Believing

I took part in this on Monday. I don't know if you have heard of it. I haven't found many people that have; although I am not helping with that because I keep calling it "Beyond Belief".  It is a series of discussions after watching a DVD which is supposed to break down barriers to faith. The DVD is full of talking heads, most of whom are what I suppose you would term Christian Intellectuals (whatever one of those is) Then you all have a chat with the people in your group - some of whom are not Christians about what you have just seen. It's sort of like Alpha but without the pasta bake at the beginning. I'm not sure yet if I prefer it to Alpha. It certainly covers meaty topics - suffering, religious violence, is the Bible true? Also the coffee is better than Alpha but I liked Alpha as well so we shall see. 
It always surprises me how open people are who come to these things. I suppose you would have to be fairly interested in faith to turn out on a freezing cold Monday night in January but people seem to ask interested and interesting questions, and seemed to be quite untroubled by the fact that I didn't really feel that I could answer any of them satisfactorily. I did enjoy it though, which surprises me because, as you have probably worked out, I am scared of most people so I wouldn't expect me to enjoy this. Anyway. Wolf Hall awaits.

Wolf

BBC

There are lots of times when being culturally a Brit makes me go a bit humm - The Sun's Page 3 scam (showing a breathtaking contempt for women), Mrs Brown's Boys (He seems really nice, I have tried really hard - it doesn't make me laugh. Don't hate me ) and most of the content on Channel 5. Then something comes along and it makes me want to stand up and sing God Save The Queen. (Which I don't mind - I think it's a tune and I am very keen on our Queenie. Prefer Jerusalem if I am pushed though) This is a long drawn out way of saying that Wolf Hall is mercifully very good. 
I LOVED the books. I was a little bit "really - are you sure?" about a screen adaptation and the TV programme is certainly different from the book - it jumps around the timelines like crazy. I am not sure you get the depths of Cromwell quite the same way here but maybe a book is better for that. I read a post by an author saying more or less how sick she was of the Tudors - Tudor This, Henry VIII that and of course she is completely right. Trouble is, this is just a super-duper watch. It rattles along. 
All the women are too pretty. Anne Boleyn, who I understood got by on her French sophistication is just lovely and the so-called mousy Jane Seymour can stop traffic with her looks but there you are. Henry VIII is  - well you can see how he is but I read this week that he was quite hot as a young man so all well there then. Just loved the clever little two minutes with the Mark Smeaton character who is nothing now but will be so significant later. It is also my first time seeing Mark Rylance. I only know him as an actor who plays long weird roles that seem to make other actors sob that they are not worthy but you see him here and you get an idea what all the fuss is about. Course, later on there will be a lot of shouting and sawing of necks etc but I will deal with that as it comes.

Booky

It is a time for reading and quieting. When I can. Here's what I'm reading

• Finished two out of three of my Christmas books India Knight's "Prime" is for ladies of a certain age i.e. me to tell us that we are not dead yet. I disagree with lots of it, written as it is with London sophistication about affairs and dating and breakups but I like the bits about teeth and clothes. I think it is true that when I was young 50 was old. Lots of ladies had cauliflower hair which had been shampooed and set  and you accepted you were going towards the last lap. I don't think it is like that now. It's a good read though.
• Sali Hughes "Pretty Honest" is a guilty pleasure about make-up and skin care and it is really good. (Well I like it) Although it has changed almost nothing about the way I do my stuff (I would faint having to pay that for a moisturiser) it is physically beautiful and a joy to read and if I am rich one day, I would still not spend that much on a moisturiser and I would still think foundation is an unnecessary faff for most of us but I would probably build a really nice lipstick collection.
• I am still dipping in and out of my Nora Ephron Collection and alternating between joy and despair. What a writer she was. I am out of my depth.
• I went a bit off piste with a Christian book and read "We make the road by walking" by Brian McClaren. I shouldn't really have just read it through. It is supposed to be read throughout the year and you are all supposed to link hands and light a candle at the end of each chapter or something. I hardly ever do that, I just keep reading - no self control. BC is a bit controversial in Christian circles for being, as I understand it, a bit wishy washy about things like Heaven and Atonement and Hell and things. Not that you were able to get much of that from his book. It's not what you would call strident and full of opinion. I read with interest about the Virgin Birth, but the whole chapter was about three degrees above useless if you wanted to know what he really thought. Maybe I'm reading the wrong book by him. I at least liked his willingness to look at the Old Testament and the character of God there, which can be a little alarming sometimes. If I am not sure about his explanation of the Bible unfolding as a more complete view of God culminating in Jesus so that the Old Testament is a splintered fraction of him - then at least he is having a go. Lots of Christian leaders seem to ignore it. 
• I am now reading the most up to date Shardlake. They are really good I think - although they have got really gory now. You still have to find out who did it though. I find myself asking Catherine Parr - being married to Henry VIII - what was in it for her? Not getting your head chopped off I suppose.

Feel free to disagree - but I am right

Little photo of my good self and daughter type person trying and failing to get the flash right with the new phone. I did not want a new phone. My old one died. This new one is slowing me down having to keep double checking everything all the time. Pah!

Anyway - side tracked. Bit controversial. Feel free to look away if you are a maiden aunt type.We went to church business meeting this week. In heaven there will be NO business meetings - of this I am certain. Nice mild mannered, Christian people turn into people trying to recreate the Nuremberg Rally. Anyway digression again. 

As per, there was a discussion that I should probably not talk about and to prove that I DO understand the meaning of the word "confidential" actually, I won't. So we are talking and lady says "She is a home maker - as lots of us are" Hmm. What she means by home maker is a female who doesn't go out to work and stays at home to look after the children and the home. It's probably just me but the use of this word in this way does my head in.

I understand why the term was purloined. Women who stayed at home working pretty damn hard sweetie, felt that their labours were not appreciated and they coined a word to describe what they do. The problem is that my smug detector can sometimes rise a bit - especially when the word is used in Christian circles. It's like home making - if it is to be done properly - has to be done by a particular sex in a particular way. I'm afraid I think not, baby. I was a stay at home mum once - both full time and part time and I am very aware that it is an important job often with very little fanfare but homemakers come in all shapes and sizes.

These days I work full time. I have grown up children but I consider myself and my husband to be partnering in home making - both for ourselves and our kids and other people who happen to be passing.

Surely a single person who works to make a nice hospitable home is as valid a homemaker as someone with a fully paid up membership to Mumsnet? Do all good homes have to be defined by having children in them? 

A young couple who work hard outside the home all week and then open their house to the local youth hoards - another kind of home maker.

A single mum who has to take on childcare so she can go out to work to earn money to keep a roof over her baby's head - homemaker.

A mum and her husband who have swapped the traditional roles while she goes out to work and he looks after babies - for whatever reason - may she's just flippin fantastic at her job - still home makers.

A old man who makes his house a place of safety for a couple of kids for whom the word family means only sadness and violence. Home maker.

And, in the words of the Whispers - "The Beat Goes On" There are infinite examples. Let's not allow ourselves to claim any kind of high ground because we have been blessed with a decent chap, some sprogs and a Dyson that clips to the wall. God's ways are not our ways. He places his Grace in the weirdest of places including you and me. 

Things as they are - not as they seem

Frames and feelings fluctuate
These can ne'er thy saviour be
Learn thyself in Christ to see
Then be feelings what they will
Jesus is thy saviour still

John Wesley

We live in turbulent times. Life is overwhelming  - on an international level, people with guns and such a disregard for any human life (including their own) seem to threaten to overtake life. On a national level political debates often feel as if they are done for their own sake rather than to achieve anything of worth. People lie in hospital corridors awaiting attention from beleaguered staff while politicians spend what seems like hours debating how many people should stand behind a podium. On a personal level, so many times we seem to miss it or fail. This week we went to see Into The Woods (It's fine - about 45 minutes too long) and in the film, the princess runs away from the handsome prince saying "It's not quite what I expected" I can sometimes say that about my own Christian life.

Things will not often be as we want them to be - perhaps sometimes for a fleeting moment they are. Sometimes we can feel so low and the way we feel is such a huge part of us it can threaten to engulf us. But the way we feel is not who we are. There is hope.
There are times, I think, when we need to dig deep and remember. Jesus makes a difference. He made a difference to me. He continues to make a difference to me. I am not what I was. I am in Christ. Yes, even me and that makes a difference.Sometimes we need to grab hold of that really hard and hold on very tight