Christmas is icumen in....

Well now I know Christmas is coming, as mrPM and I spent the afternoon writing our Christmas cards. And tomorrow we'll be keeping Royal Mail in business buying enough stamps to post them...
That's the problem with moving about - we have friends all over the place!
This year was interestingly different to previous years (in which I have written all the cards) as mrPM and I combined our efforts. He wrote the cards and I addressed the envelopes as my writing is neater. It did mean that there were very few scribbled updates inside the cards, which is probably why it was alot faster than usual!

Anyway - quote of the day comes from this morning's sermon: "I thought I saw an angel once, but it was a pigeon."

halloween

I'm off to a Halloween party tonight at Guides. No idea what it will involve, as the Guides have planned and organised it all themselves. So it is with some trepidation that I go. I imagine there will be apple bobbing, and some sort of food. If they do the pancakes coated in syrup on a string, then they're not leaving until the floor is spotless!!!
Is it the thin end of the wedge? Should I be refusing to have anything to do with it? I don't think so - it's basically an excuse for a fancy dress party with a few weird traditional games thrown in for good measure.

procrastinating

I'm busy procrastinating. I should be writing an essay (title "Was Nestorius a heretic?"). I quite enjoyed doing all the research, although getting through Nestorius' Bazaar of Heracleides  took some doing - it's not at all easy to read. Anyway, as usual, I find myself in sympathy with the so-called heretic. It looks as though Nestorius fell victim to an outbreak of political machinations, disguised as theology. Which did make me wonder how many of our so-called theological differences are in fact power struggles in disguise?
But then I thought of Sunday's sermon, delivered by a visiting preacher. They obviously had quite a reformed understanding of Scripture and of God. I don't share that view, and find listening to it quite difficult. For a sermon about forgiveness and the sheer scale of God's forgiveness, it was amazingly joyless. How can you preach about forgiveness in such a way that it makes people feel bad?
But then I have to ask myself, is that a genuine theological difference, or just a power struggle in disguise?

freedom...

Well, I got a new laptop, and it didn't have all my old bookmarks on it, so I got out of the habit of blogging. But I have to blog today because MrPM has finally been told by DVLA that he's OK to drive :-)))))) He was very excited...

mrPM update

MrPM is home and back to normal. We both feel extra-ordinarily blessed that this has been the outcome. The possibility of less favourable outcomes was something we were both very aware of. So was he lucky? Or was it prayer? Or was it both at once?
I really don't understand how prayer works - I'm too aware of the times when it appears not to work.
So it's difficult knowing how to describe my feelings about our situation. Lucky? Fortunate? Blessed? Something alomg those lines, anyway...

mrPM

mrPM is currently in hospital, having had a subarachnoid haemorrhage (bleed into the brain). He's had the offending bit operated on successfully. He seems to be his normal self - when asked if everything was working OK, he replied "Well, I've not had a chance to test EVERYTHING yet.."
Seriously - arms and legs and speech all OK and memory and intellect seem fully intact too.
He's not out of the woods yet, though, it seems they can run in to problems at around a week after the event, so he'll be in hospital for another 10 days at least.
Everyone has been so kind, and knowing people are praying for us is helping alot.

work whinge

Not posted for ages, mostly due to being somewhat depressed. There's been a serious outbreak of politics at work at managerial level, and unfortunately I am caught right in the middle of it. All the local people involved think I'm making a fuss over nothing and should just shut my mouth and get on with it (even though this means completely changing my work patterns to jump through the latest hoops). People at a national level have said it's a load of rubbish, and told me not to worry. Meanwhile I don't know who to believe, but am left having to jump through the hoops, otherwise I will not be allowed to work at all.
And now I've been shafted by yet another person at work, so am feeling very alone. I just wish someone was on my side.

martha

We had the reading about Martha and Mary today. I drifted off into my own little thought bubble...
Martha was probably the older sister, and as the oldest female in the household, the responsibility for caring for others would have largely fallen to her. This still happens today.
It struck me for the first time there is a surprising contradiction between Martha the practical, the organized and the Martha who has to spend all her time getting the food ready while guests are present. Surely if she'd planned to invite Jesus, she'd have had something prepared? So her invitation was probably a spur of the moment thing. I wonder if the conversation went something like this:
M: So, Jesus, would you like to come back to our house and have a bite to eat?
J: That's very kind of you. We'd all love to come...
M (thinks): aaargh! I thought I was just inviting Jesus! It's too embarrassing to try to explain. I'll just have to do the best I can. But what on earth can I give them? I've got an extra 12 mouths to feed and it's not as if I can just nip out to the supermarket or get a takeaway...

off God...

Not posted for a while, partially due to other things (being busy and then a week's holiday), but mostly because I'm having an "off God" spell.
During such spells I still talk to God, but it goes under the classification of 'muttering at God' (MAG for short) rather than prayer. The whole point of MaGs is to allow me to delude myself into thinking I'm still communicating with God, while simultaneously ignoring Him.
You mean you've never heard one of those conversations where both people take it in turns to talk, but neither actually listens to what the other is saying? Although, presumably God still listens to my drivel...
Why am I off God? Partly it's just the way I am - I tend to go through cycles of being very intense and then not being particularly bothered. And, partly, I suspect, because I'm working on my current module: the Pentateuch. It has to be said that on just reading it all straight through, God really does not come out of it very well. I think 'genocidal megalomaniac' was the phrase MrPM used... There are bits where God does appear to be a kid having a tantrum who is going to take his ball home if he doesn't get his way ;-)

So what do I do about it? Being aware of it is a start. I'm arranging to meet up with a friend to pray (a proper pray involving vulnerability and listening to God) - not that I want to, but I know I need to. Said friend knows me well enough to hold me to account and not let me get away with stuff. And then, I go and read some fiction to get back to focussing on Jesus - probably the Penelope Wilcock 'The Hawk and the Dove' trilogy. Or the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Both still makes me cry, despite having read them loads of times.

Very random

Church this morning got me thinking. It was a slightly strange mix of carols (for which I was responsible - after all, I was playing the piano, so I got to choose the music!) and the great commandment: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and all your strength, and your neighbour as yourself.
A strange juxtaposition took place. 'If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb' gave me an image of a cute, freshly washed and blow-dried (hence extremely white and fluffy) lamb being presented to Jesus. But what if the only lamb available were lame, one-eyed and rather bedraggled? Would you still give a lamb? Or would you keep away, knowing what a pathetic specimen it was? Would you go empty-handed? Or frantically try to find something else to take instead?*
But we weren't talking about giving lambs. We were talking about love. About heart, soul, mind and strength. Somehow I had an equivalent of the whiter-than-white fluffy lamb in my mind. A pure heart, an unfettered soul, a mind fixed on God and strength which endures. Except I don't have that. I have a heart which has been scarred, a soul which is tattered, a mind which remembers the times it seems God has let me down, and strength which has almost disappeared. So do I give my lame, one-eyed, bedraggled lamb as a present? Or do I stay away, ashamed of what I have to give? At the minute I seem to be hunting around so I can take the equivalent of an unwanted knitted jumper that was the wrong size for me so never worn, but it looks nice so I can pretend there was some thought behind it...


* this may be a female instinct to not turn up empty-handed (it certainly seems to be in our house)