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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
24th May, 5.03pm
I'm still exhausted, and far more so that the small amount of sleep that we are missing should warrant. But than I remember lunch with a friend in Newcastle. I'd just told him that we were expecting Alice and Simon's response was to look at me as if I was completely mad and then to as 'Mike, you do know why this is happening, don't you?'
If I'm exhausted, Jane never seems to stop and is still clearing out cupboards etc! And as for Kathryn, I'll leave you with Alice's assessment, 'She's very lazy.'
A photo of Kathryn being 'lazy'.
16 May, 5.35
Jane has just pointed out that I'm on paternity leave, not maternity leave - see below. Blame it on sleep deprivation.
16th May, 2.50pm
Kathryn was born at 3.30am on Monday 14th May (click on photo to see it full sized). She has since slept through the days and occasionally though the nights! It's four years since we last did this and I'd forgotten quite what the first few nights are like. But she's wonderful [as you'd expect me to say]. I'm now on maternity leave and wouldn't be up to work even if I wanted to. I was walking though ASDA yesterday getting some food and felt in a daze, and doubt I responded very well as one person after another after another came up and asked me about Kathryn or about booking baptisms or about services, assemblies...
What's really good though is seeing the look on people's faces, when they say, 'Congratulations! is she your first?' And I respond, 'No, this is No 4'.
10th May 8.05pm
Still no baby - but I've just managed to download and install a programme to create and convert pdf files! For me, I assure you, that's quite an achievement And thanks to Chris for giving me an idiots guide. I now need to work out how to create a hyperlink so that the pdf files can be accessed from the website - I've tried it but it doesn't seem to want to work! Any offers...? And another achievement to report, I've worked out hyperlinks within the website - I think! What I need to sort is how to import documents and what is the right path to follow.
10th May, 3.45pm
Aside from a 10mm thick English Heritage grant form [the roof at St Andrew's needs to be repaired] and music for services from June to October [and no doubt a whole host of things I've forgotten] I've got to the end of my 'to do - pre baby' list. And we're still waiting for the baby.
But while the waiting is everything for us [and especially for Jane!] everywhere else things are moving and moving fast.
'We have witnessed a miracle and miracles, we must remember, are things of God'. Those words were first spoken in Cape Town in 1994, but they could, equally have applied to yesterday in Northern Ireland as former enemies laughed and the troubles ended [if we dare make that claim] not with a explosive bang but with a cuppa. Its bizarre but Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness do seem not only to be able to work together and take Northern Ireland forward, but perhaps even to like each other. But why should we find it bizarre. The moderates who we expect to come together in the centre and make peace often can't do it, they aren't sufficiently trusted by those on the extremes and can't bring the two sides together. Only when the hard-liners, the likes of Paisley and McGuiness, Mandela and de Klerk, get together.
We had a discussion yesterday about celebrities vs leaders who live, and sometimes die, sacrificially. To what extent is the cult of celebrity growing and how much is that influenced by global media? Why are there so few leaders around who really inspire us to live and even die for a cause. Mandela, however amazing, is old, as are Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Havel and Aung San Suu Kyi, and where are their successors, Who. like Romero, is willing to live and die for his beliefs?
Such people come rarely in our world, but in part perhaps it's the lack of sacrificial leadership here and now that allows the celebrity culture to grow and grow. There's nothing wrong with Beckham, Madonna or any of the rest [beyond the fact that they, like us, are human, and they, like us, struggle with the continual spotlight], but I know who I'd choose to be locked up with and I don't have any doubts who will be remembered and revered 100 years from now.
And then there's Jesus, the example of all sacrifice, who is still remembered, revered and worshipped 2000 years on.
7th May, 6.25pm
It's a Bank Holiday so it rained - at least up until lunch. Afterwards we experienced geocashing for the first time ever - it's bizarre but fun - go to www.geocashing.com if, like me, you've never encountered it.
We're just waiting for the baby. It's due on Wednesday 9th. I'd forgotten this waiting time, I guess that it won't be the only thing about babies that I've forgotten. It's a strange kind of limbo. The next two days in my diary are full, and I'm just about ready for them, but have no idea whether I'll actually be there to do the work. And [just as a warning] the next person to ask me, 'is anything happening' should pause for a moment and think about whether I would actually be meeting with them if anything was happening...
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.