This blog has moved

In case anyone's interested, which might be unlikely,  I think I'll be blogging at http://chossienossie.wordpress.com in future.  Run along over and see, if you like.  Read, if you like.

I know this kind of behaviour's a bit annoying, but everyone needs a fresh start occasionally.

So I'm not here now.  I'm there.

Sorry.

Hot drinks and alarm clocks

I have finally discovered that hot drinks and alarm clocks are not useless.  It's taken me a while to discover this—maybe that I now know they actually have a use is an indication that I'm growing old—but here are my proposed uses.

Hot drinks are for the purpose of making stomachs think they're full when they're not.  This is useful when hunger pangs strike with one and a half hours to go before tea time, or when boredom eating attempts to kick in.  At least, it WOULD be useful if I could remember that hot drinks are for that sort of occasion BEFORE I scoff sultanas (remembering AFTER is no good at all).  Never mind, though.  Sultanas don't need waiting for and won't burn tongues (I haven't burnt my tongue on a hot drink that I remember, but it should be possible).

And alarm clocks are to wake people up.  Yes, I know, what's the use of that?  Well, I think reading is best done in the early morning, because everyone else is asleep (and therefore quiet!) and normally my brain is totally empty at that time unless I've had a vivid dream.  However, I don't have an alarm clock, and with five other people in the house using one would be pretty dangerous if it was set to six thirty.  I'll just have to make do with half an hour to an hour of reading in the morning, then, unless I discover a way to naturally wake up at six thirty or seven—between five and six would really be the ideal, but that's not going to happen at present.

So, there you are.  Hot drinks are to stop binge eating and alarm clocks are to enable reading at a respectable rate.

This, that, and the other half-heartedly revisited

Writing things down enables one to move on. Well, it enables me to move on, anyway. I never noticed until this week when I finished writing something down in story form—pretty rare for me to do—and then noticed that the next day I wasn't dwelling on it at all and rather wanted to put it behind me and forget it.

Maybe this is why after something 'major' happens I normally want to write it down in story form. Quite often, however, this exercise doesn't get past the first few paragraphs. Indeed, the last time I felt like writing something down in story form (October) I took pity on my known to me in real life villains characters, and decided not to do so. That doesn't mean that I won't go back to it later, though. But the first few paragraphs will probably tantalize me in three years time when I've forgotten all about it.

*******

Well, I want to put what happened behind me, but maybe some are curious. Suffice to say that on Saturday I bumped the back of my head and threw up a while later, and mum phoned the doctors who advised her to take me to accident and emergency. I pronounced myself unimpressed, but that didn't matter: mum and dad took me to A & E, where someone with a broken ankle recognized dad (apparently he played the piano for this other man once) and said that dad would look like Brahms if he was shorter and tubbier.

Anyway, I was correct about not needing to go, because after I read the whole eye chart to the doctor he decided I was fit to be released.

Oh, and how did I bump my head? Horse riding. This horse as tall at the shoulder as I am at the head decided that it would be fun to try and touch the sky with her rear hooves, and I tumbled off onto frosty sand (and yes, I was wearing a riding hat). After I fell off, she continued to race around bucking for a little while. I should note that this horse is one of the laziest and most laid back at the riding school, and this performance was produced from walk. No, I didn't get back on. My instructor thought I should sit down, and I was not feeling like arguing.

The throwing up happened after I'd gone home.

So that, in a nutshell, is what happened. Oh, and I do have a new riding hat now. Also, no sympathy is needed; it was one of the most exciting days I've had in a long time (though I wouldn't advise anyone to try to recreate it themselves.).

*******

Bach wrote a cantata about coffee. Strangely enough, this is known as the Coffee Cantata.

I never knew that before last week.

Anyway, this cantata is about a woman who drinks coffee. Her father wants her to stop, but she refuses even when he starts telling her what she won't do. In the end, her father tells her that she won't get married until she gives up coffee, at which point the woman decides that she can give up coffee for a husband...and then makes it known that anyone who wants to marry her will have to agree to let her make coffee whenever she likes.

No, I don't know any german, but I found a translation of the text. I used google (and, if you are interested, you can too.).

*******

Okay, so I wasn't intending on publishing this post. I intended to press 'save as draft' and leave it, never to be returned to again. But I accidentally pressed 'publish post' and I don't think it's so bad that it needs to be deleted. So it stays.

*******

I like quotes. This is one of my favorites, and has been ever since I first heard it:

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei

Forgiveness

...and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. --Colossians 3:13

...and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us...

We are commanded to forgive others. We are to forgive, because Christ forgave us. And Christ forgave so much more than we will ever be called upon to forgive. But, as the Lord's Prayer shows, if we expect Christ to forgive us we should forgive others.

How can we, being forgiven, refuse to forgive? I wonder if there isn't an element of pride at work. We think we deserve to be treated better, even though we probably don't deserve to be treated so well. And so we expect the other to ask forgiveness, to say sorry, to just acknowledge their wrongdoing. It would be so much easier to forgive then. But to forgive before there's even been a suggestion that forgiveness is needed? Pah.

We blow things completely out of proportion, taking little things which may well have been meant with all the good will in the world, and turning them into a major crime against our most righteous personages. We do this to our shame. We're not righteous personages.

How many things have we done, without realizing, that required forgiveness? How many little things have we done to others which have caused animosity to rise in their breast like it is rising in ours now? How many people have forgiven us?

If we are to expect others to forgive us—and we do expect others to forgive us, and others normally do forgive us—we should extend the same courtesy to others.

I'd be lying if I tried to say that forgiving was easy—I am beginning to learn that it is not—but forgiving is essential. And so I will learn, am learning, to forgive.

It is a lesson that needs to be learnt.

This, that, and the other

It's the little things that matter.

The minister and his wife at one of the churches where dad plays the organ sent him a pair of fingerless gloves. Just because one of them chanced to remark to dad that it was cold in the church and wondered whether he could wear gloves while playing, and dad said he'd need fingerless gloves (which, by the way, he didn't have before, but has now).

Wasn't that nice of them?

*******

I stumbled upon this today, and it is well worth reading. It's on prayer. And it is excellent.

And also, this by Purcell. I found it on youtube. And I, being prepared for beauty, though it an ugly piece, until I heard this rendition. And then I returned to the first rendition, being prepared to think it ugly, and couldn't see what the problem was.

Oh, and J.S. Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze is very nice. But I'll leave that one to you to search for if you're interested. Yes, I'm lazy.

*******

The title came from my sister, who looked over my shoulder and said "This, that, and the other". I credit her for it here.

I'm sure I've written a post titled "This, that, and the other" before though.

After having carefully looked through all my published posts' titles, it would seem that I haven't. There was a post with a similar title, but it is far too cringe worthy to link to. All I have to say about this is that immature teenagers should NOT be let loose on the blogging world under any circumstance whatsoever, for EVERYONE'S good.

*******

Now, for a short weather report.

Monday, awoke to a light sprinkling of snow, which was melting at eight thirty am and all gone by twelve noon.

Tuesday, no snow.

Today, a few snowflakes fell, but they did not settle. They melted when they hit the ground.

So there's no extreme coldness in this part of England.

*******

Our woolworths has now closed. Everyone's woolworths has closed. So, in memory of them, here is a list of things which I have from woolworths.

--a nice pair of gloves. They're black with grey fake fur and I've had them for ages.
--a notebook. It is from Christmas 2007, I think, and I haven't yet filled it.
--a pair of cheap sunglasses which I never wear because my little sister mangled them a little and I'm not a sunglasses person anyway
--a book on British wildlife
--chocolate. It's all been eaten long ago, but I'm almost certain I bought chocolate from them last year...hey, no, in 2007. Two years ago.
--pom poms. I kid you not. I will use them just as soon as I think of a craft project which needs pom poms to make it perfect.
--glitter. It should be useful at some distant point in the future.
--christmas presents and easter presents for other members of my family. I won't list them here because they're not mine, and so I don't get any use from them. Presents I've bought for my family should go on their lists of things they own from woolworths.
--a torch. It's a silver colour.

There must be, must have been other things. I just don't remember them now.

Goal for 2009

Okay, yesterday I said I intended to chase shadows.  And while it's all very well to chase shadows, there is a chance that I may not catch any.  What then?  Will this new year have been wasted?

No.  I won't make catching a shadow my goal for 2009, because so many things influence whether or not I will succeed.  My goal for 2009 is instead to walk in integrity—and then when I fail, I will have absolutely no excuse.  For someone who likes excuses, this 'no excuses' bit is important.

--But as for me, I will walk in my integrity: redeem me, and be merciful unto me.    Psalm 26:11

I read this a few days ago, and it grabbed me because to walk in integrity is hard.  Maybe, though, I'm the only person who thinks the phrase 'walk in integrity' means to ensure that beliefs line up with actions—and then, when the beliefs are congruent with the actions, to keep away from compromise.

And when I read it, I wrote a list of things that I should do to walk in integrity.  It was a short list—so I obviously didn't put enough thought into it—but here are some of the things that I wrote. These require a real change in my actions.

-witness to others about the Lord Jesus Christ
-give money to charity
-stay away from gossip, refuse to partake in it, and most especially NOT spread gossip myself
-refuse to 'hide' and subtly change myself among unbelieving relatives.  (How can I be a witness if I'm always downplaying differences and trying not to have them think I'm strange or offend them simply by being different?)

And an extra one:

-study the Bible.  It's God's Word and it's important to know what God says, not take someone else's word for it.  And if God says something, then He means it.  No ifs or buts.

So, my goal for this year is just to get closer to walking in integrity, just to begin to make my actions the same as my beliefs.  It's all very well to believe something, but if that belief does not influence action, it is pretty worthless.  And so, my beliefs and my actions must grow closer.

If that happens, 2009 will not have been wasted, no matter what else happens or doesn't happen.

Actually, no, I need to learn to pray.  So my goal will firstly be to learn to pray, and then to walk in integrity.  Or maybe learning to pray is the first step in walking in integrity.  It could be.

The end of another year

And another year has ended.  Tomorrow is the first day of 2009.

The end of the year is a time when many look back, and I am no real exception.  I can't remember what my goal at the beginning of the year was, but I do know what's happened and what I've done this year.  So, here are the major things that have happened this year.

--I have learnt to play the piano with both hands.  Finally I've started to take advantage of the piano that's been around longer than me, finally I'm using it for something other than melody lines for hymn tunes.  I play it incredibly badly because I have no real sense of time, but I play it much better than this time last year.

--I woke up to the implications of 1 Corinthians 11:1-15, and started covering my head in church.  And most of the time outside church, too.  I have always liked hats, and I only stopped wearing them because no one else wore them, so I am now growing closer to my childhood ideal of a hatted woman with a wicker basket.  And I don't care.

So, inside the house I wear a bandanna, outside I wear a winter hat (because it's winter) or a headband.  Church is normally a winter hat.  I do love scarves, and I would probably wear them if they weren't connected with all sorts of other religions.

--My family left our church—that would be the one that seemed sent from God.  Long story, which I'm not prepared to go into here.  Anyway, we are now pretty churchless: we attend churches where dad plays the organ, and we occasionally visit our friends' church—though we haven't done that for a while now.  I should note that the churches where dad plays are not the best.

--However, all things work together for good.  Since leaving the church we used to attend, I've been finding regular Bible reading easier:  I have to read and find for myself, because the churches dad plays at sure won't do it for me.  And so Bible reading is something that I must cling to, because if that stops, drifting away from God is a very real possibility.   I need to get prayer sorted, too, though.

--I still do not know what I will be doing come next August.  I know what I won't be doing—attending university—but I don't know what I will actually do instead.  I would like to fill my days with a part time job (because I must earn money: a steady and regular amount of money coming in is almost independence) and voluntary work (because I want to be useful.).

However, I didn't tell this to relations at the annual Christmas get together, preferring instead to scandalize them by saying very firmly that I wasn't sure who decreed that as soon as somebody got old enough to do things they should immediately saddle themselves with a huge debt.  I'm not sure how well this went down, because mum chipped in almost immediately afterwards to say that I'd learnt how to run a home.

Well, that statement was like a red rag to several bulls.  The only saving grace was that it wasn't me who was trying to console them with 'well, I know how to run a home'.


Next year, if the Lord wills it, I should have more to report.  Changes.  Change has to come, and it will come.  However, I do feel that this year's been quite productive because I no longer feel directionless and lost.  I know where I want to go.  I just don't know how to get there.  And so it only remains to begin to chase the shadows of what I want in the hope that once the shadow has been caught, the substance will be obtained soon after.

So that's how I'll spend 2009.  Chasing shadows.