Very tired again tonight.
Feeling better though after a month of feeling really pretty ill. The Advent carols service - 'Seven Bells to Bethlehem' went really well on Sunday night. The best attended it has been in my time with about 100 people there. It really is a beautiful service though...
Today though, it seems there tensions between school and church that need resolving. The main issue it seems to me is that communication at the bazaar needs to be improved. I am quite angry though at the back biting and bitching and will talk to Alan about it tomorrow. I will also ensure though that if we do something as a church like the bazaar - we will make sure we do it properly including helping set up and clear up et al.
On another note - Ben seems ro be doing really well potty training. Been at it for 2 weeks now and he has got it! Today he managed to to verbalise that he needed to go, took himself off un aided and succeeded! Major breakthough...!!!
As the Buncefield anniversay draws nearer, I am aware of how big the service in church on Sunday at 2.30pm could be - it is certainly got national profile. I feel a bit daunted by what needs to be resolved yet and I feel that I need to spend some time on Saturday and maybe even Friday in putting stuff in place. I am delighted that the Bishop is coming and his support through all of this has been immeasurable.
On another note - the first of the Adevnt studies on prayer happened tonight using Bishop Martin's 'Pearls of Life.' A small group, but the content seemed to be very well received. Do feel that I feling around in teh dark a bit and will need to be better prepared next week - even so - the group seem as liberated to pray as I do using them pearls. I also need to do less talking next time and find some we to free discussion. Either way, I hope that this is beginning of something special in terms of renewing the prayer lives of the people at church.
Anyway, off to bed
Zzzzzzzzzzz
An very old post...
This blog was originally posted on my myspace back in December 2006. Since I pretty much need to dump my myspace, I am entering it hear for posterity
I Am No Longer a Geek
I came to this realization a couple months ago. I think it's worth blogging about.
First, it's hard to define exactly what a geek is. I think part of it is being imaginative, having above average intelligence, an interest in technology, and several other things. Practically, this works itself out in maybe strong interest in certain types of media. Anything fantasy or science fiction such as comic books, video games etc. A geek is perhaps someone who becomes an expert in something unreal. This is different than say an interest in literature because literature connects with periods in history and usually tries to connect with real life.
But rather than define "geek" I should say what symptoms I've done. I was a geek's geek. I played Magic the Gathering in middle school. I was an obsessive Star Wars fan at age twelve. I played Dungeons and Dragons in high school and was the Dungeon Master who planned everything. I attended a Star Trek convention with my mother and another friend when I was in the seventh Grade. I've played the Warcraft videogame canon since Warcraft II. I posted on message boards Before the internet was popular and everything was still DOS based. I've spent hours editting maps in Star Craft. I own an anime series and used to watch a lot at a friend's house. I attended a Ren-faire in costume and have "boffed." I build my own computers. I know what the three laws of robotics are. I've read LOTR, Dune, and Hitch-hiker's Guide. I found every last item in Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. Oh yeah, I enjoyed Starcraft LAN parties at my friend's house before I even owned a laptop.
I was even the type of person who would argue and talk about this kind of thing. No one complained about that bitch Jar-jar more than me. I still think that Blood Elf paladins have terrible lore behind them. I can tell you about the psychological overtones in Neon Genesis. I can tell you about stuff I read from the original Star Trek encyclopedia. I was the annoying rule Nazi when it came to spells in D&D (you remember that Mitch?).
But since the summer, I've realized that I've lost interest in this kind of thing, or at least the intensity has greatly diminished. Part of it was saturation in geekiness over the summer. I'd work with people who all worked with computers and videogames. We'd play Counter Strike the last hour of the day. Then I'd go home and play WOW while my roommates tried to beat eachother's high score in Geometry Wars. Other times, there was the occasional "Drunken FPS" night.
Another thing is that life is to short. I don't really have the time to sit in front of a TV so I can watch the latest cheesy anime series about dragon-robots controlled by fourteen year-old wizards. Getting together a gaming session has been out of the question for years. And LAN parties? I'd really rather be practicing my Guitar. Stuff like the excess of World of Warcraft ("Birth Control for $15 Dollars a month") is nothing but an empty sense of accomplishment to me now, and I've realized that I've never seriously regretted not playing a video game.
Finally, I've realized just how weird geek culture can look. I've been on the inside of a Dungeon and Dragon's sessions, so I know that the people sitting around the table see something totally different. But to everyone else, it's a bunch of skinny nerdy guys sitting around rolling dice, drinking mountian dew and wasting potential. Also, I've listened to people argue about comic book characters (something I never got into to), and it sounds utterly absurd to me about how people speculate about how Iron Man might beat so-and-so or how cool it would be Wolverine had stayed feral. I thought boffing was interesting in high school, but why don't I just get back into Akkido instead? Finally, if you've ever seen "Grandma's Boy" you can get a good look at how sad geek Culture can actually be.
Now I don't hate geeks. I'm just not one of them. I can no longer relate to that kind of world easily. Also, it could be that I was just never able to balance geek-life with normal life.
The best way I can sum up my personal reaction to it is that geek culture is the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. Once you get away from it, you realize that there is a whole different way to live. There are a lot of more important and fulfilling things outside that cave. Real Things.
I Am No Longer a Geek
I came to this realization a couple months ago. I think it's worth blogging about.
First, it's hard to define exactly what a geek is. I think part of it is being imaginative, having above average intelligence, an interest in technology, and several other things. Practically, this works itself out in maybe strong interest in certain types of media. Anything fantasy or science fiction such as comic books, video games etc. A geek is perhaps someone who becomes an expert in something unreal. This is different than say an interest in literature because literature connects with periods in history and usually tries to connect with real life.
But rather than define "geek" I should say what symptoms I've done. I was a geek's geek. I played Magic the Gathering in middle school. I was an obsessive Star Wars fan at age twelve. I played Dungeons and Dragons in high school and was the Dungeon Master who planned everything. I attended a Star Trek convention with my mother and another friend when I was in the seventh Grade. I've played the Warcraft videogame canon since Warcraft II. I posted on message boards Before the internet was popular and everything was still DOS based. I've spent hours editting maps in Star Craft. I own an anime series and used to watch a lot at a friend's house. I attended a Ren-faire in costume and have "boffed." I build my own computers. I know what the three laws of robotics are. I've read LOTR, Dune, and Hitch-hiker's Guide. I found every last item in Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past. Oh yeah, I enjoyed Starcraft LAN parties at my friend's house before I even owned a laptop.
I was even the type of person who would argue and talk about this kind of thing. No one complained about that bitch Jar-jar more than me. I still think that Blood Elf paladins have terrible lore behind them. I can tell you about the psychological overtones in Neon Genesis. I can tell you about stuff I read from the original Star Trek encyclopedia. I was the annoying rule Nazi when it came to spells in D&D (you remember that Mitch?).
But since the summer, I've realized that I've lost interest in this kind of thing, or at least the intensity has greatly diminished. Part of it was saturation in geekiness over the summer. I'd work with people who all worked with computers and videogames. We'd play Counter Strike the last hour of the day. Then I'd go home and play WOW while my roommates tried to beat eachother's high score in Geometry Wars. Other times, there was the occasional "Drunken FPS" night.
Another thing is that life is to short. I don't really have the time to sit in front of a TV so I can watch the latest cheesy anime series about dragon-robots controlled by fourteen year-old wizards. Getting together a gaming session has been out of the question for years. And LAN parties? I'd really rather be practicing my Guitar. Stuff like the excess of World of Warcraft ("Birth Control for $15 Dollars a month") is nothing but an empty sense of accomplishment to me now, and I've realized that I've never seriously regretted not playing a video game.
Finally, I've realized just how weird geek culture can look. I've been on the inside of a Dungeon and Dragon's sessions, so I know that the people sitting around the table see something totally different. But to everyone else, it's a bunch of skinny nerdy guys sitting around rolling dice, drinking mountian dew and wasting potential. Also, I've listened to people argue about comic book characters (something I never got into to), and it sounds utterly absurd to me about how people speculate about how Iron Man might beat so-and-so or how cool it would be Wolverine had stayed feral. I thought boffing was interesting in high school, but why don't I just get back into Akkido instead? Finally, if you've ever seen "Grandma's Boy" you can get a good look at how sad geek Culture can actually be.
Now I don't hate geeks. I'm just not one of them. I can no longer relate to that kind of world easily. Also, it could be that I was just never able to balance geek-life with normal life.
The best way I can sum up my personal reaction to it is that geek culture is the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. Once you get away from it, you realize that there is a whole different way to live. There are a lot of more important and fulfilling things outside that cave. Real Things.
Very very very tired today - in fact Alex is too... Very bad night indeed. Hey ho!
New Advent service book in use for the first time today - I was pleased with the result I think.
I am concious that there are alot of people within the community who are really struggling right now with one thing or another. It feels quite crushing. Need to to hope and pray that God breaks into the situations of many in our church right now...
Below is an incomplete version of what I preached this morning...
LGVA Carol concert in a little while... :-)
S
----------------------------------------
In the hills of northern Spain stands an old church with a very unusual statue of Mary in it. Down in the crypt she stands - La Madona de la O - the O Madonna or Advent Madonna. She stands in late pregnancy, heavy with child and full of hope for the future. Her pregnant fullness quietly announces God’s love for the world.
It is this Mary, blooming in late pregnancy, that also represents the church as she enters Advent. We like Mary are anticipatingly awaiting the arrival of her Son. We, like her, are filled with hope because of the child she will bear. The Advent church, with Mary, long for justice for the world, through this child whose name means ‘saviour.’ We, like Mary, know that with God this sense of hope and longing has a personal edge that affects us - it brings us into the searing light of God’s judgement, it calls us to change, and yet fills us with pregnant joy that the fulfilled hopes of God and us rest in this unborn child. As we prepare to greet the Christ child - how should I be?
Hopeful. Advent is the season where we long for God’s coming to us. For centuries faithful men and women throughout the Old Testament had watched and waited for God to come and liberate his people - freeing them from oppression, slavery, and occupation. With the angel’s words to her, Mary knew that generations of waiting were soon to be over. In this holy season as we anticipate remembering God coming to our world bringing justice and judegement, we need to be hopeful that God has moved the constant battle with evil and suffering, into it’s endgame.
The coming Christ is the one who can open the gateway closed by God at Eden because of sin and who stands at the door open in heaven inviting us in. In Advent, Christ is called the Key of David - a symbol of authority at the palace of Jerusalem - and it’s bearer had the authority to admit people into the royal presence. The key in question was a cumbersome affair carried on the shoulders, and the analogy between key and cross cannot be downplayed.
With the coming of God comes wild hope, but not a crazy utopian dream. Peace in nations begins with peace in people. Free nations begins with free people. Liberation of lands and political systems begins with liberating the human heart. Advent people are hopeful people, people who know that it is only the coming Christ child who can unlock the doorway to God and the doorway to humanity as God created it to be.
Trusting. Mary’s words to the angel. “Let it be to me according to your word.’ show a radical obedience to the will of God. In this holy season, as we anticipate remembering God coming into our world - restoring, healing - we too need to become people who trust God. As God entrusts himself to his creation in the vulnerability of a helpless baby, so we need to entrust ourselves to his will. In advent, Mary reminds us that her trust is not a blind acceptance. All that she had been told would happen had happened.
We need to trust God, as incredulous and unlikely as that might seem. God is trustworthy and true and does not revoke his promises. In Christ, all God’s promises already in place. His first coming at the Incarnation confirmed the reliability of all the Old testa ment prophesies. The enduring presence of of the Holy Spirit in his church, by which the endgame has begun, assures us that he will return again. God’s future has begun, here, now.
With the coming of God comes a need to trust him, but not a crazy utopian dream. What Mary knew, we must know. God has consistently proved himself to be faithful through the pages of scripture and the lives of men and women over the ages, all that Mary heard from the angel she saw fulfilled. Advent people are trusting people, people who have come to know that trusting God is not a last resort when all else fails, but the place to start.
Proclaiming. Mary’s words ‘My soul magnifies the Lord!’ remind that Advent’s purpose is to proclaim God in a world that largely ignores him. As a tiny baby, that is to say so unobtrusive in his humility, he needs to be magnified to been seen. In a world that ignores him and yet needs him more and more - the we need to sing the Magnificat in our live all the more loudly. In a world that gives status dependent on wealth, on body image, on clothing, yet longs for love, forgiveness, healing and hope, we need to proclaim him all the more.
Advent longs for coming of God to us, but it also is the time to remind us that God waits for our coming to him. At the incarnation he comes to us and will come again at the end of time, in the meantime he watches out like the father of the prodigal son - waiting to embrace us in eternal love.
Advent is traditionally as season of repentance - seeking to mend broken relationships, hearing words of forgiveness - so we also need to return to God, discovering as we do in this holy season, that it only when we return to our creator that we find our true status - as children of God - forgiven, healed, hopeful and reconciled.
New Advent service book in use for the first time today - I was pleased with the result I think.
I am concious that there are alot of people within the community who are really struggling right now with one thing or another. It feels quite crushing. Need to to hope and pray that God breaks into the situations of many in our church right now...
Below is an incomplete version of what I preached this morning...
LGVA Carol concert in a little while... :-)
S
----------------------------------------
In the hills of northern Spain stands an old church with a very unusual statue of Mary in it. Down in the crypt she stands - La Madona de la O - the O Madonna or Advent Madonna. She stands in late pregnancy, heavy with child and full of hope for the future. Her pregnant fullness quietly announces God’s love for the world.
It is this Mary, blooming in late pregnancy, that also represents the church as she enters Advent. We like Mary are anticipatingly awaiting the arrival of her Son. We, like her, are filled with hope because of the child she will bear. The Advent church, with Mary, long for justice for the world, through this child whose name means ‘saviour.’ We, like Mary, know that with God this sense of hope and longing has a personal edge that affects us - it brings us into the searing light of God’s judgement, it calls us to change, and yet fills us with pregnant joy that the fulfilled hopes of God and us rest in this unborn child. As we prepare to greet the Christ child - how should I be?
Hopeful. Advent is the season where we long for God’s coming to us. For centuries faithful men and women throughout the Old Testament had watched and waited for God to come and liberate his people - freeing them from oppression, slavery, and occupation. With the angel’s words to her, Mary knew that generations of waiting were soon to be over. In this holy season as we anticipate remembering God coming to our world bringing justice and judegement, we need to be hopeful that God has moved the constant battle with evil and suffering, into it’s endgame.
The coming Christ is the one who can open the gateway closed by God at Eden because of sin and who stands at the door open in heaven inviting us in. In Advent, Christ is called the Key of David - a symbol of authority at the palace of Jerusalem - and it’s bearer had the authority to admit people into the royal presence. The key in question was a cumbersome affair carried on the shoulders, and the analogy between key and cross cannot be downplayed.
With the coming of God comes wild hope, but not a crazy utopian dream. Peace in nations begins with peace in people. Free nations begins with free people. Liberation of lands and political systems begins with liberating the human heart. Advent people are hopeful people, people who know that it is only the coming Christ child who can unlock the doorway to God and the doorway to humanity as God created it to be.
Trusting. Mary’s words to the angel. “Let it be to me according to your word.’ show a radical obedience to the will of God. In this holy season, as we anticipate remembering God coming into our world - restoring, healing - we too need to become people who trust God. As God entrusts himself to his creation in the vulnerability of a helpless baby, so we need to entrust ourselves to his will. In advent, Mary reminds us that her trust is not a blind acceptance. All that she had been told would happen had happened.
We need to trust God, as incredulous and unlikely as that might seem. God is trustworthy and true and does not revoke his promises. In Christ, all God’s promises already in place. His first coming at the Incarnation confirmed the reliability of all the Old testa ment prophesies. The enduring presence of of the Holy Spirit in his church, by which the endgame has begun, assures us that he will return again. God’s future has begun, here, now.
With the coming of God comes a need to trust him, but not a crazy utopian dream. What Mary knew, we must know. God has consistently proved himself to be faithful through the pages of scripture and the lives of men and women over the ages, all that Mary heard from the angel she saw fulfilled. Advent people are trusting people, people who have come to know that trusting God is not a last resort when all else fails, but the place to start.
Proclaiming. Mary’s words ‘My soul magnifies the Lord!’ remind that Advent’s purpose is to proclaim God in a world that largely ignores him. As a tiny baby, that is to say so unobtrusive in his humility, he needs to be magnified to been seen. In a world that ignores him and yet needs him more and more - the we need to sing the Magnificat in our live all the more loudly. In a world that gives status dependent on wealth, on body image, on clothing, yet longs for love, forgiveness, healing and hope, we need to proclaim him all the more.
Advent longs for coming of God to us, but it also is the time to remind us that God waits for our coming to him. At the incarnation he comes to us and will come again at the end of time, in the meantime he watches out like the father of the prodigal son - waiting to embrace us in eternal love.
Advent is traditionally as season of repentance - seeking to mend broken relationships, hearing words of forgiveness - so we also need to return to God, discovering as we do in this holy season, that it only when we return to our creator that we find our true status - as children of God - forgiven, healed, hopeful and reconciled.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
