lizzie : lightbox: Lois

These photos of Lois and Lizzie's text is so beautiful. What a privilege it is to be able to reflect on each other in this way. xxx

lizzie : lightbox: Lois

New Hair

Well, actually it is old hair newly styled. Charity and I played hairdressers again on Monday and this was the result. It was an attempt to deal with the 2 weeks of being a ginger that had preceded. The original plan was to do more colouring and to add a red layer to the hair do. However, in order to remove the afore mentioned 'ginger do' we had to leave the peroxide on for a long time. Too long. My head was very sore. So, we decided it was probably best to not take the further step of going rock-star red. I myself am pleased with the result. Hope you like it too.

ps I am not gingerphobic it was just that it isn't for me. Some of my best friends are ginger.

Mark Loudon's new webpage

My lovely husband Mark has set up his website. Which, though still a work in progress, is well worth a look at. Some fantastic photos there. Lovely. xxx

Amnesty International - Greetings Cards

Amnesty International launched their
greetings card campaign at the beginning of the month and it runs until 31 Jan 2006.

'It brings people across the world in touch with each other in a simple way - sending a card with a friendly greeting or message of solidarity to someone who is in danger or unjustly imprisoned. These are prisoners of conscience, people under sentence of death, human rights defenders under threat because of their work, and others at risk.

The campaign offers hope and encouragement to the people who receive our cards. It can also help bring about change - the impression their international mail makes on police, prison staff or political authorities can help keep them safe.'
from the Amnesty International publicity for the campaign

Last week was prisions week and in chapel on wed in chapel I wrote some intercessions about prisioners of conscience. As part of this I put together 30 greetings cards for people at Trinity to send. Most seem to have been taken and sent on. My thanks go to Bob Dickinson for drawing my attention to the campaign last year.

Back Street Boys

I know I am getting a bit carried away with google clips but I love this so much. It is pure joy!
xxx

Moral Philosophy and Ethics

I am posting this just as I have been to a Moral Philosophy and Ethics lecture. This helps put a few things into perspective. xxx

Birthday Thanks

I share these with you because we are a strange but lovely family and these illustrate this perfectly!

Anyway, I wanted to report on my birthday. It was a great day. I had 3 parties - one with Mark and Eva; one with my pastoral group; and one at our house with some 'new' friends. All of which were a great blessing. I really am very blessed. I have only lived in this city since August and already I have have some great people to hang out with. It was a special day. Thanks

ps I got an ipod full of excellent toons (from Mark), some lovely perfume (from my Mum), a pingu t-shirt from Claire, chochies, candles, cards and cash. Not that the material things are important to me (much!!!).

I am a little bit of a heretic

Adam and I have have had a little go at this quiz and it turns out that I am a little bit of a heretic. Adam on the other hand has pure doctrine.
I was:
You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451.
Chalcedon compliant 83%
Monarchianism 67%
Modalism 67%
Socinianism 50%
Pelagianism 33%
Monophysitism 25%
Adoptionist 17%
Arianism 0%
Apollanarian 0%
Docetism 0%
Donatism 0%
Nestorianism 0%
Gnosticism 0%
Albigensianism 0%

Big Bibles

Again I am poncing off Harry Steele. But this is well worth repeating. I bet Harry has a big bible!

Antigone

Emerge from the darkness and go
before us a while
Friendly one, with the light step
Of total certainty, a terror
To wielders of terror.

You turn your face away. I know
How much you dreaded death, and yet
Even more you dreaded
Life without dignity.

And you would not let the mighty
Get away with it, nor would you
Compromise with the confusers, or ever
Forget dishonour. And over their atrocities
There grew no grass.

More Bertold Brecht Poems


I am back from the foundation 'winter snug' at lee Abbey. Completely trashed. Mark has gone to foundation and I am pondering on the weekend. It has been a hard weekend not least because I traveled over some old paths that I hadn't expected to need again. I also got angry. I felt like Antigone. Or rather I felt like Brecht felt about Antigone (see poem above). There are some things worth getting angry about. It is worth being angry about the sex trade and human-trafficking. But anger is worthless if it renders us impotent.

Si Johnson drew our attention to Protest 4 which is 'a global network of activists, tricksters, cultural creatives, and entrepreneurs, working in collaboration for justice. The first issue we're picking off the 'hit-list' is human-trafficking.' Many of us within Foundation are working, living or spending time with people for whom the effects of abuse and the sex-trade is an everyday reality. I am glad that others are visibly realising that this is an issue to 'pick off the hit-list'. My hope is that a momentum will gather around this campaign.

The danger is we get so caught up in our own feelings about the situation we become immobilised by the sheer horror of it. Watching a film like Lilya 4-Ever overwhelms me. It makes me feel too much. I don't want to feel so much that I can not act. I don't need to be shocked I need to be empowered. Brecht attempted to shift the focus away from the feelings of his audience to the way in which they might be empowered by cultural artefacts to bring about social change. I am not feeling empowered yet...just a bit jaded. hence my return to the epic and to Brecht. Searching for a creative form that doesn't rely on high emotion is a challenge. I wonder if, as Christians, we rely on emotional provocation too much?

Tonight I am tired and tomorrow I am going to spend in solitude (well as much solitude as is possible with a small child to play with, a PhD to write and an ethics essay to prepare for). I had expected to come home revived. I had thought that was what I needed. I was caught in a spin when I didn't get what I wanted. My cage has been rattled.

Something for the weekend

I got a parcel from Amazon on Monday containing the Pop Justice and Waterson, Carthy
Holy Heathens and the old Green Man albums. They have kept me amused this week. Pop Justice for its blazing poptastic tunes (their obsession with Girls Aloud is slightly off-putting, but the Killers Mr. Brightside Edit-Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Mix - is so fab it makes up for it!); Holy Heathens and the old Green Man for welcoming in the festive season with good cheer - I am missing Mumming this year so it is good to at least hear St. George sung!

I am off to Lee Abbey for the weekend with foundation. I am Borrowing Mark's ipod (I haven't got my own - but I have a birthday coming up next Wed, so...) and hoping to chill out and listen to these and other quality tunes. I am also taking Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing: The Definitive Biography of a Comedy Legend by John Fisher to read.

Identity revelation - at last I know who I am!

I did this quiz today (as if I have nothing better to do) which featured on the site of Harry Steele.
Though I have subsequently discovered that it was featured on Paul Roberts blog in 2005. Hey ho. Better late than never...I have at last discovered who I am!

Anyway, it seems I am a bit postmodern! (all 86% of me is - though what the other 14% of me is doing I don't know - that in itself is a very important postmodern question). Going to have to do a bit more work on finding out about my Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan side (quite significant side of me actually). Bit of a relief not to be a fundamentalist at all.

They say:
You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern 86%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 71%
Neo orthodox 68%
Classical Liberal 64%
Roman Catholic 61%
Modern Liberal 43%
Charismatic/Pentecostal 39%
Reformed Evangelical 29%
Fundamentalist 0

Jonny Cash God's Gonna Cut You Down

I don't really know what to say about this...

Panda Sneezes

I am know this is too cute to be repeated but hey ho...it made me giggle.

Mark Pictures in the Egg

Just to remind anyone in Liverpool who hasn't yet got to see Mark's (a.k.a. Augean Stabletalk) pictures in the egg cafe they are up until 26th November.

Little Alex

I have just got these from gaby - look at this little fella...he is so cute!

Silence

One DC Artist








Today has been a day of silence at college. The college community was encouraged to spend the day praying around 3 passages:
Revelation 4 and 5
Ephesians 1
John 17

Over the last few weeks I have found college a bit of a struggle: The move down to Bristol has finally hit me and I have really been missing Liverpool; the workload has been difficult to juggle - phd and new theology essays, as well as home life, church, placement and keeping up with new friends; I have found it hard to understand some of the ways that people choose to express their personal spirituality publicly; and significantly my faith has been challenged - which is a blessing but has been exhausting. So, I welcomed the chance to stop and take stock and give it all to God

Spending today reflecting on all this has been rewarding. It was difficult to focus and keep praying for the day (I did slip for 1/2 hour this afternoon when I started emailing people!). It has been ages since I spent time in meditative silence and I felt out of practice (the last time being in last year when I visited Loyola hall In St Helens - Claire Caddick a.k.a St Claire of Toxteth is there at the moment and I am a bit jealous).

Anyway, I have taken great encouragement from Paul's Prayer for the Ephesians:

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Ephesians 1:15 - 23

and post it here as a prayer for all of you.
much love
xxx

being a lert

I have just discovered (via britblog) that you can have a live terror alert on your blog. It doesn't tell you what the 'terror' might be like or what you can do to protect yourself from the 'terror'. It just alerts you to it. I am getting tired of TERROR! The word has vitually no meaning if it is left without expanation and is constantly used to control a population. I want to rally against terror and shove it up the arse of fear!
Anyway, if you want to constantly be reminded of the terror you live under you can click on
UK Terror Alert for constant updates.
Whatever gets you going.

Billy Bragg has signed my book!

I have just realised that my copy of Billy Bragg's book has been signed by the man himself! What a pleasant surprise...

Little England. My lovely home

I have just finished reading Billy Bragg's Progressive Patriot. I wrote my MA thesis on Bily Bragg's music and the way in which he mixed pop and politics (I did my MA in Popular Music Studies and the Institute of Popular Music at the University of Liverpool - which is now supervising my PhD). This thesis focused very much on Billy Bragg's music and the way in which lyrically he mixed his ordinary experiences with the struggles of political living.

What I found facinating in Bragg's book is the way in which he weaves his-story around music and politics, family and notions of nationhood. He deals with the microcosm of people's every day experiences in relation to the the macrocosm of the society within which they exist: His response to seeing the Clash at the Rainbow Theatre, Finsbury Park, 9 May 1977 in relation to the rise of the BNP; the contextualising of his family life with the events recorded in is grandfather's war diary. Bragg emphasises this sense that the individual's story is history and each tale makes up the bigger picture of nationhood history. Perhaps until quite recently the domination of meta-narratives have meant that us 'little peolpe' haven't been able to shape the recorded history of our nation. The rise of 'people's histories' (e.g. the bbc's People's War) might have gone some way to change this. But I wonder how many of us actually feel empowered by our own history and the way in which we relate this to the big story of our nation?

In this book I think Billy Bragg has attempted to reclaim his story and the way in which he relates this to his sense of himself as an Englishman. But his is not a lazy imprint of common notions of patriotism, he is attempting to search for new ways of identifying with nationhood. Not necessaily finding answers but certainly asking some relevant questions.