What I learnt when I broke my foot

When you break a bone in your foot the hospital tends to put you in a cast and let you get on with it so I thought I'd list the things I learnt from the experience.

1     If you turn your ankle over it is possible to put all your weight on one point on the side of your foot.  If you are carrying something heavy, such as a grandson in a car seat, this may be enough to break the bone. As my bone density had recently been checked, because of my steroid intake, and found to be OK this could happen to anyone.

2     It is possible to move around for a couple of weeks with a broken foot before you go to hospital to have it checked.

3    You can learn a lot from books.  There's a passage in the book Touching the Void where one of the climbers tells the other he has probably broken his ankle (as well as his leg) as there were red streaks coming out from round the bruise; when I saw that on my foot that may have been the time to get it checked out.

4     When your foot and ankle are held rigid in plaster cramp in the calf muscle is agony.  You can't stretch the cramp away so just have to keep massaging the muscle until it returns to the right shape.

5    When you have a cast you can walk on you may not be able to use it outside as well as indoors without serious damage to your health.  My wife would have killed me if I'd trodden dirt into the new carpets.

6     When you walk with one foot in a cast it means you have one leg about 2" longer than the other. This twists your pelvis into a different position which can give you pain in both hips and your lower back for a couple of weeks.

7     How far you can 'walk' on crutches may be limited by pain in the hip of your good leg.

8     When you are finally free of the cast your pelvis will twist back to its normal position causing more aches and pains.

Am I an Alcoholic?

I recently read a good article on the BBC News site which asked whether the word 'alcoholic' was so contaminated by association with down and outs that perhaps we needed another word for those who still have some control over their life but have a drink problem. (full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25639406)

This made me think of my late step-mother who died from alcoholism but who felt so out of place at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that she only went once.  If she had fitted in it might have saved her life but she felt excluded for not depending on crime to feed her habit.

I also remembered a psychologist friend telling me that the person who drank a sherry 5 nights a week when they got home from work was more likely to be an alcoholic than someone who went out and got drunk 2 nights a week.  This is where the problem really starts because the person who is medically an alcoholic may not have a drink problem whilst the one who isn't addicted may have the problem.

This is personal for me as for the last few years I have been trying to work out if I was an alcoholic or not.  I had got as far as saying I couldn't say I wasn't but, at the same time, I didn't feel comfortable saying I was an alcoholic.  That I had a serious drink problem was beyond doubt but was I an alcoholic in the way the word is defined medically?  In a way the answer is irrelevant as I have to live as if I am an alcoholic but life is always easier if we can put a label on things.

The two occasions I have allowed myself a little alcohol are Communion services and family meals, particularly over Christmas.  This Christmas I allowed myself to have more that a small glass of red to see how I managed; with mixed results.  Outwardly it was successful as I didn't over drink and I really enjoyed the wines but inwardly it wasn't so straight forward.  I didn't serve the wine so I don't know if I'd be OK pouring it myself and I could feel myself getting tense inside - one of the feelings that made want to drink too much.

So I still don't know whether I fit either the medical or common usage definitions of an alcoholic but I have to assume I am or the alternative is just too bad.

Why I haven't been blogging much

This is my first post for 6 months so I thought I'd better explain why.

Put simply another part of my body has stopped working and I've found doing anything a bit of a struggle; be it physical or mental activity.  This all started around Easter 2012 when my wife and I both caught a virus that laid us low for several weeks.  I eventually got over the virus but I was left feeling tired and drained so I did less and less, put on weight and did even less.  My GP was puzzled so in April 2013 referred me to the chest consultant - who I saw in July!

The good news is that he quickly found out what's gone wrong - the bad news is they can't do anything about it.  The virus has damaged the nerve to the right side of my diaphragm so that side no longer responds.  This has cut my lung capacity by about 10-15% but, sadly, it has done this to my healthier lung - both have asthma but my left lung also has dead patches (bronchiectasis.)  Apparently there is an operation that may repair the nerve but it kills 10% of the patients any way so is rarely used.

The consultants instructions were to lose weight (excess weight pushes the lung up higher) and to exercise more and while I have managed to loose about a stone in weight (that's 14lb to any readers in the USA) I have yet to get the exercise going as I still feel very tired.

If you have managed to read this far you may be wondering what this has to do with my lack of blogging.  The simple answer is the brain is fuelled by oxygen so any time my lungs misbehave my mind goes all fuzzy and stops working correctly.  As a result I have found it hard to think and, sadly, even harder to read anything more than a newspaper.  The good news is the weight loss seems to be working and my mind is beginning to get back to normal; hence this post and, I hope, a few more in the coming weeks.

A MISHEARD TRUTH

Do you ever mishear something and think it made more sense than what was actually said? Well this happened to me when I was listening to the radio in the car and they were talking about the undergraduate students at Jesus College Oxford paying £3.90 a term to enable a young woman from Gaza to attend their college. (full story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22019545)

My initial reaction was that it was good to have a story about Oxbridge (collective for Oxford and Cambridge for those outside the UK) students which wasn't about drunkenness and bad behaviour.  As both my children went to Cambridge I know they play hard but that is only one side of the story - they work exceedingly hard at the same time.

The words that caught my attention were said by the young lady from Jesus College who had set up this scheme and I thought I heard her say "We all know He is Risen" which I thought was sensible given the name of the college.  It took me a moment to realise that she said "We all know fees have risen"  which made more sense in the conversation about students giving money to help someone who wouldn't otherwise be able to join them.

However as I thought about it my initial mishearing started to make sense as well.  Jesus, when announced his ministry quoted Isaiah when he said "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor." and what is this but an example of good news to the poor?  So, in a way probably not recognised by most of the students involved, I think it is quite right to say "We all know He is Risen." for this is indeed the work of His Kingdom.

Does the Church Need Defending?

This morning this headline caught my attention and made me stop and think:

Los Angeles archdiocese pays $10m to settle abuse cases 

(Read more here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21765850)

A church rightly ends up paying $10m to victims of abuse when so much good could have been done with that money?   I have no reason to doubt that  Cardinal Roger Mahony is a reasonable God fearing man who has acted out of the best of intentions so what had gone wrong?

It appears that in this case, and others, the Roman Catholic Church has put the defence of itself and its institutions before the needs of the abused and downtrodden.  At that point it would be easy to write this off as a problem with that church, to tut, and to carry on but I think there is a lesson here for all Christians.

The Church has, over the centuries, developed many organisations forms to help administer and direct its work.  Whether this is right or not is irrelevant because that is where we all are be we Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican or even Baptist.  The problem arises when we react to defend the institution over the individual and in doing so we lose sight of our original objective to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth.  We do this by discouraging troublemakers and try to maintain unity at all costs in order to protect 'the church.'  An example of this is the efforts made in the Anglican church to keep everyone in the fold over the issue of women bishops; the church has got so caught up in trying not to upset some people that it is prepared to disadvantage women over a matter of justice.

Churches are, generally, good places full of people trying to do God's work but we need to be careful that it remains the way to God's Kingdom and not the Kingdom itself.

How Prayer Works

A Thought Prompted by the Book of Tobit

Fairly recently someone asked me if I read the Bible and to my answer of 'Yes' they replied 'Including the Apocrypha?'  Now they were teasing me but it did make me think about why I hadn't read it.  For those of you who don't know the Apocrypha is the bit of the Bible written between the Jewish exile and birth of Jesus which isn't in the Jewish scriptures and was removed from the Bible by the protestant reformers because it appeared have been written in Greek and not Hebrew - although they may have just disagreed with its theology.  I had owned a copy of the Bible with the Apocrypha since the early 1960's when my grandparents bought us all a copy of the brand new translation - The New English Bible - although I suspect this has had something to do with my not reading the Apocrypha as I find the NEB even harder to read than the KJV.

Having armed myself with a more readable translation and an introduction to the Apocrypha I started reading it with no clue to what I would make of it.  So far I have read Tobit and for a story about a devout man blinded by sleeping under a nest of sparrows, a woman who is haunted by a devil that has killed 7 men who married her as soon as they got into the wedding bedroom and the angel Raphael I found at least one thing that made it worth reading.  Raphael has been acting in disguise and towards the end of the story he reveals who is and says:

So now when you (Tobit) and Sarah prayed, it was I who brought and read the record of your prayer before the glory of the Lord, ... God sent me to heal you and Sarah your daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord.

(I've left part out or I'd have to include most of the preceding 11 Chapters)

What I want you to notice is that when Raphael brings their prayers before God the only thing God does is to tell Raphael to go and sort it out.  This made me wonder about how often we pray to God about situations when what we should be doing is sorting it out.  I know this isn't always the case, e.g. when praying for a sick friend, but I suspect it is true more than we would like to admit.

So there you have it, a lesson from the Apocrypha.

The Dancing Gorilla

When you go to a service in a church with a very different background to your own do you see the dancing gorilla?  Yes I know that sounds mad but let me explain.  In an experiment radiologists were asked to look for cancer cells in lung scans that had the added bonus of a picture of a dancing gorilla but 80% of radiologists and 100% of unskilled observers failed to see it. (see here for more details http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21466529)

This got me thinking how often do we only see things the way we expect them to be and how often when faced with something strange do we look at it through the lens of our experience and fail to see what is really there?  If, like me, you were brought up in a church that had plain walls you may find a church that is highly decorated with statues rather discordant and possibly idolatrous.  However to someone used to that church it helps them see God's Glory and they would wonder what type of God you worshipped if they came to your plain church. Similarly someone used to a worship band style of worship may find a liturgical service over organised and stifling whilst the person who is used to a liturgical service may find a modern service chaotic.  In both these cases instead of not liking it why not ask the people who go there why things are done that way.  The liturgical service may help remind people of God's constancy whilst the freer style of service may give room for the Holy Spirit to work. No matter what the service you may just find your preconceptions being stripped away until you see the dancing gorilla that you missed at first sight.  Of course the answer may be "I don't know, we've always done it like that." which could be the spark that church needs to start looking at itself.

So next time you go to a strange place of worship just stop and ask yourself "Where is the dancing gorilla?" you may be surprised at what is right in front of you.

New Lamps For Old

Today I saw this headline "Pope Benedict XVI posts first tweet in Latin" and it caught my attention rather more than I expected.  In one way it doesn't concern me at all as 1) I'm not a Roman Catholic and 2) I don't speak Latin but it caught my attention because I had recently been involved in a couple of on-line discussions which centred around old v new in Christianity.  Now this, unfortunately, has been going on in the Church at least as long ago as the Council of Jerusalem (50AD?) and it remains so to this day; what new thing should we be doing and what old things have passed their sell by date?

As I pondered this a verse sprang to mind:

"In the last days, God says,

    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy,

    your young men will see visions,

    your old men will dream dreams."

In particular the bit about young men having visions and old men dreaming dreams seemed to be relevant. Why that way round?  Why not young men dreaming and old men of visions?  Of course young men (and women) are renowned for being full of ideas and plans as they set out on life so it is easy to see why they are people of 'vision' but where do the old men's dreams come into it?

To look at this I want to go back to the Pope Tweeting in Latin.  As I have already said this, to me, is irrelevant as I don't follow the Pope and my knowledge of Latin is limited to bits used in English and the words used in church music; not that I often know what I'm singing about.  So my first reaction was that this  is just an old man hanging onto an outdated tradition (Latin - not Tweeting) for the sake of it.  However I think I can see some reasons why preserving Latin in the Roman Catholic Church may be useful; it gives a worldwide church a common language, it encourages it's priests and bishops to wrestle with ancient texts written in Latin and, at times, it is just so much more beautiful than English.  This old man's dream of holding onto Latin may, in fact, be sensible so it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand and run over by 'progress.'

There are a lot of great things that have been handed down to today's church from our forefathers that we need to value and preserve so that they are still there to delight and enlighten future generations.  Liturgies, sacraments and music spring to mind.  There is also a lot of cultural baggage that we hang onto even though it    is no longer anything to do with the Church's mission to the world; if it ever was in the first place.  From my own experience the protestant church in the UK does, at times, appear to think that Victoria is still on the throne and not Elizabeth II.

As with so many things it is all about a question of balance and for this we need the Holy Spirit to lead us with Her wisdom.  The impetuousness of youth does, at times, need tempering by the steady voice of experience but equally the old man dreaming dreams needs to be reminded that sitting back in a comfy chair just because it's comfortable doesn't get much done either.

New lamps for old?  Sometimes.  If you have an old lamp that no longer works properly you need to replace it to shed new light on your situation.  However the story of Aladdin should warn us that sometimes an old lamp is something extremely valuable that should not be thrown away.

A Pet Hate

There are many things that I like and love about communal church worship but there is one thing that drives me mad - it's the amount of rubbish words that are spoken.  I'm not talking about the preaching but about the singing and congregational responses.  As St Paul said "So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and enquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?"

It seems to be a particular problem with modern worship songs where the lack of punctuation often results in people putting the breaks wherever they want and so making no sense of the words.

However my main gripe is with the way the Lord's Prayer is said:

Our Father who art in heaven.

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done.

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

and forgive us our sins.

as we forgive those who sin against us.

and lead us not into temptation.

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

For some reason everyone speeds up at the end and makes sense of it but what on earth do we mean by "on earth as it is in heaven." or, even worse, "as we forgive those who sin against us."

Please, the church has some wonderful hymns, songs and liturgies so let's try to at least use the words properly so that they make sense to a stranger ... and us.

On Moving Forward - Slowly

Yesterday I threw out most of my running gear.  This was not a deliberate attempt to take up a sedentary lifestyle but a recognition that A) most of it was no longer usable and B) that I was very unlikely to be able to use it again.

For a few years during my 30s I was a keen runner, getting up early each weekday to run before breakfast and running 10 miles home from work one day and 10 miles back the next.  Then it all changed.  In 1995 I was training for my fourth marathon when I went in a month from doing 16 mile runs to hardly being able to walk up a flight of stairs.  Slowly the reasons became apparent, my asthma was out of control and I had acid reflux (later shown to be caused by stomach ulcers) but I didn't get better.  I was plague by chest infections and every time I tried to get back to running I would fall ill with yet another infection.  Eventually, after about 12 years, I was diagnosed with bronchiectasis (dead areas of lung) and put on medication to keep it under control and although this has improved my health it hasn't been enough for me to go back to running.

The first few years after I stopped running were the worst as I thought I'd soon be able to start running again and each time I went for a run and then fell ill was like a hammer blow.  At this time I couldn't bring myself to clear out my running gear as it seemed like an admission of defeat.  So I said I'd leave it for 10 years, then 12 and then 15 but each time I couldn't bring myself to touch it as it felt too painful.  Now, 17 years on, it felt right and I don't have any regrets about what I've done.

Now is the right time because I have finally accepted that my running days are over as my lungs just won't take the stress.  Of course I could have got rid of it ages ago but I would always have wondered about whether I could have got running again.

When life serves up disappointment it is easy to tell yourself to get over it and to move on but that isn't always the right thing to do.  Sometimes you have to let the pain and disappointment run their course until one day you realise it no longer matters and you can get on with the rest of your life.

Living With Depression 2

After my last post someone pointed out that the Mersey Ferry analogy made it sound easy to manage depression.  If that was the case I'm sorry because that was never my intention; I was just trying to share something that I have found helpful but far from a cure.  As I said at the time I have been only partly successful in using this advice as while I notice if my mood is artificially high I don't notice when it starts to slide downwards.  My motivation for writing the post was that I realised that I had been on a downward path for some months but hadn't noticed it until it started to become a problem.  As I battled with how I had let things slip so easily I wrote this:

The Fall

The way ahead look clear

The sun was bright

The path was firm

No need to change direction

Then the clouds rolled in

But still the path was firm

No need to change direction

Then the rain rolled in

But still the path was firm if slippery

No need to change direction

Then the mist rolled in

But still the path was firm if slippery

No need to change direction

Night came

The way ahead was hidden

But the path was firm under my feet

I was sure I’d find the way

Stumbling forward

I didn’t notice

I’d wandered off the path

I didn’t notice the gentle slope

Beneath my feet

I didn’t notice the slope get steeper

Until it was too late

And I fell

And as I looked up

I thought

“How did I get here?”

Living With Depression

As far as I can tell I have been living with depression for around 40 years but it is only in the last couple that I have been receiving help and treatment; it took a complete breakdown to get me to that point.

One of the misunderstandings about depression is that it is all about feeling down and miserable but you can be like that without depression.  Depression is where you don't control your emotions but they control you so you swing between highs and lows without being in control.

The most useful advice I have received is this:

For those of you who don't know this is the Mersey ferry which crosses the river Mersey between Liverpool and the Wirral.  What is important about the ferry is that the river is tidal which makes it harder to steer the ship directly from one side to the other.

Now what, I hear you say, has this got to do with depression.  The answer is in the ebb and flow of the tide over which the ferry has no control.  If the tide is flowing in the ferry has to be steered downstream to arrive at the right place and if the tide is flowing out the ferry has to steer upstream.  It is the same with depression if  it is pushing your mood high you have to steer it back down and if it is pushing you down you have to steer it back up.

Now I'm not saying I've mastered this because so far all I am able to spot when I'm getting too 'high' and have been able to bring myself back to an even keel. (Too high is dangerous because it leads to a crash.)  So far I'm not very good at noticing the much slower signs that lead to a 'down' but I'm learning.

GOD THE FATHER

Do you ever cringe at a word or phrase in church? I know I do; I cringe at the start of the Lord’s Prayer when we say “Our Father.”

I seriously wish Jesus had said something like “our eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent Godhead” because that removes God from a messy family relationship.  Not all Christians have an easy relationship with their earthly fathers and within the church universal there are Christians who have been abused by their fathers, abandoned by their fathers or rejected by their fathers.  How do those, my brothers and sisters in Christ, feel about saying “Our Father.”? What picture does it bring up for them?

If we want to understand what Jesus meant we must understand what being a father meant in first centaury Palestine; in particular what they thought the biological relationship between a father and child.  While they would have expected a father to provide and care for his children (although, as I pointed out above, this doesn’t always happen) they would also have regarded the children as a continuation of the father.  They believed the father placed the seed in his wife and the child grew from that with no biological input from the mother!  Now this seems crazy to us today with our understanding of biology and genetics but it is part of the picture of fatherhood that would have been in the minds of Jesus’ listeners (and probably Jesus himself.)

When we look at it this way we find “Our Father” not only confirming a God who cares and provides for us but also a God who loves us so much He made us in His image!  Made us to be creative as He is creative and to be loving as He is Love.

So next time you say the Lord’s Prayer take a quick moment to reflect on the God who loves you so much He made you in His image.

Suffering 2

For a while I have been completely without an idea to write a poem (prayer/mediation may be more accurate) so when an idea popped into my head at the weekend I was pleased until I realised that I had already written that poem and even blogged it! (http://brainatthedoor.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/suffering.html)

However after a while I realised I had moved on and although the initial idea was the same there was more to say.  In this I have started with my complaint to God but moved on to the things I have learnt over the last year - I'm not saying God "spoke these words" to me but this is what I now understand; next year it could be different again.

PAIN 2

Why does it still hurt?

Over a year has past,

Life has gone on,

Things have got better.

So why does it still hurt?

Time has taken the edge,

Dulled the blow

That Breaks the heart.

So why does it still hurt?

Why, below the ebb and flow of life

Does pain still lurk?

Waiting to catch you off guard?

A photo

A person

A memory

That opens the depths

And lets the pain flood out.

With the Psalmist I cry

“How Long.”

How long must I carry this pain?

How often must I fight my anger?

How long will I wait to find peace?

“My child, You will carry this pain

Until the world finds peace.

Not an absence of war

But a peace between all people.

My Peace

That passes understanding.

Until that great and glorious day

You will carry that pain.

And it will give you wisdom.

Wisdom not to hurt others.

Wisdom to protect others from pain.

Wisdom to stand with the hurt and downtrodden.

Do not despair

For you are not on your own.

I have already carried your pain

And hung it on a cross

So that I can be with you

Each painful step of the way.”

FALLEN HEROES

I have been very lucky as the one time I have met and talked to one of my sporting heroes I found a charming modest man; Gareth Edwards.  The Welsh and British Lions scrum-half was probably the greatest rugby player of all time but he told me he was lucky to get in the Welsh team as he was only called up for Wales when his predecessor was injured.

Today some fairly damming evidence has been made public that Lance Armstrong, the 7 times Tour de France winner, was using illegal drugs to enhance not only his performance but also that of his team mates.  He is likely to be stripped of his titles and the inspiring story of the man who came back from cancer to be the greatest ever Tour de France cyclist becomes one of a common cheat.   However life isn’t that simple because this is the same Lance Armstrong who founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation which has raised more than $470 million to support, inspire and empower people affected by cancer.  On the one hand he is a man so driven to win that he will risk his and others’ health to achieve his goals and on the other we have a man who is responsible for raising hundreds of millions of dollars to help other cancer suffers.

As I write this the story all over the media here in the UK is about the late Sir Jimmy Savile being a serial sex predator; an article on the BBC News site ends: “It said the alleged victims were mainly girls who were aged between 13 and 16 at the time, and the allegations spanned four decades.”  What the truth of this may never fully be known as he isn’t alive to defend himself (unlike Lance Armstrong who has decided to not defend himself) and so only one side of the story is being told.  However, this is the same Jimmy Savile who was knighted "for charitable services" – the small matter of raising some £40 million for charity and giving his time to work as a volunteer hospital porter.

Should this surprise us that men and women who are capable of so much good are also capable of falling for temptation in such a big way?  It doesn’t surprise me because, as a Christian, I believe we are all this jumble of good and bad.  On the one hand we are made in the image of God and capable of much good but on the other we are fallen people living in a fallen world who can easily fall into temptation.  It is said the higher you climb, the harder you fall so perhaps those who push themselves to the top face greater temptation than those of us who don’t.

For me the Christian response is to say “there but for the grace of God go I” and to not join in the public demonisation of those who don’t live up to our expectations.  That in no way means I am condoning the alleged actions of Lance Armstrong and Jimmy Savile but I would like to balance that with the great works which they have done.

SWIMMING

Today I went for a swim at the gym and struggled up and down the pool for 15 minutes.

The last time I went for a swim I swam for a mile and then kept going for the fun of it.

The problem is that was 9 years ago and in the intervening period I had lost a lot of fitness and got older so what was easy then is hard work now.

The other odd thing about my swimming now is that I mainly do a lazy breaststroke and I struggled down a length of backstroke before I wore myself out trying a length of front crawl – not helped by messing up my breathing and trying to take a breathe in with my face under water!!!  The odd thing is breaststroke was the last stroke I mastered having started by managing a width of ‘crawl’ (doggy paddle?) aged 10 and mastering backstroke a year later.  As far as I remember (and this is a long time ago) I had actually swum a width butterfly before I could manage breaststroke but now it seems to be the only way I can swim.

This strange turn of events got me thinking (always dangerous) about the way things change as we go through life; what was once easy becomes hard and what was hard becomes second nature.  That is the way life is and it would be very odd if we were the same at 50 (OK – nearer 60) as at 20.

The really odd thing is how many Christians try to remain in a teenage faith as they get older and how the church does very little to encourage Christians to grow and develop their faith.  Having spent most of my life in an evangelical church I have often wondered about the number of young Christians who drift away from the Church as they move into their late teens and early 20s and now I think I know why – the church doesn’t show them how to grow up in their faith so they leave it behind as something they have outgrown.

To prevent this happening Churches have to enable young Christians to grow into a mature faith that doesn’t rely on feelings and music but enables them to deal with doubt and disappointment.

The Hardest Commandment

Which commandment do you think is the hardest to keep?  Love God? Love your neighbour? 

How about love yourself?

Yes it’s there, slipped in by Jesus at the end of the second greatest commandment.

“Love your neighbour as yourself.”

We all get the “love your neighbour” bit but what about loving yourself?  The problem is that most of us don’t really know ourselves.  We think we do but we don’t really see ourselves as others see us but an idealised version of what we would like to be, not what we are.  If you get past this and begin to find the real you (it took me a breakdown and a lot of counselling to do this) there is a very good chance that you won’t like yourself because your faults start to dominate your thinking.

It is at this point that God tells you to love yourself.  Not because you deserve it but for the simple reason that God loves you – warts and all.

This is not an excuse to stay as you are but rather it is a signpost to keep you moving in the right direction.  God loves you as you are and as you should be; perfect in His image.  Just as we wouldn’t leave someone we love to struggle with something they can’t manage so God doesn’t leave us to just get on with it but comes to us in the person of the Holy Spirit to guide and encourage us in our journey.  This may be directly to you or through the Body of Christ here on earth – the Church.

So don’t forget God commands you to love yourself, not in a selfish way but so you may reflect His glory.

CONFIRMATION

Last Sunday (8^th July 2012) I did something I’d never thought I’d do in the first 56 years of my life – I was confirmed in an Anglican church.  Traditionally confirmation is a service where people who have been baptised as children confirm that they have grown up and accepted that faith as their own but for me it was slightly different so I thought I’d explain why I, having been baptised in a Baptist church in my teens, thought it was right for me.

Firstly I did want to confirm my faith.  A year ago my wife and I moved church from the Baptist church I was carried into as a baby and where I met and married my wife.  You will understand that it was not an easy decision to make but a series of events had made it clear that we could not remain in communion with some of the people there.  The last few years have not been very easy for me in both physical and mental health and being forced out from my birth church had a negative impact on me.  All through this time my faith, although battered, survived and the confirmation service gave me an opportunity to affirm this in public.

Secondly my confirmation was a sign that I had committed myself to that particular part of God’s church; in this case St George The Martyr, Shirley.  This was not the first church we had attended after leaving our home church but, when attempts at reconciliation failed, both my wife and I suddenly felt this was where we were meant to be.  I cannot tell you if we will be there for a short or long time but it is the right place for us for the foreseeable future.

Finally it was also a Thank You to St Georges for making us so welcome and accepting us into membership; more people talk to me after each service than at my old church despite only having a lot less members.  Although we have not joined the choir we have sung with them at special services and they have even been brave enough to let me play guitar in the few services that have a small music group playing.

Climbing A Ladder

On Sunday it rained.  Most of you in southern England will have noticed that but did you notice it blew in from the east and not the west?  I did because when the rain is driven in from that direction the windowsills by the stairs get wet.  This isn't a common occurrence but as I'm in the (very long) process of decorating the hall stairs and landing I had to do something about it.

On close inspection it turned out that when the windows were fitted, as part of the loft conversion work, the pebble dash was brought flush to the wood at the top of the frames instead of overlapping it to prevent water ingress.  Over the years one or both have shrunk leaving a small gap over the window frame; there was also no sign of mastic which didn't help the situation.  This close inspection was done by going up my ladder to both windows; the top one being on the second floor which meant the ladder was on its full extension.

Today I used quick setting cement to build up over the wood frames and then applied mastic over the edge between the wood and cement. It wasn't until I'd finished I realised something odd - I'd just gone up a ladder to a second floor window.  This may not sound odd to you but I suffer from vertigo in buildings (not mountains or cliffs) and going up a ladder that high has always filled me with dread; I'd be clinging on for dear life.

Today it just seemed a natural thing to do so I can only assume that the Prozac I take for my depression has either lessened or cured my vertigo.  This isn't all good news as I used to be very cautious up a ladder and I'm now a bit worried that I may be too relaxed about it.

What's Wrong With British Politics

So here, in the UK, the news is full of politicians sucking up to the press at the same time as the economy is in its worse peacetime condition.  The odd thing is I think the two are connected.

The problem is career politicians; people who have only worked in the political arena and who see their life in terms of how 'successful' their career has been. That means how much power do they wield and power and the press seem to be linked all too closely.  Now I know that is a massive generalisation but it does appear that the top echelons of our major parties have a predominance of these people.  In the past politics was seen as serving the nation but now it's your career.

One of the big problems this leads to is short termism - something that is rife in government.  Apart from the obvious fact that every government is actually working to get re-elected it shows up every time there is a change of minister in a government department. The new minister arrive and wants to make a big impression to further their career and they do this by introducing a lot of new initiatives.  While there is nothing wrong in that in itself it usually means new initiatives and ways are working are rushed in before the initiatives of the previous minister have been allowed to bear fruit or even be fully implemented.  Now it should be the role of the civil service to bring a level of impartiality and continuity to the transition between ministers but, of late, this has been undermined by ministers appointing 'special advisers' who are not civil servants and report directly to the minister.  These advisers are, of course, political careerist who aim is not to look after the country but to further their own political career; paid for by the tax payer.

With ministers (and MPs) surrounded by career politicians all parties have become increasingly out of touch with the life of the average Britain.

I don't have all the answers but how about these fort suggestions of how to make politics relevant to normal people:

• Ban special advisers.  If a minister wants a political assistant it should be paid for by the party and not funded out of tax revenues.
• Set the salary of MPs at the national median wage; currently around £26,000.  There are two reasons for this; firstly to ensure MPs know how the rest have to live and secondly it might discourage people from entering politics for self interest and encourage those who want to serve the country.  I know people will say you need to pay more to get the right people but as that doesn't seem to be working we need to try something different.
• Have a mainly elected upper chamber whose members are elect for 10 year terms to counter the short term objectives of the Commons.

Any comments?