These fish freak me out… They are outside our door in the corridor!!

JT and I have just returned from a brilliant evening at cluster!! The Hive (as it was) has just planted (split in two in order to grow) and we (the remaining bees!!) have had our first official meeting tonight (last week was a pancake special )

It is really exciting, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something that just feels exciting about the way this is working. We had a lovely meal of chicken, rice and south African chutney and then a study and some alternative worship. I was given a birthday cake and a huge teddy (called John Lewis - it says so on his bum!) which I was so chuffed about! What lovely people.

Really looking forward to seeing what the Lord will do and about moving forward in Him and deepening relationships with others in the group.

I was walking through town today and I heard a strange noise. I stopped (mentally more than physically probably!), turned my head slightly with a frown of disbelief on my face and witnessed an old man, slightly bent in the middle, peering into the window of a travel agent. He had just farted. Loudly. I couldn’t believe it! He didn’t appear to have even noticed!!! I mean, this wasn’t a ’silent but violent’ or a discreet emission by any means, it was (to quote a famous Hill-ism) like the bloke had just ‘trodden on a mallard’!! Apparently I was the only one who had noticed (as I said, he didn’t even flinch!) but I was definitely put off my sandwich that I had (until then) been munching contentedly.

Earlier JT told me to come into the kitchen and see Twinkle… She was sitting in the dish drainer!! It was funny

My response to the accusers out there? Blog off!

Not really Yes, I too have been forced to consider whether or not this blogging lark is an expression of self in the narcissistic sense, or whether there really is a substantial ‘paradigm shift’ in the mindset and functional existence of the 21st century punter like myself, that the church needs to take hold of and run with for all it is worth in order to reach a generation of ‘fragmented learners’ - a topic that I have been musing upon a lot of late, after finding myself to be consistently of this nature.

What do I mean by this? A fragment… A small amount. There is just not time in a culture where all people must work for hours on end, to think in the traditional sense anymore. The best way I can describe it (which is unusual for me as the following will contain a distinct lack of pink, fluff or sparkles!!) is to think of a computer hard drive. As data is tapped into your computer, the once happy, peace-loving machine starts to gather bits of information, which come to it in tiny particles. Sometimes data is entered, sometimes it is deleted, sometimes it is moved around, the result being that it ends up scattered. Now it still works and makes sense to the computer, but it may take longer to locate the fragments to build the correct files. This is why we need to defragment the hard drive, so that all the particles come back into alignment and the computer is able to run more efficiently.

These fragments of information are much like the modern mind and how it works. We have been raised with computers that work in this way and our minds in turn have perhaps adopted the trend (a bit scary). I find that I am much more able to read a fragment on someone’s blog, than read a lengthy instructive novel. I am happier to muse upon a singular disciplinary thought at length than to be bashed to pieces by a whole script and then quietly hide it away and forget about it. Similarly when at Uni, if someone quickly shows me how to do something on the computer, I will remember it better than if I have heard it in the middle of a lecture. When I am in lectures, I find that I do remember most things. I couldn’t recite the lecture to you in order, but when I see a book in the library with some reference to the lecture, it acts as a visual ‘trigger’ and I remember the whole section and what it was about.

This is because I learn in 3D, words alone can sometimes be empty, but when placed with other sensory motivators (visual, musical, tactile etc) they are easier to remember. I wonder if this is because a lot of our learning is done interactively (such as on the computer/blog?)

So why are blogs so popular? Is this nation so insecure that they want people to read about the real them? (it is hard not to show your real self when you write). Well, possibly. Or is it because people are nosy? Probably! Think of how many people watch Big Brother (I have to say that I can’t stand it!) There seems to be an irresistible urge to observe the lives of ‘normal’ people and see what they do. Why do we do this?? I do it a lot, I am a people watcher partly because I am shy, but also because it fascinates me. You can learn a lot through mere observation.

Now here is the point. Where does the church fit in and what is a good reason for blogging? You may look at my blog and call it narcissistic because I talk about what I have been doing, my family, my cats etc! There are also articles about God, frustrations of life, musings etc. Surely if I were truly humble I would write just about God? Probably, but I only feel that I could do that if I spent my whole life in prayer, reading the Bible and preaching the Word of God (I wish!) I spent years thinking that people who preached in church were massively holy because all I knew of them were the words on the stage. Compared to me of course, they are massively holy! Still, the Christian life is about showing Jesus through everything we do. It is about living an integrated lifestyle. I would hope that my blog shows me as someone who is not pious and condescending, but as one who is an ordinary (and not particularly great) human being, but with an extraordinary God. If someone laughs at an article about a melting ice-cream van and then reads a fragment about God then hooray! It may be a step towards coming to church and knowing the Lord. God is part of everything in life, he is not sectioned onto a ‘God blog’ or a Sunday church service. I don’t want to lead a double life, where God comes out of the box in front of certain audiences, He is who I live for!!

The bottom line is, I don’t promote this blog, people only read it if they choose to. If you wear the latest fashions, then you are promoting ‘yourself’ in a far more blatant manner than the few ‘diary’ style scribblings of a bloggstar. I don’t claim to be wise or discerning, just a rambling blonde on a journey to heaven! What does everyone else make of this topical debate?

Someone sent me this entitled “Proof of global warming” and it made me laugh…

My crazy brother-in-law is running the London Marathon for the SECOND time on 22nd April!! Is he mad?! Nah. This year he is running for the Salisbury Hospice Care Trust (where he volunteers sometimes) who look after people with terminal cancer. JT and he (and siblings) tragically lost their mother (who was by all accounts an incredible woman) to leukemia seven years ago, so this is a cause worth supporting. If you feel like sponsoring him, I know that it would be a tremendous encouragement to him in his run. You can do this by clicking here. If you don’t know him, who knows this could be your random act of kindness for the day, sticking a fiver on his site!! Anyhow, we wish him all the best in his run and I am convinced that he will do horribly well.

Whilst doing my research for Uni on my project about tacky cafes and the general backward-ness of the British seaside (I say this fondly), I was amused to discover this photo with a strange antithetical juxtaposition!!

What a curious title!! All will be revealed… Oh dear, therein lies a hideous pun - you will figure it out later (cf. Noah)! Not intended…

Right, now it is lent and when I was praying about what to give up, I was challenged a little by the superficiality of some of the things that I usually give up, such as chocolate (useful detox), TV (well, I don’t watch much anyway) etc etc. I couldn’t really think of one particular thing that I would genuinely honour the Lord by giving up, as I had to consider that if I gave up some small luxury, would I really be spending the time that is usually dedicated to this in prayer? Probably not if I am honest.

The only thing that came to mind was not to give something up, but to do something instead, as if I am not going to remember to spend ‘chocolate time’ praying (all 30 seconds of it!), then praying and reading the Bible must be where I am lacking… JT is really good at explaining the Bible stories to me and he knows exactly what happened, why, when, how, context etc etc. I can spout verses, but I struggle with the progression of events, what book things are from, order, etc. I felt that I should try to read a book of the Bible each day, starting with Genesis. By the end of lent I would have read 40 books!! Well that was a nice idea yesterday… I am now on chapter 11 of Genesis and have remembered, to my dismay, quite how long the books of the Bible are!! Well, I will see what I can do - maybe I will get through a few books.

Anyway, that said, I have just been reading about an inetersting little incident with Noah, since he is ‘man of the moment’. apparently he went out on the razz one night and got very drunk. He fell asleep in his tent naked, where he was discovered by his son Ham (why was he called Ham when Jews didn’t eat pork?!? Hmmm… Lost in translation!! I’m sure Ham doesn’t mean ‘Ham’ in Hebrew) Anyway, Ham tells his brothers and they reverse into the tent and throw a robe on their Dad, so as not to see him naked. When Noah wakes up and discovers that Ham has given the game away, he curses his son! This seems a bit harsh?! Yet he blesses the other sons for covering up his indecency!!

Now maybe this is because Ham told tales when he could have retained Noah’s dignity and just covered him up himself, but for starters it wasn’t Ham’s son Canaan’s fault (and he gets cursed) and secondly it is Noah who has disgraced himself in the first place!! Does anyone know what is going on here? I felt a bit sorry for poor old Ham.

A belated Happy Birthday to my parents and their friends Keith and Clare Holland who all turned 50 last year. We finally celebrated this momentous occasion tonight with a delicious meal (accompanied by Monday night jazz) at the art deco Daffodil restaurant - superb! A great evening was had by all…