Busy times … or just getting old!

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I’ve not blogged for a while.
This is not due to lack of inspiration.
It’s more a combination of inspiration / thought overload accompanied with a packed diary and being dragged around London for the day by my daughter.

The week seems to have been crammed with busyness but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is more to do with my faltering energy levels and the failure to pack everything in at the rate that I have been used to.

Currently I have a few challenges! I am struggling with an essay concerning the Christian theology and relationship to other religions. I am struggling with the balance of inclusiveness alongside the integrity of my belief in the finality of Jesus Christ (i.e John 14:16: I am the way, the truth and the life ….)I’m finding this assignment the hardest I’ve done and the mental energy seems to be quite exhausting.

Another ‘challenge is getting my head around ordination and the need to get my act together and order some fancy ‘vicary’ type gear. Sarah says I can’t but the PVC cassock from eBay (I’m sorry if I have just offended you all) and really should buy a real one. (The eBay one is certainly a lot cheaper … but probably less comfortable!) Again … this seems to be taking mental energy for some strange reason … mainly because I’ve never spent hundreds of pounds on clothes … and I will be on a dress!

Next week I am leading part of a retreat – so yet another challenge is spending quality time preparing stuff for the people coming. I think the retreat will be good – but I do still have a few things to do.

There have been great times in the busyness. I managed to catch up with good friend Sheena for lunch. It always saddens me that we never have the time for meeting with friends regularly that mean so much to us.

Yesterday was a highlight in that I spent the day with Beth as her school had a staff training day. We started at the Tate Modern where Beth enjoyed parts of the Duchamp, Manray and Picabia exhibition. We both particularly appreciated Duchamp’s Fountain.

Following a coffee in the members room, we had a pizza lunch and visited Hamleys before ending the day in Carnaby Street and The Sacred Cafe. As we sat and chatted I was amazed by the way in which my daughter cold comfortable move from great maturity in the Tate and Sacred Cafe while still maintaining childlike love of places like Hamleys. I’m a very lucky dad!

After that day I may have been lucky … but I was conscious of how tired I was too! It’s much easier working than wandering around London with your daughter!

Today it was back to normal … queues on the M25 as I traveled to Wycombe to meet up with Paul – a top guy with great vision and always a pleasure to drink giant coffees with in Costa (no one else really matches the size of their giant coffee!)

Anyway … the day is nearly over … I’m soon to go to sleep so that tomorrow I can remember again that I must not forget to live!

gmail.com

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In preparation for leaving YFC and losing my ‘identity’ (well mobile, computer, email address, life, freinds ….)I subscribed a while ago to gmail to see what it was like.
I have been using my gmail account for a few things and its got a few amazing features such as stacking ‘tab style’ replies so its easy to remember what others have said. It also seems to have a great spam filter as I have not received any – always good.

Anyway – this is not a free advert, but I’ve just noticed I have 50 free invites to give to people to try gmail. So … if you are thinking of changing your email address, or wanting another – drop me a comment with your email addy and I’ll send you an invite.

specialness of life

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The children have been very excited over the last 2 days due to the fact that Sarah and myself allowed ourselves to be talked into buying them 2 guinea pigs.

All three of the children have been seen sitting outside the hutch talking to the guinea pigs as they try to get them accustomed to us and used to being handled and so on. It’s quite interesting to watch the fascination of the children as they look upon their new family members (I’m not allowed to call them pets apparently!)

The light of fascination in the eyes of my children has caused me to think of the fascination of creation once once again. If I reflect it’s actually quite mazing that my three children who have grown up in a technological age and love play station, Wii, the computer etc can be fascinated by 2 little 7 week old guinea pigs.

The guinea pigs have held their attention yesterday and today much longer than any video game has done for ages.

It sees that there is something special, something fascinating, something amazing about life which my children are aware of and which I, and maybe other adults, have become de-sensitized to.

I think I need to reflect on the wonders of creation more than I do as today while I have observed my children from a distance while working on the laptop I have had this distinct feeling that I have been kissing out on something quite special.

great chill out site

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Not a great weekend for football if you are a Gillingham fan … so I went surfing instead and found this great time-wasting chill out site.

a son’s respect

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My eldest son clearly has great love and respect for hs father that works hard to ensure he has a nice life!
I got home last night to find he has bought me a t-shirt with this design!
I will have my revenge when he’s least expecting it!

a journey

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I made a couple of great journey’s yesterday and I guess you can say that although the visits I made were to 2 of our centres they are at very different stages of their journeys.

First I met up with Dave who has been director of Solent YFC since January. He is right at the start of his journey as is the centre as it looks to relaunch on June 6th. As I sat and chatted with Dave we considered ways of increasing capacity and it was exciting to see what Dave has already done and the plans he has for the next few months. He has a massive task i needing to get more people on board and more finance coming in to enable the centre to fulfill its mission. If you are in the area and can support Solent YFC please get in touch.

I then took a trip up the A3 to visit Oxygen in Kingston and join them for the launch event of their 2008-12 strategic plan. Again, it was a privilege to spend time with Richard, Debbie, Kate, Carol and the rest of the team. Richard spoke of the journey Oxygen had been on and it really is stunning to see how diverse and excellent this centre has become in the last 6 years. Rich spoke of the need to go deeper, better and wider which was quite powerful and seemed to resonate with the 120 or so people that were there on the night. (Impressive in itself but even more so when you realise they had around 50 church leader type people for a similar meeting at breakfast and another 70 or so at lunchtime from the police, local authority, MP’s etc).

As I journeyed home I could not help but reflect on how great and wonderfully diverse God is!

Munoz Humour!

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I had a great day in London yesterday – it’s good to be back to normal and having my (at least) weekly YFC day in London.

I had a couple of good meetings before starting my final module at SEITE on Spirituality which I’m looking forward to. I will have a great excuse to get to grips more with Ignatius.

I had quite a big gap between my last meeting and lectures and so I was able to make a decent visit to the nearly over Juan Munoz exhibition at the Tate Modern. While there I spent a couple of minutes watching Shibboleth being filled in – its going to be quite an eerie looking scar on the floor.

Munoz was superb – love the humour of the pieces which brought smile after smile to my face. A genius with a great sense of humour. My favourite pice was ‘Many Times’ which is shown in the picture – 100 identically dressed figures with different expressions with groups joking, listening, whispering. As you wander around th groups of figures you can again ‘taste’ the humour and pain of the conversations. As you ‘listen in’ it is easy to be sucked into this amazing piece of art. If you get a chance to go before it ends – which is only in 4 days time.

Trunk retreat

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I’ve spent most of today planning parts of a retreat for YFC staff in a couple of weeks in Nympsfield which has become one of my favourite ‘thin places’ in the country. The calmness of this place which is rooted in the contemplative life of the nuns that we stay with is quite unique and I’m really looking forward to returning for what I guess may well be my last visit.

I have not very far planning my bits of the retreat so I guess I need some time out to contemplate a little more what I am trying to plan. Throughout the retreat we are looking at the tree as a symbol of our lives with roots, branches etc. My main session is concentrating on the trunk and what that could be imagery for.

The trunk clearly transports the good stuff from the roots to the leaves and I’ve been doing a bit of thinking on how this might apply to me. The trunk seems to have a key role in sustaining life and I found myself wondering what sustains me spiritually. It’s easy to say prayer and daily office, maybe even Eucharist, but do they sustain me, and how can I be sure they sustain me and, more importantly is there any evidence of how they sustain me.

It strikes me as well that the trunk hides some secrets both good and made – the rings of life as the tree grows annually, but also scars of past hurts or disease are hidden behind the trunk. The trunk itself can bare scars or etchings from other people.

It looks like there is a lot going on in the trunk, much of it unseen and un-noticed. If, however, the trunk stopped doing its role and failed to transport food, nutrients and water from the roots to the leaves we would soon see something was wrong. I guess this can be like the Christian life … or maybe the hard truth is we are more able than trees to fake how we know we should be looking or sounding!?

It will be interesting to see where I go with this session, and where people go with it on retreat … just need to find an appropriate Bible passage now! Any ideas gratefully received!

great weekend and job advert

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We had a great weekend. We did not make it as far as London as the rest of the family are suffering from whatever viral thing I returned home with, but we went to Bluewater to watch a film (Step Up 2 – which was a good street dance predictable but very watchable movie) before grabbing a meal at Tootsies and then returning home in time to chill out the evening with Dr. Who!

The weekend has been active – with the St Mark’s APCM yesterday and I’m glad to see top people got elected to the church council (something I won’t have to be involved in as a pioneer!) as I’m quite sure St Mark’s is entering an exciting stage in it’s life.

Below is a great job being advertised in Youthwork magazine at the moment working with Sarah and in the school I am chair of governors at – please pass it around your circles.

Church Youthworker/ School Chaplain
Organisation St. Mark’s Church, Gillingham
Salary £25k +
Location Kent
Closing Date Fri 9 May 2008
Description

St. Mark’s Church, Gillingham, Kent Are looking to appoint a Church Youthworker/ School Chaplain
(50% – 50%)
Starting in September 2008

– innovative post for an experienced and qualified Youthworker
– 25K plus for right candidate – 3 yr minimum contract
Contact Details Contact: The Administrator, St Mark’s Parish Office, The Old Vicarage, Vicarage Road, Gillingham, Kent ME7 5JA
Email: info@stmarkschurchgillingham.co.uk
Tel: 01634 570489
Closing date for applications 9th May 2008

updating and sharing

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I’ve spent a little bit of time updating links and stuff – so you can now have a read of my latest prayer letter.

I’ve also updated the ‘my writings’ section which is mainly essays and stuff that I have had to do for SEITE. It makes life easier for me to store them online – but if they are of use to do, again please feel free to have a look.