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 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?

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?

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.

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.

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?

:)

Facebook: Feelgood or Force for Change

It shouldn't come as a surprise to most of my readers that I'm on Facebook - indeed I'm sure some of you have found this blog from it. (After all, the nifty little sitemeter gadget is an efficient little spy...)

Facebook, and other social networking sites like it, often provoke an interesting variety of reactions, from incomprehension through suspicion through avid fandom, and all stages in between. It can be a highly addictive medium, after all. What starts as a simple means of keeping in touch with friends spreads. I must confess to browsing through the lists of my friends friends in the hope of reconnecting with other old friends and acquaintances, and very rewarding it is too.

Then there's a variety of rather simple and simplistic games, all carefully packaged to draw you in further and help you to waste precious time during work hours playing Tetris or Scrabble look-a-likes.

If that wasn't enough there's the opportunity to identify yourself with various pre-existing networks, through the medium of common email addresses from what I can tell, which explains how my only network is EMUT.*

Then there are groups, opportunities to join with folks of a like mind, either by invitation or by random, ranging from the entirely serious through the darkly humorous, the slightly morbid and the gently (or not so gently) ridiculous. There's even causes, which I haven't yet really explored, simply because I don't quite trust anything that purports to donate money simply for membership.

And it's all free. To join costs you nothing, or rather, costs nothing in money. And here, possibly, is the Dark Side. Every application you add gets your personal details in the form of an email address, and the right to look at your other data, so far as I can tell. There have been warnings about grounds for possible identity theft - for example your "friends" can see everything you put there (although there are privacy options), including potentially useful information for stealing your identity, or helping to access other "secure" on-line sites. It wouldn't be too easy to gather details like "pet's name" (a frequent reminder for passwords), or "first school" and the like. Using them wouldn't be so easy, but not that difficult either for the dedicated cyber-criminal.

On top of that there's the danger of what could be termed "cyber-stalking." That old acquaintance you thought so much of a while back? They might (and often do) post all sorts of photographs of themselves. Combine that with a willingness to impart seemingly random information to on-line interviews and your left with a strange mix of permissive voyeurism and the feeling of knowing someone when really you do not.

As usual (and this is typical ENTJ behaviour, I'm led to believe) I've only just reached the point I wanted to post about...

It took me a while to find out about the televisual protest of Archbishop John Sentamu recently. and I'm impressed. A grand act in keeping with the prophetic actions of the Old Testament Prophets. Of itself it will achieve nothing though. That is not cynicism, that is blatant fact. A hardened individual like Robert Mugabe (however charitable or not you may wish to be about him) will not be quaking in his boots as a result.

I am, however, somewhat of a cynical and sceptical bent. So when a Facebook group "York vs Mugabe" sprang up my main question was "is there really any point in my joining this?" Set aside the literal issue of the title, with me not being in York, but what is it. Yes, a bunch of like-minded people, and, forgive my cynicism again, naybe some folks who would like to jump on a bandwagon. Don't get me wrong - I applaud the Archbishop. But the point of the prophetic is to speak a word, that at least in part, brings change. Which brings me back to the original question, "is there really any point in my joining this?" If I don't do something, then the answer is no.

Now all that would be a really rather and negative post if I left it there, but then I stumbled upon this, Power of Facebook affects law.

The question it begs of me, and all of us, is really whether I'm willing to get up and do something, or whether I just sit behind my keyboard pontificating?

(*EMUT - East Midlands University Town)