I have been away from blogging. It was very rude to leave without a by your leave. This is not a Northern thing to do. I apologise. In my defence I have had a month and a half - in a month - all squashed in.
- FOW1 has had a friend to stay for a weekend. Not that I was involved much in that but my job was to keep the bathroom clean which turned out to be a full time job.
- We had a very welcome invasion from Northern type relatives for a few days.
- All members of family, except, me hit milestone birthdays - 18, 21 and 60. You can work out for yourself which is which.
- We have had leave from work and also been to London to see lots of theatre and cinema and history and shopping and stuff. And eating. Lots and lots of eating - trash mostly.
- Went to London with HOH-ON OUR OWN . Mooched around in a lovely romantic way without teenagers five yards behind asking where Bella Italia is.
- FOW2 got her A level results. AAA* since you ask - thank you very much.
It has been so busy. A more organised person would have blogged every day and kept you abreast of developments. I meant to, I really did. Instead, I kept guiltily looking at my laptop in the corner staring at me like a puppy I hadn't fed. (I have no idea why I wrote that, I have never not fed a puppy)
I have also been brave and booked for a writers' day in London in October. I don't really do things like this but really wanted to go so I went for it. Can always pull out (no, no I won't - almost certainly not)
So if you are still there, thank you. I shall attempt to continue as things were before the month that has just passed intervened. Can't say I am sorry though. We had a great month!
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| Guardian |
Some people made a terrible mistake this week. A shocking horrifying mistake. A passenger plane was shot down. They weren't aiming for a passenger plane, but that was what they hit. Because of that mistake nearly two hundred people - perhaps eighty of them children, including these beautiful faces here, lost their lives in a horrible, horrible way.
It is the kind of thing that should stop us in our tracks. We should be asking ourselves - is this too far? Does this awful thing show us just how near to the abyss we are? We should be asking ourselves these things personally but also as nations. Our leaders should be leading us to our knees. Yet, what do we see? Politicians on all sides jockeying for position. Trying to take advantage. Pointing fingers. We see people playing for time, hiding evidence, stopping grieving families finding their loves, their babies.Trying to shift the blame, to absolve themselves of all responsibility.
I am naive, I know. I sort of thought that something like this would make people stop. Say "Hang on a minute - this is too much, too far. Let's talk together like grown people who have maybe seen too much."
It seems not. I am afraid for what we are all becoming.
I have realised these things about myself
- I will never be any good at structured dance. Now set me off in a room with Motown and - yes sir, I can boogie - a bit. Put some dance moves in and you have lost me. I hokey when everyone else is doing the cokey. I dread it when some wag at the front of church says "Let's all do the children's actions to this!" Because I know that, sooner rather than later, I will be facing forward when everyone else is facing backward. Or I will be wildly doing the helicopter on my own when everyone else has decided not to go for a second verse. I have never been to a Ceilidh. I am too afraid that carnage will follow.
- I will never be able to tan the back of my legs. It's summer and my legs are out. HOH insists that as I go about my business and walk about at lunch etc, then the flabby calves at the back will gradually tan. This does not happen - ever. Front of legs are brown. Back are very white. Unattractive stripes naturally follow. Most of my leg tanning happens at lunch when I sit on a bench in the park and read my book. I have thought that one way to deal with this may be by lying on my stomach on the bench for the duration of my lunch. Concerned friends insist that this will bring unwanted attention from the local constabulary.
- Whenever I run into people that I have not seen for a long time, I always look like I have been cleaning out caravans. I never, ever run into anyone unexpected when I am on my way to a wedding and I am reasonably turned out. Thus, I am convinced that there is a community of people out there that I have not seen for a while who are convinced that I have fallen on hard times and are packing up food parcels for me as we speak.
This is who I am and although it is annoying sometimes, it's not that important. What other people make of me when it comes to unimportant things should never be keeping me awake. It does sometimes and I have to speak sternly to myself because I am accepted. Not just in the big stuff but in the little things that sometimes band together and make me feel like a donk. I love God's attention to detail - my detail.
Matthew 10 v 29“What’s
the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what
happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to
you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head!
I may never be able to dance the merengue - makes no difference to God. I may have lots to learn but here today, I am accepted, it is sorted. Onwards!
They
couldn’t take their eyes off them—Peter and John standing there so
confident, so sure of themselves! Their fascination deepened when they
realised these two were laymen with no training in Scripture or formal
education.
So I'm reading this in the Message in Acts, and I get to thinking about Peter. Not John so much. He always strikes me as being the one that has it all sorted. The quiet, faithful, groovy one. I always think of John of being a bit like Jazz music or Jimi Hendrix or something. Can't help you with why that would be.
Anyway, back to Peter, it's that phrase, "standing there so confident" He's a man perfectly at ease with himself and with his God. He's doing great things. He's like McFaddyn and Whitehead and there ain't no stopping him now. Yet not so long ago, he was broken. He had so messed up. Made himself look a fool. He declared undying love and devotion to Jesus and then couldn't follow it though. He let Jesus down - big time. He knew it. He accepted it.He was ready to leave the life of God behind and go back to fishing for a living. So what made the difference? Well lots of things, you know about the sort of things,the coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus' calling - all the epic stuff.
There was, I think, also a quieter, more personal thing. Peter was able to receive his forgiveness. It is obvious to us that Jesus forgave Peter for his behaviour. It was done with as far as he was concerned. But then there is the next step in forgiveness. If you are forgiven, you need to BE forgiven. You need to act it, take it, do it. If it's gone, it's gone - move on, get on with the life you have been given. It does not honour God to keep dragging events back up that he has dealt with. It can be a bit self indulgent if we are not careful. God had stuff for Peter to do. He needed to be preaching and healing and getting bolshy with religious leaders and standing next to John while people got their astonished faces on. Even with God's power, he couldn't have done that if he was all "woe is me."
In truth, I don't know if Peter wrestled privately with what he had done in the past, but it didn't seem to let it affect his purpose and the way he lived his life.
Being forgiven is supposed to make us feel good - if we let it.
The Internet is a funny thing. Blogging is even stranger. For quite a while now, I have been following a blog. I have never met the lady but from her musings, I understand her to be a woman of God, a preacher, a server, devoted to her family and her community. She likes a simple life, frugality and her home. Last night, I heard through another blogger friend that her husband had died. He had been ill for some time but the possibility of his death coming sooner rather than later had only really become into being in the last few weeks. His death must have been an awful shock. So this evening, in the spirit of God's community as well as a blogging community, I'm adding my prayers to those of her friends, for her and her family; that God will support them and they will feel his love and security at this time. And that those who mourn will be comforted.
