Psalms...

For different reasons the Psalms are becoming quite a recurring area of reflection / study for me at the moment. I've been working my way through a course in the Ignation Spiritual exercises with the help of a spiritual director over the last few months which has encouraged a fair bit of reading of and reflection on various Psalms. During the Ridley prayer retreat last weekend one of our staff gave some of us what I found to be a really inspiring session on praying with the Psalms. Also one of my MA modules this term is at the moment focusing on the Psalms and different ways in which they have been understood, interpreted and used down the years.

Before arriving at Ridley, coming from quite a non-liturgical background, I had relatively minimal knowledge and experience of the Psalms - and it would be fair to say that at times over my 2 1/2 years here I've found that the daily recital of them in Morning Prayer can be slightly monotonous, and so not always approached them with the right attitude and given the words the attention they deserve. But I'm realising more and more how much there is in there that can connect with where I'm at at any given time and express so powerfully what I want to say to God at certain times. To take an extreme eg Psalm 22:1 'My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me..' There is so much to encourage: Psalm 139 'O Lord, you have searched me and known me...', Psalm 136 'O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever...'; so much to challenge: Psalm 133 'How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity...', Psalm 127 'Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain...'

I really feel that they are enriching my life greatly at the moment; and that they could be of so much benefit for Christians generally - both individually and communally, if only used and taught more widely - but creatively and imaginatively!!

On a lighter note, in my MA module reading I came across this 'modern translation' of Psalm 23 written, I'm surmising, as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek dig at attempts to modernise liturgical language. It appeared in the Telegraph titled David Lyric Two-Three. Makes me chuckle:

The Lord and I are in a shepherd/sheep situation, and I am in a position of negative need. He prostrates me in a green belt grazing area; he conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous liquid. He returns to original satisfaction, levels my psychological make-up; he switches me on to a positive behavioural format for maximal prestige of his identity.
It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make ambulatory progress through the umbrageous inter-hill mortality slot, terror-sensations will not be instantiated within me due to para ethical phenomena. Your pastoral walking aid and quadruped pickup unit introduce me into a pleasurific mood-state.
You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure in the context of non-cooperative elements; you act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract; my beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis.
It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational empathetical and non-vengeance capabilities will retain me as their target focus for the duration of my non-death period: and I will possess tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanently open-ended time basis.

Shrove Tuesday / Ash Wednesday...

Enjoyed some pancakes on Tuesday and then went to a 7.30am Cambridge Theological Federation Eucharist yesterday at which I was 'ashed' to mark Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Afterwards I noticed this on the asbojesus site:-

The Batman Band...

Made to chuckle again by the asbojesus cartoonist!

6 Nations Kick Off...

Off to the back of beyond (somewhere on the Norfolk / Suffolk borders) later today for the annual Ridley Hall prayer 'retreat' weekend, and while I'm looking forward to a change of scene and some 'quiet' time I must admit I'm already trying to work out how I can factor in TV access to see tomorrow's Rugby 6 Nations kick off with England playing Wales and Ireland taking on Italy! Will be interesting to see whether England's run to the World Cup final was a sign of good things to come or whether they'll come back down to earth with a bump, and similarly whether Ireland's disastrous time in the W.C. was just a blip that they can put behind them in this 6 Nations. As ever my loyalties are torn between the 2 countries and I'd like nothing more than to see England and Ireland taking the tournament by storm and being the 2 left fighting for the crown at the death - destroying France along the way! Ok, ok, dreaming maybe...but you never know!

Liverpool also happen to be playing Sunderland tomorrow. Surely that's 1 the Reds can wn at least?! Not blogged about Liverpool much recently - a combination of the general mess the club seems to be in with all the gossip and rubbish flying about regarding the owners and Rafa's job as manager just doesn't fit with the Liverpool FC I know and love! Combine that with the atrocious playing form of the team at the moment, and it's just all far too depressing for me. So that's enough about that!

Simon says...

Hahahahaha...
Is this what's going to happen to start happening with me following my ordination in a few months time??

(Just in case anyone out there is slightly worried - I'm not really big headed enough to go with this thought. Did make me chuckle though given my name and impending ministry!)

Thanks again to the asbojesus site.

God and church

Came across this today on the asbojesus cartoon blog:

Some not easy to accept truth for the church (very much including me) to consider here? Challenging?...Any views on this?

(If too small to read click here to see it properly)

Liverpool: European Capital of Culture 2008

Really wish I could be in Liverpool tonight for the people's launch of the city's year as European Capital of Culture - it sounds like it's going to be an amazing event, including Ringo Starr playing a new song from the rooftop of St Georges Hall. From the websites and things I've looked at it does seem like there is lots of good stuff going to be happening over the year, so that's another thing to look forward to as we move back there in June. I have heard that there have been grumblings about the organisation of it and the way things have been run - as Phil Redmond put it:

"It's like a scouse wedding - a lot of rowing but it gets there in the end."

So I'm hoping that the rowing etc. can all be put to one side and that the year shows Liverpool off as the great city that it is, as well as being of real benefit. Hoping that it is something that people will really be able to feel part of and proud of!

Liverpool's a good place to visit anyway, but I'd say even more so over this next year - so if you get a chance go for it! Here's a few links for info about the culture year and events etc.:-

http://www.liverpool08.com/index.asp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool08/
http://www.visitliverpool.com/site/welcome-to-liverpool
http://www.liverpool08.com/Events/2008EventsProgramme/index.asp

Christmas / New Year etc.

Just sat in my study at Ridley getting used to the idea that another term is about to kick off - my 8th out of 9! One thing I'm going to have get used to quickly after leaving here is not having the long holidays, having just enjoyed a 4 week break. Having said that the best part of 2 weeks of it was spent working fairly hard on the 6000 word MA essay that was due in today. Had 2 weeks completely clear though which was great! Spent 10 days including Christmas itself over in Ireland at Lisa's parents place near Dublin - guessing it will be a long time before we will be there on Christmas Day itself again! Did a fair amount of walking on Portmarnock beach just a 5 min walk down the road from the house, enjoyed a few pints of Guinness, saw some live Gaelic football, did a bit of shopping, visited my godmother who was over there staying with her daughter and my 97 year old Great Aunt who lives over the other side of Dublin, caught up with various friends etc. A good break - though it went very quickly.

Flew back to Stansted on the 30th - got home about 5pm, and by 7pm were in the car heading off up the A14 to spend a couple of days with my family. Stayed with my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece in Shropshire, did a bit of shopping at the Cheshire Oaks outlet village, saw my Aunt and Uncle, and then on New Years Day saw my parents, sister, brother-in-law, nephew and went to the hospital in Warrington to meet our new nephew Joshua for the 1st time. He was born 8-9 weeks prematurely in December, but seems to be doing really well and is hopefully going to be out of hospital any time now. Came back to Comberton for a rest late on New Years Day!

Anyway, enough waffle. Here's a few photo's:

Portmarnock beach

Christmas Dinner (from left Ross, Michael, Pat, and Lisa's Aunt May)

Dublin Gaelic football players in a friendly match at Portmarnock Gaa Club.

Ross on the sand dunes

Our nephew Benjamin

and his sister Amy - 1 of Liverpool's youngest fans!

That's the life!

Pete (my brother) with Lorriane, Benjamin and Amy

Me and Nathaniel (nephew / godson)

And his younger brother Joshua on our 1st visit to him with Louise and Kev.

A Guinness a day...

Heading for Dublin for 10 days tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with the in-laws, so was delighted to spot this among the most read news items on the BBC website this morning!


Guinness good for you - official

The old advertising slogan "Guinness is Good for You" may be true after all, according to researchers....

Go listen...

Have newly discovered the delights of Sigur Ros and Sufjan Stevens this week, and have really enjoyed having the below to accompany my essay writing this week:

Sigur Ros - Takk

Sufjan Stevens - Come on feel the Illinoise

and on a festive note:

Acquired taste some of it maybe - but I'm enjoying them and definitely recommed!

Have also enjoyed a re-discovering (though not to Lisa's liking unfortunately!) of the delights of Led Zeppelin via their new compilation album Mothership. Treated myself to the bonus edition with a live DVD included. Fantastic!

Go read...

Have really enjoyed reading this over the last few days. Really engagingly written, and extremely moving and thought provoking. Click here for a brief synopsis. Won't say anymore than that, other than to highly recommend if not read already. Also just heard that it has just come out as a movie - will be interested to see how they have done it in film form, so that will be a trip over the Christmas period.

4 goals and a baby!

Came home from my essay writing at college yesterday slightly on edge about Liverpool's match away to Marseilles which they had to win to stay in the tournament. Was not expecting my pre-match tension and build-up to be rudely interrupted by a phonecall to say that my sister's baby was on the way 9 weeks early! Louise had taken herself to the hospital for a quick check as she had not felt quite right during the afternoon, only to find that she was 8cm dilated and the baby was coming! 40 mins later just a short while after the football had kicked off had another phonecall announcing the birth of Joshua Ethan - less than 2 hours after Louise had driven herself to the hospital!! He's now in the special care unit being well cared for and may be there for some time, though he seems to be doing well at this stage and not giving any particular causes for concern. Here's a few photo's:

The proud parents.

And proud grandparents.

So congratulations to Louise, Kev & Nathaniel, and welcome to Joshua - thank you for forcing me to keep my nervousness about silly football matches in proper perspective!

Having said that, despite everything going on it was still a pleasure to see Liverpool win what could have been a very tense and difficult match so comfortably. 4-0 away in Marseilles is a great result! Torres and Gerrard were amazing. So from a position of needing to win all 3 matches to qualify Liverpool have beaten Besiktas 8-0, Porto 4-1 and now Marseilles 4-0. Fantastic! But it makes even more of a mockery of the silly results in the earlier matches that left us in the position of needing those 3 wins, and also mean that we only qualify in 2nd place from a group that we should have won comfortably. Means we're likely to end up with a far harder tie now in the next round against 1 of the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC or Inter Milan etc. Still Liverpool have shown that they can beat anyone on their day in these European knockout stages. Here's hoping we'll do it again!

Ordination Service

Had a letter through on Tuesday confirming that (assuming nothing goes badly wrong in the next 6 months!) my ordination service will take place in Liverpool's stunning Anglican Cathedral at 10.30am on Sunday 29th June 2008. Thinking about it - it's actually not very far off! It's all becoming quite scarily real all of a sudden, and I'm getting the impression that these next 6 months are going to fly by. The letter had details of what I need to wear in terms of robes for the service - I'm so clueless on that sort of stuff, any advice from anyone who happens to know about C of E clerical wear etc. will be gratefully received!

Anyway, if you pray, please pray for Lisa and I over this time as we go through our final months here, begin to get ready to move, and prepare for the next step of our journey along the path that we believe God is leading us along.

2 down 1 to go...

Another pretty good win for the Reds yesterday against Porto at Anfield - even if they did leave if fairly late, scoring 3 goals in the last 15 minutes to give a slightly flattering 4-1 victory. Having left ourselves in the silly position of needing 3 wins from our last 3 matches in the group to qualify for the next round, that's now 2 of them dealt with convincingly and just the 1 to go now. The fact that we're beating these teams 8-0 and 4-1 just goes to show how poorly we played to be in this predicament - these are not particularly good teams and we shouldn't be having this difficulty in qualifying. Going to be a really difficult and tense match against Marseilles at their ground now to see if we can get the 3rd win needed. But if we can do that, and with our league form picking up again, this season might just not be a write off yet. Here's hoping...

England, England, England...

Nearly tempted to say I'm glad because England have made such an unbelievable hash of what should have been a relatively straightfoward qualification group, and simply have not deserved to go through. But I'm not glad - in reality I am gutted! What I do honestly believe though is that if we had held on for the draw last night and qualified it would have just been a papering over of the cracks, and could have led to a continuation of what has been an extremely mediocre couple of years.

I think McClaren got things horribly wrong with his team line up and tactics and has consistently done so over his whole time in charge. The only area I feel slightly sorry for him in terms of last nights game was the defence where injuries / suspension meant the entire 1st choice back 4 were missing. But to change the whole formation that England are used to and to bring in a new and inexperienced keeper for such a key game was just crazy. Never saw the game, but poor Scott Carson will have nightmares about that 1st goal for the rest of his career and the midfield (from what I've heard) just didn't seem to know what they were meant to be doing, where they were meant to be playing. The players must take some of the blame, but ultimately when the tactics go as horribly wrong as that the manager has to take the ultimate responsibility.

Also think the FA need to have a long hard look at themselves. For 1 thing the pitch at Wembley was in a shocking state which didn't suit the England players at all. Something seems to be wrong throughout the English game as well, we've got supposedly the strongest league in the world and yet our national team is in such a mess. Is it just down to things like the number of foreign imports playing here - does that restrict the progress of English players?

Finally, I know it is easy to say in hindsight, but I did say at the time he was appointed that I thought McClaren was the wrong choice - and I do feel sorry for him, good club coach and nice guy, but not the right man for the England job. When Sven went I wanted someone to come in fresh, wipe the slate clean and bring new ideas and impetus, instead they just appointed Sven's sidekick and though he tried to make a couple of changes to stamp his authority at the start it was pretty much just the same old England. Why they didn't bring in someone like Martin O'Neill is still beyond me! Hopefully this will be rectified with the right appointment of the next manager now, but who will that be? It's like being handed the poisoned chalice, volunteering to be the next back page hate figure! Will be interesting to see what happens. I would still like O'Neill, and as much as I'm not a big fan of the guy to say the least Mourinho could be an interesting choice. Hmmm...

24 - 13 years ago!

Enjoying watching 24 series 4 at the moment, and came across this spoof clip via Ellen's blog. Quality!

(Unfortunately can't get the video itself to appear directly here - so click HERE to watch)

Only in America!

Enjoyed the 2nd 'most read' news item on the BBC webaite this morning. The title and 1st sentance says it all:

Man hurt using gun to change tyre
A US man has injured himself in both legs after attempting to loosen a stiff wheel-nut by blasting it with his gun.

Click here for the full story.

Let him who is without sin...

Asbojesus making me laugh again:

Graduation Day.

Spent most of the day yesterday wandering around Cambridge feeling like a bit of a prat in the get up you'll see in the photo's below. Having worked hard over the last couple of years to get a 2:1 in my BTh degree I thought I might as well attend one of the 'degree conferral congregations' as they call them here to be 'admitted' to my degree and receive the certificate officially. Ridley can't validate its own degrees, so I have also been a member of Wolfson which is one of the University colleges - but not had time too get involved in much there or got round to going to any of their formal / posh dinners etc. They're not really my scene anyway. So this was my 1 last chance to do the 'formal' Cambridge Uni bit while I'm here, and my parents were happy that I was willing to go anyway!

Anyway, talk about pomp and ceremony! The instruction email about the day set the tone for what to expect - here's an extract from it about dress code:-

CLOTHING TO BE WORN WITH ACADEMICAL DRESS : BY MEN
· The overall effect should be formal and tidy.
· When proceeding to Degree, men must wear a plain dark suit or black dinner jacket and trousers. “Dark” means black, or very dark blue, or very dark grey. A plain white shirt with a white dress tie and academical bands must also be worn. Shirts with a pronounced pattern are not permitted. Cummerbunds are also not permitted.
· Men must wear academical bands, except when service uniform (see below) or national dress is permitted to be worn.
· Shoes must be black and of sober style. Sandals or boots are also not permitted. Socks must be black or very dark blue or very dark grey.

PLEASE CONTACT THE PRAELECTOR IF YOU WISH TO WEAR NATIONAL DRESS (The Praelector must request of the Registry, special dispensation if you wish to wear national dress)

Having been sent this in advance I was then told that I had to arrive at Wolfson in time for a guy called the 'Praelector' to inspect me to make sure I was correctly dressed - they weren't joking, he even asked me to lift my trousers so he could check my socks!! After that we got to go to the President's lodge for a drinks reception and then to the Dining Hall for a very enjoyable 3 course lunch. At the end of the lunch the 'Praelector' gave us a bit of a talk about the history of Cambridge graduation - I didn't realise that no women were awarded Cambridge degrees before 1948! He also talked about the University Police called 'proctors'. Supposedly in the past they used to prowl around Cambridge to catch any students not wearing their gowns etc. and also to spot any students out and about with girls! They had the power to arrest the girls and send them for 30 days to the local 'spinning house' as 'correction'! Nowadays they are there on graduation days to make sure that 'graduands' are dressed correctly and behave correctly at the ceremony, and the reason why the Praelector was checking our attire so carefully was that if the proctors spot anything wrong with our dress or if we 'misbehaved' he gets fined a bottle of port! Only in somewhere like Cambridge! I was slightly bemused and finding the whole thing a bit surreal at this stage!

After that I had to go with the other 'graduands' for a run through of what would happen at the ceremony. Then we had to 'precess' from Wolfson; in the order that we were to go forward at the ceremony mainly in rows of 2 or 3 - but with me as the only person there receiving an undergraduate degree bringing up the rear on my own, the 'dunce' of the group; to the University Church in the centre of town, where the ceremony was held. There, I had to walk up the aisle, take hold of the praelectors hand while he presented me in Latin, then move forward kneel down with my hands held out together while the person doing the award held them and spoke some more Latin, then stand take a step back and bow to her, before walking off and receiving the certificate. And that was it. All a bit formal and surreal, and not the sort of scene or clothing get up that I'm normally comfortable with. But I did kind of enjoy it and am glad I did it. My parents seemed to enjoy it, and think Lisa did generally too. Here's a few photo's:

Long time since my Dad last had to dress me! But I didn't have a clue what I was doing!

With Lisa, Mum and Dad at Ridley.

The University Church of Great St Mary's - where the ceremony took place.

On the University 'Senate House' lawn after the cermony.

Ludicrous laws...

Came across on article on the BBC website yesterday that amused me. It was about some research done by UKTV Gold into ludicrous laws that have supposedly never been repealed in England. Here's a few examples:

* It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament

* It could be regarded an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British king or queen's image upside-down

* Eating mince pies on Christmas Day is banned

* In the UK, a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants

* The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen

* It is illegal not to tell the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing

* It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour

There were some other even funnier ones on there yesterday as well as the above (including 1 about it being illegal to be topless in public places in Liverpool unless you work in a pet shop!), but when you visit the page it now says: "This is an amended version of an earlier story which included several examples of laws from the survey which we have been unable to verify, and these have been removed." Pity!