Our lovely friend Sharon had a birthday- cue for a cake.
Here she is going in for the kill.
May this year (for her) be full of sweet (yet wholesome!) things…
Sharon goes in for the cake…
Reply
Monthly Archives: June 2011
Andy’s images…
My old friend Andy Prosser has a new venture going at present- marketing photographs and images for commercial use.
If you are looking for photographs, or textured backgrounds, check out his account here– good value, high quality stuff. Some of them taken during a recent wilderness retreat.
Andy does youth and community work with Fusion and this is one of the things that will support some of the great things they do- so give it a try!
New website for Sgath an Tighe…
I have spent much of this weekend working on our new website for all things Sgath an Tighe. I hinted at a possible change of direction for the family recently- well here it is made real in cyber space!
Eventually this will be a portal for a number of different things happening in or around out house-
- Self catering accommodation (already available)
- B and B accommodation (still a work in progress)
- Craft workshops (Blue Sky programme is on the website)
- Crafts- woodworking, pottery, all sorts of other things
- Retreats- both in the house and wilderness retreats
- Photography
- Writing
- Information about our lovely area
The website is still under development, but there is a lot there already. I have used a wordpress platform, which has not been without the odd frustration, but is mostly OK, even to a relative novice like me.
Call by and let me know what you think!
Peace to you…
She was back this morning- with both of the kids.
I know they are eating my plants (although, as you can see, the grass is overdue for cutting) but they are such beautiful creatures.
I am reminded of one of Justin’s lovely poems- circulated as part of our Aoradh daily meditations-
Peace to you. Peace with you.
You that sleep without resting
Wake without rising, Peace to you.
.
Peace with you.
You that have grown distant
From the sparrow, Peace to you.
.
Peace with you.
You that wait in some deep
Valley and know it not yet
.
As the beginning of a mountain.
May you be wholly and holy
Peaceful and makers thereof.
.
And while we are on the subject of peace- here is a picture of Michaela and our youngest guest- little Laurie whose parents are staying in the Annexe at the moment.
Visitors…
Some deer visited our house this morning. They are always here or hereabouts, but this time it was a hind and her fawn. I happened to be armed with a camera, albeit with the wrong lens, so here are a few blurry, over cropped images…
Also today, our first holiday guests arrived to use the annexe.
I said I would post some photos of the annex when it was finished. My last task was to mend a switch on the cooker- and the part arrived just in time. For now, it is ready!
Once again- if you are looking for some very reasonably priced accommodation (£250 a week) over the summer, on the banks of the Clyde, and in the middle of stunning scenery- then drop us a line. So far we have three weeks booked, so plenty of availability as we speak. (We are working on a website, but for now, it is just word-of-mouth really- apart from this blog.)
As another taster- check out this website– extolling the delights of the coastline across the other side of our lovely little peninsular.
Cowal is an unspoiled, undeveloped, scenic gem. Don’t take my word for it- come and see!
Here are the photos-
A story about falling from a great height…
There is power in the story.
Jesus spoke into the Rabbinical tradition of teaching through the telling of challenging and difficult stories.
I heard an old Jewish story the other day that goes something like this…
A Rabbi stood with his son at the bottom of a set of high wooden stairs. Lifting him on to the first stair, the Rabbi urged his son to jump. It was not very high, and the boy trusted his father, so he jumped into his open arms.
Next the Rabbi placed his son on the second step. This was a little more scary, but still the boy trusted- so he jumped again- and landed safely in his father’s embrace.
And so it went on- each time climbing another step, then the jump, and the catch. “Well done my son” said the Rabbi.
Eventually, the son stood at a dizzying height, peering down at his father in trepidation. “Jump son, Jump” said the man. So, with shaking knees, he took to the air.
And his father watched the leap, and stood back.
The boy clawed himself to his feet, bleeding and crying.
“There, my son” said the Rabbi “That will teach you.”
What on earth is that all about then?
Something about the uncertainties of life, and the inevitability of suffering.
The failure of all authority figures, sooner or later.
And- most disturbingly of all- the unpredictability of God. The apparent injustice of God.
Or perhaps the deeper, mystery of God. God beyond the temporal. God the uncertain.
No tame God whose role is to grant our lifestyle wishes.
A God who calls us to leap- with no promise of featherbed landings.
But leap we must- sooner or later.
Happy birthday William!
William is 11 today!
We have just done the party. All the mess is cleaned away. Peace descends- apart from Emily playing some dreadful dancing game on Wii in the next room. After a long day (much of it in a small room with the suits trying to decide what services to cut) I am ready for some peace.
But Will had a great time so it is all good. This year he had a ‘Detective Party’ with fancy dress and games like ‘pin the magnifying glass on the detective’.
And as ever- when kids are happy, parents have a special feeling somewhere deep inside. I think it is related to love.
Is there hope for Evangelicalism yet?
Vodpod videos no longer available.
1st collector for Is there hope for Evangelicalism yet?
Follow my videos on vodpod
10-15 years ago, when I was attending a fairly large Evangelical Church near Preston- more or less everything this church seems to stand for, I would have celebrated enthusiastically. I loved the Church I attended, and the wonderful people it contained (I still do) although I felt considerable frustration about how isolated we were from engagement with real need in our communities.
Although to be honest, I spent most of my time behind an instrument of one sort or another, so my rhetoric did not necessarily match my actions.
As time went on, these frustrations grew- it was ever more obvious to me how Church can suck you in then suck you dry, and how activists within church spend all their time serving the machinery of the church, with little room left for anything else.
These days, I suspect that there would be a lot about Frontline Church in Liverpool that I would struggle with- in terms of theology, world view and underlying culture. Not to mention the politics.
But I am grateful that there are places like this still.
Grace factories.
And although grace can not really be manufactured, where people are motivated by their faith towards acts of love- then we should rejoice…
As John Harris puts it in the Guardian-
The next day I meet a former sex worker, now apparently off drugs, set on somehow starting college and a regular Frontline worshipper. “I was a prostitute and a drug addict for 11, 12 years – maybe more,” she tells me. “God is so forgiving – he wants me to win.” Wider society, she says, is “too judgmental … it’s: ‘That’s a prostitute, that’s a drug addict.’ They don’t want to know.” And how has the church helped her? “Oh, it saved my life,” she shoots back. “I would be dead if it wasn’t for this church.”
A question soon pops into my head. How does a militant secularist weigh up the choice between a cleaned-up believer and an ungodly crack adict?
Does maturity always require suffering?
This was the question we discussed in house group this evening, after listening to Richard Rohr speaking about the spirituality of the second half of life.
He felt that the answer was yes (probably) and quoted a psychologist, who was asked the same question- to which he replied “It is entirely theoretically possible to achieve maturity in life without some degree of suffering, but it is just that in 30 years as a clinical psychologist, I have never seen it.”
It makes sense. A similar argument can be made about any change- it tends to require some kind of crisis. Sure you can decide to change- and make some lifestyle choices- throw in a bit of life coaching and counselling to discover your inner onion, but mostly we just end up indulging in a bit of wish fulfillment whilst we move the furniture about the same old rooms.
Whereas real change tends to come upon us by necessity, through crisis, and suffering.
Is that why Jesus said ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall see God?”
The next question I suppose is- does suffering always lead to maturity? And the answer to this I think is- no. Suffering can lead to us constantly trying to rationalise it all- to the blame game and the guilt game. And so we become bitter and trapped in the shadow of the events that have befallen us.
Richard Rohr spoke about how suffering might contribute to maturity in a way that made some sense to me- about how we get beyond the need to know, to understand and to intellectually grasp the realities of God- and just begin to accept that
He is.
And we are.
Now- not yesterday or tomorrow.
Just now.
It is about being fully present, in the loving presence of God- and this being a place where the surface tension becomes less and less important in the awareness of all that deep green water below.
So am I mature? well- Not really. Does that mean that I might embrace the suffering that will surely come my way? Not likely. Rather I might hope that my dose of it is small- the odd tweaking of the scar tissue I already wear perhaps- rather than a screaming tunnel of hell that others experience and somehow still survive.
On being uncertain of place…
I liked this quote (via Emergent Village.)
I think it is true- whilst wondering at how easily it is to fall into a place that is cushioned and safe- particularly if (like me) you are rather too used to the feeling of being an outsider- strange in the midst strangers…
When I reflect back on my life so far, many of the most pivotal moments have occurred around tabernacle-like events: a surprising conversation that changed the course of my life, a chance encounter with a person who would became a lifelong friend, or a memorable moment when my imagination was stirred by a divine whisper that would sustain me through dark times ahead.
It’s no accident that these liminal experiences so often occur when we are far from home and in the company of strangers. We are generally more open to the movement of the Spirit when we are uncertain of our place.
this fragile tent 