Legally Blonde

Still slightly behind but still attempting to participate in the
game… I haven’t read everyone’s, and I haven’t been able to find permalinks for a lot of them, but these are a few that struck me from the “Freedom” entries.

Richard at Connexions

Anna at Moodstruck

Dan at Signposts

Jan at Shalom

Owen at onionboy

(I hope my attempt at linking works!)

One of the great things about “Blogger Idol” (and so many of Darren’s ideas and projects at Living Room ) is coming across more blogs than you would necessarily normally stumble on. There’s some really inspiring stuff out there, it’s a question of finding it. Also really encouraging that some of the “famous” bloggers look at and link to some of us lesser mortals

A line from the Red Dwarf theme tune… for some reason it’s been playing round my head lots this last week. Well, it has been v v cold (though not compared with Canada (see Bene Diction’s blog for real cold weather stories!)) this week, but htat’s not all there is to it.

Many years ago when I was still in school, our chamber choir made it to the London finals (one round before they start televising!) of the Sainsbury’s Choir of the Year competition, and the warm-up for all London choirs before the comp itself was led by one Howard Andrews, composer of said theme tuen, and numerous other catchy tv themes (even if you can’t place it, you’ll always recognise them; he’s just like that).

Not entirely sure if there’s deeper meaning in this. Yes, it’s v v cold outside. The atmosphere thing is trickier though. I mean, I’m no sicentist so couldn’t possibly tell you about atmospheres in real terms, but in metaphorical terms, there’s less of an “atmosphere” (difficulties, issues, awkwardness, you get the gist) than soemtimes, so actually, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

forgive late night (and I’ve been drinking) ramblings…

I’ve heard of create your own pizza, create your own credit card and such like, but walking home yesterday I saw an advert for create your own TV channel! Is this consumer culture gone to crazy extremes? Is there anything left we can’t have utter selfish say over?

In our “civilized” western societies, the individual is godlike, with unlimited rights to want, demand and control everything imaginable. I’m frightened by the trend. With our rights ought to go corresponding responsibilities.

Is there no limit to how much we can mould it all to our own convenience and taste? Whatever next? Create your own… Christianity?!

is the theme for this week’s over at Living Room.

I’ve been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison as part of my coursework. There’s a man who, very definitely, knew what it was like to have his physical freedom restricted… but inspiringly, reassuringly, faithfully, determined not to let that in any way hold him back or incarcerate him. Rather he used the time in prison to read, write and think, and (almost) always optimistically. When he is low, he thinks more of the burden him being inside places on his family, rather than minding for himself. What a wonderful attitude.

Nelson Mandela, by the same token, refused to resign himself to his loss of freedom – prison couldn’t silence him, and he used the time productively, coming through to become president of the very country that tried to suppress his freedom.

Maybe enforced physical restraint, paradoxically, liberates the mind and soul to explore a different variety of freedom. Puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

Update: I particularly liked #Debi’s comment… how on earth could I not have thought of that?! Yes, another great “writer from prison” as she suggested, was Paul (or Saul of Tarsus prior to that – God does work in mysterious ways – persecutor to evangelist?!).

That got me thinking, there must be others… I thought of Terry Waite and John McCarthy, but I’m sure there must be more. If you know of other inspiring prison writers, let me know in comments and I’ll look them up. Thanks!

Well I know it finished already, but I haven’t mentioned it recently (for about a year?!) so thought I would. 18th-25th January, each year, and this year coincidentally and helpfully bracketed by Sundays, so a jolly good for first and last services. Unfortunately this year most of the midweek services were also during the day (10.30, 2.30 mostly). The usual cries of how the youth don’t support the Churches Together initiatives can (for this year at least!) be rebutted by the fact that “the youth” (of which I appear to be token representative in the minds of several at church!) have to work during the day. HAving said that, I did manage to go to some of the services… Sunday (Methodists), Friday (URC), Saturday and yesterday (Anglicans). The Saturday one I couldn’t very well not have made it to, since I was part of the group leading it! I love going to other people’s churches sometimes, being involved in a different sort of service and seeing different people; particularly good for me is being able to be “normal” congregation, rather than too involved in choir, music group etc. Too often we focus in on the differences, the “us and them” factions, but last week was a celebration of the diversity of local churches uniting as the Church.

I have absolutely no valid claim to joining the bandwagon, not being a “proper” blog with regular entries, readership etc, but thought it’d be an incentive to update more and see how it goes. Thanks a lot to Darren at Living Room for creating the space for non-real-bloggers to have a go!

Apart from the obvious images conjured by the decade that fashion forgot (big hair, big shoulder pads, big earrings, big brick mobiles…), the ’80s was a time of transition for me, the ramifications of which are still rippling outwards in my 20something year old pond.

From effectively selfish only child (my older brothers were away at school) to having to learn to share my parents with my younger brother; from toddler at nursery to child at junior school, from a safe, closed home environment to the wider world, from only coming into contact with kids of my parents’ choosing (my parents’ friends’, I suppose), to meeting and having to interact with the huge diversity of South London’s ethnic mix. I had to confront the existence of, and adapt to, something far beyond the parameters my world.

Having Asperger’s Syndrome means (among plenty of other things) increased difficulty adapting to change – whether of a even a simple domestic routine, or a more obvious paradigm shift such as a person looming large in – or leaving – life, and certainly a change of school. I was at sea. I had a choice. I could have sunk without a trace. I struggled, and learned instead to swim.

Having an August birthday means I’ve always been young for the year, but was reassured by the fact that we were all, at least, “jubilee babies” (give or take a year). Now, of course, having come to uni by a far more circuituous route than the norm, most of my friends and contemporaries here were born during the Eighties, which is a stark reality I usually conveniently forget.

Though of course everything’s relative, and we were all undergrads together so actual chronological age is irrelevant, it makes you (well, me really) think rather uncomfortably much about mortality, and time, and the fact that in just over three years I’ll hit 30. Really it comes down to another choice. I could hit as in a car crash – destructive head on collision where one of us comes off a heck of a lot worse and is effectively written off; or hit it more positively as a launching point, and improvise, adapt and overcome whatever the next decade chooses to throw at me.

So there I was thinking Wednesday, Wednesday, have to think and write and post by Wednesday, without reading the vital words “Australian Time.” Which is, in fact, Tuesday night. Oops. So I’ve totally missed week one of but thought I’d give it a shot anyway, even a bit late.

I hate to sound quite so mercenary and materialistic (it’s a trait I hate, specially given Matthew 6, but am sadly prone to recently), but couldn’t help being at least a little chuffed to be told in work today I am getting a pay rise It’s not a very big one, but every little sure does help.

Now I can start eating sensibly again, and maybe worry less so that I get proper sleep … that’ll help lots too.

And Jesus said, “Ok boys, let’s have a vote about this. Let’s forget everything I said about building up my body and working for the kingdom, and go with the real world here. Let’s give in to the might-is-right rabble-rousers, and see if that makes anyone any happier with the general situ. Shall we?”

Well, if he did, I must’ve missed it, being blind or blonde or both at that particular point.

Call me naiive and idealistic but I seem to remember something along the lines of loving enemies, praying for those that hate you, etc; and if you do have massive unresolvable disagreements about things, trying to keep them within the community of believers and resolving them without a huge great public row, mudslinging and generally not being v g at “loving as He loved us.”

My mistake, eh?!

The sad thing is, more people turn out for an angry meeting than for an average Sunday morning.

Another “alice and car” drama which (luckily) turned out much better than expected!

When I drove my mini, I recognised, knew, understood and could deal with all the various bits under my bonnet. I could, honest! What I hadn’t realised til relatively recently was that it is not the usual habit of more modern cars to be quite so helpfully self-explanatory in their engine layouts.

I phoned the Friendly Car Man.

“Um, Stuart?” “Yes alice. How are you? what have you done to it this time?”

Well, see, not having learnt the intricate workings of the car I now drive very well yet, I couldn’t actually explain what was wrong in the most technical of terms.

“Is the bendy tube thing that goes from back left round to the big round bit at the front important? Hmm, yes, thought it might have been, it’s kind of come apart, and I couldn’t get the car to start. But it’s okay, ’cause I’ve put it back together with masking tape, so it works, but I don’t think it’s a very practical long term solution [understatement!]. Can I bring it in sometime this week?”

I won’t write what he said – I don’t know the laws about swearing on a wiblog! I’d blush, anyway. It started with “MASKING TAPE?!?!?!?!…” and ended with “Thursday.”

Well, I never claimed to be good at car stuff – I’m doing ecumenical studies, not mecanical ones.