a bit of an uplift

Q1. If you were to spell out numbers, how high would you have to count until you found the letter “A”?
Q2. What do bullet proof vests,  windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
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In 1970, when Robert Mitchum and his wife Dorothy had been happily married for thirty years, he was asked what he thought had made his marriage last, when those of so many of his show-business colleagues had failed. “Mutual forbearance,” he replied. “We have each continued to believe that the other will do better tomorrow.”

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You can always tell when a person is well informed. Their views are pretty much like your own.

A happy person is one whose arithmetic is at its best when they is counting their blessings.

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Questions that make you think…
Do they have reserved parking for non-handicapped people at the Special Olympics?
If a book about failures doesn’t sell, is it a success?
Why do we say “tuna fish” but we don’t say “beef mammal” or “chicken bird”?
Is it possible to be totally partial?
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Commit to taking total responsibility for everything that happens to you. This one change in thinking has the power to launch you to the world-class level faster than any other single idea. (Steve Siebold)

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With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose. (Wayne Dyer)

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The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric-saw quit, and now his ancient pickup truck refused to start. While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence.

On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands.

After opening the door, he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles, and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.

Afterward, he walked me to my car. We passed the tree, and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

“Oh, that’s my Trouble Tree,” he replied. “I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing for sure, troubles don’t belong in the house when I am with my wife and the children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home. Then in the morning, I pick them up again.”

“Funny thing is,” he smiled, “when I come out in the morning to pick them up, there aren’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”  (Unknown)

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Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth.  Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.  (Joan Lunden)

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A2. One thousand

A2. All invented by women.  http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0906931.html

friday five: staving of the gloom

Sally writes this week’s Friday Five:

Candlemass is past, and Christmas is well and truly over, here in the UK Februarylooks set to be its usual grey and cold self. Signs of spring are yet to emerge; if like me you long for them perhaps you need ways to get through these long dark days. So lets share a few tips for a cold and rainy/ snowy day….

1. Exercise, what do you do if you can’t face getting out into the cold and damp?

I’ve been living with benign positional vertigo for a few years now so try to do as little exercise as possible.  Running, whether in the park or on a treadmill gives me dizzy spells and the last time that I used them, weight machines were just as bad.  I used to gym at least x3 a week before vertigo and miss it.  I also used to roller blade to keep fit and miss that too.  I tried once this summer and was more fearful then dizzy. Praying it will pass so that I can get back into a gym routine and lose some of my middle!

2. Food; time to comfort eat, or time to prepare your body for the coming spring/summer?

I am a guilty comfort eater but, at this time of year I also do a bit of healthy also. I’m already onto salads and, I’m not talking the limp salad leaf kind.  I like sprouting and at the moment and into radish sprouts as they have that peppery kick that I love. I love incorporating raw foods into them: shredded red cabbage (a wonderful natural painkiller), baby sweetcorn, sugar snaps or mange tout, all topped with a dressing made with cashew nuts that have been soaked in water then blended with yellow peppers, garlic and a bit of oil. My mouth’s watering already!

3. Brainpower; do you like me need to stave off depression, if so how do you do it?

For a long time I’ve been aware that if I have too much sugar and eat too much refined foods, I become prone to depression so I try to stay away from them as much as possible. Almonds are good brain food so love to munch on them (though I’m not sure it really does my brain any good).

4. How about a story that lifts your spirits, is there a book or film that you return to to stave off the gloom?

No films. I’ve never really been a fan nor do I have an extensive collection.  The DVD that I turn to the most is Micheal W Smith. What more can I say?
5. Looking forward, do you have a favourite spring flower/ is there something that says spring is here more than anything else?

I’m not great when it comes to the names of flowers – apart from rose, daffodil, tulip, carnation, sunflower etc. But, I there is one particular flower that reminds me of spring the most and I think it’s called sweet william.

I also love the park on a spring day.

Best of all, I love the idea of Paris in the spring.  I spent a spring time there when I was a little younger and I simply loved it.

10 ways to help a seminarian

At a push, I would guess that I am not the only one who had a difficult time going through seminary.  Wow.  It sounds strange to say it now as it seems so long since I was last there (despite not yet graduating but that’s a whole different story). So I’ve come up with an list of ways in which seminarians could be supported. It’s not exhaustive so leave a comment and let me know ways in which you think seminarians could be supported by family, friends and church.

1. have an ‘adopt a seminarian’ programme at your local church which involves an individual or a family or even a group of people taking time to get to know a seminarian and keeping in contact with them throughout their time at seminary.  Don’t forget to that the best thing that you could ever do for a seminarian is to pray for them.  And, for those periods of extreme hardship why not think about organising some fundraising for them to get them through those days when they have to drink chicken soup out of a packet.
2. Why not buy a seminarian a selection of fruit for their fruit basket? It doesn’t have to be a full hamper but a couple of pieces such as an apple, a banana, an oranges or a pears.  it could make a huge difference to their health and brain power. And if you really want to push the boat out, buy them a packet of mixed nuts.
3. Outside of fees, buying books are an expensive part of the life of any seminarian.  Yes, there are libraries but when everyone is writing the same paper or reading for the same exam and borrowing the same book, it can be impossible to get the books that you need.  Why not think about asking a seminarian what books are on their essential reading list and giving a hand.
4. For those seminarians who are far away from home, why not consider inviting them home for lunch from time to time or, if they aren’t able to get home for the major holidays, why not invite them to join you and your family? It could be the start of a life long friendship.
5. If you know a seminarian with a wish list on a website such as Amazon, why not tweet it to you followers, put a link on your Facebook page or include it on your blog.
6. Many people have at least one gift care lying unused in a pocket, wallet or draw. Why not put it to good use and give it to a seminarian.
7. If you received any unwanted gifts for Christmas or even for a birthday, you can avoid the embarrassment of returning it by giving it to a seminarian. After all, who is going to be upset if you want to help out someone in need?
8. If you have a loyalty card from Starbucks, Nero, Costa or one of the major coffee shops, why not consider giving a seminarian you fully stamped loyalty card so that they can have a free coffee on you.
9. If you have a loyalty points card from any super market, why not consider donating your points to a seminarian’s to put towards their weekly shopping bill?
10. If you know a seminarian with a car, why not offer to fill or half fill the tank for them?

10 ways to simplify your life

A dear friend of mine is a counsellor and subscribes to the magazine Psychologies.  The January 2010 edition had a list of ways to simply life.  As any seminary student will know, life can become very complicated.  I guess that ministry is even more so.  I therefore decided that, for my own personal records, it might be worthwhile posting the list here and adapt one or two to the life of seminarians.

1. Work Expands to fill the time available for its completion.  So the best way to spend less time working is to spend less time at work.  To do that, give yourself early deadlines, to acquire plenty of free time.
2. Don’t rely on self control – Try to change your environment rather than control your behaviour.  For example, if you find it hard to work without constantly checking email, work in a room with no internet access or do the jobs that require most focus at the beginning or end of the day when others aren’t online.
3. Think less, act more – talking about what you’d like to do or spending hours researching the pros and cons gives the illusion of doing something.  But, one piece of real world action simplifies decisions by giving you information you can’t get elsewhere.  For example, instead of endlessly flicking through reams of books on your research topic, start writing. You’ll know that you’ve learned something when you’ve learned something that clarifies the next step.
4. Use what you already have – rather than complaining or making excuses about what you don’t have, make the best possible job out of what you do have.  It’s a good principle to adopt when you feel overstretched. Instead of focusing on what you need, start by appraising what you’ve got.
5. Change the way you see your day – reclaim your time by give as much priority to time spent in leisure rather than thinking, ‘I have so many hours of study to do then I will have time off’.
6. Free yourself from old stories – get rid of the old stories you tell yourself about what you can and can’t do as you will have changed a lot since you first believed them.
7. Set time limits for big jobs – if you give yourself 30mins rather than an afternoon, day, weekend or week to do something, you’ll find that you get more done. It shouldn’t makes sense  but it works because, setting a time limit can de-fang the most vicious jobs and help you overcome procrastination.
8. Be bored – allow yourself to get fidgety as it is in those moments that we do our best thinking.
9. Ask yourself, ’so what?’ – “So what?” is a powerful question. Push yourself to explore the consequences of your actions.  It may give you a new perspective.
10. Design rules for living – if you’re indecisive, design rules to live by that help you navigate life. You’ll waste less time worrying about making the right choices.

useful tools for seminarians

I previously wrote a list of five essential tools for seminarians. Here is another mixed list of essential equipment that I either couldn’t have made it through seminary without or would have liked to have had to make my learning experience more enjoyable. Leave a comment and let me know what you consider essential tools for seminarians.

• A laptop – I commuted up to two and a half hours to and from seminary. In the first year, I was there virtually every day so you can imagine how much time I spent travelling.  Having a laptop was crucial for the journey (at least one hour of that time) or more often than not for going through Hebrew vocabulary.
• Flash cards – Hebrew drove me to distraction and, for those moments that I couldn’t just whip out my laptop, my flash cards were a vital part of learning my Hebrew vocabulary.  Psst, can I let you into a little secret?  I still did really badly about half of all the quizzes.  Cards could be home made, shop bought or even electronic. Which ever you choose, they will be an essential part of your learning toolkit.
• A flask/insulated mug – In order to get to college for a 9am class, I had to leave home at around 6.30am. A flask of tea/coffee was an essential part of my time at seminary and I was rarely seen without one.

• Bibliographic Tools such as Zotero – as soon as I found out about Zotero, which is a wonderful free online programme, I was never without it when reading or preparing for papers.  I love Zotero!   Althea Agape  also left a comment on my previous post to say that she uses Ottobib, which turns an ISBN into a bibliographic entry.
• Amazon Wish List – People want to help and here is one practical way that family and friends can contribute to the expenses of being a seminarian.  With the upsurge in the use of social media, you should be able to get even more support from Facebook friends and Twitter followers who have a compassionate heart.

• Blog – for me, blogging was an ideal way to talk, express myself, air my frustrations and share my reading. For a while, a small group of women started a blog to share our experiences. Unfortunately it was short lived. I am grateful now for Going to Seminary which has a growing community of bloggers and readers to share thoughts and I wish it had been around when I was in the midst of my studies.

• Bible – Yes I know it sounds obvious. It wasn’t that long ago that I started seminary but, when you read the next sentence you might be forgiven for thinking it was. I had a big, hard back bible that I carried around.  Actually, as I didn’t live on campus and commuted from London (2.5hr journey one way!) I often left my bible in my locker. But don ‘t worry, I have a bookshelf full of them at home so was never without one. Then I progressed to e-Sword. Now, with even technological advancements, there is Logos Bible Software for your laptop and, if you have a blackberry or an iPhone, you can even download YouVersion and Logos for your mobile making your bible even more portable!
• iPod Touch or iPhone – No. Not for listening to music but for downloading lectures from iTunes U and for Biblical language vocab/flashcards.

social media and church

I’m on a quest to find out how churches use social media so was pleased to found this piece here on the Pope urging priests to use all social media tools at their disposal to preach the gospel.

While I was pleased to see clergy being encouraged in this way, it left me with a few questions.

• Is that kind of permission needed to encourage clergy to blog or should clergy see it as an unspoken part of the mandate to go and preach the gospel anyway?
• Had Jesus been born to a modern world, would he also use all moderns means of communication or is that just a ruse?
• Would this kind of explicit permission in one denomination lead clergy in other denominations to feel as though they are doing something they shouldn’t be doing? And giving the sense of blogging being an illicit pass time?
• Is permission really needed?

I don’t know the answers to those questions but I hope that, given time, the answers will come to me.

Out of interest, I would hope that you might think about leaving a comment letting me know if you have been given explicit permission to blog; if your church considers all social media tools as essential to evangelism; or if only a few are part of a blogging/tweeting/social media using elite.  At the same time please leave a link to you blog.

unfortunate side consequences of seminary

• Cramming for biblical language quizzes seems to affect your memory. Not only do you forget your vocab, almost as soon as the quiz is over, there seems to be little ability to retain much else – or maybe that was just me.
• You spend so much time sitting down to study, read and write papers that you become outrageously unfit.
• You spend so much time talking to theologians and would be pastors that you forget about normal life, normal people and, worst of all, you forget how to have a normal conversation that doesn’t involve the words, salvific, exegesis, dispensationalism, Arminianism or sotereology.
• Spending lots of time at seminary, at the library and with you head in books can leave you a bit adrift and cut off from family and friends.
• If you commute to seminary and spend as much time travelling as I did, you constantly feel to tired to have a life outside of class.
• Your income is devoted entirely to paying seminary fees, buying books and essential equipment and have very little left for any of life’s luxuries.  In short, you become a pauper.
• Once people know you are at seminary preparing for ministry, the nature of relationships start to change. That can either be a good thing or a bad thing.
• Some relationships become very intense – also a good or a bad thing.
• You begin to loose your sense of humour and become quite intense.

#50pic challenge

Joshus White over at Love is Greater Than, set a photography challenge for Tweeters.  The rules were to take 50 pictures today, on Friday 15 January and post them to your blog, twitpic, Yfrog, or whatever photo app you would normally use.

I played.  Friday is the only day that i don’t work and, I usually spend it in the British Library.  Today was no different so all my pictures relate to the journey, the time sat at my desk and the library itself.  I took on my iPhone and you can see the full selection on my yfrog.

#11 -taken before leaving home

#21 piazza at the british library

#14 - St Pancras Station

#29 - the king's collection at the british library

#34 - my reading desk

donate your blog ad revenue to Haiti disaster relief

Twitter is full of messages urging tweeters to donate to disaster relief for Haiti following the recent earthquake there.  Many of the messages that I have seen are by bloggers because they know that, at times like this everyone wants to help.

Well, I want to challenge those bloggers who earn advertising revenue to consider giving a day’s earnings to disaster relief for Haiti.

It’s easy, all you have to do is encourage your blog readers to click your ad links, watch the revenue roll in, then donate it to disaster relief.

You decide which relief agency you want to donate it to but, do ensure that Haiti gets the biggest bang for their buck and give to an agency that doesn’t spend the majority of donations on administration.  For more tips and advice on giving see this post by Tales From the Hood.

Here in the UK, you can donate to the Disaster Emergency Committee, an umbrella agency of 13 different charities including Christian Aid, Oxfam, British Red Cross, Tear Fund and World Vision.

10 practical steps for churches to be politically active

1. You don’t have to be politically elected to be involved in local politics. Think about local boards you can become a part of.  Some examples are school governing bodies, local college governing bodies, local and regional regeneration boards, health authority boards, police working groups or school curriculum planning authorities.  There’s long list to choose from.
2. Make yourself aware of the legislative programme. What are the major bills that will be discussed and who might they affect your local community?  Think about how you might campaign for change where they will have a negative impact.
3. Lobby your locally elected members as well as parliamentary representatives. If you don’t know how to write a campaigning letter there are plenty of campaign groups on the internet with drafts that you can adapt for your local needs.
4. Mobilise your community through the use of social media.  Set up a Facebook group, use Twitter to promote your cause, and get your church to be part of it/promote it.
5. If you are already on Twitter and on Facebook, find out which government ministers are also using social networking and follow them. Use Facebook and Twitter to talk to them about how policy affects your community giving both positive and negative examples.
6. If you use a news reader such as google or RSS feed, don’t forget to include the press release page of government departments as well as your local authority. It’s a quick and easy way to find out what’s going on locallly.
7. You don’t have to be involved in party politics to be politically aware of active.  Where ever you have a community of people, you have politics. Government policy will always affect your life, from refuse collection to where housing is built.  For the sake of your local community, don’t ignore politics.  It matters.
8. Volunteer for a local group.  It’s a great way to see the impact that policy has on a local community.  I recently did a stint at one of the Crisis Christmas shelter after a seven year absence.  I was surprised at the increase in the number of people who are homeless as a direct consequence of immigration policies.  Use your experience to lobby for change.
9. You don’t have to be overtly political in church, but, think about ways in which the gospel intersects with politics and the impact policies have in the lives of people.  Why not talk about them?  How, for example, might you encourage people to be more environmentally friendly, how does homelessness affect your local community, what impact does crime have in your community?  Think about how you might be able to address these in church without directing people on how to vote.
10. You may have your own party politics views but church should not be used as a platform to express that but, think about how you might be able to use your experience and contacts to help support those who do want to be more politically involved.  After all, politics can be a lonely place.