Hubris

March 7, 2012

So I sat there, not sure about the content, not sure about the approach I was going to take, feeling a bit embarrassed about my oversight and concerned that I was failing in responsibilities to God and everyone who had showed up on a cold night in January. Then before the sermon we sang ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ – a classic and well loved hymn that I have been singing since I’ve been able to read. All of a sudden all my insecurities, worries and hopelessness were put into perspective,

‘Were the whole realm of nature mine,

that were an offering far too small;

love so amazing, so divine,

demands my soul, my life, my all.’

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Off Your Trolley…

November 27, 2010

Distracted by cheap food and rich conversation with my beautiful wife, I took my eyes off the trolley park for a bit, and when I looked back it was chaos. More trolleys had been left any which way, a lady approached and tried to slot her trolley into the back of another in the correct fashion, but this made more of a mess because of the angle it was now sticking out at.

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The List

October 22, 2010

The list leads to an ultimately more peaceful existence for me, it gives me satisfaction, and I know when I obey it things will be better. But sometimes my rebellious self thinks ‘Stuff you, stupid list, why are there so many jobs on you today, and what’s this? An extra job that has never appeared on you before? No no no no no. This cannot be right. Best just to ignore you altogether.’

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Cech it out

October 16, 2010

Silence is an underrated tool of reflection that can be used to great effect in drawing close to the Lord, and seeking his still small voice. The silence that followed this remark wasn’t of that ilk, but I tried to look as though I was reflecting so to appear holier than everyone else in the room who were now staring forlornly at me.

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A dirty little secret?

October 13, 2010

I have a secret. It’s not something I’m ashamed of you understand, it’s just sometimes it’s easier to keep things to yourself and not open yourself up to the abuse of some judgemental people. You’ve got to understand, people have got to understand, it is addictive…. And you don’t even have to look hard to find things to ‘fuel the fire’ so to speak. You can find stuff on the internet to look at; you’ve got to dig a little to find pages worth looking at, but with a bit of time, and to be honest very little effort, there is a whole catalogue of websites to get your fix from.

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Tyred & Irritable

October 8, 2010

In that moment I was a mix of anger and despair. Anger because despite following the instructions it still didn’t work, and despair at being reminded that here was another simple task I could not perform. While my friend, God bless him, who has just moved in down the road is building shelves from old drawers, painting the house from top to bottom, working shifts and looking after two kids under three, I was struggling to patch a hole the size of a pinprick. And if I couldn’t do that, in what other arenas would I fail to live up to my designation as a man? I have already failed to provide my wife with a child, she is the main breadwinner, my lack of DIY nous means I am relegated to performing even simpler chores such as hovering, ironing and emptying the dishwasher.

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Defined by Weakness

September 25, 2010

The time came for questions from the floor and I, still seething, slowly raised my hand. ‘You say that faith is a crutch for the weak’ I aimed directly between his God denying eyes, ‘But you have a faith, you might not call it God, but you believe in something – does that make you weak?’ Revelling in my quick witted challenge I sat down, while all atheist boy could mutter was ‘Good one.’

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The Shape God Has Given You

September 22, 2010

“In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the …

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Behaving

September 17, 2010

The thing is churches often flip that around and expect people to behave long before they believe and certainly before they belong. Not only is it pious to the extreme but also it’s heresy. Yeah you heard me, I did just go there.

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Enough is not Enough

September 11, 2010

It seemed that they would rather keep me in the comfortable category of religious than make a new one for this troublesome little God botherer. Or maybe I am again assuming that when they say I’m religious what they are actually saying is that expect me to put on some tin foil armour, mount a horse and start a second but more brutally effect crusade. Whatever the reason I assume that they think religious is bad, so I try to avoid being labeled it.

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Ivory Tower Block

September 3, 2010

Now we have a foundation for our latching. Now we can examine everything they say and do to make sure that they are a better Christian than us. Now we can hold them up as an example to everyone who thinks Christians aren’t cool! Take that heathens! Now we can judge them more harshly than we judge ourselves, and expect them to live a life second only to Jesus in terms of purity.

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