Mike's musings

The zoo (and Lambeth)

(backposting) This morning, we went to one of our favourite places for the girls: Colchester Zoo. Dad came along as well, and we all had a good time. Miri's now at an age where she can start to enjoy the animals, and she seemed particularly interested in the sea lions and piglets.

In the afternoon, Dad and I drove down to the Lambeth Conference, taking place at the University of Kent's Canterbury campus. I managed to get online, and a good connection to SL, and then we headed off to get some supper. Gareth (also on the SL ministry team) and I passed over 50 flyers around different bishops at their supper tables: I've never seen so much episcopal purple in one place. Lots of senior people, including, I noticed, the bishop of Sudan, who's in the news at the moment.

Here's a couple of paragraphs I wrote today to be read out at one of the SecondLife Anglican Cathedral services today:

Last night, members of the ministry team had the opportunity to speak to attendees at the Lambeth Conference. Numbers were small - as for many of the fringe events - but discussion was committed and deeply thoughtful. I can report that the Anglican Church is taking us very seriously, as well as the opportunities for mission in other online media. We need to think hard about what kind of church we want to be, with what responsibilities and duties, but the Church is listening, and will continue to listen. The attendees were unanimous in their opinion that our mission is both truly Christian and vital to the Church's future.

We have lots of work to do: but it's God's work, and he will give us strength and guidance! Hallelujah!

I still need to do lots of thinking about what's come out of this, but it's very positive. Thanks be to God!

Labels: family, ministry, secondlife, zoo

Miri's 1st birthday

Lots of presents, and Jo even managed to let her open some of them herself. Well, when I say "some of them", what I actually mean is "she allowed Miri to assist in the opening of some of them".

At 0930 I took my last "coffee and worship" service/discussion at Little Yeldham. 13 people, including a few from Great Yeldham, which was a good turn-out. We talked about "vocation", the various forms it can take, and the various ways in which it can come.

After that, zoo. Some tears from Jo. Not helped by the fact that she managed to bite her tongue very badly over lunch. We fed the elephants, which was good: Jo even managed to do it herself. Just about to bottle out when the elephant decided that _she_ was committed to the process. Still, she enjoyed having "elephant snot" on her hands.

Miri seemed to have a good day, except for the teething. Enjoyed the books she got given (quite a few). And she does love her sister so much. Walking, talking, playing, crawling, hugging, kissing, she's a proper person and knows what she likes. Which is often food.

Labels: birthday, miri, zoo

Zoo

Sent Moo to bed early last night and did lots of ironing. Felt pretty pleased with myself, if tired. Not that I don't usually do the ironing - I do - but well, I did.

This morning I was leading discussion and a service at Great Yeldham. Keith chose the topic for me this time: "What does it mean to live by the Bible?". Fits in rather well with the ethics module I'm doing, so I had quite a lot to say. Keith managed to come - it's always clashed with services that he's been taking before - and seemed to feel it went quite well. I've been tweaking the format of both the discussion and the service afterwards (now 3 hymns...), and it all seems to work pretty well now, thought there's still work to do.

When I got back, I took the girls to the zoo. Not that Jo's not off there again tomorrow (or maybe Tuesday), but we had a great time. Moo really needed some downtime, and although she's getting her voice back, she's still not well.

Labels: church, illness, zoo

Zoo

Up at 0645. Hang-over, 5 hours' sleep. Moo let me get another sleep in, which was very kind, and after a while, we went to Dick's café in Clare for brunch: a full English breakfast. Which really helped.

Then to the great Colchester zoo, where I fed an elephant (with lots of other people): Jo got scared, so I did it for her. Moo and I spent lots of time trying out the new camera lens, Miri spent lots of time sitting in her pushchair looking at animals, and Jo just ran around a lot.

We discovered today that Jo thinks that the words to Scouting for Girls' song "James Bond" are "I wish I was Jake's Mum", rather than "I wish I was James Bond."

Miri's saying "Daddy" now, and is cruising. Time to start watching her near steps, methinks.

Labels: family, zoo

A day off - the zoo

(backposting) I decided that I'd done enough church for a while, and so decided to have the day off. We asked Jo where she'd like to go, and she chose the zoo, so that's what we did. So tired.

Labels: zoo

Zoo

Slept in till nearly 0800, but Jo had come in just before we went to bed last night, and Moo did _not_ have a good night. So, I took Jo off to Colchester zoo, which was, as usual, a sure-fire winner. Some shopping, and then back home. I tried, but just couldn't keep Jo asleep all the way back. This meant, of course, that she was difficult to get to sleep tonight, but that's partly the chicken pox, of course. In fact, with the exception of a few patches, the spots are beginning to fade, and she doesn't seem to be wanting to scratch them as much.

Went to Kim and Andy's engagement party at The Three Bottles in the afternoon, and met some nice people we didn't know before. One couple with a lad (Archie) six months younger than Jo: Jaz and Mike. Jaz is stuck at home without a job, and can't drive: rather a vicious circle in a village. We had a good chat about bringing kids up, and development generally - what about potty training, etc.? We're very lucky with our support network for kids' things, and we've been around a while. Jaz is only 18, and doesn't have much experience. I'll be looking out for her in the village.

Labels: children, zoo

Walking, preaching, zooing and training

So, I'm sitting in front of Britain's Got Talent (please, oh, please don't let either of the two children win: and if one of them has to, not the dancing one - why am I in tears, oh _puh-lease_?), after quite a day. Father's Day, for course. Presents:

• card by Jo
• picture of Jo and Miriam in a frame decorated beautifully by Jo
• Pirates of the Caribbean CD (from the first film) - great
• Songs for the Young at Heart, which is good car listening
• Jimmy Carr - Live Collection (very rude, but _very_ funny)

I was preaching at Long Melford (none of you came!), and it went well. I was rather nervous to start with, but it went well. I was preaching on justification by faith, and started with Article XIII:

Of Works before Justification.

Works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the School authors say) deserve grace of congruity: yea, rather for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they have the nature of sin.

People started trying to listen, but by the time you get to "deserve grace of congruity", they've lost it. Which is the point: to make justification by faith scary, and then to make it clear. It went very well, and Ian was very positive, which was pleasing. I administered one of the chalices, and after failing to give the first communicant _any_ wine (until she complained), that went quite well. So, all-in-all, a good experience. The problem is that I get home having left Moo to look after both girls for 3 hours, which is hard.

But we went to have lunch, and then off to the zoo, which Jo enjoyed a lot. Was too scared by the "big train", but did the small one in the "familiar friends" area twice.

Then, as Moo was putting Jo down to bed, I took Miriam and Buster for another walk. Heaven knows that I don't treat my body as a temple, but I love walking. Hard, through the country, preferably with a dog, and a child strapped somewhere about my person. There's something so liberating about the physicality of it which I never would have expected to enjoy. So we thank God.

Labels: family, preaching, walk, zoo

A big Daddy day

Jo and I went out together, leaving Moo to have a quiet day at home. We went to Colchester Zoo, and had a lovely time, then to Colchester, where I got an upgrade to the lovely Nokia E65, which has a Blackberry client on it. We then had coffee and cake, went to Sainsbury's, and spent some time with Si, D and Morgan. Buster's had a bad wrist for the past few days, which has meant that I've not been able to walk as much recently. This hasn't helped.

All-in-all, Moo feels that she's not appreciating me enough, I feel that I can't do enough, Jo feels that she's not getting enough attention (though we're being very careful here, and she's doing pretty well) and Miriam just feels that she's not getting enough milk. But that's the case with all babies that I've known, so no worries there.

Today, I got round to reading the lead article in the Church Times on religion online. SecondLife was dealt with - and provided the picture for the front page - but rather cursorily, and I'd like to respond via the letters page.

Labels: Jo, phone, zoo

Tired and grumpy and fed up

OK, I admit it: I'm all of the above, of have been at various times of the day. Let's look at some reasons:

1. for the last week or so, I've been waking up with a nasty sore throat
2. we're both short of sleep
3. I've only spent an entire night with Moo in bed twice (I think) over the past 3 weeks
4. I had a real fight with Jo between 0300 and 0400 about whether she was going to sleep in her own bed (she won: she went in with Moo, and I went to sleep in the spare room again)
5. I've got an essay to write for Friday
6. money's looking like a really interesting issue for the next few months
7. we've got a new baby on the way: of course it's disturbing
8. there's lots of interesting stuff on at work, but it's keeping me very busy and may well have long-lasting impact on my career
9. oh, and I'm trying to juggle ERMC work (forget the essay as well!).

These are all fine, really, and I'm feeling a lot more relaxed about all of them than I was at the end of yesterday: we've made the decisions we needed to make, and I'm ready to ride the storm for a bit now.

My blog may not have looked like it over the past few days, but I'm beginning to think more theologically, if that makes sense. My personal seems more imbued with the spiritual (spiritual and theological are closely allied for me), which is probably how ti should be. I'm not sure how closely this marries with the course, but in some ways that probably doesn't matter, as long as I'm keeping things together and covering the course as prescribed.

A bit about Jo

Enough about me. Jo's great. One major change recently is the addition of the word "me" to the the vocabulary. Up until recently, she's referred to herself as "Jojo", but now it's quite often "me", as in "me do puzzle". She's also recently got the concept of being scared. Some things which she took in her stride until now are sometimes scary. She was scared of Father Christmas, and today, at the zoo, she was upset by some free-roaming sheep that were following us and making a lot of noise: "not like, a bit scared". She realises when things _might_ be scary (she's got a couple of books about scary bears, for instance), and sometimes she'll tell you that she's scared, or that you are. This tends to lead to a cuddle, which is definitely appropriate behaviour. She's also very interested in trying to understand emotions from facial expressions, though she often gets "sad" and "scared/frightened" mixed up, which is interesting. Getting an understanding of her emotions, and other people's, too, seems like a sensible thing to be doing, particularly if she knows how to deal with her fears.

Labels: ERMC, Jo, sleep, spirituality, work, zoo