There's something about Tuesdays.

You know, I'm beginning to like them very much. They just seem to pan out well at the moment (which is more than can be said for most other days of the week at the moment - although Thursday's catching up). I'm guessing that someone, somewhere, happens to have Tuesday as the day they pray for me (or maybe it's the day everyone does, and that's why they're good!).

My 'very productive day' of a couple of weeks back has been repeated on Tuesdays since. We seem to manage to be ready to get Joshua to pre-school at 7.30, which is great. I'm happy to take the early rise as a trade-off in this respect. And the mornings seem to be quite handy in terms of getting stuff done. I wouldn't say that this morning was exactly exciting, but I did get to watch Match of the Day (the final day of the premiership!) this morning, whilst sorting and counting coins. Over £100 in coins that is. Boring, but satisfying. And I got MOTD in (well, most of it)

We also had the house photo today. It went well, the sun was shining, counter to forecasts at the start of the week. Joshua was dressed in his suit and all the girls went a bit gooey over him. To be fair, he is devastatingly gorgeous. I would have taken a photo but I was, uh, having my photo taken...

On the down side, there's my facebook status. I keep forgetting Ephesians 6:12. I'm beginning to feel more and more convinced that (at least some of) what's being going on over the course of this term is a result of what that passage talks about, and not just a run of bad luck. It's been a tough term in a number of ways. I guess being brought to your knees isn't all bad :)

I want to include a couple of photos with this post, but there aren't really any that fit, so you can just have a bunch of random ones.

Yes, Joshua did fall asleep whilst leaning over the arm of the chair. I've got a more close-up photo if you don't believe me :)

Nice Acer in the back garden. With nice sunlight to accentuate its beauty...The view on the way over to Burton, with the sun setting over the fields of oilseed rape. I keep meaning to take this photo and this time I remembered. I used my 'phone camera (as with all my shots on here), so the light's not quite right, but it is truly spectacular. I love driving through the fields (by 'through', I mean 'between' - we don't have a 4x4) through the seasons and watching them change colour: white, brown, green, yellow...) Some tulips I planted (very late indeed!) that still managed to come up this year, and benefitted (at least aesthetically) from the cherry blossom dropping all around.

Happy Easter.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with Joshua about Easter. Figuring it was a good time to discuss the whole question of what Easter's about, I asked him, "Why did Jesus die, sweetheart?". His response? "Uh, was he eaten by a shark?". Uh... no sweety :o) Now, to be fair to Joshua, we had spent the previous weekend away with a bunch of friends from church and we'd been looking at the story of Jonah, so I'm kinda guessing that he was getting a little confused!

The next week in church, we heard about a kid who asked their mum this question: "Mummy, why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn't we just say sorry?" What a great question! Wouldn't it be easier that way? But then that doesn't take into account how serious it is when we ignore God's way. And that's what's so amazing about Easter. I think about what it means to me to be a Father, and then multiply that by about a kazillion and you're probably getting close to imagining the feeling of closeness between God the Father and God the Son, and from that, you can consider the burden of seperation that the cross was for them.
Wow.

He is risen.

Channel 4 needs me.

Ok, first, apologies for the lack of blogs. I'm sure life has begun to lose meaning for my faithful band of 8 followers (is it really that many?!) without the random musings of an almost-certainly-criminally-insane friend. Time flies.
The end of term was pretty ... uh ... perhaps the best word would be manic. But I don't mean, 'oh it's been a bit manic here', I mean, when you're actually on the verge of mania due to the state of your own little world. I won't go into details, as it's not really my story to tell, but suffice it to say that it's all calmed down a bit now.
The other reason I'm writing this is because my blog has been the topic of conversation at more than one point in the last 24 hours (we've got friends staying who, for some reason, read it!) and I thought it was therefore time to give them something more up-to-date to look at.

And so to the point of the blog post title. I happened to mention that I've always quite fancied the idea of having a documentary TV crew follow me around. (No, I'm not really sure what the documentary would be on, but more of that in a minute!). This comment was met with some derision from my wife, and amusement from the rest of the gathering. The main reason I gave (other than vanity I suppose) is that I often think things that would be amusing to share with someone, or do things that I think are in some way worthy of being seen, but they never are (shared or seen...) and it seems such a waste. Of course, there are times, like when I was doing the washing up this afternoon having finished making the chicken pie for dinner, when I actually really like being alone without the need to talk to anyone, but even so, surely that's good TV in some way...
And then people started considering what the documentary could focus on (those of you who were there may wish to add things I've forgotten, and those who weren't there may have some suggestions too...) The documentary could be on being a stay-at-home-dad, or having to live with 74 of the 'fairer sex', or things to make with children (this was also suggested as a book I could publish, so that's another idea), or any number of other things.
So, if anyone knows any desperate Channel 4 bods who are fresh out of ideas, tell 'em to get in touch!
And it's not just me, is it? Surely other people must want their own TV crews...

And now to Joshua, who's been up to some great things recently. He's recently getting more keen on his drawing. A few days ago, this branched out into body art. I have photos, but unfortunately the carphone warehouse weren't entirely honest about what was going to be included with my 'phone, so I don't have a cable to connect it to the computer... I'm also set to download his first picture that's almost discernibly a human face. It appeared a couple of weeks back, but I haven't yet scanned it in. (I can't blame the carphone warehouse for that though...)

His latest phrases are, 'of course' (usually said in such a way as to make you feel like a right muppet), 'it's not fair', (didn't get that one from home, I can assure you!)

Last week we had a fab housegroup weekend away. Really good time, and a nice chance to spend a bit more time with people. We were able to go as a family too, as term had (just) finished, so that was brilliant. (Though tiring, for reasons mentioned above!). We looked at Jonah, and concluded it should really be called 'the story of Jonah and God' not 'and the whale', as the whale was only really a bit part, and wasn't there entirely voluntarily. Great book and good challenge. Unfortunately, the house was a bit falling-downish. We were in a three storey bit. The bottom floor had a whacking great metal prop in the middle of the room, holding up the ceiling. The second floor had a big sign on the door saying 'danger, do not enter', and we were on the third floor, with a floor so sunken that the single bed was about an inch off the floor in the middle of the room! I guess at least if the house had collapsed we'd have been near the top of the pile...

Anyways, I'm back off to spend some more time with our guests, before an early night (clocks change tonight!)

Doing my duty.

I feel that, given it's been another week since a blog, I should get sorted and do another blog. Not really sure what to blog about, so I'll just sort of splurge about the week just gone.

It's been a bit of a manic one. We went to Worthing this week for Granny's funeral. She died a week and a half earlier, at the age of 94. Though it's always sad to have someone close to you die, I'm sure Granny has no objections (other than that she had in mind that it would happen ages ago!) and I'm completely confident that we'll meet again :) I'd also had the chance to see her and pray with her a week and a half before she died, which was lovely. The funeral itself was ok, and it was also a chance to see family who we'd not seen in months, which was good. It does mean I'm now on the hunt for a prayer warrior to take up where Granny left off. It's funny to think that, despite her diminutive stature, she was a sort of Bruce Lee/Arnold Schwarzenegger of prayer.
Unfortunately, Anna was sick the night before the funeral, and I was sick the night after. Probably due in no small part to the level of tiredness that we'd both reached.
There was, however, a sense of catharsis in the being ill, and I ended up feeling sort of renewed by it (though it was a grim experience that I'm in no hurry to repeat!)

Had a great time this morning moving a bush in the garden. It was taking up valuable space in the veg patch, so had to go elsewhere. Hopefully I haven't killed it off in the process... Must now set about planting some seeds indoors in preparation for this year's bumper crops!

And tomorrow, among other things, Joshua and I are going to go and buy some self-adhesive blackboard stuff (by the makers of sticky-back plastic) and stick it around the house to have loads of fun chalking all over. Wednesday is Daddy day, and it's gonna be a riot this week :) Might even buy some tester pots at B&Q so we can paint Charlie and Lola onto his bedroom wall ... but that might be a project for another day!

Still working on the book, but finding it pushed out by other things all the time. Oh dear.

And now I'm going to bed, because it's well past my bedtime.

Humanist Shmumanist

Have just read about the new 'campaign' from the Humanists...
Billboards with pictures of little kids saying 'please don't label me, let me grow up and choose for myself'.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. How silly. What they seem to be saying is that everyone should start with a 'I don't believe in anything to do with God' and go from there. What a hypocritical (and in my slightly ranty view, stupid) thing to say. Surely that's just saying, "humanists are right, the rest of you are wrong, so teach kids what we believe and if they want to believe something else when they grow up, so be it." How's that any different from a Christian saying "I'm right, you're wrong, my kids going to be brought up as a Christian because that's the truth". The only difference is that the truth is the Truth! Humanists are just saying they don't want kids (that's ALL kids, not just theirs) to believe in anything other than what Humanists believe...

(Quote from British Humanist Association) "Labelling children as if they innately "belong" to a particular religion ... can only serve as an obstacle to understanding between children around the world." What?! Rubbish. Failing to teach them about others' beliefs might serve as an obstacle to understanding. Or teaching them to ridicule (and I mean ridicule, I don't mean disagree with or argue against) others' beliefs might have the same effect. But teaching them properly about religion, particularly the religion to which they belong, can only serve to improve understanding.

I don't want my son to 'innately belong' (their words) to a religion. I want him to be a Christian by his own choosing. But that doesn't mean I'm going to wait until he's 18 before I start teaching him about it. How absurd. Why on earth would I stop teaching my child the truth just because someone else says it's not true. Bizarre. Is it just me or is this campaign really odd...?

And at this time of year, I'm going to have to mention Santa (warning - spoiler!!!)
I'm assuming that Humanists would avoid any reference to Santa/Father Christmas, because he's not true. If any humanists read this (which I doubt, given that my 'followers' list is only half way to double figures...) I'd love to know your views on this. Because surely if you don't want kids to believe in Jesus, you certainly wouldn't want them believing in Santa... After all, the evidence for Jesus is solid, the evidence for Santa is somewhat shaky...

I have to apologise for the fact that this is a rant. But the campaign is so ridiculous I'm struggling to muster up enough energy to question it particularly logically. Feel free to comment. I'm aware that some things I haven't really explained very well...

Check out the wreath by the way. I've only have a 20% response rate to it.

Do Humanists celebrate Christmas? Surely not... They're missing out.

Brainwashing.

We got into the car and headed off down the drive, as classic fm kicked in on the radio (maybe classic fm glides in, rather than kicks...). "I don't want that song on", says Joshua. Ok, so he hasn't developed my taste in music, but I was surprised by his answer to my next question. "What do you want on sweetheart?", I asked. "The Hallelujah one", he replied. I honestly don't know which precise song he was referring to, but I was impressed that he knew the word (though pronunciation was a little questionable) and pleased that he enjoyed the genre of Christian music enough to put in a request. So we whacked on the CD of Soul Survivor songs (which tend to kick, rather than glide) and he was satisfied.

And it all got me thinking. When people talk about children being 'brainwashed', what exactly do they mean? Because it occurs to me that what they mean is likely to be something along the lines of, "I can't believe you'd stoop so long as to indoctrinate your child into something that I don't believe in". Maybe that's unfair, but it seems to me that that is at the heart of the 'brainwashing' accusation. The fact is, why would I not teach my child what I believe and know to be true? Surely it would demonstrate a lack of certainty if I did anything else. If you remember the classic film 'Short Circuit', you'll remember the robot thing (number 5, or 'Johnny Five', as he was later known) buzzing around saying, 'need input, need input'. And surely kids are a bit like that (further comparisons between kids and Johnny Five could be drawn, but perhaps that's for another blog, or for the comments section below!). They need input. And as a parent, I want to make sure that I'm fulfilling my responsibility of being a key provider of such input. I don't want him growing up citing everything and everyone else as the major influences on his life, because that's not their role - it's mine. And as a Christian parent, it's also my responsibility to provide the majority (at least for the first decade or two!) of his Christian teaching. So I'll stick with it :)

Anyway, that's enough of a ramble for me. I'm being beckoned by a book and a cup of tea.

And to those of you who care about such things, apologies for the very haphazard mishmash of tenses in the first paragraph.