Category: Life

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
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