A weekend of total hurricane busyness and deep forest quiet.

Yaaaawwwwnnnn.

Man I'm tired! What a weekend! It's been an insane blend of manic, stressful mania followed by serene calm and peace. Talk about one extreme to the other.

On friday night we recorded our bit of the new CCK album. We were at the building all day, working on backing vocals, setting up equipment, sound-checking and rehearsing for the live recording in the evening. The session we had turned out to be short and really intense. Stuart Townend had just recorded and we got on stage and played through the songs, having to repeat some of them because of technical issues or mistakes from the band...It was intense, stressful, and mentally exhausting. Playing keys and singing is one thing, but somehow the added tension of being recorded for an album that will be heard by thousands of people all over the world made things a little bit more interesting! The 30 minutes on stage getting those songs were 30 of the most draining minutes that i've had in a long time!

Then it was time to quickly exchange some computer files with Bex (who btw did an amazing job singing on the album, check it out when the album is released!) and swap our computers for a week. (I'm posting this on her iMac rather than my Macbook) before an emotional goodbye. She is away in Wales at a conference with Phatfish, and we won't be seeing much of each other for the next few weeks. This is a hard thing when marriage is 3 months away!) I on the other headed home to pack for a weekend in Sweden and a stag weekend in the forests near Fellingsbro. We departed at 2am and so It was a race to get some sleep before the flight....The sleep never came.

Having travelled to Stansted airport, attempting to sleep in the car (the sleep still wasn't happening!) and still exhausted from a full and intense day before, we got on board the cramped and swelteringly warm flight to Stockholm. The chances of sleeping on that flight, despite exhaustion were slim, largely due to the sauna like temperature on board and the amount of legroom, which I'm convinced must be unlawful. The Fraggles would struggle to get comfy on that plane. We arrived in Sweden in the early hours of the morning and made the drive to where were staying, in the woods near the home of some friends that Mark, (the stag) had become friends with. Staying awake on sheer adrenaline, we were served Elk meat (by a gentle giant of a man called Per Andersson) for lunch. That's when it caught up with me that I was no longer in Brighton. After lunch it became clear that sleep was not on the cards until that night, and so it would be another whole day until sleep came...

To speed up this account somewhat, here are some key elements that the remainder of the day and weekend consisted of;

More elk meat, a military tent and wood stove, snow, camping on the ground in the dense forest of Sweden amidst elk, lynx, and even wolves, a barbecue, an evening of coffee and swedish beer and laughter lit only by a nearby campfire, whisky, some sleep interrupted by my hour shift of fire-watch, a tramp through some Swedish wilderness accompanied by an epic snowball fight, the meeting of us English city lads with a true viking of a man (who looked like a character from an Asterix comic!) who introduced us to his bow and arrow collection (I spent most of the first afternoon honing my long bow skills, and completely fell in love with the feeling of firing arrows from this primitive weapon in the middle of a snowy Scandinavian paradise), more Elk meat, some whisky, an hour spent chopping firewood with an axe, a look around a hundred-year old house full of ancient Swedish artifacts  (not a museum, a real old house that has been left for decades untouched), a visit to the town of Orebro and some more great Swedish coffee, and ALOT of camaraderie with some great guys. The contrast of life there in the forest and life in England was totally inescapable.

The time in Sweden was amazing. The absence of phones, the internet and any technology whatsoever, was replaced with a profoundly serene encounter with the Earth that we live on. We got wet with snow, muddy, smokey from the amount of wood we burned, sore fingered from the hours spent playing with real bow and arrows, we were confronted with the elements, forced to accommodate the cold, but wonderfully confronted with the serenity of life in the middle of nowhere. The stars in the sky were brighter and more numerous than i've ever seen. It was glorious. The forest was beautiful, peaceful and completely convincing. In that I mean to say that the forest and the wilderness is the real thing, not concerned with Google or The Apprentice, having no time for materialism and noise. It reminded that there really is more to life on this planet than the shallow lives we fall into living in Western culture. 

In the forest where we camped, television, education, money and all the other unfortunate vices of civilization became entirely irrelevant and totally trivial. I felt strongly that God wanted me to come away feeling a sense of peace and refreshing that will equip me for the manic things that go on in Brighton. He really spoke to me again about finding time to escape the pressures of this age, finding a place of serenity in which to meet him, a place where the noise of life is gone, where his voice can be heard, no longer drowned out by everything and everyone else that I get distracted by.

Finally, the weekend got me very excited about my pending marriage. Being with Mark a few weeks before his wedding and thinking about how he has been so incredibly blessed, really etched a feeling deep onto my spirit just how unbelievably blessed I am as well. I too have a wonderful wedding to look forward to very soon, a beautiful and wonderful fiancee, a great church, great friends to support us, and a great city to call home. 

I brought home some Elk meat (and reindeer too!) just to keep my feet on the ground until it runs out!