Busy busy busy...

Just a quick post as I've hardly time to draw breath at the moment! Great but hectic few days. Got home from our weeks camping at New Wine at 11pm Friday night, out from 10am till after midnight yesterday at the Cambridge Folk Festival, spent today mowing lawn and sorting stuff out ready to re-pack and load the car to head off around 10-11ish tomorrow morning to Liverpool, Shropshire and eventually Holyhead and the Dublin ferry at 2.15pm Tuesday heading over to Ireland for 3 1/2 weeks!

New Wine was a really good week, with some really good teaching, great worship, and some 'interesting' stuff that was quite thought and discussion provoking (will try and discuss more at a later point but not time now!). It was really good having time to spend with a number of friends from our Liverpool church, enjoyed catching up with them, getting to know their various babies who have arrived since we moved down here, and some lively debates after meetings around our 'camping circle.' My godson Zak was there with his family. Love this photo of me and him:

The weather was variable to put it mildly, with the low point being a wild, wet and windy day on Thursday that I thought at 1 point would lead to us coming home early! It didn't quite come to that, but we did have to relocate our tent due to some minor flooding in our awning area. Would like to have a photo to show of it - but guess that wasn't my priority at the time! Glad we stayed though. Weather was great on Friday so it meant we were able to pack everything dry.

Then on Saturday Lisa and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary at the Cambridge Folk Festival with friends. Really good day out. Really diverse range of music. Highlights were Bellowhead, Sharon Shannon (Renegade), Shooglenifty and Four Men and a Dog. Probably the strangest thing we saw was a Romanian Gypsy brass orchestra called Fanfare Ciocarlia. Click here to see some footage. Photo below of 4 of Bellowhead's 11 members in action:

Definitely something I'm glad to have done while living down here.

Heading for Liverpool tomorrow to go and see the vicar who is responsible for trying to try and match me with the right curate's job for next June to talk about what he has in mind for Lisa and I next. Exciting but scary - any prayer would be much appreciated!

Then after spending the night at Pete and Lorraine's in Shropshire it's off to Holyhead for the Dublin ferry to spend 3 1/2 weeks in different parts of Ireland. Looking forward to some time with Lisa's family near Dublin, a wedding in Roscommon, some time with my family in West Cork, some time to ourselves travelling up the west coast through Kerry, Clare, Galway and Mayo with the tent, and of course drinking some Guinness, taking in some trad pub music sessions, and a round or 2 of golf! Hoping the weather is ok - their summer has been no better than England's so far! Internet access is likely to be sporadic, so this will probably be it for blogging until we get back.

Another trip to London...

Trips to London that include a visit to one of the main museums / theatre etc. have become a fairly regular occurance for me of late (see here and here). The ease with which I can do this by train is definitely one of the advantages of living here in Cambridge. This trip was actually to meet up with my brother on his way back from a business meeting. But while I was going anyway I thought I'd make a bit more of a day of it and went down in time to spend a while wandering round the London Aquarium. Unfortunately this is not free like the Science and Natural History Museums. But it was definitely money well spent. Amazing variety of sea creatures from all over the globe of all shapes and sizes, including this 'boxfish' which was definitely 1 of the odder things I saw swimming about:
Anyway, left there to find out that the downpour of rain that much of England suffered this morning had played havoc with the rail network and to cut a long story short my brother having got to his meeting near Swindon fine by train was having immense difficulty getting back again. In the end having wandered aimlessly for an hour or 2 past Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square etc. I sat and had a pint and some food watching the British Open golf in a pub near Leicester Square, and then gradually realising my brother wasn't going to make it in time to meet I made my way back to Kings Cross and the train home. So main purpose of the day didn't happen, but at least I enjoyed the aquarium! I've just heard that having tried to leave Swindon at around 2 my brother made it back into London at 9.30 ish. We don't seem well enough equipped as a country to deal with the sudden freak weather we've been experiencing - the rail network seems to be in complete disarray, Kings Cross was absolutely jammed with people (lots of them very irrate!) because all kinds of train services up to Yorkshire and the North-East were suffering major delays because of flooding around Grantham in Lincolnshire.

And it's on that cheery note that I'm going to sign off for the week to go off camping at the New Wine North conference near Newark, yes camping - in spite of this mad weather just described! Wondering whether we're being a bit daft! Looking forward to it though, we're meeting and camping with a load of friends from our church in Liverpool so it will be really good to have time to catch up with them as well as enjoying the New Wine conference itself. Hoping to pick up a copy of the new Harry Potter book on route to enjoy during the week as well. Just hope the weather isn't too awful and we don't get flooded out in the tent!

Rob Bell

This is a name that cropped up a couple of times in some of my lectures at Ridley this year, and then I'd hear various of my fellow students talking about the 'Nooma' series of teaching DVD's he's done or his book 'Velvet Elvis'. He's the founding pastor of a large church in the US called Mars Hill (click here for further biographical info). I'd not come across him before so decided to get hold of a copy of the book. At about the same time I heard he was on a tour of the UK called 'Calling All Peacemakers':

with a visit to Cambridge as his last stop, and so I got tickets and Lisa and I went to see him. Was so impressed! A very engaging speaker - fairly simple and clear, humorous, yet so profound. There are not many people who I could just sit and listen talking to me for an hour and a half without a break without me losing concentration and my mind wandering, but he held my attention for the whole time. Can't really do justice to what he was talking about briefly enough on here, so not going to try...

But what I will do is share a bit from his book 'Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith':
I've enjoyed reading this book so much, and it's 1 that I will return to time and time again. So easy to read, but so much in there. Here's just 1 sample of some of the stuff in it that has really struck a chord with me, more might follow at later dates...

'... the Bible did not drop out of the sky. It was written by people. People who told stories and passed on oral traditions and sat down and wrote things with a pen and paper. The Bible originated from real people in real places at real times.

It is poems and stories and letters and accounts. It is people interacting with other people in actual space and time. It is God interacting with people in actual space and time. We cannot ignore this.

To take statements made in a letter from one person living in a real place at a moment in history writing to another person living in a real place out of their context and apply them to today without first understanding their original context sucks the life right out of them. They aren't isolated statements that float unattached, out in space.

They aren't first and foremost timeless truths.

We may, and usually do, find timeless truths present in the Bible, but it is because they were true in real places for real people at real times.

I heard somebody refer to the Bible as "data". That person was in an intense discussion about what the Bible teaches about a certain issue, and he disagreed with someone else so he said, "I don't see the data for your position."

The Bible is not pieces of information about God and Jesus and whatever else we take and apply to situations as we would a cookbook or an instruction manual.

And while I'm at it, let's make a group decision to drop once and for all the Bible-as-owner's-manual metaphor. It's terrible. It really is.

When was the last time you read the owner's manual for your toaster? Do you find it remotely inspiring or meaningful?

You only refer to it when something's wrong with your toaster. You use it to fix the problem, and then you put it away.

We have to embrace the Bible as the wild, uncensored, passionate account it is of people experiencing the living God.

Doubting the one true God.

Wrestling with, arguing with, getting angry with, reconciling with, loving, worshipping, thanking, following the one who gives us everything.

We cannot tame it.

We cannot tone it down.

If we do, then we can't say it is the life-giving Word of God. We have made it something else...

Real people, in real places, at real times, writing and telling stories about their experiences and their growing understanding of who God is and who they are.

This does not in any way discount the power of reading the Bible with no background knowledge at all, which is why these words are so powerful. We can enter into them at any level and they speak to us. Whether we are reading the Bible for the first time or standing in a field in Israel next to a historian and an archaeologist and a scholar, the Bible meets us where we are. That is what real truth does.'

Highly recommend getting a copy and reading it for yourselves. I'm about to start reading his latest book 'Sex God'. A few people have said that this is not as good, will let you know what I think at some point.

5 in a row...

So pleased to see Federer win the mens singles at Wimbledon today. That's 5 in a row now, equalling Borg's run in the early 1980's - and he's young enough to keep it going, will be interesting to see if he can make it 6 next year! And what a final today was - such amazing quality, so close and exciting. In the final set Federer was 15-40 down in each of his 1st 2 service games, and in that situation with the amount of pressure he was under to come back and win both of those games was just incredible! A worthy champion indeed! But you've got to give Nadal credit as well - to push Federer to the brink like that is pretty much unheard of at Wimbledon. The contrast between the 2 players made it great to watch - Federer just oozes quality and elegance in everything he does on the court whereas Nadal is more about effort, he just never stops, never gives up - heard him described as like a pesky fly who you can't just swot away. But anyway, well done Roger and here's to the 6th...

Just noticed as well that Jamie Murray and partner won the mixed doubles making him the 1st Brit to win any of the senior Wimbledon titles in over 20 years. Cool. Who knows, maybe his brother could be the one who dethrones Federer at some point?!!

Live Earth

Overall a really enjoyable day out at the new Wembley stadium yesterday for the London Live Earth concert. There is debate as to whether these big global events should be staged - this event, Live8 a couple of years ago etc. etc. But if the aim was to raise awareness of climate issues and broadcast the things that everyone can and should be doing to be more efficient in our use of the earth's resources giving clear examples of the differences even relatively minor things can make, as well as pointing people in the direction of places to go for further info etc. then I think it was a success to a certain extent anyway. The cause wasn't always helped by the sometimes trite / rehearsed / empty sounding comments made by some of the artists (prime e.g. of this was the comment by The Pussycat Dolls something along the lines of flying in from California for the event but doing their bit for the environment by not using hairspray!). But in terms of numbers at the different concerts and then TV viewers as well the messages about what needs to be done were certainly broadcast to huge numbers of people. Whether it will make any long term difference, who knows...

Music wise it was a bit of a mixed bag, but generally pretty good. There were over 20 acts at Wembley - so it sometimes felt a bit stop and start, with some of the time it feeling like a band / artist was just getting going and the crowd starting to get into it when they were going off stage again, and also the intervals between acts sometimes seeming to be longer than the actual acts. I guess that was what made it different to going to a more normal concert / gig where there would obviously be fewer acts with longer stage time. Despite that there was some really good stuff, though as a general rule it was the performers who've been around a while who stole the show a bit - they seemed to know how to 'play to the stadium' a bit more. Here's a bit of a breakdown of the acts from my perspective:

Definite high points: Metallica (James Hetfield was definitely the coolest performer on show: the guitars in Nothing Else Matters were beautiful and Enter Sandman had the whole stadium rocking!), The Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters.

Not far behind: Madonna (not really my cup of tea musically, but what a performer - still!), Red Hot Chilli Peppers (fully expected these to be the highlight for me. Was slightly disappointed, but they were still great - might have been better if they played a bit later into the evening when the crowd generally seemed to be getting more into it), Black Eyed Peas

Highly enjoyable: Genesis, Bloc Party, Keane, Damien Rice and David Gray (playing together), James Blunt (pleasantly surprised - helped by a decent cover of Wild World made famous by Cat Stevens)

Listenable: Duran Duran, Paolo Nutini, Razorlight, Snow Patrol

Not really my scene & did nothing to change my opinion: Kasabian, Corinne Bailey Rae, John Legend, Terra Naomi

Definite low points: Spinal Tap (truly dreadful), The Pussycat Dolls

Click here to go and view videos of the different acts - both in Wembley and at the other venues around the globe.

Smoking Ban

Having enjoyed the no smoking laws in pubs in Ireland on various trips over there in the last few years, it was great to visit our local pub this evening for the 1st time since the smoking ban came into effect here in England. Our local is quite a small enclosed pub where you could literally see the cloud of smoke when you walked in. This evening was great - it was like a different place and still as bustling as ever for a Friday evening.

Happiest country...

If you can spare 3 mins click here to watch a report that was on the BBC's 10pm news last night. According to the recognised criteria and 'modern standards' Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean is 1 of the world's poorer nations. But is that really true of Vanuatu and the greatly named Pentecost Island in particular? Very refreshing to see and hear about a nation (or at least part of it) that is willing to stand by its own traditions and values; to be a special, safe and happy community in its particular way; without feeling the need to be swayed by the values and 'standards' of much of our world - and it appears to be better for it. See here for a related BBC news article.

Following on from this, as I was looking up info about Vanuatu on t'internet I was made to chuckle when I read that their official language is actually a form of pidgin English called Bislami. Here are a couple of examples of it that I came across:-

What is your name? - Wanem nem blong yu? (Want name belong you?)
I don't know - Mi no savee (Me no savvy)
It's delicious! - O i naes! Mi likum tumas! (Oh is nice! Me like too much!)

and my personal favourite...

bra - basket blong titi (basket belong titty)

Personality change...

While waiting for the ordination service to start at St. Paul's on Saturday (see entry below) I couldn't help but overhear the conversation going on between the people I was sat next to. They were talking about their friend who they were there to support in his ordination, and saying how hard the whole process of going for ordination had been on him and his wife. They were saying how much more relaxed he used to be, how they used to be able to have more of a laugh and a joke with him but recently he had become more serious and tended to have a really browbeaten look about him.

This process has been a challenging time for me and especially for Lisa, but at the same time much of it has been very enjoyable and a pleasure, we've met great people and made new friendships, and I do feel that it is definitely where God has called us. If people do notice any changes in my character for the worse - please warn me and tell me to get a grip, rather than sitting and chatting about me to each other!!! I found myself feeling really sorry for the guy these people were talking about and wanted to ask them if they had talked to him about it!

Day out in London again...

Back in London again yesterday, and after including the Natural History Museum in last week's trip decided to have a wander round the Science Musuem this time:

Again there was far too much to see to do it justice in the time I had and so will be making trips back to both the museums at various points while I'm living in relatively easy reach of them. But as I've wandered around the 2 museums these last 2 Saturday's I've really been struck again by the amazingness of both the natural and human-made world, and am finding it harder than ever to believe that it has all come about by chance. I think it takes more faith to believe that than it does to believe that there is a creator God who set it all in motion, irrespective of what one believes about the nature and character of that God and about how creation happened. I know that this is a very simplistic way of looking at these things - but I don't think being simplistic makes it any less profound, and it's all you're going to get here for now. I do believe in the Christian creator God though, but am not going to get into a discussion of what I believe about that God and am hopelessly unqualified to get into the ins and outs of how creation came about - creationism / big bang / evolution debates etc. (will have to see how much I learn from studying Genesis 1-11 in more detail at Cambridge Uni Divinity faculty next year!!).

Anyway after this enjoyable, and actually quite inspiring time wandering round the museum I carried on across to the other side of central London to St. Paul's Cathedral:

This was to support 4 of my friends from Ridley who were being ordained as deacons by the Bishop of London. It was quite a ceremony! I've been to a few ordinations before, but never one where there were anywhere near the number of people being ordained as there were at this service - 45 in all. It took quite a while! Very special though, and great to see Liz, Graham, Olly and Fran on a special day for them. Beginning to hit home now that assuming all goes smoothly it will be my turn this time next year - scary!

So that's been 2 trips to London in 2 weekends, and very excited about making it a hatrick next Saturday when Lisa and I are heading to the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium having unexpectedly managed to get hold of some tickets last week:
Click here to check out the details. No doubt some comment on it will appear on here after the event.