29th November: 10:37pm

Its been another week of work up 'till midnight and beyond - and so perhaps I should just sleep, especially since tomorrow is a 'long run' morning, so an earlier start. But there's a whole load of stuff I've been wanting to put on here for ages and there's more to be done even without this blog...

Oxenwood with Redoaks was once again muddy and fun - and I may be being talked into learning to teach archery - interestingly I heard third hand that there was a time when that was part of a Vicar's job - to teach people in the village how to shoot with a bow. If anyone can confirm or give more information I'd be interested. But having competed decently at archery and well at mountain biking I was completely humiliated at football and was reminded that I really can't kick a ball in a straight line - let alone stop on that is heading towards me - the year 5's out-witted me at every turn and tackle!

A friend starting talking to me about the 'work, life, Christ balance' - a phrase that he had coined. It's great and seems to sum up what we've been trying to get across though sermons, home groups and everything else over the last year or so, the sense that God is connected with every part of our lives, not just about Sundays or religious stuff, or for crises, but caring for us at home and work and wanting us to make the connections too.

But if that's where we've been the last year, next year may well be different - well we'll continue to make the connections between faith and our ordinary, everyday lives, but hopefully we'll also be going national and indeed global. I've heard a few things recently that have inspired me to thing bigger [some might say that I need to think smaller!] and then Joe turned up on our door. I knew him in Newcastle when he was a student and I was University Chaplain - we campaigned against the war in Iraq [Joe more militantly than me] and then set up Free Festival, a community and performing arts gig. It was great.

Perhaps its time to think beyond the boxes in which most of our lives are lead and start campaigning for Stop the Traffik, or Tear Fund or for any one of thousands of causes that need our attention; so that God's kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven. Elaine Storkey spoke recently in Swindon of 'the Local Church, the hope of the world'. Its a vision that can be fulfilled, but only if we stand up and are counted.

I'm sure that there was more to post, but I'm now fading, and tomorrow [day off in theory] I'm faced with cutting up 1200 sheets of A4 to make 4800 Christmas Fliers to go out with welcome packs - the kind of job to do in front of a bad movie - or endless episodes of the West Wing. What an exciting life I lead! It's why I go running...

Now I'm really not making any sense so I'll sign off.

22nd November: 9:30pm

I'm nearly there - an assembly on Friday morning at Brimble Hill and some preparation for Sunday - and I'm sure a whole load of new things for next week - but I'm nearly there! Life always slows on Friday and Saturday and after a week when I've been working till after midnight each night I can do with the pace slowing down.

Morning running has been not only dark, but something like wading through mud - just like the Redoaks Oxenwood Residential - only there we were all on bikes rolling down tracks which looked more like streams!

I went to see an amazing person who has volunteered to take on our website [updates and development] including making it interactive - we're getting there! However, her computer has just crashed. All of which made me aware how infrequently I back up my lap top - and as the whole of my working life [and I don't have paper copes] and most of our family photos [from the last 3 years] are on this laptop I really don't want to loose it. So I went out and brought an external hard drive - which I'm about to connect and use.

17th November: 10:05pm

One more thought on Pakistan - its happened across the continent of Africa and indeed across the world but it still seems bizarre to me that an armed coup is an appropriate response to government corruption. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of government corruption - far from it. But for the leader of an armed coup to justify his [has there ever been a woman who has enacted a coup?] actions as a means to end theft and then try his predecessor for that, as if the coup leader is innocent in comparison, is bizarre. Or perhaps its just the kind of contorted morality that you would expect in someone who suspends his counties constitution not once but twice [once when he himself was in power].

Another conversation with my Dad last weekend was about morality and the politics of right and left. My Dad [a good conservative] has a thesis that the right should be able to claim the high ground of morality, but has consistently failed to do so, due at least in part to a reluctance to do faith in politics in this country [although it was actually Alistair Campbell [Tony Blair's Communications Chief] who said 'we don't do God'].

I don't buy it. At least in theory I'm an anarchist - and that's a good way to the libertarian right of even the most small government conservative. Anarchy - in its true form is about individuals coming together in community to self govern their own local communities - its the antithesis not only of national government [big or small] but even of concept of the nation state. Its a great theory - that we can all respect and honour each other so much that we don't need any edicts from government to tell us what to do; that we can be part of our local communities; that we can know and be known there and we can work together for the good of our communities.

But I'm only an theoretical anarchist because I don't believe that it can actually ever work. Human being simply aren't that good to each other. [And I've written about this before but can't remember where so you're not going to get a hyperlink! Sorry]. Because it doesn't work we need government of some kind or other, and because we ask for more than our own village or town can provide [surgeons and armies to name but a few things] we need to be part of larger units - nation states.

I'm not for a moment discounting the amount of evil that can be caused by government - or the simple mess and incompetence - governments are rarely efficient units of operation. But they can also do a lot of good. And in my list of really worthwhile accomplishments of government I can't think of many that were done by the right wing. I'm setting myself up for a fall here, but my list of worthwhile government changes includes voting reform acts, factory reform acts, civil rights acts, establishment of the welfare state, balancing power between workers and bosses, the minimum wage, freedom of information etc.

Because this blog still isn't interactive [I have some meetings on at present to take that further] if anyone wants to shoot me down [or at least respond to my thesis] you are welcome to e mail me at mike.haslam@nschurch.org.uk and I'll be very happy to post your responses.

While I'm on line - one more reflection - on Remembrance Sunday - I did three school assemblies on Monday and a Sunday morning service, but the one that really hit me was the afternoon service at Purton. It was incredibly moving, the very young and the very old, the silence and the music, so many, many people coming together to remember, which is ultimately all that Remembrance Day is all about.

13th November: 10:30pm

On the afternoon of Friday 2nd I got back from an amazing training run at Uffington for my 14 peaks hike and Jane told me that we had just got a call saying that Kathryn's operation [to clear the tube between her left kidney and her bladder] was now increasingly urgent and could we be at the Bristol Children's Hospital at 8am the next morning. Kathryn is fine, she was out of hospital within three days, off all pain-killers within the same time-scale and her old self. It took the rest of us rather longer to recover, Alice got a tummy bug, Anna got grumpy [like her Dad] and as far a work went it the week was pretty much of a write off. I spent hours trying [and failing] to do a one page summary of our growth plan. I just couldn't find the coherent words.

That has now happened, although its a two page summary - one page was too much of a challenge.

I've been listening to reports from Pakistan - one lawyer who said that to suspend the constitution was an act of high treason [as defined by the suspended constitution] and the penalty for high treason was execution. The unspoken but unambiguous conclusion was that General Musharraf was guilty. It was a staggeringly brave - an antidote to anyone who says that there's no courage left, or that all Muslims are terrorists.

My dad was here for the weekend and commented that I hadn't mentioned running in this blog for a while - as you might have read I was at Uffington on Friday 2nd. But before that - and somewhat earlier in the day I've been remembering how to do an unusual form of extreme sport. The latest James Bond film opens with Free Running [charting a straight line through an urban environment without avoiding walls]. Dark running [my own form of extreme sport] is, as the name implies, running in the dark - without such pieces of innovative modern technology as a torch - let alone street lights. You have no idea where you're going or what you're about to run into. It's not just running into trees and fence posts - although that has been known - its when the ground suddenly drops a foot without my realising - as I run across a whole load of fields with mediaeval farming strips that happens a fair amount. The dark running is going to continue for a while, and by the time that the clocks change back I'll be able to win a championship in which I'm the only competitor! There aren't many others running the fields in the dark at 6am.

1st November: 9:40pm

It's been completely manic since we got back from Minehead, via Lambeth and I feel as if I already need another holiday - at least a day off. But Kathryn is sleeping though the night [sleeping not crying] which is a real achievement for her and great for us.

The journey home was long and tedious and when we finally arrived and faced the usual backlog of post and voice mails and e mails I really needed a drink. So Jane kindly went to the Spar. Jane is never keen to buy wine because she's always worried that I won't like it. But she got back with a bottle and I responded enthusiastically. She asked if it was especially good, and I answered, 'No, it's fine, but it's got a screw top not a cork so I can open it faster!' Sometimes I wonder...

Exmoor was, as usual wonderful. On the first day I got up and drove up to Bossington Beacon, ran the contour path [a misnomer because there are endless climbs and descents] to the head of Hurlstone Combe and then on up to Selworthy Beacon which I reached just as the sun was rising above North Hill. It was spectacular. Quite what it says about me that on the first day of my holiday I still get up early and go for a run on the hills I don't know - except that Exmoor is SO much more beautiful that anything in Wiltshire that you just can't miss the experience, the exhilaration of the sunrise.

The other great thing about the holiday was playing board games with the 3 A's. Aside from the fact that there was time [never in great supply during a normal week] it's also even mroe fun because I actually have to try to achieve a win now, and sometimes don't make it!

Baptism prep was last night. One of the first questions that we ask of parents and godparents is 'if someone walks up to you in the street and asks you 'do you believe in God?' what would you say? One mum and dad opened the batting by saying straight up 'No'. You have to admire their gall. Resisting the temptation to respond, 'well what are you doing here then?' we continued on and discovered far more than that simple 'No'.

I love that Baptism Prep evening. It gives me a chance to be an evangelist, to talk and answer questions and relate faith to people's doubts and fears and hopes. It's by far the best work evening of my month.

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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.