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.