marramgrass

Case in point.

I’m currently amusing myself during breaks by browsing through Mig’s archive.

And now I understand.

From Stocki’s website:

Where sentimentality and reality meet is a hard place for the soul to settle. And so is the place where the stark events of this fallen world and the ideals of our following of Jesus intersect. Do we really believe what we believe or do we just respond like everyone else? I guess this was one of the reasons that Jesus warned us that following him would mean a daily taking up of our cross. This sojourn in the wake of Jesus lead, constantly clashes our feelings with the Kingdom actions that fly in the face of natural response. We die to self in order to live out the upside down kingdom that Christ blueprinted when he walked among us. This is where grace stops being a doctrine to die for and becomes a radical revolution to live for!

On my mind right now (especially as I consider a new session in church youthwork) is the difference between talking about it and doing it. We like to sit around with our noses in books (even if the book is the Bible) and chat, maybe over coffee or while sitting in some comfy seats. How often are really eager to get out there and do it?

It’s easy for me to talk about forgiveness, and gentleness, and self-control. And then I’m driving along behind someone who feels 35 is fast enough for the motorway, or a cyclist who doesn’t think it’s necessary to check behind them for cars before they pulled out around a parked Landrover (ever consider why the Cycling Proficiency courses we all did at school dubbed that glance the ‘Lifesaver’?). Then any thought of gentleness goes right out the window. Let me tell you, I can yell and give nasty stares and wave my arms around with the best of them.

What about the challenge to take what we say about our faith and actually do it? How often do we compartmentalize life, so that going to church and giving to charity and helping out at the youth group satisfies the Christian bit, and everything else carries on as normal (sure, we’ll be nice to people in the little things, but still make sure we look out for ourselves all the while).

More later…

Put in that pesky timestamp that was confusing me at one o’clock this morning. And added hr’s to separate the days. Makes more sense, now, don’t you think?

My stress-relax cycle over our upcoming Holiday Club is reminding of something: the fact that I am a functional atheist. Now, you may ask, what sort of thing is that for a good Christian boy to say? Bear with me.

I cam across the term in a pamphlet by a guy called Parker Palmer, entitled “Leading From Within”, that I was exposed to in one of my last classes at college. I’m not completely with everything he says, but some of what Palmer refers to as the ’shadow’ within leaders does ring true with me. Particularly his notion of functional atheism.

He defines it as “the unexamined conviction within us that if anything decent is going to happen here, I am the one who needs to make it happen.” We all know how it goes - there’s something needs done, and you know that you need to do it. The club, or the event, or the mailing, or the committee, or the publicity, or the service, or the… is completely and utterly reliant on you. And you must knock your pan in to make it happen and happen right.

And even those of us who expend great energy and breath expressing how God is bigger, and God is more, God is mighty and powerful and faithful, etc, tend to all-too-easily slip into the mindset of “we must make this happen.”

What does that say about our belief in God’s big-ness/more-ness/mighty-ness/powerful-ness/faithful-ness?

Yeah, you see where I’m going.

There is no timestamp. That’s how tired I am.

I’m tired. I can’t sleep. Check the timestamp :-p

Been using some of my undesiredly available time to mock up a design for the church website, which has been lying unattended for months while Adrian and I both have other things pressing down upon us. I quite like this design. Okay, so it’s fairly derivative of a particular kind of corporate site that was popular a while back, but I like it. It’s clean. It has a certain class. And it’s not blue. Seems like every site I’ve designed in ages has been primarily blue (this one, for instance?). Go me.

And it’s been dawning on me lately, that none of the sites I go back to again and again are particularly pretty. There are some spectacularly beautiful websites out there, ones that just make my jaw hit the floor. And there are some spectacularly usable websites out there. But I can’t think of any that fall into both categories. Certainly there are usable, functional sites that look good, and good-looking sites that are usable and useful. And it’s possible for a spectacularly usable site to look rather nice.

But I suspect that it’s the nature of the web - built around the transmission of information rather than the display of beauty - that in order to do really jaw-dropping aesthetic stuff we have to sacrifice some aspect of usability, be it accessibility or compatibility or whatever. So I think I’m quite happy that my new design for the St. Cath’s site may not win any beauty contests, but should work.

And if we don’t use it for the church, I’m sure I’ll employ it elsewhere at some point - with some development to overcome its inherent 1 a.m.-ishness, of course.

Another sleepless project is a Flash Blogger button. I wonder will the guys at Blogger mind me using a non-standard button? Dunno. Maybe best to ask them. Not much point until I actually design the thing, though. And while I’ve been designing it in my head, the phrase, “Join the revolution.” keeps popping up. I think it fits in quite nicely with the whole (supposed) blog-culture. “…but you won’t fool the children of the revolution.”

Something I’ve been meaning to share, that is encouraging me to finally do that Linux install, and fool around a bit and actually learn something about it. Actually, I could do that now if I don’t sleep. But then, the partitioning would probably go wrong on account of some insomniac error on my part, and I’d be in for my second reinstall in ten days. And I’d lose everything I’ve produced in those ten days - and they’ve been an impressively productive ten days, so that would suck. Big-style. Perhaps tomorrow, instead.

Actualy, that’s something I could do to fill my sleepless hours: go backup! I’ve been getting very, very paranoid about data-loss lately. I think it was that hard-drive meltdown last week. It’s a lesson you only ever learn the hard way, but once you learn it, you’re unlikely to forget it. Learn from my mistakes, grasshopper, learn from my mistakes…

It’s 11:06pm. Do you want to hear something very frightening? According to the connection timer on my computer, I’ve been sitting at this keyboard for [checks timer] 8 hours and 16 minutes.

You see what happens when my wife goes away?

Now, in fairness, I’ve had a pretty productive time of it. I started off doing some money sums for Holiday Club, then I was doing mega-research for this Scout badge-thing. And I spent hours on that. Then a trio of friends (including Georgina who I haven’t talked to in very nearly three years) trotted past me on MSN, which brings us up to about forty-five minutes ago. Some last reading over stuff and catching up on one or two forums, and we’re here.

My eyes are square, and my behind is numb (no cushions). I think it’s time to turn this infernal machine off and go for a walk. I know that sounds unlikely to those that know me, but desperate times and all that.

Yup, it’s been a whole month since anything happened around here, but what a month. As I hope you have noticed, the site has undergone a complete redesign. I like to think it looks much better :-) Gone is the manky grey and unpleasant green, replaced by this nice clean, fresh white-and-blue. Also, the sections are a bit different.

I’ve felt the need to put some info online about my free web-hosting venture. In case you’re interested, this is a non-profit-making idea to provide free high-quality hosting to churches and charities and the like. I’m also trying to push my web-design ‘talents’ - I know they’re not much, but if anyone likes what I do, then I’m available to do sites. What can I say? I enjoy it, and I need projects.

Also, while the plans for this site are the same, sections have disappeared - you know, resources and writings and things like that. This is because they were empty! I hope to have some of that kind of thing up, but there’s no point having a site that consists mainly of holding pages, so we’ll see…

But enough of the website. What have I been up to?

HOLIDAY. My wife and I took a little time away, first in the middle of nowhere relaxing, then having the ususal well-hectic time at home visiting family. Was nice. In between times, my better half has graduated from her medical course with - get this - distinction and honours. (they’re two separate things, apparently. Impressed? I am.) So, I’m now married to an actual, real-life doctor. Wahey. Also, I’ve graduated (in absentia - couldn’t let it disrupt the hols) from ICC, so I now have my BA in Youthwork with Applied Theology (oooh!), which also means that as of last Monday I’m working full-time at the church. Shame it’s the summertime - the summer is slooow.

In between relaxation, I’ve been fighting with a new PC, built largely from second-hand parts. So far I have spent about £160 (not including the display) and counting. Check it out:

• Athlon XP 2000+
• 512MB DDR RAM
• 120GB HDD
• DVD-ROM
• 52x 16x 52x CD-R/RW
• GeForce 2MX
• and a tasty 17″ TFT display - you know you want one.

Okay, so it’s not a world-beater, but can you argue for the money?

I say ‘fighting’ becasue I’ve had a little trouble convincing it to boot reliably. After trying many things, I’ve invested in a bigger power-supply. The guy in the shop gave me a week in which to return it if it didn’t solve the problem. That was four days ago, and the machine has been running like a dream since. However, I will lay good money that come Saturday morning, it starts screwing around again! In the meantime, big thanks to Stephen, my Dad, Alan, Angie’s dad and Colin for donating gear and helping me get it going, and to Angie for putting up with Stephen’s tinkering with it, and to Rebecca for putting up with my continued tinkering.

But now my tea (black, no sugar) is drained and it’s time to get back to work. Did you know the Scouts have a ‘My Faith’ badge? They do. I’m trying to come up with something to do with it. Wish me luck…