Oh the news

April Jones

Georgia Williams

Syria

Baghdad

Lee Rigby

Baby 59

and on it goes

Just thought about this

Meeja

I am updating you on my media forays this week - whether you like it or not.

Watched... Star Trek  Into Darkness

Late to this party, I know. Well - it was better than ok - just.

Benedict Cumberbatch steals every scene he is in by choosing to act rather than just be a movie star like everyone else does.
Simon Pegg's Scottish accent aside - he is the next best thing in it.
There is a frankly annoying scene where Alice Eve who is playing a frankly annoying character appears in her bra and grundys for no particular reason as far as I could see.
There is also a preposterous bit where the baddie has been set up to be superhuman and faster, higher stronger etc etc, yet is then pursued by what seemed to me to be a borderline podgy Spock. Spock not only catches him but then proceeds to knock seven bells out of him!
I know what I sound like but I did like it - honest I did. I especially liked the bit where the baddie said "My Name is........." and someone behind me gasped. Must have been a Trekkie. 
Have certainly spent worse times in the cinema so happy to recommend. PS Don't do what we did and waste your money on 3D.

Re Read - A Place of Greater Safety

Everyone quite rightly makes a big fuss about Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies. This though is my favourite Hilary Mantel. It's about the French Revolution. I don't know if you need to know a bit of history to enjoy it - I did this period at A level and then did some further study. I love it though. A warning - it is massive and might look a bit off-putting. For me, it rattles along like a train.


Nearly finally

I don't know if you have seen this furore (is that a word?) but Disney is in a bit of trouble. Merida, who is the heroine of their children's movie Brave has now joined the happy band of Disney princesses. To do this she had to have a makeover - apparently. This is the transformation.

Spot the difference? Of course you do. Disney has decided to bring sexy back. To a children's heroine! Stop it Disney! I haven't seen the film but I am told by young girls of my acquaintance that it was about being yourself and not being forced to be something that you are not. AS LONG AS BEING YOURSELF IS BEING A FOXY MINX. If you are interested, there is a campaign here to get Disney to change it's mind.

Certainly finally

Sorry to be so photo heavy but this is doing the rounds of Twitter and making all the girlies in my daughter's class laugh a lot. It's a photo of Benedict Cumberbatch as a baby and he looks EXACTLY THE SAME. Bye Bye

Hard Reality

I wanted to share a strange thing with you. It is that I have been very impressed by the honesty of someone's grief. When I say impressed, I obviously mean that I understand that, given a choice, this person would rather not go through it at all  but still, his behaviour has done him credit. Rick Warren is the author of The Purpose Driven Life, the best selling Christian book. He is a pastor, a teacher, a giver and an all round good egg. At the beginning of April, his son Matthew took his own life. Matthew, a Christian, had suffered with bi-polar disorder for most of his life. Pastor Warren is a prolific tweeter. Like most Christian leaders, his tweets are usually positive and upbeat. They changed significantly after Matthew's death. You my think that this would be obvious. However, there is sometimes a school of Christian thought that faith translates into "positivity in all circumstances." When I was ill, I remember someone literally yelling "All things work together for good for those that love God" under the toilet door at me, when I had fled there to escape. She was only trying to help. She didn't. I sometimes think I sense Christians being encouraged to sort of ignore the grief by repeating how great God is - if only through gritted teeth. Warren has not done this. His Tweets are shot through with grief, yet he finds comfort in Jesus.

Every time my heart shatters I take the pieces to Jesus for repair.

We can't grow without change. We can't change without letting go. We can't let go without some loss, and that brings grief.

Grief comes in waves.When a big wave hits, you cant ignore it.You surf it and ride it out. My surfboard is talking to Jesus.

Kay and I are overwhelmed by your love, prayers, and kind words. You are all encouraging our #brokenhearts.

Many people have been really helped by The Warrens' honesty. God has depth. He has the deepest depth. When we try and pretend that bad things don't happen or that when they happen we don't really get hurt, then I think that we make God seem shallow. When people grieve  God enters into that grief with them. He doesn't leave them alone and he asks that we do the same.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.

My Curious God

Please find pictured above a VERY small snippet of HOH's music collection. All vinyl and Northern Soul Collections are kept where I can't reach them after a rather nasty accusation of using a record as a Frisbee.  Please note that there are NO witnesses to this and no jury in the land would convict me.
Anyway, I am idly rooting through his CDs to put stuff on my MP3 without going through the bother of downloading which, I am sure,  is only slightly less complicated that splitting an atom. I came across the lovely Charlie Peacock.

In the 90s he was my Christian performer of choice with intelligent lyrics and lovely thoughts. One of my favourite songs is "What's it like in your world?"
I tried really hard to find it on You Tube - but it has perhaps every song he has written apart from this one so I have reprinted the lyrics. If you are interested, you can download it. You could do a lot worse - it's very 90s but vair good. Anyway, in the absence of the music, here are the lyrics

What's it like in your world?
What makes you laugh?
What makes you cry?
Let me look into your soul, so I can see what the world looks like through your eyes.

You don't have to ever pretend when you're in my company,
You've got to know I will not turn and run from you if you practice honesty.

What's it like in your...(what's it like in your world?)
What's it like in your world?
What's it like in your...(what's it like in your world?)
I want to know what's going on,
I want to know what's going on.

Do you have any expectations of yourself and the world in which you live?
If you had a chance to make some kind of difference, tell me now, what would you, what could you give?
Is there any hope you've set aside?
Any dreams yet to come true?
Well, tell me, tell me, tell me true,
Are there any longings, any passions that you've kept hidden from my view?

It is a mystery that the God who knows my thoughts and hopes and dreams is still genuinely curious about me. Remember in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve had done the deed with the apple. They then went on to show a spectacular lack of understanding about just how big God is by thinking that the most effective response would be to hide behind the nearest bush. (All the best with that one guys) God, being God and therefore knowing exactly where Adam is, still says

"Where are you?"

To me, I think that this is not about a physical absence, it's about a relational one. When Adam takes himself out of the relationship by behaving like a numpty - God misses him.

I have said before that it is beyond my understanding that God is interested in a one to one relationship, where I am a proper person with him, not a lab experiment. Knowing myself as I know myself, that is both terrifying and a comfort.   As best I can, I am choosing to be comforted by it and be grateful about God's curiosity about me.

Don't say that dear - it's not nice

James Gordon

It appears to be turning into American Pastors' Week here at Martha Towers, which is nice. I like Americans (not all of them obviously)  and I like pastors (not all of them obviously)
Today I am turning my attention to the shy, retiring and not at all publicity seeking Mark Driscoll. Now I have to admit that I have a sneaking regard for a Christian who likes to speak his mind. Sometimes we are too quiet when we need to speak. Sometimes though, Pastor Driscoll's outpourings seems to cross over the line of loveliness. He is in charge of a mahoosive church in America and I am sure he is very popular among this huge population. He is not, however, as popular with some women (see his mind-blowing remarks on women in leadership here) or with British church leaders (see his encouraging and Christian solidarity promoting remarks here. Although he did try and wriggle out of this a bit later by saying that the interviewer had upset him)
There is probably not enough space in the cyber world for me to share my feelings on this and you are all too young anyway. So I will move on in a Christian and forgiving way to his latest controversial remarks which have added the Greens to the list of groups who have crossed him off their Christmas list. 

"I know who made the environment. He's coming back and he's going to burn it all up. So yes, I drive an SUV"



I have to confess that I had to look up "SUV". I think what he is talking about here is the equivalent of a zillionaire in London who drives a huge four-wheel drive - just because they can and are therefore - officially - donks. 
However, that aside, it's the sheer carelessness of the remark that does my head in. I don't know where you are on the Creation/Evolution debate. I know Christians who believe that the world evolved and God loves it and I know Christians who believe that God fashioned every single petal of every flower individually and loves it. And I know Christians of every hue in between. 
Just because something isn't going to last forever, does that give us the right to trash it? The earth has a job to do. In Psalm 19 it says. 

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands

I would think that you would trash that at you peril. When our daughter was little we bought her a doll's house. It was from Ikea, about a foot taller than her and made from cardboard. How she loved that house. She decorated it and furnished it, then she re-decorated it. It was used as a house and a space station and, because she is who she is, a place to train lady pilots and doctors - often in the same classroom. It gave us so much joy to have given her something that she loved so much. There really is nothing like the feeling of seeing someone you love really appreciate something you have given to them. Of course, because it was only made of cardboard, eventually it went through one makeover too many and we had to kiss it goodbye. 

However you believe the world got here, it is, I think anyway, part of God's love letter to us. I have neither the desire nor the will to throw something so beautiful back in his face. It is my role, I think  to tread as lightly as possible and enjoy it while it lasts.