...but it doesn't mean He won't

Arggggh! Two people have commented to me today on something about my positive blogging blah blah etc etc... and it made me laugh 'cause they clearly hadn't read the last post I wrote.

I drive myself mad with the ups and downs of hope and faith.

Whilst what I said is technically true [EDIT: in that we can't know what God will do] I do realise that the way I said it didn't testify to God's love for me. That is, it implied quite strongly He don't care about the details of my life which I believe (albeit by faith and not necessarily feeling right now) He does. It sounds a lot like me being resigned to a meaningless existence in which what I do both doesn't matter and doesn't last.

Neither of which are true. Firstly, God just plain cares. Loving us to reach our potential and making it accessible to us when we struggle, because He likes to do so and likes us to be happy (granted sometimes growth takes priority). Blimey, if the University has an Access Unit then of course God does (there is probably a whole angelic division called Widening Participation).

Secondly, and this is something that makes for a full post at a later date if I get round to it, what we do now does last. That is why there is a finite bit then an infinite bit to life. If it was all about the infinite then we may as well just skip straight ahead... but it's not. Ergo - bothered.

Well, errrrr, there's some good theory for you. I will keep you posted on the practice since so far today the bulk of my achievements has been to write a song about snow. Isn't it lovely?

xkcd 1

There is this really great comic website full of sarcasm and maths that I am half into, having close friends and family that are fully obsessed and me with my vague appreciation but lack of attention. I like to skim them occasionally when I remember and I tend to remember when I have other things I ought to be doing (like the French presentation due tomorrow that I've not finished planning in English and haven't actually got much use of vocal chords for... but that's another story). This one just grabbed me and since blogging is another procrastination weapon in my artillery I figured I'd put the two together in one crazy degree-annihilating foul swoop. Enjoy:

http://xkcd.com/381/













Told you it was good :-)

A collection of Arbitrary Thoughts

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw
- doesn't mean beer doesn't exist though, does it?

I'm shamelessly stealing the post one friend made to another on facebook today. What can I say, sometimes an original thought is just not as good as a copied one. Anyway, who says there is such a thing as original thought? And if you don't believe me look at the cyclicity of catwalks. I just wonder what it will be like when we get to heaven - is that why we are going to wear robes of righteousness? They want everyone in the same thing so that the fashion industry doesn't go insane over the course of eternity.

Time is of the essence these days as I challenge myself on waste. Whilst it's true that one has to be careful not to fill up one's time excessively and end up missing out on what is really important, as I look at all the crazycool things I want to do (least of all finish my degree) I find myself aware that there is a lot of time in my life that is not spent wisely and which if so could be put to such uses. So that has been something I am working on. I mean, I can't really say I don't have time to feed homeless people 'cause of my studies when what I really mean is I don't have time to feed homeless people 'cause it takes me an hour to get dressed every day, I can't go into a supermarket without wandering round aimlessly for at least half an hour and possibly not buying anything, I have a midday change 'cause I get bored of what I am wearing, I don't know what to have for dinner, I write down everything that goes through my head (that one is getting better mind), I spend ages on facebook and other internet based blackholes and generally waste such a lot of time on indecisive behaviour that I can barely fit my studies in around it. I reckon I can save 2 hours a day easily, which translates into lots of productivity in potentia.

We so often talk about being stewards of the money that God gives us but I think time is our most precious resource. We can't earn it or borrow it or be gifted it (excepting of course when God wants to make something really cool happen) or store it up. Everyone has a equal amount and it is something we can all offer back to God the same. So I am trying to do that with mine a bit.

I have had an AMAZING second half to my day; full of direction, vision, revelation, healing and generally great stuff. I don't want to spend time expanding on that now when I have bed to be sleeping in, reading to get done and generally time to be stewarding so I'll leave you with a couple more collected thoughts and fill you in when I next schedule some BGB QT.

I'm fed up of wishing people good luck. It is what we say naturally 'cause of one of those foolish human semantical bollocks things. I don't believe in it and hate that sometimes it just seems like the obvious thing to say. E.g. I can't come out I have an exam tomorrow. Oh, good luck with that! "Blessings" sounds really serious and a bit patronising, particularly with non-Christians. So I have decided on God luck. Like when something is a God idea but with luck. Looks like it could be a spelling mistake and makes me feel less like a hyprocrite. OK, so a *little* bit cheesy perhaps but this is me after all... Watch out for it people, I'll be exercising that one!

Been talking a fair amount about teleportation. The little know miracle of the New Testament and very very cool. That is my most sought after spiritual gift (after optional invisibility that is)...

Anyway. I just spent too much time looking up the miraculous movement incident in the Old Testament that involved being carried by an eagle from the hair and I think that, for the sake of my not wasting time policy, I will leave this unfinished and a bit confusing and hope you love me anyway. I don't think, having looked, that it really happened - I only heard about it third party afterall... Shame, I was going to steal another joke about Old Covenant and New Covenant teleportation.

Jumping on other people's comedy bandwagon as it were. That's one of those "is it an inny or an outy?" phrases in't it. From the bible or not that is. "Word or turd?" when talking to post-16's. It's not exactly a concept foreign to us Christians. My whole life is built upon jumping on the bandwagon of a 2000 year old lowly bastard Jewish carpenter that had a penchant for rebellion. How he made his ideas stick around so long and spread so very very far and wide across time and culture I'll never know. It's almost as if something out of the ordinary was going on...

Get Over It

My boiler is playing up. Which is basically resulting in no heating and lukewarm showers. And winter is coming. And it is colder here than in Geneva so I can attribute a slight shock of return as well.

So I have been struggling gallantly through. I still shower as often as ever, I just shiver a lot more and complain and tell myself it is all for a good lesson and some people have it a lot harder this time of year. Then I sit around grumpy 'cause I haven't warmed up yet and spend lots of time on facebook. I discovered I have two extra hours before my seminar, so why not waste them too?

I didn't even think about praying for hot water. That would be too easy. Yet I also didn't take seriously my thought that it was cold so I can learn empathy (*incidentally* something I have prayed for recently 'cause I am quite good at "being autistic" and not noticing other people - I realised this lately when a friend was sharing a prayer request and I was like "Kat(i)e duh they've said this before but you really didn't process did you?" then cut across the next person to add my own request in!).

So the plan is to actually pray for my boiler. Then, if it stays cold to stop my grumpy act. I really haven't got a leg to stand on when it comes to being unfortunate and I have more than enough jumpers to get me through. We in The West (not the South West mind but the Western world) wash too much anyway - it's consumerism and all their ploys for shiny hair, supple skin, nice nails and a perfect complexion.

Kneel to Jesus. Two fingers to The Man.

(I didn't publish that post yet did I? I have more to say about 'The Man', watch this space...)

Not the post I was going to write next

I want to vent about how I have not been a very good Christian today. I had another post in mind, hence not forseeing this. I also didn't intend to be a not very good Christian.

I just didn't intend hard enough to try and be alright at it.

I've managed to be blah and non-seeking, non-joyful, non-life-giving, non-progressive, non-interested, non-alive. It's not because all I did was walk and sit in Starbucks and walk and sit in Starbucks and walk - that isn't great but it has all the potential in the world to give glory to God if it was His idea. It was the way I half-heartedly said "you have this day" and then proceeded to make no effort. Not in the physical where things were limited and I had no real good ideas and was a little weary, but mentally I just didn't bother. I lived in my own stupid, selfish, unholy head; thinking about things I KNOW I have no business thinking about (not like dirty thoughts or anything, just not looking to God and getting stressed and dwelling on the past and wondering about the future and daydreaming instead of focusing on what He has and hasn't said and all that jazz) and generally not actually making the choice for my actions (albeit synaptic ones) to reflect my ideals.

How bad is this for example: I was not really doing much, my battery had died having spent most of the day on my laptop, I was too worn out with too many bags to go outside and it was cold and raining anyway. As a last resort sitting in Starbucks I tried to read my bible but then I decided that, given I was tired, maybe God wanted to speak to me through dreams; so I had a 2 hour nap instead. I basically told Him to come and see me when He was ready and then curled up with my earphones in.

When you are visiting it is like you have to spend all your time making the most of the opportunity to see people. I didn't have any lined up today (aside from music practice this eve) but I was OK with that - it's going to be a pretty long one tomorrow and I did move my stuff to Anna's (giving Beautiful Brian a break) which made it not totally unproductive. With no plans or distractions I had a readymade opportunity to spend quality time with God instead; and I chose to think about the songs I need to learn, moan about my aches and kick back like a lazy cow. I didn't even do any maths. I didn't even try and it only occured to me this eve how that must have made God feel - like He was too much effort.

Sorry God. I'm going to try harder tomorrow. This feeling really sucks you know, I've let Him down. When it gets a bit tougher I'm supposed to up the anti, not give up.

One thing's for sure - I'll need His help.

Sidetracked

In the days before I came to Geneva I was building up quite a few blog thoughts. I can't promise they will ever make it here: back then I was too busy with life and not online; now I have plenty of time and a (sneaky) wireless connection with a comfy sofa, but my thoughts are elsewhere - and where I am not even sure.

The thing about blogging is, sometimes a post can only be posted when it is relevant to what you just did. I will start writing about a particular incident from my day then be rushed off on the next project; getting home at night with no way to finish and by the morning the moment has passed and I am on to the next thing.

Which in this situation I suppose is not critical. One might even argue that I was making a choice between real life and e-life and that in doing so while BGB might miss out, Kat(i)e was almost certainly edified... which can be no bad thing.

But let's suppose, just for a moment, that this blog actually suffered. Like, from neglect that is. It hasn't become something that it could have and is constantly yelling "I have unfulfilled potential 'cause you aren't writing in me".

If I don't complete on time I will miss the deadline and then that particular thought will be null and void - like a news reporter where the big story is all about what I had for lunch and how God revealed something exciting to me about it. It is true that in life there are other things in the mix and only 24 hours in the day (well, let's not make that a hard and fast rule, God can do what He likes with time but I don't think I should schedule my days in that knowledge) and that we can't have everything but I wish, sometimes, that I weighed up the payoff a bit more - regretting posts that I ought to have made but never quite got around to dealing with a tricky paragraph, or looking up a certain fact, or being disciplined enough to finish or, well, facing up to something that really just needs a total rethink.

I know a lot about waiting. I am good at that these days. Well, a bit better anyway. You know what they say about the 7 years Jacob waited for Rachel and then he got given Leah and had to start again? There is so much importance in patience and trusting God (or whatever you may believe) and learning something very valuable so that you are ready when God finally says Yes! Sometimes it maybe even just be about the self-discipline or the sacrifice but wait is DEFINITELY a good, nay a God, thing.

But I am also good at "waiting" when I actually mean Procrastinating. Thinking that at some point in the future it will be more appropriate and perhaps that if something is hard right now it is evidence that the time is not right. Looking at the bible bit it can be easy to ignore the fact that though Isaac waited and worked 7 years for Leah, he only had to do another week to get Rachel - the next 7 years came after the prize. It makes sense doesn't it? I mean, we are never going to be totally ready for anything.

I know that when I write my blog it takes me longer than it ought to. I'm easily sidetracked when difficulties come up and get a bit perfectionist about the silliest of things. The real problem arises however when I then pretend that if life is too full to get it done I obviously was not supposed to make that blog. Maybe if I didn't avoid the more unpleasant things and instead looked them straight in the face and dealt I would be able to press the 'publish' button instead of the 'save for later' one a bit more.

I wasn't sure where I was going with this post. It kinda just grew out of sitting down with, for once, absolutely no idea what to say. The message coming out for me seems about discipline and getting a task that I wish was something that could put off till later, completed. Lord knows that's been relevant a lot since starting back at uni! I need to stop saying it is about the one day when actually, more scarily, it might be about the now.

Wait and procrastinate (I HAVE to use that rhyme) can look very similar but they are vastly different. One gives you more in the long run and t'other, well, it leaves you somewhat lacking.

So I better go back through and redraft till I am content with this post. If you are reading it then you can be happy for me that this day I didn't delay.

Next stop, applying this to something that will actually be life changing...!