Thinking again

smaller footprint

2006-04-10T17:21:00.000+01:00

Somehow I've reduced my ecological footprint... having moved house and so now walking to work, we now only need 3.1 planets instead of my previous 4.3

Now i'd like to nobly say that the motivation for the move was in some way was linked to this, but it wasn't... however isn't it good to see how much difference a change like walking to work can make.

Steps in the right direction.

And then some…

2006-03-20T19:29:00.000Z

Rich "tagged" me to complete a list of fours...
Well here goes a list of somes… fours would be stretching all our counting abilities!

FOUR JOBS I'VE HAD
1. Gore-tex consultant for an outdoor pursuits shop
2. Medical secretary
3. Arts centre volunteer teaching Spice Dance
4. Promotions girl for local newspaper’s roadshow

FOUR MOVIES/SHOWS I'VE BEEN ADDICTED TO:
1. Sexy monarch of the sexy glen
2. The new Dr Who series
3. Millionaire
4. The first series of big brother – anything not to revise!

FOUR PLACES I'VE LIVED:
1. Norwich
2. Penrhys, South Wales
3. Oxford
4. Northampton

FOUR COUNTRIES I WOULD LIKE TO VISIT:
1. Cuba
2. Cambodia
3. Ireland
4. Italy

FOUR POPULAR FALSE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT ME:
1. I’m younger than I am
2. I can diagnose and treat and cure sports injuries, in a pub, in a crowd, in the time it takes to get a pint.

FOUR PEOPLE I LOOK LIKE (according to some people):
1. My mum
2. My dad
3. Some telly presenter called Daisy who I’ve never heard of!

FOUR THINGS (I HOPE) TO DO BEFORE I DIE:
1. Be a "good" Physio
2. Live abroad
3. Live by the sea
4. Other things too precious to be here in cyber black and white.

PEOPLE I TAG NEXT:
1. Andrew Chong
2. Naomi Hill
3. Rinny rin rin

been loved by Him...

2006-01-07T19:55:00.000Z

A good prompt for some brave deeds in 2006.... thanks wes...

"The courage to act depends upon the strength one has gathered, the dares one has dared, and sometimes just because one was loved."

Big feet!

2005-11-09T17:47:00.000Z

Apparently I have quite a big ecological footprint ... although I'm below the national average if everyone lived like me we'd need 4.3 planets... I think I need an ecological rethink!

Sometimes i think i think too much...

2005-11-03T19:13:00.000Z

"But if God isn't big enough to cope with a small woman thinking only moderately big thoughts, what kind of God is he?"

Maggi Dawn

I'm reading....

2005-10-29T21:32:00.000+01:00

... a brilliant book of poetry... connects inside somewhere...

But what about now?

2005-10-28T17:04:00.000+01:00

"In the end will life triumph over death? With unshaken confidence Jesus answers: the kingdom of My Father cannot be overcome, even by death."
Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, p192

By nine-thirty today I was ready to quit, to go home and get under my duvet, and hide.

It seemed that death and fear and defeat were triumphing in my patients... the aroma was sickening but I'm sorry that I wanted to flee...

... so somehow the end of the day came and I'm here wondering outloud about these words which were so encouraging a few days ago... did life triumph today?

Oh Katrina

2005-09-03T20:56:00.000+01:00

It was all surreal and distant until i read this blog.... read with me and make your response.

oh so there's variety

2005-08-19T09:02:00.000+01:00

So victoria beckham has never read a book.... never... not even her own or david's...

so.... some can't read and some don't want to.... wierd when you realise again people arent all like yourself ;-) !

thinking of all that i'd have missed if i had never read....

not only the ones i studied, what about the magical (narnia) or the challenging (land by bruggeman) or about how other people live and think and see and feel.... (ellen, lance, tell me if the lovers are losers) or places i've never been to... (memoirs of a geisha) or times we'd never know... (red tent) or the entirely impossible but totally delightful... (neverland)

mmmmm

always plodding on

2005-08-12T17:45:00.000+01:00

With particular reference to curvy i offer this soup...

...since the last post i have applied, interviewed, moved to and started a new job. some ground has been covered.
i tried to Leave Well.... sounds good... who can specify what that entails or looks like? but i gave it my best shot and am still doing it, even whilst now trying to Begin Well... even harder to specify...
...finding that in beginnings there's no zoom out perspecive, only the close up of what's in front of you and who knows how its distorted? i have no plot for the rest of the picture - i dont even know how big the frame is.
and so i miss people. as always.
alongside the bigger picture to make sense of the snapshot view, i miss the community that made me. like a venn diagram.

and strangely its not bad.
it could be.
but its not.

it occurs to me... i wonder if i'm sheltered? and i hope that i am.
and i try not to strive. striving not to strive.

i miss Him and meet Him simultaneously. and so i plod on, reaching for a hand.

interview delights... i really was asked this!

2005-06-11T18:42:00.000+01:00

... If you were a cartoon character... who would you be and why?

a very good thing just beginning...

2005-05-07T14:50:00.000+01:00

check out protest4's new website

damsel no distress

2005-04-12T16:51:00.000+01:00

damsel no distress... no SOS,
not desperate...
companions and encouragers sought…
dont we all?

damsel no distress... no SOS,
rapunzel and cinders redundant role models…
(prince charming and james bond too ... maybe)
lets stretch our aspirations sideways…

damsel no distress… no SOS,
no defiance, i'm not bionic,
damseldom enjoyed but not prized?

damsel no distress... no SOS,
all in all already met,
so reliant....

power of frailty and power of power

2005-04-04T15:41:00.000+01:00

This blog led me to an article in the National Catholic Reporter. I liked the sound, an interesting sound to me from that arena, a brokenness and peace portrayed - "not only the church triumphant"...

"...Now that all the rules are suspect and all the laws were written to regulate another whole kind of society, what rules can now prevail? How long will the old answers to new questions inspire, give direction?

It may be the moment for the church itself to contemplate a different way of being alive in the world that is more than the image of a massive basilica, confined under a hulking dome, encircled by a monumental colonnade and living behind a set of old rules.

The very person of a frail, silent pope, devoid of the drama and the force of the church triumphant, open to the future, calm and quiet in the face of it, could itself be a lesson to the church in a spiraling, renascent world such as this one. That, in fact, might be a far more potent image of what is really the spirit of Christ in the Christian church than anything else we could hope to see.

In 1294, Pope Celestine entered Rome after a 27 month conclave stalemated over the direction in which to take the Church. In the end, they chose an 84 year old monk who insisted on entering Rome on a donkey. Three months later, when the Cardinals refused to take over the daily administration of the church so he could fast and pray during Advent, he called a consistory and resigned on the spot.

The pope who succeeded him understood the power of the spiritual over the administrative. He refused to allow Celestine to return to his mountain hermitage for fear the gentle, prayerful monk-pope, would become a center of schism, a rallying point of holiness, in a church more given to pomp than to circumstance.

Now, in our time, the world has launched a period of authoritarianism, it seems, in order to control the chaos that change brings. But it isn't working. On the contrary. The control has only managed to breed alienation at every level.

Maybe Pope Celestine knew in the thirteenth century what people are now beginning to suspect: Simple holiness always trumps force.

From where I stand, it seems that history may well be repeating itself. This time the stakes are higher than ever. Let's hope we're all fairly alert to the fact that the purpose of the church is not control. It is holiness. The power of frailty is always more potent, in the long run, than the power of power.

Bring on the donkey."

oh harold!

2005-03-31T23:52:00.000+01:00

playing

2005-03-30T22:39:00.000+01:00

as if i hadn't got a dissertation to write...

come race frogs with me

Harold's planet

2005-03-30T21:22:00.000+01:00

great place

really liked the staircase moose, the laugh generator and the firefly lullaby!

do you want to come with me on a trip of a lifetime?

2005-03-26T20:35:00.000Z

loved it.... great fun and not so scary now i'm older!

... also when she made that choice - to stay with her family and boyfriend or to take the hard choice and leave and go with him for danger and adventure...

then the look on her face as she went... well i had to take a deep breath

and sometimes the hard choice is the other way round too hey?

well i guess you know what i'll be doing at 7 next saturday...

did they see me coming?

2005-03-11T16:47:00.000Z

i went mystery shopping last night. to a travel lodge. quite a fun way to earn some money but a little ridiculous too (since when does anyone else move the furniture in a hotel room to see if its been hoovered behind?)
i think i made a few schoolboy errors... bit too quick to answer some of the questions i'd been primed to expect and i made a really lame complaint

do you think the fact that there was a copy of their HQ's complaint handling criteria form in with breakfast was them letting me know i'd blown my cover?

million faces

2005-03-09T15:00:00.000Z

80-90% of all illegal small arms start in state-sanctioned trade

a visual petition for a treaty about arms trade... good plan methinks... you can read about it and sign your face up at million faces

trying

2005-03-05T11:30:00.000Z

trying harder, pulling your socks up, having another shot,
striiiiiiiiving,
struggling, knuckling down, exerting yourself, working at it, joining in, doing more,

or not...but how?

maybe resting, maybe expecting less, maybe taking time, maybe play, maybe feeling useless, maybe loving,
maybe loving some more,
giving, maybe being silent, maybe waiting to speak, maybe never speaking,
maybe being misunderstood,
but maybe unfair on those who are trying differently...

costly. humbling. maybe wrong, maybe very wrong. trying and maybe - can they meet?

trying. to even maybe-be-me. a me that's Him.

i went there once

2005-02-23T10:36:00.000Z

i visited these places :-)

i think i'd prefer to have a map with pins in as its a bit less empire-conquering like ...
but then as izzard teaches us...it was all about sticking flags in the ground first anyway so maybe colouring in is better after all!

create your own visited countries map

slowcore mmmm

2005-02-21T21:37:00.000Z

3hive.

... this website has legal free music downloads ... Stafraenn Hakon - in the footsteps of sigur ros ...

Endurance over

2005-02-15T17:05:00.000Z

Lent...
Desert....
... Remember that you are dust...

The first week has past and I'm not very good at reaching the desert,
though I strangely long to...

and then I realise I comprehend little about what next ... is it really an endurance test?

I found Maggi Dawn's Lent articles freeing and i feel i might befriend lent again...

... focus shifting... coffee on sunday... social justice re-crosses my screen

... the desert waits ...

2005-02-12T10:36:00.000Z

The desert waits
ready for those who come,
who come obedient to the Spirit’s leading;
or who are driven,
because they will not come any other way.
The desert always waits,
ready to let us know who we are –
the place of self-discovery.
And whilst we fear, and rightly,
the loneliness and emptiness and harshness,
we forget the angels
whom we cannot see for our blindness,
but who come when God decides
that we need their help;
when we are ready
for what they can give us.

Ruth Burgess

words

2005-02-04T08:00:00.000Z

I was astounded by talent on Tuesday night at an International Poetry slam. - incredible, performance poetry that is hard to describe but it left you lost for words - not lacking words but no words sufficed to say WOW. My partcular favourite was Queen Sheba - "poetry does not belong to you".... or maybe it was the duet from the Vancouver team and the line that stayed with me.... "we say lets just be friends as if somehow that was a dead end?"

So I'm thinking of the power of the spoken word,
storytelling,
how creative communication gifts us so much more than the content of the words themselves.
And via a discussion about confession of sins I got to realising that words not only open up and unfurl and express, they alson nail down and set boundaries round things.
My friend sent me an interesting article about athlete and confession of faith - what that can look and sound like ... the precious heart of doing it ... athlete article

communcation... such a textbook word for a beautiful thing...

curvy

2005-02-01T05:42:00.000Z

So it seems that with this technology you can only write in straight lines... with one thing following another... like the thoughts really do link consecutively and are orderly and in formation.

Wheras sometimes a true representation would need curves and twists
Bits you'd need a mirror for.....
And there'd be pauses.... .... .... and fastbitswithoutroomtobreathe;
.... and you'd see that some of the joins are diagonal not single-file.

But instead its funnelled into these lines ... Thoughts made to be beside each other
And underneath each other

So I'll work with that...
... for now...

Bear with me