This Will Do Me Good...Or Not.

I'm reading this. Well sort of. I'm finding it a bit hard going and am on the point of packing it in. Yet I feel I shouldn't. This book and my good self are supposed to be a perfect match apparently. According to Amazon, people who like Barbara Pym and Georgette Heyer (me) are supposed to love this. It's very well written. There's a lot going on. People I like, like this. People who are well thought of think a lot of this. I really should like it. There is no reason not to like it. I don't like it.
I am the one that is wrong, I'm certain of it. I apologise if you love it. I have tried to love it. I have failed.

I think it's in the Screwtape Letters that CS Lewis talks about the demons being unable to get a decent hold on people because they love county cricket or something equally unfashionable. This is because people are not pretending, not trying to impress and are not tied up in themselves and the impression they are making. The important point being that people should be who they are rather than what they think people want them to be. The young people sometimes all agree to like something because everyone else likes it or because it should be liked because it is a "good thing". As I get older and therefore more shrivelled and cantankerous, I am more and more seeing this as a mistake. It really is fine to be out of step with popular thinking (unless your definition of "out of step" means it's ok for you to be a serial killer) 

So, I'm leaving it if that's alright with you. I'm off to a nice Kate Atkinson (99p on my Kindle) Don't let me put you off if you fancy it. It's just not me that's all. 

Unexpected

Just an ordinary morning and I am setting off for work. I turn onto the main road to Plymouth City Centre and wonder what on earth happened. I count seven police cars all with blue lights flashing, one ambulance and a bread van in the middle of it all. Picking my way through as best as I can I can pass a lady sobbing into her mobile saying "Go to Derriford, go straight there as quickly as you can." Derriford is our local hospital.

Later on I discover that a fourteen year old girl has been hit by the bread van and is fighting for her life. Walking to work is a bit weird, I am shaken and full of thoughts of how a day can turn on a sixpence. One second all is as normal, it's another day at work or school. You are bored or tired or whatever. Maybe you have words with the people you love. Maybe you are just a bit fed up. Maybe you are happy as Larry. Whatever. Within a minute, all that can change. 

A day can start as normal as anything. A moment of inattention. A pain in an unexpected place. A telephone call that you were not expecting. Any of these can signal a seismic change to the life you were expecting to live. It's scary but it is the nature of life. 

If anything these things point to the futility of worry. We can spend years - lifetimes even, putting our energies into what might go wrong, what might happen. Worry about health, your children, your children's health, your job, your lack of a job, the list is endless. Yet in practice, few of these worries amount to much. The thing that might change your life is more likely to be a phone call on a wet Wednesday afternoon when you least expect it. This is not to cast a pall of darkness over anyone. It's just to say it may be how it is and not a second of worry can change it. 

Imagine a life without worry. Fully depending on God. Sure of his tenderness towards you, yet not thinking that means that you live a life without hurdles and disappointments. It must be great to be like that. I'm sure you must get a lot more done.

Matthew 6:34

³⁴ “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

Think, Stop, Talk - especially Stop.

I used to speak a lot at various Christian do-dahs but for lots of reasons I haven't done it for ages. In a weak moment,  I agreed to help out the last minute for Alpha and spoke on the Bible. 
The good thing about writing is that you have a stop and read mode and you can weed out anything outrageous or silly. Punctuation is not a strong point as regular readers will know but I do try. When I am speaking though, I don't have that advantage and when I am trying to make a point and I am not sure that people are getting it, I can get carried away sometimes - a bit.
So I would like to apologise to the Alpha group at Mutley for telling then that the Old Testament moved towards the coming of Jesus in a rolling Dr Who-ish Timey-Wimey way. Also for refererring to the Gospel of John as the most theological and thoughtful of the gospels, like er.....Jazz?

Sorry. Again. Don't let it put you off. God is far less puzzling than I am.

Learning...always learning.

This is lovely. Cookie Monster and Tom Hiddleston. Just thinking though. Seasame Street has moved on a bit since I was little. Delayed Gratification??? What happened to "Sharing" or "One of these things is not like the other one." Kids must be a lot brighter these days. Still lovely.

I Hope We Are Worth It

BBC

I'm warning you now. This is a bit of an old farts rant. There are things that happen, more and more often these days, that tell me that I am old. A lot of these things involve gravity and various bits of my body which I will not horrify you with by going into any more detail. There is also the amount of time I send making tutting noises at the telly (which annoys everyone in the room but me apparently) and an inceasing fondness for the company of a Jack Russell, a blanket and a Barbara Pym novel. I was never what Eric Morecambe used to call "a raver" but I know that I am slowly but surely getting older and rattier.

This week, I have seen some journalism that I have filed in my "Really? Are you sure?" cabinet. British journalism is taking a bit of a beating at the moment what with the News of The World hacking trial and the pros and cons of partners of journalists being searched at airports - these are difficult times. Yet, worry not, all is saved - courtesy of the Daily Mail who proudly ran this headline in their Sidebar of Shame

Watch your step! Lauren Goodger narrowly avoids walking into a puddle during day out in Essex

Now I have to confess that I do have a fondness for a bit of sleb news ('cept I don't know who this is) I like to see a lady on a red carpet in a posh frock as much as the next person. Also who is stepping out with whom is still as facinating to me as it was at school. I like to imagine that this week in the Daily Mail newsroom there were a gang of hardened hacks placing bets on whether they could get away with this or not.

It's just that, in a week where Ukranian people have died on the street to get a chance to choose their own destiny and that we hear that the destiny that they would prefer is to grow closer to the West, it all seems a bit depressing. I guess that having freedom also means having the freedom to be slight and trivial and silly. I get that. It's just that it's a woman - stepping sideways - in the rain. (Makes old lady sighing noise and retreats to kitchen to make a brew)