What a great match – the gills may be on the road to reovery!!!

Two excellent goals from Matty – about time we saw a performance like this.

As I have a soft spot for Chavs – I am after all living in the originating town I have to share this with you from Youth Blog.
Enjoy.

I had a very special end to the day today.

Tom and I assembled an IKEA desk together for our new room. It was great to take a bit of time when he came home from school and before we had dinner to work on this together. It was good just to chat and laugh at things together with just the two of us being in the house.

The room looks great – but Tom and I know that we needed each other to do that desk!

At the weekend my cigar lighter stopped working in my Citroen. This insignificant little thing caused me no end of grief. My sat nav works from the cigar lighter and I quite like ‘Lara’ giving me perfect directions. Driving to Milton Keynes yesterday looking at written directions and wondering if I had missed junctions was far too stressful for a 21st century man.

Anyway – this little things was a cause of much amusement today. Yesterday I bought a replacement form Halfords but the connections are very different. Citroen wanted to charge me nearly £30 for a replacement so I phoned a local breakers yard. They had an R reg Xsara just like mine which still had the lighter in – fantastic … cost, around £2 sir!!! Wicked.

I forgot what a breakers yard is like. I forgot I would need some tools and possibly need to climb. I foegot they were not the safest of places. I arrived in a muddy lake. ‘Ah the Xsara sir, its round the back and a red one – same colour as yours actually’.

The cars were stacked on top of each other – mine being in the middle of a pile of 3. I negotiated discarded tyres, drive shafts, puddles and squeezed between swaying mountains of cars towards my target. Someone has taken the handle of the outside and inside of the door I wanted – and it was shut!!!

I tried to climb through from the front to the back, but the sudden tiltingng back of the xsara plus whatever was on top of it told me that was a bad idea. Then I thought – the drive shaft. I climbed back down, picked it up and managed the bash the door open from the other side so I could gain access. The banging drew some attention from the staff. I should paint a picture here: Rob’s hanging through passenger door window (this door was handle-less too) while banging the opposite door with a drive shft of an old mazda!

‘Ah mate – are you alright?’ ‘Er I think so’ They started to laugh and so did I as I think I sounded a bit like Mr Bean in his sketch with the turkey stuck on his head – well I felt a flippin turkey anyway!

I climbed gingerly into the car and, with no tools other than my front door key, I removed the lighter and was quite pleased at my progress. I took the cigar lighter and a replacement fog light for £5 – both would have cost me over £60 from citroen. And all for 30 mins work.

I don’t know why I am shairing this as I will no doubt suffer to my embarrasment in days to come – other than I find it amazing what great lengths a man will go to, and what risk he will put himself through, just to save £50!

It would be great if I could show so much creativity and determination in things far more important!

Why do we go on retreats when all that happens when you return is that you are chasing your behind and doing an impression of a blue arsed fly!!

I was going to take an easy couple of days – but things have come out that have prevented it. Well … not strictly true, I could have left them until next week, but I knew I’d be thinking about them over the weekend.

I hate playing catch up; I guess it goes with my hatred of being late – I like to be organised and ahead of myself which leaves time for the important people things like phonecalls, visits, prayer etc etc.

The last few days have not been all bad though. I was in London on Tuesday and met up with Dave and then met up with Pete whose blog I have been following for a while. It was useful to find out what the LBA are planning and how we may be able to join forces on some stuff. Aside form that – it’s great to be able to put a face to a name – and he looks nothing like the teddy bear pic on his blog!

I have been away for nearly a week.

In that time I have missed out on a number of experiences of my family that normally I would have enjoyed. I have missed jokes, meals, prayers, hugs, kisses, laughter, stories, arguments, fights, stress … the list could be endless.

My family has changed in their interaction while I have been away. I have changed in my interaction with others while I have been away.

altogether I have enjoyed much of my time away it has been hard – flipping hard most of the time. The pain of wanting to feel the touch, or hear the voice, or just be in the warmth of the family has been very noticeable. It’s good to be back.

But it is different and in some ways it is richer. I am living proof today that absence does make the heart grow fonder. Being away has shown me how much I love being in a great family. I was quite surprised how much I missed Sarah and the children.

It has made me wonder on my relationship with God. Those times, you know, when God is not there. Yeah I know he’s always there but there are times when it feels like he isn’t. Those times when we say ‘I know God’s in this’ but really, honestly, in the raw, we mean ‘God has gone, he’s disappeared, he’s got better things to do’.

If it felt like God was there all the time, would we become complacent in our love for him? If he was there all the time would we forget how much we love him? If God was there all the time would we stop noticing him?

I wonder … do we need those times when God’s absence to keep us going? Is it in those times of absence that we remember who God is, and how much we love him? Is it in those times that our hearts grow fonder of our creator? Maybe absence is a core part of the evolution of our relationship with God?

I’ve been away for what seems like an age and it is great to be back.

I have loads spinning in my head which could keep me writing for weeks. I’m just going to highlight some stuff now which I may come back to over the following few days.

I had a wonderful time away, catching up with Johnny was great and it was fantastic to meet Hannah and Libby too. Just a shame I could not spend longer with such lovely people and get to know them better – but hopefully there will be more times in the future.

So … highlights of my time away:
– chatting with Johnny and being introduced and given an early present of Rob Bell’s ‘Velvet Elvis‘. Such a cool book which has replaced my (rather dreary!)reading for SEITE the past couple of days. I have not put this book down the last few days and keep saying ‘Yes!!!’ on each page.

– the silence of retreat

– spending time on the senior manager retreat just resting with God. One night we just sat and chilled with our creator for a little while. We were alone but together; it was special in a unique way that I cannot put into words.

– realising that the Marist centre in Nympsfield is one of those thin places that the Celtic Christians used to talk about – a place where the border between heaven and earth is so thin you can experience heaven itself.

– understanding that God loves me – not for what I do, not for how I act, not for how I think – but simply because he loves me.

-Pig’s Ear Ale at the Rose and Crown

– hearing that God smiles just because of who I am in the same way I smile when I think of my own children.

– the time of affirmation on Thursday night. Another special time where we spent loads of time telling each other what we appreciated about each other.

– leading a communion service on the last morning for us and ending by anointing each other as we returned to the real world.

– seeing how God is working in so many peoples lives.

– learning from other people on different journeys to mine who, in the past, I may even not have listened to.

– understanding the sense of community we are developing a SEITE – a privilege.

– watching Match of the Day with beer and wine with some new friends

– seeing Sarah, Tom, Beth and Joe on Sunday evening

– waking up in a noisy house on Monday morning.

It’s good to be back

I am going to be having a bit of a blog fast over the next few days. This is enforced upon me as I will be away from home from tomorrow morning until late Sunday afternoon.

Tomorrow I need to be in Leicester to meet with some other YFC people and will be spending the night with Mr Johnny Douglas to which I am looking forward to loads.

From Johnny’s I will be making my way to Nympsfield near Gloucester on Wednesday morning to join with the other senior managers and leadership team on our annual retreat. I’m looking forward to some time away and re-focussing, but I just have too many other thing to be doing at the moment!! I guess that is a good indication of the need to be away.

It just so happens that my next SEITE residential, this time at Aylesford Priory, is this coming weekend so I will be making my way straight from Nympsfield to Aylesford.

So … my lovely family get a break from me for a little while and I know I’m going to miss them.

In the meantime I liked this – if you are a fan of things like Stomp, so will you.

I watched Man Stroke Woman tonight – very funny!
You can catch the episodes here.

Today Laurence Gamlen from CPAS came to St mark’s to start a church audit so that we can look at what we do well and what things we could do differently.

I really hope this will help us develop, and not cause us just to look at the negative when there is so much good stuff going on.

I guess time will tell!