Some People!

“There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way” - C S Lewis

Approaching Lent

As sort of a follow up to the last post I wrote I want to pose this question which I found myself pondering in when I was on my latest walk. Whilst out walking and just turning things over in my mind, I found myself thinking about Lent. No particular reason triggered this but for some reason I find myself looking forward to Lent this year. I find ths a bit strange, looking forward to Easter I can understand, but not necessarily Lent unless it is the anticipation of Easter.

Would anyone care to come back to me with ideas as to why this might be?

Solvitur Ambulans or Solvitur Ambulando

Not sure if this is spelt correctly or is grammatically correct, my Latin is severely rusty (sorry Mr Bush), but in theory it means or has come to mean "that which may be solved by walking".

I first came accross this in the book "Water From Ancient Wells" by Ken McIntosh - a great read and which has and is led / leading me to discover other aspects of the Celtic experience of Christianity.

I have always felt more "spiritual" when I am out in the woods and the wilds - I enjoy walking and climbing in what some people would call wild and lonely places. Wild they maybe but I have never felt lonely there - however I digress.

Walking gives me the time to think and to discuss with myself the thoughts and problems that are troubling me. Unfortunately I do not always have time to go for long walks to resolve my thoughts but you may notice that a lot of these posts are made latish at night. That's because I usually take my four legged friend for a last wander around the neighbourhood and even in this short walking time I usually have time to get at least some of my thoughts straightened out.

So my thought for today is try a walk, even a short one it might just help you solve that problem.

Follow Up To Reaching Out

I was quite interested to read this article from the Guardian which I picked up from the feed I installed earlier Guardian Article on Grief and Death

There are echoes of this need to "shoulder the burden alone" which many people feel they have to do even when death is approaching as I alluded to in my earlier post.

These are the times when we need people most and yet by and large we treat people as lepers when they are in both situations. Death and the approach of death are something that we dare not contemplate because it is something we are no longer in close contact with. We have sanitised it to the point where it is the great unspeakable, the elephant in the room.

Yet what are we so afraid of? Death will come to us all great or small, the mightly and the ordinary - it is the great leveller.

The sad truth in most of this, is that the vast majoirty of people today have lost their Faith in this increasingly secular oriented society and with this has come an increasing fear of death and dying. This is not just a Christian phenomonen either, I have a number of Muslim friends who bemoan the lack of faith in their children as they absorb western values.

This week saw the day on which we remember the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who when his sight was restored is reported to have had the "scales removed from his eyes". Perhaps we need the scales removing from our eyes too - to be able to see that death has been conquered and should no longer be feared and that the dying and those around them need the love and comfort of those they have loved before they set out on the next chapter of their existence.

Coast Path

Really glad to see this article on UKHillwalking about the first section of the Coastal Path. Start of Coast path

Dorset is really special to me and especially Portland as I can trace my family back more than 10 generations on the island

Rufus Castle is a beautiful location and deservedly the start of the path but if you go there take the back path, below the castle and go and see the ruins of the old church at Portland the overlooks Church Ope Cove as well before you set out to Durdle Door

Reaching Out

As is normal most Wednesdays I went to the lunchtime service at the main church in the town. I like this service as it breaks up my week nicely and - to paraphrase an old advert - it refreshes the parts others can't reach.

The sermon today was about St Paul in honour of being the festival of the conversion of St Paul and the priest took the theme about people reaching out in humanity to one another. To St Paul even though he had persecuted the early followers of Jesus and to each other in general.

A friend has just found out that her father in law has terminal cancer, her husband is distressed and the whole family are upset. I know from personal experience how this feels but reaching out to offer a helping hand and offer some words of comfort is the most natural human emotion I can think of.

If I could pray for only one thing today it would be that comfort is given to those who suffer fear and anxiety due to news such as this, so that they in turn can give comfort to the person in need to ease their burden.

E Church Blog

Just checked out the echurch blog - link on the left. How true is the posting about the picture of the universe centered on "Me" and how many people view the world like this.

Bishop Stephen Cotrell's book "Do Nothing and Save Your Life" has a good section that uses the same theme - Excellent read and probably did save my life!

We all make mistakes

Tuesday - often referred to as the worst day of the week by me is over but not without incident I would say! However the incident that happened would have been enough to get me really stressed out 12 months ago. But all things being equal I managed not to panic aor get totally stressed out about this, afterwards I began to wonder why.

Was it because it was not important? - No it definitely was and caused a few minutes disruption. Was it because I did not care? - No I care about my work and my professionlism in my work.

No in the end I decided that it was because I realised the error, acted quickly to solve it and most of all was professional enough to admit it was my fault. I am not being humble here I am just able to admit to myself that I am human, I do make mistakes and I have the strength to admit my mistakes and rectify them.

Most of all it seems to me that this inner strength comes to me from the faith I have been discovering over the last few months, which because it is faith in someone who was also human and knew what it is to be human and can see that we make human mistakes and yet can still forgive us when we do make a mistake then I personally feel more a peace with myself because I know that I am no longer alone

So if you make a mistake, be brave, admit it, learn from it so that you don't make the same mistake twice.

My biggest mistake was perhaps not realising this thirty years ago when I lost my way with my faith and beliefs, I am doing what I can to correct that too!

Abdication of Responsibilities

Monday is all but over and I seem to have achieved nothing today - just more questions - mainly about work but more so about the morals of the people around me. Not so much the oridinary litle peccadilos of my colleagues which trouble me not at all, but more related to the people in authority where I work who seem more concerned about their position, their power and the next move they will make on the greasy corporate pole. For some reason this seems to paralyse them and make them unable to make a decision which would benefit the organisation as a whole. Moreover they don;t want to be to blame if anything goes wrong - they are in effect refusing the responsibility they sought when they took the job. Sounds ro me like taking money under false pretences which I believe is a crime. This attitude is not only craven but fundamnetally dishonest on so many levels it is distressing to see it becoming so pervasive. Yet another indicator of the "Me" culture. Trying to be Christian and charitable towards people who abdicate their responsibilities is hard - I suppose the only thing I can do is hope and prey that they see the error of their ways.

The Anam Cara site is well worth a visit I really enjoyed reading some of the articles on the site. Mystic Christ is just getting going but calls to me in a way I can't describe except to say that Bruce from the site suggested that it was something to do with "I'd rather be in the mountains thinking of God than in church thinking of the mountains"

New Site Links

I am just getting to grips with this (yes I know , Systems Analyst ,Computer programmer this sort of thing should be second nature - sorry this is not my natual home I am a Unix geek) so have only just added these.
If you think I am going over the top with my rush into faith be assured that I have been reading these for 12 months or more and have found them immensely useful, thoughtful and spiritual in nature which in turn raises my spirit and my faith

New Faith

Well this has been about 12 months in the making I suppose after more than 30 years in the wilderness.
About 12 months ago I was probably at my lowest point in a long number of low points when I came accross a reference to someone I had known more than 30 years ago as a young man.
Strangely enough this was a reference to his retirement from his daily like as a parish priest here in Yorkshire.
This sort of forced me to think about times gone by and things I had not thought about for a very long time or had dismissed as irrelevant to my life.
As I started to re-read and reconsider the things, in particular my faith, that I had previously dismissed as illogical I actually found I began to feel better in myself and about myself and my life.
So far this journey has led me to some wonderful new discoveries such as the poems of John O'Donohue in "Conamara Blues" and the writings in "Water from an Ancient Well" by Ken McIntosh. Most of all the book that made an impact on me was "Do Nothing and Save Your Life" by Stephen Cotrell and quite possibly has saved my life in more ways than I can possibly imagine