It's been a bit damp around here

 Local flooding last weekend - Flickr

Click on the picture for a better view.

We had torrential rain today. Monsoon like. Fortunately it only lasted half an hour or so otherwise I'd have been paddling about in my house.  Just shutting the kitchen door at work soaked me to the skin. We've had some really bad weather locally particularly last weekend. On Friday night at a birthday party I spoke to someone who wasn't able to get home due to the flooding problems.

Here are some videos taken in a couple of nearby towns:

In this first video the centre of the town was badly flooded, someone I know lives on the hill behind this pub. Her house was OK but her car was damaged.



In this next video the canal has burst its banks:



Waist deep water on the main street:



It's sheer volume of water pouring down from the hills that feed into the River Calder, in this next video you can see the differences of during the floods and after, the water level change is amazing:



For those of you who are interested I just wanted to add this video, it's interesting because you can hear the flood warning siren going off at the beginning and it gives and overview of the area (this is all about 5 miles away from our house):

Blackcurrant Juice?

As you know we left our church recently.  This has been such a traumatic but very eye-opening event and I'd like to be able to somehow put into words some of what I have been feeling and learning.  But I'm not sure I have the brain-power to do that right now.

At the moment we've been visiting a different church each Sunday.

We've visited two local community churches, both with real community spirit and lots going on.   They were both lovely and very friendly.  We've also visited a local Pentecostal church which was fun, but they are an Assemblies of God church which state that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is always evidenced by tongues...I've never spoken in tongues, so I suppose that leaves me out of the picture! :)  Anyway, it's a church that some friends and family attend, the people there are lovely, but I'm not sure it's the church for us.  We can always visit.

This Sunday we are attending our local Anglican church.  This is more for me than Hubs as I really struggle with blackcurrant juice in little cups and bread for communion that we have seen in the other churches. I long for a proper communion (Eucharist) (our old church was Anglican until the Pastor retired and our communion was very similar to a low-Anglican type communion).  The local Anglican church, which we will visit, says it is 'liberal catholic' in style - I'm not sure what that means, but I know they have incense.

What is it with the blackcurrant juice anyway?  I realise the reasoning of having non-alcoholic drinks for communion so that alcoholics can join in, but why blackcurrant juice?  Surely grape-juice would be better or non-alcoholic wine?

I suppose it all depends on your view of the Eucharist/communion and what it all means.  I have always believed in Real Presence, for me communion is more than mere intellectual remembrance, there is something so special about it. I feel a bit icky when it isn't treated reverently...and when there is blackcurrant juice! :)

Maybe I'm being fussy.  I don't know, it's all a big learning curve for me.  And if the family decides they like a church that has blackcurrant juice in tiny cups for communion, then I can always moon-light at the local Anglican every so often.

Forgiveness

I'm reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, it's one of those books I pick up and read from time to time but I'm not sure I've ever sat down and read it cover to cover in one single time frame.

Anyway, there are some things that have struck me and so I don't forget them I'm going to record them on my blog here and there.

[W]e might try to understand exactly what loving your neighbour as yourself means.  I have to love him as I love myself.  Well, how exactly do I love myself?...

A good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are.  Go a step further.  In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one.  I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing.  So apparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things my enemies do.  Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a man's actions but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin  but not the sinner.

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man?  But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life - namely myself.  However much I might dislike my own cowardice or greed, I went on loving myself.  There had never been the slightest difficulty about it.  In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man.  Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery.  We ought to hate them.  Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid.  But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible,. that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.
~Chapter 7, Forgiveness, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis.

Crises

Storm at Sea, Flickr

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."
~Louisa May Alcott

Crises come.  The storms rage.  Such is life.  All part of living in a fallen world.  But God is the light that shines in the darkness, like a lighthouse.  He allows us charge of our own ships - he never forces his ways upon us - but he guides us, not by domination but by love.  Like the Eastern shepherd he leads and his sheep follow, he never drives like the Western shepherd, with frightened sheep running.

The reason I write these things is because I want to reassure myself that God isn't like a dominating authoritarian figure that demands obedience and threatens rejection, but instead draws us in love.

I'm a bit tender right now.  We left our church at the beginning of last week.  I've been there since I was four.

Some very painful things have happened.

If my posts seem a bit weebly (is that a word? if it isn't it should be), you may now understand why.

I wanted to delete loads of posts.  Everything that smacked of indoctrination and which I felt didn't show the real Jesus I wanted to delete.  But I'm a bit raw and might have got carried away, so I stopped.

You'll be patient whilst I make this adjustment won't you?

Prodigal Son

“For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.”

~ Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

I have never read a Henri Nouwen book, but this quote moved me so much.  I am re-reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis at the moment and a thought occurred to me whilst reading the chapter on Christian Marriage.  The thought wasn't particularly related to marriage, but it was simply how often we try to make the words of Jesus law rather than life, we live in fear of breaking the 'law' and hide ourselves in shame from the giver of life.  The scripture that I thought of in particular was where Jesus speaks about divorce in Matthew 5.  I won't go into it in depth, it's a fairly well known scripture.  I simply reflected how we (in Christian circles) have made this scripture into a law - the 'law' being that unless your spouse is unfaithful you cannot divorce or remarry.  But it isn't law, and I don't believe that Jesus was instituting a new rule.  The only law we are under as Christians is the law of love and it is the lack of love that Jesus is speaking against using marriage as an example; because the ultimate law is to love God and love one another.  There were obviously some who were using God's law as an excuse to discard a wife to get a new one, misusing the teaching of Deuteronomy 24. Not showing the love of God, but selfishness and unfaithfulness.  Of course, God loves us and if our spouse is beating us or being unfaithful...well, he offers us grace for all things.  There is no condemnation for the broken, the damaged, the enslaved.  Equally there is forgiveness offered for those who sin.

Anyway, I said I wouldn't get into that.  The point is that it isn't our work that gets us close to God, it isn't our strict keeping of Old Testament or even New Testament teaching that gets us close to God.  (The Old Testament law simply proved to us we couldn't even in our wildest dreams ever be perfect.) It is God who gets us close to God.   He is the Father seeking, longing for his prodigals.  When we make a mistake, or we sin, we have our speeches (prayers) all planned out, we plan to grovel, we plan to work really hard for him to impress him, we plan to make ourselves lowly slaves for him, we cannot even lift our eyes because we feel so unworthy.  But, before we even reach the threshold of God's throne he is running to us arms outstretched.

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! [Here's the planned speech] I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15:17-20

God is waiting for you arms outstretched.  Watching the road, scanning the horizon for you.  He is longing for you.

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.  Isaiah 40:11

"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." Luke 19:10

I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands. Psalm 119:176

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! Isaiah 30:18

He simply wants us

I came across this quote by CS Lewis via a picture Sandra shared from a page called 'Jesus Daily' on Facebook.  It's beautiful:

God doesn't want something from us.  He simply wants us. 

~ CS Lewis.

I wondered if anyone knows which Lewis book this is from?  I've searched online but cannot find it.

There is no formula for life except Jesus

The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to do good. The Christian thinks any good he does come from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us. ~ C.S. Lewis

It is damaging when I reduce my Christianity to formula.

Too often I rely on orthopraxy and not Jesus.

Too often I fear rejection by God because I cannot follow the formula someone has prescribed for 'a great Christian walk' - despite the fact that God says He will never forsake me or leave me.

There is no formula for life except Jesus.  He gives His life to those Who ask.

It's all about Jesus.

Jesus loves me.

I love Jesus.

Bits n' Bobs, Here and There.

Just a quick post because I need to go and make tea.

It's Squidge's birthday today, she's 8.  We were going to go swimming but she changed her mind at the last minute and wanted to go to a play-centre (you know an indoor thing with slides, and ball pools, etc.).  The day started off well with present opening, but rapidly degenerated into, "The WORST birthday EVER!" after she had an argument with Chatterbox.  But that feeling was short lived and they had fun at the play-centre.

We went to a Jubilee party on Tuesday at Hubs' Mom and Dad's church.  It was lots of fun with jolly singing of the National Anthem, prayer for the Queen, a bouncy castle, face-painting, children's games, a quiz, and a big feast (hot-dogs and burgers).  Squidge won a prize, she was so shocked. Lol, the look on her face.  Hubs and a friend of ours did the adults' quiz and got most of the answers right but instead of putting his own name at the top of the sheet he put Squidge's.  She won a union flag mug, a giant union flag pen, a Jubilee New Testament and a tin of biscuits. :)

On Wednesday some of us from work went on the train to a fantastic chippy (fish and chip shop - this one had a small restaurant at the back) and then walked home via the canal path.  It was lovely until it started to pelt it down with rain, then one of the ladies' daughters got blisters and couldn't walk, then Squidge needed the loo.  So Chatterbox and two of the other children were picked up by the other children's Dad and taken home, the rest of us nipped into a pub so that Squidge could go to the loo, then we decided to stay for a drink and warmed ourselves up with a nice hot cup of coffee and some jubilee cakes.  The rain continued to pelt down so we wussed out and got a taxi the rest of the way. Lol.

Anyway, that's my week so far. :)

Jubilee Fireworks

Really enjoyed the Jubliee Concert this evening. Here are the closing fireworks around Buckingham Palace. Awesome.

Diamond Jubliee Celebrations Begin

There have been a number of gun salutes as the Diamond Jubliee festivities get under way:



And also all kinds of parades and fly-pasts, here's one from Windsor Castle recently:


And of course the Queen's opening of the Epsom Derby today including a rendition of the National Anthem by Katherine Jenkins.