Gifts in the Bible

This is an excerpt from a recent piece I wrote for the church Christmas service, "Gifts in the Bible".

...one more story, because it seems I cannot write anything without throwing in a reference to scuba diving somehow. A while back, I read the story “Menfish”, by Jacques Cousteau, which is the account of the first ever scuba dive in what was then occupied France. As Cousteau puts it, when the first ever working aqualung system arrived in the village where he was living, “no child on Christmas morning ever unwrapped a parcel with more anticipation”. With his wife and best friend as support, Cousteau tested the equipment and made the first scuba dive in history. I remember reading that story, and suddenly realising that I was reading part of my own history. Had Cousteau not made that dive, my own life would be very different. What happened in 1940 affected my life 70 years later.

This week, I read the Bible again, especially the Acts of the Apostles and the letters to the Corinthians, which I think may have perhaps the highest concentration of the words “gift” and “giving” in the entire book. The church being established in those books, however imperfectly, was one in which people would love each other, treat each other as equals, and support each other whenever it was needed. At one point, Paul writes to his followers saying “Since you have plenty at this time, it is only fair that you should help those who are in need. Then, when you are in need and they have plenty, they will help you”. I read that passage, thought about the history of Christianity and my own journey in which I arrived at the Unitarian church here in Newcastle, and felt the same sensation: that the actions of people living long before I was born had led, in one way or another, in my receiving a great gift.

(As a sidenote, I have often thought that when you go looking for something in the Bible, you’ll usually find it, but it won’t necessarily be what you expected. Perhaps that says more about the person doing the looking than it does about the Bible.)

The End of the Year Approaches

And this is probably the last blogpost from me until 2014. I'm looking forward to a new year and a new beginning. Merry Christmas.

Water Dripping Off the Light

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when you want to be leaving the house in a hurry, that is the moment when you will pause, think "Did I forget to turn the tap off?", and check the bathroom to find water dripping off the light fitting. Always a fun experience.

So far it seems to have been fixed (there's a reason I take the landlord of the flat above a bottle of wine for Christmas every so often), but I can't help being slightly alarmed at the thought I may be being haunted by a poltergeist who likes to make water drip off light fittings - it happened in the last-but-one house I lived in, too.

I've been hanging around on the Creepypasta website for a while; does it show? I came across this site via TvTropes, where I spend far too much time keeping myself awake and not doing any management assignments. An excellent repository of creepy stories, some of them are okay, some are very good, and one or two will, in the words of one reviewer, make you want to shriek, douse your computer with gasoline, set fire to it and fling it through the window. Seriously. Four words: "The Russian Sleep Experiment", rated "AAIIIEEE!" for gory, and one word, "Psychosis", rated "MeeMeeMee" ::rocking gently back and forth:: And don't even start me on "Smile Dog".

No, really. Don't.

And don't Click Reload, either.

Back at the Boiler Shop

Went back to the Boiler Shop a couple of weeks back with friends. There were no cyclists or yoga teachers with broken backs present, but there was good food, good beer, and a very pleasant surprise. I last saw Tankus the Henge at Glastonbury this year, and have wanted to catch them again ever since. Amazingly (they're based in London), they were headlining the Saturday Boiler Shop when I happened to be there. Coincidence is sometimes a fine thing.

I also learned that ping-pong is more fun when you're tipsy, and that certain of my friends should only be allowed to dance when there's a large space around them.

The Tales We Keep Telling, 4: The Glass Bottle of Piss

Nah. This one also doesn't get told until I leave my current employment. Let's just say that it occurred towards the start of my current employment, and usefully disabused me of any notion I might have had that the new employer was going to be any better organised than the last one. We'll leave it at that.

Back Again, and Blown-Over Trees

I'm back blogging again, as my laptop is now back from the repairman! Not much to report, except for some storm damage to the back garden - see photo!

Everything's been repaired. I was hoping I would need to do less to the garden in the winter. Turns out I was wrong. I think I'm developing that gardener's feel for the seasons, or at least something resembling it, as follows:

Winter = Prune trees
Spring = Plant stuff
Summer = Weeding
Autumn = Throw buckets of leaves in compost bin

More reports on Glastonbury and the fun we had in Malta (where I managed to misplace an entire ship) coming soon.