I'm so sick, sick, sick and tired
Of working just to be retired
I don't want to get that far
I don't want your company car
Promotions aint my thing
Name badges are not interesting
It's much easier for me see
To stay at home with Richard and Judy
Awayaway oh oh oh away from here...
Awayaway oh oh oh away from here
Awayaway oh oh oh away from here
Awayaway oh oh oh away from here
My big girl is getting away from here, well for two weeks anyway as she is off to Taiwan. I suppose she is going quite far and in that respect the lyrics don't work, but you get the point. Anyway follow her travels
here and see how she gets on. The trip is with the United Reformed Church to build up relationships with the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. It should be interesting to see how she gets to grips with chopsticks and over comes her phobia of spiders!
Labels: Family, Holidays
Guillemots - Take Me Home
When all the world's been dreaming
I've been burning all my feelings
I wish that I was dreaming too
I wish I was asleep
Oh, take me home
Take me home
Take me home
Take me home
Take me home
Been a strange day today, all I have wanted to since I got up was to go back to bed. Not really because I was tired rather because I didn't want to engage with the world. I just wanted to shut the doors, draw the curtains and hideaway. Instead however, I had a meeting all morning followed by lunch, the meeting was ok but still I wanted to be at home. This Sunday's reading is Mark 6 v 30 - 34, 53 - 56 Jesus and the disciples withdraw to pray, perhaps this is where I am at. A busy few days with work and family and perhaps now I need to recharge physically, emotionally and spiritually. Instead tomorrow I have a plan setting meeting and then into school for a meeting with the headteacher. Perhaps I can find time to be still at some point, I know that I need to spend time being and not just doing but at times if someone would only just Take Me Home.
Lord God, in the busyness of our days help us to stop and listen for your voice. Remind us that it is your strength we serve and not in ours, so help us to learn to rest in your presence and find refreshment in you.
Labels: Church, Faith, Life, Ministry, Soundtrack
Editors - Sing When You're In Love
On dance floors from London to Liverpool
In the dark of the night when the air is cool
Out in the street in the pouring rain
In a concrete jungle that echoes your name
In a hundred hotel rooms where a few hundred sleep
In a thousand cheap boozers where young lovers meet
In a million miles of traffic jams we waste away time
In a single sad moment when we say our goodbyes
Sing when you're in love
Have I mentioned before how much I love my wife? Have I mentioned before how proud I am of my wife? Well just in case I haven't here goes.
Today was K's graduation having taken the bold decision to go back to university, she not only passed but passed gaining a 1st class honours degree! So today we attended the graduation
ceremony at the
Bridgewater Hall, K (not so young anymore but still junior), H and R all came too and were also so proud of their Mum, what a role model. A great day enjoyed by us all.
I am so proud of her and simply love her so much. She worked hard continued to struggle through difficult times, produced the most incredible
dissertation and proved to everyone else a fact I already new, that she is amazing. K I love you and I am so proud of you.
So as the song suggests I am singing loudly.
Lord God, thank you for wives, they rock!
Labels: Family, Soundtrack
The Kooks - Shine On
Shine, shine, shine on
Yes
Wont you shine, shine on
(Sha la la la)
Shine, shine, shine on
Yes
Wont you shine, shine on
The coming weekend see's a church social and bbq for one church and a gardening afternoon and bbq for the other. The first hopes to raise funds for a Romanian family we support, the second came out of our alternative worship where we thinking about how we could show our neighbours that we cared. I hope that the sun will SHINE but having seen the weather forcast perhaps my prayer should be along different lines.
Lord God, we pray that you will SHINE on our lives, bless us as we share fellowship together and remind us always to be an inclusive community ready to welcome those whom we meet on our journey.
Labels: Church, Soundtrack, Weather
Biffy Clyro - Machines
Cause I’ve started falling apart I’m not savouring life
I’ve forgotten how good it could be to feel alive
Feel a bit like a machine this week. So much to do so little time, feeling guilty that I am taking time to write this post. Ministry is sometimes a grind, sometimes a chore, yet just when you least expect it something comes and lifts your day surprises you and reminds you of God's grace, the more I learn the more I learn about grace.
Loving God, help me to savour life and remind me that you give me life and life in all its fullness.
Labels: Soundtrack
Memories
I remembered how to log on! I had intended to post loads whilst I was in Palestine but as you saw it never happened. I look at my blog regularly and feel guilty so should I close it down? I could never bring myself to do that so instead I
intend to post the soundtrack to my day / week (let's not be to ambitious) and a few reasons why. Let's see how it goes and how long it lasts!
Labels: Blog Stuff
The Terminal
I could have posted so much, written so much, said so much over these last days. Words however, are insufficient, pictures do no justice yet, still we need to tell their story. A story of occupation of hurt and of pain, yet in the midst of it all signs of hope glimpses of God. Incarnation once more born again in these amazing people.
Today I witnessed the most disturbing event I have seen since arriving. Palastinians wanting to work in Israel, horded into a pen, driven like cattle to make there way to the terminal where their documents are checked and if they smile right, the wind blows n their direction they will be allowed through. No pictures, I don't want to show their humiliation yet I need to ell their story. I need to make someone hear I NEED TO SHOUT TO MAKE PEOPLE LISTEN. Oh God hear your people cry!
Today we leave Bethlehem and make our way to Galilee time to reflect, a stop in the desert, a time in the wilderness, time to be alone with our thoughts and to remember what we have seen.
Oh God of justice,
be with your people,
wherever they are from,
help them to see in each other signs of hope,
glimpses of you,
that they may search for you in each other,
and be consumed your love.
Amen.
Again the words of Micheal Franti
To the East to the West
One love people never gonna stop
One to creation, one to the sun
One to the mornin, one to the one
One to the air and the freshness we breathe an
One to the force of the change in the seasons
One to the mother from which all things come
One to the daughters and one to the sons
One to the Father who helps us believe that
Nothin's ever gonna harm you see an
One to the soldier who walks city streets an
One to the soldier who fights overseas an
One to the man who gets down on his knees an
Prays for god and send protection please
Labels: Faith, Friends, Greenbelt, Holidays, Ministry
Room in the Inn
Inn the Beginning
Where to start? I've had a night now to reflect on my first experiences, I was shell shocked when we first arrived. Just clearing the airport the scrutiny, individuals picked out, singled out, questioned, strange to see from a nation who suffered so much so similar. Our guide met us and welcomed us and began to share stories.As we drove from the airport our first glimpses of what our guide labeled as the apartheid system that is in operation here. Men running from one area to the other to cross borders and find work. The wall such a big feature of this modern and changing landscape. So much of the Biblical landscape being stripped of it beauty and replaced with concrete. The wall on the journey from the airport built from attractive stone to make it more 'acceptable'.
That was a post I never managed to finish. Since I arrived here I wanted so desperatley to write something, not particularly that made any sense to others but made sense to me. Others here have written much some of it profound but what does it mean to me?
I wondered before I came how this place would make me feel I thought I had prepared but no nothing can prepare you. There have been so many stories of injustice. Houses demolished because the Israeli government can. People prevented from working, forced to queue from midnight in order to work the following day. We have seen conditions of living which you would think we illegal. Yet through all these stories through all these people comes grace. Grace to accept, grace to try and make sense grace to want to forgive. Our experiences are but a snapshot of their lives. Thank you for letting me in for you have changed my life forever.
Gracious God,
who sees beyond what we see,
who understands more than we can ever know,
help Palestine to be a land of peace,
to once again become a land flowing with milk and honey,
and may her people experience HOPE once more.
As we drove away from Hebron yesterday having been prevented by Israeli soldiers and settlers from going where we wanted. As we left Hebron yesterday having witnessed an Palestinian young man held a gunpoint for daing to ask (politely) why he could not continue I listened to the words of Micheal Franti on my Ipod and I leave them with you now.
I don't need a passport to walk on this earth
Anywhere I go cause I was made of this earth I'm
born of this earth, I breathe of this earth, and
even with the pain I believe in this earth So I
wake up every morning and I'm stepping on the
floor I wake up every morning and I'm stepping out
the door I got faith in the sky, faith in the one,
I got faith in the people walkin underneath the
sun Cause every bit of land is a holy land, and
every drop of water is a holy water, and every
single child is son or the daughter of the one
earth mama and the one earth papa So don't tell
a man that he cant come here, cause he got brown
eyes and a wavy kind of hair And don't tell a
woman that she cant go there, because she prays a
little different to a god up there You say
you're a Christian cause god made you, you say
you're a Muslim cause god made you, you say
you're a Hindu and the next man a Jew And then
we all kill each other cause god told us too?
Labels: Faith, Greenbelt, Holidays, Ministry
