Beginning again

Two months, nearly, it's been since I last posted. Asked by a friend the other day why I'd stopped, I replied that I wasn't posting any more because I wasn't sure how to say what I wanted to say without sounding judgemental.

That's not changed. It's not that I want to sound judgmental, it just comes out that way... so I type with some hesitation.

So, if that's why I've not been posting, why then have I come back? Well, there are a couple of reasons.

The first is that, for a number of reasons, my blogging habits have recently changed. My work blog, which used to be the home for occasional, long, academic posts has, over the last couple of months, become somewhere that I post to nearly every day. Writing vague, half-cooked ideas, explorations and honest reflection... things that pretty much drift to the surface of my mind as I live in the subject from day to day has taken the pressure off having to strive to achieve a particular 'quality' and, ironically, probably delivered more interesting material. And, it's been a lot more fun.

So, I wondered whether I could apply the same practice to this blog and abandon the polished for the rougher and the cooked for the more raw. I spend a lot of time just mulling over God-based things... so why not post that and opt for the honest over the safe as the strap line on the blog suggests.


The second reason though is that in a previous post, I promised to let you know how I got on being a comfortably olivey olive in a church salad full of more normal fruit (confused?)

The answer? Not very well. Although I continue to feel the freedom that I mentioned in that post to be me, and to not be too bothered about what others were doing, I'm still not putting into practice any kind of 'alternative, really me' type church.

This could be another good reason not to write. After all, who wants to read about someone not really doing what they intended to do?

But then, last Sunday afternoon, while attending a tea (we're so British - yes, there were even scones and cream - and it was pouring with rain) for some friends who live and work in Albania, I saw someone who left our church a number of months ago because of a disagreement over the direction that the church was taking. Committed to seeing the church change to the point that they were prepared to leave it... since they've left they've had no impact on it at all.

So, although there are things that I'm not comfortable with, and I'm not even really sure what I want from church any more - withdrawing from it, and taking my oliveness somewhere else is not going to achieve anything. 

So I'm sticking around...

All those stories

Do you ever do that thing where you imagine what millions of people might be doing at 'this very moment'?

I do...

It's actually become a catchphrase in our house... it comes from a time when we lived in Cardiff, near to a churchyard. Sometimes at lunch, particularly in the spring, we would go for a walk on a quest for the first daffodils, and - being of a somewhat nostalgic nature - I would remark to The Wife that each of those gravestones represented a different life... "All those stories", I said...

"All those stories" has now become a trump card served to me every time I get too involved with a sense of my own mortality... synonymous with 'stop waffling and get on and do something constructive'... it's a (mostly) gentle way of prodding me back in the direction of real life.

Real life was certainly hanging about this morning. I missed The Wife's call to help her with a full nappy... Then we came downstairs to discover that one of the cats had peed out of the litter tray requiring the cleaning of the floor, the replacement of the mat and the removal of a long panel that runs underneath the kitchen cupboards... Then, just as I was doing that, Moo knocked the newly brewed coffeepot from the other kitchen worktop onto the floor... cue 20 mins of madness as we tried to keep her out of the kitchen, the cats (now with coffee-feet) off the lounge rug, clean up a pint of coffee and grounds from wife, baby, floor, walls and skirting and remove the rest of the cupboard paneling to let the place dry...

Then we had breakfast... whilst the cats fought in the back bedroom... (presumably hyper on second-hand coffee)

Then I remembered it was Easter... and, as I topped my boiled egg, thought about the Part-Time Monk who will be starting back on food today following lent spent on beer alone... and (apart from considerably thinner) wondered how he was feeling?

And read my friend Pop's post on Drifting, and wondered how he and his family were... 

And then it occurred to me that somewhere around 2000 years ago... God was raising Jesus from the dead...

That helped to put things into perspective. 

Happy Easter :)

What's in a name?

When I was at university, one of our linguistics lecturers told us a story... that goes something like this.

In the 1920s, insurance agents were called to deal with a number of explosions on an oil platform. When they visited the platform, they noticed an interesting pattern. Rules required barrels on the platform to be painted with labels depending on whether they were 'full' or 'empty'. Workers would then behave differently towards each. They would take great care of barrels that were 'full' - of cold, inert and extremely safe crude oil - not smoking around them, and transporting and stacking them carefully. Those that were 'empty' - empty of oil, but full of highly explosive gasses - they would smoke around and throw around the platform... until they exploded.

Gone with the wind - part 1

I want to share something quite personal, that I alluded to a couple of posts ago, about why it was that I stopped doing 'mission'. But, by way of introduction...

At the moment, I'm living with a mission. No, not the Christian one... yes, all right, that one too... No, my mission is simple. It is to cycle to work and back. Am I getting fit you ask... well, that's a side effect... and thinner too, gradually. But the real motive is more mundane... with an unfettered addition for books threatening to bankrupt the Môme household, The Wife has imposed a rule... I'm not allowed to buy any books unless I can find extra money. 

Goodbye comfortable daily 10 minute train journey... hello daily 6 mile cycle... and then again to get home.

That's how much I need to buy books...

Revelation

I have to admit to having always been intrigued by the question of how our Bible came about. Despite the various tongue-in-cheek parodies of the KJV in previous posts, it's something that I actually think about... and have some kind of vague academic interest in, what with having been involved in some historical and translational study at points in the past...

Which is why I'm particularly puzzled by a few questions... not least of which is how the three main families of Christianity (Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox) have ended up with three different bibles, all with a different number of books in them... 

It ain't where you live...

One of the reasons that I think I struggle with my current church experience is that I can't help comparing it to the experience of living in pretty close Christian community. This isn't something that I've done recently, but every couple of years from 1989 to 1999 I swapped 'normal' life in the UK for an overseas placement with a number of different Christian organisations. Ostensibly, I suppose, I was a missionary... but, to be honest, I don't really remember much 'missioning' going on. Most of what kept me busy was spending time with other Christians... and looking after some pretty broken buildings. 

Several weeks...

As the blog by my friend Pop reaches its one-year anniversary (congratulations Pop, by the way... no-one doubted you'd make it... and you have, provoking much thinking on the way... thank you!) ... in a torturous 'tedious link' I think I have to comment that a year is 52 weeks...

Pipe smoking, ex PM Harold Wilson famously suggested once that "A week is a long time in politics".

The Barenaked ladies too, took time to point out that a week can be a long time...

The former was a political heavyweight... the latter ended up singing about Sushi and Chinese Chickens... but they've both got a point.