Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Parabolic Action #1

"Do you like butter? " He picked the yellow flower, holding it up to her face.
"You know I do," she giggled, brushing it away, "Anyway - it's not even a buttercup."
"Doesn't matter - principle's the same. Come here a minute."
He tucked her hair behind her ear, weaving the flower through her hair. An awkward smile flitted across her lips - it was sweet of him - but the flower was nothing more than a common weed. Did he not realise it was just a weed? However, as she didn't want to seem ungracious or hurt his feelings she accepted the gesture.
"Hmm," he mused. "When I picked that I thought it looked a bit ordinary, but now it's in your hair, it looks really pretty. A flower for my flower."
In that instant, she saw differently. The ordinary transformed by grace into a treasure.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Ponderings #2: Weigty issues

I think I may need to loose weight. People keep asking me if I am pregnant. And then telling me i should be.

For the record - I'm not.

Swallows and Amazons...or Venzuelans.

Had a lovely bank holiday suprise yesterday, ended up hosting Alvaro, Alehandro, George, Marienade and Myju for the afternoon. We had them out in the canoe - none of them had ever been in a boat before (alvaro had been on a ferry. Once), so it was fun watching them getting the hang of it. Or not! After, berry picking, ice cream making and BBQ. It was the first time we had met George, Alvaro's cousin, and it seems a Venezuelan teenager is not that different to a British one. He wasn't fussed by Windsor Castle, but his whole face lit up when he discovered we owned a playstation!

In addition, I made a new ugandan friend over the weekend(Richard, over with an organisition called Viva, who have helped him work his way out of poverty, by skilling him with computor skills) and a few weeks ago made friends with some romainians, (George and Maria - who I will have to blog about - very fun people!) and also become very good friends with the new minister at the Baptist Church, who is German.

So... the world will be mine. Oh yes - it will be mine. :-)' Cue evil laugh.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Know your Porpoise!

One of my Churches (how greedy does that sound!) is having a big push to follow 'purpose driven life,' from the end of September, including youth and Children, so I am dutifully getting to grips with it.

The premise is good - getting people to think about worship, fellowship, discipleship, mission - I'm just not convinced by the delivery so far. Or the theology. Or the exegisis. So far, I'm afraid it's getting a 3 /10. But then, I'm only on day three, so maybe things will get better.

The main problem I'm having at the moment is that every other word seems to be 'purpose,' and my eyes are tired, and I keep reading such gems as,

"knowing your porpoise gives meaning to your life!"
"knowing your porpoise simplifiesyour life!"
"knowing your porpoise focuses your life!"
"knowing your porpoise motivates your life!"
"knowing your porpoise prepares you for eternity!"

Motivationaly inspirational as it all sounds, i can't but wonder if substituting the word "Christ" for 'your purpose/porpoise' might not be more useful.

We'll see.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Ponderings #1: Fridge magnets

We spent a few days of our holiday in Tintagel, visting out best man, Kris. Now, Kris is the kind of bloke who is drawn to dark places that sell pints of beer, and in fact seems rarely to be without a pint of the foaming hop juice in his hand when he's relaxing. This lead to the following exchange:

Colin: I'm glad to see nothing changes - you're still a beer magnet as ever.

(beer magnet - one who draws towards himself/magnetises/attracts beer)

Kris: Yeah, I'd rather be a babe magnet, but hey.

(babe magnet - one who draws towards himself/magnetises/attracts the laydees).

Now this is where my train of thought derailed slightly. If in common parlance, this patteren were logically followed, it would mean that 'fridge magnets,' were things that attracted/ drew/ magnetised actuall fridges.

Which lead to some mental images which kept me amused for ooh, a good ten minutes!


Sunday, August 14, 2005

Permission to land!

Well,

I'm back - for 5 days before departing for soul Survivor.

I have so much to do, it is untrue, but I will endevour to do little blogs, otherwise I'll forget all about it, and not blog for months.

I've got a series of old fasioned blogs (written on that stuff, whatsitcalled... ah yes, PAPER) from the holiday, so I might stick some of them up. Mixed bunch. Be warned!