An interesting weekend – and one which will have some memories for me, and other SEITE colleagues.

One memory will be that of what must go down as one of the greatest FA cup finals. We only got to see the second half and on our way to the pub we thought how ironic that we had probably missed all the goals while in a lecture. How wrong we could have been. Liverpool – the mighty recovery agents. I’m now praying Stevie Gerrard plays just as well for ‘us’ in Germany!

Memories are things we thought about this weekend. As we looked at ‘what makes us who we are’ and ‘what it means to be human’ and ‘what is created in the image of God all about’some of that stuff is related to our memories. I can’t remeber who, but someone said that as humans we needed to be able to forget things. Remembering everything would be a nightmare, and I think that is probably right.

This writing is going to be a bit of a therapeutic exercise tonight, and a work in progress to get me to think for essay writing, so you may well wish to switch off now and go and find something less boring instead! This weekend has thrown up a few things which took me by surprise, especially this morning when thinking about what I had learned about myself this year, and how I was going to put that in my essay.

In my room I suddenly got hit by the emotion of the rejection from my natural father about 5/6 years ago. The thoughts came rushing from nowhere. I thought I had dealt with that, I thought I had thought about it, refleted, learnt from it and moved on. This morning’s memories were painful and so show me I have been kidding myself a little bit. I now know there is something there still to put to rest, to chat again with God about, and a need to remind myself that I am totally accepted by my heavenly natural father.

This weekend, well in fact this whole module of ‘persons in relation and formation’, has left me with a lot more grey areas in what I think. I thought I knew who I was, but now I am not so sure. I know I am complex, the Psalms tell me I am fearfully and wonderfully made, Genesis tells me I am made in the image of God. But …

… what does all that mean in reality …

To say I am mysterious and complex seems to be a bit of a cop out. I am a God creation, so I am complex and wonderful (yee hah!)but I need to be able to understand what some of that means. I used to think it was all about being creative, being rational, and being able to love at will – but now I am not so sure if it is any those things, some of those things, or none of them at all.

I wonder if I am more an individual, unique, complex person due to the relatonships of my life, in which I would include the relationship I have with God. In addition, though, that must also include all the relationships I have had of varying levels of signifiance and continue to have today.

How does the interaction I have with close friends, new friends, and the postman I speak to every now and again have a bearing on my individuality, on my identity, on who I am? Maybe they have none; but as I mull this over I believe they must have some influenece, or at the very least my perception of those relationships, of what those people think (I guess!)of me must have an effect. If I perceive they like certain aspects of my individuality then maybe I develop and use that characteristic more than those that I perceive people do not like. In other words, am I, are we, moulded as individuals by our perception of how other perceive us?

One example to possibly support this could be how I was when at school. I was incredibly quiet; I would never speak in class let alone lead events and talk/preach to groups of people, as my mum and step dad always told me I had nothing of value to say. A relationship with Jesus, and meeting others who have had different perceptions of me, who saw potential, has resulted in a changed character who comfortably willdo those things – although the actuality of having nothing of value to say is still there!

God’s love towards me, his approval of me, his grace has literally turned my life around and transformed a quiet unobtrusive, inoffensive, painfully shy lad whom teachers went to great lengths to get to speak; into a loud, sometimes over-confident lad (even at 41!) who people will now go to great lengths to shut up!

Does that mean I have changed; does that mean the Rob Ryan of 41 is totally different to the Rob Ryan of 16? Is this an identity change or an identity development? If I had stayed where I was, in Weymouth, in the same environment I had grown in for 16 years what would be different today? Have I had any significant choice in who I am today? Was this pre-ordained, people moulded, good luck or chance?

If you have any thoughts or wisdom, share a comment – if I have an answer, I’ll let you know!

SEITE weekend!

The penultimate one of the year!

Strangely, and I guess a result of the Easter School, I’m quite looking forward to seeing my friends even if it is at the King Charles!

This weekend we are looking at persons in relation and formation – I’m going to get all confused over who I am again!

It’s also our groups turn to lead worship and we are (thankfully!) getting away from Common Worship for most of the wekend and bringing a Celtic flavour to the weekend. I’m particularly hoping to create some space for reflection on the Saturday evening as there does not seem to be a lot of opportunity to just ‘be’ anymore. We’ll see how it goes!

Have a great weekend … C’mon Liverpool!

Another email from the Burma Campaign:

Great news. DHL have just announced that they will end their joint venture with Burma’s military dictatorship. DHL has been in partnership in Burma with regime-owned enterprise, Myanma Post and Telecomms.

Thank you very much for your support on this campaign.

The move by DHL now increases pressure on French oil giant TOTAL Oil to pull out of Burma. To coincide with TOTAL Oil’s AGM, we are holding a demonstration outside their headquarters in London, tomorrow Friday 12th May.

Please come along and let TOTAL know what you think:

Friday 12th May 2006

12.30-1.30pm.

33 Cavendish Square
London
W1G OPW

Nearest tube: Oxford Circus

I can’t get to this due to other things later today – but if you are in the area why not go give a shout for democracy.

If you have no clue about the atrocities occuring to the people of Burma then click here.

I got back from Wareham in the early hours of the morning, deciding that traveling along the M3 and M25 at 11/12 at night was going to be better and give me the whole day to work rather than just half a day. I also decided to drive as I had a load of energy after the meeting and new it would take m hours to get to sleep.

The enthusiasm shown by the 20 or so people last night was mindblowing. Many of them were old, most had no clue about reaching young people, most were scared at the thought of approaching young people in the park/streets/school, all told me their churches would not be suitable for young people when they became Christians; but all, every single one of them had an obvious passion for the young people of their town.

They understood they did not have the skills, the knowhow, or probably even the energy; but they know as well that God is telling them they have to do something for the teenage generation of their town. The level of faith, the expectation and the desire to follow God’s will was outstanding. It reminded me that my personal ‘myth’of ‘all the exciting stuff happens in the urban centres’is so badly wrong!

The leader of one of the churches was a guy called Paul Shepherd and the name rang a bell. He used to live in Gillingham when he worked for Medway YFC and also did some work in Gilingham Baptist Church. An amazingly small world; it always surprises me how God brings people together who share both passions and interests.

I’m fairly sure that I will me traveling to Wareham again in the not too distant future as things move forward. If you know people in churches in this little town, or have other connections, get in touch as these people are going to see some exciting transformation happen in their town.

Off to God’s own county, my home county, in a few hours to meet up with people from the churches in Wareham who are thinking of setting up a YFC centre. This is a part of my role that I really enjoy!

Dorset is the county I mainly grew up in, and it’s quite a pain to think I will be an hour away from my home town of Weymouth and not be able to get there – another time. I will however, be able to enjoy the delights of the county as I drive along the A35!

I’m looking forward tonight to hearing about the vision of these churches in Wareham which sounds like quite a nice country place with very few young people. We have camped on a site at the edge of Wareham a few times and when there I was struck by the numbers of young people that were there, milling around and looking lost. It is a nice holiday place, but very little for young people to do or relate to. Being thoroughly converted to urban-ness I quite often forget about the (many same) issues that young people face in rural locations.

I pray tonight will be the start of showing some of those young people the way home to their creator. I pray tonight we can start to transform young lives

The morning at the Tate Modern worked well, and it was exciting to hear reports back from people after quite a short time of wandering around galleries with the task of seeing of we could hear God through the displays.

My YFC friends returned quite enthused and surprised. One particular piece a number spoke of was ‘Towards the Corner‘ a sculpture by Juan Menoz. People were struck by the infectious laughter on the faces and how it totally disguised the greyness of the characters. I particularly wondered why Menoz had chosen 7 men. Out of all the numbers he could have chosen, why the Biblically perfect number 7? Others thought God was saying though this quite simply that we needed to have fun more; that we needed to take ourselves less seriously, stop getting so stressed by work and actually enjoying being in God’s presence.

This struck a particular cord as we asked ‘when did we last actually just enjoy God’s presence for no other reason than just that enjoyment? Why do we alsways feel we have to be doing something, achieving something?

I was also struck by Some Roses and their Phantoms by Dorothea Tanning. A work suggesting that behind the normal everyday life we lead there are indescribable forces at work and that the membrane between those forces and us is exceedingly thin. That kind of fits with my belief of God in the community, thinly, if at all, veiled.

We all felt God was speaking through different pieces. One particular quote by a Matisse piece challenged me:

‘I have attained a form filtered to it’s essentials’

Reflecting on my life, that is a challenge. I would like to attain such a form,I like the simplicity of life that it hints at; but I enjoy my possessions, the games I play, the un-essential stuff that I have a lot of fun being part of. It is still something to think on though.

This is an excellent view.

Today we saw loads of people walking across the bridge, away from St. Paul’s and towards the Tate. It was like sitting in a modern day cathedral and watching the people respond to some call. A prophetic statement maybe? If so, bridges are 2 way and people to cross back and forward with regularity.

I was left with an odd feeling of sadness, though, of realising that people could walk into the Tate for free, and yet they need to pay £8 to set foot inside St. Paul’s.

Last week was not my best week ever, probably goes down as the worst in a long time for a number of painful reasons, and so I am particularly looking forward to meeting up with the rest of the London YFC directors in a few hours at the Tate Modern, which is one of my favourite places to hide out in London.

Later today we are going to try and step out of our comfort zones. It strikes me that quite often as Christian youth workers we challenge young people (and others!) to do this – step out of the comfort zone. It’s a cliche I know, but I wonder how often as workers we follow that advice.

Today we re going to try something that could go horribly wrong, but if it does we are amongst friends so does it matter? After the business art of the meeting, we have a task of wandering around the gallery looking for God; or more specifically for how God is talking.

We all know God talks through nature, through visions,and so on; I also believe God speaks through culture, through media, through arts. John Sentamu said the other day ‘Christ is present in all cultures, and at home in none’. Today we are going to see if we can identify God speaking through the art on display in the Tate Modern.

I’m looking forward to this morning – hopefully I will have stuff to tell you about later!

Found this from Henri Nouwen on Quotes for Today which makes a lot of sense and answers the ‘how/why do you write?’ questions:

Writing is not just jotting down ideas. Often we say: “I don’t know what to write. I have no thoughts worth writing down.” But much good writing emerges from the process of writing itself. As we simply sit down in front of a sheet of paper and start to express in words what is on our minds or in our hearts, new ideas emerge, ideas that can surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there. One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.

In other words, the actual activity of writing can aid our thinking, can surprise us with what we come up with.

This blog, for me, is essentially thinking aloud in a journal type way. I throw things around and hope to come up with something more rounded than when I started. The 20 or so regular readers (do you need to get a life?!) know as fact that a lot of my thinking aloud should actually stay in silence in my head! The end result cab be so much better, however, when others comment.

I am reading quite a lot for my course at the moment and one of the sad things is that it is not possible to speak to the author, to ask questions, to challenge, to ask for clarification with the ‘yes, but what about …’ type question. Everything is so frustratingly one sided, which I actually quite dislike.

I love it when people comment here, particularly when we are coming from opposite ends of the spectrum with our ideas. To many, this method of dialogue may be alien, through fear of offending or worry over what others may think of your comments. This, though, is a great way to think, to reflect, and to ponder, and to develop ideas. I love being challenged and made to think, so don’t hold back there – rather than just reading, why not start to write either here or on your own blog?

Received today fro, The Burma Campaign:

Dear friends
Last week we wrote to you with the very disturbing news about a new military offensive the regime has launched against civilians in Karen state. With the violence escalating, we are calling on the UN Security Council to act. If you are able, please join us at a demonstration outside the Burmese embassy on 16 May.

Thank you.

UN SECURITY COUNCIL MUST ACT TO STOP ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS IN EASTERN BURMA Over the past week more than 11,000 people in Karen State have been forced to flee their villages, and the number is rising every day in the the worst offensive by Burma’s junta since 1997. According to the Thai authorities, almost 2,000 have fled to the Thai border where they are living under plastic sheets in a temporary camp. But thousands more are being hunted in the jungle, without basic food, medicine or shelter. As the Burma Army seeks out ethnic armed resistance groups in the areas East of the new Burmese capital, Pyinmana, they have been pushing innocent villagers into forced relocation camps, turning villages into ‘free-fire’ zones, kidnapping people for forced labour, burning and stealing food stocks, shooting and killing indiscriminately, raping, torturing, and laying landmines.

We cannot allow this to continue. It is time for the UN Security Council to take action to stop these attacks.

There will be a global day of action on May 16th to stop the violence in eastern Burma and demand UN Security Council action.

In the UK we will be holding a demonstration outside the Burmese Embassy on 16 May from 12.30pm to 2pm:
19A Charles Street
Berkeley Square
London W1J 5DX

Nearest tube: Green Park

To find out if there is a protest in your country visit and click on the link for the campaign in your country click here.

I met with the YFC people co-ordinating Mission in London today. We achieved a lot and are ready to move on into our next year – so if you know anyone who wants to give time to mission urge them to have a look at the website.

We want to be helping people to grow and reflect, so all people involved in MiL will be assigned a mentor whose role will be to help the person reflect on what they are doing, how they are doing it, and so on.

A few meetings ago I think it was Hugh who came up with

‘ 12 years experience; is that 1 year repeated 12 times, or 12 different years : 12×1 or 1×12?’

One year repeated over and over again, making the same mistakes each time, doing the same thing each year; or 12 years, the experience from each building on what has been learned previously.

We want people to reflect, to learn and so gain year after year of good reflective experience: if we can achieve that we can see this fantastic city of London transformed.