Sunday, October 15, 2006

Fab day off

I love days off where you just have lots and lots of fun, but you haven't planned it ages in advance. Things I loved about yesterday:
* Walking through the beautiful Sussex countryside with Suz reminissing about the beauties and pain of DofE
* Getting lost and scrambling through undergrowth to try and rectify that - whilst also traspassing - whoops!
* Taking a photo of a cow and sending it as a picture message to Mirsaid, knowing he'd love it (even if he does think I was slightly mad!)
* Watching and shouting at X-factor with Suz and Molly and a big bowl of pasta and pesto
* Hanging out with a load of firends who I've hardly seen in the last two years, but the bond of struggling through and helping each other through our physics degrees is so strong that it doesn't matter that we haven't seen each other for ages - physics remains the same (even if some of us don't remember it as well as others!)
* Watching 'The breakfast club' (fab 80s film) and eating pancakes (chocolate spread, peanut butter and banana being the best filling)
* Discussing which is worse to come across on the pavement - dog poo or vomit (vomit is obviously worse - but others had strong views to the former)
Fab day!!

Thursday, October 12, 2006

random hymn


Crown Him the Lord of years,
The Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres,
Ineffably sublime!
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
For Thou hast died for me;
Thy praise shall never, never fail
Throughout eternity.


Now - I love 'Crown him with many crowns' but what the heck is a 'poetentate of time' and what does 'ineffably' mean?? And why do we sing stuff we don't understand? However, the second half of the verse is solid gold!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Where else can we go?

Joel Virgo (from CCK) spoke at Sussex CU on Monday night about John 6 - Jesus' bizarre saying 'I am the bread of life'. It was fab! Nice to be taught by a Virgo again - although Joel is different from both Terry and Simon, the brilliant Virgo traits are still there - not least a passionate love of Jesus and of his Word (as well as a few hand gestures!!) It was great to be reminded that stuff that we find difficult to understnnd in the bible, for example Jesus saying: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." was as shocking and crazy to the people Jesus was talking to as it is to us now - 'what, he wants us to eat him? what is he going on about?' Many people thought that Jesus was crazy - and they turned away, they would not follow him. But when Jesus asks Peter if he always wants to leave his reply is 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life' - Jesus teaching may be hard at time - people may think that he is crazy, or that we are crazy for believing in him and following - but he has the words of eternal life - where else can we go? He has the truth, he is the only way to God - to who else could we go to?

I saw one of my old lecturers last week. It was good to see him (the 1st time in 2 years), but he did make me feel about 2" tall (I mean to be fair, he always did mock everyone mercilessly for anything anyway) - but he asekd me what I was doing now - when I told him I was working for a church he laughed in my face and said something along the lines of 'Going to convert us all are you? Haha, what are you really doing? Weren't you going to do a PGCE..?' And I felt rubbish. I felt like I was wasting my life, bumming around teaching the Bible - what am I doing? I have a physics degree for goodness sake. But that is so wrong - I was letting someone who thinks the idea of Jesus is crazy, and who thinks I'm crazy for following him affect my thinking - in his mind I am crazy 0 in his mind God doesn't exist and I'm wasting my life. But that is not true. Jesus is real, and he has the words of eternal life - where else can I go? I went to a conference on Preaching Eternity at All Souls yesterday, and one of the things that struck me was the Jesus is coming back. Fact. We don't need to apologise for it or feel embarrased about it - it will happen. And we need to be telling people that. They may think we're crazy - but they thought Jesus was crazy - it doesn't change the truth. The new creation will be a reality, so too, horrifically is hell. Telling people about reality is not wasting your life, its an awesome privilege and a great responsiblity.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Hehe

Make Pingu dance (go on - you know you want to!)

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

If you're ever in an Uzbekistani market...

WATCH OUT!!! You may think you are buying a nice, plumpl, docile cow - but hte chances are somebody has fed it vodka and pumped it up with air, so in a few days time you may be landed with a skinny cow with an attitude problem - you have been warned! (ahh the things you learn working for CCB!)

Sunday, October 01, 2006

+ves and -ves

Things I dislike about Brighton
1. The hills and the fact I'm always sweaty when I get home
2. West Street (aka Fight Street) on a Fri / Sat night - eugh!
3. Killer seagulls the size of small dogs
4. The smell of weed that sporadically drifts around the place
5. 7 dials - isn't life complicated enough without having a place where 7 roads meet?!
6. Feeling scared when I walk around after dark (after having never felt scared on Glebe Road!!)
7. The pigeon poo bridge - run quikly otherwise they might get you!

Thing I like about Brighton
1. The hills (when I'm at the top of one or when I feel its good to have excercise!)
2. The beach - esp when you can sit and pray and watch a gorg susnet or when it really overcast and there's hardly anyone else around
3. The fact the Sussex uni campus is built in the shape of a cat - what more can you want from a university!
4. Seeing the streets looking like a little toy town when you look out of the train window on the viaduct between Brighton and London Road stations - awesome!
5. The South Downs
6. The fact there is always something going on and it is usually quite random!
7. The view from the end of the Ditchling road as you drive towards my house - the Downs, the sea and the city - fab!
8. Primark, the 99p store, Woolies - what can I say? Cambridge really needs to catch up on the cheap shop front!
9. The Laines (exept the really weird shops...!)
10. Shakeaways (man - I haven't had one yet!)