Following

A few hours ago, I was not sure whether this was a good time to have started posting to a blog, or, as I am experiencing it, to have started pouring out that which wells up within me.
Even that last sentence does not convey what I had set out to say, and yet, it lays the foundation for giving expression to an overflowing which I began to feel as soon as it was written.

Things are certainly not going as I thought I had planned.
It is as though my mind has been hijacked by a hacker: my own conscious thoughts dispersed, to be lost in the wake of an overwhelming yet unseen vessel, powering past me as soon as I have set sail for a distant shore. It heads in the same direction, but carries me with it instead of allowing me to make my own way.
I know I am not encountering it because it happens to be going my way: it has always forged ahead in the same direction. I am only urged on and guided by it, through a series of decisions that have led me to set out, and to persevere in the direction it has intended for me.
I am, for the moment - and such I hope to remain - a follower: a disciple.
I am led by the Spirit. I am led towards the other shore - away from the crowds – but not without being compelled to hold out my hands to those who stumble along the way: to steady them in the ways I have been steadied in my own times of need.

I must follow where I am led, trusting that my use of words will not too often lead me off the path; trusting that this same Holy Spirit will keep a tight rein on my imagination, my vanity, my pride; trusting that whenever I am called onwards, my inability to walk on water shall not allow me to fear stepping into the unknown: an unknown where that fear is abolished by the waiting hand of an ever present friend.

The hand of He whose birth is the real reason for the celebrations of which we are now a part, is held out to you. It is always held out to you!
Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The same Jesus who has died, who is risen, who is waiting to become your closest friend, and who is present in the power of that same Holy Spirit who has set me in motion on these pages.

I would ask that you add your prayer to my own: - that I shall not lead anyone astray through my thoughts and words while soliloquizing at the edge I have found for myself.

A peaceful, holy and joyful Christmas to you, to your families, and to all on whom your smile may fall during this awesome season.
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