Category: Life

Blast from the past… 5

Do things when you can. Don’t wait, don’t hesitate, who knows what tomorrow might bring…

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Notes from bygone years – A load of Aprils

A year ago

I didn’t post an article in April 2022, but Donna and I visited Weston-super-Mare and I spotted this fruit and vegetable shop in one of the back streets. There were strawberries here, but they’re not in season; there were pineapples but those don’t grow in the UK; there were pears that should be ready to pick in September or October. Almost nothing in this shop was grown locally. Why?

A traditional greengrocer’s shop

It’s lovely to have choices like this, but they come at a cost to the environment that we usually overlook. The solution lies in my pocket and yours; we should try to buy locally produced fruit and vegetables that are within a few weeks of being in season.

<Mar 2022 – May 2022>

Two years ago

No blog posts in April 2021 either, but on 4th April the weather was warm and bright and we enjoyed eating outside for the first time in 2021.

Eating outside on 4th April
Three days later!

But oh my word, look at the same table just three days later. Snow! The moral of this little story is plain, do things while you can. Don’t wait, don’t hesitate, who knows what tomorrow might bring…

<Mar 2021 – May 2021>

Five years ago

In April 2018 I had a bit of a rant about rescuing Britain from the dreadful mess it seemed to be in. I grumbled about the effects of Brexit, about poverty, the underfunded health service, an underfunded education system, the need for food-banks, the excessive cost of homes.

Read the article. Let me know if you think things have improved in the last five years.

<Mar 2021 – May 2021>

Ten years ago
A child leading? – Image from Wikimedia

In April 2013 I wrote about ‘Men, women and children‘. The topic really was leadership, and I stand by all I wrote at that time.

Can men lead in church? How about women, are they allowed to lead? And what about children? Perhaps it depends who you ask, there are different opinions and different traditions.

Read my post from ten years ago and let me know what your views are.

<Mar 2013 – May 2013>

Fifteen years ago
The ‘Sagrada Familia’

There was no article in April 2008. However, we had a holiday in Catalonia and visited Barcelona where we took a look at the famous Sagrada Familia with its amazing ‘biological’ shapes. What an astonishing place it it!

To learn more about this wonderful feat of design and engineering by the architect Antoni Gaudi, read the Wikipedia article.

<Mar 2013 – May 2008>

Twenty years ago

In April 2003, I wrote about a meeting at home. Father spoke to us about leadership, coincidentally I drew on what I’d learned in this meeting when I wrote the article mentioned in the ‘Ten years ago’ section above!

A firm foundation

We are weak, like freshly poured concrete; but Jesus is patient and knows we will become strong enough for the task he’s given us.

Twenty-five years ago

In April 1998, Donna and I were on our way home from our honeymoon in Florida, and I began a new job at Unilever’s Colworth Laboratory north of Bedford.

Thirty years ago

In April 1995 my first wife, Judy, was recovering from failed chemotherapy for bowel cancer metastases. Clearly this was not a great situation, but she was fitter than she had been since before her operation to remove the primary tumour. We began meeting again at home with friends in Yatton, near Bristol, where we lived. These were by far the best meetings with friends in Jesus’ presence that any of us had ever experienced. Awesome and hard to describe adequately.

Erm… I can’t count! That was not thirty years ago, it was twenty-eight years ago! Ah well, I’ll let it stand.

Thirty years ago

I’ll try again! In April 1993 Judy and I were living in Yatton with our daughters, and my Mum and Dad visited us on 15th. We drove into Bristol and looked around the covered market and The Galleries shopping centre.

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Blast from the past… 4

In March 1998, Donna and I were married!

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Notes from bygone years – March after March after March

Two years ago

There were no posts in March 2021, but I walked a long section of the old Thames and Severn Canal. The photo shows the towpath on the left and the bed of the canal on the right. The canal is being restored, but it will be a long time before this section can carry barges again.

The old canal and towpath
Five years ago

In March 2018 I posted about moving into our new house and adding an extension (‘Our new home in the Cotswolds‘). The building work was disruptive in the extreme, of course. We had to move out for four weeks, and make do with just part of the original space for much longer than that. But it was worth it.

The lounge in chaos
We used to watch TV here!
Ten years ago
Grasshopper landing

In March 2013 I wrote about a TED interview with Elon Musk. Perhaps you haven’t heard of the TED talks, but everybody has heard of Elon. The post is interesting: Musk was already experimentally landing rockets ten years ago, and TED continues to be a great ideas platform. Take a look and explore the links in the original post.

Fifteen years ago

I reported on a meeting at home in March 2008.

Rachael also shared a picture of an old-fashioned plough making furrows. The soil needs to be churned up and overturned before something new can be grown. There is a necessary process of breaking before the land can be used.

We thought about how Father releases us from ourselves. At the beginning he said, ‘Let there be light’; he still speaks those words into his people today and pours light into the darkest places in our hearts.

Twenty years ago

March 2003, another early blog post about a meeting at home. This time there were only two of us, but we heard such a lot! For example, that the tiny stonecrop, the great cedar, and the mighty oak tree were all planted by Father’s hand. The important thing is not to be big or strong, but to be planted by the master.

Twenty-five years ago

And in March 1998, Donna and I were married!

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Blast from the past… 3

The Holy Spirit spoke to us about walls being broken down

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What was happening on the blog in past Februaries?

Five years ago

I didn’t write any blog posts in February 2018, so here’s a photo instead. Donna’s father, Tony, was 80 on 1st of the month; we drove down to Broadstone near the south coast of Dorset to meet the rest of the family. He was very pleased with his cake, though there were only eight candles on it. Eighty would have needed ten times the effort to blow out!

Tony’s 80th birthday
Ten years ago

On 17th February 2013 I wrote about ‘Leadership and the New Testament‘. Here’s the first paragraph:

How should we manage and govern our meetings? How is church to be led? Everything changed in the 1960s and 70s as the Holy Spirit swept into the denominational church. Existing churches were impacted, the house church movement began, and new streams of church sprang up.

Dancers, by Renoir – From Wikimedia

Read it if you’d like to, but also read the comments where some very good points are made.

Twenty years ago

On the 18th February 2003, I met at home with friends and the Holy Spirit spoke to us about walls being broken down. We heard about other related things too. The notes from the meeting outline what happened.

Remnants of walls – From Wikimedia

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Making a fresh start

I sum these topics up on my Twitter profile as biology, web, science, technology, family, faith, history, and travel.

Having recently restarted blogging after a long pause, I’ve been thinking through how best to move forward – what should I change, what should I drop, and what should I keep?

Today’s post explains some of this, I’ll share what I’m doing and what I plan to do next. I’ll consider any comments you may leave, either here on the blog, or on Twitter or Facebook. But here’s how I see things right now.

Buy me a coffee

I’m offering everything I publish for free, but will always be delighted to receive a small gift, especially if you have sold or republished something (though even then it’s optional). Details are at coffee.scilla.org.uk .

Cruising the Gospel

This is a moribund blog that I’m in the process of restarting. I’m not sure yet whether to continue it in its present form, or to roll it into Journeys of Heart and Mind (JHM) as a topic in its own right. Currently I’m inclined to keep it as it is, and perhaps generate some PDFs from each book I complete. See it at gospel.scilla.org.uk .

Gateway

My Gateway site is mainly for my own use, but it’s full of links about Cirencester (my home town in England), local time and weather, some Christian links, local and national news, science and technology links and so forth. Some of you might like to take a peek. If so, head to gate.scilla.org.uk .

JDMC

JDMC stands for Jesus, Disciple, Mission, Church and is an introduction to Alan Hirsch’s Forgotten Ways. To learn more and download a copy to print (or read online), visit jdmc.scilla.org.uk . I need to update this booklet and plan to when I have time, unfortunately the web links in the PDF open OK, but using the browser to return take you back to the title page; I’ve been unable to fix this so far. If you open the links in a new tab you’ll be OK, but it’s easy to forget.

Journeys of Heart and mind

I intend to continue with this more or less as it stands. That means a mix of topics will appear here, articles about all of the things that motivate me as they occur to me (so in no particular order). I sum these topics up on my Twitter profile as biology, web, science, technology, family, faith, history, and travel. Others include photography, astronomy, spaceflight, archaeology and a few more. One thing I will add is a way of seeing just posts on one of these topics at a time, I think that will be useful; not everyone wants to see everything. You’re reading on this site at the moment.

Photos

I use Smugmug to display my photos and will continue with this, but I need to rearrange things in topic folders to make it more usable. Visit photos.scilla.org.uk to browse my all time favourites.

Twitter

My main Twitter account is ChrisJJ, but I have a second account, JHM. I haven’t used the JHM account for a long while, but might post tweets about faith topics there, and everything else on ChrisJJ. My mind is far from made up on this as there are quite a few pros and cons.

Blast from the past… 2

In January 2013 there was a hard frost in St Neots

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Here’s another blast from the past. What can we find as we look through earlier January posts?

Five years ago

In January 2018 I wrote about eating together and how the early church had no ceremony like our communion service. And I quoted from Victor Choudherie who urges us to ‘promote breaking of bread with simple Agape meals (love feasts) from house to house, that believers take with glad hearts’.

Eating together

Read the old post – Eat together

Ten years ago

In January 2013 there was a hard frost in St Neots where I lived at the time. Within four days, the ice and snow had gone and early hints of the coming spring had appeared. How fast things can change!

Read the old post – Icy pond in St Neots – IMAGE

Twenty years ago

In January 2003 I described the essence of a meeting at my home in which we were reminded that we are just to love, not to manipulate.

Read the old post – Eaton Ford – Walk with the King

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Cirencester tales and trails – 1

The sun came out and brightened everything up, even the puddles seemed more cheerful

I spend quite a bit of time in Cirencester so sometimes there are short stories to tell (tales), and I walk a lot in and around the local area (trails). Some of these might be interesting, fun, or even useful.

Puddles in the sunshine

Today the weather has been quite mixed, a sort of shall I/shan’t I go out. There was a good deal of rain in the morning, but it cleared a bit by mid morning and I decided to dodge the showers and walk down from Stratton where I live; I got a bit damp on the way, but not really wet. I had a couple of items of food shopping to do, so visited Tesco for those, then it began to rain again and I popped into Fora for coffee and to stay dry.

Walking home afterwards, the sun came out and brightened everything up, even the puddles seemed more cheerful. The Dexter cattle in the field west of the Gloucester Road didn’t apparently care about the weather, they didn’t even mind the fact that parts of their field have now become ponds, or even small lakes!

Dexter cattle in a partly flooded field
See also:

Blast from the past… 1

In September 2002 I wrote one of my earliest blog posts. I mentioned scanning my Dad’s old photos and meeting with other Jesus followers in informal ways.

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I thought it would be fun to take a look back at older posts from Journeys of Heart and Mind. So here we go with a blast from the past. I started blogging on 5th February 2002 so it’s time to do some historical trawling! I’ll probably post another of these every now and then.

Five years ago

Here’s my Christmas message from 2017, it was one of the most popular Christmas posts I’ve made. Everyone liked the photo, many of you may remember it.

Read the old post – Season’s Greetings 2017

Ten years ago

In December 2012 I was impressed by a TED video I came across. In the video, Ronnie Edry explained how he had inadvertently started a viral peace movement! It’s an amazing tale and very heart-warming.

Read the old post (and watch the video) – Israel and Iran love one another

Twenty years ago

In September 2002 I wrote one of my earliest blog posts. I mentioned scanning my Dad’s old photos and meeting with other Jesus followers in informal ways: I’m still doing those two things twenty years later!

Read the old post – Where does the time go?

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Season’s Greetings 2022

I hope 2023 will be a year to look forward to. As this year closes and the new one arrives, my hope, wish, and prayer for you is that grace and blessing will fill your life.

Wow, it’s that time of year again, somehow it feels like a few months since I last chose a photo to share for this occasion. This year’s image shows winter catkins covered by crystals of hoar frost. What can this photo say to us?

Crystals of hoar frost on catkins – (Download the original photo)

More and more, the UK is a rich mix of people from many cultural backgrounds. That’s why the title is not ‘Christmas Greetings’. Please accept the greetings and replace the word ‘Season’ with whatever you like. If you’re Hindu you could choose ‘Divali’ as a reminder of your celebrations in October, or Jewish friends might go with ‘Hannukah’ in December. If you’re Muslim there’s no particular celebration for winter 2022; perhaps you could take my greetings as a blessing for the whole of next year – spring, summer, autumn and winter again. Buddhists have two festivals in January. And there are more groups of people I haven’t mentioned specifically. An exhaustive list would be – exhausting!

But whoever you are and whatever you celebrate, I want to bless you with a few words and with the picture of hoar frost. What can that picture say to us?

It should remind us that life is full of seasons, and wintertime in the UK can be cold, especially January and February. This year will be especially hard for some because of rising prices, rarely matched by rising incomes. Heating this winter will be costly and there will be too many who simply won’t be able to keep their home cosy. And then there are those with no home at all.

And what about Ukraine and other war-torn places? In Ukraine the winters can be harsh with the coldest days often reaching -5°C, and sometimes -10°C or -20°C. Now imagine (if you can) living at those temperatures in an unheated house with broken windows, no electrical power, no internet, and no water supply. Although national and local government and company teams reconnect all these services as quickly and widely as possible, repairs are often taken down again by the next Russian air strike.

So my message this winter is that we should all help those around us. Talk with lonely people, provide some dried or canned food to your local food bank, donate warm clothes you no longer need, perhaps to a charity shop. If you can afford a gift of money, choose a charity that will use your donation wisely and effectively.

The picture also reminds us that even cold weather can be beautiful. Those frost crystals look like jewellery! And as the days start to lengthen again, the temperature will rise, plants will start to bud and flower, birds will build their nests, and the promise of summer weather will be just around the corner. Of course, for those of you in the southern hemisphere all this will be back-to-front. For you, spring is already turning into summer and you can look forward to autumn colours in March and April. For all of us, now will become yesterday, a week ago, a month ago; and tomorrow will become today.

So whoever you are, whatever faith you have (or none), I hope 2023 will be a year to look forward to. As this year closes and the new one arrives, my hope, wish, and prayer for you is that grace and blessing will fill your life in ways hoped for and ways unexpected.

Let’s all be grateful for what we have, and display compassion and love towards those who don’t. In that way, blessing will have a chance to touch you, and through you, touch others as well.

Other years

2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

The truth is the truth

Unexpected results are always disappointing and sometimes very harmful

Let’s talk about truth.

Truth is like the stars in the sky above, sometimes cloudy skies hide the stars from view, but we know they’re still there. And when the clouds move away we see them clearly again, they remain the same, the constellations are still recognisable. It’s possible to navigate by the stars, they are dependable and reliable.

Truth is reliable too; when we navigate according to the truth our decisions and choices will produce the expected results. If we are fed untruth, our choices will produce unexpected results. And unexpected results are always disappointing and sometimes very harmful – to us and to others.

In this world we are surrounded by a great deal of untruth. It puzzles me that so many people assume that misinformation will result in good choices. We see it everywhere – in politics, in business, in warfare, in daily life. Let’s look at a few examples:

  • Russia’s war in Ukraine – From the very beginning truth has been discarded. Russian leaders have deliberately ‘adjusted’ history, results of battles, and their motives. Perhaps they believe their own claims! So many decisions on goals, strategy and tactics have been based on untruth and the disastrous results are plain to see.
  • Brexit – From the very beginning truth has been discarded. British leaders have deliberately ‘adjusted’ history, results of policy changes, and their intentions. Perhaps they believe their own claims! So many decisions on goals, legal positions and rule changes have been based on untruth and the disastrous results are plain to see.
  • Anti-vaccination campaigns – From the very beginning truth has been discarded. Campaigners have deliberately ‘adjusted’ the science, results of trials, and their fears. Perhaps they believe their own claims! So many decisions on messages, responses to other views and serious dangers have been based on untruth and the disastrous results are plain to see.
  • Climate change denial – From the very beginning truth has been discarded. Deniers have deliberately ‘adjusted’ evidence, results of scientific study, and their arguments. Perhaps they believe their own claims! So many decisions on arguments, scientific reasoning and inferences have been based on untruth and the disastrous results are plain to see.

Do you see a pattern here? You may disagree with me strongly on any or all of my assertions above, but the plain fact remains that if you fail to see the truth about something, deliberately or not, and you base your actions on the flimsy foundations of error, lies, or misinformation (your own or from others), you will fail. Sooner or later bad choices will result in bad outcomes. They always do.

Claiming something to be true when it’s false will never, in the long term, work in your favour or in mine.

Truth matters. Let’s value it, search it out, base our choices on it, and benefit from the best outcomes available to us.

Where have I been?

Looking back I see that this is only the third blog post I have made in 2022; I have been almost entirely absent. Why? I’m not sure. I’ve been busy with all sorts of other things, but that didn’t stop me from posting in the past.

It’s not possible to engage in blog posting – or any other kind of writing – without having a real urge to do it. People are driven to write, or create music, or art, or any other creative thing. When there is some burning issue to be addressed, or an idea that wants to get out, then writing is easy. Sometimes it’s harder not to write because something is buzzing in your mind, jumping up and down and demanding to be expressed. My mind has not been empty of ideas, but somehow the will to express these ideas as blog posts has dwindled.

The last two posts were failed attempts to make a fresh start. Well, I’m going to try again, hopefully more effectively than before. This present item is more of a meta-post, a blog post about posting on a blog if you will. I’m going to keep it quite brief.

I find the best thing is just to begin writing, either a list of topics I want to cover, or the first paragraph. If I start to struggle, or there are other jobs needing attention, I stop and take a break. A partly written post is usually easy to return to, and will almost always need some improvements and corrections. When there’s nothing more to add – it’s time to post.

So wish me well, I hope to write more soon…