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Vicar's Blog
CREATING COMMUNITIES OF WHOLENESS WITH CHRIST AT THE CENTRE
Blog Archives: April 2008 - March 2008 - February 2008 - January 2008 - December 2007 - November 2007 - October 2007 - September 2007 - August 2007 - July 2007 - June 2007 - May 2007 - April 2007 - March 2007 - February 2007 - January 2007 - December 2006 - November 2006 - October 2006 - September 2006
25 July, 3.30pm
I've just realised how long I've been off line for, for which my apologies. But there's been enough going on. A new Harry Potter to read [yes, I am an addict - but there are many, many worse things to be addicted to - possibly!]. And aside from that, there have been too many late nights at my desk, with only my laptop for company, so the rest is something of a blur - a great day out at Longleat [its good even in the rain], early morning runs with Adam, reports from the children - unprintable if I don't want to too sickening, except for the summary of Alice's playgroup report which read 'Alice is a happy, confident little girl who would like to be a princess.' - just about right, and a whole lot more. But its all a bit of a haze. I'm I've still got rather too much to do before finishing work at 12noon tomorrow to get ready for the 3 peaks and holiday and I can't wait, so for now I'm going to sign off, and hope to be more regular with my blogging through August, once I'm back at work that it.
10 July, 11.30pm
The press release reads 'Children send Vicar up the wall' - and we'll hopefully get some decent copy for the church and the school - but its been anything but 'up the wall' Its been great to take some hours in the same place and to get our my paints again and start to create.
The project is a three panel mural for the hall at St Francis School - we have three huge boards to fill, the central one is nearly complete - the two side panels have a way to go, but we'll get there.
For those who read this blog but don't get through the whole of mid-week if you have or know anyone who has a baby bouncer and might be willing to let us [or rather Kathryn] borrow it, please could you send me an e mail - if you don't know its mike.haslam@nschurch.org.uk
5 July, 12.45am
Jane nearly got ASDA closed due to a 'terrorist' alert [she had dropped Kathryn's changing bag in the car park], and I nearly set the house on fire with an impressively burning saucepan left on the stove while I answered the phone. Kathryn slept though the whole day and then gurgled though a meal and meeting here tonight, she's now in a growbag in her Moses Basket and sounds as if she is about to wake so I'll sign off. A normal kind of day in the Haslam household.
2 July 07. 10.30pm
Writing for the Swindon Evening Advertiser, or indeed for any publication, is a strange business - I'm never quite sure what will work, and I hate reading my own copy in the paper, and [as previously discussed, I'm always astonished that others read it. The most bizarre of times was a column I wrote for Father's Day. Jane had been away for a week on a conference and I'd been suffering with hay fever [as only a bloke can] and probably inflicting a fair amount of that on the children [just three of them then]. The article ended with a sentence that was really the whole point of it 'Thank God, that God our Father is with us all the time. But for the next few days everyone kept on coming up to me and asking how my hay fever was. 'How on earth do you know?' I'd respond. And then I'd remember that I'd written about it in the Adver.
Its very nearly as strange with this blog. Certainly bizarre that my parents both seem to read it - not bad in any way, just strange. Talking of which if you want a laugh and enjoy light verse try visiting my Dad's goat's blog.
But what started me on all of this was the response I've had to my open letter to Gordon Brown in last Friday's adver. I called on him to care for the world and its people, cancel Trident, welcome refugees and asylum seekers, change the way we respond to terrorism and the language we use, and fundamentally to trust ordinary people and communities. Some big stuff there, but from the churches and beyond I've had calls and e mails saying thank you. Not exactly a deluge but a fair trickle and far more than I get when I write about anything else [including hay fever].
All of which just magnifies the sense that I had that George Cary [former Archbishop of Canterbury] was not only wrong, but out of step with many he claims to lead, when he called on Gordon Brown to protect Britain's Christian Culture and limit immigration. The first is fine, although I want to protect a pluralist culture not just a Christian one, but the latter is wrong - as if we don't punish refugees enough already! Jesus was a refugee, he constantly preached that if we weren't there for the poor and homeless and vulnerable, we weren't there for him. And I think that that's the first time that I've so publicly disagreed with one of my Bishop's, let along Archbishops.
BLOGGERS NOTE
You'll notice in this blog that I use clauses and sub clauses and square brackets and lots of other grammatical aberrations! Also that I can't spell. Jane sometimes compares my sentence structure to St Paul, going on and on and on... I'm afraid that you're going to have to live with it. I try to edit it all out when I'm writing for print, but I'm going to indulge myself here.