Moving On

In a rush of blood to the head I've decided on a blog move.

So you can now find me at Life, Faith and Role-Playing Games over with those folks at WordPress. See you there.

August's Antics

Despite my best intentions the blog has still been moribund of late - but then again, it has been the holiday season. And, once again, I've had the phenomenon of a highly broken August. In the ideal world I should just take a huge swathe off, even if it would take nearly all my annual leave at once, in practice that isn't necessarily an option.

This year I spent the first weekend of August in Leicester at my biennial RPG convention, then back for a few days in a generally shattered condition, which did not endear me to GLW, LM and LMP - especially as that was the week we were stressed-out running the holiday club. Thence 3 nights under canvas on the Isle of Wight in a rather hastily-organised family holiday (in the only slot we could find, after earlier in the year we'd said we could do without). Then a few more days work, coupled with a visit from LM's godparents, before ferrying GLW, LM and LMP to Granny and Grandpa's house while I returned before heading off for another tented adventure, Greenbelt. Swiftly followed by a trip from Cheltenham back to collect the family from the wilds of North Yorkshire and then back into harness for an unusually busy day (today) and preparation for two-thirds of this year's weddings and a regular Sunday service.

So, watch this space and I'll try to put in some more details and even some half-reasonable reflections on August's Antics - and if not here, because I' half-thinking of a change of name/blog host, then I'll let you know where....

To Greenbelt

Says it all really! Hope to see some of you there, and to report back here anon about the experience of speaking there for the first time, albeit as a panellist in the Youth Programme.

Now, how on earth did that happen?

And when I get back, I might, just might, find time to blog a little more often. (Well, we can hope!)

Of Diggers, Gowns, Dreams and a Garage.

"It has been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon"... so spoke Garrison Keillor as his introduction to every laid back portrait of life in the fictional American Mid-West - but it certainly doesn't apply in my parts of East Midlands University Town!

It may well be that time of year when you might expect life to be slowing down a little for the summer (with the possible exception of weddings), but actually both Uni and Parish have got busier. I'm told that tiredness and lethargy are normal signs of bereavement, but that can't be the whole answer. Even shifting 2000+ inherited CDs feels like only a small part of it! There's simply a lot going on.

In the world of Higher Education there has been the delight of a Team Building Day Jolly at the local agricultural college. Lots of clay pigeon shooting, agricultural fork-lift driving, caterpillar-tracked diggers and an All Terrain Vehicle carefully rigged to ensure you went the opposite way to the one you steered! I'm not quite sure how, but our team won decisively on the day. (Note to Bishop: I hereby recommend that all stressed clergy should be given one free day a year of shooting, digging, lifting and driving in a similar way - an ideal pick-me-up!)

Then there was the fun of graduation, including managing to get a free lunch from the Management Centre (verdict: good, but could do better) and the exercise of my prerogative as a member of staff to robe up and process! So out came the scarlet and grey doctoral gown and the obligatory silly hat with tassel. I was interested to note that some of my fellow robed rogues looked somewhat uncomfortable in their regalia (so there is a benefit to robing in church on Sundays!) and even more interested to note that I appeared better qualified than at least two of the geographers with whom I was processing. (Memo to institution: find money to enable them to do more research, it will pay dividends!)

Add to that the unexpected invitation a couple of months back to apply for funding for Chaplaincy work and it has not only made a serious difference to the amount of money for projects (and hence need for management) but also the amount of time required for paperwork in putting together funding bids - which it would appear are not actually going to be read, so desperate was the division concerned to use up their budget at the end of their financial year! I'm just a little bemused at how much they seem to be throwing about, even to the extent of questioning half-seriously whether there's enough for the place to pick up a half-time Chaplaincy post cost...

Parish stuff is similarly busy - good weather, or the expectation of it, has brought to the fore a number of Saturday events: school fetes, churchyard cleaning parties, church garden parties. All of which have their place, but all of which squeeze the available hours tighter, especially as I try to be Daddy and Husband. I suppose I should also add Son to that and so cover a trip with LM on the train to Mum's to collect Dad's car, which I have inherited. I don't wish to sound ungrateful, and I know we will use it occasionally for holidays and long journeys, but if I wasn't inheriting some money too I wouldn't be able to run it. Still, I'm in no danger of leaving my little car unused - Big Blue is an automatic, and I really don't like automatics. Practical, sensible, hopefully reliable, dependable and all sorts of other things ending in -ible, but also dull.

In fact more than once I've wondered whether I'm beginning to have a little mid-life crisis. All I want to do is spend money that don't have, on things that I don't need and might never have the time to use. Humph.

Still, in my way of leaving the best, or at least the intended topic, until last... Yesterday I had a further piece of conclusive evidence of the existence and intervention of God. The church council meeting, which I felt not quite prepared for, and which would touch on areas I thought might be difficult. I was ready for a "full and frank exchange of views" as diplomatic communiques would put it. Well, I think there was, and it was far more constructive and far-reaching than I had expected. To go into discussion with questions about relatively minor issues about how to be most welcoming to visitors, as well as rather larger legal implications of making church accessible (that's physically accessible as in ramps etc rather than linguistically accessible) and to look for a coherent feel of direction for the future, well they're all potentially emotive and difficult issues.

All I can say is that God must have been at work, both then and in the past months, because out popped a resolution to move towards significant changes. I want to write more, but mustn't. Simply let the reader of ecclesiastical persuasion understand and apply their Faculties.

Recently our lectionary readings have had Jesus exhorting those who have ears to hear. I think we have. To one another, to those around us, and to him. And I am sure that my half-formed prayers have been heard, and my dreams and visions may just after all have not been the imaginings of my fevered brain.

The only immediate questions I need answered are what to do with all those CDs... and how on earth to get Big Blue in the garage. But if God can bring us, his people, together like he did yesterday, surely those are trivial.

What's in a Name?

This isn't one of those theological posts about the names of God and their meaning, no matter how instructive that might be. No, I just did an assembly in my local school and was once again gently surprised by the names of some of the children. Not just the "ethnic" ones, of which I have very little knowledge, but of the apparently white British - the names in this case being American States. A lad named Dakota (and I have to confess that my immediate mental response, before I knew the gender of the child, was that the middle name would have to be Sue - you either get it straight away or you don't: the Dakota Sioux were one of the native tribes) with a sister called Arizona.

It made me wonder about what English or British placenames might be abroad. An American family naming their children Surrey, or Essex perhaps? Then again we shouldn't forget the cricketer Devon Malclom. Even so, I just hope nobody out there has been lumbered with the much- maligned Salop!

All Good Things come to an End

Gordon Donald Harrison
2 December 1938 - 6 June 2008

As good a Dad as anyone could wish for. Not perfect, because none of us are, but my Dad, and that's enough. I owe so much to him for making me who I am.

Changes and chances

It has been a long time since I've blogged, I'm fully aware of that. Just like it's been a while since I visited a number of old haunts and habits (all of them good, I hasten to add).

Sometimes though, it seems as if lots of changes all come together. It might even represent a Paradigm Shift, but I doubt it. I do know that sometimes you can't see the scale of the change until you're on the other side of it, or them, as the case may be.

My few regular readers will know my predeliction for Role-Playing Games and Imagination as my primary mental escape from "reality" (although some might say the same of my faith and occupation!) So folks will have read about my creative endeavours with varying degrees of (dis-)interest and marked the movement over the years. (And, yes, scary thought that it is, it is years).

The first change has been that I have left Eshraval, again. I did rejoin after this post, and it was great fun; liberating to simply be a player and not an administrator, to re-discover an older setting I'd written and bring it into play, and even to meet a lot of old friends returning for the latest version. The problem? Trying to keep up with it all. If you've never been involved on a really active bulletin board it may be a little hard to understand, but it's a bit like a large number of written conversations, all happening at once with barely a break for breath. Simply to keep up with things is hard enough - and to make a considered response to one line of thought can easily mean discontinuing another. Small wonder then that there are multiple conversations becoming dormant daily, new ones starting and others being reawakened all at once. It's like one vast chaotic machine that achieves a degree of forward motion while probably generating more noise than movement. Vibrant, stimulating and all-encompassing, nearly all the time. And that was before the activity requirements of actually developing details of a nation on out own wiki!

I don't quite know how, but I just came to realise I couldn't sustain it any more. Maybe stopping and taking the time (over a number of days) to read a book in the same room as the family had something to do with it. But whatever the reason it's been time to call it a day.

Then at home, I've decided to give up alcohol for the month. I will not buy and consume any alcohol. (I have to do Communion wine, but you know what I mean). I've been growing a little worried about how much I've been drinking, and the manner of it, for a while now (mostly at home, and not in the company of other drinkers), so I think a month to detox would be a good idea. Maybe the low-level headache that's been around for the last 24 hours has something to do with that!

That said, it could have more to do with another event in the family, with Dad having had a heart attack on Sunday night. He is as well as can be expected, but it was a particularly nasty shock for those who were with him, and I think the scale of it might now be beginning to hit him too. I have three observations that come to mind in the light of it and my visit to hospital on Monday afternoon - three shocks, or surprises, in reverse order of significance.

Least, but still a shock, was the price of fuel! I don't drive very far which means there is often at least a month between trips to the petrol station - but £1.15 a litre is frightening.

Secondly, I was most surprised at hospital not by Dad, because if you're in hospital you're there because you're not well - and anyway in my line I've visited many folks in hospital, and nearly all have looked rather a lot worse than he did. Actually I was most surprised by Mum, the degree of concern and simple fear, which I'm sure are a direct reflection of the love and care of a long marriage. If anyone needed me there on Monday it was her, not Dad.

But the biggest shock? Driving the familiar route past the old Peugeot-Talbot Factory at Ryton on the outskirts of Coventry. Or more accurately, driving past the site of it, because it stands no longer. All that remains is a very large leveled area with a few neat piles of rubble and a number of parked bulldozers. I knew that it was due for demolition, but to see it just gone was eery and somewhat un-nerving. A landmark that I've known for the best part of 25 years simply gone.

It might seem a little flippant, but it's the truth, and maybe something of a living parable. After all, it's one thing to know that the price of petrol is going up and that we all need to make changes to adjust. Just like it's one thing to acknowledge that we are mortal and that we will all die one day, as well as losing loved ones along the way. My reaction to Dad's heart attack is a little like my reaction to the rise in petrol prices. It's been something I've been half-expecting for a number of years (both as a consequence of his increasing age, and the family history, since his Dad, my Grandpa Tom and the link with Northampton, died of a heart attack at 72). A shock, but not an enormous one.

The demolition, however, of a longstanding and familiar landmark, a friend along the road of many years standing (and no-one could ever say the old car plant was an architectural wonder) must be a fairly good analogy of bereavement, or the fear of bereavement, felt by those caught up in the actual events, rather than my rather more distant experience.

And the return to the old habits and haunts I wrote of at the start of this post. Well, I'm posting on another, rather quieter bulletin board again (The Tavern), and have picked up a new writing project for Glorantha (albeit at a much more comfortable pace - a magazine article based on stuff I've already written with a deadline of October. Rather more sedate than the expectation of weekly, if shorter, articles for Eshraval!) These are simply reflections of the changes in my life too. When I was down in Kent the post was stressful, but not busy, and so the need for something to give immediate engagement was attractive. Here, back in the East Midlands, with 2 growing children (and 2 growing jobs!) the rather more leisurely pace of leisure and writing can only be helpful.

And any other old habits and haunts? Well, I need to find an RPG group that's for sure (and I have a contact to follow up) and, of course, I've written this, haven't I?

The Sweetest Mystery*

So, Trinity Sunday - and the first blog entry for... too long. And rather like the day, indeed the phenomenon itself, I have no excuse to offer other than experience. The early church sought to interpret their experiences, and doing so 'invented' the Trinity, needing to find a word to express an as-yet un-named truth.

In a similar manner the word "busy-ness" must describe my recent dearth of postings. Not specifically too much "work" nor a lack of opportunity, but instead the lack of energy, inspiration and motivation, all of whom are fellow-travellers with that strange beast known as Real Life.

After all, there are plenty of good things to report such as the instigation of services in (near enough) the same language as the rest of the world two Sundays a month. Or the providential appearance of a young Orthodox priest on the staff of EMUT university and a willingness, nay a desire, to be involved in Chaplaincy. There are birthdays to report, a sixth, and a 'significant' one, beginning in a number greater than 3 and less than 5 and ending in a zero. Then there's the re-engagement of the creative brain with the community that is Eshraval, or the new PCC, or... you get the picture.

However, in the mean time, I offer this, another of David's poetic takes on life and the life of faith:

TRINITY SUNDAY
        
         Nothing happened today.
         He was not born, nor led out to die.
         He did not rise nor ascend on high.
         He sent no Spirit upon the Way.

         Today he is.
         His eternity, not his event, we celebrate.
         Awesome to behold and contemplate,
         The God who is.

         No words can describe his measure,
         No metaphor fully explore
         The majesty we rightly adore
         And earthily treasure.

         Holy three times and more,
         Disclosed to us, withheld from us,
         Letting us glimpse, saving more for us,
         Deeper knowledge yet in store.

         How can we encapsulate in a sum
         The one who cannot be described,
         Yet who himself has fleshed and scribed,
         Who was and is and is to come?


(C) David Grieve

*bonus points will be awarded for giving me the name of the writer of the chorus of the same name!

The point of it all?

While I was seeking to get into postgrad education I got into a habit of regularly buying the Times Higher Educational Supplement. I fondly remember it as a restrained newspaper, interesting, informative and occasionally incomprehensible.

I've started getting it again - but it's not the same. It is no longer the restrained Times Higher, instead it has re-invented itself as THE, a glossy magazine. I don't think I'm especially reactionary, but I find it hard to see the point. The pictures don't appear to actually add any value to the text and the best I can say is that it's easier to read over lunch.

I have to admit the cover article on how lecturers cope with student despair is a worthwhile read though - and curiously lacking in any mention of the role and place of Chaplaincies within staff and student support. Another sign of the times, perhaps?

On Hospital Visiting and (O)Mission Statistics...

On the delights of Hospital Visiting.

Yes, there is irony in the title. I have no objections or problems with visiting (even if all too often by the time you find that someone has been in hospital that they're actually out!). Except that is on the first ever visit to a previously unknown hospital. In which case events will go something like this.

1. Find the hospital. It will inevitably be where the road maps say it is, but you are taken by a very strange route if you follow the road signs.

2. Find the way into the car parks, whose signs are usually obscured or made more difficult to read by the dozens of cars illegally parked on the roads outside. There is a high probability that you will miss the turning.

3. Find a Visitors' Car Park. Take especial care over car parks that are "staff only" for some of the day, but "visitors' use" at others. There is a high chance that the signs are out of date and/or mutually contradictory.

4. Find a parking space, which may entail up to 15 minutes of driving round in circles, possibly through multiple car parks. (see 3)

5. Find a working ticket machine. The one nearest to you will not be operational. This may entail a trip on foot to other car parks, and the worry about whether tickets are valid between car parks.

6. Find the correct change, or the nearest estimation. This will inevitably be an extortionate amount of money, for far longer than you need, enabling you to pop into Out-Patients for a quick Chiropody session should you so wish. (You may think the money would have been better spent on a couple of cans of beer, though. See 9).

7. Find an entrance to the hospital - which is not always obvious. Once you find a plan you will inevitably discover that you have parked the furthest possible distance from the ward or department you seek. Gird your loins.

8. Your route will take you past the canteen. You will feel hungry. You will discover you have spent all your change in the ticket machine.

9. Find the Ward. No matter how well you think you have planned you will discover that Visiting Hours for that one ward, and possibly that one ward only, are different from the ones you were given, and the doors were closed about the time you found the hospital.

10. Retrace your steps, which in God's providence will have led you past the Chapel. If God is feeling merciful there will be a Chaplain present, so you can let them know who you were trying to visit!

Of course, once you've made a few visits you know all the pitfalls - which is when the hospital will start playing the game known as "Pass the Patient". This serves purely to amuse the hospital CCTV operators - and to enhance the ticket machine revenues!

(O)Mission Statistics
I will admit to not being the most organised of people on occasion, but there are limits. I have finally managed to start work on the wonderfully mis-named documentation known as "Statistics for Mission" - or more accurately Statistics of Attendance. Every church should have the following sorts of records: a service register, a baptism register, 2 wedding registers and (possibly, and I'm still a little hazy on this, as I've only recently remembered its existence) a funeral register.

Each year you are sent a form to record numbers, the requests for which seem to get longer every year but for 2007 include:

• Baptisms
• Thanksgivings for the birth of children
• Marriage
• Wedding Blessings
• Funerals
• Easter and Christmas Communicants and Attendants
• Church Attendance in October (both Sundays and Week days)
• Adults working (in a parochial capacity) with older young people)
• Attendance on a "normal" Sunday
• Church Membership as stated on the Electoral Roll.

This form is accompanied by a further sheet of Notes, printed on jolly coloured paper. Note: there is nothing jolly about these notes!

Then, of course, there are the mistakes (and no errata). For example someone has forgotten to change a date in the statistics form from last year to this one, just in case you weren't already confused. And, of course, the numbers of the Notes on the Notes Sheet don't correspond with the expectations of the request form.

But all this is simply preparatory. Even if you have all the required registers, and even if they are filled in correctly, you still cannot answer the questions correctly unless you have kept supplementary records!

Figures entered into the Service Registers don't at least in my, Parish include the clergy. That's not too difficult to mentally amend. We are even encouraged to discount folks who have attended twice on the same day - which is fine if the person compiling the register attends all the services.

Consider, however, the following statement, which relates to both Easter Eve and Easter Day and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as a two single required figures (and I quote):

In the attending worship boxes please enter the total number of people that attended worship... Please include all people: communicants and those that did not communion; adults, children and young people; clergy and laity. However, as far as is possible, each person should only be counted once even if they attended more than one service.

This can only be done if far more detailed records are kept than provided for in the register books - and most folks would be rather worried if their presence were recorded by name. Yet this is pretty much what is required to maintain any degree of accuracy, even, or maybe especially, in a small church.

There is no way I, or anyone else, can realistically remember how many of the 55 or so adults (of which 30 received Communion - or is that 31 including the vicar?) who attended Christmas Midnight Service were among the 12 adults (all of whom received Communion - and again, what about the Vicar) at 9.30am on Christmas Morning. Of course there will be some duplication, but short of taking extensive (and time consuming records) at the time, who knows?

This might seem petty. After all, surely what we need is the general picture. But if the general picture of the Church of England is comprised of small to medium size parishes (as I believe it is) the statistical effect of the inevitable estimations and errors this will produce will result in statistics that are at best seriously flawed, and at worst, totally unrepresentative.

Me. I'm off to church to sit in a cold vestry and do the best I can. Spare a prayer would you please?

Ouch or "Curiouser and Curiouser" said Alice!

One of those bizarre news stories that break the routine!

Life would be far more boring without the dear old BBC.

Faith, Creativity and Loss

As I'm sure many of my long term readers will remember I am a fan of Role Playing Games, and, it must be siad, other related forms of creativity. Every so often I blog a few reflections on these, and how Christian life and faith interacts with them. Many of you might also remember how such creative writing often absorbs much, and possibly too much, of my spare time, both the odd moments and concentrated periods of the day off or quiet evenings. It is, no doubt, a form of therapy and relaxation. There have always been questions about where Christian faith sits with such a pastime - and many years ago I found myself under pressure from certain zealous fellow Christians to not only give it up but even go so far as to be told I needed deliverance ministry!

Nevertheless as we are made in the image of God, who surely possess the greatest possible of imaginations in conceiving the entire created order it seems totally consistent to engage that germ of creativity planted deep within each one of us. Individually the hardest issue for me is how I feel generally incapable of turning that to distinctly Christian ends, unless most simply expressed in the "how about we do this" sort of idea. (Ideas which I freely confess I often lack the means of bringing to completion!) Nevertheless, such ideas seem very shallow compared with the challenge of creating a complete virtual nation or world, combining my knowledge, both already known and learned along the way, with my profligate imagination. In two ways it's fair to say, in the language of the King James Bible, that such things are "vain imaginings." They are vain in the fact that they are not directed towards the glory of God in any other way than to employ the gifts and skills I possess - although if we were to judge all things by that criterion we could find ourselves in a dangerously joyless and staid world, somewhat like the mindset that can hold certain types of churches in its grasp! Likewise they are vain in the sense that I, and I suspect many other like-minded writers and sub-creators wish their work to be valued by others. I've siad before of the thrill of having some of my material published, if only so far in a fan-publication. But this is predominantly background to this post - which is as much a piece of personal therapy as theological reflection.

I am, at moment, grieving. Nothing as severe as the sense of loss brought about by the death of a family member or friend, but still a bereavement of sorts. Over the past few weeks I had come to the conclusion that it was time for me to reluctantly drop out of the Eshraval geofiction project, with which I've been associated since April 2006. I had stepped back, gone on holiday and realised that I actually wasn't missing it. I'd taken the laptop, expecting to do some creative writing and never actually turned it on. So yesterday, having spent several days trying to work out how to best withdraw, since my nation had had quite an important historical place in the world, if not in the present, I was prepared to formally resign, only to discover that there had, over the last few days been a very quick (to my mind) decision to scrub a lot of fundamental stuff and start again. (I might be over-stating the case as I haven't read everything posted over the last weeks, another indication of the time-eating nature of the hobby). Here was my golden chance to withdraw, with minimum disruption to the project.

However, my feelings are very mixed. Leave aside the fact despite being an Administrator nobody had actually bothered to contact me until quite late in the proceedings - to be fair I hadn't been able to pull my weight. Even leave aside a general, vague unease about some things over recent weeks. One of the hardest things will be the loss of relationships. I have never physically met any of the players, but feel I do know them, at least more than superficially, since we have talked of faith, politics, life and so on. But maybe other reflections are more important on a spiritual/conceptual level. And I don't think any are premeditated, either. It simply struck me as I was pondering over these things last night that although I'm the sort of person who rather likes fairly tightly defined boundaries within which to work, both in real life and in terms of creativity, that I was one of the founding group of people who'd shaped the game world. I wouldn't claim to be the most important by a long way, but I'd been there pretty much constantly.

Yet now, with a goodly number of different players and the dropping out of a lot of "old hands" there was, for lack of better words, a dissatisfaction with the way of things, leading to a decision to change them. It is, I suspect, a reflection of the fundamental human desire to be in control. To learn from the best of the past and create anew. To start again filled with hope. Which is all well and good - apart from the fact that we started again with hope a mere 9 months ago. I'm sure that the hope is that a good deal of the material can be transported to the next incarnation of the game, but the net effect is still that thousands of words, and hundreds of hours of creative effort has, at a stroke been rendered obsolete, even effectively declared worthless. And that hurts. When you write for pleasure, whether for possible publication or not, it is possible to salvage material. Indeed I have megabytes of materials on my hard drives for different RPG systems. I delight in re-reading them every so often, and may use bits of them again. What makes creativity special for me, particularly with Eshraval, is that it takes place in a co-operative environment. You cannot create a nation that feels in any degree real unless there are interactions with the wider world. Solo creativity cannot beat that. (Possibly here's a place for reflection to on the nature of God as Trinity, three interconnected and interdependent aspects in relationship...?)

I also wonder whether the latest "revision" and perceptions of it have something to do with relative age. I know that I was one of (if not the) oldest players. With age there are added responsibilities that younger players do not have, most often with regards to work and family commitments, and those inevitably colour things. What may seem only a small amount of effort to the sixth form or university student maybe very different for the "family man." I suspect that the same happens in our lives of faith too. For Esh at least I'm no longer sure I'm willing to invest the hours I did, especially when it seems so casually wiped away. (And that is not an established fact by any means). But now I'm beginning to drift, and I have work to do. Nevertheless this is still important.

Let's just say that this morning I'm a little sore. Aware of my inabilities and inefficiencies, that which I have not done which I feel I ought to have done, even if I couldn't. Wanting to return to a past which has now gone. Tempted to join in the latest great future - and fully aware that I really should sit out for a few months and then consider re-joining, yet actually feeling a degree of obligation towards friends and colleagues. Definitely bereavement of sorts.

If any fellow (ex-)Eshers out there are reading this know that I'll miss you, and it. In the mean time, I wonder quite where my creativity will lead me next?

Classy April Fool

I'm sure you've heard of this, or seen this by now, but if you haven't, treat yourself with the BBC's Flying Penguins!

The Man Rules

Nothing to do with Easter, or holidays. Just a good, clean laugh, culled from a post on a friend's Facebook profile. It makes me laugh, and the Good Lady Wife too, so it can't be bad!

The Man Rules-------------------

At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down

Finally , the guys' side of the story. We always hear " the rules "
From the female side. Now here are the rules from the male side.


These are our rules!
Please note.. these are all numbered "1 "
ON PURPOSE!

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat.
You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down.
We need it up, you need it down.
You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports : It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides.
Let it be.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want.
Let us be clear on this one:
Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.
In fact, all comments become Null and void after 7 Days.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one

1. You can either ask us to do something
Or tell us how you want it done.
Not both.
If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials..

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings.
Peach, for example, is a fruit, not A color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched.
We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," We will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, Expect an answer you
don't want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine...
Really .

1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss
such topics as baseball , or Football, or golf, or Sex . (Or in my case computers and roleplaying games)

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

1. Thank you for reading this.
Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight;
But did you know men really don't mind that? It's like camping.

I haven't the foggiest

Just to continue proving that I am alive, two news stories that have just caught my eye on the good old BBC website.

Firstly, proof that I'm growing older, with the news of the death of one of the quiet men of comedy, Brian Wilde, aka Foggy. For several years while I was at primary school I fondly remember The Last of The Summer Wine not for it's content, but simply for its name - the programme to be in bed by on a Saturday (or was it Sunday?) evening. Not the worst way in the world to go though, by any means.

And the second? Well, it would appear that a crematorium is set to offer podcasts of funeral services. Given that many crem funerals are at best uninspiring (a bit like most crematoria themselves) I can't really see such a massive market for 'virtual funerals.' And more to the point, are minister's fees inclusive of Performing Rights (or should that be performing rites?) After all it's frustrating enough to know that the organist's fee exceeds the minister's already....

Ho hum. Back to work.

Signs of the Times

At some time in the distant past I wrote, either in the old blog or even in my journals, something about those A4 posters that used to appear about this time each year, printed in red on white, with a picture of the crucified Christ, if I remember correctly, saying "This is Holy Week." (Ring any bells?) Even then I wondered if many people actually understood them.

So when I had an envelope appear through my letter box this morning, A4 sized, from my Church Secretary, I wondered if the same thing had struck here.

What could it be? What was it that I was being asked to encourage people to put in their wondows? Posters to advertise the forthcoming car boot sale, the greatest source of income for our little, and still lead-challenged, parish. How times change!

I might not be very keen on the practise, but I've yet to deliver on a suitable alternative...

(Then again: it's interesting how many people have said to GLW that they thought the church was not in use any more. I wonder what the criteria are for that impression? Could it be that they only see the words "Services by arrangement" relating as it does to Evening Services on the noticeboard -I think that's what they say - while writing down the Vicar's telephone number? )

Hmm. Something else to ponder.

Technophilia Sorely Tested

(Activate rant mode)

Well, I'm alive, honest. I've just had not a lot to say.

Except now perhaps. I'm using my lovely new cellular modem, a natty little USB device set up for a modest sum of £10 a month to get me 1 Gigabyte of downloads. Plenty there, I thought, for the times I will use it. After all - I have home broadband, don't I?

Well, at the moment, no. Not for the last few days. Presuming that the diagnostics on the modem/router (a BT Voyager 205 for the techie types out there) are correct, the problem is with the phone line. So thank God for the cell modem.

That's nuisance enough, even getting that far with Holy Week, Easter and the like looming.

So, think I, I'll just sort out an expenses claim for the first two months of the year.

Ha. Firstly I find that BT are still billing me for my previous telephone line (kept to smooth the transition) but sending the bills to this address. I've already paid one without noticing. Now another one has shown up. OK, I can figure that into the accounts and claims.

I find a BT bill (already paid, including a £99 repair fee from last time - long story). But then, as if for the first time I see it was far larger than it should have been as I'm paying Tiscali for an inclusive calls and (currently non-existent) Broadband package.... and BT at the same time, and have been since October!

So I dial up the shiny new modem to check. Online bank statements confirm the Tiscali billing. My email works fine. So why when I try to log in to check my bills with them does it tell me I don't exist?

I really don't need this now!

What I do need is a drink!

(terminate rant mode)

Damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't

Being a short response on the latest travails of an archbishop.

It's the recurring problem of a leader, a hugely-intelligent and thoughtful leader, finding that actually all people want are soundbites and stereotypes.

Most of the population, and much of the press, it would seem, don't actually want to use their brains! Never mind the fact that the interview which precipitated all this comes on the back of a densely-worded and highly thoughtful 8000 word public lecture. Never mind the distinction between the principles of Sharia law and some of the rather heavy-handed punishments handed down by Islamic courts in some parts of the world.

Archbishop Rowan, and many Christians can't win: we try to engage with real issues with depth and sensitivity - and find that we're told we should stay out of them. Then in the next breath we're told to be more active in wider society and help find solutions, not problems.

As long as our answers are acceptable to the everyone else, that is. In which case they are not answers, simply mere affirmations.

There was someone else who found that as well: he was called Jesus.

A good start?

"...whenever you begin any good work, beg most earnestly of Him to perfect it..."

I'm very good at starting things, and pretty appalling at finishing them. I tend to sit fairly closely to the principle that most people are content with 75%, or even less, and therefore never claim perfection.

The passage which struck me this morning from the Rule of St Benedict is elementary. It is both simple and profound, and for someone like me, with a tendency to rush into things and forget the basics, is profoundly challenging.

To speak of beginning a good work also implies, to me, that we have an awareness of the nature of that work at the very outset. It is certainly true that we can have a very strong awareness of when something we are about to do is not good, selfish or even evil. Whether we can assess all the potentials of our works is, I think, less certain, as is a genuine grappling with starting a course of action which may be good, but about which we are unsure.

All the better then to engage in the second phrase, to beg of Him (God), "most earnestly to perfect it".

To commend good intentions to God seems pretty obvious, yet is still something I can easily fail to do. In the need to fulfil the regular commitments, the sermon or the meeting, the temptation remains to simply get on with it, and to trust that the God we serve in Jesus will bless it and bring it to fruition. And yet, that is a misapplication of faith, a presumption - and I do it all the time.

And neither is it enough to simply pray. There are times, true enough, when an "arrow prayer," a quick, immediate prayer, is the only possible or practical response. This is not really the case, however, in beginning a good work, if that is, we take work to be something of an extended nature.

I was preaching last night in the Ash Wednesday service, based upon Isaiah 58 and Matthew 16, that real prayer, like real fasting, is a time-consuming and costly business. And it's true. What better way than to seek to begin, and to hallow, to consecrate, a work of good intention. How much does the very action of the prayer transform the practice, I wonder?

And finally, notice what we are encouraged to seek of God's involvement in the task. Completion? The drawing of a line according to our standards of a job well done? No. The target is the conclusion of the work according to the divine standard, not of ending, nor adequacy, but of perfection.

Perfection is most definitely a state that can only truly be achieved by God, the action of the divine, not simply our own. Perfection, in his eyes, may not be the same as ours either - which is a slight digression and a topic for another time, perhaps.

The good work, rooted in prayer, seeking the divinely-willed conclusion, is to be our goal. Earnest prayer is in itself a sacrifice of time and effort, not too dissimilar to the foundations of a building, I would guess. It leaves time and space for dialogue with God, time for an awareness of our strengths and limitations.

And it's something that I know I don't do even half as often as I should. Maybe in the founding prayer too all the worries about the many tasks which need to be done will reveal those most important to God rather than to us. Or to me.

Word and Play

It's one thing to know that you've not blogged awhile, but another to do so.

However my lack of words has been more than matched by a torrent of poetry from my friend David. And so without further ado, another one of his.

Word and Play

If there is
the slightest chance
of getting some play
out of a word,
I will.

For play is exhilarating.
I’m ex-hill.
Over the top.
At any rate,
I love the freedom of the plain.

Plainly,
puns happen
when I’m creative,
coasting,
with the wind behind me.

It can be a bit of a blow to others
when I wind them up.
They’ve been known to say
how peaceful it used to be.

Whether or not the wind changes,
they must brace themselves
for a pair of puns
at a moment’s notice.

My word,
it is inherently clear
that I got this bug from my parents.
To keep generating like this,
and producing a battery of puns
takes training.

So, prepare for the worst.
A nice flow will continue.
You have my word for it.

(C) David Grieve 2008

And with that I must turn to an act of Lenten penance, in folding and stapling the service orders for Ash Wednesday - as if failing to create my own ash and being forced to ask for help (a thing I intensely dislike) were not enough!

Happy New Year. What do you mean, I'm late?

Ok, so it's been too long, but nevertheless here's wishes for a happy new year to all readers.

I hadn't realised it had been over a month, but there you are. Somehow I don't think you'll get a blow-by-blow account of all the doings, although for my memory's sake as much as anything else, I will say this: "Treat Midnight Service at Christmas as if it's a Sunday Service and try to rota people to do things. And remember to say thank you for all the things people do do without asking for recognition, and without whom things get rather hairy." You know who you are!

Long time back someone, I think it was Maggi, commented about how good a habit it was to write something daily if you aspired to be a writer, and that blogs were a good medium for that. And it's true. But they aren't the only medium, and since I got enticed into being an administrator for the Eshraval game I occasionally mention, a lot of my spare time has been focussed there. I was on the brink of quitting it entirely just before Christmas, and just before I could sound someone out about it all everything changed. In the week after Christmas serious creativity returned too, which is good news.... even if it does feel like it's waning again in the face of work pressures. (It really is very difficult to do two half jobs without feeling compelled to turn them into two-thirds jobs. It involves learning to stubbornly say "no", ring-fencing your time, being prepared to disappoint people - especially yourself, and accepting your limits.)

Those who know me by now will realise that it's at about this point in the post that I finally get around to what I was going to type, and while I've had a good set of questions from a regular reader over Facebook which I may, or may not answer here (see, I'm not ignoring you), all I really wanted to comment on was this...

It's funny how language works, or is interpreted. For example I saw a van a few days ago identifying itself as belonging to the "Reverse Logistics Division." Now I know, I think, what "logistics" are. But "reverse logistics"?

Is that something about sending the wrong parcel to the wrong person in the wrong place and at the wrong time?

:)