A Turn Up

About ten days ago I discovered that I had lost a gold chain that I habitually wear around my neck. More importantly, to me at least, was the fact that I had also lost the gold crucifix that was on the chain and which was my promise to myself about my renewed feelings of faith when I was deep in a crisis of personal despair about four years ago.
I think I had effectively gone into a period of mourning about this loss and was just about over the loss, mainly due to my wife realising how much the chain meant to me and her buying me a replacement as a very early and very welcome Christmas present, when, whilst cleaning up some things in my sons bedroom the cross made a very welcome reappearance.
How it got there I can only speculate - probably I had been cleaning up previously and had lost it - but the fact was that I had got it back again. It felt once again like a promise renewed and the hand of an old and trusted friend was back where it should be. All my other burdens seemed to have been lifted by finding it and putting it back where it belongs both around my neck and in my heart.
I have to say that this episode also reminds me of how I felt when my christian beliefs also became important in my life again and it makes me remember how much the knowledge that I am never truly alone because God is always present with me even when I despair.

The Failing Year

Strange title for a post this time and to some extent its a bit of a summary as to how this year has been with this blog.

I have manifestly failed to make many entries - mainly due ot my own laziness I suppose but also because I have failed to do a great deal.

The latter is mainly due to a knee injury in April whilst cycling to work where I pulled or strained a ligament in my knee that was extremely painful to say the least and which only seemed to come right towards the end of August to early September.

This has hindered a lot of cycling, mountain biking  walking and climbing and in some part has contributed to me being on downward spiral for the vast majority of the year and so I have not felt like (metaphorically) putting pen to paper.

October was marginally better and I managed a couple days in Scotland's mountain bike heaven - the 7 Stanes (@7Stanes) with a good friend and colleague which helped recover some of my confidence in my abilities.

Work has been insanely busy and this has prevented me making my usual midweek visits to the church in the town centre here and which I was beginning to miss quite keenly. Happily this situation seems to be resolving itself now and there is a sense of calm returning and this has enabled me to actually make a couple of services over the past two weeks. I actually feel quite excited about the prospect of Christmas and the Christmas story now and there is a sense of anticipation building that the season is coming towards us.

So maybe the failing year in terms of the amount of time left in the year is bringing to an end a failing year for me with the hope that seems to be being born with the approach of Christmas and a new hope for the next year.

Seasons moving on

The last time I wrote it was the start of spring and now we are standing on the threshold of Autumn.
In terms of it being a personally successful few months I would say it was not good.
The problem with my knee cast a shadow over most of the spring and summer as all my plans  for walking, climbing and biking went by the by. Needless to say this set me back quite badly and I am only now getting back to some level of fitness and with that a level off mental health that goes with it  for me. Lets just hope that the Autumn gets much better.

Its Spring

Well here we are in Lent and it feels awesome this year. Spring has also made an appearance to coincide with it and so although its a time for contemplation it feels like lefe renewed and reinvigorated already.
I managed a really good ride on my road bike this morning and could see amd hear spring all around me- glorious!

Time flying by

I can hardly believe that we re only 2 weeks away from the end of February,  this year is moving far too fast. The one thing that I welcome coming quickly is a weeks break from work although, with the floods in the south on England it is a bit unclear what we are going to do. We had planned to go to the west country but at the moment this is looking a bit doubtful. Still you never know.
If one good thing comes out of these floods it may be that it draws communities together again and out of the me first culture,  as people find that they need their neighbours and their neighbours need them.

Accidents Happen

Today I got to the office to find a number of work colleagues stood over anothe friend who was lying on the deck,  his bike having slipped on an icy corner and he fell off breaking his femur in the process. He was inly yards away from the end of 10 k journey.
Once I knew he was ok and the ambulance had taken him off to hospital I began to think about the moral in this story such as is and it basically came down to you can never be sure what trials life has in for you when you least expect it.

Another Wednesday!

Hump da,y but a good day today. Even though the weather here is changeable to say the very least this could not dampen the feeling that today was a really good day.
It just so happens that Wednesday is also a day when there is a lunchtime service at the church in the centre of our town which I have been attending (work permitting) over the past couple  of years. Every once in a while the minister presiding comes up with a really good sermon and today's was about family and for once had the congregation laughing in the aisles with some of the comments. It made me think quite a lot - yes my family can by trying at times and my extended family and friends too - but I would not be without them because they make me smile so much with some of the things they do.
It also made me think about the family that have passed and even though it is sad at times I can still smile at the memories of the good times we had as a family.
Thank you Lord for the pocketful of sunshine memories that brightened the rainy skies!

Where does your faith come from?

I suppose mine came originally from going to church and sunday school from a very young age at the request of my parents. Typically I rebelled against this in my late teens - being sure of myself and not wanting anything to do with something as staid.
During the intervening years certain aspects of the past came to the fore and my views on organised religion hardened as I could perceive more of the hurt that was done in the name of religion than the good that was being done.
I don't think I ever lost a feeling of spirituality, I just think I channeled it through other things like my love of the moors and mountains of this country and the feeling of oneness and unity that I got from being out there. There was always something there.
This is part of what allowed me to see God in this, that and a hymn, "How Great Thou Art", which speaks movingly of the mountains and forests and how God is in them all. This allowed me to believe again and to see God in them and to feel my faith again.
This is the version I heard that allowed my to feel this again, a wonderful hymn with a true sense of appeal to those of  us who love the great outdoors and all it means to us

Its the weekend!

Well we have been really busy so far doing loads of different things around the house. For once I find myself largely not stressed by this. I even found that I could be sympathetic to the sky engineer who came to install Sky+ only to get network errors.  He seemed upsrt about it whereas I was more relaxed about it which led him to comment that he wished more people were as understanding.

Calming and Spiritual Music

Wednesday at last , though time seems to have flown by this week. However I do feel quite upbeat this week so maybe that is the reason.

It was a nice calm church service at lunchtime and I was thinking about about what someone had said in a podcast where they described the homely and welcoming smell of a church. Something about the carpets or the books that generally made it feel at peace which is something I do get from being in church and a oneness with everything.

Because the podcast was on the Scotland Outdoors series I started looking for some Gaelic music to match my mood. I do like to hear Gaelic singing and as the Gaelic Psalm singers of Lewis were included I started listening to them. To my eternal sadness I only understand a few words of Gaelic but here is a link to a program about it.

http://youtu.be/w62TN2iCP1g

I also liked the song "An Innis Aigh" recorded on the Chieftains album - here is a link to the Youtube version

An Innis Aigh

And if you really get into it you can listen to the "Waulking Songs" sung by the people of Harris when they were "Waulking" the cloth which are really something that you can just listen to again and again

Try these

Waulking Songs

Wednesday calm

After a break of a number of months mainly due to work commitments I managed to make it to the Wednesday Eucharist at the parish church in town.
And I have to say I had forgotten what a moment of calm it can be during a busy week / life. It is nice to be able to take about an hout just to contemplate on a few things that have very little in common with the work I do.
This may sound selfish in some ways but having felt so down on and off for so long I will take any chance of a lift in my spirits.

Strange Day

Well not too sure about today - I felt rather weird I must have been stressed because my heart rate while exercising on the stationary bike was way above where it should normally be which is a bit concerning but still managed 18.2k in 35 minutes so that was a positive.

I also had an one to one with my boss which I think also contributed to the stress. I really dislike this sort of thing -even though I am told I do well - still the person I need to convince is me not other people and this I find hard if not soul destroying. I think this self doubt is in part what leads to my problems with depression. I have to admit it did feel good to get a few things that have been nagging at me off my chest - maybe what I need to do is have more regular one to ones which would stop things building up to the point where I can't cope.

Band practice was good - the music seems clearer now I have the new contact lens in the left so hopefully there won't be as many accidentals in the wrong place from now on. Still think the 1812 is a bit of a bogey piece for us but we certainly have a better chance now of making a go of it.

Results

Slightly surprised today when got the results of a programming language test series and came out above average on Visual Basic which I find somewhat disturbing as I am not a fan!
However that apart today was a good day,  I managed to do some jogging at the gym and did 2k in 15 minutes which was good. Also managed some additional exercises whuch lifted my spirits for the day.
Maybe the greeks were right about a healthy body makes a healthy mind. On that basis I need to do a lot of exercise to keep myself sane not necessarily a bad thing.
I was also interested to heae an article on the radio about slowing down on my way home. This broyght to mind my favourite book on the subject by Stephen Cotterell which I have mentioned in a previous post- I will have to sit down and re-read it

Xmas decorations down

Well that's it for another year with the Christmas decorations, the house now looks quite empty. I am always a bit ambivalent about Christmas as the true meaning seems to have been lost in the storm of commercialism that it entails. However this is the first time I have felt sad about taking the decorations down for a good number of years.

The commercialism bandwagon ploughs remorselessly onwards though to the next "occasion" in the calendar. I think I heard the first advert for valentines day on Thursday which I did find somewhat depressing. I believe that our ancestors would be astounded that the passing of the seasons and the festivals of the year are no longer marked by feasting and great high church days but by the jingling of the cash registers and the forcefed adverts of the 21st century.

How sad

Day one

Well day one of 2014 has not been too bad really although the dreary weather leaves a lot to be desired.

Finally decided to register my Itunes voucher that I got for Christmas. After a bit of thought had gone into it the first album I have bought is Jane Ira Bloom's new one "Sixteen Sunsets". Normally in the jazz world I prefer the sounds of Cannonball and Coltrane pretty much above anyone else, but JIB takes the soprano sax to places it does not normally go, so any new album has to be worth a listen it is downloading as we speak and should be good to go shortly.

I am not a great one for new year's resolutions so all I can say that I have resolved to do is try! Try to do all the things I normally do better and to try to be true to myself and try to be a bit better person all around. That is if the depressive moods that I am a bit prone to permit. Just have to try and maybe with a little bit of faith I will succeed.

Happy New Year