The gospel in a pumpkin...

So, what do you think of Halloween? (or Hallowe'en, or however you wish to spell it...)
Part of me still wonders what I think about it, but here's what I've been thinking about it this year...
I wasn't brought up to think it was an evil thing (odd, perhaps, with a darker side, maybe) and I seem to have memories of having bat wings made for a costume one year. I'm pretty sure that was Halloween, but maybe it was just a costume party of our favourite nocturnal animals!
We bought some pumpkins this year (I tried growing them, but the size they got to, it would have been difficult to carve a gnat's face into them!), inspired partly by a fireplace I saw on the internet. The first one, I carved with flames in it. It looked great, but because it sat on the mantelpiece (rather than in the cold outside) it got rather furry rather quickly, so had to go to the compost bin.
The other pumpkins were carved this weekend and sat on our step to welcome people who were 'trick or treating'. So, is it good, or is it bad.
Well, this year, I've been thinking that Halloween in general and the pumpkin in particular gives a great outline for what we believe as Christians. I even chatted with Joshua about the pumpkin, and he got the point too. First, there's all the scary costumes. Kids love dressing up scary, it would appear. They are happy to wander around with axes and witches hats and 'blood' pouring from their heads. Weird. But would they actually like to meet someone wandering around with a real axe, with real blood pouring from their head? Perhaps not. But the desire to dress up bad gives the first point. We all want to be bad, to a certain extent. The Bible would call that sin, and it's a reminder that evil does exist in the world, and a lot of it comes from us.
The pumpkin, for me, is a reminder of the solution. (Not to pull a scary face, that doesn't tend to work very well in most difficult circumstances.) Here's a rough outline of my conversation with Joshua about it all:
Me: What do we put in the pumpkins sweetheart?
J: (After a little nudging!) candles.
Me: And what does a candle give us?
J: Light. (I'm not sure quite how he got this, because the question was a bit unclear!)
Me: Now, sometimes you get scared at nighttime don't you?
J: Yes.
Me: What is sometimes scary for you? (Hoping he doesn't latch onto this and become permanently terrified of the dark!)
J: It's dark.
Me: And what stops it being dark?
J: Light. (He's a genius, my boy!)
Me: Now, if the dark is a reminder of bad and scary things, then the light is a reminder of good things. Now, who looks after us all the time?
J: God? (We discuss this often, so it wasn't too hard to get there!)
Me: Yes, and the Bible sometimes says that Jesus is like a light. He is good and protects us, and when he's in us, we're safe.

Now, I wouldn't want to reduce to gospel permanently to a level that a three year old could grasp, because it's so much more than that too, but to me, the pumpkin has a light in, which drives away the darkness, which is precisely what Christians are promised. We have God's Spirit living in us, and He is able to drive away the darkness.

"Light of the world, You stepped down into darkness, opened my eyes, let me see..."

Outstanding.

Like the scarecrow in his field, we are outstanding.
We had Ofsted at the end of last half-term (just when you need it most...). They spent a fair bit of time with us, and because of Anna's amazing work in the house, they saw that the provision here was 'outstanding'. Their visit to us was pretty key, as we were the first big house visit they did, so we set the scene for the rest of the inspection, but the following visits they did to other houses, and the piles and piles of paperwork they trawled through (who'd be an Ofsted inspector eh?!) confirmed the fact that the school provides an outstanding level of care for its students.
Well done Anna.
(And everyone else, but I'm a little biased...)

Fly me to the moon

Here's a photo competition for you ... what is this?
Well, it's not much of a competition, because I'm now going to tell you the answer. So if you want to have another think about it, don't keep reading ... If you've got this far, I'm guessing you're not that fussed about spending valuable time coming up with the answer (and, let's face it, why would you?!). Yes, this is (drum roll) the view from my spaceship earlier today.
And here's Captain Courageous...

Just tinkering with the controls to make sure we actually get somewhere. I know it might look like he's sitting on my foot, but he isn't really - it's just that the branch I'm traveling on is almost horizontal, so I'm resting my foot on a nearby branch! You're probably wondering where we were heading - so was I! Turned out that, according to Captain C, our destination was "The ... place ... with the pirates", which I then abbreviated to 'pirate planet', which he conceded was a good name for it.
The thing that surprised me most (let's face it, I'm not in the habit of jetting off to far-flung planets, and my inexperience really showed on this particular outing) was that when we actually arrived at our destination, we weren't inundated by pirates. In fact, I don't remember sighting a single one. Rather, we were almost overcome by a rather terrifying swarm of aliens. (What's the collective term for aliens?) I wouldn't be able to describe them, other than to say that they were persevering - they seemed to keep coming despite the fact that we were zapping them with our laser twig... (I'm no alientologist, that's for sure!)
Unfortunately, while we were on our journey, this fell off the ship:
There were two major issues with this. First of all, when it fell off, it hit my head on its way down. Thankfully, no medical attention was required (a relief, given that the chief medical officer was me, and my junior medic was the football we'd taken along for the ride) Secondly, whilst it might look to you much like any other branch one might find on a space ship, it was, in fact, a vital component, which required some attention before our return to earth could be attempted. (Thus the delay in leaving, necessitating much zapping of alien hoards)
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Captain Courageous lived up to his name, and had us back in the air in no time, and it seemed only a matter of seconds before we were back home. This was a big relief given the state of the weather.
It's all calmed down a bit now, we even went for a walk later (yes, at Calke Abbey again - they've done loads of clearing of crops in the garden). Captain Courageous has bathed and is now tucked up in bed. I'll leave you with a self-portrait he took after his bath. I might send it off with our 'Pirate Planet' press release...

Curses and hope.

I noticed something this week. Perhaps I'm behind everyone else, but here it is:
You know in Genesis ... Adam and Eve mess up big time?
Sure, they blame the serpent, which is fair to a point. But how does God respond? Well, he curses the serpent, and he curses the ground. But Adam and Eve? No curse. Nada, rien, nowt. Punished, yes, but cursed? No.
Surely right there is a sign of hope.
So where does the curse come in for humankind? Well, "cursed is everyone hung on a tree". There it was - the curse. Delivered, borne and dealt with.

Fun weekend.

Well, I say fun, but it would have been funner if it had involved more sleep.
First, Joshua and I decided to pop to Cambridge (well, I decided - he didn't get much say in the matter!) to see our niece/cousin. Sadly, boy fell asleep on the journey down and thus refused to go to sleep properly at bedtime. Then, didn't sleep properly, woke me more than once, and generally deprived me of my human right to sleep. (I should speak with a UN representative - isn't there some sort of law about not torturing people by depriving them of sleep?) Then, on the journey back up, he was so tired, having not slept properly the night before, that he (you've probably guessed already) fell asleep in the car. That led to another night of not going to sleep 'til about 10.30, and another night of daddy ending up somewhat grumpy.
Thankfully, tonight he was out at about 7.00.
BUT that's a distraction anyway, Cambridge was fab (although I didn't get much sleep, but perhaps I'd mentioned that...) and it was a delight to see the gorgeous addition to the family. (No pics without parents' permission!).
We even went to Wimpole for a quick look around the gardens. Lovely time, and a very impressive pumpkin and squash display. (Photos on camera, not phone, and camera's downstairs, so you'll have to wait...)
Then today was a 'day off' and we went to Calke. Again :) It was Fine Food Fair day today (Fine was a description of the food, not the weather, which was, on the contrary, anything but fine!)
Lovely time, and we saw some of their pumpkins too.
Now, you're probably thinking that their pumpkins are somewhat more impressive than mine. And you'd be right. In fact, some of my pumpkins haven't even exceeded the size of your average apple yet... But, when you take into account the amount of bed space they have there, and the number of volunteers tending the gardens, then it's a whole different league. (That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!)
In fact, this second picture gives you a good idea of the bed space. I just can't compete with that... Well, not without a lot of back-breaking digging, anyway!
Anyhow, it was nice to get out for a bit. We watched UP when we got home. Nice film, if a bit sad at the start...
And now I'm ready to go to bed. Maybe I'll leave it until after 8.30. Just seems a little more ... uh ... grown up.