baptism

i'm (finally ...or already!) getting baptised at emmanuel church, oxford, where i became a christian. the event will either be on saturday 31st march or saturday 28th april, dependant on which date it is more convenient to run a baptism service.

"if you love me, let go of me"

If you love me
Then let go of me

goes a lyric of the Evanescence song "Weight Of The World". The song is about the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual burden on Jesus in taking the sins of the world onto himself and not fighting back at his accusers even though he was infinitely more than capable and deserved of doing so.

Evanescence songs have a habit of being a dialogue between a human and God. The above lyric appears to have the persona of Jesus. The raised the question, "Why would Jesus want the person who loves him to let go of him?". An answer came to me this morning. I was reading John 14 on the bus this morning and came across this verse:

"You heard me say 'I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I."
- John 14:28 [NIV]

On the walk to work I whacked on my iPod, as I do. As soon as I heard those lyrics it instantly hit me where they were inspired from!

Jesus's disciples had bonded tightly with him during the time that they followed him. It was now the eve of his betrayal and he was forewarning them that he wouldn't be with them physically for much longer, although he does promise to return. The distress of the disciples is understandable. Despite all this, Jesus had a job at hand. If his disciples loved him, they would allow him to complete the Divine plan, in spite of the pain of separation.

poem: misplaced worship

"Misplaced Worship"




Warm in your embrace

Joyous in your presence

Beautiful is your face

I worship

"I'm not God!", you say

"Then show me the way"



Warm in your embrace

Joyous in your presence

Wonderful is your Grace

I worship

"I Am God", you say

I have found the way





(c) 2007 Alexis Down (James A. Cameron)

poem: perception of you

surprisingly, i haven't written any new poetry since i became a christian. some people who have read my blog long enough know that my poems can get quite dark and torturous. i know it doesn't mean i should stop writing; i've just been waiting for inspiration, and by the Grace of God, here it is!


"Perception of You"

Guiding me when I was alone
Following your will unconsciously
Beckoning for me to come home
Ignoring your whisper blissfully

Nice it would be to receive you
But show me a way to perceive you

Taking me to a place I quite despise
Desiring to go home, desiring to leave
Shewing me who to speak with; compromise
Having much in common, having much indeed

Nice it would be to receive you
But show me a way to perceive you

Standing right in front of me
Refusing still to see now
Blowing a trumpet loudly
Rejecting the sound

Nice it would be to receive you
But show me a way to perceive you

Waiting always right here
Readying myself for embrace
Taking my hand to steer
Accepting your divine grace

Thank you for opening my heart to receive you
Gratitude for assuring me you were always there


(c) 2007 Alexis Down (James A. Cameron)

xml email to christ

i went to see my, then new, friend's baptism in october (2006). it was at jubilee church in enfield, middx. one of the pastors was called adrian warnock. you couldn't forget him because he kept winking and smiling. ;)

sometime in november, i got bored one day when i was at work. i was getting interested in semantics around that time and admired the ambition for creating the semantic web. i decided to search the web on how feasible it would be to develop a "semantic email" application. if you think about it, we store a lot of information, and often files from attachments, that are important to us in our mailboxes. this information would be more useful if it were easier to search on to retrieve it.

i decided to Google search email AND xml (or xml AND email). i went through the results. one of the results in particular amused me. the page description read something like: "read the Bible by email or XML", the XML referring to RSS or ATOM feeds. i clicked on the link. it was a christian blog. whose photo should load on the page but that of the winky pastor from jubilee church! this was extremely spooky to say the least!

i decided to email adrian using the address displayed on the web page. he responded quite promptly and verified that he was indeed the pastor i had met in enfield weeks previously.

God works in mysterious ways!

healing spiritual abuse

what i wanted to talk about here was too many words for blogger to cope with, so instead here's a link to the myspace post:

healing spiritual abuse

emmanuel oxford - a new frontiers church

here are links to my church and the christian movement it belongs to:

Emmanuel Church, Oxford
http://www.emmanueloxford.org/

New Frontiers family of churches
http://www.newfrontiers.xtn.org/


thanks for looking! :)