Go and see it

Just got back from the cinema where Jo and I watched 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.' This film contains an all star cast including Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst. Despite this, it turned out to be one of the most interesting and different concept film I have seen in a long time. Carey proves once and for all that he need not only be type cast for comedies and gives an outstanding performance.

The basic plot (it's very complicated) is that a new procedure has been developed which allows people to have their memory wiped of any events or people that they wish. Carey's character (Joel) and Winslet's (Clementine) both decide to wipe the memory of their failed relationship away. They both, through a very clever storyline, come to the realisation that actually they don't want this to be the case.

This film made me think about how quickly and easily we can and do dismiss negative incidents and people. I thought about what parts of my life I would like to erase and never remember. As Jo and me discussed this we came to the conclusion that we wouldn't want to remove anything because it is all of these events and people that collectively go a large way to form the people that we are.

Check this film out, but be ready to concentrate.

My Teeny Tiny Brain Hurts

Had an excellent day at college today. We spent the morning talking through and discussing models of the atonement. This is second time we have done this and the same as last time my brain feels completely wiped out from all of the grappling that I've had to do. Again I realise how difficult it is to have fundamental doctrines that I have heard, been taught and have taught for myself upended and challenged. My brain hurts from trying to fit it all together and see how they inter-connect and inter-relate with each other. From this you may well think that I'm contradicting my last entry of understanding the Christian faith like a child. I however think that one of the great paradox's of this faith is that both a child and the cleverest person on earth can understand it yet not gain a complete grasp. There is sense that the message in simple yet not simplistic. There are themes and life changing elements that we all have the capability of grasping to some extent but equally the biggest brain in the world cannot fathom all the intricacies and questions that it raises. We are called however to be critical thinkers who look to explore and find out what we can even with the realisation that we will never grasp it all. There are too many Christians who take the easy option and just sail by and do not attempt to grapple with some of the bigger issue that our faith must surely cause of to think through. The bible tells us to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have through the message and relationship we have found through Jesus, how then can we not have opinions?

Have you ever properly understood something that you thought you understood before?

I've just finished doing a school lesson for Year 4 kids (really small kids) talking about Baptism and Confirmation and just generally answering their questions regarding Christianity. I've come out amazed at the depth of their questioning and just how easy it is to over complicate issues that need not be. As we answered their questions there was a visible amazement and interest on their faces. They were enthralled by the stories and things that they saw all around them in the church. It made me reflect upon Mark 10:13-16 where Jesus talks us receiving the Kingdom of God like little children. I think that it's just possible that I have started to discover what that means. How quickly we as adults over complicate and lose the radical teachings of Jesus and lose the sense of amazement that I witnessed not an hour ago in these East London 8 and 9 year olds.

Strange but true

Life can only be understood backwards,
but it must be lived forwards.

City Life

rows of houses all bearing down on me,
i can feel there blue hands touching me,
all these things in all positions,
all these things will one day take control
and fade out again and fade out.

Planting Seeds

Many of you wont know about one of my hobbies that I keep under wraps most of the time. It came about when my mum moved house and she asked me to help do up her garden. Over the past 18 months I have undertaken the arduous task of digging up and landscaping it (I know it's quite sad) but I have developed a real enjoyment for this work. I have discovered that there is something very rewarding about being involved in nature which I had previously found whilst hill or coastal walking. Anyway I have spent much of the week working in a local school running some trips and doing some group work around social skills. By the time I finished there I couldn't help but wonder actually how much good the work that I had been involved with has been doing. I found myself getting quite down about this until I remembered a poem given to me by my line manager Tony Cant, re-reading this helped me to start to put things into context. So the link between gardening and youth work? I hope you'll see that in the poem below.

This is what we are about, We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces affects far beyond our capacities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realising that. This enables us to do something and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end
results, but the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers not master builders, ministers, not Messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

Archbishop Oscar Romero

Amen!

Summer Evenings

As i spent a great evening sitting, talking and drinking Hoegaarden with my friends Rachel and Marc we got onto the subject of community. For those of you who have read my profile you'll know i have a passion to see church fulfil a true sense of community, and not just by saying that is what it does over weak orange and stale digestives. As i contemplate my fast approaching move away from Ascension Church in Custom House i am trying to collect my thoughts about exactly what i have experienced and learnt during my 3 years (in 2 spells) in this little part of East London. It has only been as i have done this that i have realised the true community that i have found. It's an amazing thing that i encourage you all to search for, a place where people know you (really know you), challege you, inspire you and above all else just love you for being you and have the time for you that shows this.

I'm convinced that this idea of true community is where Jesus was coming from with the time that he spent with his little band of merry men (and women).

All i can do is hope and pray that wherever God might lead me to in this next part of my life that i again will find this.

Thanks to all of you who are a part of this special community.

Hello all

Firstly thanks to Meg for sorting this out for me.

I plan to update this as much as i can, and i hope it will be a place where i can publish my thoughts, feelings and rantings about whatever i am thinking about at that particular time. Please feel free to post your thoughts, responses and replies.