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!
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 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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Journeys of Heart and Mind 