Stoopid mistakes not to make #12

This requires some food, preferably with a thick sauce, that has been stored in the fridge, plus a microwave. Heat the food thoroughly to make sure it's heated through. Stir it round to mix. Pop a small sample in your mouth.

Now the mistake.

You wait for the food to cool sufficiently instead of spitting it back out. And keep waiting moving it around so nothing gets burnt. Until you realise it won't cool down. And your tongue now hurts. A lot. A LOT! SPIT.

End of mistake.

Saturday lunchtime is a little spoilt by eating with a sore tongue, ditto dinner.

Sunday morning comes. On waking, your mouth tastes like it's been on a route march through somewhere muddy and then a desert for a week without a wash. You go to the bathroom to try to clear the debris.

Your spit is pink.

Spit again. It's red this time.

Your mouth fills with that slightly salty, slightly ferrous familiar taste that says "I'm bleeding inside". Out comes the tongue, now with a couple of fissures on the top surface from which threads of red are oozing slowly. Put the tongue away, try not to move it much, hope it will clot before you need to spit again. Fail.

Shave.

Wait.

Fail.

Clean shaver head.

Wait.

Eventually you peer again. No more threads of red. Tongue remains unenthusiastic about hot food for remainder of day.
_____________________________________________________________

I have always been VERY careful with microwaved food, and this is the first (and last) time it's happened to me. There's a warning in there, somewhere.

The very latest release from Hill$ongs

I *think* this is my first ever embedded movie. Probably my last. I have a good friend who often seems to play DVDs of worship sessions that have made me feel quite uncomfy. Now I know why.

BTW this IS meant to be funny, and I don't think is taking a pop specifically at Hillsongs, so much as the church ghetto culture in general. Movie courtesy of Fernando.

Well I'm disappointed to say this.

After my earlier post suggesting my mum was coming home things went downhill rather. She had a few bad days again, and is still very weak. She's now lost 20kg, and although there has been some progress made, she's not at all good. Emotionally she's just had enough fiddling around, and although she's been putting a brave face on things, inside she's really unhappy.

She is, however, not someone who just gives up.

So on we go. Next step if cyclosporin treatment, and when that doesn't work surgery to resect the ulcerated piece of colon. It still feels right that she should live a while longer yet (and I'd be happy to let her go if the time was now) so we keep encouraging her, keep praying and keep trusting. Sometimes I wonder if there's a measure of suffering for each of us, and we need to fill it up before we can die peacefully - but that's just idle, foolish thinking.

Thankyou to Sue and Ian, Jackie and Linder and Naomi who've visited her in hospital. She really appreciated you coming in.

Guilty as charged

Thanks to Steve Lowe.

So a re-request

Please pray for Randall and Lauralea - and for the surgeon that will remove the growth on Laura's thyroid.

This has grown much too fast to be good. Please ask that the operation goes perfectly, that they get every bit, that it hasn't spread anywhere else, and that Laura's voice isn't affected. Please pray for them all as a family through this scary scary time. This bothers me a very great deal.

Operation Thursday, early Sask time. Thank you.

What value, change?

I've been wondering about re-doing the appearance of TBOTAM: after all, it's been a stable environment for nearly 5 years. Personally I don't like blogs to flick between appearances, as it makes them seem flimsy and unstable, disposal and fickle. But after this long I guess I could gently revamp things.

Anyone care? Shall I tweak or would you prefer a bit of stability in an ocean of uncertainty?

Update

Chris wrote:

Hi All,
Just to let you know that Mum is slowly getting better, although she is still very weak. She has been sleeping better, which is great news, & is generally feeling more comfortable. The tests showed that the colitis has not come back, the diarrhea was just a result of all the medication.
They are now saying she can come home Thursday which is good news although we are a bit concerned in case she is not up to it. She feels very vulnerable at the thought of being outside the protective environment of hospital, although it will be lovely to be back in the peace & quiet of her own home. She will be having someone come in 4 times a day to administer the antibiotics, so that will act as a safety net should anything go wrong, & she does have an alarm system in her flat.

So, good news. Thank you for praying, I am convinced it has made a difference, but please continue to pray.
Thank you. love,
Chris

Lenten fast?

I'm not sure how this will come out - I'm thinking as I type, but moreso than usual, and using it to formulate some thoughts.

I've read this evening the post about Lent on Paul's blog and another post some time back on Marc's. Some of the guys we love and care for in our housegroup are fasting off certain things for lent, and I've been VERY careful not to be in the least discouraging (AFAIK none of them read TBOTAM regularly).

In my comment on Paul's blog I explained that all seasons are alike to me. But he also raised the question:

Afterall he didn't pull any punches when he said:

"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it."

What does intentionally practicing losing our lives look like?

This is in no way blowing my own trumpet, but I've just spent a substantial portion of this evening preparing for housegroup tomorrow night. I expect to spend time praying for the guys in our care, maybe fasting for them too. This has become more pointed for me because I know God has been speaking about getting the net habit under control, and with His grace, it's happening. I'm shutting down the computer and going to bed with Chris instead of staying up. I'm watching the sites I view more carefully (and literally ran away from one a few nights ago) and we're not even talking p0rn here. This affects the money we spend, the clothes we wear, cars we drive and the food we eat.

What's my point.

A bit like the adverts about dogs, self sacrifice isn't for lent, but for life. It's a way of life we're called to, as Paul M pointed out. I don't know if the idea of giving stuff up for lent is helpful or harmful. Does it make us feel like we've pushed the boat out for a month, topped up our 'holy points' and given us credit in heavens bank?

Or does it provide a basis to extend ourselves? Is it a potential place to initiate something that produces fruit in our lives instead of a transient longing, denied, then all the sweeter in renewed indulgence?

I'm not poking at anyone, nor especially asking questions that need answers. But if you've given up or begun something for lent, maybe you should ask yourself why, and will it bear lasting fruit or just be a passing phase? Will you now feel guilt-bound to repeat the Jesus creed for the rest of your natural or will it have been a good idea for just a few weeks before normality reasserted itself. Or is there a different path you're walking entirely?

Sorry to have left it so long for an update.

It's been a real roller coaster ride for my mum these last few days.

Thursday night, as I reported here, she seemed so much better, but Friday was less good.

Saturday morning we have a prayer meeting in Bicester at 7.30, and the guys all prayed for her, with a strong sense that it really wasn't time for her to die yet. I went straight on from there to the hospital, full of faith, only to find her in a really bad way. The infection was still going, the colitis had returned and she was also odematous and feeling swollen with pains around her heart and serious difficulty breathing. So we prayed together a little, and eventually I left still feeling that she should recover - honestly, on the face of it she looked like she was ready to die.

Saturday afternoon she was much better and even cheerful, ditto Saturday night. Last night we went over after church (we meet in the afternoon, 4 to about 6ish). She was pretty much normal sounding, and although there's still a fair bit of fluid and some nasty bruising from failed canulation attempts.

I don't think it's presumption to say she's turned a corner. She is still receiving massive doses of antibiotics to deal with the hospital acquired infection, but hopefully she'll be better soon than when she went in. Yes, I'm grateful.

Thank you everyone that's been praying.

Getting better

My mum is very weak now, but seems to be herself again. Thank God, literally.

*edit 9th Feb.*
Or not quite so great today. Fluid retention, infection, lack of sleep and generally feeling less than great are all taking their toll.

A settled night.

Not me, but my mother.

Apparently she was getting ready for breakfast this morning when I rang the ward.

I wasn't at all sure I'd still HAVE a mother this morning.

I'm at the half-way point between gratitude she's still here and being uptight with twanging nerves. If she recovers then I'm asking for at least another 2 years of good health for her - better than it's been any time in the last 6 months. There is very little worse than sliding deeper and deeper into the mess, pain and indignity of severe old age.

Thank you everyone that's prayed for her.

This has certainly made me re-think about taking medication when I get older and fragile.

And if there's yet MORE spare prayer

Please cover Lauralea and Randall today. Laura's having a thyroid op, and that has implications for her ability to speak in the future: the area that is being worked on is apparently close to the nerves controlling her voice.

BTW If you also have a little more prayer spare?

Please pray for my mother too.

She's still in hospital, now with added infection badness.



*edit*

Things don't look too great right now, but we'll have to wait and see.

A little snippet from todays Times newspaper.

"I was at BBC two when the f-word was first broadcast" says sir David Attenborough to Saga magazine. "The uproar was extraordinary. Now you hear it everywhere. People think they are striking a blow for intellectual freedom, but on the contrary they are robbing words of their effect and value". How we have fallen.

I have long been unhappy about relatively eminent Christians (and some mostly unknown ones) swearing about things and then saying how unhappy they were about other Christians being more upset about them swearing than the injustice or deprivation they were swearing about. This passage seemed to fit almost perfectly.

I know few of you will know her

But if you've a little time, could you pray for Myra?

She's in critical care right now with lung cancer, and she doesn't (or at least didn't) know Jesus. Neither situation is to be envied, and together they don't make for a great future.

Thank you.

We've just got back from welcoming the troops home.

Bicester town has an associated regiment, and the town council wanted to put on a 'welcome home' weekend for the guys back from Afghanistan, Boznia & Herzegovina and Iraq. Part of that was a special church service in the local Anglican church.

I tell you, English religion is as weird as anything the middle and far east ever thought up. It is also at times like this that Anglicanism is transparently a religon designed to primarily support the state - Henry would have been proud.

Interesting watching the behaviour of the officers in front of us this morning. Some of the guys just sang along. There was one chap who stood VERY stiffly to attention at the appropriate times, absolutely did not sing any hymns but launched whole-heartedly into the national anthem. The rest of the men appeared to just go into autopilot, lips moving at the appropriate moments, sitting or standing as required. If I didn't know God could break in through this kind of thing I'd be a lot more disturbed by it.

As for the guys from the army, it's right to welcome them back. I just find doing it like this quite strange. I wonder if going to church in this way makes a difference to how they feel and act in their theatres?

A little something new

for your *hopefully* listening pleasure another Harmony Central backing track covered.

Enough clams to make a decent chowder, I hear more each time I listen through.

So only listen once, please. :-)

My mother is back in hospital.

Increasing trouble from her digestive system has more-or-less taken away her ability/opportunity to sleep. She's in for investigation and exploration for about a week. Any spare prayer would be gratefully received.

Thanks

I appear to be a somewhat maturialist crunchy conservative

It isn't a *good* description, but it does fit a bit.

I listened to radio 4 this morning

Before the Archers started.

There was a female part-time judge on amongst others, talking about the case in Crete where a husband picked up his children and walked off his 6th floor balcony while holding them. They were there on holiday to try to re-build the relationship, but the wife had just told him she was leaving and things were finished. He has been found Not Guilty of murdering his son, who died in the fall (both he and the daughter survived). The judges comment disturbed me - her conclusion was that of all the evidence brought up in court, it was emails showing that the wife had been fooling around 5 years previously that made a difference.

She suggested that in a case like that, blaming the woman was always good for sympathy, and an effective tack in an otherwise hopeless defence case.

While what she says may be true generally, it concerns me that someone in such a position can make so shallow a judgement in this case, based on such a small shred of evidence (the quote ABOUT the email) from such an unreliable source (the News Of The World). I hope she's never sitting if I ever go to court.

BTW If you've a free minute

Pray for Candace and Robyn, off with a youth group this W/E.

It worries me

It worries me a little to be discussing things with those I know to be more intelligent/better educated than me.

It worries me when those things are of life-changing importance.

It worries me most when I *know* inside that some of those with greater intelligence and training are *wrong* about key things, but I can't say exactly why or how.



Does anyone else out there wonder how it is that HUGE numbers of people are apparently lead by the nose down dark alleys and into bad places, probably in all sincerity.

Can I change the world?

To answer Georgia - another blog post.

A problem for me is that there are several levels to relationships I have with people, and I want higher level relationships with more people.

The highest level is where love is reciprocated and there is a unity of wishes and purpose, both conscious and unconscious. Obviously there is a spectrum to this, with Chris at the top end, but also the majority of people I know through Bicester Community Church as well as a substantial bunch of guys outside that body. We willingly line ourselves up, and where there are significant issues, we'll work them through.

Next down are those with whom there is a friendship/love relationship but not necessarily a common purpose and understanding, although no specific disagreement either. I can relax and enjoy such company, make and receive comments where we don't line up, but not feel a need to watch my back or carefully monitor what I say.

Then there are those that do seem to be part of the family of God, yet with whom there is a feeling that says "there's something not right: watch yourself and what you say or agree with". I cannot relax and I frequently feel I cannot align myself with these people. It is as though my acceptance of a close relationship automatically means I must embrace their values and aims too. In this group are those Christians with a liberal theology, and to a lesser degree those of other faiths (I suspect the 2 are connected - maybe I'll follow that up sometime). Also in this category are the 'hard right' conservatives of a flavour that says ONLY my theology is right - how d'you measure up, boy? I tend to struggle less with them because often their basic beliefs are reasonably sound but their hearts seem to have missed it, whereas with the liberals often their hearts are right but their theology is stuffed, and I care more about the heart.

There is a 4th group - those who are not part of God's kingdom. Relationships here are altogether different. I can care deeply for these people as equals, yet there is not the same sense of family, of belonging to each other, of being joined.


I should mention BTW that I NEVER consciously band relationships like this, but it is easier to break things down instead of trying to describe a spectrum.

Some of this thinking comes out of my life on the WWW and conversations I've had through blogging. Some of it comes from reading. Some from plain wondering why I feel the way I do about certain people, yet differently about others. I have mild suspicions about the theology behind this thinking, but as it's a development and not cast in stone I'll just run with it for now. My wish - is that those in group 2 could move up to group 1, group 3 to group 2, and especially group 4 to group 1 (from experience, that is an easier move than 3 to 2).

And some of this comes out of what I see as a worrying trend - the Christian faith as worked out in some parts of the world to abandon a sound faith and strike out on its own. I see liberal theology as being the next real crisis point for the church. Not that we want to go round burning the heretics, but we also want to see that it doesn't deviate so far away from sound teaching that those who might otherwise be saved instead are denied saving faith in Jesus. That would be real heresy, and that IS scary.

Posting is kinda thin recently.

Actually, having typed that I realise it's been thin for quite a while.

One issue is that my sleep patterns have been shot to ribbons over the last 5 or 6 weeks, and it's been making me muddle headed and tired during the day. Plus I used to post a lot from work (when I thought best) but I MUST back away from the net in work time: which I'm mostly successful at, hence the lower post number.

Anyway, we're heading off to Oxford. It'sa leadership training day again, and we're serving in the kitchen this morning. If you want to lead, you need to learn to serve.

Do you ever wish?

That you could know and be in agreement with many of the other people in the blogosphere?

I was just reading Linea's blog, and found a post by Jamie Arpin-Ricci wishing her well and telling her that he was praying about her heart issues.

There seem to be a whole bunch of people out there that I'd love to be able to agree with over (sometimes fundamental) theological issues and be at peace with instead of reading their stuff with analysis and care. Jamie wrote an article about his struggle with homosexuality, and it made my heart go out to him. At the same time I struggle with the emergent movement with it's overtly liberal and post modern approach to theology and praxis.

But there's a whole bunch of people I'd *like* to be at peace with, yet don't feel totally comfy about. I wish it were not so.

Computer's back online again

No idea WHY it wouldn't recognise the SATA drive, but by the grace of God, it does now.

Ebuyer.com had some cheap fast memory in, so I bought a second 2Gb - now running 4Gb of CL4 667MHz RAM, but this stuff is rather nice, and runs happily overclocked to 800GHz to 2.0v. The update was originally intended to let me use 'Tiger one' which is MSI's overclocking software. But that started hanging when I tried to use it, so it's uninstalled and any overclocking will be done the conventional way, through the BIOS.

Live and learn.

Today Ben is Twenteen.

Well, that's the word HE used for it.

Our child has outgrown his teenage years. Is that a pension book I see on the horizon? Nope, it's a commission.

My good friend

Martin Stead has a thread that really could use some more comments. Volunteers welcome.

Afraid of disappointment?

One of the stand-out issues for me reading 'Christian' or theological books has been that I can never relax and just accept or receive the teaching that comes through the book. It probably stems from on-line experience over the last 5 years, but I find myself reading with a suspicious and critical eye, especially when the book makes some reference to emergent theology. Brian McClaren's A Generous Orthodoxy was a prime example, where I just got sick of sorting wheat from chaff after a couple of chapters and could face any more. It's still sat here by the PC, untouched for more than a year.

There's also a HUGE swathe of books available with dreadful titles by authors I've never heard of (or worse, some I have). What on Earth do you buy if you want to educate yourself?

I have a strong interest in 'Church': how it works and why it should. It was natural therefore at the conference last weekend that I should spot a book that produced both hope a dread in me. Hope, because I'm interested in making the Church (and especially our church) better, and dread because it was by an unknown - to me - author (Ray Anderson) and had the title An Emergent Theology For Emerging Churches.

First skim made it look good, so I bought it (you knew that already) plus another book by Derek Prince, also about the church, that I considered would at least provide a counter-balance to this work.

I read the foreword and my heart fell - it was full of slightly icky mutual admiration by Brian McClaren. But I wasn't going to bin £9 worth of book just for that, so I pressed on. I have so far covered the introduction ONLY. This is not light hearted read, although someone like Fern might skim through. I have no formal theological training, and in addition, my eyes and head are out of practice reading anything of substance. So it's taken 2 mealtimes (we usually all read at table) to get to the start of the book proper. Thus far he's reminded me why I was emergent (and now consider myself post-emergent, although I'm still emergent in his terms) and in his comparison between the churches at Jerusalem and Antioch sounds like he's going the same direction I am.

And so I'm here at the start of the book.

There's a slight reluctance to get stuck in, as the start has actually been pretty good. My biggest fear is that he's going to turn into a liberal and the whole thing will go sliding down the pan. One of my strongest objections to the on-line EC community has been a liberal theology that seems to have been *almost* universally embraced. I am hoping that he will be sound and the theology described in this work will be careful, considered and reflect a biblical theology interpreted form the context of our present society, rather than the whims of society imprinted upon the theology as it feels is so often the case. I keep hoping that someone will uncover some deep spiritual truth somewhere with clear biblical backing, but all it ever turns into is wishful thinking and self-deception.

There's another issue too: Anderson is in California, and American Christianity seems to have little resonance with the rest of the world.

But I will press on. If anything exciting drops out then I'll blog it. Should you hear nothing then either the book is pap or I'm just too busy.

Sleep seems to have been a precious commodity.

Thursday night was brief, at around 1.5 hours.

Last night through to this morning we had a 'half night' of prayer (the church always starts the year like this) getting home at 12.40am.

But sleep was full and sweet through to 8ish this morning.

Nice.