"Are we left here on our own?
Can you feel when your last breath is gone?
Night is weighing heavy now
Be quiet and wait
For the voice that will say:

Come awake,
From sleep arise
You were dead,
Become alive
Wake up, wake up
Open your eyes
Climb from your grave into delight…
Bring us back to life…

You are not the only one
Who feels like the only one
Night soon will be lifted, friend
Just be quiet and wait
For the voice that will say:

Come awake from sleep arise
You were dead become alive
Wake up wake up
Open your eyes
Climb from your grave
Into delight

Arise, rise, rise, rise, rise, rise, rise, rise, rise, rise…
Tonight
Arise now
Rise, rise, rise, ligth, Oh, light, arise, our delight
Rise, rise, rise, rise, rise, oh, rise, shine, shine, oh shine
(wake up, wake up)
Light will shine
(wake up, wake up)
Love will rise
(wake up, wake up)
Love will shine
Shine, shine, shine, shine
Shine on us now…"

Here's to Hope. I'm sitting in my beanbag arm chair in my room. The aircon is humming beyond the music wafting through my headphones. Outside the noonday sunlight is pounding the verdant, tropical green trees of Hong Kong. All sits in a hot, hazy torpor below vaguely cloudy blue skies.
I'll be here in Hong Kong for another year. My battered, bruised, weary, broken heart is beating again… cautiously. It's been one of the toughest years of my life, but that seems to be all I've talked about in my previous blog entries. I guess it has dominated my mind, as I've lain on the shores of life, gasping like a shipwrecked, waterlogged mariner.

I'm staying in Hong Kong for a number of reasons. For my family, which has been buffeted by the events of this year. For my wounds, because running from problems never solves them. For certainty, because for most of last year I didn't know where I was going to be next. I lived in limbo. I couldn't commit to anything. It made it hard to stay in communication. It exacerbated the issues I was going through. I had no place to stand. Eventually you have to make a choice.
And I chose to stay in Hong Kong. Most of all, because I believe that it is what God wants me to do.

So now I'm picking up the pieces. I'm switching gears. I'm going to be doing the PCLL at Hong Kong University: The Postgraduate Certificate in Law. It's basically the Hong Kong Lawyer's qualification course. At the end of this, I'll be the real deal: a trainee lawyer.

There's been a raft of experiences recently that are blogworthy; worthy of deep and lengthy introspection. Sometimes I write to explore how I feel… but right now they are too raw. Too near. To real… to be explored in the public eye.
I expect I will return to them this year, and you may find them referred to on this blog. They're now part of the story that God is telling with my life… They will influence me, but I don't know how yet. I don't understand them. But I know that all things work to the good of those who love God…

I'm slowly waking up - and its not easy. I still feel very raw and vulnerable. Suspicion and distrust are things I have not needed to struggle with in the past; they are now very real opponents.
My natural inclination has been to curl up into a ball, and just… I dunno… be.
That's one of the reasons why I have been out of contact with so many of you.
I'm so sorry for this.

When you've needed me, I've been floored by my own issues. When you wanted to talk, I haven't been there. When you needed a friend, I didn't return your call.
I am truly sorry.
I was down for the count - but that's not an excuse, it's an explanation.
And an apology.

I want to know you again. I want to catch up with you. Talk to you. Send you emails. Hear where you've been. Maybe start to tell you where I am, where I've been.
I'm still feeling bruised. But you have to start somewhere. And man was made for community. And I want to hear from you.

I want to do the things I haven't done for so long. I want to laugh again. To discuss the things that matter. To trade poetry and songs.

To stand in the surf again. In the sunset. With waves coursing around my legs. And a cool wind caressing my back…
And feel again.

It's beginning. It's starting.

"This morning
With the dawning
Of a new day
My Lord gave me Hope
To chase the sorrow away.

He opened horizons
Like the lid of a box
And sung through the birds
And the waves on the rocks;
Anticipation
Unfurled like a flag…"

I know now that there is Hope in darkness. That there is beauty in strife. That nothing can extinguish my God's love for me.
That the flavour of all things good in this earth; poetry; light; love; all that fires my heart and sets poetry dancing like electricity in my brain; is God's.

Yet there is darkness. There is pain. There is misunderstanding. I haven't gotten it all figured out quite yet.

But again,

I'm trying.

Again.

Trying to find my way.