I should've known better ...

... than to start reading stuff about 'Emergent Church' on Wikipedia. Now I'm reading and reading and reading linked articles ...

It all started with looking up some info on Rob Bell's Nooma DVDs (which I hear are very good although I do think they're overpriced - £9.99 for a 10 minute DVD. Arg! £3.99 I would pay, and happily, but £9.99 ...) - there were a whole load of comments in someone's blog debating various things about people like Bell ... and from there it led to looking something up on wikipedia and when you look something up on wikipedia that you're interested in and ... well, you know how it happens.
(Psst: Have just found that Nooma: Kickball is available to view free on Facebook for the next 2 days - see http://www.facebook.com/NOOMA )

Made me start thinking about what I think about emerging church / emergent church / etc. The things that I would say have something in common with that that I've read / heard about / been involved with are: Rob Bell (read: Velvet Elvis, and Jesus Wants to Save Christians), Shane Claiborne (read: The Irresistible Revolution), and the 24/7 movement (been to several boiler rooms / 24/7 prayer weeks, and read bits of Red Moon Rising and God On Mute).

*goes off and reads some more comments on an interview with Rob Bell* arg, it's the car-crash syndrome ... can't help but look ... this is the interview.

I quite like this, from the final comment:
"Anonymous | 11:34 pm on 6/27/2009

The fundamentalists think he's a God forsaken liberal and the liberals think he is a fundamentalist. God bless you Mr. Bell. You are obviously on the right track."

I think I mostly agree with this ... I haven't read anything in Rob Bell's work that makes me think he's heretical (although the decision to hypothesise "what if Jesus had a human father?" was a poor choice), and most of the criticisms I've seen are at best misunderstanding and at worst wilfully twisting things out of context and screaming 'heresy! False teacher! You're going to HELL!" without any real provocation. Possibly out of fear? Who knows. On the bright side, the fact that such criticism exists makes me more determined to make sure that what I believe I believe for myself and have read in the Bible and am convinced of, rather than accepting second-hand messages.

I think I identify with a fair amount of stuff that seems to be coming from the emerging church / new monasticism type thingies (thingies being a technical term, of course). I definitely, definitely am on board with this whole radical notion of Doing Stuff - you know, actually trying to work out how to hang out with the poor* and then going and doing it rather than sitting in rooms discussing the academic merits of helping the poor. And I am definitely on board with rhythms of prayer, using multimedia stuff (you may have noticed), and a focus of loving people and relationships (cf Matthew 22:37-39). I think there's an awful lot more good in it than harm, and I don't think that it's dangerous, although I'll agree that it's interesting that there is less emphasis put on being saved right away. I do believe that the only way to be saved is to believe in Christ and enter into a relationship with Him; I don't see that one needs to do that before being allowed to learn about God generally (besides which, it's God who saves, not evangelists).

Hurrah, I've now managed to get my number of tabs open in wikipedia down to one ... *closes* and thus I free myself of this tyranny. I shall know better next time!

*Ideas on a postcard, or in the comments please. I can do the donating to charities that help people in the 3rd world thing - and do - but while this is a very useful and wonderful thing to do, it doesn't make me a more compassionate person or help me to understand the world better, so am looking for a more holistic view/way of giving.

P.S. I'm away over the weekend so no more posts until Monday.

Shoes, shoes, shoes

So recently Will asked me how many pairs of shoes I have. I think I managed to name all of them (that is, describe them - I don't actually *name* my shoes) and tot it up and it came to about £400 worth ... which I say is not at all unreasonable given that a) these are shoes amassed over about a 4-year period, and b) they contain the following extra-special shoes: Docs (£95) because they were amazing and wonderful, some high victorian-ish boots (£70) at a time when I was earning lots of money and wanted to buy something really nice, and special dance shoes (£40).

I have possibly too many shoes ... here they are in approximate order of purchase:

-brown knee-high fabric wedge-heeled boots (TKMaxx, £30 probably down from something, several years ago - where several is, like, 5 - but they still look good and are loved)
-black victorian boots (Clarks, £70, special purchase)
-grey leather flip flops (Tesco, about £7)
-cream diamante heeled sandals (£15, BHS, wedding shoes)
-brown metallic cut-out flats (Clarks, I think £15 down from £40) - these have tiny stars cut out of the leather, they're great ...
-white flower flip flops (£25, M&S, last summer when at the time I had few shoes that could be worn with skirts)
-pinkish semi-flip-flops (Clarks, £12 down from £30ish)
-brown suede-y casual flats (Clarks, about £12 down from £30?) (brilliant shoes, I can do *anything* in them)
-purple patent flats (Clarks, £13 down from £40)
-grey patent flats (Clarks, £13 down from £40)
(see this post with reference to those two)
-dancing shoes (Specialist dancing shop, £40, special purchase)
-black sky-high boots (New Look, £12 down from about £40, impossible to walk in and I should really get rid of them but I can't bear to. I might try to see if I can get them resoled so they have some grip)
-black slightly wedged plain shoes (Clarks, £20? bought for particular occasion, don't particularly like them but might as well hang on to them for a bit)
-black/grey patent heels (£29 down from £85, Debenhams, bought for ball wear)
-black docs (Doc Marten shop, £95, 1914s, special purchase)
-black (slightly pointed toe) blocky heels with strap across the front (Clarks, £12 down from £50, only bought a few days ago - replaced some previous black heels)

What do my shoes say about me? Answers on a postcard (or alternatively in the comments box, that might be slightly easier). The brand loyalty is pretty clear ... Clarks do shoes that are balanced well and that last for ages, or at least most of their shoes last for ages. And you can see my liking for buying shoes that are heavily reduced. Although I'm not averse to splashing out (again visible) I generally like to get a good deal.

And to finish, a picture of the sky-high boots which I should really get rid of but can't bring myself to yet ... it's not the height in and of itself which is the problem, it's the lack of padding under the ball of the foot, and lack of grip on the outside of the sole.


Shoes conquer the in-tray.

Thoughts about Bible Stories

I've read Genesis in the last few days - Fri-Sun - and really, some of the stories in there are really very dysfunctional at best and quite horrific at worst (the daughters of Lot, anyone?). It made me think about the way in which Christian society generally teaches bible stories, and wonder whether it's actually useful or not ... with a vague leaning towards the 'not' side of things. I don't think it's useful to regard powerful stories containing rather a lot of deep pain as things to be told to kids in a sanitized way.

I've heard it said before that a lot of the time modern sunday schools and such give kids just enough Christianity to immunize them against God, and not quite enough to make them actually *want* God - I think there is some truth in this, but that finger-pointing is not a useful exercise. (Side note: in particular your kids should be led by people who want to show the kids real faith and bring them to know more about God, *not* by people who just think 'well, creche is like babysitting but with Noah-themed colouring in' - associating Jesus with wordsearches of Bible words is really not helpful.)

In particular ... take the story of Joseph. Everybody knows the story, right? Even people who didn't go to Sunday School have probably come across the Technicolour Dreamcoat version.

Happy-clappy version:
Joseph's his Dad's favourite, but his brothers are mean to him because of this.
They sell him into slavery. It is bad for a bit (he's put in prison) but then it is good (he gets to be second in command).
Then Joseph is important and his family needs food and they come and buy food from him.
Then they are all reunited and it is all happy.

It's all a bit ... nice. Especially given that I reckon the majority of characters in this story were probably not very nice most of the time and not very happy most of the time.

For a start, you've got to be sorry for Leah. Look at the names of her first four sons:
Reuben - "Look, a son!", sounds like "He has seen my misery" ('The Lord has noticed my misery, and now my husband will love me')
Simeon - "One who hears" ("or she said 'The Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me another son')
Levi - "attached" / "feeling affection for" ('Surely this time my husband will feel affection for me, since I have given him three sons!')
Judah - "praise" ('Now I will praise the Lord')
(Genesis 29)

So by the end of it maybe she was happy - or at least learning to accept the situation, but at the beginning ... I wonder whether she wanted to marry Jacob anyway? I mean, I would suspect not, and that it was forced upon her by her father - what woman would want to marry a man who was desperately in love with her younger sister, especially by deceit and then given that he married said sister as well right away afterwards?

And Joseph himself was probably a right little so-and-so - for all he's often painted as the longsuffering hero (although some do admit he was a bit foolish and arrogant to start with). He was used by his father to keep tabs on his brothers ... which to me sounds like he was trained to be a bit of a tattletale. He showed off about dreams of being the greatest. His brothers may not have been very nice (cf Simeon and Levi slaughtering a town full of men (chapter 34) because their sister was raped) but presumably they didn't start planning to kill him on a whim, or lightly. Not claiming that he deserved it of course.

In conclusion ... I'm not sure where this is going. Except towards the conclusion that even the nicer stories in Genesis (as opposed to the really gruesome ones that you definitely don't tell the kids) aren't necessarily very nice. And that maybe that makes them more real and more powerful ... God is there even when His people are miserable and messing up and beating each other up, and even when the only things driving the situation appear to be pride, anger and greed ... He can do stuff about it.

Thoughts on a Sunday

"God disturbs the comfortable and comforts the disturbed" - not sure where this is originally from, but I like it.

I also recall a sermon from my youth whose message was "seek discomfort", although I'm not sure I'd actually recommend that as a general rule for living. Don't be complacent, but I don't see any strong reason to be always try to be uncomfortable.


"Pray as you can, not as you can't" - cf this.
This is something I'm working on. Mostly in terms of realising that there's no reason why I can't do multimedia prayer often rather than once or twice a year. And that it's okay not to have a set 'morning quiet time' as was so often pushed on me/drummed into me growing up ... the impression that you should really set aside 20 minutes of your morning every morning for prayer and Bible reading because hey, God's important to you, right? And you want to start the day right! And ... well ... *grudgingly* ... if you're not a morning person then we suppose you *could* do it in the evening ... (which doesn't work for me either). Bible reading done at 7:30am is not magically more holy than Bible reading done at 3pm.


"When we truly discover love, capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary" Will O'Brien, quoted in The Irresistible Revolution.
This is something I find challenging, but also something I am starting to understand. It's not about forcing richer people to give out money that can be redistributed to poorer people ... it's about people from all levels of society coming to know each other. And then to love each other. And then it happens naturally. If one of your friends is homeless for a while and you have a spare room you have them to stay, right? Not out of a sense of "I should help homeless people" (although one should), but more because it's Dave, and you can't let him sleep on the streets when you have a bed. If there are people you love who need things you can provide, sharing/giving happens naturally. So go love people. (Just not in that way ... or at least most of them not in that way ...)

By special request ...

Thelma the Waterskiing Hamster

Musings on Chick Lit

So, I read a fair amount of chick lit (this is one of the many ways in which I refuse to be pigeonholed into a stereotypical geek-girl). In the last few days alone I've probably read 3 or 4 such books (am having rather a binge at the moment - see yesterday's post!). Hence I thought I'd discuss what I think makes a good chick lit book ...

First up, things I don't like:
-Everything working out perfectly happy-ever-after - life doesn't do that. I like my escapism with a decent dose of reality; makes it easier to think it could happen to you.
-Romance plot to the exclusion of all else. Other people (and things like jobs) are important too.
-Lack of strong characters.

Now onto things I do ... in a protagonist, I like:
-Self-reliance, at least by the end of the book. She probably starts off in a bit of a mess, or at least having one reasonably deep flaw so as to make her interesting (or else just in a sufficiently interesting position. E.g. Sheila O'Flanagan's Far From Over - brilliant book - which starts with a wonderful line along the lines of "On the day the flame-haired bimbo bitch married her ex-husband, Gemma went shopping).
-Someone who muddles through things (i.e. doesn't respond to everything flawlessly, and doesn't totally go to pieces either - or at least not for more than a few hours).
-Someone who is clearly human. Laughs, cries, struggles, breaks down, gets up again.
-Accepting that she can't change everything.
-Morals. Her morals need not match mine exactly but believing, for example, in doing the best for her kids is important. The most disappointing books I've read have not been disappointing because they're badly written or had a rubbish plot, but because I got to the end and realised that the character started out with no sense of right and wrong ... and ended it similarly, which just made whatever progress they'd made seem ... empty.

And in a setting, I like:
-A good range of characters - different temperaments, preferably 3 generations or more, often some town and some country is also good.
-Lots of realism. Raising kids is hard. Holding down a job is tricky. Getting on with everybody may be fraught with unseen politics. Etc etc.
-Not too much darkness - real, but still a little bit escapist.
-Nothing too scary. I want my chick-lit heroine to be in fear of running into her crazy ex-mother-in-law because she's cruel and heartless, not because she's likely to be wielding a machine gun. Similarly fear of dealing with credit card debt - fine, fear of arson or kidnapping - not so fine.

Recommended authors:
-Sheila O'Flanagan. Definitely my favourite chick-lit author. Reliable.
-Cathy Kelly - a close second.
-Sophie Kinsella (famously wrote the shopaholic books) - not quite so much realism as the two above, but lovely light fluffy books.
-Gil McNeil - I've only read Divas Don't Knit and Needles and Pearls (which go together, the latter being the sequel to the former) and they were great - have just seen on amazon that she's written more than that (hadn't seen any more in shops) so will be getting on to those!

Book-binge.

Since Saturday I have read/finished reading ...

The Necklace - Cheryl Jarvis (non-fiction)
Yours, Faithfully - Sheila O'Flanagan (fiction)
The Irresistible Revolution - Shane Claiborne(see previous post)
Love and Friendship - Jane Austen (fiction)
A book about marriage
The Power of Makeup - Trish McEvoy (non-fiction)
(I think 4 - certainly at least 3 - of the above were started on or after Saturday)

have started Foundation and Empire (Asimov) and am well on my way through In the Red - Alexis Hall.

It *must* be the holidays :)

The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution
(living as an ordinary radical)

Shane Claiborne (Zondervan 2006)


Everybody I know should read this book.

I am not going to review it. I don't think I could review well enough. In part this is because I have not digested it yet. Also I don't want to try to create hype, because things that are hyped are not usually real, they are fads, and I don't think this should be a fad.

I know I think this book will change your life open your eyes show you Jesus be good for you to read*. If you are a Christian I passionately believe think it will change your life alter you such that you will change the world have new hope be a better one. If you are not I think it will still show you a picture and a message of humanity that will resonate, and maybe you will see something of God out of this world of what love really is real.
(Also you will be able to quote it at me when I get things wrong and make me think.)

I am toying with the idea of buying another 10 copies and giving them to people. Not sure yet, though.

(*I am attempting to write this post without falling into cliches.)

LUSH

It came to me this morning that over the last year or so I've been gradually switching over to using soap/shampoo/etc all made by LUSH. This has sort of happened on purpose, but only sort of. So I thought I'd do a post on 1) why I like LUSH and 2) the products I actually use.

Reasons I like LUSH:
1) Supporting fairtrade
2) Support for charities (including through particular products e.g. their Charity Pot moisturiser and their Jungle palm-oil-free soap)
3) Commitment to using as little packaging as possible and what there is is both recycled and recyclable.
4) Campaigning on environmental issues
5) Products which are Really Quite Nice and have far fewer scary chemicals in them than mainstream stuff (and some of which are very good value).
6) Against animal testing

Reasons I dislike LUSH:
1) The smell when going into their shops can be a bit overpowering - I know it puts Hazel off. I know it's a consequence of them not packaging everything up to the hilt, but I do find it annoying - I think it's the bath bombs mostly, if they were put in clear acrylic boxes or something rather than open baskets I bet it would be way better.
2) Some products hit-and-miss and if they're misses they're quite expensive ones. Also I wish they had a cheap facial moisturiser.

I'm not a raving fan of LUSH, but I do like them and I do now have some tried-and-tested products which I think are worth the money. The thing about LUSH, I think, is that their stuff is pretty expensive - so if it lasts a long while and you like it, it can be really really good value. But if you buy it only to find out that it doesn't really work for you, it's a bit of a waste of money.

However, they quite often seem to have "Spend £X and get this free" sales or times with free testers - bargains I have had include:
-FREE - A large bottle of Sonic Death Monkey shower gel (appears to be discontinued) worth about £13
-FREE - A Good Karma giftbox containing Karma soap and Happy Hippy shower gel
-£15 worth of stuff for £5 - they do this after Christmas to get rid of their special Christmas soaps etc
-Free samples of Porridge soap and Jungle solid conditioner


Now for a picture - here are the products I'm using regularly at the moment:
Clockwise, we have ...

1) Coolaulin conditioner. This is coconut based. I've used it two or three times now and am not overly impressed - it does the job, but isn't particularly great (this is why you buy the tiny 100ml version first - this is a great thing; I wish you could correspondingly buy soaps of ~20g, but they won't sell you anything below 100g). Still, it's okay. Won't buy again.

2) Some pink and purple soap - I've forgotten the name of this one, it's one of their special Christmas soaps, something to do with Angels (Angel's Delight?). Apparently it's got tangerine and orange oils in there but I can't detect them - saying that, I've just started using it and I think I bought it in January (I got this soap and some Pumpkin soap in a £15 worth for £5 deal at Christmas, and it's taken me this long to finish the pumpkin). It does have glitter and stars and things in it, which is nice. The soaps do last forever, and are made with a palm-free base (so as to save orangutans) so I wholeheartedly approve of them. Would buy again, but wouldn't necessarily pick it over any other nice-looking soap.

3) Dark Angels exfoliating facial scrub. This stuff is Fantastic - I can feel it working and my skin feels really happy (soft/smooth/clear) after using it. Also fantastic value for money - costs about £5 and lasts for absolutely ages, you only use a piece about half the size of a pound coin each time. Will definitely buy again.

4) Coalface facial soap - Dark Angels is too harsh to use all the time (you're supposed to use it up to 2 times a week), so this is the corresponding soap to use the rest of the time - it's still got charcoal in it (absorbs oil), plus nice oils etc. This is really good stuff, too - the combination of this and Dark Angels has definitely made my skin feel much happier (clearer, less oily, really clean). Good value for money, lasts for ages as you'd expect from a solid soap. Will buy again.

4b) (forgot to put in the picture) Eau-Roma Water toner. This is nice, it tones and hydrates nicely, isn't too expensive and lasts for ages (as any toner should since you use so little of it at one time). Will buy again.

5) Ultimate Shine shampoo bar. Shampoo bars are something I think are fantastic value for money - they cost around £4.50, which seems a lot, but then last literally for months - I think the last ones I had lasted about 3-4 months each. Also it's so much less packaging than buying bottled shampoo. Ultimate Shine is lovely - lathers really really easily and cleans very well. Would buy again, although I might switch it up with some of the other shampoo bars.

That's all for now - I'll do a 'LUSH Part II' post soon discussing a few of the other products I've had - which include Therapy (massage bar), Flying Fox (temple balm and shower gel), Running to the Embassy (foot scrub), Smitten (hand and body lotion), Dream Cream (hand and body lotion), and the others mentioned here - Porridge (soap), Jungle (conditioner), Pumpkin (soap), Sonic Death Monkey (shower gel), Happy Hippy (shower gel). And two or three more things, at least. Wow, I have tried out a pretty big range of products over the last 2 years (helped along by getting some as gifts and some as free stuff).

Pray as you can, not as you can't.

Click through to large version.

Dune

I've just finished Dune ... my my this is a GOOD book! I'm so pleased - I'd forgotten there was sci-fi this good ... you see, I've been working my way through a list of books One Ought To Read, vaguely. Included some Alfred Bester (The Stars my Destination - do not approve, didn't enjoy that one at all although I see that if all you want is explosions he might be okay), some Philip K Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - do not approve, didn't enjoy that one either although I think he's better than Bester) and some Lovecraft (which I found unreadable though amusing in a terrible sort of way). So Huzzah! and Hurray! For classic sci-fi which is deserving of the title not only in terms of its legacy (because I understand that certainly the guys mentioned above spawned some great stuff after them) but also in and of itself.

I see Dune as a story of war, power and control, and occupying forces - obviously, but also a story of hope, propaganda / the nurturing and guiding of the people's will, and giving and receiving of wisdom. I think one of the things that resonated with me was the value placed on wisdom, learning, loyalty and doing the right/just thing. It also made me think about qualities of a good leader (of people), and the ability to inspire and guide as well as the ability to plan and see ahead.

And there were shields and lasguns and giant worms. Yeah :)

In appreciation of time (and Galois)

I have 13 textbooks I want to read, and approximately 8 weeks to read them in (summer - holidays = 8, or thereabouts). Good thing I've picked up Galois Theory (Ian Stewart) today and am already about 1/3 of the way through - it's so readable! And such a lovely subject - marrying groups and fields.

Am living in the moment and all that. The moments are mostly good.

Recently I have been Reading

Recently I have been reading ...
1) Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson (no picture as I have now passed it on to Roseanna). This was a really, really good book - although I get the impression that it will improve on second reading, as while I was following the plot, I felt like I was missing a lot of side references and subtle connections between events. Erikson certainly throws you in the deep end, but I really liked that and didn't find keeping up too tiresome. Plenty of action, plenty of complexity, and plenty of character - I'm looking forward to the next two (I have them currently in my possession, but am waiting to take them away as guaranteed will-be-good holiday reading).

2) The Selfless Gene by Charles Foster.
I blogged about this a little bit a few days ago, and have since finished the book - it's really very good.

I am generally hesitant to recommend theological type things soon after I've finished reading them - it's easy to fall in with the author's point of view whilst reading and then a few weeks later think "... hang on ... that doesn't make as much sense as they pretended it did" but this really did make sense. In particular issues that started to click with me were a reunderstanding of the fall (being a loss of innocence, not a loss of perfection as it is often seen) and of heaven (recall: we're heading towards a new heaven and a new earth and a city, ignore all that harps-on-clouds gibberish that seeps in). As this is the first good moderate book I've read in the creation/evolution area I can't compare it to others, but it seems to me to be very sane, very free of propaganda-style arguments, and it also addresses the issue of animal suffering head-on (which was the main issue I found difficult).

3) Dune by Frank Herbert.
I felt I couldn't call myself a true sci-fi fan if I didn't make the effort to read this ... and so now I am doing so. I'm only about 1/5 of the way in so far but it is *wonderful* - lots of politics and intrigue, plus a bit of pseudo-mysticism and characters who seem reasonable so far.

Soon I will be reading ...

1)Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation by Asimov (thanks James!). Foundation was good, I'm hoping these will be as good - one person's told me they're better, and another that they're worse, so we'll see.


2)And lastly: The Irresistible Revolution (living as an ordinary radical) by Shane Claiborne. Serious stuff for a minute here - I haven't read very much of this book yet, but I think that Claiborne's message (of loving people and living an authentic faith) is important and amazing and infectious. (Side note: He was taught by Tony Campolo and the book has a recommendation by Rob Bell, which will impart some of its flavour to people who know who they are.) I don't know what my response to this book will be, but I think it will be ... significant. From what I've read so far it speaks of something I've been learning more and more this past year or so - to love and esteem people as people (after all, we all bear the image of God - no matter what) and to engage with them as valuable entities.

Recap: Plans for Summer

(cf older post)

So I've been home for a while now ... haven't been frittering my time away too much, but I have had some nice time off and am now getting that "I should be getting on with things" antsy feeling.

Things I have done So Far

1) Chosen the courses I'm interested in. I need to trim the list down a little, but I have chosen the maximum workload I could have.

2) Got textbooks from the library for all of the above courses, and decided that I want to skim read all of them and work through 2 of them.

3) Unpacked everything, and repacked some of the stuff that I won't need again until next year. Hurrah! I can now find all my stuff.

4) Given up on the tin whistle after finding that the one I had was rather out of tune, but having acquired a free rather nice recorder to use, have taken up the recorder.

5) Kept checking to see if coursework info is available, but it isn't yet.

6) Made more concrete plans for society stuff, and talked about it with various people.

7) Got a temporary job working approx 2 days a week (although in half-days / hours here and there, rather than 2 full days) at a bookshop. This is pretty much my ideal for the summer :) it leaves me lots of time to work on other things, but it's enough work to keep me in train tickets.

8) Read Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson (and borrowed the next two - they'll be coming on holiday with me at the end of August) and Foundation (Isaac Asimov) , and started Dune (Frank Herbert).

Plans for the Summer take II

1) Start coursework as soon as the details are available (which should be in the next week or so), and then keep at it over the summer. Coursework saved my bacon this year (since I messed up the exams), and this has made me really really want to have that same safety net next year (although I am obviously planning to work really hard and do really well).

2) Make a proper plan - and then stick to it - for doing maths work.

3) Ditto re the recorder.

4) Get some emails out about society things, including making sure websites are up to date and vaguely commenting on arrangements for Fresher's Fair (I know it's a long way off, but vague thinking about it could still be useful).

5) Try going rollerblading again. What I really want is company ... but I don't think I'll get any.

6) Stop spending money ... over the last week I've found an unusual number of things I've wanted for some while. This combined with some socialising has cost rather a lot of money (train tickets and food add up especially when you're doing some shopping too) - I have a fair bit of stuff arranged for the summer that I'm committed to doing, I'm going to try not to do anything extra that's expensive. In particular this week I will spend money on: a £5 topup for my phone, cheap trip to the theatre with friends on Wednesday + one meal out, and NOTHING ELSE (or at least that is the plan. If I spend money on something else I will come back and grovel).

I think I'd better leave the list there. Small focus is best. Mostly I want to focus on maths and the recorder. Might start messing about with the latter now ... although I don't hold fast to a "no working on Sundays" policy, it just feels slightly ... wrong, so I'll probably leave the maths til tomorrow.

An embarrassing thing to admit.

(Post prompted by beginning to read: The Selfless Gene by Charles Foster. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through though)

Once upon a time, I was a creationist*.
There we go, I've said it. The reader may now respond, possibly with "lol you". I feel this would be an appropriate refrain. I shall now spend the rest of the post attempting to convince the reader that I am not a moron (you may respond as to whether or not you think I am one in the comments, if you like).

The story goes like this: in formative years, I had two positions put to me. One, the young-Earth creationist view. This appeared to be endorsed by my parents and the Church, or at least our Church publicised events run by Answers in Genesis and such. Two, the militant athiest old-school evolution argument which declared that in addition to evolution being true, There Was No God, Nuh Uh, Never Ever.

I didn't find either of these options particularly convincing (honestly I didn't, I'm not just saying that to try to save face). But I did take at face value the idea that they were the only options (oops, that was silly). Given the choice between two sets of propaganda, I opted for the one which didn't completely destroy my beliefs (this is perhaps understandable?). (Also, as my interest in biology is epsilon for very small epsilon, I had no curiosity about it, really, so I didn't bother with trying to find much out.)

I was aware that there existed Christians who believed in evolution and didn't find it a problem, but I was temporarily suckered by the "they're compromising their faith" line that the creationists use. Having grown up a bit and got an awful lot better at understanding how science ought to be done etc, creationism of course became more and more unsatisfactory. And learning a little more about *real* evolutionary theory (as opposed to terribly badly outdated and flawed oversimplistic ideas, which is what I was originally exposed to) made it an awful lot more convincing.

Thank goodness for more and more books coming out to talk about the things rationally. The Selfless Gene is very good so far; I have also recently read a bit of Creation or Evolution: Do we have to choose? by Denis Alexander which is also very good. Young-Earth Creationism is silly; I am convinced. I have not wholly formed new opinions yet, but they are going to be *informed* ones that I need not be ashamed of.

So, reflections on the whole debacle ...

1) For goodness' sake present the moderate option as well as the two extremes. No wonder there is a documented issue where people go off to Uni, finally have evolution explained properly and because of this lose their faith. Fair enough if they decide there is no God, but wanting to accept evolution need not necessarily imply there is no God, and perhaps if they were told that in advance it might help.

2) Parents and Churches need to make sure they really research what they support and make conscious decisions about the messages they are sending out both to their younguns and to the world at large. Organisations I otherwise believe in and trust host AiG events and such ... this lends AiG credibility it does not deserve.

3) *Question* things, even if they're taught by people you trust. If they hold up to scrutiny, well and good. If not, then perhaps you can poke the people you trust and go "um .... no."

4) Always look for the moderate option. I don't advocate necessarily taking the moderate option; but it is the extremes that will shout the loudest and be all in-your-face. Therefore searching for a moderate option should help to fill in the spectrum of views.


(I have confessed; my conscience is clear)


*(yes, in the young-earth, 24-hour days of creation sense. Yes, you may lol again.)

More bad Christian pick up lines

70. "I arrange the substantial christian section of my bookshelf into alphabetical order. Coffee?"
Hmmm ... maybe. I'm up for alphabetizing in general.

71. "I sit with my mum at church"
Diddums, how sweet.

72. "Let me sell you an indulgence because it's a sin to look as good as you do."
Sleaze ...

73. "Not a big fan of your last name, but that's cool, I can change that."
That's kind of amusing but also a little patriarchal, and I'm not sure what I think about that ...

75. "I have a bible verse tattoo. It's permanent. It's also in ancient greek."
Would so take a photo and send it to someone who knows what they're talking about to see if it made grammatical sense.

78. "It would be my honor to present you spotless on the last day."
Hm. Nope. The Church as bride is not a message that you can apply to individual people, people!

79." Me. You. Song of Songs: the remix."
Hum. Only works after marriage?

80. "When I read Philippians 4:8, I think about you."
That's pretty sweet.

81. "I would leave 99 sheep to come and find you... and then I would carry you home joyfully on my shoulder"
Oo-er.

86. "My general biblical knowledge is quite vast, probably because I finished bible trivia as a child."
As I was told by my FIL-to-be when receiving my A level results ... "Nobody likes a smart-arse"

87. "Who's your favorite apostle?"
Hey! A line that could actually start a non-sleazy conversation!

90. "Let's go for a ride in my zondervan"
That would make me giggle.

91. "I like to think that I'm all things to all women."
"Fantastic! You can put up my shelves, clean the garage ..."

94. 'You float my ark.'
Not too bad.

96. "As Shammah the son of Agee a Hararite protected the field of lentils, so I wish to protect you."
Woo, lentils?

97. "You make me want to be a better Christian."
If that was said in all honesty it would be a positive thing.

98. "I will never give you reason to hammer a tent peg through my skull."
One of the best lines so far.

Coming up next time ... uh ... something else. Yeah.

Britain's Next Top Model (spoilers)

Warning: this post may be approximately equal to "squee! blah-blah-model-blah".

It's the final tonight! Huzzah ... all been building up to this moment. I'm about 10 minutes into the last episode now ... so it's down to the final two: Sophie and Mecia. Jade leaving last time was an interesting surprise - I'd assumed it would be her and Sophie in the final as they were pretty clearly the strongest two - but it looks like the judges decided that she didn't need to win in the same way as the other two do.

I really really hope Sophie wins ... I didn't like her at all to start with, she started out a little OTT, brash, and bitchy I think ... but as the series wore on I think you can start to see more of her real personality which is not quite as mean as she seemed. I really like her now. And I think she deserves it more than Mecia; I think she's the better model. The only problem with her so far as I can see is her walk. Fingers crossed ...

Onto commenting on the rest of the series: this has been a lot better than many of the others I've watched (which have been mostly America's Next Top Model). There are two factors that have set it apart that I've really liked: one is that throughout the shows as they had challenges they had many things that weren't straight photo-shoot modelling (acting for commercials, looking at ad campaigns for products, interviews etc) which were quite challenging and showed a lot about personalities and resilience, and the other is that a lot of the challenges had prizes that were jobs (i.e. you will be featured in such-and-such a magazine / ad campaign / designer's book etc, rather than all being items of jewellery / clothing). I think the latter is simply fantastic - assuming you don't come top, you walk away with some good TV exposure and you also may have one or two jobs lined up. That's pretty cool. And a good way to make sure that you really do keep pursuing the dream and don't just let it all fall away.

ETA: Nooo ... Mecia won ... mind you, she did really pull it out of the bag on the last assignment ... and thankfully Sophie had won a lot of stuff from the individual challenges so she will have some stuff to go on with. Maybe all of the top 3 will have great futures?

Being Useful

Yesterday I was busy from about 9am to 11pm helping my parents move. It was a really good day, despite being rather long and having the potential to be extremely fraught - senses of humour were kept, which is good, and the day went pretty well.

Writing about stacking boxes is boring, so ...
That sofa is sitting on a platform of boxes about 2m wide by 1m deep (and as you can see, about 1m high).

The truck was biiiig:
(Washing machine handily included for scale. Um, maybe.)
It took about maybe 3 hours to load the truck up ... we drove off with everything at about 1:30 but we didn't start actually loading the truck up until about 10 and of course there was a break for lunch and suchlike. Loading the boxes in was pretty straightforward - a little repetitive, but you just keep going - but loading furniture into it was more tricky ... we got there pretty well in the end:
The table you see there and the big sideboard are both made of kauri, a native New Zealand wood, and are family heirlooms I guess - they were especially commissioned by my Great-Grandfather (it may be more than one great; I think it's one). I think they're beautiful (although of course this picture doesn't exactly show them off!) - after Grandma died Mum and Dad inherited these and had them taken shipped back over here to the UK.

The sofa and armchairs are not at all family heirlooms but do demonstrate what a thing it is to have friends - they were given to them freely as somebody they knew through church had this set sitting in their garage with the "We don't need/use this, but it's too good to just throw away" feeling ... I think they're less than pretty (although if reupholstered in some different colour/pattern they might be quite nice) but they *are* comfortable.

So then there was a lot on driving in which I subjected my lovely parents to tobyMac: Alive and Transported which was cool ... then we stopped somewhere to buy shelving for the new garage ... when we arrived I got to put it together. It was like meccano for grown ups!
It's all "insert tab A into slot B, then hammer. Gently, you fool! No, harder than that, or it'll take ages!" - I got the hang of it in the end though. It's pretty awesome stuff - each shelf can take a load of up to 350kg. I built two units like the one in the photo - they have a 3rd (unbuilt) one still, which might end up being made into a workbench configuration for later when they want to actually use the garage properly rather than just fill it with boxes.
Carrying furniture into the house was ... interesting. It's a 3 storey narrowish place, th erooms are plenty big enough but the stairs ... well, the stairs aren't narrow exactly but when you're trying to carry an armchair up them without marking the paint / banisters, then they seem narrow.

Finally it was all done though ... and this
was a very welcome sight. Went off and had coffee and apple pies before coming home.

Art

Text from "Everything" by Tim Hughes.
Click through to large picture.

Frozen Yogurt

The right sort of thing to do on a hot day.


You will need: a stick blender, plain yogurt, frozen raspberries, and something to blend in. You could of course do this in a proper blender or a food processor, but those are harder to clean.


Raspberries meet yogurt. You should use lots of raspberries and not too much yogurt as then the finished product will be frozen; I didn't get it quite right here so mine was a little soupy.
Blend.

Finished product (plus some maple and pecan cereal for added crunch!). Taste - depending on how sweet/sour your yogurt was to start with (and how sweet your raspberries are) you might want to stir in a little bit of sugar.

A good snack for summer :) and very healthy, too.

Edited to add: I ate about half of it, and put the rest in the freezer - and it's frozen beautifully, no problem with ice crystals or anything. Fabulous. No need to stir it while it freezes etc.