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Showing posts from 2019

When the teacups are overwhelming

No one becomes a Christian because they love washing up teacups. Credit: Lisarlena via Wikimedia Commons Not many people become a Christian because of their passion for meetings about church budgets, either, or their desire to lift 50 padded chairs every Sunday morning, or because they have a strong opinion about the colour of the church carpet. And even those of us who enjoy a bit of robust intellectual debate once in a while, didn't become Christians in order to pick apart the finer points of doctrine. If you have become a Christian, and moreover continued to be a Christian, I would hope and suggest that it is for two reasons.  Firstly, because you believed that God had done and is doing something which demanded a response from you.  Secondly, because you found a community that also believed that God had done and is doing something, and invited you to be part of it. And you found yourself washing up teacups. But if it becomes all about the teacups, and even the mo

Sand, sea, skulls and sleepless nights: Gran Canaria

We boarded the plane to Gran Canaria with 2 suitcases, a rucksack apiece, and a few loads of expectation swinging from our shoulders.  It was the first holiday abroad since Toby had started school, and Graham and I were hoping it would be worth the extra hassle and expense.  We were looking forward to seeing a different part of the world, but aware that family holidays are never quite the oasis of rest and relaxation that we still, somehow, found ourselves hoping for.  Meanwhile, the boys had learned the Spanish for ice cream, and were happily chanting, " Helado, helado por favor. " ...and we're off! Perhaps fittingly, the holiday lived up to those mixed feelings.  We had days where we were seriously considering booking an early flight home, and days where we were very glad we'd come.  And of course, we had plenty of helado! The good bits The sea Well, we do like a bit of sea.  Graham went scuba diving, the boys paddled, and I swam and got splashed a lot

Finding common ground

A recent report by the UK Methodist Church, entitled God in Love Unites Us , has generated a lot of debate about same-sex marriage in the church.  There are already dozens of articles putting forward the views from each side.  But in such a divisive issue, I felt like it was important to remember what we do agree on. These are six things that I've heard from both sides of the debate.  We may doubt that others believe them.  We may disagree drastically on how to live them out.  But if we can at least assume that everyone believes them, then they may just give us a tiny piece of common ground to build on. We want to be welcoming and loving At their best, churches can be places where everyone feels welcome - where lonely people find a family, the unloved find love, and the outsiders find a community to belong to. At their worst, churches are places where everyone who doesn't live up to our ideals is made to feel excluded, ashamed, and even hated by God. We would all p

Easter celebrations

The rest of my eco-Lent flopped badly, I'm afraid.  Life has an annoying way of not stopping so that you can concentrate; in fact, it usually gets busier!  However, saving the environment was always going to take more than 40 days, so at least there is more incentive now to carry on. But for all our failures, and our fears for the future, we still need hope; and for that, there is Easter. And we did manage to do Easter! Here's our decorated mantelpiece: crafts by the boys, banner by me, flowers from the Co-Op and foliage from the garden. I made a Simnel cake (11 marzipan balls for the disciples, omitting Judas), and some 'empty tomb' bread rolls (a marshmallow inside melts in the oven, leaving an empty hole - ta-daa!) On Good Friday we did one of the Cadbury/National Trust Easter egg hunts at Calke Abbey.  It focused on looking for signs of spring rather than following clues, which disappointed Toby ("an egg hunt ought to have proper answer

House: Water, Energy and Stuff

I wasn't really thinking about water this week until I heard a news report on the radio which suggested that people should reduce their water usage from 140 litres per day to 100 litres.  Well, I had no idea how much water I used per day, but as it happened, we had just received our water bill.  I did a quick calculation, looked at the figure, and thought, "That can't possibly be right!"  I checked my conversion, checked my arithmetic, and finally looked up 'average household water usage'.  Of course.  The 140-litre figure I had in my head was per person; we were pretty close to the average household figure, at around 350 litres per day. Image credit: Pixabay But... 350 litres?  Every day?  That's 35 buckets full!  Imagine if I had to carry all that from a well!  I really was staggered to find out just how much water we get through.  This fascinating document   from the Energy Saving Trust goes into a lot more detail about what we use it for.  Di

Food: Reduce! Reduce!

This title reminds me of a story about the conductor of a choir.  While they were rehearsing a piece, the sopranos persisted in singing too loudly.  Finally he turned to them in despair and implored, "Please, ladies!  Reduce!" For this first week of Lent I wasn't trying to reduce either my singing volume or my waistline.  Just my meat consumption and kitchen plastic waste. Day 5 The Parents' Guide to Climate Revolution is big on the idea that, while it's all fine saving our own little bits of the planet, what we really need is changes in the big picture - the governments and companies that control how we make energy and what we do with it.  This means making some noise to push them in the right direction.  So I started the week with a little bit of lobbying. I wrote to our local council to say that I was glad they use locally sourced meat and MSC fish for their school meals, and to encourage them to use their buying power to support better farming practic