Category Archives: friends

Highs and Lows

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the high:
I caught up with a great friend today and sat in a great coffee bar to hear some good news. We chatted about some stuff and I left thinking how great it was to have good friends that you could be honest with and who can also be honest with me. I also got to see and hold his day old iPhone. It’s special!

the low:
I’m trying hard to recover from tonight’s excuse for a football team. It was another case of the fans having more passion and a greater desire to play than the team. My only exception to that would be Beckham who, despite not being match fit, charged around the pitch defending, taking nearly every throw in quickly and delivering a perfect cross for the ‘tall hillbilly’ to score from. I’ve had some lows following England, but this feels like the lowest!

Funny how emotions can operate between extremes in such a small space of time.

generosity

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I have experienced a weekend of friendship of generosity.

On Saturday day time I met with people at the Blah day who were generous in their time and giving of not only themselves but their creativity.
Saturday night it was great to experience the generosity of good friends who invited us to a firework party.
In church yesterday I experienced the generosity again of more friends who gave me a hefty cheque which will help me masses in my quest for an applemac.

Experiencing generosity is wonderful and humbling all at the same time.

Through my experiences this weekend I have been challenged as to my personal generosity but I have seen and experienced the blessing of God. I have seen God move and work in the lives of others. I saw God at our lunch table in the eyes of our children as we shared what had happened over the weekend.

The generosity of God and his followers can sometimes be overwhelming.

missed out

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Today I was looking forward to seeing Laura and Rob get married but Joe was not feeling well this morning so we thought it best not to go rather than risk taking illness with us to a group of people and particularly to Rob and Laura before they go on honeymoon.

I have been looking forward to seeing our friend Laura get married for a while. Laura is quite special and one of those people we have known for over 13 years from the time she was in our youth group in Nailsea. It was going to be a real privilege to see her tie the knot, but it seems by a weird coincidence Joe’s illness saved us from 15 mile queues on the M25.

I’m really sorry we missed Laura and Rob get married, but I’m glad we missed this. If we had left as planned we would be still sitting in the queue now as the road is still closed!

Using my senses

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I had a wonderfully enjoyable people day in London. A day when I used all my senses in a variety of enjoyable ways.
Met with some people at Premier Radio to look at Hope 08 in London and consider how we can encourage engagement with Hope08 across London. This was a focused 90 minute meeting which seemed to go well particularly as the plan from the meeting is sensible in using our networks that already exist rather than setting up some new infrastructure. The cooperation was a delight to see and hear.

Following the Hope meeting I shot across to the city to have lunch with good friend Terry. I rarely go the city part of the city and the atmosphere is definitely different from the other ares I usually hand around in. Catching up, chatting about our different worlds and eating together was a special and privileged time. The steak was fantastic to taste and smell too!

After lunch I walked to the Tate Modern (via Monmouth Coffee Company in Borough Market!)to pop in on the Dali and Film Exhibition. I lost myself in Dali;s films and ended up staying a lot longer that I had planned. I skipped fairly quickly through the paintings as I have seen a lot of Dali’s creative wonders, but really wanted to watch the films. Un Chien Andalou was my favourite – as the guide says it is ‘violent, funny, illogical and dynamic’. I actually sat, laughed, smirked and winced (particularly near the beginning of the film) through the film twice – magical! I was touched by the delicate portrayal of the characters within such short films.

The amusing part of the day on the way home was people sniffing the air and wondering where the lovely coffee smell was coming from – that would be my bag containing a kilo of freshly roasted beans then! The coffee was great when I got home!

Early comments on my new world

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The new world of facebook.
I’ve been signed up for less than a week and must say I have been more than slightly impressed.
It seems a simple way to stay in touch.
I think, personally, a big plus over MySpace is that only those I say are my friends can see my profile, and even then I can decide what they see. You can see my limited profile by clicking the link in the right hand bar of SHP.
Another great feature is the events feature. I can see real potential here from organising a simple curry night to using this as a great tool for youth group meetings etc. A good feature is that you can invite people to the event and they can reply and everyone can see who is and isn’t planning to be there.
You can add photos and videos very simply – in fact everything is quite simple – even joining groups to discuss stuff of interst.
The downside is there is one template and you are pretty restricted in how the page looks.
I’m looking forward to catching up with old friends!

Facebook

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Somehow, someway I have finally succombed to joining Facebook.
I’m not sure why – I’m just going to blame Ian for inviting me!

I was assured by Lucy and Michelle on retreat that facebook is a good thing and a great way for keeping in touch with people and so I am going to give it a go.

I’ve already been surprised by how many of my friends ‘out there’ are already on Facebook. Am I just slow on the takeup, or have I been drawn into something that I was doing well to stay away from? Time will tell …

the end of seite until september

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The weekend away was great for a variety of reasons.
If you are interested in the end of year review the photos can be seen in y Flikr album – trainee priests showing their performing talents.

Highlights of the weekend:
as ever being with friends
drinking with friends
eating with friends
laughing with friends
my friends at SEITE are just great people who I count it as a privilege to spend time with

Lowlights
missing the family
missing friends that were not there
a talk I just did not ‘get’ on Friday evening
saying bye to friends I may not see again

Tonight was my last SEITE night in Chatham as for family reasons I need to stop going out on Monday nights – so from September I will be joining my Southwark friends on a Tuesday evening instead. I’m quite looking forward to that.

the end of another academic year.
assignments handed in.
marks waited for,
prayers for that magic minimum of 40%!

The end of the second year leaves a sobering thought. In 12 months time this will all be ending for me, and something new will be starting. This will sound weird, but its only just starting to sink in that this course has been life changing and that, at the end, my life is possibly never going to be the same again. Now that does start to scare me a little. That’s a lie – it starts to scare me a lot!

Getting home tonight was odd – there was nothing to do for SEITE, nothing to read, nothing to think about writing and so I did this really odd thing … I sat down with a real ale(a great fathers day present!)and waited for Sarah to come in from the youth group and then we had a chat.

Feels weirdly strange to be back and start to be a human living in the house rather than a work and essay machine which is what I have felt like.

is this work … or meeting friends?

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It’s been a mad day – and I’ve loved it.
Met with a chairman of one of our centres for lunch on the Southbank Pizza Express.
Then I whizzed over to Waterloo and met up with Richard.
I then drove out to Rolvenden to have tea with Den and Sha before sitting in on their exec meeting.

3 great meetings, 3 very different meetings, 3 sets of great people that I have the privilege to be able to call friends.

the rest of the day …

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On my way home from Waltham Forest it was exciting to meet up with Wulf and Jane.
I have been following Wulf’s blog for a while and it’s great to meet other members of the blogging community. It’s on days like this that I am really glad that I started to blog as it has opened up a great new network of friends as well as encouraged my discipline of writing.

This evening I ventured into youth work and had to skip a SEITE lecture. I had promised a while ago to lead a group of lads as we chatted about sex and relationships. It always amazes me how open young people are and how little they actually know about relationships generally. Tonight’s lads were fun to work with and we got a good mix of humour and serious chatting.

weekend reflections

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This SEITE weekend was one of the best – a close second to Death, Dying and Bereavment. There was certainly a lot more laughter as our opening task was to write down on large sheets of paper all the words we could think of for sexual organs and practices. I’m not sure how it has formed me for the future – but it was a great laugh!

As ever though the real highlights of these weekends for me are spending times with friends laughing, moaning, crying, apologising, eating, drinking …. all those kinds of things that friends do. Particular highlights again involve a wheelchair but I won’t go there! A boat trip along the river to Maidstone with ‘Jezza’, ‘Mouldy’ and ‘NicNic’was a spur of the moment thing which was a cool way to spend some of the afternoon. Grabbing a pint in the Little Gem before the next lecture was also great.

Looking back on the weekend it seems we are fairly open and honest with each other and again I find myself hoping that this will continue beyond ordination. It always strikes me as sad that in clergy circles people seem to be in competiton with each other, or at least suspicious of each other. We have a year group at SEITE that enjoy and trust each other and like being together – maybe we can start to change the church! I wonder …. how many other ordinands have had that thought over the years!

There are a number of other thoughts and questions that this weekend has broght to the surface which I think I amy write about over the next few days when I have had the space to reflect more.