Will there be tennis in heaven?

Over Easter I'll be in Ipswich taking part in the first tournament of the year for me. It would be nice to think that this year I might make some progress and win a few matches. I have no expectations of winning any tournaments, but a match or tow wouldn't go amiss!

The other day, while speaking at church, I jokingly suggested that if there wasn't going to be the chance to play tennis in heaven I wasn't sure I wanted to go! To which someone replied that it would be boring because it would be just one long rally because no one would miss. That made me laugh but also go me thinking. To what do we really owe our concept of heaven?

Either we se heaven as some sort of idealised paradise based on some utopian world, or we seem to see it as one long worship event. We'll wander around with sickly sweet smiles on faces, living out an eternal version of a Star Trek episode where we're all happy and have rejected technology to live in simplicity in a temperate climate where time is no longer relevant.

But is that really what it will be like? If all we are going to do all day is sing then I for one will need a much better voice than Currently possess. i know God loves a joyful noise, but surely even he would baulk at it for all eternity!

Too often our view of heaven is based on an assumption of a return to the garden ideal. I'm not sure that's how it will be. On the other hand, I don't know much more than that it will be a place where God dwells among his people and that the old order of things will have passed away. But what belongs to that old order? John tells us that it has to do with things like dying, mourning, crying and pain. So, my knees and back might not ache, but does it mean that technology will disappear and that sport will become a distant memory.

I'm not so sure.

For what it's worth, if there is the opportunity to play tennis in heaven I think my backhand will still need work and that playing it will still be just as difficult then as it is now. Heaven won't be some stylised paradise where nothing goes awry and mistakes don't happen. It will be a place where we have learned to live in true relationship with the God who loves us. A place not marred by sin and fallen human characteristics but defined by the character of God expressed through the people who dwell there.

Perhaps I will finally be able to see in colour and without glasses, but if I'm still chromatically challenged and short-sighted then who cares. I'm not seeking perfection, I'm seeking God.

Where are we now?

A video conversation with Reggie McNeal about the missional movement. In this video he makes some interesting observations about the journey so far and shares both concerns and hopes for the movement going forward.

The hardest thing for most people as far as I can tell is getting  grip on a completely new way of seeing the church. It's not about adding more programmes, but fundamentally shifting our paradigm for what it means to be the church. Moving from a church-centric narrative to a kingdom narrative is one of our challenges. Seeing ourselves as 'in', 'for' and 'with' our communities is also a challenge.

Some thoughts about the early part of 1Samuel

I decided I wanted to read the story of Samuel and the transition to a monarchy in the life of Israel for my daily devotional and I saw something I'd not seen before in the first few chapters. Well I guess I had noticed it, but not quite in the same way. As the story unfolds we find Hannah praying, moving her lips but with no sound coming out. Eli assumes she's been drinking but soon discovers that's not the case and that in fact it is out of her deep distress that Hannah is praying with such intensity.

But why did Eli presume Hannah was drunk? How bad had things got at the Tabernacle that it was more normal to assume someone was drunk than deep in prayer? This has little to do with ecstatic prayer or issues around speaking in tongues as was the case in Acts. Things must have been pretty awful, and indeed we soon discover just how bad things were as the antics of Eli's sons are revealed.

Yet God still speaks. Hannah gets an answer to her prayer, Samuel is born. Even though life around the Tabernacle is far from holy, God still connects with his people, still looks for someone to stand in the gap, still desires righteousness. His passion remains to be amongst his people.

A second thing that caught my eye comes after the battle and the loss of the Ark. Now quite why Israel thought that taking the Ark into battle was a good idea and that a wooden box covered in gold was a solution to their problem is a bit of a mystery when you think about it. I guess they were trying to assure God's presence with them, but as with all human beings, they'd forgotten the fundamentals. Anyway they lose the battle and lose the Ark.

The Philistines however win the battle, capture the Ark, but things don't go so well for them. All along, whether Israel or Philistine, the people look for man-made solutions. The Philistines never ask what the wider implications are of the presence of the Ark. In fact their response to the Ark is to avoid stepping on the threshold of the temple because that's where some of the bits of the statue of their god had landed when it fell over.

Life among the Philistines was pretty messed up too.

As it get moved from town to town, people fear it's arrival, and at the end of chapter 5 of 1Samuel there's this little phrase: the cry from the town rose to heaven.

The cry from the town rose to heaven. God even hears the cry of the Philistines. Somehow they work out a solution. There's no great act of repentance, they just want rid of this problematic box.

But this got me thinking. If God still speaks in the midst of the mixed up, messed up life of Israel; and if God hears the cry of the mixed up messed up lives of the Philistines; and he he responds, then what about my neighbourhood and what about yours?

Our God is the God of mission and we are called to partner with him. IF he is listening to the cries of our neighbours then how do we learn to listen too? And having heard, how do we then respond? I have no simple answers, only questions. But if he cared enough to engage with unfaithful Israel and irreligious Philistia, then there surely is hope for the place where I live.

TED Talks

there are many helpful and interesting TED talks. The other day I posted a link to a conversation with Edward Snowden on Facebook, and after I watched that broadcast I followed a link to a talk about bionics. Now if you grew up in the 70's you will remember The Six Million Dollar Man and the spin-off The Bionic Woman. I believe there was also a bionic dog somewhere in the storyline too, but maybe I'm just dreaming!

Whilst the programming became more and more ridiculous, the early concept, loosely based on the novel Cyborg, was intriguing and seemingly far-fetched and futuristic at the time. But here we are 40 years on and we now actually do have some amazing technology that has incredible potential for prosthetics.

Interestingly, in the Ted talk, alongside the amazing bionic legs described is a very challenging idea. Put simply, it's that technology is what is broken not the individuals with challenges. We are, or so it seems, edging ever closer to the reality of those famous opening lines form 1973, "We have the technology, we can rebuild him..."

An addendum to "Is all sin criminal?"

I've been thinking about my previous post and wanted to clarify something that's really important to me. I'm concerned that some might misunderstand my point just because of the title and so I want take it a little clearer having thought about for a while.

Essentially my point is this: Should we consider all sin (things that we do that do not honour God) to be outside the law?

I want to avoid being misquoted and misunderstood as suggesting that some things that we might call sin out to be called criminal. That's not the case. I just wanted to raise the question of how we understand the relationship between the legal system, the rights of the individual and our theology.

Does that make sense? I hope so!

Maybe I should also add that the real challenge that faces the church is not how we control the state but how we express the kingdom. When our incarnation of the gospel is an expression of exclusion of certain groups of society, then how can we expect them to be reached when we hold them beyond arms length? Are they only allowed to draw near the cross when their behaviour or beliefs are acceptable?

Is all sin criminal?

Without any heart fanfare, the news this morning made mention of the the fact that as from midnight gay marriage becomes legal in the UK (or maybe just England and Wales, I'm not sure). anyway, I was wondering when the first pronouncements might be made about this from those who have spoken so loudly about it in the past and what it says about our society's general decline. Now I've blogged before about how I see the issue and that in my opinion it isn't the ultimate threat to our way of life that some evangelicals would suggest. I'm also not so sure that the floods and storms are necessarily God's angry response to our secular government's decision to pas this measure into law.

And that's the point. We live in a secular society, and the best secular society can do is to protect the rights of all its members, or seek to do so.

In the shower this morning I was thinking about this and wondered how a conversation might go between myself and someone who wanted to understand what I thought about the whole thing. Where would my emphasis be? What questions would I raise and what reasons might I give? In the end, what is my theology, or rather how does my theology work itself out in practise over such an issue.

I remember reading John Stott's Issues Facing Christian Today when it first came out in the early 80's/late 70's. What I took away from that book wasn't necessarily a series of systematic doctrines about certain issues, but rather a way of thinking about things that was hopefully more Biblical than just textual (i.e. based on a broader understanding of the whole Bible than just the direct application of a handful of proof texts). I wasn't thinking about the book in the shower, but it's that thing about facing issues and thinking "Christinanly" about them that's the key.

I wonder if the reason we, as Christians, have got ourselves in a stir over this and other things is that we have confused the idea of what does not honour God (i.e. sin) and what is criminal. It seems to me that while all crime is  a sin, because all crime surely offends God, not all sin is a crime. Think about it for a moment. We don't criminalise lying, except when under oath in a court, but telling untruths is surely listed as dishonouring God. Similarly we don't arrest a couple for setting up home together yet from a biblical perspective we would probably agree that such a choice does not sit comfortably in the context of a desire to live a God-honouring life.

So there you have it. not fully worked out, not all the nuances explored, just a simple thought: Is all sin a crime? You tell me.

Early morning exercise

Ah the joy of getting out of bed and walking/running around the streets before breakfast! The last couple of days Anne has been on the later train and so I've got up early with her and we've gone out for a quick 25/30 minutes walk before having breakfast and starting our respective days.

It's amazing how energising it is to spend just half an hour outside at the start of the day. Not that the last few days have been warm spring starts. On with the thermal base layers, hats and gloves; pockets stuffed with tissues for the inevitable nee blowing requirement. And of course the challenge of leaving a nice warm bed for the cold kiss of frosty air. Nevertheless out we have gone and good it has been. At least for me.

Once I get started I want to keep going for as long as I can. Something inside just seems to shout, "Run!" Sadly the knees are not so keen so I keep to a pattern of intervals, walking some times, running others. Today we used lampposts, running two, walking one. That was fine until we turned a corner and realised the next two lampposts were quite a long way away.

I don't suppose I'll ever be running 5 or 10k's anymore, the knees won't take it and running isn't the only exercise I get. I often tell people that you use just as much energy walking a mile as you do running it, the only difference is how quickly you use it (and technically speaking what you use to some extent to produce the required energy).

The most liberating thing is to understand that there are no rules that say you must run. The only "rule" has to be to get out and do something and have some fun doing it. Yes it can be tedious if you're training for some endurance event, but for the average person to stay healthy the guideline remains 30 minutes of moderate exercise 5 times a week.

So go on, pull on the running tights and thermal top, cover it all up with a t-shirt or two and a pair of yoga pants, dust off your trainers and enjoy some air while it's still comparatively fresh! Your porridge will taste great when you get back!

Racket stringing update!

Well I took the plunge and restrung one of my playing rackets. In fact I've now strung it four times with different strings in different combinations.

Although quite tedious process, it's quite rewarding to string the thing and then go and play with it and see what difference the strings make. Now I'm not an ATP tour player, but even I noticed a difference. I'm lucky enough to have 3 rackets, so I have two that have been strung by the club coach for me, and I play okay with them, so having a third racket for experimental purposes is a great help. It means I don't have to restring one I like and risk getting it terribly wrong!

My first shot was with a hybrid mixture of the original Head string that the rackets come with from the factory and a synthetic gut of similar diameter. Tennis strings come in 4 or 5 thicknesses. Then I did it again with the same pattern but a different tension. The third attempt was just the factory string at the recommended tension.

My last try was to use the same pattern the coach uses in my other rackets. I figured that if I could get the same playing characteristics from my stringing as I do from his then I was doing a reasonably good job. I tried it out last week and it was fine. So I'm rather pleased with that.

The question now is how many experiments do I perform? There are so many variations of string from which to choose, one could spend the next year trying new combinations. There are hexagonal and pentagonal profiles, monofilaments and multi-filaments, braided, kevlar, titanium, synthetic and natural gut. And what about colour!! Blue, yellow, gold, red, white, black, natural. So much choice!

For the time being I think I'll stick to the strings I've got, but I might just be tempted to try something new!

Does local democracy work?

Well, in answer to my own question: We shall see.

I'll confess that the older I get the less interested I am in voting, especially in National Elections and even European ones. I'm not sure my vote actually means anything, and the argument that if you don't vote you have no right to comment or complain is just ridiculous. None of us vote for the FIFA presidency, but many of us have an opinion about it! In fact, not voting can be more meaningful than voting as long as it's not arrived at by apathy and worn out arguments. Although disillusionment with the political system as it is is probably one of those old arguments!

Anyway, to local democracy. We've got local elections coming up in our borough and I got canvassed the other day. To my surprise I heard myself say that I was beginning to think that local elections might be more important than national ones. If local democracy can be made to work better, then maybe there's hope for national democracy.

I've decided to involve myself in local democracy over an issue that impacts my immediate community. I've taken the first step in writing to a local councillor and refreshingly I got an honest and hopeful reply. A good start. The last time I wrote to political office I got short shrift and was told the Prime Minister knew better than I did. Something history might suggest was somewhat wide of the mark!

Local councillors probably have a tougher job than some of their Westminster counterparts. After all they often have full-time jobs as well as serving on the council (rather than having lucrative consultancy jobs outside parliament-or is that just cynical?). I'm hoping that my initial burst of enthusiasm isn't snuffed out by lack of action or response.

As I said at the start: We shall see!!

Lost along the way but still looking!

A number of years ago I got very excited about the emergence of something called conversational evangelism. Alongside things like servant evangelism and ordinary people doing ordinary things, it seemed to me that we were on the verge of recapturing the simplicity of evangelism as an act of sharing our lives and stories with others. No complex spiritual laws to apply and no carefully crafted answers to the 7 main objections or whatever it was.

That conversation appears to have moved on given the quick internet search I did this morning. Conversational evangelism seems now to be defined as pre-evangelism and even appears to have drifted into the old area of apologetics. Now I don't have a problem with apologetics as such, I just wonder how you can effectively argue a logic, reasonable case for faith in a post-modern world. does post-modern man or woman really want to be convinced about absolute truth?

Perhaps I'm doing the journey a disservice, but I'm concerned that as evangelicals we still only have a single way of measuring our kingdom effectiveness and we can't see the bigger picture of a person's move towards God in any other terms than those of a prayer of commitment. I'm all for people putting their lives into the hands of God and acknowledging their need, but does that mean that any other conversation, i.e. conversation that doesn't lead to conversion, is nothing more than the preamble to the real thing? I hope that's not where we are headed.

As I continue to struggle to work out what it means for me to live a kingdom life in partnership with God o his mission, I often find myself wondering about the value of the things I do. But do I really want to return to the guilty life of failed attempt to turn the tables in witnessing.

Somewhere along the line there is a place for an intentional conversation, but knowing when and how to do that is never an easy task and ought not to be the determining factor in how good or bad I am at evangelism. At the very least let's acknowledge that there are many links in the chain that leads someone to faith and sometimes we are privileged enough to be there when the final link is added. But often we are just one link in many, and our goal should be to make sure we don't leave behind anything that blocks the next link in the chain.

So, if apologetics has become the defining factor in describing conversational evangelism, then so be it. I will need to look for a new term. On the other hand  it might just be that we can rescue a potentially significant thought and recover the idea that reaching others for Christ is a process not an event and all our conversations matter. For me conversational evangelism remains a process of sharing and hearing stories and exploring the kingdom links within them. The truth is that we don't all have all the answers and our evangelism ought not to be passed on any assumption that we do.

The God who comes looking

In my last post I talked about the mission of God and how I understand it. One of the themes of my preaching over the last 20+ years has been this idea of the God who comes looking. The gospel is a story about incarnation. God becomes human, lives among a people and can be touched, heard, and seen. It is a cornerstone of the good news.

But it's not just a theological truth. It expresses something of the heart and passion God has to be amongst his people, the people he loves. It starts in the garden of the early chapters of Genesis and runs through to the later chapters of Revelation. God comes looking for Adam even though he knows he's broken the commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. In Revelation, the final stages of the unfolding story are described in terms of the new city. A place where God "dwells among the people and they will be his people and he will be their God."

But this isn't just a neat literary device, neatly drawing the two ends of a long narrative together. It's fundamental to the whole story and woven throughout it's pages. God is seen regularly making special excursions into the lives of individuals. He speaks directly to some and does extraordinary things in the lives of others. I think God's great desire to live amongst his people is most clearly exemplified in the building of the Tabernacle. When you read the description of the tents and the design and layout of the Tabernacle, you might think it's designed to keep the people out. Clearly demarked areas and processes to be followed, threats of imminent destruction and judgement for failure to follow the rules might make you think that God was excluding them rather than including them.

But shift your perspective for a moment and ask yourself how does a holy, perfect God live right in the middle of an unholy and imperfect people without destroying them? If the natural outcome of an encounter between the unholy and holy is that the unholy is judged and with that judgement comes destruction, then the Tabernacle becomes the only way God could achieve his desire to be among the people without destroying them. Mercy does indeed triumph over judgement.

Ultimately this passionate desire to live in close connection with humanity is seen in Jesus Christ as the holy God becomes flesh and blood. Amazing isn't it, to think that there was a time in human history when a person could touch God without dying a sudden death. When God comes looking, it's because he loves you.

Yes, there are those salutary moments when judgement breaks out, when the holiness of God seems no longer to be able to dwell with the unholiness of humanity. But the overwhelming narrative of the Bible is that God comes looking for us and does so because in some way heaven is incomplete without us and he can't stand the idea of us not being there. He will do and has done whatever it takes to make it possible for us to live with him as he desires to live with us.

For as long as I get to keep preaching, I'll keep talking about the God who comes looking.

Defining God's Mission

It's somewhat presumptuous of me, or anyone to think that we can actually define what it is that God wants to do in the world. We can however look at what he has done and what he says about what he does, and try to interpret that in a way that helps us participate.

For a long time now, my guiding principle for understanding my relationship to the mission of God has been in the form of this simple question: Lord, what are you doing, and how can I help? It comes from reading John 5 and the statement of Jesus that he does "only what he sees the Father doing". I've been around church long enough to have sent enough time conceiving grand plans on the assumption that God would naturally bless whatever it was we were planning to do. Rarely, if ever, did we stop and ask ourselves what he was already doing in our communities and neighbourhoods.

With the advent of missional church language and through a process of reflecting on why evangelism was so hard and how we could make it a more natural expression of our discipleship, I began to discover a working vocabulary that has helped me redefine the mission and my relationship to it. It is not complete yet, ad I guess probably never will be. I also must report that as yet we haven't seen anything spectacular, we haven't planted a thriving new church with a whole new outlook on community engagement. We're still on the journey and I'm none the wiser about what God is doing in my neighbourhood.

But, over the years, I've come to a few realisations and conclusions that have helped me see God's mission differently to way I saw it back in the 70's and 80's. Those realisations include the following:

• First, generally speaking, church works for people who like church and it doesn’t work for everyone else! 

• Second, people who don’t yet know Jesus aren’t really unhappy, unfulfilled and having a bad time. They actually seem to enjoy their lives far more than the average Christian enjoys theirs. 

• Thirdly, the simple fact that God is on a mission and has a church through whom he wants to work, and with whom he wants to work in partnership.

The church's mandate is to partner with God in his mission rather than seek to plan and do the work for him. Mission is much more than just evangelism. John Stott once defined mission as everything the church does. I didn't fully comprehend the implications of that statement at the time and even questioned whether it was true, but that was mainly from the perspective of looking at what the church was doing and wondering if it was actually part of God's mission. Looking back, I think I understand more fully how this fits in the context of we might now call the missional church.

The other thing that shifted my perspective was the concept of servant evangelism and the idea of ordinary evangelism. The latter is best summed up in the words of Jim Henderson, which I'll paraphrase from memory:

If ordinary people can't do it (i.e. evangelism/mission) in ordinary ways, ordinarily it won't get done.

I do believe that taken together, these concepts have helped me understand more deeply where I fit in big picture of what God is doing. It needs seasoning with some intentionality and a few other things,  but overall being ordinary, doing ordinary things, but understanding them to be part of trying to see what God is up to and partnering with him is the natural environment for my part in his mission.

As to defining that mission, well I got asked to preach this last Sunday and I chose to share our story in the context of talking about some of these things. I defined God's mission this way:

To let everyone know that God is for them and not against them. That he loves them with a passion and we can make this known through the things we say and do and the quality of the relationships we share.

That mission is redemptive (restoring the broken relationship between humanity and God through the cross of Christ) and it’s active (God came looking, Jesus said, “Go!” He sent the church to the world, not the world to church.)

This is the kind of church I believe Jesus wants to build. A church made up of people who will partner with him on his mission to bless the world and share the message of his redemptive love and sacrifice. Being missional is about making disciples who make disciples so that the world can be saturated with people who love Jesus. It's not about doing more mission. It’s not just about becoming socially active or engaged.

We do what we do because we are the people of God partnering with God in his mission to the world. That mission is primarily a mission of incarnation, where God comes to dwell amongst the people he loves and seeks to redeem them into relationship with him.

Balance the reports please!

As you know I rather enjoy playing tennis. I'm also quite interested in watching it and reading about it. I often go to the BBC website to news of tournaments. But I have to say I'm rather disappointed in the BBC website's reporting of the semi-finals from Indian Wells in the last couple of days. There was an article about Federer and Djokovic. 19 sentences, all as single line paragraphs, detailing the two semi-finals and making references to Federer's new coaching team. Fair enough, not a bad summary of events.

Then I went to read about Li Na's semi-final against Flavia Pennetta. Shorter at 11 sentences, but here's the rub, only 4 of the 11 sentences were actually about the match. 6 were about Federer and Djokovic, 1 about the fact that both finals were on Sunday.

It might sound picky, but I found it really frustrating that whoever wrote the second report thought we need more about the men's final rather than the women's tournament. There wasn't even a mention of the other ladies semi-final.

There's little I can do about it, and I'm not sure I'm going to take it up with the BBC, perhaps I should. It just annoyed me that someone thought a decent report about the ladies matches in their own right would not be enough to make the article worth reading.

Promises

Hannah took her vow to dedicate Samuel to God's service very seriously. Her prayer was profound and heartfelt. It came out of her sense of deepest need and trouble. But her promise was no simple off the cuff remark, uttered like a "get out of jail free" card. The kind of promise we make to be good if only the presenting situation resolves itself in our favour. Hannah's promise was no virtual promise, no promise without intention to see it through.

It was a promise she would keep. She would take Samuel to Eli and leave him there. How hard must that have been? How strong must she have been? How flippant some of our promises must seem in comparison. How littered are our lives with broken promises made in the heat of the moment but lacking any intention to fulfil.

Think about Hannah the next time you hear yourself making a vow.

Another new skill!

Over the last couple of years I've been thinking about learning how to string a tennis racket. Why? Well because it's interesting, at least it is to me! Perhaps I have an inquisitive nature or just some deep need to try new things.

Anyway, I bought myself a stringing machine around Christmas time and I finally got around to setting it up and having a go. The delay was mainly due to working out how to calibrate the tensioning system. There instructions are clear and I bought a tension checker when I got the machine. The only problem was that I wasn't sure the checker was accurate. The scales didn't seem to match (Pounds and Kilos) and I didn't know which one was wrong. Anyway, I got some fishing scales and compared the two, but this still didn't satisfy my scientific need for accuracy. I needed up weighing a large bag of cat litter using both devices and decided which scale I could trust.

With the machine set up, I took and old racket and set about stringing it. I've done three now and worked out a few useful tips. The most important one being to keep my fingers out of the way of the brake lever when tensioning the string! It locks out with quite a snap and if your finger is in the way it's both painful and messy when it hits the soft bit just below the nail (ouch!)

I haven't yet strung one of my playing rackets, but I will take the plunge at some point and do one now I'm okay with the process. The difficult bit is making sure you've got notes of where the main and cross strings start and finish. Quite how you do that when you buy an unstrung frame I don't know, maybe they come with instructions.

So why am I doing this? Is it just because it's interesting? Well yes and and no. Strings can have an impact on the way you play. The more tension they have the more control you have and the lower the tension the more power there is. Different strings have different playing characteristics, and it might be fun to explore different combinations to see what effect they have. And it's a nice thought that when a string breaks you can bring the racket home and restring it yourself. They say that you should restring your rackets as often in a year as you play in a week. At the moment that would mean restringing my rackets every 2-3 months! Three rackets at £12 a racket works out at £144 to £216 a year! Not that I do that, but if I did and if I did it myself I think it would work out at between £2 and £5 a racket. So quite a saving.

In reality, you get your racket restrung when you break a string, probably once every 6-8 months in my case. So I'm not saving a fortune, just learning a new skill and keeping the grey matter working. 

Speaking of which, I'm currently reading a book on biomechanics alongside finishing off "Bounce". I find the whole biomechanics thing really interesting, and when I've finished that book I have one on myofascial structures to read. I feel a trip to a coffee shop coming on!

Cracking on through "Bounce"

To people who have never reached a national or international level of competition, it may appear that excellence is simply the result of practicing daily for years or even decades. However, living in a cave does not make you a geologist. 

I came across this quote in a paper by K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely called: The Making of an Expert. I read the article because I'd also read a piece on the BBC website around the topic of practice and excellence because I'm working my way steadily through Matthew Syed's book, and very interesting it is too. While it would be a rather reductionist simplification of the book, the basic premise is rather simple: Practice not talent makes for excellence.

From what else I've read, the 10,000 hours principle of purposeful practice is both a generalised average, some achieved excellence with fewer hours and some with considerably more, and really only the beginning of understanding the path to doing something well. Other evidence does appear to suggest that there are factors other than practice that contribute to one's overall ability to achieve your goals. For example, some research suggests that visual acuity is better is better performing athletes where their sport involves what we might call hand-eye coordination.
It is however quite clear that too often we buy into the talent myth, and limit our own potential on the basis of our perceived lack of talent. Most of us don't like practicing things we find difficult to do, and, when we do try something harder, we are quicker to declare that we can't do it than we are to encourage ourselves to persevere.

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere along a continuum of complex abilities married to purposeful, deliberate practice. Practice that stretches and challenges our abilities from a position of what we can do towards what we can learn to do better.

The truth is that if you reduce either Ericsson's research or Syed's book to a simple algorithm, then you miss the point. If I want to improve the percentage of forehand's I make in a game, then I have to measure both my success rate and the repeatability of those successes. In other words, when I practice I have to have a goal in mind and I need some form metric to apply. That metic not only needs to take into account how many shots I make but how "good" my technique is when I make the shot.

Reading Matthew Syed's book carefully, thoughtfully and critically will draw you to those conclusions. Read it superficially and you'll probably be disappointed in ten years time when you've practiced for all the required hours and still not achieved greatness!

Some rambling thoughts about independence

I'm not Scottish. I'm English, to be more or less precise about things. Actually I prefer to think about being a citizen of the UK, although that has caused confusion in the past! We were in Chicago staying at a local motel. I'd put "UK" on the form as our country of origin. The owner thought that meant Ukraine and complemented me on my English language skills!

Anyway, back to independence. In a few months time Scotland will decide whether to remain a part of the union or not. It sounds simple, but as with all of these things it's actually quite a complicated issue, made ever more complicated by history, or so it seems. Now, not only am I not a Scot, but I'm not an economist and I'm no great student of either history, politics or social sciences. I'm pretty neutral about who should vote too. I don't have a "West Lothian" question to raise.

What I do wonder is why the arguments in favour of staying in the union seem to be predicated upon a foundation of fear about what might be lost. don't go independent, you'll lose the pound, membership of the EU is not a given, all those sorts of things. Are there no better arguments pro union that these? Surely there are things about the union that are positive beyond a common currency a shared defence force and oil revenues.

Perhaps, what the arguments lacks something to do with interdependence, working and living together in a society not divided by our historical mistakes and prejudices, but shaped by a mutually positive future. You don't have to have an old Roman wall between you and Westminster to wonder about some of the decisions that are made there. I lived in London in the early 80's and watched as the then government dismantled the coal and manufacturing industries of the Midlands and other regions of our country. I only had to jump on a train back to my home city of Nottingham to see that central government appeared to be out of touch life away from the metropolis of London.

So here's my plea. If you're going to say anything about why Scotland should vote to stay in the union, then make it positive. If they vote for independence than we will work out what to do with the currency, what to do about sharing out the debt and how to negotiate our way through a period of change. Hopefully we'd support them in a bid to be part of the EU in their own right and we wouldn't become protective of the border!

Storms, tempest and judgment

If someone asked you if you believed that God was judging the nation through the floods and storms of recent weeks, what would you say? Would you say no in order to avoid being thought of as a religious fanatic, when in fact you rather think the correct answer is yes. Or would you say no and wonder what that says about your view of the Old Testament in particular?

On the other hand you might well say yes because you see God acting in this way in the Bible and see no reason to deny that he continues to to do the same and that in fact the Bible makes it quite clear that judgment is coming and that will take the form of earthquakes and floods because you remember reading that somewhere or you heard it one Sunday night when someone preached about the end times.

Perhaps I should call my insurance company and ask them how the determine whether something is an "act of God". Then again, maybe we ought to remind ourselves that judgment, whatever form it might or might not take, is God's area of expertise and his prerogative, not ours. You'd think sometimes that we believe that we're best placed to make the call, but that would put us at the very least on an equal footing with God if not slightly ahead of him, and that is surely a dangerous position in which to find ourselves! Is it not enough for us to know that one day God will judge and he will do so righteously. Ours is a simpler task: to live lives that honour God. To love others into the kingdom rather than judge them out of it. Sometimes that's messy, sometimes it looks like we're compromising our faith. Jesus was known as a friend of sinners and it wasn't meant as a complement.

I try not to judge anyone. When I was the minister of a local church, something I did for 20 years, I often seemed to end up asking folk who's found themselves in some situation or another whether they thought their situation and the way they were handling it honoured God or not. Rarely did I ever have to point them to a particular verse or passage that talked about their situation. They knew the Bible well enough to work it out for themselves.

Is that enough? I don't know. And for the record, neither do I know whether the recent storms are a result of global warming to divine displeasure. The former is certainly a factor and as to the latter, I haven't asked and God hasn't told me.

Sugar versus Fat

Did you see the Horizon programme about sugar and fat? It's still available on iPlayer until about the 3rd of March if you haven't seen it. It's an interesting experiment with some interesting conclusions. I know it's a bit of a spoiler, but the final conclusion, that refined foods are the biggest issue, is far from as surprising at it appears to be in the programme. What was interesting is the reason why.

It would appear that it's down to the fat/sugar ratio and the way that tricks our bodies into not self-regulating our intake. In other words, we just keep eating. These refined foods are calorie dense, very pleasing to eat and have the ability to switch off the self-regualting system. That's what makes them dangerous.

The Myth of Talent

I've started reading Matthew Syed's book "Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice". It's a book I've been wanting to read for some time along with Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point". Gladwell's book was first published in 2000, and Bounce in 2011, so I'm typically late to the party, but better late than never!

The premise of Bounce is that practice not talent is what produces excellence. Elite sports people might look super talented, but it's the hours of practice that make the difference. The first part of the book is all about debunking the myth that it's talent that distinguished the best from the rest, and that anyone can achieve things that seem beyond their abilities with sufficient application. Interesting.

Syed cites a number of researchers and research studies that support his thesis, and the data is compelling. It's quite heartening to know that, for example, I can become a consistently better tennis player given enough practice. But the practice must be purposeful rather than undirected. There's one great quote from Jack Nicklaus:

It isn't so much a lack of talent; it's a lack of being able to repeat good shots consistently that frustrates most players. And the only answer to that is practice.

 Okay, so here's the not so good news. It takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve excellence! At 1,000 hours a year, that means it takes on average 10 years to achieve that level of performance. This apparently holds true across the board. Those youngsters who appear talented beyond their years and in comparison to their peers, on investigation have just compressed their practice into a shorter time frame and have had the advantage of superior coaching along the way.

How does that inform the rest of us? Well, take the example of church leadership, something I have some experience in! When someone is appointed to the leadership team of a church do we just assume they come with all the skills and gifts required of them to perform well as a leader? How do we give them the time to practice, to prepare for leadership? How do we develop their skills so they become excellent leaders?

We can't get them practicing four hours a day for the next ten years, and in truth they come to the leadership table with many gifts and skills already developed. That's why we appointed them, right? But a typical two terms as a deacon in many baptist churches might just not give someone the opportunity to truly develop their potential. Asking them to serve for 10+ years in a row would often wear out all but the most determined or simply belligerent of leaders!

I don't have an answer, but simply ask the question. As for me, I realise a couple of things. Firstly, if I'm going to improve my tennis I need to practice more and maybe play less. At the very least the balance of practice and play needs to be thought through. When it comes to my massage practice, there's a similar challenge around the amount of clinical practice I need to go from being a competent therapist and an excellent one. Sadly I probably don't have enough years left to fully achieve my potential in either of these disciplines, but that doesn't mean I don't have a target in mind and some goals to achieve.

The point here I guess is that you need a plan. Whatever your goals might be and no matter how realistic they appear, the key is in that phrase "purposeful practice". It might be a simple plan, for example to hit ten consecutive cross court forehands into a specific area of the court rather than just "over and in". It might be to sign up for a CPD course on sports injuries to further my knowledge base for therapy.

And for you? How are you going to apply the principle that it's not about how much talent you have but how much you are willing to invest in practice whatever that might mean?

Online abuse and bullying

I must say, I'm getting rather concerned about the whole issue of online abuse and bullying. It's come to the fore once again as yet another sports person closes their Twitter account because of threats received via that particular medium. Something surely needs to be done. But what?

Not being an internet savvy kind of person, at least not in the tracing ISP's or DNS locations, I have no idea how easy it would be to block a particular location regularly used by an abuser. Obviously companies could close accounts and block usernames, but choosing a new username and setting up a new account is the obvious get around for such action.

I guess this kind of behaviour is almost a natural extension of the couch bound sports watcher who shouts abuse at the TV from the comfort of their armchair or even from the terraces when they can muster the energy to drag themselves to the stadium. Perhaps you have to play or have played sport to understand just a little of what it means to compete and how small errors of judgement in the moment can lead to failing to achieve the goals you've set for yourself.

Perhaps online abuse is just a symptom of a wider malaise that infects our society and undermines our communities. How different might it be if we sought to be encouragers rather than critics.

In the end the only thing that is likely to have an impact on social media giants is loss of revenue. That would require a large scale rejection of the service, thousands of people closing their Twitter or Facebook accounts, or maybe a strike on updates and comments. Perhaps a day of action when everyone posts a "This must stop" message, a sort of internet version of the famous scene from Network, when Peter Finch's character, Howard Beale, calls on his audience to open their windows and shout: "We're as mad as hell, and we're not going to take this anymore."

On the other hand, a quieter revolution, one where we we teach ourselves and others that there is a better way,  one where we take responsibility for ourselves and own our comments. One where we remember that abuse hurts whatever form it takes and most people are actually more fragile than we think.

If you have a minute, read the Wikipedia entry on "Sticks and stones", the old adage that suggests that abuse, in the form of name calling, doesn't hurt. And then ask yourself if it's true.

Communities not missionaries

Here's a really interesting post from David Fitch about sending communities rather than individuals. The premise is that migration is key as communities move into new areas and live subject to God's reign.

Read the article here.

David Puttnam on "A duty of care"

This is an interring short talk and worth a watch. It raises a number of issues, particularly around the role of the media, but it has implications beyond that. For those who access the Bible, the theme of "a duty of care" should certainly not be unfamiliar and echoes of Isaiah and the story of the Good Samaritan, to name but two, come immediately to mind.

I guess the really big question from the talk is how do we go about reengaging in a democratic system that has lost it's soul as ours appears to have done.

My first attempt with a sewing machine!

I talked Anne into buying a new sewing machine on the basis that I would have a go with it too. I wanted to make a thin hoodie to replace one I used to have but wore out. When I play tennis in the winter it's nice to use several thin layers, but most hoodies are relatively thick and too warm for me.

And this is the result of my efforts with help and encouragement from the aforementioned Anne who helped me understand the pattern, cut the pieces and figure out the assembly process. But I did all the sewing, which is probably the most straightforward bit of the whole process!

Narcissism: It's officially a trait of Social Media Users!

I was reading The Times at the gym after my swim this morning (I decided that if I was going to get wet through doing some exercise it might as well be intentional and not because the weather is unrelentingly bad), and I came across an interesting little article in the technology section about research into social media usage. Apparently Facebook status updates are favoured by the middle-aged whilst Twitter is the preferred medium of the young.

Apparently the need to post one's current status is a clear sign that one is too self-involved. And possibly that you've got too much time on your hands and need to get out more. According to the article:

Hundreds of students participated in the reattach, published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour. It found that those who were vain tended to tweet more, but those who were middle-aged and fond of themselves preferred Facebook.

The researcher (I can't remember his name and it's not in the photograph I took of the article !) found that: "Facebook acted as a mirror to the user's perceived image."

So there you have it. If you constantly need the affirmation that others are reading your posts, or you are just too self-involved, then monitor your Facebook usage. It could be telling the world more about yourself than you thought it was.

Independence!

Having resigned my commission so-to-speak and come off the accredited list of Baptist ministers, I felt a little isolated and vulnerable when it came to my position when serif families through the funerals that I have continued to do. I could have taken out a simple insurance policy to cover me, but I wanted to look for something that was more than just a liability protection plan. 

So I've joined an organisation called the Federation of Independent Celebrants. It's a mixture of folk from all sorts of backgrounds who serve in a variety of ways celebrating life's great events. It's early days of course, so there's little for me to say about how it all works and what it means to me beyond the insurance cover to be part of such an organisation. On the either hand it's good to be part of something and I look forward to learning from and maybe sharing with others.

If you're in a similar position to me, independent of a church and yet still looking to serve the community in this way, then you too might like to look at the FOIC. You can read more about them at the website foic.org.uk.

How easy is "Sorry"?

Sorry seems to be the hardest word. The vents of the last couple of weeks would seem to bear out the truth of the Elton John and Bernie Taupin song. It seems to me that there are several problems or issues that have become more obvious recently that prevent people from sating sorry. 

The first is the presumption of guilt. If I say sorry that means that I've done something wrong. I am guilty of whatever it is someone chooses to accuse me of doing and I can't afford that to be implied. Second, the is the greater issue of self-justification. I can't afford to say sorry because the truth is my action were irresponsible or impulsive and I don't want to admit that. A third issue is that sorry is no longer enough.

These issues work both ways. We can't' accept an apology because it undermines our right to be wronged, our sense of paranoia or some other undercurrent of self. In essence we can't say sorry or accept sorry because it leaves us vulnerable, defenceless in a world that constantly demands that we justify almost everything we do and at no time do ever make a mistake.

Of course some things are so serious that there has to be something more than a simple sorry, and a sorry without any change in actions is worthless because there's no growth, no acceptance that we need to do something differently no matter how innocent or harmless we think our act or words might have been. Justice is not set aside by the humility of an apology. An apology however admits some culpability, some level of responsibility for the own actions.

It just seems to me that if a sports person who makes an inappropriate gesture acknowledges with hindsight that it was stupid and inappropriate, and that they are truly sorry for any offensive cause, then it would go a long way to resolving the situation. Similarly if one's actions cause offence or are inappropriate then that too can be a cause for expressing sorrow without it become some sort go guilty plea in a media circus driven court.

I'm not saying that sorry makes everything okay. I remember a particular episode on Frasier where Niall and Frasier have a significant issue to deal with when Niall ends up in bed with Frasier's ex-wife. Niall apologises and asks Frasier, "Are we good now?" To which Frasier replies, "No, but we will be."

Sorry is the first step in reconciliation, and maybe a significant step in addressing what happened, why it happened and how to move forward.

I wish sorry wasn't the hardest word, but it seems that it will continue to be so for those who are too afraid to admit their frailty and their need for help to live well with others.

Energy drinks

Did you know that a 500ml can of "relentless", one of many so-called energy drinks, contains 56% of the average adult's daily guideline amount of sugar? I always assumed they had a pretty high sugar and caffeine content, but 56%!

I got thinking about this as I watched a BBC Breakfast News report about energy drinks and young people. The debate was centred around banning or not banning these sorts of drinks for younger individuals and the "soft drinks" industry duly made all the right noises about them not being appropriate for anyone under 16 (although apparently one drink states on its label that it's not suitable for anyone under 3!), and the need for parental vigilance. But let's be honest, if my mum had told me not to drink Coke when I was 14 would I have listened? I think you all know the answer to that.

The good news is that today's generation has way more information available to them about nutrition and the affect of sugar and caffeine etc on their health. The fact that they are still teenagers mitigates against making the best choices, but that's just how it is.

The truth is that while we are better informed than we ever were, we're still human and we don't make positive choices easily. Just because you can make a soft drink with 50g of sugar in it and 32mg/100ml caffeine doesn't mean necessarily that you should! Typically a standard can of Coke contains about 30mg caffeine and 16g sugar. A medium latte weighs in at 12.8g sugar and 150mg caffeine (Starbucks tall). But how many 15 year old would get through 2 or 3 lattes in a day compared to 2 or 3 cans of sugar filled carbonated caffeine water?

Maybe we will have to start labelling these drinks with their ingredients and side-effects in larger print, limit their age availability and put them behind closed doors as we've tried to do with cigarettes. I've yet to see the shutters down over the tobacco supplies in several well-know stores, so I'm a little sceptical about the impact of such measures.

What kept me from smoking was learning about the affect it had on health. Perhaps, if we taught more nutrition, improved understanding of what contributes to a healthy diet, then we could address many of the worries and concerns about fast food, energy drinks and other issues our western diet faces.

I recently did a couple of seminars about nutrition and when I asked the audience "What is nutrition?", the perceived understanding was that nutrition was about healthy stuff. Until we understand that nutrition is about everything we eat and drink we won't make much headway on issues surrounding what our young people are choosing to eat and drink.

Wel, I'm off for a glass of water before running around a tennis court for an hour or so. I won't be reaching for the Red Bull, Lucozade or even an isotonic, isolytic sports drink to keep me going. Just a bottle of water and a oxygen tank!

2014: When did that happen?!

Well, it's 2014. Already two weeks into the new year and I'm wondering how we got this far. Actually the start to the year has been pretty quiet. Last year I had quite a few funerals in January, but so far this year I've only got one, but I have had to say no to a couple, so may things are similar to 2013. The "no's" arose because they fell on a day I was unavailable because of a non-moveable appointment. I'm always disappointed when I have to say no to a funeral. Not because of the fee, but because I feel like I'm letting family down by being unavailable. But that's inevitable some times, an unavoidable consequence of life.

My unavailability on that day was because I was teaching in a local college. I'd been invited to do a couple of workshops about nutrition, fitness, anatomy and physiology with dance students. It was a good, interesting and challenging day. I was quite exhausted by the end of it. Hopefully there will be other opportunities to do the same in the next academic year.

So, 2014, what are my plans, hopes and dreams? Well, to be honest, I've not really given it a great deal of thought. I caught myself asking someone a question the other day about their one big hope for the year, only to wonder if I had one. Turns out I did, but unlike other years when I've sat down and given careful thought to the vision for the coming year in church, these last two years haven't had that focus. Last year my 'vision' was to complete y course and get qualified, but this year, well i don't seem to have a plan yet.

Off the top of my head I have a few goals I'd like to achieve. Getting under 14st, would be one of them! I'd also like to get my LTA rating down to 8.2. Both of those are measurable and ought to be achievable. In fact reaching the first could help with the second if it means I'll be fitter and a little faster around the court. The second requires me to win two competitive matches, which doesn't sound hard but last year's results tell a different story. Hopefully I'll play better this year, and I'll try to practice more too. What I need is a hitting partner with whom to practice and some match play strategy.

Losing the extra weight is going to be tough. I know we did it a few years ago, but I didn't work hard enough at keeping it off and I'm not sure what to do about it this time. In one sense it's really simple. Move more, eat less. But simple as it sounds, it's more difficult in practice. Eating less is easier when you measure what you eat, so keeping a diary will help there. But it's not just a matter of volume, it's the calories that count. If I were giving myself advice about this I'd probably say don't beat yourself up about what you can't change, but take action in what you can change. Take positive steps towards your goal not negative ones.

So, let's get 2014 on the road. Set some goals, work out a plan, write a list. Do whatever it takes to set out on a journey towards 2015 that hopefully won't mean 2014 ends with a list of if only's but that it ends with a list of I did that's instead!

The narcissism of social media

Well now, here's an interesting thing!


Source: BestComputerScienceSchools.net

You don't have to be a social scientist or psychology student to notice how self-centred social media can be. Just think about the number of times you see a " post this" message on Facebook. Even worse are those messages that suggest you somehow don't care about an issue because you choose not to repost some bit of social media chain mail.

There is sometimes also a run of people posting something along the lines of a request to write something on their timeline just to let them know you've read their status update. It's as if they are seeking assurance that they still exist and the only affirmation of that comes through being noticed on the internet.

I often refrain from commenting on status updates, sometimes because the only comment I want to make is grammatical! The other reason is more subtle in some ways. While I like to know what people are doing, what they've discovered or what they are reading, even sometimes what they've found funny or inspiring, it should be enough that they share that with me. It ought not to need my response in order to validate the worth of their sharing. I blog, for example, as a process of thinking out loud about stuff. If I did only on the basis that people read what I write, then I'd have stopped long ago. I don't stop thinking because you don't read or comment on what I write. I am at least not that preoccupied with self.

It also has to be said that when someone shares that they are looking forward to taking part in the donkey procession, I'm tempted to ask them which donkey they will be the said procession!

I think social media has real value in connecting us and sharing stories and news, but if we treat it as a way to validate ourselves, then we truly will become increasingly narcissistic. And where, I wonder, might that lead us?

Just to let you know: I haven't checked this for typing errors or grammatical mistakes and I don't really want to know if I've made any unless they substantially alter the intended meaning! Just in case you were struggling to sleep wondering if I knew about the misplaced comma or dropped capitalisation!

Light in the darkness

It's advent. At some point in the next few weeks the opening prologue of John's gospel will be read in churches up and down the country. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the word was God." It's a great opening to the unfolding story of the gospel narrative.

I was talking to some friends the other and they were lamenting the state of the world as usual. Big business avoiding tax and destroying the local traders; pay rates for MPs (it may be deserved but is it appropriate to do it now?); the unsustainable nature of first world economic models; does greed mitigate against the emergence of an equitable society? The usual list of things. Add to that the drugs issues, the crime rates, the lack of opportunity, falling pension rates, higher retirement ages and you might be tempted to despair of the situation. Is this really the world as it should be?

Even as a follower of Jesus Christ it is hard sometimes to remain hopeful in the face of what we around us. But that's where John's prologue comes to life. It's not just about the eternal nature of the Son and the Father or the opportunity we have to become children of God, or even the incarnation, important as these things are to our faith. No, here's a crucial phrase from those opening verses:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Whether you prefer overcome or understood doesn't really matter. What matters is that light drives out darkness.  Darkness is, as I'm sure you know, simply the lack of light. While there is light there is hope.  Paul reminds us that hope has two partners, faith and love, and together these three can change the world. Hope may not be the greatest according to the apostle, but hope breaks into our present reality and points us to a better future. Much of that may only be realised in the future kingdom, but that doesn't mean we do not have hope in the present and for the present. If one who advocated violence can a way of peace and reconciliation, then although the world may be lost it is not doomed and the gospel can and does change everything.

Light truly does drive out darkness.

Exploring a book idea

I know there are plenty of books out there, and adding to their numbers might not be the best idea I've ever had, but I have something in mind and thought I should at the very least explore the idea.

My plan is to write a short guide about funerals. Planning funeral is difficult enough without the added effects of grief and loss. I've met well organised people and I've met people who are so stunned that they can hardly think straight. Grief is such an individual journey and I'd like to see if I can do something to help.

The idea is to write something that can read in an hour or less and that sets out some thoughts about the things to consider. I thought I'd look at including something about how to celebrate someone's life away from the funeral. In church life we have thanksgiving services, but what might you do if you don't want to gather in that way?

So that's my idea. I thought if I went a little more public with the idea, then that might encourage me to get disciplined about the task and see where I get in the next few months. At the very least it might help me improve my service to those families I have the privilege to serve at times of loss.

What happens to the surplus stock?

Anne and I were wandering around our local shopping centre on Saturday looking for a few Christmas gifts. What struck me, as I stood in the dedicated Christmas section of a large, well-know, high street retailer, was what happens to all the stuff that doesn't get sold? Once the sales come to and end, there's bound to still be stock left-over, where does it all go? My guess was landfill.

So there I was. Surrounded by all the retailing razzmatazz of tinsel and glitter and I'm suddenly struck by the wastefulness of it all. A bah-humbug moment if ever I saw one coming. But then, this morning on the breakfast news a ray of hope. A new supermarket selling remaindered stack to low income families. What a great idea.

The article is here if you missed the news item live, but how long it will be at this link I don't know, so a few details might help. It's called a "social supermarket" and is the first of its kind in the UK. I think it compliments Foodbanks and looks like a great way to keep unsold stock out of landfill. The supermarket is run by an organisation called the Company Shop, a business that has been dealing with surplus stock for over 20 years according to their corporate website. They run staff shops across the country, but the social supermarket is the first foray into something new.

It makes a whole lot of sense in so many ways. Enabling families facing economic challenges to have access to affordable products; protecting the environment by keeping unnecessary waste out of landfill; offering a longer-term solution to food poverty than food banks can, to name three that come to mind. Let's hope it proves a great success.

Ah, Meccano!

When I was growing up I had Meccano, and I loved it. My first set came at Christmas one year when I was probably around 6 or 8. It was the old red and green stuff as I recall. The first few projects mainly involved me sitting watching my Dad put models together. He was engrossed in what he was doing, I was "helping" but mostly wondering who had got Meccano for Christmas, me or him!

My father did make me a wooden tray with a sliding lid in which to keep my construction kit, and when it was added to another year, I was allowed to make things myself. My favourite project was a large crane with a roll-out bogey on s swivel platform that I could use to raise and lower things from the landing over the stairs. 

Eventually the Meccano was packed away and passed on in later years to another member of the family. Sadly not all of it came back, and the disappointment I felt even as an adult was palpable. I don't think I realised just how much this simple construction kit meant to me. It was more than a toy, it was a world of creativity. Even now I can hardly bear thinking about opening the box in which I have what's left of my original sets, knowing what I'll find. My Meccano was probably the only thing I ever put away completely when I'd finished with it. I could account for every item, it was that important to me to have all the parts exactly where they should be.

Well, it's obviously been a long time since it saw the light of day, but I have been thinking, rather wistfully I have to say, about the possibility of reinvesting in this wonderful engineering toy. Maybe I'm just daft, but perhaps it might be fun to build that crane, or something similar once again. I know I don't have all the parts, and I don't even have the books (they were lost too) so I can't even write a list of what's missing and try to replace it all. But I have seen a great set and maybe I could argue that it's just in case I ever become a grandparent!! After, what grandchild of mine wouldn't want to sit for hours watching me put together a model crane!

An Equitable Society

I have, among my list of posts, a number of "draft" pieces that I've never quite figured out how to finish or what to do with them. This is one I started a while ago after a report on the news one morning. It's far from a complete, even thoughtful exploration of an idea, but it's an emerging theme that I want to think about in more depth. It concerns the growing divide between the wealthy and the poor and everyone else in-between. Theologically, it is the starting point for thinking about what the gospel has to say about economics and issues around greed, power, and wealth. 

Am I getting old or is the world actually becoming a less equitable society? I choose the word carefully because I'm not advocating equality, an equalised distribution of wealth and resources. I have no problem with there being a degree of differentiation, but the current state of economics leaves me wondering if the first world economic dream can be anything but unrealistic  and inequitable.

This morning the news carried the story of the referendum in Switzerland to limit executive pay to 12 times that of the lowest paid worker. It will probably fail. Vested interests will make sure of that. Apparently businesses will leave the country in droves should it pass, or at least that's what we are told. For years we've been fed the half-truth that you have to pay high salaries to chief executives if we want the best, but as we all know those people we thought were the best turned out to less than capable of leading the way anywhere except into a financial meltdown.

And whoever came up with the idea that the performance of a business is based solely on the performance of the person at the top? Good as they may be, they rely on the performance of those lower down the ladder for the success of the company. I'm not sure at what point along the way we lose sight of this simple truth. Is it when we reach a position of authority where we have more to lose financially, or is it just a matter of personal greed?

So, apart from being just a rant about executive pay in the top 100 companies going up by 14% while most workers have lost money, hours or jobs, what am I trying to say? I'm not sure. I just know that something must change. A new model is needed if we are going to dismantle the growing divide between rich and poor and replace it with something that reflects an understanding of society that doesn't concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few. The issue isn't that some people are rich while others are poor, it's that the difference continues to grow wider and deeper.

Perhaps, if the top 100 companies took a longer term look at themselves they would invest across the workforce and encourage their senior executives to see themselves as part of the package and not the icing on the cake. There are examples of this, executives who don't pay themselves excessively, but they are probably too few and too far between.

Maybe if we stopped measuring our value in terms of what we own or what we can buy, then that too might just make a move in the direction of a more equitable society.

Perhaps this is all just tilting at windmills, but while the divide grows, so too it seems does a presumption that the poor are poor because of something they have done. It's their fault. While we buy into such an argument, we will never ask the truly tough questions about our first world greed and the kind of model we are exporting to the rest of the world. Concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the few cannot be good for society as a whole.

Where was I in '63?

I was six years old when John Kennedy was assassinated. I remember, vaguely, the events and the news, but I can't say I belong to the club that remembers where they were the day it all happened. I guess as a six year old in the UK, it actually wasn't that high on my list of important events that day.

I have clearer memories of the events of 1968, when in April Martin Luther King, and then in June Bobby Kennedy where both assassinated. By then I was a more mature ten, going on eleven. I was getting ready to go up to secondary school. I managed to pass my 11+ and secure a place at a Grammar School, starting in September 1969. Most of that year, '68-'69, was focussed on this transition and getting used to the idea that I was meant to feel both privileged and grateful for achieving this goal. Needless to say I felt neither, and wondered more about what I'd done. After all it was me who passed the exam!

On the other hand, there was something about the three political murders that nagged away at the back of my young mind, but chemistry, maths and biology, along with cricket and rugby soon occupied rather more of my thinking than political changes and the under current of conspiracy theories.

As the '60's turned into the '70's I was probably still too young to to either fully understand or appreciate the nuances of the political world, but things were changing. I started to read about the political events that lead up to the Vietnam war, I became more interested in what society was like and what it meant to choose a political ideology. Naive I might have been, but brainless I certainly wasn't!

Although I was later to discover that John Kennedy wasn't quite the hero he was portrayed to be, there were aspects of his life that were far from ideal, I guess his death did have some impact on me even though I was sonly six. Somewhere deep in my subconscious questions-political, social, moral, ethical questions-took up residence, and they shaped the way I began to think about the world.

The assassination of the Kennedy's, Martin Luther King and many more are acts of evil. Looking for the positives in them cannot diminish that truth. Perhaps, because of their untimely end, we can still aspire to something bigger, something ultimately less selfish because we have their examples. History is less kind to the memory of such individuals than popular culture.

Had Kennedy lived on and served out his time as President, then as one historian put it on the news this morning, he'd probably have been blamed for many of the social and political ills America endured in the latter part of the 1960's. Because he didn't we have an enduring image of a young president who looked forward to a better world and sought to challenge his generation to do something about it.

Doing workshops

So, here's an interesting turn of events. I've been asked to run a workshop for dance students on the subjects of nutrition and physiology as it relates to stretching and movement etc. Quite a challenge, but one I'm really keen to explore.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but this is a great opportunity for me both to share some of the things I've learnt over the last two years, and to reinforce some of that learning by reviewing it and passing it on. I've sketched out a rough idea of what I could cover, and as usual there's way too much for the time allowed, but I'll get it better organised. I'd also have too much to cover than not enough. I'll work out a plan of what is top of the list and what could be left for another time.

The workshops will be in January, but I'll need to have it planned in the next few weeks.

Holiday reading

We've just come home from a week away in Portugal. Wall-to-wall sunshine, lazy days walking around, sliding into the pool, playing tennis and reading.

I took my trusty pedometer with me and recorded my steps each day. I managed a creditable 124, 200 steps over the week (that's 17, 742 a day, or the equivalent of 8.9 miles a day!) It's staggering how far you will walk when there's no rush to get anywhere! Although we had a car, we didn't use it, except to go to and from the airport and one shopping trip.

I took my Kindle with me. I think it's possibly one of the greatest bits of tech kit I own. It does one job and does it really well. I can carry a wide range of books and reading material without getting my bags checked at the airport (it has happened to me once when I had a lot of books with me) or adding extra weight to my luggage.

I read "Zoo Station" by David Downing. It's set in pre-war Germany in 1939. The story begins on New Year's Eve '38 and centres around John Russell, a freelance journalist who sees the regime for what it is and how he drifts into spying and uses his connections to help get a Jewish family out of Berlin. It's the first in a series and I've got the second book to read now we're back home.

I also read "How to like Paul Again" by Conrad Gempf. I haven't quite finished this, but I've thoroughly enjoyed what I have read. Conrad was one of my tutors at college many years ago (over 25 years now I think about it). It's a really helpful book for those who have issues with some of the things Paul has to say and how best to handle them. There's great encouragement to get stuck into the task of understanding the nature of the text and the context too, before ploughing into interpreting.

Perhaps what Conrad does best is to make hermeneutics and exegesis something that lives and breathes rather than just some dusty academic exercise. He humanises the text, reminds us that these are "other people's mail" and that Paul was doing his best to address real situations among real people and not writing some abstract theologise treatise on your favourite topic!

Beyond those two, I dipped into a short monograph about exercise and health and I read the free e-book short from Jim Wallis about politics, Conservatives, Liberals, and the Fight for America's Future. It's abstracted from a longer work, but popped us a free offering just before I went away. It's well worth a read even if you're not interested in America or politics. The call for a more civil society, one in which we can honour each other even when we disagree is a call we all need to hear. As TV programmes seem more and more to be predicated on the principle of how insulting we can be about each other, and while live audiences boo judges with whom they disagree, a little civility wouldn't go amiss. Maybe our own political leaders would do well to read it while it's free!

Turning corners, changing cars and cleaning house

I just noticed that it's been a month since I last posted anything on this blog. There was a time when I posted something every day. Thankfully that was only an experiment and I've slowed down since then! I have written a few posts, well started them, but not finished any of them. There was one about the need to pray for Syria, a still current concern, and I thought about writing something about stretching quad muscles, but that was for my other blog.

Then there have a been a few reflective thoughts on 1Thessalonians around the connection between Paul's opening prayer and words to the church and missional thinking. I'm constantly trying to figure out what exactly it mans to live missionally. It's such a slippery turn of phrase, easier to recognise what it isn't rather than what it is. Perhaps I'll get around to making sense of those thoughts.

As we continue to think about what it means to live in a community, serving among the members of that community, working with them and living out our faith as we do so. One of the things that we had to decide concerned our relationship with the denomination we've served for over twenty years. In order to remain an accredited minister of the denomination I needed to be in membership of a church in the denomination. The thing is the nearest church to us that fits that bill is the one we left!

So, in the end, we decided that it was time to call it a day. We didn't feel we could join a church just to retain accreditation and then not attend, that runs counter to my view of membership of a local church. Had we not taken the decision to resign then others would have made the decision for us, so it was better we decided. To be honest, the debate about accreditation just seemed to get in the way of meaningful conversations with other baptist ministers about partnership and relationship.

So here we are. We're not alone. We have a faith community that shares some of the same vision and vocabulary about the missional journey as we do. To all those who keep asking how I'm doing now I've "left the ministry", my answer remains that I have not left the ministry, I'm just doing it differently.

So, we've turned a new corner in our journey and in some ways we've cleaned house by tidying up some of the loose ends concerning our relationship with the denomination. A sad day, but a liberating one too. As to cars, well, if the dealer can get their act together, that too will change in the next few days!

Steps again

So, after a few weeks of "normal" activity it's fairly obvious that some days I easily reach my 10K target, and some days I don't. Nothing unexpected there. We've had a few weekends when we've gone to visit family and that's one reason my step count has been down, but as I said before, this is about seeing what normal looks like.

The next step, excuse the pun, is to work out some routes and their approximate step count. When we lived in Upminster I knew that if I walked to the station with Anne in the morning and then to meet her in the evening, it was going to take me past 10K steps a day even if I did nothing else. I also had a series of routes I followed and I pretty much knew what I needed to do in order to add that last 750 or 1000 steps at the end of the day.

Part of the fun of working on a routine for me is doing this kind of number crunching. Just putting in the miles is too tedious for me, so having a plan of where to walk and see how many steps that takes keeps me interested enough to get started. It takes time to build a new habit. When I was setting targets a few years ago I discovered that actually getting out and walking was fairly easy because I had a goal. Just churning out the miles or even the steps can become monotonous if you don't have a purpose that motivates you.

After a few weeks, I'm not sure how long it takes, I usually find a rhythm and I know I've got into a routine when I feel like running rather than just walking. I don't run long distances any more, mostly because of a knee problem that I haven't solved yet and that get irritated by running.

So, I think I'm all set to set a goal for September, and now I seem to have addressed a minor issue with my plantar fascia (see here for that story), I'm ready to set myself going. So fire up Runkeeper, dust of my music library on my iPhone and let's hit the mean streets of South Essex!

Wimbledon Photo

We might not have been allowed on Centre Court, but we could at least stand outside!

Counting steps-again!

I'm revisiting my walking 10,000 steps a day principle, easing myself back into at the moment. This time around I've decided to start by simply measuring how many steps I take a day without setting out to achieve the 10K goal. I think this is helpful because it gives toy a baseline from which to work. Anyone who has ever set themselves a health or fitness goal knows that starting is the first hurdle, but once you start, the initial phase is full of enthusiasm. This can lead to over extending your efforts, and then it's down the slippery slope of relapse and failure through injury or boredom!

Getting a baseline is also useful because it tells you the truth about how sedentary you've become. It might surprise you and tell you that you're more active than you thought, but I suspect the former is more likely. It's important at this stage to record the data. It might sound a bit OCD to do that, but you need to know where you started. Getting fitter and healthier (the two are not the same) takes time and discipline. You will need a way of measuring the changes and it won't just be through the scales.

Once you have your baseline data, then you can start to get a bit more active. I'd suggest (assuming you have no medical reason not to do this) that you find a route that's a mile long and see how long it takes to walk it comfortably. Then maybe try it again and do it as quickly as you can without having to stop. control your pace and note down the times. This will give you another measure.

Having done my challenge before I know that I can walk 4 miles (6.Km) in an hour when I've been practicing. That's not too fast but fast enough. I also know that I can sustain that over at least 5 miles without any problems. That will be one of my first tests, to go out and see if I can walk 4 miles in an hour. This will help me work out how fit I am compared with two years ago.

Being healthy is another thing, and that really comes down to getting out of breath for at least 30 minutes 3 to 5 times a week. Given that I play tennis 3 times in an average week and at least 1.5 hours of that is playing singles, doing the extra walking will do the healthy part. fitness only improves with a progressive increase in effort. The technical term is 'progressive overload', and you get this by changing at least one of the following principles:

Frequency
Intensity
Time
Type

So, for example, if you're walking your 10,000 steps a day and your fitness has improved over say 3 to 4 weeks, the next stage will need you to change of of these principles. But you might not have any more time available, so you can't walk for longer or more often. The easiest thing to do is to find a hill to add to your route. That will change the intensity. Easy if you live in Nottingham, where I grew up, less easy if your out in the fens! The other choice would be to change you speed. Walk faster, even add a little bit of running. When I go out walking I sometimes run for short bursts, say 3-4 minutes. That pushes up the intensity quite nicely.

The point of this is that it's not actually that complicated to do something about improving health and fitness. small changes, discipline and determination go a long way, provided that is that you get off the couch and into those rather too clean pair of trainers you keep hidden at the back of the wardrobe.

Refocussing

I've known if for some time if I'm honest, I've just been avoiding as best I can. It's the old issue we all face at some point in our lives. I'm not talking about getting older or going grey. I'm not even talking about coming to the realisation that your eyesight isn't what it was and you're reactions aren't as quick and your body is so much slower.

No, although all of that it true, I'm not thinking about those things today.

I've been setting up my bright shiny new MacBook that arrived yesterday. It's a replacement for the one of which I was relieved of a week or so ago during the night while we slept peacefully at home. My 13" Black MacBook was my first step into the world of Apple and I've never wanted anything else since! I shall miss it. I have set it to self destruct when it's opened, but so far it hasn't connected to the internet. We wait and see. The insurance company have been very good, and they've dealt with the claim quickly and efficiently, so that's the end of that.

Anyway, I decided not to go down the migration route for some reason, but rather to sit and work out what I wanted on my new machine. It's rather interesting to look at all the applications I've got and how little I use some of those I once thought I couldn't live without. It was also interesting to think about apps that have laid dormant because the way I do things has changed or because I simply don't do those things anymore.

Take Scrivener for example. One of my all-time favourite writing applications, but I haven't done the kind of writing that it is best suited to for a long time. Maybe I should start that book project or do a case study and put it to good use. Similarly there are mind mapping tools, notebook tools, outliners, archivers etc, etc. All of which, if one is not careful, mean that you can lose your files and threads simply because you can't remember which application you used to create the thing in the first place.

Which brings me to my original thought in a somewhat circuitous way. Focus. Focus is the thing I am in need of today. Well not just today. I installed my task tracking and planning app on the new MacBook only to realise it's been several months since I used it. Now reinstalling an application, cleaning up the contents and synchronising across various platforms isn't going to focus my attention. I need a project.

More than that, I need to make myself accountable for a project.

Since stepping out of formal church leadership I've focussed most of my efforts on completing the soft tissue therapy course. But that happened in February when I qualified, so I need to pick up my brain and get it stuck into something meaningful and challenging. I'm not busy at the moment so it's ought to be an ideal time to learn more, research things and really consolidate my learning and knowledge.

Rather than see the present quietness of work as either a negative thing or just an excuse to become lazy, I should take control and do what I can to find clients but also to redeem the time by doing something useful with my time.

So here's the plan. Over the next few days I'm going to think about a few ideas I have for things to work on. Something related to missional church and the vision for our community and something to do with therapy and practice. For the latter I have some thinking I want to do about lower back pain and hip mobility. For the church thing there's lots of things to think about, vision is one and a study project I've had on my wish list is another.

I've got other things to do to. Things like tennis coaching (I passed my Level One qualification), PT stuff and practical project around the house. The list will be long, but it's time to get stuck in, get the brain up and running and get some focus back.

You see, without a focus there doesn't seem to be a vision and without a vision there is no real direction and without direction there can be no plan and with a plan there is no purpose and without a purpose self-esteem plummets and the couch beckons. I'm not ready for that.

I might even start to blog a bit more as a way of being of accountable, but don't hold me to that!!

Dare I buy one of these!

Helpful instructions

We had quite a busy weekend that culminated in a small family lunch on Sunday. It was a great day, and as usual in such circumstances, we over-catered. Better to have too much than too little. Anyway. I was checking the sultana and cherry cake to see if we could or needed to freeze it, and came across these most helpful instructions:

Preparation guidelines: Remove packaging - Place the cake of a flat surface - holding the cake and with a long clean serrated sharp knife, cut the cake into slices using a sawing action - It is important to keep the knife clean.

So, that explains why balancing a cake on a ballon and cutting it with a blunt spoon doesn't work then! It just strikes me as odd to think that someone might buy cake and not know how to cut it. And why doesn't cheese come with similar instructions? Maybe it does, I'll have to check. I wonder if it deals with the hazards of cutting cheese when you stand in on it's narrow edge rather than its flatter surface? And coffee too. I don't drink it, but I occasionally make it for Anne, I wonder if the jar has details about how to stir and whether it should be clockwise or anti-clockwise. This could be a most interesting search through the cupboards later today!

Everyone laughed when Delia Smith was teaching people how to boil an egg, but that doesn't seem so daft now!

Another String to the Bow

Well, I'm part way through getting my Level 1 tennis coaching certificate. It's not a long course, three days with a few hours of practice along the way. It's the first step almost anyone needs to take if they want to become a registered coach. I'm not sure I'll ever go quite that far, but it's an interesting thought.

The reason I'm doing the course is quite simple. Over the past couple of months I've been asked to look at running some sort of social tennis activity in the local park where we have a couple of tennis courts. I've had a bit of interest, mostly from beginners and others for whom a bit of help would increase their enjoyment. So it seemed like a good idea to go and learn some coaching skills. I've played sport with people who like to coach, even though they clearly have no skills in that area. I don't want to be one of those people!

The Level 1 course is really a coaching assistant qualification, level 2 is directed at those who want to work on their own with adult beginners, so I may have to do that course too. Will it never end? The course is based around what is known as mini-tennis, the form of the game used for under 10's. I guess it makes sense to start there, but part of me wonders why working with children is not a developmental stage rather than a starting point. It seems much harder to get children to understand what you want them to do than it does an adult who can ask questions. But that's probably me!

I suppose the obvious question is why am I dong this? Am I doing it as pre-evangelism as we used to call it? Actually, no. I'm doing it because I think it's a good way to get people active and I rather like playing tennis. It gets me involved in the life of the village by engaging with sport and activity. This is part of what it means to live in and serve the community. It's about building friendships that are not predicated upon an evangelistic opportunity.

Where it might lead I simply don't know. Perhaps I'll end up running a summer sports camp, perhaps someone will start talking to me about an issue or problem and all my other skills will come into play. Who knows!

Jim Wallis used to say, "Find out what you're good at and then do it in a way that makes a difference." Could I add to that, "Do something you love in a way that makes a contribution."