Read the bible in a year

I've been a Christian 15 years and there are parts of the bible that I just haven't read. Also, this year I've been a real slacker when it comes to studying the bible, going on an 'ad-hoc, as the mood takes me' vibe rather than anything more disciplined or serious. But I hadn't planned to make any drastic changes to this becuase I had felt I didn't have the energy to generate the momentum I needed to take me forward.

Then I read TallSkinnyKiwi talking about the One Year Bible Blog and the idea of commiting to this electronic form of prompting inspired me. So I've hooked it up to my RSS feeder so I've no excuse - it'll remain unread in BOLD until I read it! There's also a weekly email that links to online commentaries on the books or passages for the coming week, plus a general sense of encouragement to keep going along with the others who've committed to the journey as well.

So I'm praying for sticking power and a level of commitment to God's word that I guess I've never experienced before - please pray that for me, with me!

my kind of church

...an artistic, politically subversive, activist community of mystical faith.

according to Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch:
"During [the past 10 years or so] the advent of postmodernism has raised within the West many expectations for an experiential, activist form of religious, mystical experience. The Christian church has not met these expectations... the contemporary traditional church is increasingly seen as the least likely option for those seeking an artistic, politically subversive, activist community of mystical faith" (P6, 'The Shaping of Things to Come')

I've got a strong feeling this book is going to turn out to be a monumental experience in my searching out what church should be - I'm only on page 6 and already my head is buzzing with great quotes that so clearly encapsulate what's been on my heart and in my anger and pain about the state of the church, and all it could and should be.

Andrew Jones (aka TallSkinnyKiwi) recommends that this book and 'Transforming Mission' by David Bosch "work well together and form a good basis for the missiology of the emerging-missional church." Paul says that the Bosch book is not complex but you have to think your way through it - its not just taking information. I plan to read it when I've finished this one in order that my head will have been stretched and given a bit of a workout beforehand!

shopping

Well today we hit the high street! It wasn't as busy as we'd expected, probably due to the inch and a half of snow laying on the ground, and it was good fun to buy some maternity clothes HALF PRICE!!

We went to one of my favourite shops in Norwich, Evolution - it has an ethical policy and is run by a Buddhist charity called the Windhorse Trust, "which raises money to give away". I think their staff are either volunteers or are paid according to their need.

Anyway it left me thinking, how could we as Christians (both on a local level and on a much bigger scale) respond to the needs of the poor around the world in inventive and empowering ways? The Buddhist trust doesn't give money to people as one-offs or charity, it works with communities and has relationships with them., and I really like that. I guess Traidcraft is a good example of a similar type of trading company.

So what could our personal response to this be? Maybe we can buy fairtrade goods wherever posiible in 2006 or work out ways we can give our time to projects that are based on relationships rather than charity.

Christmas for 11

Well, Christmas Day was a resounding success! We had 10 adults and Rhianna, and everyone had a great time: my parents and Paul's parents got on well, Ryan and Sarah seemed to relish their English Christmas and hit it off brilliantly with my parents, Paul's grandmothers both thoroughly enjoyed themselves and particulary liked watching the star of the show... What can I say, Rhianna was a dreamboat - entertaining everyone, getting people playing hide and seek with her, loadly exclaming delight at her presents - she even had a 2 hour nap so we could all relax for a bit!

Paul cooked a fantastic dinner in the early evening so his Dad could be there (he had to work until 3pm) but if I'm honest my favourite culinary experience of the day was the lunch he put together: fennel, pear and parmesan salad, roasted peppers, cheese board, fresh bread etc. which we all ate on our laps while we chatted - lovely!

I think Rhianna will take about 3 months to fully appreciate all the gifts she was given but she definitely has a taste for healing people, or rather teddy bears, with her doctors kit. She has a knack of finding your heartbeat in highly unusual places....

Cromer Beach

Today we went to Cromer Beach with my sister in law Sarah and her (american) husband Ryan who are over for Christmas - they live in Denver, Colorado and Sarah loves it but really misses the sea! Here are some photos of her getting her feet wet and Rhianna with her stripey hat! We had a good day and its been great spending time with Sarah and Ryan - Sarah is expecting their first baby in April so Rhianna's cousin will be just a few weeks older than her brother or sister - its got to the point where Rhianna thinks everyone has a baby in their tummy!!

Feeling for Mary

Rhianna loves the nativity story and we've been reading it or parts of it, at her insistence, every night before bedtime. She has a couple of bibles aimed at small children and we've been varying it (to keep us sane apart from anything else!!) and they have some great drawings in them and one particularly struck me the other night: it shows Mary on the donkey with an enormous bump - way more realistic, I've realised, than most of the pictures I've ever seen don't give any indication of her pregnancy. (btw on a side note, does anyone know why Mary is always depicted wearing blue? Rhianna said today "mummy, Mary always wears blue doesn't she?" and I realised she's right - anyone know why??)

When my friends were 8 and 3/4months pregnant recently we deliberately accomodated their need to stay close to home so went to visit them instead of meeting elsewhere, and it struck me as I was reading to Rhianna what dread Mary must have had at the thought of the journey. I've only ever been pony-trekking and never on a donkey, but it wasn't a comfortable experience and the way I feel (even now at not even half way through my pregnancy) if I'm sat in the car for long periods makes me think Mary must have been in agony on that journey - genuine "make you catch your breath" kind of pain.

My friends all wanted to be near familiar things and safe places, and Mary must have wanted the same things but had that choice wrenched away from her. If I was made to go away from home that far gone in my pregnancy I'd want to know where we were stopping every 4 hours to rest, where we would sleep, where the nearest hospital was, what facilities were available etc. etc. Now I know I'm a soft westerner, but I doubt that a woman with an entirely different worldview and cultural experience to me would feel any different in essence: she would want to know how she was going to keep her baby safe and not get herself into trouble in the process of labour.

When I brought Rhianna home from the hospital I was appalled at how dirty my house was - my precious baby lying on the dusty carpets! So when Mary held her baby in her arms she would have wanted to protect him from everything, so the thought of laying him in a horse's feeding tray among hay that may well have horses**t on it would have horrified her.

In the Mary monologue we used in the Ambient Wonder service, Mary says:

"what if it all goes wrong? He told me not to be afraid, but that’s easy for him to say. He’s a man – at least, I suppose he is – and I’m barely a woman. Having a baby isn’t easy, especially when it’s your first, and you don’t know anything about it. It’s going to hurt. What if I do the wrong thing? What if I mess the whole thing up? Then what’s God going to do? What am I going to do? He’s depending on me.... Really I should trust God. And I do, I do. But… I’m not sure I trust myself. I’m frightened. I may be going to hold God’s baby, but who’s going to hold me?"

So many things could have gone wrong in this story - she could have hemorrhaged on the journey, he could have had the cord wrapped round his neck so that when she pushed him out it caused loss of oxygen to the brain, he could have picked up an infection from the dirty straw, she could have got infected - and all she had to help was her first-time-dad husband, no womenfolk from the village.

It is just hitting me again and again how brave Mary was - she had little choice (you could say that was the story of her life!!) but yet she felt the fear and did it anyway. That really is trust.

I wonder as I write this, did she moan all the way? We have inherited this tradition of a saintly Mary who was (almost) perfect, as meek and mild as her son is supposed to have been. But I hope we can be empathetic enough to allow her her humanity and not expect her suffer the pain and fear that the journey would have brought her in stoical silence just so we can idolise her as a "good mother" (whatever that is).

Here's to the brave, oh so brave, woman of God who did the heroic thing of bringing God's son into the world in uncertainty, fear and pain!

Cotton is a Christian issue..

so says Keith in his post "murder by cotton" - go read because its rare to find someone with such a knowledgeable perspective (his blog is excellent generally anyway so put it into your RSS feeder.)

I'm a sucker for cheap clothes, I buy cheap and then when I'm bored with it I give it to a charity shop - I'd love to be the type of person who buys a nice quality jumper then cherish it for years, but the reality is I like changing my wardrobe regularly. However People Tree, Howies and Gossypium, to name a few, offer a real choice for buying great design in eco-friendly and fair-trade materials and production methods - they are not as cheap as Primark but no more expensive than Topshop, Warehouse etc. Now if only they did maternity wear...!

Christmas jokes

A couple of Christmas jokes to get you in the mood:

• Two snowmen standing in a field one says to the other, “Can you smell carrots?”

• With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of an individual which almost went unnoticed. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Cokey," died peacefully, aged 93 years old. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in… And then the trouble started.

(more serious reflections on advent and church and faith and life in general will resume when I have located my brain cells - currently missing presumed lost to the baby-making process...!)

things I never thought I'd say...

Rhianna was playing with her toy kitchen before bed the other night, and she had taken off her panties (we're trying some no-nappy times to see how we get on!!) put them in her toy saucepan, and put the whole lot in the oven with her oven gloves on saying it was "hot hot hot"! Bizarre enough but not anything particular to comment on in the surreal world that is a 2 year old's role-play!

Then bedtime came around and we had to start "tidy time" so I found myself saying "Rhianna, get your panties out of the oven please"! she began to whine and protest so my good parenting guides all tell me to be stern but fair and no compromising! I said in my best, stern but fair voice, "Rhianna you need to do what Mummy has asked you, take your panties out of the oven please" but then I lost it completely and was rolling around on the floor unable to stop laughing for a good 5 minutes! Not quite the unmixed message I was hoping to give... Paul did his best to take over where I'd failed but pretty soon he was shaking with laughter too, so in the end she went to bed and her panties burnt to a crisp...!

Ambient Wonder - how was it?

We had a great time at the Advent service on Sunday evening - it was a really long day for us as we'd been asked to do some craft stuff with the children during the morning service, then it was church lunch, then we set up, then we went back again later for getting everything ready, then the service itself then tearing down and then Paul had to take the equipment back!! So we, and especially Paul, were knackered by the end of it - but elated as well!

The service was really well attended, about 28 people I think - some new to the church, most from St Augustine's and the rest from St Lukes. The hall looked great with the lighting rig, rope lights, projected images and "stations" for the activities. 'DJ Jon' Ranson did a great job providing a background of chilled out tunes with some inspired choices too, and the readings really flowed, with different voices and ages providing the texture - Emily (who's 13) read a monologue from Mary's perspective that was incredibly moving - her saying "I'm going to have a baby and I'm barely a woman" was so poignant and brought it alive to me (our resident poet/writer Tim lenton had written the piece which was superb).

The feedback we received ranged from "great, when are we doing the next one?" to "I loved having the space and would have liked more of it, for the time to have been less guided" to "thanks for introducing us to this worship experience". The constructive criticisms were around the music being constant and occassionally having lyrics which the speakers then had to compete with, and that the typefont on the screen was hard to read at times. But these people were clear that these things had only been distractions from the overall experience which was good. And the mulled wine went down a storm!

The general consensus seems to be to have another service and the beginning of Lent seems like an ideal time to look to - its only about 2 months away (less once we've all got over Christmas) so we'll be booking the hall and asking people who are interested in helping us plan it to get in touch (via feedback at ambientwonder dot org)

being left handed

as a general rule I barely even remember that I'm left handed - my handwriting is fine, I've been using right handed things like scissors since I was a toddler so I'm completely used to them etc. etc.

Yet when I have to take a key off a key ring or put it back on again, then I remember with a start that I live in a right handed world.

Go find a keyring and check out what I mean - you righties try doing it with your left hand and then take it away as a reminder of how lucky you are!!!

Network Norwich Bloggers link

So we all have a link on the Network Norwich site - see your (blog's) name in lights here (well, nearly!)

I've now registered on the site, which means I can use the chatroom and contribute stuff to the site I think, so I reckon it might be a really good idea if everyone does - it could be a good idea to be involved in something from the start in order to be able to shape it, and as bloggers we're already using the internet for at least some of our "fellowship" / church life so we are pretty conversant with what's going on out there in cyberspace! There's already a discussion thread on the forum about blogging!

I thought it might be useful to have a think about how we could make the chatroom work well, not just for us but also for the wider christian community. What time of the day / week would it be useful for it to be open? What subjects could we discuss? Please comment so we can feedback to the administrator!