This morning I was reading the book of Ruth and then a couple of extracts from Acts, since my Bible reading has been a little lapsed of late, to say the least!  I was challenged about who God will use for His purpose and I began to think about a lot of things.  Ruth, a Moabite woman, was blessed because she chose to be faithful to her mother-in-law, as was the custom of the day and follow God rather than the idols of her own land.  Then in Acts, when the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit, it says that they were astonished to see that the Gentiles were also filled with the Holy Spirit and they could no longer refuse to baptise them.  The word ‘gentile’ came up again, when I read about Priscilla and Aquilla – when the Jews refused to listen to Paul, he resolved to go and preach to the gentiles instead, stating that the blood of the Jews would be on their own head if they did not believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

“Gentile” in the Biblical sense, referred to non-Israelite tribes and then later to “non-Jews”.  If they were to become Jews, then they were required to be circumcised.  Many were not willing and Paul said that it was no longer necessary to be circumcised, calling those imposing the law “dogs” and “mutilators of the flesh”.

How often we are focussed on rules as part of ‘religion’.  This person is not appropriate for this task because they are like this, or like that.  I won’t go and do this because it doesn’t fit with my priorities etc.  God shows us that if we, the church, will not listen to His advice, then our time is better spent speaking to those with open minds and open ears who do not yet know Him.  We are all instructed to do this anyway.  Why are we astonished when God’s Holy Spirit moves on someone who has just become a Christian, or someone who has not the remotest knowledge or interest in Christianity (i.e. someone we have prayed for in the street)?  Maybe it is because they have not got all the application of rules, human limitation, experience, disappointment, negativity, selfishness or anything else that we accumulate over time if we apply religion to pure faith, which is what these people possess.  There is a difference between saying “God would do this” and “I couldn’t know or understand what God would do but I am open to receive it” and the latter is the humble attitude of new or non-believers that we should adopt when coming to God. We have to stop thinking that we know everything and, in particular, the ways, methods and attitudes of our creator.  Who are we to say what He would or wouldn’t do?

After a disastrous ‘non-start’ to uni, (got into my clasroom, had a panic attack and had to leave), I got home and, this evening, opened a cupboard only to have two huge kitchen cupboards fall off the wall onto my head!!!  I am now sitting in my PJs in my pink blanket with a bag of frozen veg on my head feeling a bit sorry for myself.  I was extremely lucky to escape with just a bump on the head and two squashed fingers.

God is good and thankfully I have been building up a lot of spare adrenhalin lately with the old anxiety so I had plenty to spare.  When we put the cupboards up, I could barely lift one empty one with JT’s help.  Somehow I managed to hold up two cupboards full of tins and suchlike for about 5 minutes with one arm, whilst I moved glasses and breakables from the side and worked out how to lower them to the floor without breaking my toes or causing further injury to my head.  Somehow most of the tins stayed inside instead of pelting me (the doors were facing the floor) and I managed to lower the two cupboards (which were on top of each other) to the floor without breaking anything!  I then went and cried for a little while as JT pedalled very fast home from work!  I don’t know if you can see both cupboards in the pic as it is not very clear, but they are huge!  Quality rental houses with their plasterboard walls that are literally one sheet of plasterboard (as we now know!)

www.yearbookyourself.com

Step 1:  Take a photo of yourself on your web cam (or just find a photo)

2.  Upload it to the site and hey presto – you over the decades!!  Here is a selection from my yearbook:

Old bloke in a turquoise Rover Metro with a bump on the side (I am not surprised!)  We followed him from Hewlett Road to Pittville Circus and this is what happened:

He drove at 20MPH, then got into the right-hand lane at the mini round-a-bout.  JT got into the left lane to go straight on and nearly smashed into old bloke who then decided that he would also go straight on, in front of us.  He drove down the right-hand side of All Saints Road and stopped at the mini round-a-bout at the end.  He crawled left, once again, with no indication and then drove at 15MPH.  He stopped at the bend, as if it was a junction, before finally pulling into the right-hand lane and crawling round that.  I advised JT to keep his distance and it was just as well, because, (without indication of course) he decided that he didn’t want to go round Pittville Circus again, he was actually headed for the round-a-bout.  He pulled out right in front of us again and AGAIN without indicating, just stopped on the round-a-bout, which for once was clear.  Two beeps of our horn and one of someone else’s prompted him to creep out in front of a bike (poor bloke nearly went over the roof!) and stop right on the round-a-bout.  Eventually he turned left without indication and crawled down the wrong side of the road.

No offence to the olds, I have a lot of respect for them, but on the road they drive me potty!

Well Friday night was an entertaining rendition of XPOSED Club for the new term, with Men Diamler (nutter!) and TRASH Money.  A great evening had by all – good to have you back XPOSED.

Getting ready to face Uni by night….

TRASH Money prepare during the break…

It’s summer!

I just watched an interesting article on Sky News about freedom of speech on the internet.  The ‘issue’ was that Google had some sponsored ads for anti-abortion agencies.  YouTube (also owned by Google) had just banned some violent videos and the ‘outcry’ was, “Why is there the application of political correctness in some areas an not others?”  It was really interesting as an article and pointed out that there is censorship on TV and in newspapers, but how do you censor the internet in Web 2.0 where there are 40 million or so bloggers and numerous contributors?

The conclusion was that you cannot really ban freedom of speech and I am glad about this.  This country is PC mad, but how can you regulate the entire world and bring them under one standard?  As JT rightly pointed out, censorship is different to legality.  Films with sex in might be censored (although not nowadays it seems) but sex isn’t illegal (unless it is rape, underage etc).  However, if you depict a video where someone kills someone, then what they are doing is illegal, whether you censor it or not.  It was all very interesting.

As it happens, I think there should be more anti-abortion ads, it is all very well to say that it is very very common to have an abortion, but no one says how horrible you might feel afterwards.  Having had to pick up the pieces of so many teenage girls who are in a complete mess because they feel so guilty, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone at all, quite apart from it being morally wrong in my opinion.  That is a whole new debate however.

One broken drill bit (and therefore one cut finger – never used an electric drill before), 10 scratched finger nails and ‘sandpaper effect’ fingers, dirty clothes, 2.5 spare tiles and various bits, one bad back and the floor is FINISHED!  The tiles don’t stick too well to certain parts of our wibbly wobbly concrete floor but we are going to get some glue!!!

Hmmm should have rotated these but you get the idea!

www.mysupermarket.com – brilliant.  You do your shopping on here and say, for example “I would like to shop at ASDA.”  You then go through your online shop and at the top of the page are four bar charts with the prices of your identical shop from ASDA, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Ocado.  It suggests substitutions that you can make in your shop to save money or calories and then at the end, you can choose which supermarket you want to use, based on which is cheapest!  Or, if your chosen supermarket doesn’t have the correct delivery slot, then you can transfer to another.

A lot of people are cynical about online grocery shopping, saying that it is lazy, unreliable, has a delivery charge etc.  Here’s the thing.  I shopped at ASDA yesterday because the total was a huge £20 cheaper than the equivalent shop at Tesco let alone Sainsbury’s.  Paying a £4 delivery charge therefore was inconsequential, because unless I had driven to Gloucester I would have spent £20 more at Tesco (although not sure about Morrison’s).  If ASDA substitute an item and it is more expensive, they will charge you for the item you ordered.  If they are running a bit late, they have the courtesy to phone you.  They recycle your carrier bags for you (hand them to the driver) and whilst using mysupermarket.com you also earn iPoints which can be exchanged for CDs, DVDs etc.

You can save an awful lot of life by shopping online and also you are not taken in by the devious aisle layouts which cause you to buy special offers!!!  So it can also work out a lot cheaper.