Well, it all started when...

So I have some time to kill before lunch, so I decided to return to the old distraction of blogging. Admittedly I had forgotten I had a blog, yet when I just checked my stats. 200 people looked at my blog in February! Shocking considering I haven't blogged since July 2007!

So I have been thinking about the culture of complaining recently; mainly in light of a study we did at housegroup last week on Philippians 2:1-18. Verses 14-16 reads "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life..."

Now the context of this: it's written to one of the early churches in Philippi (eastern Macedonia) and so is written to Christians as encouragement to live the best life in Christ, in light of the fact that their lives had be saved eternally by Jesus' death on the cross. This is not meant to be a legalistic list of 'do's or 'don't's (confusing grammar) which I guess is how many people see Christianity sadly. I can assure you from my own life it's so much more than that - there is no reason why as a non-Christian I would have tried to not complain; it is only because I know that God gave everything to save me that I want to live a life that doesn't carry on as if that had never happened.

So, "do everything without complaining or arguing..." Have you ever tried this? Now I'm not hugely confrontational as a person these days which I must attribute to God working in me and changing me; but complaining - it's SO easy. When my alarm goes off in the morning, instead of thanking God for another day and the breath and life to live it - I think 'Do I really have to get up?' 'How am I ever going to finish that essay/reading etc?' This passage speaks directly into that. I recently defined discipleship as "living lives that don't undermine the words we're speaking". Is my grumbling undermining the glorious gospel I'm proclaiming...or even more, is my grumbling replacing the glorious gospel I should be speaking?

By grumbling I'm slotting right into the world. This passage speaks of living a life that is distinctive where we're shining like stars...is that really how I live. I was watching Bill Bailey last night with my housemates and he notes this culture of complaining - particularly in popular music (in the broadest sense...not cheesy pop). As I type I'm listening to the 'Just Great Songs' album...and it's so true...grumble, complain, whine; and these are the great songs! (I'm not having a shot as the album...I like it musically...lyrically I'm reassessing).

Whilst there are difficulties in life, true difficulties and painful moments most of us grumble because we can't think of something better to say. I have something better to say - it's the message of my Lord and Saviour so why do I join in this moaning? whoever said the Bible was out of date and irrelevant...I beg to differ

As a Christian the challenge is to live this spurred on by Christ's strength and grace; as a human I beg your patience as I stumble and fail. Why do I write this? Well I could just blog; and probably grumble, however perhaps this might encourage someone to live a more pleasing life to God, and thus bring Him glory; or perhaps it might just challenge a preconception about Christianity. Either way I pray God uses it as He will.
In Christ x

So it's summer - yey. My favourite time of year. At least it is when it's sunny. However I have been in Spain for the last two weeks where it is perfectly sunny and nice doing an IFES mission. Basically 60 of us from 13 different countries went out and put on events and talks to share about Jesus with the students and people out there. It was fantastic - although I miss it loads now and wish I was back out there. I think it was the best team I've worked on by far and I met some really lovely people there.

Oh and distressing spelling... Well facebook has gone all funny with millions of applications - one of which is a Zombie fight - I don't really get it but on one of my friend's profiles it says he is a a "Leftenant Zombie" - ahhhhhh Lieutenant please...it's distressing. I mean it doesn't even look right. Having written this I am sure I have made spelling mistakes in this - but I hope not. Dictionaries - wonderful things.

Ok so the title is slightly more dramatic than is quite possibly necessary...but quite frankly, not my problem.
So the last few days has involved a whole lot of preparation for Lucy's wedding - hair on Thursday, shoes on Friday and dress fitting today; needless to say excitement levels are pretty high. Which for anyone who has known me a significant amount of time must be a bit of a shock that I am excited about hair, shoes and dresses. A far cry from the 14 year old tomboy playing football with the guys and the girl who had prior to her sixth form prom never bought a dress; and throughout school (had she not been somewhat cripplingly conscientious)would have been first to sign the petition to change school uniform from a nearly compulsory skirt and a pink and white checked blouse. Not that having three people stare at you whilst someone does unknown things to your hair doesn't still freak me out a little. Also, aside from the fact that I have regularly sized feet, shoe shopping would have at one time ranked up in my top 10 most hated activities. Not any more - I guess a girl can change. So Lucy gets married in about a month and a half - count down!
And the tears..? Not much change there - I'm an uber wuss when it comes to films/TV/novels and tonight we finished off our 'Dawson's Creek' marathon (which has been running from Freshers' Week this year) and it is absolutely and completely emotionally draining, especially the 1hr40 bonanza to finish. Wept my way through the second half - nightmare - although I was somewhat amused to discover that Kirsty and Hannah were as bad as me and Lucy relatively controlled. Personally I reckon she just wasn't paying attention. Although complete breakdown was prevented by some rather hilarious revisiting of past episodes and some dreadful haircuts. Happily the house Pacey/Dawson divide remains as strong as when we started - takes all sorts to make the world go round, plus some people are simply just wrong

I think I have come to the conclusion that I think I think too much... I can't be sure, but latest evidence does support this. I've just sat downstairs watching 2 enthralling episodes of Dawson's Creek (subjective opinion) yet pondering how I was going to carry a mug, 2 glasses, a bowl and a yoghurt pot (with spoon) in one trip to the kitchen without dropping anything. To be fair, they were in my peripheral vision but 1h30 minutes thinking about it! It took me precisely 2 minutes to come up with the plan the rest was me just wondering about would it work/contingency plans - and that's without a single cup of coffee! Phew imagine what will happen when I have to make a real decision.

...In case you were wondering plan A worked like a charm. G'night

Three things to note:
1) Kidney Beans do not taste good uncooked (apparently raw they are poisonous)
2) Kidney Beans explode after roughly 4 and a half minutes in the microwave
3) Kidney Beans don't taste any better post explosion
That is all

Just under a month since I last posted - poor effort.
So what has changed since last month:

Well my knowledge of animals has increased. Apparently male cows don't produce milk, which renders every picture of a male cow I have ever drawn wrong (admittedly that isn't a huge number). And also only female chickens lay eggs and not every egg could become a chicken. I seriously never knew this yet I have a sneaking suspicion I really should have...Hannah has now explained these things to me.

I now know where the fresh coriander section is in Sainsbury's (and that coriander only has one 'r' in it)after Hannah sent me to Sainsbury's to get fresh coriander, mushrooms (yuk) and spring onions (amongst a few other more recognisable items).

I have started my dissertation - by which I mean I have scaled the four flights of stairs to the theology section only to discover that there is a whole monster shelf on Aquinas' 'Summa Theologica' and that there are multiple volumes of which I had to find one. After twenty minutes of searching I discovered the desired volume only to find my search rendered useless by the fact it was written in Latin - nightmare. My search was not aided by the fact that as per usual half the shelves were too high and I had to stand on one of those silly stool things to reach - which is a little embarrasing - yet provides a new perspective on the library - or at least I suspect it would were the library not full of books - but then I don't suppose it would function quite so well as a library. I now have 2 possible copies of the right volume however I am not convinced that I didn't just pick up the same book twice...swapping to Calvin is looking more tempting by the minute. However, I'll give it a go.

Paul has got engaged - which is very exciting (if not a little scary)
I have my first dress fitting next Saturday for my bridesmaid dress for Lucy's wedding - which is now less than 2 months away.
I have discovered that there are some truly hideous wedding dresses and wedding paraphernalia whilst flicking through wedding magazines and have also seen that some people most definitely have more money than sense.

I have also discovered Nottingham Castle - well not in the truest sense of discovered. I went last Saturday with my parents and it was a beautifully sunny day and it was so so pretty. If you get the chance go see it in the sunshine (if you live in Notts and go in the week it is free too).

One final thing that really surprised me - Disney films. Now I liked them when I was younger, but the other night we put 'Beauty and the Beast' on as a bit of late easy viewing and it was fascinating - really. I sat there thinking "Dani, you're 20, seriously" but no it was well good. Also we remembered most the words and quite happily sang along which was much fun. The funniest part has to be when the Beast if getting ready for the big dinner with Belle and goes incredibly fluffy - really very funny - honestly. If you want to prove me wrong you must watch it...And on that note...

The delights of long days with no lectures and few ventures outside the house has arrived. The joy of exams. Although the afternoon after a morning exam always promises a nice rest. It's amazing what amuses you during revision period....suddenly trawling around university websites looking at masters courses (it's just an idea) becomes fascinating.

What to wear for an exam is not usually an issue, however I decided it wasn't entirely appropriate to wear my Who? hoody to an exam on the Life and Teaching of Jesus, in fact it might be advisable not to wear it to New Testament or Christology and Atonement either. (Point noted)

However, as the weather has finally picked up and it isn't raining that is a big bonus except that my distraction techniques can now extend beyond watching DVD's to going for a walk / run, playing tennis, sitting in the garden. Ooooo I watched 'Mansfield Park' yesterday as a post-exam treat. Aww it is so lovely and I adore Edmund. Unfortunately it did break my 'never watch a film before reading the book' pact but it couldn't be helped. I wanted to watch it having just finished re-re-re-reading the enchanting 'Pride and Prejudice', and Hannah has my complete works of Austen.

Right having now raised my concentration level above that of a mousse I should get back to atonement. Bye x

Ok so it's quite a big weekend for sports...something that is not helping my current essay and lack of time crisis. (Fair enough neither is blogging). Whether it is Heineken Cup or play-off and relegation battles, marathons or even Brian Lara and Duncan Fletcher's last games there is one bit of sporting news which won't make the headlines. That is Nottingham Ladies Handball Team finally won a match this season! As one of about 4 English people who play in Notts and about 24 who play in England...it is my duty to flag this up. In our last match of the season we beat Oxford Ladies 25-16 (spurred on by a disallowed goal by yours truly...sooo close) The fact that it was Oxford was pretty nice as well... although I am truly truly glad they rejected me.
It was our last match of a rather disappointing season so it was nice to finish in style, especially as it was the last game ever for a couple of people. The next season starts in October...so we'll wait to see what that brings...and in the mean time get nice and lazy...just kidding.

This made me laugh!

More at www.animalshaveproblemstoo.com

Having enlightened upon the novelty of researching an essay before writing it a few months ago, and the ease that said action brings to writing an essay I am now regretting it.
Well, I'm not regretting it in the sense of it will make my essay more coherent and other such wonderful things, but in the sense that I am baffled and my brain is absolutely full at this moment in time. (Hence this blog to stop it exploding)
I'm currently researching 4 essays (Nightmare!) but have abandoned one for now. The real issue is that 2 at least are incredibly intriguing, and somewhat influential to what I believe. As a result of this I am unable just to put it aside and stick it in the "I'll sort out that later" part of my brain. This doesn't annoy me, in fact I think this is precisely why I do theology and what theology should be (to some extent). I just can't see an end to the reading, and really want to start writing...that and diminish the pile of books that currently towers over me.
I craftily avoided (chickened out of) taking philosophy of religion last semester yet today I have found myself reading both "A philosophical enquiry into how we can speak of a personal God" and "The Philosophy of Religion" - I'm only trying to answer an essay question on prayer and I'm now into defining God and other such wonders. My biggest objection is I just get to a point where I'm satisfied with the answer and then I realise there are still a good 5 pages left in the 'relevant' chapter, at which point my heart sinks and I realise that some genius has come up with at least another objection to it, which I have to be aware of so as not to seem ignorant, which then gets resolved to pretty much the same point as before but with an added clause which I'd already assumed/ignored/not thought of (with the 3rd of those being most frequent)
The other joy of my life is Latin. The relevant research text starts with (English)words and concepts which I have absolutely no idea what they mean, as the pages pass I begin to draw together something which resembles understanding. The hope is then that the conclusion the author draws will verify my understanding. It's looking good and then they stick the vital phrase in LATIN! It's not big and it's not clever. I then have to draw on 'all' my French, Spanish and Greek attempts to try and decipher some translation, and failing that just rearrange the letters and syntax till they resemble my desired translation and bingo. I used to think Latin was a dead language...I'm wrong it seems- theologians are determined to keep it going. Granted a lot of old texts are Latin but surely they've been translated by now but then that brings up the whole concept of language and meaning (an avoided chapter in Philosophy books).
Well I've drawn at least one conclusion from all this - it is impossible to know everything. Actually two conclusions - if you stack many books up they WILL fall over. Right coffee, then back to work.