Stress levels are reaching boiling point  and I have no way presently of airing my feelings successfully. I urgently need a piano or someone to discuss things with.think again.

another strange day.

I have to stop blaming the village for the way I feel

I’m expecting too much.

you have to be the beginning,

the middle

and the end of all of this.

there is simply no other way.

I dreamt about a subterranean school in the heart of Paris: overlooking a massive factory. We were being shown around and I was sharing my reservations with several pupils who were walking around with us. It was dark, windowless, fortress-like, and colossally expensive. I know where that idea comes from then. . . . . . . .
prayer last night slightly easier?
it was a strange isolated day though.

finding you here will take time:

the building and the place resist.

remember how it's always been like this

in a new environment.

I was thinking today of CH and how long it took there:

but then, instead of fighting, I succumbed.

happiness is worth fighting for is it not?

and yet we don't!

my happiness lies in you.

not to fight to find you is foolishness and pain.

and so I fight.

I walked to the outskirts of the village:
mountains white-topped:
magnificent in the autumn sunshine.
sadness would have overwhelmed me.
[I feel as though I ought to be sad,]
but I am not.

mass reading:
The sun rises, the sun sets.
all is vanity.
all I know: that this isn't true.
because of you.
your presence transforms all sadness;
all vanity;
all emptiness.

casting around but, of course, I find nothing:
nothing that will replace you.
prayer becomes urgent and the more urgent it becomes
the harder it is to break through. . . . . .
the house fights me and my routine does too.
or, rather, I myself use the house and my routine as reasons:
the enemy within . . . . .
it does become a matter of will.
shall I or shall I not?
I must I must:
no other way.
the other way is separation and despair:
why would I choose a way like that?
but perhaps the words mislead:
it isnt so much a question of choice;
more a question of remaining aware that there is one.
(a choice I mean.)
the prisoner has no choice.
it is his lack of choice that is his prison.
So long as I know I have a choice I remain free -
if only potentially.
When I lose sight of where that choice actually lies:
I have unwittingly already chosen imprisonment . . . . .
I choose you. . . . .
but of course this too is not enough:
the choice is made but then I have to act too.

the pope at vespers in Westminster Abbey: deeply moving.
glad to be able to watch this in iceland.

I am here because of you and for you.
without you I could not take a single step.

frustration.
patience needed in clumps.
as expected . . . .
need for prayer despite everything;
because of everything.

after one week or so, it's still far too early to judge.


today you seem far away but this hasnt been so all week.
prayer is difficult to sustain regularly and I have had all the old problems with a new home.
it's as though prayer has to be built into a place brick by silent brick.
it's important to work at this and not to expect it to happen all by itself.
it plainly doesn't.
and although I know this so well from past experience, treachery is always in the air:
I am not to be trusted.

I came to Reykjavik on 31st August and came on to Vopnafjörður after one day in town. We'll see how it goes.