5 things I dig about Jesus

Finally got tagged with this meme by Tom.

1. Jesus was a bloke – by which I don’t just mean that he was male, but that he liked to have a drink with his friends and spend time hanging out with them.

2. Jesus also liked women – Mary Magdalene in particular – but he was really ‘together’ about it, which is a complicated way of saying that the Da Vinci code argument is complete garbage.

3. Jesus got angry. Often. Sometimes he was very aggressive about it as well, either verbally to the Pharisees, or physically as in the cleansing of the temple. I really dig that about him.

4. He got frightened, but did it anyway.

5. He transformed his friends by forgiving them after they had run away. That’s still the heartbeat of the faith for me.

I don’t think I’m going to tag anyone with this.

Thinking blogger


Patrik tagged me/ flattered me with this Thinking Blogger meme.

These are the rules (from here):

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

I’m glad that the choices aren’t restricted to theology, as I’d find that a bit restrictive. Anyhow, five blogs that make me think:

1. Rob Hopkins at Transition Culture – Rob is a bit of a hero of mine, really, in that he has managed to get a community of 8000 people switched on to the implications of Peak Oil and what it means. If I can achieve half of what he has done then I’ll be happy. His blog is always a good read.

2. Robert Rapier at R-Squared. I was going to reference The Oil Drum itself, but I decided against that because it is a group project (and full of trolls in the comments). Robert’s voice is very sane and reasonable, and he offers a healthy dose of scepticism against some of the more outlandish Peak Oil voices, from a position of significant expertise. He’s one of those people who make you feel much cleverer after you’ve read something he’s written.

3. *Christopher, now at Betwixt and Between (previously at Bending the Rule). Christopher’s had a big influence on my thinking over the last two or three years, mainly on the obvious questions, but also on liturgical issues more generally. I find him a very congenial thinker, although sometimes I have to save up time to read him as his posts tend to the long side.

4. Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, who comes at church questions from a completely opposite end of the spectrum to me, but ends up arguing for all sorts of things that I believe in. I imagine that loads of people are already familiar with him, but I only discovered him comparatively recently.

5. Peter Chattaway, at FilmChat. I read lots of film sites – one reason why my reviews tend to be so short, I feel that everything has already been said! – but this is my favourite, and he often makes me look at a film differently. I think that what I like most about him is the lack of stridency; he seems to be a man at peace with the world, and that comes through in his writing. He’s also writing from a Christian perspective, if that wasn’t obvious.

So there we go.

A-Z

Hey, I got tagged (by the Ranter).

A-Z

Accent: slightly posh Estuary English
Booze: wine, port, gin and tonic, real ale (alcohol is my principal vice)
Chore I Hate: putting out the rubbish on a Monday morning
Dog or Cat: Ollie!
Essential Electronics: Palm LifeDrive (there are others, but that’s the really essential one)
Favorite Cologne(s): Obsession, although I very rarely use it
Gold or Silver: Gold; I’ve made a nice little profit already this year 🙂
Hometown: don’t really have one; home ‘place’ is the Blackwater Estuary, both in the past and now in the present
Insomnia: yes
Job Title: Rector of West with East Mersea and Priest in Charge of Peldon and the Wigboroughs; Warden of Ordinands.
Kids: two boys.
Living arrangements: possibly the best Rectory in the county.
Most admirable trait: Who am I to say? Probably loyalty.
Number of sexual partners: what, now or in the past? The answer to the first is obvious, the answer to the second is ‘none of your business’ 😉
Overnight hospital stays: rare
Phobias: being trapped in a small confined space; something bad happening to my kids
Quote: “Practice gives the words their sense” (Wittgenstein)
Religion: Ha! See my job title
Siblings: One elder brother, who runs this company
Time I wake up: 6am (although it was nearer 4am twice this week!)
Unusual talent or skill: I have remarkably flexible toes, and I can make strange shapes with my tongue
Vegetable I refuse to eat: celery and sweetcorn
Worst habit: not finishing the details of projects
X-rays: most recent was of teeth (routine)
Yummy foods I make: vegetarian lasagne
Zodiac sign: Leo (Sun Leo conj Mars, trine Moon in Aries and MidHeaven in Sagittarius; opp Asc in Aquarius, square Neptune in 10th House Scorpio (priesthood) and square Saturn in Taurus. In other words: a bottled up volcano. If you believe that sort of thing.)

I tag Psybertron, who never accepts a tag (tho’ in fairness he’s probably a little distracted by moving across continents 😉

A bible meme

I was pondering those questions which One Salient Oversight was putting to the President, particularly the one about familiarity with the Bible. And a meme occurred to me (this may have been done before but I haven’t seen it).

1. How many bibles are in your home?
2. What rooms are they in?
3. What translations do you have?
4. Do you have a preference?
5. Nominate an interesting verse

So for me:
1. About 20
2. Most in my study, two in the bedroom, two or three in the main living room. Some abridged versions in the kids rooms as well (not included in the 20)
3. NRSV, RSV, NIV, KJV, Douay (on my LifeDrive, along with NIV), Good News. I use Bible Gateway to look at other versions when preparing sermons. I also have various versions of the New Testament in Greek.
4. RSV for accuracy; one of the modern ones for readability (Message or UK English equivalent)
5. “With you is my contention O priest” (Hosea 4.4)

It’s not a meme without tagging, so I tag:

The Ranter
Kyle
One Salient Oversight
and, to compare and contrast 🙂
Ian.

The four meme

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Cleaner of industrial spray paint booths (I coped with that for a week, which I still consider impressive…..)
2. Garage attendant.
3. Primary school caretaker.
4. Database programmer (DB IV+).

Four movies I can watch repeatedly:
1. Blade Runner
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Lord of the Rings
4. First Blood

Four places I have lived:
1. Alnwick, Northumberland
2. Beswick, Manchester
3. Oxford
4. Plaistow, East London

Four TV shows I like to watch:
1. Alias
2. Six Feet Under
3. Buffy
4. Battlestar Galactica

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Vancouver, Canada
2. Ulaan Bataar, Outer Mongolia
3. Jerusalem, Israel
4. Playa de las Americas, MAJORKER :O)

Four favourite dishes:
1. Venison casserole
2. Roast Beef
3. My own vegetarian lasagne(!)
4. Oven baked roast potatoes with Hellmann’s Mayonnaise (other mayonnaise doesn’t work)

Four websites I visit daily:
1. The Oil Drum
2. Football 365
3. BBC news (my homepage)
4. WaiterRant (technically, whenever it’s updated. Another job I’ve done on many occasions)

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. My mother in law’s house (where I’m going tomorrow)
2. Watching Chelsea
3. At the cinema
4. In bed, asleep

Four people to tag:
1. Kathryn (to provide another source of distraction for you)
2. Ian G
3. DBW
4. Preston

Displacement activity

Much more fun than yet another sermon (and a good excuse to work out if I can use ‘trackback’ or not):

5 things I plan to do before I die
1. Publish my book
2. Take my wife on a tour of the United States
3. Learn to play the guitar properly
4. Sail my own boat to a different country
5. Run at least 10,000 metres without stopping

5 things I can do
1. Touch type (used to be about 70 wpm but it’s not that now)
2. Sing
3. Write
4. Recognise patterns, especially when not complete
5. Read maps and navigate

5 things I cannot do
1. Hear in stereo (deaf in left ear since birth)
2. Run more than about 20 yards without stopping
3. Concentrate on more than one thing at a time
4. Dot the i’s and cross the t’s
5. Write poetry

5 things that attract me to other people
1. Open minded intelligence
2. Laughter
3. Compassion
4. Strong sense of values/ moral integrity
5. Beauty

5 things that I say most often
1. Oh right, OK
2. Excellent
3. Sorry? (ie I didn’t hear that)
4. Now then
5. Hmmmm, I’m not sure about that

5 celebrity crushes
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Hmmmm.
Once upon a time I’d have said Elizabeth Hurley, but not now. Now it’d be (not in order)
1. Jennifer Garner
2. Angelina Jolie
3. Penelope Cruz
4. Uma Thurman
5. Kate Beckinsale

Now I feel that I have revealed rather too much. Ah well :o)
Off to the beach with kids….