Family antics: Spring 2018

Well. This has been a spring, hasn't it? In less than two months we've gone from this:

to this:

via a LOT of rain.

It feels like a long time since I wrote a general family update, so here are a few highlights for March and April.

Easter

Toby and Theo both needed Easter bonnets this year. I was dreading the whole thing, but to my surprise, both boys were enthusiastic about making them, and it turned into an enjoyable experience. They didn't win any prizes, but they were very proud of their hats.

We also baked and decorated biscuits, and took them to my parents' for the Easter service at their church.

Car

We parted with our aging and decrepit Rover and traded it in for a shiny new vehicle. Graham did all the hard work finding the new car, but it was well worth it. The gears work. The windows roll down. The doors open without falling off. It even has a voice control system which tells the boys to "Please speak more quietly" when they yell at it. Such luxury.

Walks

We discovered a couple of new walks. On one, Theo learned to play the saxophone, we followed an old Roman road, and we sat in a WWII bomb crater.

On the other, Toby built a house among the rocks, Theo kept asking where the volcano was (answer: 600 million years ago), and we visited a monastery.

World Book Day

Toby wanted to go as Willy Wonka. I briefly considered making a costume, then bought it on Amazon. Best decision. Made my life about a million times easier. And he looked fantastic.

Theo was quite happy to go as Superman. I was quite happy about that too.

Entertainment

A Writers Day organized by the Association of Christian Writers, of which I have now become a member. The speakers were from Premier Christianity magazine, and were both excellent; even though I wondered if it would have been more useful to spend six hours actually writing, the day was informative and entertaining.

A 2nd birthday party and a 1,000,000th birthday party (or 64th for those who don't speak binary) where we saw friends and family that we haven't seen for an embarrassingly long time. The millionth party included karaoke, so we had a go at Shut Up and Dance as a family. I didn't think the boys would actually do it - well, I didn't think I would actually do it - but we did. And it was fun.

At the 2nd birthday party

The Play that Goes Wrong - absolutely hilarious. I can't remember when I last went to the theatre, and I can't remember when I last spent an entire evening laughing. That night I did both.

Spring!

The magnolia is in bloom for about ten minutes every year (there are petals all over the lawn already) but looks lovely while it is. So here's a family portrait in front of it.

Comments

The democracy of theology

Who gets to decide what God is like? I am the way, the truth and the life (Image: Pixabay) Well, God presumably has a pretty good idea. The rest of us struggle a bit more. So where do you get your theology from? Who tells you what God is like? And who do you believe when they tell you? I'm asking these questions because I recently read At the Gates , which I reviewed here . It made a lot of useful points about disability and the church. But it also, I noticed, had a very particular view of theology. Once again, I was glad I'd previously read Models of Contextual Theology , because I was able to pick up a few assumptions that the authors of At the Gates were making. I didn't feel that I totally disagreed with these assumptions, but I wasn't sure if I agreed with them either. So I'm using this post to explore them further. Assumption 1 A disabled person's lived theology is just as important as an academic person's theology This generates two opposing reaction

Limestone Way: quirky churches and cave houses

Enough theological reflection - let's go for a walk! Toby joined me for the two walks between Mayfield and Thorpe, via Mapleton and Ashbourne. My old phone finally died, so I was enjoying the capabilities of my new one, including a much better camera and the ability to plot routes on the OS Maps app. Walk One It was the first day of Toby's summer holidays, so I'd promised him a milkshake en route . We parked in Mayfield, went past the primary school, and climbed the hill to rejoin the Limestone Way where I'd left it last time . Very soon we came across Lordspiece Farm, which had what looked like a little shed on wheels outside. The sign said "Honesty Tuck Shop". One part of it was a freezer stacked full of ice cream! It was very tempting, but we'd hardly walked any distance, and we had those plans for milkshakes. We reluctantly closed the door and moved on. The farm dog had a bark much bigger than its body - it was a tiny thing! We continued across some f

At the Gates: Spiritual Formation Book 14

"A church with an accessible culture makes sure a diverse community can participate in everything they do. That's not a burden on a church - it's a cultural shift that benefits everyone." "This is a book about justice." So reads the first sentence of At the Gates: Disability, Justice and the Churches . Written by Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson, who are themselves disabled, At the Gates draws on interviews with dozens of Christians with disabilities to put together a picture of how they have been treated at church. In the book, the interviewees are called storytellers . All too often, the stories tell of lack of access, hurtful comments, and unfounded assumptions about their abilities and faith. This, the authors describe as ableism - an ideology that gives power to those who are able-bodied and neurotypical, while regarding others as deficient. What is the book about? The first part of the book covers the issues that disabled people have in havin

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog