So, I guess this is the hardest part – the first few words, finding the way into whatever lies underneath the surface. Not knowing where this is going or how long it’s going to take. Fearful of what I might say, of how honest I might become and of truly unveiling myself through the words I write on a page. But, therein lies the challenge – to let go, trust that the story is in there, somewhere. To quieten the noise of my inner-critic and to celebrate that I get to do this.

Much of what I write tends to begin as an ongoing search for some kind of truth (probably where all stories begin), or at least an attempt to give shape to my internal monologue. We’re all wired differently, but I think the desire for meaning is rooted at the heart of who we are.

Right now, it is dark outside. There is just the faintest hint of the morning edging over the horizon and the immediate sound of the wind whipping around the house. It’s coming from the south-west and it sounds bitter – even though it’s now mid-April and the temperatures should be starting to climb. It’s been colder than normal this year. Winter was long and for one of the rare occasions this far south, we saw a couple of days of snow. On days like today, even though it’s warm inside and the fire is just getting going, the distant sound of the ocean is just perceivable. I can picture it in all its terrifying splendour, raging and alive with contempt for anyone that would dare take her for granted.

The early morning is always the place where the questions come. In the stillness, a strange kind of repositioning occurs – somehow my place in the world becomes a little clearer. I think we can all find this place, this moment in time where there is nothing but now, nothing but the frame we are resting in. And with it comes all the beauty and the uncertainties that emerge when you make yourself still.

Between me, the table I am resting on and the slow flicker of the candle that is giving me enough light to see.

Between the sound of old pine trees spitting in the wood burner, the quiet hum of the refrigerator fan and the wind tearing along the coast searching for some lost treasure.

Between all of these things, somewhere in this moment, I can sense the invitation You bring.

I guess it must be different for everyone. Many of us don’t even think to begin to look.

But You are there.

In the spaces in between.

In the silence.

In the distance between moments.

In the quiet and in the rage of the wind or the sound of the ocean carried on its wings.

For years, most of my childhood and the early part of my adult life, my sense of who You are has been shaped by the experiences and opinions of others. The stories I heard as a kid formed a view of the world that had You as a central part. I wouldn’t change any of this, even though things have grown so much. But my understanding often felt inherited rather than owned – something given as a complete package, rather than curated through personal experience over time. There is a place for this. Belief has to begin somewhere, and life’s early questions need some kind of answer.

But what happens when the questions develop and start to outweigh any a sense of a genuine answer. What happens when your view of the world, of life, and faith or relationship begins to break-down. Where is the ground, the security, the home when the soil under your feet begins to move? In a jumbled attempt to make sense of the last three years, there is a story that has started to unfold.

The house was still not quite finished. In fact, there was probably something in every room that, to the discerning eye, was still to be completed. This, however, really didn’t matter. The house was very much a home and it had clearly been lived in for some time. It clearly bore the marks of residency, of use and of wear, and it told the story of a life rooted in the pursuit of the ‘more’. It felt comfortable, homey and warm, but with a humility of living that didn’t want to presume all the questions were answered. It felt alive as a living space, dynamic and open to change.

It had probably been occupied by the same owner for well over forty years, (give or take a few, and your own sense of when life actually begins). There was a pride (the good kind, that has been born from hard work and holding your nerve to see situations through) in how the home functioned, how it was laid out, and the objects and decor that lined its walls and floors. It was old to look at, not in a decrepit way, or to suggest some kind of redundancy, just worn, lived in, used and part of something bigger. Low ambient lighting, old oriental rugs and mis-matched carpets. Wooden floors that creaked, even when you tried to walk quietly. Every time you looked at the house it felt occupied. Lights were always on. There was normally something cooking in the kitchen, and there was music playing through the walls of the room next door.

Home.

My place of refuge. My fortress. My security when the cold south winds rage against the stability of life. Home, my sense of belonging and identity. Curated from a life spent drawing from others. A truth from here. A mystery from there. A painting that captures something ‘real’. A book that put language to questions that had been rattling around outside for too long. A chair that personified an experience that otherwise couldn’t rationally be defined or explained any other way. It was the kind of space one would hope any guest or visitor would instantly feel at home in. Comfortable, but not precious. Somewhere you didn’t have to ask if you needed to take your shoes off. Formalities and pleasantries didn’t really matter one way or another, as there was always something more interesting to talk about.

Despite all its merits, the care that had clearly been put into its creation and its perceived occupancy, the house was not actually lived in. Or, perhaps more accurately, someone may have been at home but they were never seen in the frame, actually residing between its walls. The perspective was always from behind the camera, in the room but never present. There was a peripheral sense of someone living alone, but without ever being lonely. No man is an island, except when he’s an island.

No one can remember when the Shift actually began. There was no single event, or specific question that set things in motion. It just started and, over time, became progressively more visible – like the slow change in season, always in motion but impossible to define when autumn ends and winter begins, until you wake up one morning and the ground is white. The first signs weren’t signs at all. There was no immediate or dramatic change. Just a sense that something, somewhere was off. That weird sensation when you walk in a familiar room and everything looks normal, but you know something is missing.

It was actually the nails in the floorboards that were the first things to go. Poetic when you come to think about their symbolism in the bigger picture – positively profound when you actually give it some time (but I’m digressing). Big, oversized nails, like the ones Blacksmiths use to hold on the hooves of horses. Thick at the top and square, with a rough, uneven shaft down to the tip. Just a few at first, gently pulled from their wooden tombs and sitting on the floorboards they should have been holding to the joists. Odd, dark statues in isolation. One here, another there and the more you looked (particularly over time), the more it became clear that this was not by chance. Then, it started to accelerate, like someone was taking them out with a large oversized Acme Magnet straight from a Roadrunner cartoon.

It became more obvious and of deeper concern when they began to hover bolt upright over the holes they had emerged from. Hundreds of them, floating just above the oak floor and standing to attention, suspended as if held by some invisible force. Eventually, after some time, they were all out. Not a single nail remained in any of the floors. Stranger still, nothing moved. In the whole time of the extraction, nothing really changed in the house. Life continued as normal, if a little disrupted by the constant stepping over or around the scattering of nails, or later, distracted by the curious suspension as they hung in the air. The house still felt the same, largely looked the same (none of the floors had moved) and even a curious passer-by wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Next, however, were the walls.

Slowly at first, so as not to make any fuss or draw any attention what-so-ever to the laboured unravelling that was beginning to occur, the mortar between the bricks in the walls began to move. There was no real sense of how this was happening and never a point where it was actually observed. One minute the cement was there, holding its associated brick in place with a high degree of permanence, the next, gone – each brick still resting in its place, not having moved at all, but with nothing actually holding it fast. It was literally suspended in time, functioning aesthetically but with no structural purpose whatsoever.

And so, over a season, much like the nails in the floors, the bricks became detached from the walls they were formerly part of and sat suspended in time. The change was more noticeable now. Floorboards were more obviously separated from the beams holding them up. Entire walls of the house were now serving no other purpose than offering the aesthetic appearance of a façade, but clearly functioning in no structural capacity whatsoever. Everything was still in its place and usable, nothing moved as you walked or rested, it was all simply disconnected from the whole.

Daylight began to appear between the cracks and the outside air was present inside. Ceiling joists. Roof tiles, heating and plumbing pipe work. Everything. The whole house suspended in a dislocated union. Pictures remained on the walls, just not attached to them. Rugs and chairs were still on the floor, their weight supported by a few millimetres of empty space. Glasses of wine and vases with fresh flowers sat quietly above the tables.

The Shift was visible now. You couldn’t not see it. Or, maybe, it was more that you couldn’t help feeling it. Everything seemed to be vibrating, like a low frequency bass-note emitted from a oversized loudspeaker, present in the core of your being, but not necessarily perceivable to the human ear.

As the days passed and the weeks blurred into months, the vibration became louder – still silent, more tangible, violent but not aggressive, like the confident movement of an ancient tree shifting beneath a strong wind. At around 18 months, the whole house was disconnected from itself. Everything remained perfectly in its place, structure, content, feel – the house was still very much a home, just devoid of any visible ’glue’ (for want of a better description) holding it all together. Nails gone. Mortar gone. Cement, screws, nails, wallpaper adhesive, fixings of every kind were absent. They had uniformly, systematically and surgically been removed, without exception and without any damage or disruption to the actual building itself. The process had become progressively distracting with all the unease of impending change, but strangely tempered with a sense of it, somehow, being absolutely normal.

Over and through, in and around the distractions and the concerns and the change, was a growing awareness of something else – the ever-present vibration. Initially, felt rather than heard, silent, yet holding the power of a mid-Atlantic storm. Present, like the words on the tip of your tongue that never find your voice, or that peripheral awareness that never allows your focused attention. It slowly, quietly became the tension holding everything together. A beautiful balance of opposing forces pulling everything in and at the same time forcing everything out. Like a well-designed bridge, matching the weight of traffic and steel and gravity with the pull of physics and the magic of design. It was like the bass-note had come alive – breathing somehow or perhaps even breath itself. The very soul of the house. The objects and pictures and fabric of the building, it’s rooms and everything material, had willingly stepped out of the spotlight and only now made sense in the light of this new pressure. The house felt the same, familiar, safe and in its place, but with a very real sense of being temporary and fragile, like a switch could be flicked or lungs starved of oxygen and the whole thing comes crashing down.

As a state of being, this was the point where fear kicked in. Questions raged and answers were in very short supply. When a lifetime has been spent collecting, curating, shaping and building an eternal home, and you wake up one day feeling like there is nothing actually holding it all together, the implications are significant. It affects everything and everyone. Marriage. Family. Communities you’re part of. The beliefs about what you do and why you do it. How you see yourself. Who and what you value. Everything. It’s like realising the ground you’re standing on can no longer support your weight yet being unable to move for fear of the surface breaking and falling into whatever is beneath.

And then the bricks started to move.

Actually, everything started to move at the same time, the bricks were just the first thing to noticeably drift out of place, probably because they were the most visible element. It was like the artificial gravity had just been switched off and everything began to float – each element no longer sitting perfectly still and each now capable of moving independently of its neighbour. There didn’t seem to be any external trigger. Nothing provoked the change. It was just like someone decided that now was the time to move on and set it all in motion.

The next few frames are hazy. There is less clarity as to how each element actually drifted away, and there is no sense of what moved first or how quickly but, over a short period of time, the house, the home simply ceased to be. Like a community gathered together for a celebration, for a concert or a football game, all there together for a moment in time that can feel like forever. And then the whistle blows. Or the last note is played and everyone applauds, then – slowly and reluctantly moving away from each other, out of the venue, back to the places they came from. Leaving only the unoccupied space and the fragmented memory of what had been, with dislocated images or snippets of conversation to hold onto. The eternal now has moved on.

And then, as quietly as it had begun, with no why or how, there was nothing. Like creation in reverse. No lighting, oriental rugs or creaking floorboards. No music playing in the room next door. Nothing cooking in the kitchen or pictures on the wall. No place of refuge. No fortress. No bricks or mortar or tiles on the roof. Just an empty quiet space, without any dislocated images or snippets of conversation to hold onto.

Except for the breath.

The low frequency vibration – felt rather than heard, silent – but with the strength of a storm. Previously dormant and passive. Always like something, perhaps the glue that holds a house together. Now familiar and close, the fabric of home when all the temporal has gone, the unfamiliar language that you don’t fully understand but remain compelled by its beauty. The breath. Quiet in the empty space that the home used to occupy, but no longer dormant or passive.

And so, we sit – for what feels like eternity. Not speaking or feeling the need to say anything. Just being. Present. In the moment. Watching. Listening. Communing. Weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds. Time has somehow lost its relevance. Speeding up or slowing down, it’s difficult to tell. Things feel strangely familiar, like this moment has always been part of my experience, always under the surface, just out of reach or at the edges of my field of vision. But in the Shift – slow, systematic and deliberate, the house – the home as gone, replaced by something deeper, more intimate, more grounded and in a form that has nothing to do with the experiences or opinions of others. Less concrete perhaps, less sure under the scrutiny of a critical eye, but that matters less now than it did before. At its heart is connection and relationship. The place of spending time together when that is all that matters. No agenda, no trophy from the experience, no false sense of worth or value derived from living up to the expectation of others. Instead, feeling fully vulnerable as an expanding version of myself. The real me, rather than a fabrication or ego or mask put on to pretend I’ve got everything together. Realising that the absence of any safe framework or system to ensure I am still in control forces me to adopt a far more dependent position in life. Dependent on the breath that has always held things together, even when I wasn’t aware of it.

And that’s the beauty of the Shift – certainly at this point in time, it isn’t a shift from one place to another. Rather, the Shift is a change in the fabric of being. No longer about goals and destinations or living up to something or someone. The Shift is about moving on from a place of control to one of reliance, from seeking answers to asking questions. From living out of the experience of others to rooting myself in the experience of just One. The brightest and most visible Shift has been in seeing the breath, the glue, the ground of my being – God, if you like, as truly infinite and not limited to any worldly language, religion or framework. Not bound within the walls of a carefully constructed internal home, not limited by my finite understanding (or lack of), and as present and real in the questions as much as in the presence or absence of answers. Nurturing conversation, developing relationship, celebrating journey rather than any need for a definitive destination. Less black or white, and more the broad kaleidoscope in-between. Appreciating life for its variance and contrast rather than there being a correct colour. Of being carried by, rather than trying to carry. Of wonder and surprise and joy and pain and wrestling and doubt and faith and, ultimately, love and its capacity to cast out all fear. And above and, and below, and within all of this, is the constant, low rumble of Spirit.

The Shift is a state of being – of resting in constant motion. Becoming. Evolving. Learning. Growing. All in the context of relationship. What is also changing is my awareness and understanding of how language, despite its amazing capacity to capture and define experience, is ultimately flawed in its ability to define someone who sits outside of the category of language. When the words fall short, you enter the realm of mystery, not always knowing or of even being able to know. Seeking the moments where there is sufficient calm to catch sight of the breath and the times where you don’t always need words to explain. If we are all equally incapable of fully expressing our experience and relationship with God, and we are comfortable with that, it takes a huge weight off the shoulders of someone like me who was driven to know and to understand. We can only see in part and know in part.

I still believe that there is definitive truth but that our experience of it is varied and that we are all limited in our ability to define it. The struggle for me was always in standing on the edge of an ocean, trying really hard to articulate what it was I was looking at or how I was feeling – clearly never having the capacity to do either justice. The difference now is that it no longer needs to be about defining or capturing what was there, but simply to get my toes, or my ankles, even my whole soul wet and to enjoy it, celebrate it – whilst being fully aware of the waters capacity to consume me at any moment. The holy reverence for and delight in the One who puts everything in motion and sustains all that we are, regardless of the language used to put those experiences into words. Breath. Truth. Ground. Hope. God. Yahweh. Glue. Father. Mother. Jesus. Lord. Saviour. Divine… All are perfect descriptions, using imperfect language, to describe the One that joins everything up, holds everything together and puts each moment into perspective when given the chance.

Living in the box, to thinking outside of the box, to realising ultimately that there is no box.