snapshots

I've been thinking for a while now about how to keep this going, this journal of things that happen to Matt Stubbs. The thing is (and you'll be surprised at this), different things happen to me every day. It's just that most of the time, they're not too interesting. Or... they are, but to write them down here would be most unwise.

Unwise. Wisdom's interesting isn't it? Those who have it know when to use it and those who don't, can't begin to understand the difference...

The second shocking revelation is that there is a definite chain of events leading from my last blog post to this. If I tried really hard, I could think very carefully about all the things I've done since I moved out of St Birinus - the new job, living with my parents, the two trips to Bradford and that spicy pork that made me violently sick... and the rest... and I could list them all from one to the next, from that moment to this... you know, to fill in the gaps.

But I don't think blogs were meant to work in that documentary way. No, I think blogs work much more like photographs. They take a snapshot of a life on a particular day and you kind of fill in the gaps. And I actually think there's something quite nice about that.

Take the other day for example. The camera shutter opens: it's late afternoon, it's dark and it's raining. I'm eating a Rolo McFlurry in the drizzle and my gloves are getting in the way of the little plastic spoon. I peer through rain-speckled glasses at the road as cars swish past and I feel curiously happy with life. It doesn't make sense and it's unusual, but there it is: happiness. The camera shutter closes.

Or how about this: Click. It's just after church, I'm packing my stuff away and having a conversation with someone: "Matt, how are you getting on with your parents?" she says.

"Oh yeah, really well thanks. It's going much better than I thought it might."

"I expect they think of you like a bad penny." I stop, realise she actually isn't joking and say:

"Erm... no, thanks very much." Click.

Click: "B*******!" she says, almost spitting beer-foam in the half-light.

"No, it's true. There's a lady in our church who's been healed, properly healed, of cancer." Click.

~

With all of this in mind, and a pile of snapshots collecting in my memory, I intend of course, to keep blogging - about Lysander and Hermia, the wheelclamped Oberon, and my ongoing battle with the chairs at church, oh and all kinds of things... despite my inability to write anything of use over the last month or so. There's much to tell as well, through the snapping of the lens and the click of the shutter.

Click click. ;)

the sunset at st birinus

It's the last night then. The house feels really quite empty tonight with just Reuben and I here for this final evening. It seems that the less stuff there is, the more the memories seep in to fill the emptiness. There's a forlorn echo that reverberates around the bare walls, a deep silent sadness at leaving it behind.

It won't be for long though of course. In a curious way, the five of us who lived here this year were just the support act for Paul and Heather, who next week, will be filling that emptiness with their own excitement and hope, when they move in to the St Birinus Vicarage. It'll be weird coming back to see them: like getting a lift with the person you sold your car to, or seeing an old girlfriend walk happily down the aisle to marry the man of her dreams. I best not let my mind wander to there though eh...

The thing to do, says my pragmatic brain, is to be thankful for the times you had, let them go, and move on to the next thing boldly and without regret. Yup. OK. Well, we did have some fun times I suppose. And there were some moments of great significance for me in this house. In packing up today, I found a post-it note that had slipped down behind a chest of drawers.

"Think!" it said, bravely, "Turn off your light before you leave the room!"

Sammy had even gone to the trouble of drawing a little light-bulb, just so I'd remember what it was I was supposed to switch off. I grinned a little more enthusiastically today than I did on the day it appeared on my door.

It was a shame really, that things didn't exactly work out. I wouldn't like to speculate completely, but those evenings when she opened the kitchen door, bleary-eyed and frustrated at the conversation that had just woken her up, probably had something to do with it. Then of course, the infamous Fruitfly Epidemic was probably a bridge too far.

There were flies everywhere: little tiny ones that got into everything. I remember counting about fifty of them once, crawling randomly up my window. Minute black specks surging upward against the clear January sky. They were in the cups, in the bin, in the flowers and swarming through the kitchen like an Egyptian plague. In the end, they did all perish - probably when the snow-drift happened and life got very chilly for a few weeks.

It was a chilly time. I remember waking up at 2am and watching the snowflakes drift aimlessly in the lamplight. Taken with some foolish idea, I threw on clothes and walked down Empress Road, pretending to be a great explorer. Crisp footprints fell deep in the snow behind me. For a while I was Captain Oates, braving the elements, squaring up to destiny and leaving all I knew behind me... then I realised I was blinking freezing and I could be asleep in bed, so I went back inside to shake the snow off my jacket.

Late nights were quite common here though. And not just for me. One time, I was editing the 'School of Discipleship Training Notes' document for Paul through the night. It had got to that stage where everything within felt like it was aching with tiredness. The sky was steadily growing lighter, and as the streetlamps blinked out and the world was awakening, I creaked my way downstairs for a cup of tea, only to hear James and Reuben playing Call of Duty on the X-Box in James's room. Even the other day, when I got back from Wales, Reuben claimed that James had done three straight all-nighters.

I am not 20 any more, I thought. Then I realised that I also, was up doing something fairly inconsequential through the night. Perhaps in some ways, I am then. Perhaps.

In many ways though, when Sammy had escaped the fly-infested noisy mess, Danni was probably the most mature of all of us. I don't think I've ever seen anyone bake so fast or so well. Banana crumble, little cup-cakes, biscuits, sponge-cakes... she was quite something. Not that baking is a mark of maturity you understand... she just seemed able to do so much more with her time to make the most of every minute she had. Many a time, she'd whirl in, in a flurry of colours and textiles and food. Racing up the stairs, she'd spin into an equally colourful outfit, and breeze through the kitchen, clutching her car keys, on her way to the next thing. She was great.

Tonight, without James to entertain him, Reuben taught me how to flick a tea-towel properly. Then he lined up a few extraneous energy drink cans and whipped them off the counter wild-west-style.

Reuben has been the most interesting character I'd say. He said to me today that this year has, in some ways, been the best of his life, and in others, by far the worst. I smiled knowingly. In some ways you see, I could say the same. But throughout, Reuben has remained quirky and intelligent. We've had some intricate conversations - mostly with his intellectual mind taking the topic anywhere from birds migrating, to Gordon Brown's involvement in freemasonry. If anything, he's surely learning that there are certain times for certain conversations. Hence the legend of Cranky Matt was born. I do hope he takes his socially developing tact to his next home. Either that, or I should hope they have a little gaffa-tape there.

The closeness in age between Reuben and James led to all sorts of student-style high-jinks. When planning the fun-day, I was followed one evening, by the pair of them. I went to measure the field. For reasons I couldn't work out, they thought it might be best to hide in a bush while I paced out an arena on the grass. They spent a lot of time eating pizza and playing shoot-em-ups on the X-Box 360, and sleeping at odd times. In many ways though, they certainly helped me feel like being at university all over again. I ought to thank them for making me feel young; but Reuben will only take the mickey out of me.

-

So, tonight as the sun set I thought about the Year at St Birinus. It seemed strange to see that September sunset - interlaced golden clouds, deep pink sky and trails of purple and blue and white streaking across the dying day. It was very similar to the first sunset I'd seen here, almost exactly a year ago. Someone (who knew me well) told me I would enjoy the sun setting from this window. On that night when I cried myself to sleep on the sofa, I might not have appreciated it. When I plugged in my headphones and wished I could escape the world, I would not have cared for it. And when I returned wet and bedraggled from standing on that bridge wondering whether it was all worth it... I wouldn't have even seen it.

But today, the last day here, with the afternoon slipping silently into glory, that person was exactly right. I did enjoy it. At the end of it all, I really did.

stranded on the rocks

I jumped across the little stream. My trainers squelched in the sand and my shadow, long and unusual, wobbled about as I found my balance. It looked funny today, my shadow. The wind was blustering in from the Atlantic, as it always does at Newgale, and ruffling my hair. The uneven sand forced the dark shape to roll over the undulations in the beach like a hall of mirrors. I felt a bit like Perseus, doing his best not to catch sight of Medusa while her shadow snaked about in the sand.

The sea was sparkling. Under a pure blue sky, it gleamed to the horizon in the afternoon sun. As the waves pounded into the shore and the surfers stumbled onto their boards, the sunlight caught the spray and lit up the surf. Crash, boom, seep, went the ocean in its ancient rhythm. I shoved my hands into my hoodie and strolled around the headland. On this part of the coastline, the tide goes out a long way, leaving a vast expanse of flat wet sand. Studded with pebbles and rocks, the beach stretches out and around the cliffs, exposing an extra half-mile of sand that sweeps round the bay. It's here where stratus rocks lie angled into the shore, and deep diagonal caves gape into the cliff-face. Today, as I walked (looking for one cove in particular) I saw children in wet-suits splashing in deep green rock-pools that had formed in some of the caves, dogs chasing bouncing rubber balls and white toes pointing skyward to catch the sun. These natural alcoves it seems, form natural windbreaks for young families, away from the kite-surfers and trendy couples of the main stretch at Newgale. Tartan blankets flapped in the breeze, held down by thermos flasks and coolbags.

I like being alone. It bothers me sometimes, makes me worry about the moments when it won't be possible to escape the company of others. For me though, holidays like this are a perfect chance to wander anonymously across the sand, clamber over dripping rocks and explore caves and rock-pools with no thought of time or responsibility. We had laughed at Dad when I was younger - how he would disappear along the beach with his metal detector. For an hour or so, Mum would wonder whether we should 'get on with lunch' without him, and I would pull out my copy of 'A Brief History of Time' or start looking for stones to skim.

I think I understand now. I'm often more like him than I'm prepared to admit. No family were waiting for me though today.

I found it. It looked a bit different when the tide was out, but this must have been the place. Rocks zig-zagged in the wet sand like jagged stepping stones, huge walls either side, and at the back, a smooth flat rock about the size of a table with another smaller stone in front. Behind, and unseen from the beach, there was a dark underpass, a tunnel connecting to the next cove along the shoreline. It was here that I had been almost stranded by the tide two years ago. I remember sitting on the table-rock, Bible in hand as the water lapped around my feet and surged in through the tunnel. It was different today. Sometimes, I reasoned, the lesson is about what you do when you're waiting for the tide to change.

-

So, home tomorrow. It's been a great holiday this - mathematics, brain-twisting rubik's cube games, cats named after the Greek alphabet, good food, great company, sunshine, church, windy-walks along the cliffs, long lie-ins and hardly a thought about the world I left behind. I kind of wish though, I could just... well... keep that mobile phone switched off... it's so nice without it. And a world without facebook seems somehow, simpler, better, more... innocent and unaware. As one who complicates things beyond belief sometimes, I'm all for keeping things simple - believe it or not. Maybe, in some ways all this is just God's way of telling me that even in the seeping, surging craziness of life around me, I should spend more time stranded on the rock.

a tale of two churches

"The key question is," said Bill Miller, holding out his hands, "Do you trust me?"

Oliver stood a little stage-struck at the front of the little church. This strange man in a strange suit, in front of all these people, was asking a question that was more complicated than his four year old brain could handle. He must have wondered whether it was some kind of trick. At his age, I probably would have wondered that too. After all, the Reverend Miller, a stranger to Broad Haven Baptist Church, was offering him the choice between a pound coin, lying open in his left palm, or the promise of something better, enclosed secretly in his right.

This rather-Morpheus-like visual demonstration was my first experience of the Baptist phenomenon known as 'preaching-with-a-view' - something prospective Baptist ministers do as a kind of interview with the congregation before they decide (or he decides, or the deacons decide) whether they'll all get along in the symbiotic relationship of Baptist Church and Baptist Minister. And this being a Baptist church with Baptist children, the prospective Reverend was giving a children's talk - before the children went off to Sunday School.

He was right though. That is the key question. Oliver, being four, reached out and took the pound coin, despite the fact that Miller had promised him that there was something better in the other hand. I don't think he was tremendously disappointed either when the preacher then revealed a two-pound-coin to the rest of the congregation. I thought about that moment for a long while afterwards. In a strange way, it seemed wholly relevant to my own situation - wondering whether to leap into the unknown or take the comfortable route of that which I can see lying in my path. It felt for all the world like God was asking me that same key question. Do you trust me?

-

Later, I found myself in an altogether different church. Where Broad Haven Baptist had been lavender and mahogany, Calvary Church, Haverfordwest, was plastic flowers and vinyl trousers. It was quite a place. Middle-aged ladies with lacquered hair sat behind the electric organ and piano respectively, Hugh Laurie sat behind the drums in a shirt and tie and clicked in time with the incredible music, and all around, the congregation was filled with bored children in their Sunday best, slumping into their bucket-seats, young men in suits, and balding men wearing cream slip-ons, purple-socks and tight fitting shirts from the 1970s. For a while, I did wonder whether I'd accidentally had some sort of time-travel-related accident.

Then, the pastor (who led everything else as well it seemed) preached for 64 minutes on the Second Coming. Presumably, the way to encourage your congregation to long for Jesus' return, is to preach for such a long time that they're desperate enough to pray for it there and then. I jest, of course. Actually, when all the tangents about the folly of the 'Modern Church' were removed, what he said was pretty solid. I'm not sure how much practical application the smiley folks would have taken home with them, but it was at least, all true I think.

The weird thing was that I felt far more at home in the stiff wooden pews of the Baptist church this morning. Weird because Calvary was much much closer to the kind of church I grew up in, and in fact I still know some people who would feel so comfortable there they'd be planning the coffee rota before the tambourines hit the velvet carpet. The reasoning I came to in the end, was that God has been the God of the journey for me - and this shocking leap backward into the past was a jolting reminder of where my own Christian journey has taken me. And actually, yes, I'm not 5 any more with a clip on tie and a fascination with flicking through the hymn book. At Broad Haven, the structure confused me (I still don't understand the significance of the enormous pulpit) and the preaching style was harder to listen to. Yet, I heard God far more easily through it - and I enjoyed his secret company in the quiet times. Funny how that works out.

For the record, I hate the tambourine. Perhaps that had something to do with it.

-

Today's maths news, by the way, is this:

three thousand six hundred and one, times eight hundred and seventy three... is three million, one hundred and forty three thousand, six hundred and seventy three. Which I thought was rather neat.

Set Theory in Pembrokeshire

Red wine was coursing round my system. My nerves felt like they were on fire and yet were somehow slowly dropping off to sleep. The mathematics continued:

(∃x)(∀y)(y∉x)

"So this states (it's an axiom really) that there exists a set x for all y, such that y is not a member of x. It vacuously proves the existence of the empty set..."

Now then. I'm on holiday. The sun had already dipped into a golden sky over the sparkling sea, and the whitest of moons had joined Venus in the fading sky. What on Earth was I doing then, learning the basic principles of Set Theory? This, I reasoned, is what happens when you go on holiday and stay with a brilliant mathematician who is also an atheist.

I was wondering, quite nervously, whether he was beguiling me like an ingenious barrister. There is an empty set... There can't logically be a set that contains every other set... Therefore... a universal, omniscient deity can't logically exist... what do you think about that, Slighty-Tipsy-God-boy?

Thankfully, there was no such cliff-edge in the conversation, and no sheer drop into the chasm of metaphysics or theology. Clive simply cycled through his new tee-shirt designs, explaining as he went. His favourite proofs seem to describe ways of determining the mathematical constant pi (π)... which appears in sums and integrals and other complicated looking formulae, inscribed on mugs, bathroom tiles, the front door, and yes, several dozen custom-made tee-shirts. In case you're interested, if you square π and divide it by 6, you get the same number as you would by adding together the reciprocals of all the squares of all the real positive numbers. And if you're not, well - I doubt you're alone.

I love mathematicians. In essence they're like mountain-bikers. They get excited by thrills that most of us would find terrifying. They love talking about the tools they use, the problems they had to solve and the awesomeness of finding yourself exactly where you wanted to be; still alive, if a little-shaken up by what you've been through, and desperate to tell anyone who will listen. Exhilaration comes in strange forms for the math-boffins. They relive their calculations through the Nth dimension, the scree-laden slope of a discontinuous function, and the possibilities and probabilities that perhaps no-one else thinks about. They ride rough-shod over primes, googolplexes, equations and singularities, gripping the handlebars given them by Euler and Euclid and Gauss, like there's no 'TODAY+1'. This morning, for example, I was more than a little astonished to discover that there are different orders of infinity. In other words, some infinities are bigger than others. I jest not. But who knew?

-

I'm reluctant to let you into a secret. Here it is though: Wales is beautiful. I guess, my reluctancy stems from the fact that this part of the country is often completely ignored - and this enhances its lonely desperate beauty. Today, I stood completely alone on the top of a grassy mountain in the Preseli hills. The wind was rushing through my hair, warm and salty as it blew in from the Atlantic. In the distance, the ocean stretched away, cool and blue, deep and mysterious. Great and ancient hills rose up around me, bathed in the rolling, changing shadows cast by low clouds and cheery sunlight. It was breathtakingly peaceful. And with no phone, no facebook, no email, nothing to connect me to the other world, I felt completely free and alone with God.

The God who thought up π and made it the exact ratio of a circle's circumference and diameter. The God who invented gravity and chuckled when Isaac Newton cottoned-on to the way it works. The God who positioned Venus exactly where it is, so that one-day, in a little village in Pembrokeshire, a confused former physics graduate could spot it sparkling next to the moon and smile while the sun dipped majestically below the horizon.

I love that God; even when I'm slightly inebriated and confused by Set Theory.

home for a bit of perspective, then off again...

So I got back yesterday to find Reuben and James had arranged all their empty drinks cans on the kitchen floor to form the shape of the Microsoft pointer arrow. Also, the news told me, some lady had put a cat in a bin, everyone was astonished that the X-Factor producers had duped them with auto-tune, and William Hill was taking bets on what the Camerons would call their new baby.

I suddenly had a sinking feeling about the world. In Pakistan right now, thousands of children are dying in their own filth because there is no clean water. One fifth of the country is underwater. That's like Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, West and East Sussex and most of Kent being suddenly submerged. In Niger, 100,000 people are homeless and starving. Many of them will simply die, unnoticed and unremarkably forgotten. It seems even the World Food Programme recently had to cut its food distribution to 40% because of a 'funding shortfall'.

A funding shortfall? We're betting on whether a baby will be called Marnie or Enid! Or who can stay the longest in a plastic house... and if that's not our cup-of-tea, we've got the opportunity to flick over the TV and laugh our socks off at people with self-esteem issues singing in front of a panel of gargoyles.

Gargoyles with a personal fortune of something in the region of £200m between them, I might add. Don't tell Steve Brookstein. He'll choke on his coco-pops.

The other piece of news that unfolded as I drove up the M5 was that a Catholic priest had been strongly suspected of organising a terrorist bombing in 1972 and had gotten away with it because the Catholic church had 'struck a deal' with the police and the UK government. Way to go there Catholics... The current Bishop of Derry came on the radio to explain the church's position, and he fell over himself, trying to explain that it was almost forty years ago. Nine people lost their lives, many more were injured - and Father Jimmy Chesney, we're told, the man with traces of explosives in his car, the man who parked a bomb outside a shop where an eight-year old girl was washing the windows, was 'moved to another parish in the Republic.'

I do wonder who's going to stand up for justice when the best people for the job are actively fighting against it. The scary part is that I thought Father Ted was satire. Then, when I see the news reports of pot-bellied children surrounded by flies and desperation, and muddy floodwaters scourging through a collapsing village while men can only stand and watch, I can't help wondering what I'm doing...

-

Well, after my long journey home from Devon, it is nice to be back in sunny Reading. And by sunny, I of course mean, overcast and depressing. Within the space of about four hours I had been dragged in to stress and anxiety once again. I do it to myself I think.

So today, I'm off to Swindon for the next bit of my holiday. Yes, Swindon. First Swindon and then Pembrokeshire - which has a lot more seaside.

Hmmm.

Further Adventures in Devon

I've just driven from Bigbury-on-Sea to Kingsbridge through a cloud, in the dark, through single-track country lanes in the searing rain. As I flicked my lights from dipped to main beam, and the ghostly hedges raced past, I aimed the car at the dark and shot through the torrent, hoping beyond hope that I had read the road well.

"You know the sharp bend to the right," he said, peering out of his open window.

"Er, not really," I said, "I'm not from round here."

"Well," he went on in his Devonshire accent, "iss flooded." The rain pounded in and spat on my face as the stranger leaned out of his car. "... and again, jus' before the narrows... completely flooded it is, an you won' see it in the dark so jus go easy..."

"Cheers mate," I said soundingly uncharacteristically Cockneyish. As it was, the passing Devonian was quite right. At the sharp bend a diluvian flood had submerged the road and I had to rev up to hurtle through it. I wondered at that point, whether I'd get back to Kingsbridge at all. The deep water fountained up either side of the car and was briefly illuminated by the headlamps. I loosened my grip on the steering wheel and tested the brakes.

Funnily enough, I still wouldn't change this for a package holiday to 'the sun'. I've never really understood why people go to the trouble of flying hundreds of miles in a tin can, essentially to spend a fortnight reading a book. A book, which I might add, they have taken with them.

I like holidays to be adventures. Where you feel like you could do anything today - see dinosaur fossils, dig a hole so deep you can bury your dad, run like Cheetarah along a flat sandy beach, or climb the highest cliff or the tallest mountain, just because it'd be fun to see the world from the top. I like stuff to do: walks to ramble through and games of chess, draughts, pit or rummy and end the day with a steaming cup of well-earned hot-chocolate.

What, you might ask, did I do today then?

Well, I have to admit a little sheepishly that I put my feet up and read a book. Alright, alright. It wasn't the only thing I did. Actually, I did walk along the cliff tops and I did manage to have a little prayer time with the waves crashing beneath me. And I did play some Playstation with Jospeh, who is very nearly 3 and trained himself to use the potty. For some reason, he seems to find it easier to refer to me as 'Daddy's Friend', rather than my name - which is certainly not a challenge of pronunciation. Still, it was rather good fun to use the piano to make up thunder, rain and lightning music. His face lit up whenever he got to play the deep rumbling notes.

"Andrew guess how much this was," said Rachel in the doorway. She was holding the instant barbecue fondue set we never used because it had been raining. It was no more than a tray of oversized chocolate buttons, sealed in aluminium and cardboard.

"Twelve pounds?" said Andrew.

"No! That's not the way it works!" said she, crestfallen. "You're supposed to guess lower than that!"

It struck me that the rules of this guessing game aren't as simple as they seem. In fact, they're not simple at all. In some sort of inverted way, the object of the game is to help the person feel the rush of self-assertion at purchasing some sort of a bargain, or solidarity in having been ripped-off. And as men, we are required to become experts at working out which it is and sympathising accordingly. As men of course, we are quite quite rubbish at that most of the time. Making an accurate estimate that achieves the goal can often be tricky for items with a variable price. Andrew had gone too high of course. The actual retail price was about £7 which Rachel clearly considered to be a lot. By going higher, Andrew had inadvertently shown that what she considered to be high, was not that high at all, and hence her perception of the bargain she felt she'd achieved (£3) was undermined. Fascinating. I wondered whether women fully understand the risk of games like this. It made me ponder the roles of husband and wife really carefully actually...

... I know, this is crazy. It was only a fleeting thing. What if, though, I thought to myself, this highlights something about the way the marriage relationship works. One person brings a question or suggestion to the two-person team that is a vulnerable one. How do I look? Is it OK if I go off to the pub with the lads? Darling, what would you say to us getting a puppy? To a difference engine, an algorithm or a computer, these are all quite straightforward questions. You look terrible in my opinion, says the android husband. No, it is not OK, you stand a 78% chance of returning drunk. And, "I would say 'yes' because it would delay the decision about having children by approximately 16 months and logically this is advantageous..."

You can see the android husband not lasting very long. I wondered tonight just how much marriage (or maybe even any close relationship) is about learning and adapting to the codes we use; the questions behind the questions. The give-and-take dance that two people slowly learn as they grow together, stepping on each other's toes, out-of-time with the music, frustrating and loving and living and learning. I had a little smile to myself, as I realised how complicated I seem to make things for just myself. It'll be a lot of fun one day, learning to dance.

Then I realised that without the music, without understanding the rhythm, and without really flowing in time with the person God gave you, it'd be pretty difficult to do it well, if it all. So, how do people cope without God binding it all together? It's a great mystery.

Maybe one day I'll find out whether I'm right. If I can drive out of the county without getting swept away in the deluge.

Adventures in Devon

There's a section on the A38 where it always rains. I don't fully understand why; something to do with the relief of the road or the way the weather sweeps across the west country, but whatever the reason, at the hill where the road forks by the Shell Garage, it always rains.

More often than not (and today wasn't an exception) I've taken the right hand fork that is signposted to Plymouth. Here, the A38 climbs into the fog, and trucks and caravans and old bangers get overtaken by flashier cars, beaming their headlamps into the murky mist that lies atop the hill. The left hand road angles off to Torquay, a place made famous by a badly run hotel.

Today I was on my way to see Andrew and Rachel, who live in a delightful place called Bigbury-on-Sea. And so, I took the right hand option. As my car trundled up the steep incline, and the inevitable rain spattered upon my windscreen, I looked back in my rear-view mirror to the road behind. Blue sky and sunlight gradually receded into the distance as I drove into the clouds. Welcome to Devon.

Devon is the 4th largest county in the United Kingdom. It is the only county with two separate coastlines and it has a truly spectacular mix of rolling hills, sandy beaches and undulating countryside. It is in fact, so beautiful, that the locals have decided to hide most of it away from passing travellers, by encasing all the roads with impossibly high hedges. What's more, the yokels must have chuckled at deviously, as they sat round their farmhouse tables, the roads are so incredibly narrow, it takes all the concentration of Lewis Hamilton to drive down them without scraping your wingmirrors or skidding round a tight bend slowly enough to avoid the Unavoidable Tractor chuntering toward you in the other direction. I must admit, today I was a bit cross with Claudia, my Satnav, but it wasn't really her fault.

Bigbury-on-Sea is delightful. It's tiny, like a seaside hamlet. When the tide is out, a strip of sandy beach juts out into the sea to a small island (Burgh Island), complete with pub, hotel and well-kept gardens. Around the island, the tide comes in from two different directions and meets in a crash of waves when the tide is in. Over on the mainland of course, the hill sweeps down to the sea, and houses with huge glass windows face out toward the ocean. A caravan park seems to rise infinitely up the hillside, criss-crossed with static vans and holiday-makers. By the shore, surfers flap and flip in the car-park, their car-boots wide open and towels pinned to the parcel shelves, as the rain-flecked wind tousles their hair. Kites fly, balls bounce, and the sea-tractor chugs its way across the tidal beach like an amphibious prison-cage on wheels.

It's a nice place to live, and Andrew and Rachel and their children, probably couldn't be anywhere better. As we chatted tonight, it became obvious to me that they are really quite relaxed after their short stays in York and London. I think Rachel, particularly found city-life tough.

"It was just like living in concrete," she said, "and no-one could understand what was going on. I felt like God was showing me things all the time and it was just - well I felt like I couldn't see properly, you know, in the Spiritual realm."

Rachel is, what some people might call a prophetess. Actually, she calls herself a 'seer' - and if tonight was anything to go by, she seems to 'see' things pretty much all the time. It occurred to me that seeing things spiritually and continually, would almost certainly be as difficult as it would be rewarding; a little like Agatha and the precogs in the film Minority Report, haunted by the reality of what they saw and could not stop seeing.

As she spoke to me tonight, she interrupted herself to point out angels in the room. She sees this often, and not just angels - demons, visions, dreams, pictures. It seems God shows her things in a way that is quite real. God gave her a vision for me that was identical to one that I had received three weeks ago, and she seemed to know about my struggles with self-esteem and situations going on in my life. It was quite something. For about an hour, she was speaking into my life and encouraging me and reminding who I am.

As she got up, she went on to explain that sometimes in these moments, God sends gold-dust to rest on her hands. I've heard of this. In some circles, people claim to have seen gold flakes tumbling from the ceiling during a powerful time in God's presence. Others have been astonished to find that their fillings have turned to gold. They say it's just a supernatural way of God showering his people with abundant blessing.

Rachel stood in the light and peered into her palms. She looked a bit like a butterfly collector, examining something resting in her hand.

"Oooh!" she exclaimed, "there!"

I came over, excitedly, to have a look. I couldn't see anything, and for a moment the scientist in me was disappointed. I was intrigued though, by the fact that she definitely could see it. How would it be that one person could see something physical, when someone else standing in the same light with the same...ooh.

I saw it. There was something tiny, like a miniscule fragment of a piece of glitter, catching the light. Wait! As I watched, more and more little scintillations were appearing on her fingers and up her hands. It was amazing - and yes, quite inexplicable - but there it was. I was quite astonished, but recognising the Presence of God, it felt like the immediate thing to do was to hold out my own hands.

Before long, the gold-dust was settling on my hands too. Palms and fingertips, sparkling with the glory of God. I was truly astonished and humbled. I wondered for a while, whether God had planned the whole thing of me coming here, and him speaking to me and then... well this - and I purposed to write down everything he had said.

-

"This is normal," said Andrew, smiling. I understood what he meant I think. Things like this do make me wonder about the kind of life we live as Christians sometimes. My friend Peter at my old job used to say he was perplexed by Christians who lived just like everybody else, even though their faith made extraordinary claims about their destiny, their purpose and their existence.

As for me, I've come to realise that the battles I face, reflect the importance of what God requires me to do. My destiny, my purpose, my existence is a threat to the enemy that he can't ignore. In the last two years he's thrown me into depression, cut my brake pipes on the M5, attacked my relationships with the people closest to me, dragged me through sin, pushed me into rejection and hidden away the truth of who I am.

But I am still here and I'm still fighting.

Click - My Day as a Photographer

I promised my friend Emmie that I would write something about my day helping her shoot a wedding. Emmie is a photographer (check out http://www.emmiebates.co.uk) and on something of a whim, she invited me along to assist her with a job last weekend, when her husband couldn't make it.

I think it came out of me helping her with a photography project a while ago, where I just thought about stuff and she wrote it down. I can do thinking. Actually framing and snapping though, might be a different ballgame...

"I want you to try to catch some really natural shots," she said in the car, "people's reactions, their faces and smiles in those unguarded moments." Emmie explained that she would simply hand me a camera and set me loose. It occurred to me of course, that this is by far the best thing to say to a creative person - off you go, have fun, come back with something a bit like this... and enjoy it. I smiled.

Hours later, as the air grew chilly and we packed away the mobile studio, I found myself reflecting on the day. The disco blared inside, and the lights flashed hypnotically. Outside on the grass, suited couples clutched plastic glasses and laughed in the long shadows. Boys with untucked shirts were flinging a frisbee around and a little girl was blowing bubbles. Everyone seemed remarkably happy. I realised that this in itself was part of the job; helping people to enjoy their day. And as wedding photographers, we must surely have helped with that.

Emmie herself, understands this well. Somehow, in a way I know I couldn't have done, Emmie created an atmosphere where everybody felt at ease but was in exactly the right place at the right time. I surmised from all of that, that being in the right place at the right time is at the heart of all photography. My innovative quest to find a step-ladder for the group shot was a bit too late, so I had to return it to Tony at Donnington Motors. It's all about timing.

Timing, and positioning... I was quite astonished by how easy it is to be invisible as a photographer. Emmie and I roamed the service, shuffling down the aisles of the red-bricked church, snapping silently as the vicar rambled and the happy couple stood at the centre. At one point, Emmie was hanging off the balcony thirty feet above the nave to catch a crowd shot. I don't know whether it's just the way mind works, but it reminded me of Jimmy Olsen, the photographer in Superman III who gets stuck up a crane while a chemical factory is about to explode. It can clearly be quite a daring occupation.

Despite the vicar's odd sermon about love holding you together when you're old and paralysed... the service itself was quite straightforward. I was amused at the point where he processed to the vestry for the signing of the register and forgot to switch off his radio-mic. Moments later, crowded into the little room while the groom clutched an inky fountain pen, I hoped the good reverend had realised before he joked about being a vampire with purple fingers.

The part of the day I enjoyed the most I suppose, was the portrait stuff we did with just the bride and groom. This is where the wedding photographer comes into her own. Emmie was brilliant. Despite having worked their way through an eternity of group shots with extended families, uni friends and people who vaguely knew them... the bride and groom were still up for the more intimate portraits of the 'happy couple' in the afternoon sunshine. And somehow, even though their cheeks must have been aching and their feet killing them, Emmie created an atmosphere where they could sink happily into each other's arms and sigh romantically, as she moved them and snapped them. These photos, I thought, would be the ones that end up on their mantlepiece.

At the end of it all, as I loosened my tie and handed back the spare battery, I thought about the emotions of a wedding. The nerves, the exhilaration, the hilarity, the joy, the love, the relief, the dancing, the exhaustion... there's not really anything else quite like it. As photographers, we view and capture it all from the other side of the lens, preserving memories, downloading happiness for others to enjoy for the rest of their lives. Invisible and unnoticed, we move through the service, the reception, the speeches and the disco, never appearing in the photographs, unseen and largely unremembered. Emmie squished the equipment in the boot and shut the boot of her SmartCar with a satisfied click. The sound reminded me of a shutter opening and closing. "Good job!" she said.

Indeed.

Blue Sky Thinking

I've just been sitting outside on the wall with a cup of tea, a piece of cake, and an amazing sky. I laid back on the cold concrete to watch the clouds shifting across the blue expanse. Sunlight was bursting through, making the low fluffy cumulus look like gilded angels wings, while cirrus clouds flew ethereally above like wispy lace. I love watching the sky move. Last week at Monkton Combe, I lay on Emmie's blanket outside her teepee and watched the clouds whip across the view. It made it look like the tent was moving, and if I half-squinted I could pretend I was onboard the deck of a fine ship, with a billowing canvas and a thin gold mast.

The sky is huge. Some time soon the sun will sink below the horizon and the stars will pop out like pinholes in a velvet sheet. God has been speaking to me a lot about the stars recently. Here is a little bit of Psalm 8 to set the mood.

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.

It amazes me too, to think that God knows my name. I mean the Psalmist wrote the Psalms, surely God knows his name... but Matt Stubbs (32), failing piano teacher and worship leader, of Reading, Berkshire?

Then, as Cassiopeia and Orion, the Great Bear and the Pleiades emerge from the sunset, thousands of light years away (and long ago), and the moon beams brightly through the silvery sky, I can't help thinking just how small I am. One of six billion names, lost in the ocean of humanity on a tiny, insignificant planet. There are 9 billion other stars in our galaxy, and countless galaxies spinning and filling the Universe, and here I am looking up at a little patch of night on a cold stone wall. And yet, he is mindful of me. He cares for me, and crowns me with glory and honour. That deserves a wow. He doesn't just know of me, he cares for me! Wow, wow, wow. He crowns me! He what? He gives me a crown?? I mean, seriously? of what? of glory and of honour. God Almighty, creator of the proton, the whirlpool galaxy, quantum mechanics and the bumblebee... actually wants me (doubter, sinner, liar, cheat, foolish, emotionally unstable Matt Stubbs (32) of Reading, Berkshire) to reflect some of his glory? It is frankly preposterous. :)

Rich Mullins once wrote a song with the line: "Sometimes I think of Abraham, how one star he saw was lit for me." I like that. It reminds me that the little portion of his glory God set aside for me and designed for me to reflect, is just the same down here on this cold stone wall. A little pinhole of light in a velvet canvas.

I wonder how well I'm shining. I wonder what he sees.

The Day the Toast Landed

It was the kind of thing that shouldn't really happen. I stood open-mouthed by the kitchen counter, knife in hand with a look of bewilderment. The toast had landed perfectly on its edge, neither buttered-side up nor down. So much for Murphy's law then, I thought. I should have known really, that it would be an unusual kind of day.

This was last Tuesday. My colleague, Peter, was intrigued by the miracle toast, and suggested I ought to have preserved it for posterity. I almost felt ashamed for eating it. Almost. It was my breakfast after all. For reasons I haven't figured out, he then went on to tell me his theory about how cats can survive a fall from 200 storeys, but probably not from the 9th floor, and joked about strapping buttered toast to a cat and watching it spin in mid-air as if to prove that cats 'always land on their feet' and toast always falls butter-side down.

An unusual kind of day. For most of the morning, I sat at my desk trying to concentrate on writing a troubleshooting section for the Hierarchy Manager guide. The Hierarchy Manager guide is an extremely boring document about something overly complicated. I sweltered into the afternoon.

"Matt, will you be around later?" asked James, my boss, appearing from nowhere.

"Er, yep," I said.

"I need a word with you. Around half four? I've just got to pop out for an hour, so..."

"Um... OK."

I looked at Peter. Peter looked at me, eyes wide with understanding. And the Hierarchy Manager guide was swimming around on the screen. It was most definitely time to pray.

-

"Ready?" asked James.

"Yup," I said, gulping. I span out of my chair and followed him into the meeting room.

And then, quite unexpectedly, two odd things happened.:

The first was that a scripture went ping inside my head... yeah, like a lightbulb. And I heard the words go round in my head: "...and the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (which I now know is Philippians 4:7).

And then the second, was a feeling of completely inappropriate contentment. It made no sense. It was that feeling of sinking your toes into warm sand, or slipping silently into a warm bath. And it was so out of place it made me laugh as I closed the door of the meeting room behind me. It clicked shut.

"I've asked Claire to come in, as this will be a... well a difficult conversation," said James. His face was red and he appeared quite sheepish. It reminded me of my interview. Same chair, same room, same air-con buzzing away. I smiled as I sat down. God is awesome, I thought. God is awesome...

-

So. I have been sacked.

But it's actually OK. It actually is OK. I didn't do anything dreadful by the way - I just wasn't really right for the job. And somehow the peace of God was more than I needed to cope with the humiliation of being told that I wasn't good enough. And so, it was actually alright. Sometimes things don't work out the way we expect.

Although, I think the next time the toast lands side-on, I might just stay in bed.

For Keziah

The sun shone blissfully through the large windows. Light flicked from some of the wooden surfaces and reflected prettily onto the walls of the church. The patterns could almost have been angels, I thought to myself from behind the piano; almost. Outside of course, the blue sky was perfectly laden with candyfloss clouds, and a gentle breeze was rippling silently through the treetops, softly changing their leafy colours and tickling their branches.

It was Keziah's farewell. Hundreds of us, brightly coloured and swimming in tears, gathered to celebrate the life of a girl who had shown us what it meant to be alive. Life, it seems, is there for the living, and in twenty years; no, in the four and a half years that Keziah was known to us, she lived more than most Christians live in a lifetime.

Extraordinary, and quite surreal it was. Just beforehand, someone asked me how I was feeling and I heard myself say that I simply wasn't sure. Deep within, there was joy and there was sorrow, mixed up, shaken together in this crazy way that made no sense. And I think that feeling must have been in the air because it permeated throughout the whole afternoon. As Yinka got up to share his reflections he broke down and sobbed quietly from the front. At the exact same moment, quite unaware I suppose, the entire congregation tried to sit down and burst into a giggly chatter as they navigated their way to the carpet. I found it strangely poignant.

There were other poignant moments of course. The standing ovation, the video that captured her heart so well, the rousing praise, and the love for God that almost tangibly filled the room as Alex, Keziah's fiance, thanked God for the time he had had with her. I don't know whether I would have had the strength to say this:

"I just want to bow down to thank and praise the LORD for creating the most amazing, loving and pure hearted person I ever knew. And even more, I want to thank Him for the pleasure, honour and delight of knowing, loving and being loved by you in such measure.

You were the most wonderful gift God ever gave me, and every second of the time you spent borrowed from God in my arms and by my side was treasured and priceless to me, full of joy and love.

I cannot be sad, as you have returned to your rightful place in the heavenly realms, where a spirit as large, bright and colourful as yours belongs.

I believe and trust with every essence of my being in the Glory of God in every situation, and that your short presence here is, and will forever continue to bear blessed fruit in the hearts of those who loved you and were loved by you.

We will meet again in the majesty of His Holy Kingdom." - Alex Theobald on Facebook.

Love, tears, joy, peace and wonder, collided for a moment. The colours swirled together as I looked out across the sea of faces. So many familiar smiles, so many lovely lovely people who were part of something - who are part of something, made complete and whole in the Presence of God. Not for the first time, love for Keziah, love for my friends and my family - and love for God, overwhelmed me like an ocean wave. It was a moment of Heaven.

And I don't think anything could have been more appropriate.

Flashback

So... time for a quick catchup. The Fun Day was awesome: no-one got lost, no-one fell off the climbing wall, and no-one (not even me) got stressed. Although there was one hairy moment during the line-dancing display, but frankly, I should have seen that coming.

London last weekend, was equally as much fun but for entirely different reasons. Whether it was the cloudless blue sky, the wind in the trees by the Embankment, or the delightful trip through Central London on an open-top bus, I don't know. What I do know is that I came home feeling tired, educated, happy, and sunburnt.

I like London. History seeps through the stones, landmarks appear round corners like familiar friends from childhood postcards, and everything fits together in a sort of melée of the ancient and the modern. I guess that sensation was summed up for me succinctly by floating up the Thames from Westminster. The London Eye, the Houses of Parliament, St Pauls, the Roman excavation site, Shakespeare's Globe, Tower Bridge glistening in the sunshine, and the Tower itself, all jostling together along the riverbank like characters from histories old and new. It was delightful.

-

"What are you up to these days?"asked Mike, supping a cool white wine. The sun caught his greying hair as he leaned back, just out of the shade of the large umbrella. I chuckled nervously.
"Well, it's been quite a time," I said, "but now I'm working as a technical writer in a software company."
"Ah,"he said contentedly, "documentation."

I felt like the only natural response was to smile knowingly, and agree. It wasn't without a little tear though. Mike's little boy ran around the garden, arms covered in sand from the sandpit. On the other side of the vast circular table, his wife chatted to friends and smiled happily. And I found myself drifting into a flashback of Mike, my friend from university, huddled into a cold corner of a student flat, crippled by depression, and me, perched on a beanbag, trying hard to tell him it wouldn't always be this way, praying for him and hoping beyond hope that God would do something. It had been so difficult to see, somehow. Funny how things change. The barbecue smoked gently in the corner, glasses chinked, wine glugged merrily, and the evening sun cast long summery shadows on the grass. Mike's friends laughed into the twilight in the garden of his lovely home.

I prayed about it on the drive home. I suppose I'm realising that we're all on different journeys, and we all go through different seasons. I moan a lot about things I haven't got. God knows this. I'm sure he chuckles at me from time-to-time. Other times he tells me off for coveting. And this time, it could have been easy for me to rocket down the motorway in floods of tears, shaking my fist at God and asking him where my future went to. But I didn't. I couldn't. I just found myself grateful that God had done something incredible for my friend, and that he was actually happy. And maybe one day, I thought. Maybe one day...

Funny Little Moments

"Well, let's pray,"said Paul, seriously. The Calcot Group nodded in silence and we bowed our heads. What a time, I thought, to be eating a biscuit. For some reason, Paul and Heather had brought oversized cookies to group; the ones with great chunks of white-chocolate lodged in them.

I sat down, bowed my head, and tried to be serious. The trouble was, when I half-opened my eyes, I realised it looked like I was praying to a half-eaten biscuit. What do you do? I was holding it quite carefully between my thumbs and forefingers, like some holy relic. I'm afraid I got the giggles.

The thing is, I'm quite convinced that it's OK to get the giggles. In fact, I think these little 'funny moments' are more than OK. I think they're... kind of necessary. And kind of missing.

After all, have you ever considered what Jesus meant when he promised us 'life, and life in abundance'? I don't think he meant extra-meetings, or longer sermons. I don't even think he meant super-dooper hour-long worship times. I think he meant... what he said. Life: the whole kit-and-caboodle; the joy, the tears, the triumph, the disaster, the family, the friendships, the sobriety and the silliness, all spinning and changing and loving and laughing, like a rushing river, turning and twisting over the undercurrent of grace and bedrock of His word.

Those are the things the devil's out to steal, and kill and destroy - the things that make life rich and wonderful and far far far from boring. Aren't they? The things that are made whole and complete and are perfected in Jesus...

-

I composed myself and finished my biscuit. Of course, life is pretty serious sometimes. This week, (on the same day as it goes) I discovered that two of my friends have been diagnosed with epilepsy. Someone else I know said goodbye to his wife as she slipped into the night. A few days ago I lost the plot and sent a volcanic late night email with all the wrong words to all the wrong people. And things do get serious; I wouldn't suggest for a minute that life should be fluffy and fun all the time.

No, life's complicated. But it's also supposed to be balanced and wonderful. And I think those funny little moments are there to help. Like chunks of chocolate in an oversized cookie. Don't let them pass you by. Let your hair down, be yourself and have a giggle.

Or, like I did the other day at work, have a little bop. As I was popping and clicking and shuffling my shoulders, my colleague slid a piece of paper across the desk. 'Nice Dancing' it said. I pulled my headphones out, feeling a little sheepish. I didn't quite know how to tell him I wasn't actually listening to anything.

Alive

I felt alive, you know. That feeling when you get out of the stuffy house or the air-conditioned office, you breathe in the fresh air and you run to the top of the hill where the cool wind seems to blow everything else away.

You can shout into the wind up there. No-one will hear you. You can stretch your arms wide and throw back your head and shout until you're hoarse. You can let it push you over, rifle across you like a rushing torrent of the wonderful wild wind as you stand in its path. And you know you are alive.

This is what worship is like for me. This morning, standing on a wooden stage behind my old familiar piano, with a room full of people I love, I felt alive. There was no wind, no desperate race to climb the hill, and certainly no solitude. But there was God.

The thing is, it's what He does. He draws us aside in those moments of stuffiness, he calls us like the softest song on the gentlest breeze, and places deep within us that inescapable desire to search for something... more. Something we know we're missing.

"If anyone is thirsty..." whispered the voice in my heart. "If anyone is thirsty..." It rose and fell. "If anyone is thirsty..." stronger, louder it came, pulsing in my ears, "anyone... anyone... if anyone is thirsty... LET HIM COME..."

... and nothing else matters. Then suddenly, as we sing, somehow it's exactly like that mad impossible race uphill. It's breathtaking, it's crazy, it doesn't make sense but God is at the top and the wild, incredible, indescribable, untamable One is waiting and laughing and crying and hoping - just for that same moment with us - and I'm not going to miss this. I am not going to miss it.

For the first time in a long time, I felt like me; the real me. And I felt alive.

Flags in the Sand

I didn't go to London in the end. No, instead I walked along Royal Avenue, pulled my hood over my head and cracked open a can of Irn Bru.

The Fun Day we're arranging is next Saturday, and this morning I went over to the site to plan (roughly) what's going to go where. There are lots of problems. Most notably, the ground is not flat. In fact, it gently slopes away from the car park. Secondly, and most likely to flip me out, is that I can't seem to think quickly enough when everyone around me is trying to make decisions.

Actually, I think this feature in particular, is quite an important discovery in my ongoing chillout-quest. A flag, if you will. Is it possible to be chilled-out when everything is changing quickly around you as people are also thinking at speed to solve the same problems?

The solution, of course, is to be as organised as possible beforehand, and communicate it well.

The rain spotted out of the grey sky as I walked home. A boy waiting by a front door saw me pass by with my pad and my pen.

"Are you an artist?" he said. It made me chuckle.

I suppose I am. I do seem to do things creatively, whatever they may be. The more I think about this, the more I realise that this is probably another flag in the sand. Improvised, passionate strokes of the brush could create a masterpiece. But whatever you do, don't stand round the easel and chip in.

-

So, no open-top bus tour either. Hopefully I'll do my London trip in two weeks' time. After my morning, working out which way round a climbing wall should face, I decided to go into town. Waste of time. I think I might write a poem about multi-storey car-parks.

In other news, my Mum just used the word 'chillax'. I think I'd better check with CERN just in case they've done something funny to the fabric of the Universe.

Chilling Out

I'm on a quest to be a bit more chilled out.

I know, I know: 'chill out,' is what you say to someone who's over-stressed and looks like they're either about to punch someone or pull their own hair out. Right now, I'm not particularly stressed. In fact, I haven't been like that for some time. But I could easily get there I think. And there are plenty of opportunities coming up.

So, there is a plan.

"You need to ringfence some of your evenings," said Yinka. "Do something you really enjoy, take days off and get a hobby."

Good idea. So next week I'm going to London to sit on an open-top bus.

"Perhaps you need to disconnect from the rest of the world," said someone else. Yep. For some reason though, it's really difficult to switch my phone off and stop checking my emails. But. I shall do it.

This weekend, I'm in Ely with my friends. I've often wondered how environment makes a difference. Reading is where life happens, and almost everywhere else I go, everyone has learned how to chill out much more effectively. And so it's so much easier here. I slept like the world was a gigantic blanket and I was lost somewhere in it.

But then, this all might be because less is expected of me when I'm outside of my normal life. So, perhaps responsibility has something to do with it. Perhaps responsibility brings stress. But then you have to admit, that makes the most chilled-out of all, the irresponsibles, the layabouts and the workshy.

And so chilling out becomes this fine balancing act between taking up the things you're responsible for and not taking them too seriously.

And that sounds quite stressful.

I will think about this more. In the meantime, here's a not unrelated poem. Take it as deeply as you like...

Storm in a Teacup

Between the walls of china

Upon the boiling sea

we sailed upon a sugar-cube

Across the waves of tea

Across the torrid ocean

Beneath the scented sky

from bow to brown horizon

The nectar bubbled by

It bubbled and it troubled

And it slopped against the side

and the steam began to beam

upon on the overheating tide

And the ocean in a motion

turned about the troubled crew

as it whipped about the ship

like a storm about to brew

Then rain began to tumble

Like arrows on the sea

It lashed against the sugar-cube

And spiked into the tea.

The sea grew hot and angry

and the waves were high and steep

as the ocean pushed us skyward

and then dropped us to the deep

It grumbled and it rumbled

And it twisted and it turned

and it growled and then it howled

till the raging waters burned

And the crew upon the brew

Looked to heaven as we cried

should we sink upon the brink

of the effervescent tide

Then somehow in the distance

A ray of light broke through

And suddenly the brightened sky

was shining on the crew

And limping on the ocean

We raised the tattered sail

and all across the raging tea

the storm began to fail

Between the walls of china

Upon the boiling sea

We'd known a storm no finer

Than in that cup of tea

Waiting for a Towel

Right. I've just put my towel in the washing machine, ready for tomorrow. I had to pull out a load of James's stuff; shirts and stripy socks, swimming around in the empty tub. It'll all go back in in thirty minutes.

Tomorrow it's baptisms, and I'm going in to do some dunking. Actually I'm a bit nervous because the last time I was in the pool, we didn't quite manage to get the person being baptised fully underwater. Yinka made us do it again. We're a funny lot us Christians sometimes.

The house is quiet tonight. James is in that schroedinger-state of being out/asleep (I can never tell which it is) and Reuben is canoodling. Oh and I'm not entirely sure where Danni is. She seems to exist inside a sort of cyclone that breezes in and out, taking a collection of bags, clothes, keys and shopping with her, with never quite enough time to just stop. I wonder whether some people are just great at creating that life around them, and others do a bit too much stopping. I suppose I'm kind of envious of the whirlwindies - although on balance, stopping is great.

And so, I'm here on my own, stopped, and waiting for the washing machine.

It's been an amazing day today: blue skies, warm sunshine, light breezes - a proper spring day. I went for a walk by the river at Pangbourne. Narrowboats and leisure boats were moored up, dogs were racing around after soggy branches and tennis balls, and the Great British Public were lazing on the grass as though it were the height of summer. I suppose, given the way these things go, it may well have been. It was nice to see happy people too: mums with babies, couples lounging awkwardly, and kids on bikes. Days like this are good for reminding us that not everyone lives in Eastenders. There is some goodness in the world.

I wonder if my towel will dry by the morning...

Some Curious Events for a Saturday

A number of strange things happened today.

Firstly, I overheard a conversation between two middle-aged women who were swearing like sailors, in Costa. Maybe I've been brought up in an environment where middle-aged women arrange flowers and make quiche, or maybe the world has just changed, but it isn't right that.

I was there to mark some essays, but it was so noisy I ended up just doing a bit of general observation. And by that I think I mean eavesdropping. While the coffee machine foamed and the heavy chairs scraped across the faux-wood floor, couples chatted about the merits of Facebook and Twitter, newspapers rustled, and kids, bolted into their pushchairs like little POWs, stared wide-eyed at the world of false lighting and arty pictures, while their mums supped from steamy lattes and mocha-frappa-skinny-choca-ccinos*.

I think maybe hanging from the eaves of a house, cupping one's ear to the wall in some desperate intent to 'listen in' for the latest bit of juicy gossip, is different to overhearing isn't it? I do hope so. I mean it's quite different when a conversation just encroaches into your life. Take last night for example: I sat on the 17 bus and two gay guys sat in the seats behind me. I wasn't listening out for a broadcast of a day in the life of a homosexual man and his dramatic rollercoaster with curtains, ex-partners, dodgy-nights-out-in-Southampton and The Malthouse*. But that, folks, is what I got. It is quite emotionally complex being a homosexual by the sounds of it.

The second odd event was hearing Yinka teaching in French. Yinka's taken me by surprise a few times recently. The other morning I flicked the radio on to BBC Radio Berkshire and there he was talking about TLG* - I had a chuckle at that and then forgot which lane I was supposed to be in to get onto the M4. Today, I was at his house as he was teaching the young adults from France. Fascinating. I learned some things:

(1) La croissance = growth

(2) Je suis un fils, je ne suis pas une fille (I got those mixed up and told them all I was a girl)

(3) French people don't eat frogs' legs.

The other peculiar thing that happened to me was that I managed to spend exactly £66.66 at Tesco.

"Ooh, that's a bad sign," said the checkout lady. Had I been quick enough I would have glanced at my bulging bags of lovely shopping, and quietly said, "Yep. It's the Mark of the Feast."

In a way though, I'm quite glad I didn't.

Notes

*I made this up. Then, I'm not sure most of the names in some of these places aren't any less ridiculous.

*Although this sounds like the title of a homophobic podcast, I'm not kidding about the content...

*TLG is The Lighthouse Group school, which our church recently set up to help educate students who've faced a crisis point in conventional education.

Time Travel Melancholy

Apparently my sister had a dream where she time-travelled back into 1983 and visited our old house. My Grandma answered the door.

"Is Sheila there?" asked Heather. She didn't want to confuse my Grandma, who would certainly not have recognised the 36 year-old version of her 11 year-old granddaughter. Sheila is my Mum.

"Well yes, she's upstairs," said Grandma, a bit suspiciously...

I don't know how the dream turned out. My Mum asked me whether I could think of anything significant that had happened in 1983. As it happened, that was the year I fell down the back steps and fractured my skull. I was 5.

The thing that really intrigued me about it all was the sadness of the thought of time-travel. I pictured my sister walking down the drive in the sepia-tones of an old photograph. I saw people, strolling past in dimmed reds and blues and jeans and jumpers. I saw the trees in the park, waving in the faded sunlight, looking young and old all at the same time. It was a sadness to think that the past itself could have faded, started to disintegrate like an old video or a cine-film.

I wondered too, whether the whole thing might actually have happened. Although it seems unlikely, I like the thought that Grandma once met a strange young lady on a sunny afternoon, who seemed strangely familiar.

-

Danni and James have just returned from Sainsbury's with an enormous quantity of cleaning stuff. Reuben (who missed the house meeting) is doing his late night thing of sliding about in his socks and generating complicated debates. Maybe one day, this too will just be all a faded memory. James tinkering on the piano, the smell of burnt beans in the kitchen and the sound of pasta rattling into an empty saucepan.

I hope not. These are good times.

Monkey Business

"Ah," said Peter. "You're a gorilla."

"I'm a what?"

"You're a gorilla. Give a chimpanzee something and he'll smash it. Give it to a gorilla and he'll delicately take it apart into its component pieces. A bonobo will just hump the thing, and an orangutan will take it apart and put it back together."

"I see," I said, handing him the screwdriver. I had just explained that I am the kind of person who takes things apart but doesn't know how to reassemble them. He quickly set to repairing his mouse, the one with the dodgy scroll wheel. I conceded (without much irony) that the screwdriver was probably of more use in the hands of an orangutan, and that he was welcome to keep hold of it.

-

At lunchtime, the sun broke through the clouds and I looked out past the small collection of books that live on my windowsill. A haze lingered over the smoking shed and a few unhappy-looking people shuffled around, puffing very seriously on their cigarettes. It struck me that there was a story behind each elongated face. Perhaps a decision years ago, a teenage temptation that turned into a lifetime. Perhaps just a moment of madness. I was lost in a reverie for a while.

Reveries are swiftly broken by colleagues talking about their bowel movements. It turns out that Peter hasn't had a poo for four days. He went home this afternoon, looking like a sweaty cardboard cutout. I accidentally told him to 'have a good one,' and then went red with embarrassment.

Bring it on?

The sky was blue. Powdery lines of cloud streaked across the morning, and bright fresh sunlight fell on tall trees, dappling them with glory. It felt, finally, like Spring. And after the coldest and longest of winters, it was most welcome.

"Bring it on," I'd said defiantly. If you had told me then that in six months' time I would be driving down the M4 to work, I would have carefully dismissed it. Like a bedizened passenger stepping aboard the RMS Titanic, I would have waved away such nonsense with a sparkling eye and an upturned nose. Pride does that to you.

So then. The M4 it was; and is, every morning for the moment. Somehow in a way I don't understand, it seems right; although I don't much like it. I guess disciples know this feeling. We grimace and pull out our hair and look to Heaven and somehow find the strength to say "Not my will, but yours..." and we mean it. If only I had meant it when it mattered...

More about all this some other time. To be honest, I just wanted to get writing again. I suppose the warmth of the sun, the hint of summer days, and love, happiness and excitement, speak deeply to this battered old heart.

Psalm 57:1-3

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me,

for in you my soul takes refuge.

I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings

until the disaster has passed.

I cry out to God, Most High,

to God, who fulfills his purpose for me.

He sends from heaven and saves me,

rebuking those who hotly pursue me;

Selah

God sends his love and his faithfulness.

... bring it on.