marramgrass

Well, this is the end of NaBloPoMo. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it, but it has been helped by the fact that the house move hasn’t happened yet - although that hopefully will be this weekend.

Now the question remains… is 30 days enough time to form a habit?

Sitting here finishing some work, and Serenity’s on the TV.

It really is a very good film.

That is all, except to say that more of the Firefly ‘verse would be nice. I can dream.

Speaking of Radios Ulster and Scotland, I got into the car a short while ago and turned the radio on (BBC Radio Ulster).

“Hmm,” thinks me, “I think I know that voice.”

Indeed I did. The two stations are in the midst of a ‘Scotland Week’ and ‘Ulster Week’ respectively, sharing programming and making little nods here and there to the other place (’others place’, ‘other places’… I’m on the edge of my grammatical ability, here).

The voice was that of Emily Smith, a singer you really should check out if you ever get the chance.

It’s always nice to hear someone you know (however remotely) on the radio.

10 things…, number 2 could fall under this one, I guess.

A few days ago I finally got a phone line and broadband internet access in my office at work. (Whee! I have an office!) Slight point of contention is that while I have broadband, the main church office and the manse both get by on dial-up for now. One of my current projects (albeit a very-much background one) is to figure out the best (ie, cheapest) way to distribute the connection to the other two sites.

Anyway, this is good for all sorts of reasons, not least that it makes doing actual work from my office a viable proposition. But also (and here’s where 10.2 comes into it) it means I have access to internet radio when I’m there. Which means BBC Radio Scotland is back in my ears.

I like the BBC. I love the BBC, actually. Fairly obvious biases aside, as public broadcasting goes it’s a stormer, especially the various radio services. (Well, with the possible exception of Radio 1 and their three-song playlist. And Chris Moyles. Oh my goodness, there’s a man who should not be on the radio, not to mention most of the rest of them. I miss John Peel.)

And Radio Ulster isn’t half-bad. There’s the morning talk shock jock who would be better if he had even some subtlety, but he’s still quite entertaining. Lunchtime debate. Some decent music shows.

But it just isn’t a patch on Radio Scotland, with it’s much higher standard of much more interesting programming. I miss having it on in the car. When we were in Scotland, especially on the drive north and east from Stranraer, the weather would occasionally allow us to catch a little bit of Radio Ulster, but unfortunately the opposite is never true. The only way for me to catch Radio Scotland over here is the internet, and that doesn’t work in the car.

But at least now I can get it sometimes. I can recommend having a listen in: BBC Radio Scotland.

For a few more photographs worth looking at, take a look at Nachkebia’s Blog.

One of the great things about the internet is all the talented people out there whose work I’d probably never come across otherwise.

Enjoy that one.

I’d really love to stay up some more to watch the cricket, but unlike the friend who actually took some time off work to sleep during the day I’m having another one of those hectic weekends. Yes, I know, what other sort of weekend do I ever have?

(Next weekend will be worse: another fundraiser on Friday night, hopefully moving house on the Saturday, and then an even-busier-than-usual Sunday.)

Today was some team leader training with Habitat for Humanity - all the deeply unexciting but deeply necessary logistical and organisational stuff. Wasn’t too bad, actually, but it was good when it was over.

For now, bed calls.

Because I have no sense, I sat up until 5 o’clock this morning watching the cricket. It was an entertaining couple of sessions, but not what you’d call the most heartening or most pleasing.

But now I’m dealing with the fallout: it’s two in the afternoon, and my head feels like it’s sometime in the wee small hours. You know when you have that groggy feeling that just won’t go away and it feels like you’re seeing and hearing the world from just a little bit farther away than usual?

That’s me right now.

At least I don’t need to go out to work until tea-time.

Let’s call it 10 things…, number 9.

As I’m settling into my still new-ish job (I haven’t passed the three-month mark yet, after all), one of the things I’m enjoying is getting to visit the parents of as many young people as I can cram into my time. [In the past I've learned that youth ministry is as much to do with spending time with the the parents as their young people.]

Tonight I was visiting a family, and I was struck by the diversity in attitudes and values that makes up even what is on the surface a fairly normal Presbyterian church. Everybody expresses their faith, religion, upbringing, tradition, experience, background, whatever in a slightly different way. There are the people for whom the church as it looks now is just as it should be and fits them nicely. There are the people who are just a bit dissatisfied with it all because they’re asking certain questions and not getting the help they want to find the answers.

Actually, that last sentence doesn’t quite sound like what I mean. An example: I spoke with a lady tonight who has an interest and concern in peacemaking and reconciliation, however that’s expressed, be it in cross-community work or otherwise. Yet her perception is that in and around the church the prevailing attitude is one of, “What’s that got to do with us? Everything’s fine here.” Maybe she’s right, maybe not. I’m not sure. Certainly looking at the surface of the community, that’s what you’d expect - but it’s not universal by any means.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that we each take this thing (this thing that we probably each think about in different terms, anyway: faith, religion, ‘church’, Christianity, even Presbyterianism) and in our heads we imagine it looking a little bit different to the next person. Then we come together, and a bunch of us are close enough to do the same thing each Sunday morning, but never quite close enough that all (any?) of us are totally happy with it. Then when somebody else comes along, we have real trouble understanding them or relating to them unless they’re willing to sign up to at least our ‘close enough,’ if not exactly what’s in our head. How can we blame them for turning around and walking away again?

In our desire to do things right - and in there somewhere I still need to think that it is through a positive desire to follow God - we draw lines and then look at people according to what side of the line we (we, not they) place them on. And logically I think there must be a truth and a meaning to some line somewhere if anything is to mean anything, but I increasingly wonder how reliable the lines we draw are?

I think fewer of them matter than we tend to think, and if that’s the case… well then, do we need to tread a little more carefully, speak a little more softly, and perhaps listen a little more closely?

… the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Cool if you’re a guitarist, but maybe not if you’re not.

I’ve just had a very interesting conversation with my mother, that essentially came down to us thinking and chatting about what motivates us to do the things we do (specifically, I take photos and do a couple of other things, she makes greetings cards - and very nice ones, too).

Some things I do simply for the pleasure of doing them, like reading a book or watching a film. With others, specific purpose helps a great deal in terms of motivation and focus: I tend to go out photographing with the idea to visit a particular place and/or take a particular kind of picture, and afterwards the ‘carrot’ of seeing the images pushes me through the less enjoyable slog of tempering solutions and hunching over the bath inverting a developing tank.

But what else keeps me doing all the other things I do? What motivates me throughout the days of life? The Sunday School answer is of course that I’m trying to become more like Jesus - which is accurate and true, but even though I spend and have spent much time communicating with others about my faith and its driving force in my life, that still remains a distant goal that is expressed to varying degrees, well and poorly, through all the other things I worry about and get on with.

I want to be good for my wife and for my family. I want to be responsible with all that I have - personally and in common with those around me. I desire a certain amount of material comfort, but more than that I want to decide rightly at those points where that desire collides with the faith, good, and responsibility already mentioned. I want to use what I have, material and otherwise, to best and most Godly effect.

And all but one of those motivations is depressingly easy to neglect, ignore, forget about. But those are what I want to be able to say I chase after.

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.