THE PEBBLE TOURS EUROPE

For those who have read THE PEBBLE travel is clearly a key theme throughout the book. So with the help of friends and readers Alex, our female flawed hero, takes to the streets of Europe’s cities and key buildings. 

 

asy

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Searching For Identity! a 21 day journey of Self-Discovery……. Day whatever…

 

DID YOU PACK THESE BAGS YOURSELF, SIR?

So there you have it, I started a blog based on THE PEBBLE and a journey of self-discovery and ended up on my own escapade of finding out what is going on inside my head. Is there a more secure guinea pig than the author himself? I think not, and at this point I offer my humblest apologies for bunching up a group of days of the 21 day journey but that is how it is with self-discovery, sometimes things get out of the process and kind of crazy.

What did I find out about me and my inner self? Well much like you, I have worked out that some stuff is my baggage and other stuff is simply other travellers luggage that I am carrying through life and I don’t want it no more..

MEGA-CHURCHES AND THE WIZARD OF OZ!

It is no secret I am a Christian, whatever that tag means you, but to me it means I follow Jesus Christ and believe all the bible says about this man/God who raised the dead, healed the sick and died on a cross for me. Cool and kind of mind blowing stuff.

I have worked out that Christian land is very much like the land of Oz. What do I mean? Well, there is no doubt REAL magic and amazing events likely to happen at any moment but sadly the main people in power are often nothing more than normal human beings hanging onto power behind a curtain, desperately trying to keep a grip on the people through a process of manufactured atmosphere and yet the real POWER is simply out there among the munchkins. My God does not need megaphones and smoke machines He just needs open hearts and willing citizens of His new Kingdom!

Real change begins the day you see God for who He is and also see the wizards behind the curtains…Things can change, but only really change when you stop looking for the wizard and start seeing the power in the people along the yellow brick road!

Ding Dong and all that jazz

Be you, Be Blessed!

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Searching For Identity Day 5

Day 5

The problem with a journey of self discovery is that it is a very frustrating trial. It is the horrible realisation that perhaps all that you fled from is actually all that you are. I know I have been there!

Let me explain. You take a massive jump of ‘faith’ when you are lost, confused and sometimes basically exhausted. It is also at that time of mental fuzziness, as I call it, that people will sway you in their direction by soft words and clever speech. One day you suddenly ‘wake up’ and realise that you were not that bad of a person to start with. Yeah you needed some tweaks and turns of your character but a wholesale change, no way. Problem is now how do you get back to the land that you left behind?

That question is rarely looked at in any teaching about self-discovery I heard. All I seem to hear is “you are the best, you can be the best and press on!”. What about if I want to to go back? What if I just want to click my heels and return to Kansas, can someone preach on that or is it easier to say the fluffy things of the future?

Self discovery is not a journey for you to manipulate so you can leave current problems behind, it is a step by step questioning of your very soul, beliefs and flaws and the honest humility to know when you made a massive mistake and try to take the brave steps of going back into your past and maybe start again!

Be blessed guys and keep asking those questions

 

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Searching For Identity – Day 4

Searching For Identity – Day 4.

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Searching For Identity – Day 4

Day 4

In the novel THE PEBBLE we find a girl caught in the headlights of life, desperately trying to figure out the shapes before her that form her identity. When a charming stranger unfurls his wings in a hotel room and opens her eyes to a whole new world Alex takes the invite willingly. Why wouldn’t she? 

Simply put, in the greatest of life’s storms anything can look like a lifeboat. Sometimes they are simply boats heading in the wrong direction. If you are unsure of the journey you are on it may take a severe event to show you that what you thought was a lifeboat is bringing you to the wrong shore.

So what is the lesson of Day 4? It is this, that even if you are left with a piece of wreckage to  hang onto and float for a while, then once the current is still taking you to your destination just hang on and watch the direction any potential lifeboats are moving in.

Until Day 5…. ponder your life, ask what your greatest desire is and wonder if you have taken a larger ship to a wrong shore when you should have clung onto a splinter of wood and continued on to your destiny. If that is you today, well jump ship and start getting back on your journey!

 

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Searching For Identity! Day 3

 

Well we are on Day 3 Search for Identity, and we are beginning to quickly find out that any journey begins with a decision to actually move. Self-discovery is no different, the journey begins when you move toward something that at that moment is just an obscure blob on the horizon. Let me tell you a cute story.

Once there was a Rabbi walking out of the gates of Jerusalem and a Roman soldier shouted down form the lookout tower. 

“Halt, who goes there?”

The Rabbi, turned, looked up at the soldier and answered “If you can tell me then I will give you all of my wealth and more because you are more me than I am!”

The knowledge of who you are and what you are to do is a changing principle and a moving target. There are no destinations in life, simply a change of trains and lifestyles and the only obstacle is that you will not get off one train and board another.

Listen, stopping to listen to the crowd on the platform of life will merely confuse you, constrict you and box you into the journey they have set for themselves. 

Napoleon said it like this, “I can no longer obey, I have tasted command and I will not give it up!”  In other words when you get a feel for a new journey simply refuse to board the wrong train and head down the wrong track. He knew he was a leader, even though others had not seen it, he demanded it! 

Do you know what? He got it too!!!!

The sun will rise daily and will set every evening, however the only input you have is simply where you will watch it from!

 

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Searching For Identity- Day Two

 

Face value, we have heard it said many times to take things at face value. I challenge us not to simply accept everything as ‘the way it is’, because nothing is really what it seems, good or bad. 

Emotion and the words of those people around you that have filled your life will paint a picture of their understanding of who you are, base purely on how you fit into their plan for their life. If I am correct then you are reading this because you want to know where you fit into your life plan. That my friend, is a whole new ball game.

I have often said ‘the most depressing reading is the mind of your friends because it is written in the ink of their optics’. God created you for a single mission, a purpose that will fulfill all that is within you. However to hear God you often have to silence the crowd…… look that big leather book holding up the coffee table even says so   Psalm 46:10 He says “Be still, and know that I am God;

See you tomorrow for Day 3, be blessed and be YOU (well as much as you know so far)

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The Search For Identity- Day One

Welcome to Day One guys!

I decided to start this 21 Day session based on the background theme of my new fantasy fiction novel THE PEBBLE – Discovery Is Only The Beginning’. (check it out if you fancy a read).

Day One

Life is not made of one single event, no one definable act shapes your destiny and purpose, no one triumph or tragedy of your past makes your tomorrows. Rather a tangled thread of genetics, other peoples choices, and perhaps your own, sent you into a unsure existence today. Stop trying to build a picture with the jigsaw pieces of the past, you may find that the image you end up with is not reality at all!

Ecclesiastes 1:9 (it is a book in the bible, honest) tells us that

What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun

This however was written when the author felt sorry for himself, there IS a new thing today under heaven….YOU! So, take a deep breath and start the steps to discovery of what you are not and maybe what you really are!

Until tomorrow,

Be Real!

 

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A Time of Freedom, But Often A Day Of Nothing!

Easter, that time of year we eat those cute bunnies (chocolate mostly though) and some even feel traditional enough for a visit to church. That cannot be a bad thing surely, the church visit not the bunny eating, and sadly after the black fast on God Friday and some cross kissing the majority will forget till Christmas about Jesus and that malarkey  But alas that is their want and privilege but let’s sit with them when we have the chance. 

Now the fact Easter is in fact a pagan festival and most people would be aware of that, it should still not rob the church of a great opportunity to witness to the wider audience. Tragically that is often lost in Churches with the focus on Easter Sunday events and shows and bells and whistles, when all the poor lost soul was looking for was an open door at 3pm on Good Friday to feel he is near his God.

Easter, and in particular Good Friday here in Ireland is a time of spiritual sensitivity and a yearning within people to ‘feel’ God. Good Friday should see our church calendar packed with worship, a quiet focus on the day and an opportunity for quiet contemplation for those seeking solace. When I was at my most lowest point  I did not want bright lights and a party I wanted a dark room and my Saviour, I don’t want to rob others of that experience.

Of course the true symbol of freedom is found in THE PASSOVER, but hey let us not even go there on why the church does not celebrate on Passover, it is way too messy!

Enjoy Good Friday, sense the special feel of sacrifice and salvation and if you are lucky enough to find a church open at 3pm, enjoy the touch of a Saviour!

Be Blessed and Be A Blessing..I am off to find a re-run f King of Kings and Ben Hur

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Angel Blades and Foreign Cities….. THE PEBBLE visits ‘haunts’ from the book!

Just a quick peek at a random spattering from THE PEBBLE.

Even if she was ignorant to it, the arrival of Galiu into the apartment had propelled Dolores into Alex’s world. She would need to have some level of easy entry to the world of angels, Hybrids and future assassinations, err, ‘nullifications’. The book provided such an entry because it only hinted at Alex’s world, laying out a Hansel and Gretel type crumb for Dolores to follow. The first pages that Alex read on her discovery of the book were as the finger licks off a baking bowl, a taste bud tickle of a future creation.

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