Nigel Wright

mercedes

This one's definitely worth checking out, take your time with a coffee and really explore. Thanks mercedes for taking the time to comment yesterday.

See here; http://ransom33.wordpress.com/

Some great images too if you want prayerful inspiration.

Facebook friends

A good number of us that trained together for Ordination are keeping in touch on facebook:

 

This cartoon is by Dave Walker.

Blogging connects & gigging concerns

It has been incredibly difficult of late to find time to write posts on the blog, life is full of finishing off my dissertation as-well as sorting out all and sundry in time for Ordination, see posts below, and the thought of ceasing to blog has crossed my mind more than once!

However, I received an inspiring e-mail today form some one who has been very dear to me over the past decade, some one who has a heart for Christ that leaves me in awe and some one who I have lost contact with in the main because of the pressures and demands of training. That person had been reading my blog and decided to e-mail me as a result, and at the end of a very long and tiring (but accomplishing and fulfilling) week  that e-mail has been an unexpected blessing.

I also received an e-mail earlier in the week from dear friend and peer on the course who shared how some of my posts of late have helped in understanding the intense situation we find ourselves in.

Guess it's not time to stop blogging...

Tomorrow sees me catching up with another close friend, who I see little of now due to geography, a 40th Birthday party no less - long gone are the days of 21st Birthday invites! I also find myself providing some of the entertainment for the bash - it is a while since I have done a set of secular stuff so here's hoping the voice and the guitar hold out without too many bum notes!

Keep pushing on...blogging is hard to do...

Well maybe not hard to do, just struggling to find the time to do it...things have intensified a great deal at the moment with closure required on so many things re ordination training.

A few people have asked me what my typical week is like and how everything fits in, well it can be difficult to pin down a "typical week" but the following is the "ideal" to try and get through all the work, etc:

Sunday: am, Sometimes preach (like yesterday) but bba (the Parish, priest, minister, pastor depending on your theology!) has been very understanding during the training and doesn't ask me to do too much) - pm, have some family time and sort out the week ahead - eve, course reading

Monday: am, & pm, family breakfast, drop A at school then work - usually office based (try and get some exercise Monday lunch)- eve, family tea, children's bath time, bed time then course reading.

Tuesday: the same as Monday but usually out at clients so could be late back and go straight to food and course reading.

Wednesday: 1st thing ride horse, then College, library, course reading, lectures - home very late!

Thursday: As Tuesday but usually make family tea, etc.

Friday:   am & pm, office based- work/course work depending on pressures - eve, Jo actually gets some time with her husband!

Saturday: am, course work - pm, take A for riding lesson and get a ride in too - eve, the social bit!

Plus residential weekends (once a month in term time on average) and Easter school residential and the odd retreat!

To get degree assignments/course work bottomed almost always requires taking additional time off (which works because of my self employment) and we try and get away as a family for at least a long weekend every six to eight weeks, for sanity's sake!

And in this my final year I have no placements!

Phew...

Girl growing

A big thank you to Mark at Wayoutwest, for the following link to a blog that is really, really worth book-marking, girlgrowing, one full of poetic insight and inspiration.

The day after twelve people died in the UK due to weather related incidents the following is a blessing in itself:

1-14-07
may you be blessed
as you continue to seek out
honesty, and truth, and peace
desiring more than passing, cheap, flippant intimacy.
may you be blessed
as you travel through seas of strangers
desperately wanting to be seen
and not merely passed by
yearning for a touch, a word, a presence.
may you be blessed as you authentically try to respond
to the God-given wrenching of your gut
making you aware that a need is near
and someone is waiting on your touch, your word, your presence.
may the blessing of a love that transcends indifference and brings reconciliation
be in your heart and in your mind and in your hands
as you travel to and fro-
constantly aware that even now you are surrounded by love.
may you seek, may you be completed, and may you be blessed.
amen.

To new beginnings

Typepad seems to have been down and out this weekend, but the very fact that I have done this post means it is back on-line.

Started to be back in the land of the living over the weekend rather than "In Between Dreams", which is also a cracking album by Jack Johnson - my album of the year in that genre.

Thanks to all those who have been sending me e-mails and praying, especially on my "black Friday", as it were - still having to take some pain killers but easing down -having an MRI scan tomorrow to check things out.

Also wanted to say all the best to "Tiffer" whose blog I find myself listed on - no holding back on this blog, Tiffer shares all the pre-course nerves and agitations - so much by the way of prayer to Tiffer and all those starting training this week (or just started last). If you read this Tiffer, where's the ability to comment?... and remember the whole world can read your blog! :)

A new image

My work on this has prompted me to have a change of design, not totally finished yet but it gives more word space!

And here are a few pics from Christchurch for the folks back home:

Illness strikes

Sorry Nigel hasn't posted for a while, unfortunately he was given something to eat containing something that he has an allergy to and  also contracted a viral infection, the result of which was a few days in hospital, extended to nearly a week when the hospital also gave him something he is allergic to!

Prayers greatly appreciated...

Jo

A long time!

It feels like a long time since I last posted... but first I want to say a very grateful thank you to my friends for their guest reflections.

Life is full at the moment, to say the least, for most of us on the course I would guess, assignment deadlines for Easter, self assessment reports to write, Diocesan profiles to complete, Easter School preparation and normal week in week out course work... oh and also our regular jobs!

Am I writing this for a good moan, not really but it does help a little, my spiritual director got most of it last week! Formation is a word that seems to have a myriad of interpretations and connotations...

Welcome

Welcome to my attempts at communicating my reflections on life, faith and theology - but wait! - I don't want it to be just me - the idea for this blog was born from the influence of others and the hugely helpful effect they have had on my studies and explorations, my list of blogs giving some of the best. What I have found personally is that this form of communication is still very much in a minority and much feared in some circles.

A number of people have asked me to share my thoughts, feelings and experiences on this particular part of my journey and this is my attempt it while encouraging others to try a blog. Hopefully it will promote on line discussion from the starting point of one who gets "tongue tied and twisted" when trying to articulate his faith. If you know blogs where people are already doing this then great, let me know and I will link them up to this.