God's little joke

Well, I'm sure you can think of many, but here's the one played on me.
For a while now I've been ranting on and off about the Christ church notice sheet.  I've done a few small things to try to improve it - to make it easier to use - so that the information is clearer, and to make it easier to update.  These things are mutually exclusive a lot of the time.  It's one of those issues where I lack grace.  Red rags and bulls are nothing by comparison.  So don't ask me about it if you value your ears - I'll only chew them off for you!  Warner has also been trying to improve things, and his attempt IS a big improvement.  He's had an email that was perhaps a little too straight forward - not rude but rather curt.  But this is just background so that you can appreciate what happened next.  There I was Sunday morning - settled comfortably in my seat, expecting a good sermon from Margaret - which I got in due course, and enjoying the band and the worship.  I looked down at my notice sheet to make a note about the verse sequence on a particular song.  It wasn't listed.  Neither was the next one.  I pointed to the poor formatting, and the song list and said to Liz -"So this is a complete work of fiction then!"  and crossed out the hymn list rather dramatically. Liz checked her sheet - sure enough it was spot on - every hymn listed correctly.  Further examination showed my notice sheet to be dated 6 Dec 2009.  Last weeks surplus notice sheets are recycled on Sunday mornings - every week.  How did that one survive two whole months.  God goes to a lot of trouble, it seems, to show us how easily we make fools of ourselves.

The first Sunday of the month sees us off into the countryside for a pleasant stroll close to one of our local towns or villages. This time we met outside The Hoop, in Stock. After a short wait while we organised car parking and generally got together we started off. there were about 40 of us, which is a really good attendance. Passing "The Bear" we left the centre of the village and began walking past back gardens until eventually we came to All Saints Church.

We crossed the main road and left most of the houses behind, returning to it near Crondon Park golf course. The round Stock walk did not take very long, perhaps close to two hours. It was not a pleasant day, we got quite wet and some of us very muddy. Nevertheless it was enjoyable. On our return to"The Hoop" six of us went inside to enjoy the refreshment on offer.

An excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Frost Damage

Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the Garden, we are promised that the cold weather will return.  Since I started travelling on the bus I have stopped liking the cold weather.  It's not being ON the bus that's the problem.  We are protected from the wind, and even the ones without heaters have enough people on them to raise the temperature a degree or two. The problem is waiting for a bus.  No comfortable (relatively) train station, nicely covered, and partly underground.  There is just a bus shelter with barely enough roof to keep the rain off, or sometimes just a pole stuck into the path.  I just have to stand there and wait. 

I could walk to the next stop - its only three or four minutes away, but the bus could pass me as I do - and it has happened a number of times.  Alternatively I could walk four of five stops and still the bus doesn't come.  It's on those occasions whether I've walked or not that I get very cold.

Other things have suffered in the cold too.  The water gets in, freezes, expands and pushes things apart.  If you're visiting my house - take care.  I hope it will be fixed soon. 

Meanwhile, I have been potting the amaryllises and dahlias in preparation for better weather.  Next week contains February 9th, which was my Dad's birthday.  I remember there being snow on the ground for almost all his birthdays.  Lets see what the week brings.

Christ Church and a 60th

Christ Church
Colossians 3:18-4:1 includes the command "Wives submit to your husbands" and various other commands on family life.  I'd swapped for today, and at the time hadn't even thought to check what the reading might be.  Anyway I should, in theory, be able to preach on any passage in the Bible.  Its just a matter of prayer and preparation.  Isn't it?  Well some passages are more difficult than others.  I researched my topic carefully - as I always do - and the result is here, should you want to read it.
As it was a fifth Sunday the young people provided the music.  Having them rota'd  like this means they can fit it in between revision and school work and clubs and ... (why do we teach our children to have such busy lives?).  I don't know how the rehearsals went, but the music was very good!  And I should note that Liz sang very well - and that she was the only singer.
We are still learning how to make the best of the new projector and teaching people to switch it off and on. It's a long time since I've used slides, and had forgotten  that to make open office presentations transportable you have to embed the pictures, not link to them.  There are ways of doing it.  The easiest is to paste the pictures, rather than attach them - so some of my pictures were missing.  
I'm currently working on evaluating the software for the new laptop - to see which is best for projecting songs and other things.

60th Birthday
After lunch we walked across town (30+ minutes each way) to a friends 60th Birthday celebration.  He had an 'open house' for the afternoon.  Very many friends had come to wish him well from his old workplace and from the church. We had a very enjoyable couple of hours chatting to various people. 

Work is Worship / Exercise

From Colossians 3:15-17 we learnt that the Hebrew word for Worship and the Hebrew word for work are the same Adovah.  It makes you think about Monday morning (through to Friday afternoon).  It also makes you think about Sunday morning. We have all been at our work this morning!  Warner made good use of the projector and kept our attention with pictures and text.  So that's my challenge for next week!

Exercise
As there was a little conversation this morning about my hope to cycle to work, I thought I would provide an update on today's activity.  I had things to do today so the route changed.  In conversation earlier I had been told of a website that will find the flattest route.  mapmyride.com was not working, but I found http://gb.mapometer.com/en/ which will at least show me an altitude profile of my route:

Depending exactly where I mark the start/finish on the map I get 4.6+ to 4.8 miles, so the distance is up very slightly.

At Christ Church / Exercise

At Christ Church
I preached at the 08:00 service.  The topic was Colossians 3:12-14, which is titles "Rules for Holy Living" in my Bible.  You can read the text here.  I had struggled with the preparation, but was reasonable pleased with the result, especially as it was delivered after being woken by noisy children at 4am.  When does that end?
We have the new projector in place after some delays caused by the snowy weather.  Warner had prepared some video to show it off.  This was shown at the end of the service and delayed the congregation leaving by about 5 minutes.  There were two baptisms this morning.  We haven't had two for a very long time.  Both were boys and both very well behaved.  The church was packed. Liz lead and Jane preached.  The service went very well from my perspective.  Prayers were lead by Andy and Sue who also used the projector, and demonstrated that the laptop is at the end of its capabilities.  It took 10 minutes to get the powerpoint loaded into Impress (openoffice.org), but once loaded it worked fine.

Exercise
After a year of set backs and poor weather today was bright and sunny.  I decide to try out the bicycle.  To find out if it had survived being neglected for over a year.  I'm happy to report that it was fine.  My 'short route', the one I always start the summer cycling with if I've had a break is 4.1 miles (6.6 kilometres) according to google.  It took about half an hour, although I forgot to set the stop watch, so I only have a very approximate time.

I'm thinking about cycling to work, that is 8.8 miles, more than twice my starting distance, and then there's coming home too.

Talking Rubbish / Talking Sense

What a strange news morning it was. When we should have been talking about Haiti instead we hear that
Nick Clegg has apparently been saying that faith schools must tell the truth - that homosexuality is normal.  He was speaking to Stone Wall (a pressure group for homosexual rights).  Nick wasn't on the program, only a representative from Ekklesia and a Headmistress. Firstly to Nick Clegg - you are the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, so you shouldn't be telling anyone what to believe.  If this autocratic approach dictates policy I will leave.
Secondly, and more importantly, as Nick wasn't there, on to the debate itself.  The headmistress spoke sensitively and sensible about the one incident of homophobic bullying that she had experienced.  The man from Ekklesia stated that there were 10% more cases of homophobic bullying in faith schools than in state schools and it was something we MUST address.  He went on to say that being a homosexual is normal, like having sex before marriage is normal because its happen all the time.   Ekklesia say on their web site "the religion and society think-tank at the cutting edge of culture, spirituality and politics".  If this mushy thinking is the best that those on the cutting edge can manage I'm appalled.  Many of the things we see all the time are a normal part of human experience - divorce, domestic violence, public drunkenness, random acts of kindness by strangers, being ginger, or bald ...  Being normal does not make them good, healthy, positive or bad, sick, negative experiences. A very different form of judgement is required.  That is where the role of the faith community comes in.  Most people of faith have certain standards.  They know that the god they believe in asks certain things of them.  As a Christian, I know that my God expects me to abstain from divorce and sex outside of marriage, which must be to a person of the opposite gender.  My God expects me to remain sober, indulge in random acts of kindness to the best of my ability, not discriminate against people based on their hair colour, their gender, their skin colour, their social class or their personal belief system and defend all who are being bullied. He's not really into rules, he would prefer I just copied his son.  My God has very high standards and as hard as I try I will never live up to them, but I do at least have something of value to aim at, so I should make progress. If I were just to accept what I see happening to many people as normal (implying acceptable) then standards in society would plummet and chaos ensue.
After watching that interview I went upstairs and caught most of thought for the day.

From the BBC Website ( you'll need real player to listen):

Thought for the Day

Script not yet available Date: Friday 15 January
Presenter: Giles Fraser
Subject: Trying to rationalise theology is counter productive; belief resides somewhere deeper than logic.

 He made refreshing sense saying that the logical arguments for the existence of God don't work in the face of great disaster, but that those who believe respond to such disasters by realising their need for God and their reliance on him in an even greater way than usual.  The atheists therefore cannot expect believers to suffer shock and suddenly 'wake up' from the delusions.

There followed an item in which Vince Cable (Liberal Democratic spokesman on the economy) made perfect sense on the subject of getting our money back from the banks.

I left for work with my faith in reason and faith restored.

Back to Normal Sunday

Today represents the first 'normal' Sunday of 2010.  That is we are now out of the Christmas season, the Children's groups have re-started and the next important celebration for us is months away.  Margaret spoke to us from Colossians 3:5-11 reminding us of the many things that the world finds acceptable in our behaviour, but God does not.  Next week its my turn.  As Margaret said I get all the good news as she has all the bad.  You cannot cover those verses though without moving past the 'Therefore' at the start of verse 12 - that would just be too depressing.  The passage is often used as a new year reading.  I'm not sure if this is coincidence or was carefully planned by Warner.
The new projector we were hoping to have installed by Christmas was again delayed by the weather, so again we are hoping it will be in place next week.  To go with it we will also have a new laptop.  That is where I have seen Windows 7, and I am working on configuring it.  When I have complete my analysis of the projection software I will publish it on the other blog or the technology blog, or perhaps both.

Not everything is normal though - Christ Church now has a video channel on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/ChristChurchTV.  We are also experimenting with video on our web site. This is an important step forward in the video age.  Now all we need are some gifted producers and editors.

Snow Saturday

There's been snow on the ground all week.  We are in one of the longer cold snaps in the UK. This one is affecting the south and east of England as much, if not more than elsewhere.  This is also unusual. Nothing like 1963, but still unusual enough to make the news every day.  Journeys to and from work have been interesting and longer than usual.  On Thursday I worked from because of the fearful forecast of four inches. That much would undoubtedly stop the buses and probably the trains too.  This morning it was snowing again, but has stopped now.  I have re-cleared our path to the street and put some more salt down.  I have quite enjoyed chipping away at the ice and sweeping the remains of the snow into the road.  That's about all I have enjoyed.  The rest is just another difficulty to be overcome.  Largely we have succeeded in overcoming it.  The country has not ground to a halt yet.  Things are harder  but not too hard. As much as we'd like to believe we've failed, in truth we haven't done too badly.  Other places are worse.  I've heard reports that Germany and France have both suffered unusual amounts of snow, and have problem with their own transport systems.

Yesterday the double glazing repair man arrived exactly as planned.  He replaced 12 hinges on 6 windows and made sure that they opened and more importantly closed properly.  Yesterday evening I sat in the office behind the newly repaired and closed windows without need for a jumper.  Time to turn the heating down a notch.  So far I'm very pleased with the repairs, but time will tell - because we won't be opening the windows until summer comes.

One difficulty overcome, but the snow brings more.  The steps to the front door already have loose edging bricks caused by the last snows.  Now the paving slabs that make up the crazy paving are beginning to disintegrate.

Which just goes to prove that nothing lasts for ever, and that everything must be renewed or replaced.  Even me (Ephesians 4:20-24), even the world, and even the universe. (Rev 21).

Th link to double glazing repairs (above) does not work.  It belongs to Window Maintenance Co, based in Benfleet., Essex

Windows 7 - first brief look

On a pre-installed machine, but more of that later.  So here are my first impressions.  They can be summed up with the phrase "What a mess". 
Now I know a lot of this stuff can be fixed, but it shouldn't need to be.

1) Translucent title bars are still in place.  These are probably the daftest idea that Microsoft has ever had.

2) Shutdown, if you click it installs the updates - 15 in my case.  Microsoft please note - I just want to go home, not wait for all these updates to install.

3) UAC messages are still apparent.  I have only logged on and completed set up, and I've still had to confirm that I want to!

4) Coming out of Standby the screen doesn't show the red power off button until you click 'Switch User'.  Then the same screen is displayed with it, but this time the option to install updates must be selected!!

5) I selected connect on the wireless network I wanted to connect to.  It is WEP protected, so I expected a prompt for a key.  Instead the system reported that there was a problem.  I'm new to this O/S so took the decision to diagnose the problem.  Lots of scanning and repairs later it still hadn't asked me for the key.  In fact to put the key in I have to go into the control panel and navigate the unnecessary hierarchy of bits and bobs before I can enter the key.  I typed it wrong the first time, but still no message saying, for example "access denied".  Why ever not?  They're fond enough of it elsewhere.

6) Start-up time is supposed to be improved - it isn't.  I'm going to race it against my old Vista system to see who wins.  Of my current machines the 4 year old XP is the fastest to a usable state (logged in).

My conclusion so far - this is Vista version 1.5.  The rest is unjustified hype!

One Year On

One year ago today I slipped on the ice, broke the shoulder joint off the top of my arm and generally mangled up my right shoulder.  I had a long operation to put the pieces back in place, and some metallic assistance to ensure they stay in place.  Following almost four weeks off work, and perhaps six or seven on 'short time' (arrive late, go early), then about 12 weeks of physiotherapy I have arrived at the point where my right arm is OK for most day-to-day usage.  I still have some notable exceptions.  Lifting my arm above my head is difficult, it doesn't go very far.  It doesn't go at all with even light loads.  There are times when simple twists are painful.  There are strange clicks - even when I think I'm being still. There are times when the arm is uncomfortable, and the joint slow to move.  I am still treating it gently and I'm still compensating by using my left hand to do things - its capability and accuracy have improved considerably.  I have been told that it takes 18 months to get to the point where further improvement is unlikely, so there is still some hope for improvement.

Many of the possibly bad consequences have not occurred.  For example, I had been in a new job for six months. I could easily have lost the job - I didn't. I could have been asked to use my holiday entitlement to cover my sickness time off - I wasn't.  They could have stopped my pay after the first five days - they didn't.

To read the full story, follow this link, scroll to the bottom and read the posts in reverse order (sorry I don't know if its possible to display them ascending chronologically.

I'm still looking forward to further improvements, and possibly a healing.