Connect

“The connection is so subtle and it’s so fragile in the world we live in. It’s like a bird’s song. All the noises of the world seem to devour that song. Just go out your front door and listen… you hear people shouting, cars driving, radios, TV, the list is endless. You have to first shut all the noises out and you have to listen and became silent… to hear the song. And if you find it, it’s so beautiful!”

I’ve been following this discussion over at Naked Pastor about struggling to ‘connect’ with God.  I mentioned that I often struggle to ‘connect’ with God both at church and away from church.  I am too easily distracted, irritated and far to apathetic.  I asked the question, what does it mean to be ‘connected’ anyway.  This is a theme I’d love to explore but for now I’d just wanted to share the words that are at the top of this post.  They were written by Kaalvoet-Kind.

 

How to worship video

Funny video I stole from annedroid.

Crick in the neck

I am over 24 hours into the worst crick of my life.  I was afflicted with it during yesterday’s morning run.  I was very patient yesterday but waking up with the same restrictions is really annoying me.  I feel like a thunderbird puppet who got his head string tangled up in the looking down position.

It inhibits me from doing all sorts of pleasurable things:

Writing blogs/watching Match of the Day/cuddling my wife/driving/10-pin bowling/watching fireworks/eating/kissing Anya while she’s asleep/partaking in conversations/sleeping

Hope it goes soon

Minutes to Midnight: Part 3 – The Little Things Give You Away

It doesn’t matter how hard you try, what level of deception you can attain, or even how deluded you are.  There will always be things that give you away if you try and make out you are something you are not.

This haunting, damning song leaves the soul bare.  Written about New Orleans and hurricane Katrina it could be a slur on Bush and his political stance to the disaster although the line, ‘as a nation simply stares’ suggests a wider accusation.  The truth of the matter is, for all our huffing and puffing, most of us are apathetic and stand by as others suffer.  I yearn for a compassion that is not held back by pride, laziness and a lack of perseverance.  A compassion that actually takes action.  I can say I love but inaction gives me away.

Stroke of genius by BBC

The BBC said they had to put Nick Griffin on because his party had met the criteria and earnt the right to be on the platform.  However, I think there was a totally different agenda going on.

The BBC set up Nick Griffin to be slaughtered.  It was the most one sided Question Time I ever saw, even the presenter was killing him.  The BNP got a voice there because we are a democracy but what we all saw tonight was not democratic, it was entrapment.

I don’t care though.  I believe people vote BNP because they are disengaged with politics and don’t know any other way to get any change.  The BBC managed to generate so much publicity that those of us who are disengaged and don’t get politics actually tuned in to see what was going to happen.  And what we saw was a vicious, deceitful, fiend spouting the most foolish lies and tales that those who may have resorted to voting BNP in the past surely must be persuaded that it is a party solely based on white supremacy and racism.

On one hand I am nervous about what backlash we may see from fundamental BNP supporters.  Sadly, I fear we’ll hear some nasty stories over the next few days.  For this reason it was dangerous to give the BNP so much publicity.  However, I am interested to see what effect this will have overall, and long term, to the political balance in this nation.  It’s gonna be a fascinating lead up to the General Election and I desperately hope that the racist BNP are now on their way to being booted into touch.

hope no violence

Beached whales struggle with insomnia

I can’t sleep.  I thought about writing a post about not being able to sleep.  But I decided not to.

So I’m gonna write the world’s biggest “to-do” list and hopefully in the process remove all the stuff that is whizzing round my head and stopping me from sleeping.

I only have myself to blame though.   I went to an ‘all you can eat’ last night and really pushed it.  I weighed myself when I got back and I had put on 2kg while I was there!  This means I’m only 1.5kg away from ‘obese’ on the Body Mass Index.  I am working much harder to be healthier, but last night was a very deliberate blip in my smaller portions, eat less often diet.  Mind you, I’m really not sure the temporary pleasure was worth it.  I feel like a beached whale.  And from what I understand beached whales rarely get good nights sleep.

Chattering fool

Sometimes me and Anya read a Proverb at breakfast time.  This is great because Anya gets to practice reading, she comes out with some hilarious and profound points and, it is certainly of use to get an early morning dose of the Word of God.

Yesterday we read:

 ”The wise in heart accept commands,
       but a chattering fool comes to ruin.”  Proverbs 10:8

I asked Anya, Who gives commands?” and the genius came up with God through Moses, parents, teachers and governments.  We had a chat about when you talk in class you sometimes miss what the teacher asks you to do and it led me to the very simple, obvious but life changing conclusion that if we spend too much time distracted by other things, the ‘chatter’ of life, then we will miss out on the words of God for today.

Our God is a living God who interacts and relates with the beings he has created.  Spend time each day listening, pause to think, look around you.  I sometimes feel like I constantly need background noise – tv, work, conversation, MP3, newspapers, internet….none bad in themselves, yet all these things sometimes lead this fool to ruin.

Most ridiculous law ever

This BBC story describes what I would argue is the most ridiculous law ever conceived.

OFSTED has ordered two female police officers to stop looking after each others’ children!  The two mums just use it as a means to work.  However, they have been accused of illegal childminding because they look after children and receive a reward.  But that reward is simply that they have their own children looked after in return!

If you want to sign a petition against this then click here.

Does anybody know of any other equally ridiculous laws?

Educate our girls!

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has published a report which contains figures that really should get us sitting up, taking note and taking action.

The following statistics are for 13-17 year old girls in the UK

• 1 out of 16 has been raped
• 1 out of 6 has been pressurised into sexual intercourse
• 1 out of 4 has been physically assaulted within a relationship
• 9 out of 10 have been intimate in relationships

As the father of a six year old girl I find this troubling.  It is only going to be a few years before my little girl is going to be feeling the peer pressure to be in a physical relationship with a boy.  It was tough when I was at school but I believe the intensity of sex and dating whilst negotiating adolesence has been cranked up a few notches in the last 10-15 years.  I am scared to send her to secondary school but I know that this is a minefield Anya must tackle as she grows up into a young woman.

However, and I hope my peers who are also parents are listening to this, it is not something she needs to tackle unequipped.  Rada and I need to be talking with Anya honestly about the situations she will find herself in in the coming years.  She is six years old and innocent and naive.  I need to teach her to maintain her innocence but, at the right time, wise up and lose the naivity.

I was on the bus on the way home last Thursday evening and I passed crowd after crowd of girls dressed up like prostitutes.  They had received their GCSE results, were off for a night in town and were dressed to sexualise as much of the mid-pubescent bodies as possible.  I am telling you my heart broke and then I thought of all the parents who had allowed (passively or actively) their daughters to leave the house looking like giving themselves for sex was the number one aim of the evening.

Parents – we have the responsibility to educate our children.  They need to know what their worth is and they need to know exactly what peer culture they will confront in the next few years.  It will be too late to hope they come and talk to you once they start feeling the pressure…

West Ham must be punished severely

I like West Ham United.  I respect them more than most clubs, they have an air of dignity about them.  However, the actions of their fans and some of their players last night were disgusting.

Three times their fans poured on to the pitch enticed by players’ goal celebrations that were certainly over the top considering the context of the match.  Every fan should be identified and sentenced to community service doing youthwork with young lads so they can actually do some good for the next generation rather than be a gloomy example of pathetic irresponsibility.  Both clubs should foot the bill for all the damage and for the police presence needed outside the stadium.

It is credible that some football clubs have shown some responsibility and almost eradicated hooliganism but West Ham and Millwall clearly have a long way to go.  I know that the majority of culprits are not real football fans but they commit violent crime in the name of football and it is just not right that the public are in danger and the tax payer foots the bill to sort these issues out.

There is so much money in football.  The clubs and players should put their hands in their pockets and sort out this problem once and for all.  I suggest both clubs should be docked points in the league.  They would soon solve the problems if a club lost 10 points every time there was trouble at a match.