Wednesday, October 27, 2010

HARRY POTTER SEVEN!

My Year 10 girls just informed me that I need to buy a ticket from them to see Harry Potter SEVEN (a) on 17 November to raise money for their prom. ONE TICKET???? I INTEND TO BUY FIVE!!!!!

Friday, October 15, 2010

some thoughts from Chapter 3

I am in love. And I have been reading this book. Being in love threatens to distract me from really thinking through the concepts in this book, but I really want to understand them so it's as though God is using this book to teach me about the stuff in the book, but also about how being in love is very different to loving, leaping, trusting, watching and learning...

So here are some of the really good thoughts from Chapter 3:

"...doubt not only can be seen as an inevitable aspect of our humanity but can also be celebrated as a vital part of faith... the believer who encounters serious doubt does not renounce his or her faith but rather uses it a an opportunity to affirm it... Only a genuine faith can embrace doubt, for such a faith does not act because of self interested reason (such as fear of hell or desire of heaven) but acts simply because it must.... celebrate this dark night of the soul, understanding that this is not a threatening darkness which conceals an enemy but rather is the intimate darkness within which we embrace our faith."


"If we are to guess a motive for Jesus' miracles, then we would have to think that he performed them out of love rather than as a means of compelling belief... Instead of religious discourse being a type of drink designed to satisfy our thirst for answers, Jesus made his teaching salty, evoking thirst. Instead of offering a scientific explanation that would convince, or publicising the miracles so as to compel his listeners, Jesus engaged in a poetic discourse that spoke to the heart of those who would listen..."



"The silence that is part of all God-talk is not the silence of banality, indifference or ignorance but one that stands in awe of God... the Christian faith is extrapolated via a powerless discourse which, at its most evangelical, attempts to create a space in which others can seek for themselves... our approach must be a powerless one which employs words as a way of saying that we have been left utterly breathless by a beauty that surpasses all words... we use words in order to tear through them and glimpse at what lies beneath..."


extracts from How (not) to speak of God by Peter Rollins, SPCK Press, London, 2006

Thursday, October 14, 2010

now i have eveything

Rehearsals for Fiddler on the Roof are going well with sets and costumes falling into place (thanks Katrina the legend) and the opening scene pretty much rehearsed. Yesterday Annabelle and Katelyn and I blocked the scene where Perchik proposes marriage to Hodel. It was so much fun. And we came up with some cool moves for the Sabbath Prayer song. It was a great rehearsal.

And in other news, I have been getting up early to go for walks this week and it is proving a lovely time of day for connecting with the earth and my maker. A great chance to think about and rememebr all the people and needs I have run into in the last few weeks. So I can recommend it - except it means being determined to be asleep before 11PM!!!! Eeek!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

the game


It feels like a game I cannot win. I’m not very good at strategy you see. And I seem to make the wrong move by instinct. Is it fear that causes me to fumble?

But if it’s true that the music playing at the core of my soul could be part of a larger symphony, what I really need to learn is to relax; to trust; to live in the river I am being carried by: to play, to float and not to worry too much about the destination.