit back to Durban. It was the first time I had been there after 5 or 6 months in Pretoria.

Going Back

Roads and skylines like the back of my hand
Faces familiar as my freckles.

Our shadows fit together like cogs
And details spring back: a dream suddenly remembered.

 Dusty paintbrushes tinting my cheeks
"Old Flame Red".

Well-worn, faded denim memories
Dug out from the back of my cupboard.

When the punctual tide sucks me back to the starless city,
I forget to say goodbye.

- July 2012

On Loving

"The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was make-believe, while to him, make-believe and true were exactly the same thing. This sometimes troubled them, as when they had to make believe that they had their dinners. " - Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

How true is this when it comes to Christians and loving people?

We suck at loving people.

I'm learning so much, and all of a sudden, about how love is a practical thing and definately not just a feeling.

We say we love people but, like the poor lost boys in Peter Pan, their stomachs are still empty! They don't get any physical experience of it. It's just an idea. 

The thing about ideas, is that they are subjective. I say 'dancing'. You think about ballroom dancing. She thinks about dancing in a club. He thinks about a flashmob. She thinks about a father-daughter dance at a wedding. But we're all thinking about dancing! Even if you start giving specifics, people are still going to imagine it differently in their heads. 

Love is not supposed to be subjective. The bible (1 Corinthians 13) gives very clear specifications as to what love is. The only way we can know we are loving is by comparing our ACTIONS to those specifications.

So go love someone. For Real.