Biscuit Consumption Analysis v. The Life Remix

I have been thinking about Lent a lot recently – and I’m getting fed up with some of the stuff I’m reading about it. A few of the sites I read regularly have touched on this, but I thought I’d put some of my own thoughts on this down somewhere.

Lent is thought about as a time to give something up, be it chocolate, sweets, beer, whatever. But that’s not what Lent is for. If you read the Bible, there’s no mention of any of that – why should we make it fit with our over-complicated existences?

Lent is supposed to be a time when we review our spiritual life, think again about what it means to be a follower of Christ, reset the compass of our discipleship and prepare ourselves to celebrate the Easter festival. But often we just give up biscuits. [Stephen Cottrell, I Thirst]

I don’t want to use Lent to not drink tea for 40 days, or make sure I am in bed by 11, or anything like that. I have a bed. I can drink tea freely whenever I want. I can look at my happy little son and know that we can feed and clothe him.

I’m staggeringly lucky!

Many of the problems I face are through my own mistakes or lack of thought, not through the simple impossibility of what I want to do. I take for granted the fact that I can turn on a tap and fill a sink with water without the several-mile-round-trip to fetch the water first.

So this is where the word remix comes in. I’m re-focusing my life in places. Retuning my spiritual aerial, if you like, and trying to improve the reception. It’s not a terrible arduous task – just a case of having a think about what I want to improve, and then doing it.

I can’t claim to be giving up all my comforts to live in a desert wilderness for Lent, but I can be happy that I am doing something positive, instead of something rather inane and pointless like not eating any digestives until Easter…
A few places for you to have a look at if you’re interested:

Desert (flash animation)
Grace’s Lent Blog
Maggi Dawn’s Blog
Jonny Baker’s Blog

A day to be sad

I heard on the news this morning that Linda Smith has died.

She'd been suffering with Ovarian Cancer for the last three years, although continued performing and broadcasting through her illness. I'm glad she did, as she was one of the funniest and warmest people to listen to. She was one of the best reasons to listen to the News Quiz on Radio 4, and her own series (A Brief History Of Timewasting) was a joy to listen to.

One of the best things about her work was that she was always funny, always cutting, and always managed this without being particularly offensive - witty and extremely erudite, with the skill to embark on wild flights of fancy and surrealism without losing the listener, she was one of the country's foremost satirists. And one of the most surprising things of all - she came from near me - she was born in Erith, Kent, and went to school in Bexleyheath...

I, for one (and I am sure I am not alone), will sorely miss hearing her voice. Early Friday evenings will not be the same.

There's a nice article on the Independant website today (here), and there are fond obituaries in both the Guardian and the Independant by Jeremy Hardy and Mark Steel respectively - two other comedy heroes of mine, and worth a read.

These are quoted in the article linked above, and sums up her brilliant wit:

On Jesus: "We know he wasn't English, because he wore sandals - but never with socks."

On her hometown, Erith: "They had a competition to find a new name for the Erith Leisure Centre. The winning name was 'The Erith Leisure Centre'."

Early starts and new writing...

I'm having an OK time of it at the moment... Getting up very early (5am) and being in work early (7am) seems to be doing me good! I'm eating healthily (sort of) and walking everywhere I can without it taking too long to be worthwhile... It's helped me discover that buses do run on time (at 6am).

And... I am writing again. Ok, so it's sketches and short stories at the moment, and just in small, spare moments, but I am writing, and enjoying it. Hence the gap in posts…
I doubt anything will be an appropriate size to fit on here, but I’m looking at setting up a website for stuff like this, and maybe making use of some good links to publish something…
I’ll leave a taster of where I am going though:

Lacking…

I lack courage and sureness of step
(I always check the ground I tread).
I lack the fibre and the guts to go on.
Luckily, I also lack the intelligence
To know I should stop.

The ground may rush towards my face,
The sky may drop towards my head.
My taste for culture may “dumb down”,
My love may not always be selfless and pure,
My thoughts may not always be perfect or true.

I may not always be consistent or punctual
And my hair not nicely preened.
I make no promise to make no sense,
Or to always nail facts to walls,
And I certainly won’t always pick up the phone…

But why should it matter what I lack?
Why should it push me away, derail me, detract?
Variety is joy – and I don’t claim to be
A saviour, messiah or saint.
And I shouldn’t, I couldn’t and wouldn’t lack

The one thing you should never lose –
The childlike awe, the wonder, respect.
Maturity and all that comes
(reading newspapers, forming considered opinion and shaving)
Can wait while the night sky entertains.

The ghostly images from the past...

Now, deep breath. This may come as a bit of a shock...

Ignore the... interesting stripey clothes, it's spooky, even I admit that!

Apart from anything else... My dad is dressed rather well! Obviously where I get my fashion sense from (the very late 70s...)

A Starring Role for Luke

I feel the need to prove that Luke still exists, for some reason... Having only made fleeting appearances on here recently, I thought he should probably get his own starring role in a blog entry. And here it is:

Luke's tiny little life is getting bigger. His hands are already at least double the size of when he was born, and at the rate he's growing, he'll be taller than both Nik and me before he hits the six-month mark...

Not that that is a difficult feat to achieve... But he's not unusually large in anyway - everything is perfectly in proportion, and indeed, he's just outgrowing all his 0-3 month clothing range and starting to get into his 3-6 month range - seeing as he's 3 months old on Saturday, that's pretty accurate as far as size goes.

He's more of a delight to us every day - having truly mastered the smile (and no, it's definitely NOT wind before you think it...), he's now moving on to laughing - and the same goes for having got the hang of standing (albeit still needing someone to steady his balance a bit), he's now trying to take a step when you help his stand - which for 3 months is amazing!

He seems to love lights and shiny things - and therefore the television seems to be a wonderful thing to him (he won't take his eyes off it - all those colourful things on a bright, shiny screen...), and at the moment, most of his huge collection of toys is being ignored in favour of a small, noisy giraffe (but then, even mummy and daddy like the giraffe...)

On top of this, I discovered some shocking photos at the end of last week which show just how similar he looks to me at the same age... I'll put a couple on here soon to show you... It's worrying... I was cute! Where did it all go wrong?!

New Year - New Blog (sort of...)

Happy New Year everyone!

It being a brand new year, I used the quieter time over the holiday period to have a think about my blog, and what's happening with it. And the first thing I decided to do was change the design - it was starting to depress me a bit, to be honest - very dark and very simple. So I have it a tweak, and I still have to tinker with some colours, but I'll get round to that soon.

How are we all? I've had a month away from posting here (nearly), and enjoyed the time I had off work to spend with Nikki and Luke over Christmas. It was a lovely time - nice and quiet, no real disasters to speak of, and Luke's present haul this year was extremely impressive. I'll put a picture up here when I can get round to it. New Year wasn't a particularly special day for us (well, at least, we didn't seem to treat it as special - further than remembering that it was the end of the year of Luke's birth, which is reason enough to celebrate)... I don't want to do a review of the year or anything, as that's kind of why I started the blog - to keep track of what was happening. That's evolved and moved on a bit since, but it's still the essence - I just think it would be a waste of time repeating all that has happened in the last year! Most of it traumatic in its own ways - some for the good, and some bad! But all I'll say about it is that it has been a good year.

I'm getting back in the habit of looking on here, so posting should be back to the regular occurence that it used to be!

Advent

Well, it's now got 8 days into December and it has finally really dawned on me that this is advent... Apart from the wonderful home-made advent calendar that Nikki made for me last year and filled with interesting treats for me again this year, nothing has felt particularly festive so far. And then I started to think about Christmas food... I have actually offered to do Christmas lunch this year... Possibly a stupid thing to do - and as Christmas Eve is a Saturday this year, I'll probably be spending it getting food ready for the next day! But as I began to think about it, I started feeling a bit more festively-inclined...
And then there's Luke, who's really going to make our Christmas fantastic this year (and hopefully for many more years to come) - but its kind of re-set my mind to what advent is about. I haven't (for many and various reasons - mostly connected to lack of sleep and family illnesses) been able to get myself down to church since Luke was born 8 weeks ago. I have really missed being there, and have kept myself going using some of the various sites on the net dedicated to alternative worship and the like (if you want to know more, check out Jonny Baker's blog - not only is that a good place to start, there are more links than you can jingle bells at).
But Luke is a living example of what I love about Christmas. The stories, the biblical reasons we celebrate - and more than I think most people would admit in public... the sheer childlike joy I get when I give presents and see people enjoying themselves. The story of what happened on the first Christmas is so strong, so good, that it would not make a blind bit of difference if it were to turn out to be fiction - its still a great story, and sums up what the season has always meant to me - love, generosity, kindness. OK, so the way it gets told is often completely outdated and dull, but it still gets through, and I don't know a single person who doesn't know the tale - thats how good it is.

Luke also makes me remember that this is what Jesus was like in the stable - probably not quite as warm, but certainly loved and appreciated as best us humans can manage.

Christmas is for kids. And bigger kids, and even bigger adults. Christmas is about one kid. And that kid became an even bigger adult, and died for us. Christmas is the end of a year (almost), but the start of a fresh journey.

Are we all supposed to be this sensitive?

Is it just me, or is the fact that (fellow) Christians are already protesting about THIS really annoying?
Is there nothing “we” can be tolerant about?

A bit of background is probably necessary here – Paul is a new play by Howard Brenton which is being staged at the National Theatre at the moment.
Howard Brenton is well-known chiefly because of his play “The Romans In Britain”, which was infamous for Mary Whitehouse launching a private prosecution against the play’s director for staging a production which simulated gross indecencies. Whatever the true meaning of the scenes that outraged Mary Whitehouse and her supporters, that is forevermore going to be remembered.
Try here for some extra background.

But, Paul seems a rather different kettle of fish. This is the story of St Paul, but is told from a secular point of view. I admit now that I haven’t seen it – and anything I refer to is from the reviews I have read. But a secular retelling of a Biblical life is a good thing, as far as I am concerned – it has been done with the life of Jesus countless times – maybe not quite on the same scale, but it has. And ok, Howard Brenton is perhaps no stranger to controversy – but there is nothing particularly controversial about the play except the one element of questioning whether the resurrection actually took place, and I admit that this probably quite rightly causes a little bit of caution in Christians. But it's an interesting theory - forces us to actually THINK about the nature of faith, and question, which can only be healthy, surely?

According to Nicholas Hytner, there were 200 complaints on his desk before the play had even previewed, and all the complaints were on the assumption “that the play is about Paul being homosexual and misogynist; they assume it's going to be a prurient hatchet job.”

I can see how the idea would provoke some worry amongst a certain type of Christian, but why must they always assume that everything that approaches faith from an unusual angle is out to offend and provoke? I may be hilariously isolated on this, but really, guys, learn to relax a little.

Now, to me, this sounds quite good. I’m interested, and I probably wouldn’t be if no one had protested about it – mainly because I would never have noticed it! It might just be me, too, but I love the quotes that bookend this:

Paul
A new play by Howard Brenton

Forgive me brother, let’s keep our relationship strictly commercial. I hear people get killed in Judea because of religious arguments. All I want is a tent, not a new god.

A divine revelation on the road to Damascus moves Saul to renounce his former life. He changes his name, converts from Judaism, and devotes himself to preaching the Gospel.

Taking the remarkable life and moral teachings of this profound religious thinker, Howard Brenton explores the extraordinary phenomenon of faith. While offering a secular reading of the story of Christ’s resurrection, at the play’s heart Paul preaches from his Letter to the Corinthians, the eloquence of which cannot fail to move.

An irreverent, provocative new play by the author of The Romans in Britain.

Though I command languages both human and angelic – if I speak without love, I am no more than a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. And though I have the power of prophecy, to penetrate all mysteries and knowledge, and though I have all the faith necessary to move mountains – if I am without love, it will do me no good whatever.

Doesn't sound as offensive as we're led to believe it is. And presumably people got a bit excited because it looked like this could be a Jerry Springer Mark II. I'm glad they have been disappointed by the fact its not. But then, I couldn't stand the debate on Jerry Springer either - to me, it was a very intelligent and funny show. Yes, I didn't like bits of it, but there's this thing called suspension of disbelief. It's quite handy when you're watching/reading/listening to FICTION. How can people see us in a serious light if the loud minority (and I think it is a minority - and if its not, it should be) take the first opportunity to shout their complaints without thinking whether anyone would seriously be swallowing what they're seeing and believing every word. You don't go to the theatre to learn hard facts, you go to enjoy yourself. Perspective needs to be remembered. After all, how are we supposed to show people the good reasons to follow God when all they see if what "we" don't like, not what we do?

I actually think that this is an important play. There have been so many instances in the last few years where mainstream theatre hasn't been brave enough to put on a play which questions belief - and this production in particular is an important milestone as far as I am concerned. This is a serious play, which is, according to the Metro, "...a rare thing: a thrilling drama that grapples with big ideas."

What's wrong with that? I can't think of a more worthwhile kind of play to see, to be honest. It's a hard balance, I understand that. But its a risk worth taking, and people really should be less sensitive towards interesting ideas - it is not mocking the Christian faith, it asks questions about the nature of faith. And that, after all, is a very worthwhile exercise in a society and culture looking for something to believe in. And besides, the play itself doesn't renounce the gospel, it does not criticise the Christian faith, but in many ways affirms it and backs the moral covenants and values preached.

I want to go and see this play, and I certainly wouldn't have too many doubts with performing it given half the chance - theatre is fantastic for sparking proper involved debate on subjects, and this would release a debate and a half. It might not even be out of place if used in an alpha course, as they both share the common theme of exploration of faith.

I'm angry because they claim to represent Christians. I'm sorry, but I respect myself and my faith too much to be considered represented by you. We can't outlaw people discussing the nature of faith and our own backgrounds - in fact, that's something we don't do enough ourselves.

Anyone agree/disagree?

He has a name!

Just a quick note to say that the little man now has a name. Last night we decided to call him Luke Matthew Fosten. Please keep us in your prayers all you people who pray, and those that don't - just remember us from time to time - especially little Luke... I'm sure he'll know you are thinking about him even if we don't!

Happy Three Weeks To Him...

So, the little man is three weeks old, and still hasn't got a name. And, no, despite the temptation, I am not about to offer the names we're choosing from so you can all vote on it... No matter how much you ask.
Life isn't too bad - he's already got the hang of the sleeping-when-it-gets-dark thing (for the moment, anyhow - I don't want to jinx anything!) and Nik's enjoying being with him all the time instead of going to work - who wouldn't - even if he does stop her getting simple things done (like getting a drink) because he doesn't like not being held when he's awake!

And me? I had a great weekend in Whitstable for GOGI last weekend - I really enjoyed being there, and doing what we all did over the three days, and I'm already looking forward to planning the next one - leading worship there was a pleasure (it's always lovely to have a seperate dedicated chapel to use rather than the usual setting up wherever we can - which I have absolutely no problem with, but its brilliant to have a quiet space like that where people are encouraged to be still and relax before anything is even said, and the chapel at St Vincent's, while certainly not being huge, does that as well as anywhere else I have been).

Using media in worship always presents problems, and I have, over the last two or three years while I developed the ideas of using media clips of all sorts and sources, mastered the art of reading something while setting up the next clip for those occasions when plans go a little awry and I am relying solely on my laptop... I did have to use the skill a few times, but generally the technology behaved, and people seemed to get something out of what I was doing. I was sad to leave, in a way. I always enjoy GOGI, and as my ideas go, I enjoy this one more than some of the others... But I also feel quite at home doing the events connected with it - even more so this time now I have been out of FURY for a large part of the year... It felt like a bit of a homecoming.

Having said that, I was very glad to get home and see my little family again - its very hard not to miss the little one (and Nik, of course!). Sunday evening was nice and quiet as we all settled back down to being together again - and mercifully, the little one decided he finally needed to sleep after being awake all day...

Yesterday was my first day in my new job - so it was quite scary (with tonnes of information being heaped my way and little brain capacity to keep it all in!), but it worked out ok, I think. Today is day two, and has been a little more active, with actual work being pushed my way, so I'm happy (despite the nightmare journey into work - three trains cancelled at Orpington, the one I finally got was delayed by 30mins, and then it abruptly terminated at London Bridge, so I had to change... missed the next one as it was full, and finally wandered into work about 15 mins late... And I was hoping to be early and everything! Oh well.)