Blogging every day in June: and other things i haven't done

There's two things you immediately notice when you walk into my dad's office. On one wall he must have about thirty or forty fishing rods, dating back to about his teenage years...i don't think he's ever thrown one away. On another wall there is shelf after shelf of A 4 diary books. These are his fishing diaries. One of the earliest memories i have is of my dad on a sunday night writing up his weeks fishing from his notebook to his diary. If you want to know where he was and what he caught on March 18th 1983, he'll be able to tell you without much trouble. Thats cool to me.

Inspired by this i thought i'd try to write at least something every day in the month before i got married. Since, in some ways at least, having something online is safer than having it on paper (harder to lose) it seemed like a great idea. Except then...well it didn't happen did it! But thats ok. Sometimes you've got it, sometimes you don't. But on the Sunday before i get married on Friday, two days before the arrival of as many English people to set foot in North Carolina since it was, well, English, it seemed good to at least record something. Maybe i'll be bitten by the bug this week. Maybe my list of to dos is already growing the other side of town at wedding HQ.

Am i excited? Yes. Will i be more excited when Canon in D starts and i know Rachel's making her way down the aisle behind me? Goodness me, but a million times yes. I'm getting butterflies just thinking about it. Am i stressed about everything thats got to happen between now and then? A little bit. But not really.

A couple of unconnected things. Losing to Holland in the T20 World Cup is about as irrelevant to this summer's cricket as it can get. There's one main event in 2009, The Ashes are the only thing that matter. This whole summer so far has been ridiculous. If beating the West Indies was like training for a marathon by walking the dog, this is like training for a marathon by carrying a heavy tray of drinks up a flight of stairs. There's too much cricket. If Twenty20 is the way forward then we ought to get rid of the 50 over game completely. Play more Twenty20 to fill the gap if you want, double headers, four games in five days, whatever. In Major League Baseball each of the thirty teams play 140 (!) regular season games and no one complains. The four and five day version of the game is more important, but i can't see Twenty20 going away.

I've been reading 'Sealed with an oath' the NSBT on covenant. It's real good. It starts off talking about why there was no covenant with Adam (because creation supersedes covenant, because covenant serves God's creative purpose of international blessing rather than the other way around) and then goes on to talk about the covenants with Noah, Abraham, Israel and David before two chapters on the New Covenant. It's really helping me to read the Bible as one book, and anything that does that is worth the admission...

Researching wedding music

I don't think this version of Canon in D will make the final cut!

Conversations

A while before i moved to the States, someone told me it would be hard to stand at any one point of the country and say 'ah ha, now this is America.' And he was right. How do you sum up a single country that contains the Harvard scholar and the Idaho potato farmer? The Carolina NASCAR fan and the California environmentalist? You can't. But whoever told me that didn't tell me something else thats equally true. It's hard to stand in any single state and say 'ah ha, now this is North Carolina.'

My adopted home state is a good example, split into one hundred counties and three regions of almost equal size, culture and the way of life on one side of the state are very different on the other. In the west you have the mountain region, full of, well, mountains, the middle part of the state is known as Piedmont, and contains the Triangle area, a zone containing all but one of the largest cities in the state, and about the only region left in the country where industry is still growing. Slowly the cities turn to farms, and the farms to beaches and you've reached the coastland region, where i live. Put your figure almost anywhere on a map of eastern North Carolina and you're pointing at the middle of nowhere. The eastern part of the state has it's own feel, it's own food, it's own way of life. People here still farm, hunt and fish meaningfully, men wear cowboy boots to church. Barbecue in eastern Carolina is totally different to barbecue in western Carolina, and nothing life what i grew up calling barbecue.

North Carolina is different from itself, as you might expect from a state probably only slightly smaller than a European country. And the people are different too, open, warm and funny. This was driven home to me clearly last night. It was about 1115, and my next door neighbour was standing at the top of the steps that lead to the first floor apartments enjoying the cool evening air. We've had two weeks of 80-90F days, and this week had been full of tornadoes and thunderstorms, but yesterday evening was perfect. Cool, clear and with a wonderful breeze. A great night for standing out.

I hadn't spoken to him much before but last night we chatted for ages about the weather, the economy, the state of the parking lot, his acting career. Then he mentioned, quite matter of factly, that in the past week he had suffered two awful family tragedies. We'd covered four to six weeks of British conversation in half an hour. All this presents a problem. What do you do with people that are, in effect, inoculated to the Gospel? People who know just enough to make them feel alright, but not enough to get sick on it? With people who are happy to stand and pray with you, but never darkened the door of a church building? I'm still not clear whether this ingrained respect for Church as an institution is helpful or not in the long run. Not sure at all.

As for me and my neighbor. I'll keep praying, we'll keep talking, and maybe one day soon i'll get to ring a bell of my own...

Rachel's Mum and i have a different view of some aspects of Church work

'so where are y'all meeting?'

'Bojangles in Vanceboro.'

'urghh, Bojanges, why can't you all play racquetball or something?'

'hey if we can not eat, we will not meet.'

The Weekend

Goodness. I love my job, i love being busy, this weekend has been the daddy...i am ready to go to bed and sleep until people start calling me Rip Van Ed.

First off on friday night we watched the ACC basketball tournament at church. Now a year ago i wouldn't have understood the big deal about college basketball, but the south eastern united states more or less closed down on friday to watch the games. And that was just a regional tournament, the national championships start on tuesday, and from thursday to sunday for the next few weekends there are games for twelve hours a day. We left church just after midnight saturday morning.

Saturday was much the same getting to church about two, watching more of the games, hosting a Bible college choir in the evening before getting home about 830. Then we got a call that one of the older ladies in church was in a very bad way in the hospital, so we headed back to to Greenville, stayed and prayed for a couple of hours, and got back just after midnight sunday morning.

For once it was almost a relief that i'm not teaching on a sunday morning at the moment. I was just about awake enough for sunday school and kids church, but it was a struggle. Then back to the hospital then home for an all too short nap, then back to church, rounding everything off with a 15 minute parent meeting after the service.

I'm bushed right now, but thrilled at everything i'm involved in personally, and we as a church are doing. I'm excited about going to work again tomorrow, preaching on wednesday night, and twice on sunday as Rachel's dad is in Tennessee. I'm also excited about going to bed, very shortly!

How everything is about footb...the Gospel

I've just started helping out with Rebekah's school football team. It's kinda fun and kinda different. I have to call defenders 'stoppers' and get blank looks when i tell our roving midfielder that 'you're my Steven Gerrard,' but it's good stuff. Two hours of running in eighty degree heat is better to watch than do, i can say that much.

Football is about the biggest participation sport in the States, amongst girls anyway, so a lot of these girls have been playing for years, but a lot for barely weeks (hence we lost our first two games 4-0 and 3-0 because most of our players were essentially terrified of the other team). And although it's a big participation sport, few of the girls have ever actually seen a game played by professionals before. And thats a real problem. Your strikers can talk about what they need to do, but they've got no one to copy, they didn't grow up arguing over who was going to be Alan Shearer in their lunchbreaks. Midfielders can talk about breaking down and building up, but when do they hold back and when do they break into open space? No example seems to equal no intuition.

Without a vision my people perish. Or as the ESV has it, without a prophetic vision, without revelation my people perish. Greenville Knights Girls Soccer will struggle until they study people who've played the game all their life. They need to be told, to see. To taste and see that possession is good. Without a revelation from God, how will Christians live? How will they know how to eat and drink to the glory of God, or even that they should? How will we know how to love, or how to live, or even that we should love, without the Bible. The Bible changes our categories. Just as watching Bobby Moore would help our central defenders, so reading Romans will expand our hearts. And change our hearts.

This is what we need no? This is meat and drink for us. Can my team survive without spending time studying the game they're supposed to be playing? Of course, with a struggle, with regular defeats. And so it is for us. Do we read the Bible to impress God? Of course not, we read it like hungry beggars. Why would we not want to eat? Why would we want to snack on candyfloss when you can have lovely steak?

The parable of the sowers seems to teach us that the way we treat the Word has eternal importance. We'll either bow to it, or by judged as we ignore it. We must stay in the Word ultimately because thats where we meet Jesus, the Captain of our Salvation, we must stay in the Word because it makes us wise unto salvation. And how we need to be wise!

A postscript on House and 24

Day Seven is the first series of 24 i've ever watched, so apart from the two hour special, i've got no Jack background to work with. Tell me about him... Are we supposed to like him? Is this what happens when our values outweigh our morals? I'm enjoy 24 more than Lost, which i've pretty much completely given up on, although it's clashing with Wednesday night church and important basketball games hasn't helped it's cause.

I know we're not supposed to like House. Can you imagine working with him? Really? And yet, i can't help being pleased every time he's on screen. Not in an Atticus Finch way, but definitely in a 'i wouldn't watch this show if it was called 'Cuddy' or 'Foreman'' kind of way. But more and more in the latest season of House his friendships grow in both dysfunction and closeness. It's obvious Wilson and House value each other, even if they'd never admit it, more so Cuddy and House. Possible spoiler warning. Otherwise why would Cuddy make sure House could get his job back? She seemed more concerned about losing him than he was about losing his job. Why would she value his comfort as a friend more than his effectiveness as a doctor?

And what do the 'House playing the piano on his own and drinking scotch while his colleagues have a good time' scenes mean if not that House is slowing learning the error of his ways?

Or maybe, enjoying them...

Gregory House and Jack Bauer

It all changed with Bonnie and Clyde. At least thats what Graham Daniels said, and used to play professional football, so he must be right. For the first time in Bonnie and Clyde, we're supposed to side with the bad guys over the good guys, we're supposed to cheer the robbers rather than the cops.

I'm sure it's just a fluke of scheduling, but watching House, and then 24 back to back on a Monday night makes you think of some similarities between the two. Gregory House is the obvious heroic anti hero; addicted to vikiden, rude to patients, colleagues and superiors and with questionable morals outside the workplace. Yet House saves lives. Even if he just sees them as a 'puzzle to be solved' people come in dying, and House makes them well. So does it matter how he does it?

I'm less clear, and at the same time, more clear on Jack Bauer. This is the first season of 24 i've watched to forgive me if i overlook some obvious points. Jack should be the all American hero. he fights the bad guys, he does everything to protect his country, inside and outside the law. But that's the problem, the great contradiction with Jack. On the one hand a great hero, a great man who risks life and limb for others' freedom, and on the other hand a man who sees no problem with a baby being held at gunpoint as long as it gets him what he wants.

What should we do about this collision of good and bad? It's not like this in Maybury, there the eponymous hero of the Andy Griffith show defends his 1950s small town America with a firm fairness, and still finds time to take the kids to the fishing hole. He was a simple 'hero' and watching that show is like a window into a different world. I guess that's exactly what it is.

Jack and Gregory and different, but the same. We're supposed to like Bauer, we're not supposed to like House, and yet they're the same. The lines today are as blurred as they can get. Probably. There's only ever been One hero we can trust totally, only ever been one Man who was totally consistent, only ever One never let anyone down. I like the similarities between House and 24 because they illustrate that what ever our expectations, no man will ever be worth all of our trust. And that takes me back to the Bible, and back to Jesus.

My fake suprise birthday day

Today i was kidnapped for my birthday. Rachel picked me up from work early this morning and we headed to Raleigh to the North Carolina museum of art. We had a great time, it was nice to just be near stuff that was older than post world war II. I discovered a love for 19th century American art, but not so much for medieval European art...too much gold leaf, not enough perspective. I could stare at ancient Greek art all day.

Then we headed to Southpointe Mall in Durham, and headed to Barnes and Noble. While Rachel drank a girly coffee and ate my slice of cheesecake i headed off to be depressed by the Christianity section. I hid some of the bad books behind good books...there weren't enough good books to go round, obviously, but at least Joel Osteen's smile is now hidden behind some tastefully covered copies of Piper's 'Taste and See.' They didn't have any Carson anywhere...isn't that awful? I managed to pick up 'How then shall we live' and 'the weight of glory' though, so it wasn't a total write off.

Then to the Angus Barn, a steak restaurant par excellence in Raleigh. And there, at a table hidden around a corner was my Dad...my actual dad! I had no idea! It was amazing. As split second moments go it was one of the best of my life...i cried a bit and then we sat down to an evening of paternal stories and high end steak...perfect!

Preaching and providence

I preached on Philippians 1:19-24 at Bethel Christian Academy's chapel service this morning. I like the idea of Christian High Schools (i think, if only because in Eastern NC at least public/state schools are average at best) but they are hard places to preach. And on top of that i'm not sure i did a great job of it.

It attacked my pride as i drove home this afternoon, realising that when i'm speaking somewhere know one knows me, i want to preach as well as i possibly can, and i knew that today i felt some way off that. I don't think i prepared well enough, i don't think i knew my script well enough, i didn't pray enough, i don't think to a large extent what i wrote was finished. I'll stick it up here in the next couple of days in any case, feedback appreciated.

What bothered me more than anything else as a i drove along an empty and dusty Highway 11 was that what i said just wasn't relevant. That somehow these 14-18 year olds didn't need to hear a message about Christ being life and death being gain. That there was something better, more practical i could have spoken on. How do you convince kids that to die and be with Jesus is better than to live an easy life of accumulation? How do you get someone to wear Christian Hedonist glasses in such a short, impersonal space of time?

So i struggled to believe what i shared was relevant or helpful for their lives. I struggled to think that they needed to be persuaded to count their lives as loss for the sake of Christ, that they didn't need to be challenged about what they wore or how they spent their money. Essentially, i thought they needed to hear something other then the root of the Biblical Gospel.

But oh, then lovely providence. My close friend in dark times of the soul. I picked up 'Finally Alive' and on the second page i read was this paragraph:

That...relevance is what guides my sermons and my writings. In other words i want to say things that really are significant for your life whether you know they are or not. My way of doing that is to stay close as i can to what God says is important in His Word, not what we think is important apart from God's Word.

John Piper, Finally Alive P100

So the feeling i didn't deliver a message well does not have the final say in the matter. A few hundred bored looking teenage faces looking at me (and anywhere but!) is not the final word on whether i preached on a relevant text or not. What good news it is, how it clears the fog. Talk about whats important to God, for that is truly relevant.

Switchover

The reminders have been running on TV for as long as i can remember. 'only X days till the digital tv switchover...are you ready?' All over America the analogue TV signal is being turned off and replaced by digital or satellite. This is all the make room for more channels or bandwidth or something else i don't really understand. Anyway, everyone has had a long time to either switch to cable/satellite or get a digital converter for their TV.

But about four or five million people haven't, and so congress has voted not only to delay the switchover by four months, but also to give $40 to everyone who hasn't yet bought a converter box. Now there are a world of issues here, and the right wing media have gone off the scale over it. Twice today i turned the radio on, about four hours apart, and this was the subject. Their point of course is that 1) It's crazy for government money to be spent on people's Tvs, where does that stop? What if i want a digital radio? Or a sit down lawn mower? Isn't America supposed to be a capitalist free market? 2) Obama knows the power of TV and wants to make sure that every traditional Democrat voter can afford to listen to the liberal 'news' about how he's saving their country. (news over here is essentially headlines and comment, it makes me long for Huw Davies and Fiona Bruce) and 3) when did TV become an essential. Can people not service without watching American Idol or whatever else.

There are dozens of political issues here, but there's also a spiritual one i think. Increasingly our culture is built on entertainment. TiVo and Sky + mean we never need to miss a TV show, Wii Fit means that we never need to leave our house to go to the gym, we can achieve our dreams of sporting glory on a PS3, digital TV means there's always another channel to flick to, even if there's nothing to watch on any of them. One package offers 250 channels. 250! Get a huge flat screen and your good to go.

We weren't built to be entertained. Our minds were made to think of the glory of Christ, our hearts were made for deep joy in worship, our bodies were made to serve and glorify Christ. We weren't created to sit on the couch, we were created to worship, with sharp minds and grateful hearts. Where will another Edwards or Whitefield or Simeon or Judson come from if our free time is devoted to watching tv. How will we worship or preach on sunday morning if all our evenings are devoted to television. I'm not advocating Christians getting rid of Tvs (although, given this is the fundamentalist belt, i'd bet i'm not too far from someone who is) i like watching House and 24 and essentially anything involving a ball and thousands of screaming spectators. TV, even 250 channel digital TV isn't evil, but it is invasive, and it can stop our hearts reaching deeply for Christ. And thats not worth all the government money you can spend...

A ledge

Sometimes reading the Bible is like a mighty soul satisfying feast, verse after verse, chapter after filling chapter making us glad in our savior.

Sometimes a single verse is like a sturdy ledge on a sheer cliff face:

And everyone who has left houses, or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands or Reading Family Church, or UCCF, or lunches with their family, or time with friends, or afternoons at football, for my names sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life

Matthew 19:29 (Ed's Special Version)

The Inauguration

Never one to be behind the times, today's probably the last day i can get away with writing something about the inauguration. Tuesday was snow day, so we were able to watch it all, which i'm really pleased about. I didn't want to have to tell my grandchildren that i kept up to date by pressing F5 while pretending to work!

Was it an historic moment? Yes, a hundred million times yes. Going from segregation to inauguration in just about a generation is amazing... Has the press gone a bit bonkers over it? Yes, a little bit. There were nowhere near two million people in Washington watching it, it's probably closer to about half that number. But that's still pretty good.

Will Obama actually be a good president? Who knows to be honest. He's hasn't had much experience of leading Illinois, never mind America. He's probably the first president to take over a country in decline rather than on an upward curve, and coupled with the fact that there's probably more expectation on him than any other President in US history...It's going to be tough. He's ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay (probably not a bad thing) and repealed Bush's policy of not spending federal money on abortions (a terrible, terrible thing...four days in!). His economic plans could well create a huge number of jobless people relying on government pay outs, which is about as far away from the American dream as you can get...It's going to be an interesting four years.

I though Rick Warren really did pretty well with his prayer. I'm no fan of his, but i thought with the exception of a couple of cringing moments, he did as well as anyone could have done. And i'm sure every time i pray in church there are a couple of cringe moments, and that's just in front of a couple of hundred people, never mind nearly a million!

I really hope Obama is a good, financially responsible, morally upstanding President. But more than that, i hope he comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ, the One who always has, and always will rule America. We need to pray to that end...

The Weather

'Affirmative, it is actually snowing...repeat i can see snow falling from the sky.'

North Carolina has definitely had some extremes of weather since the summer. My first three weeks here the heat was tremendous. Barely out of the nineties all day, it felt like we were living in an oven. Then September, October and November were lovely. T-shirt weather most days, sunny evenings and warm days. Mostly. We only really had one or two days of 'need your coat' weather in the whole second half of 2008.

And now...now it's hurling snow out of the sky. We've had the coldest winter in the last six years in North Carolina, night time temperatures getting as low as -17C!. That's cold. I wonder if i've ever gone through a wider range of temperature in such a short time. I doubt it!

Anyway, i'm off to play in the snow...

What does your Christmas look like

John Piper shares with humour and passion what his Christmas looks like. 

As me and my little sister have got older (she's 21 now...21!) Christmas in the Goode household has evolved from the normal 'kids going crazy and tearing open presents' to something thats more about family. And i like that.

I'll go to church in the morning, and then come home. My mum, sister, aunt and grandmother will be in the kitchen peeling and cooking, my dad and grandfather will be reading and sleeping (Germaine Greer didn't sell many books in our family). We'll have lunch sometime between two and three, and then over tea and Christmas cake/yule log open our presents, watch the Queen's speech and slowly fall asleep as the daylight ebbs away. It'll be lovely.

Prolonged exposure to a different family, with different traditions and expectations makes me realise how peculiar all familes are, and how important Christmas traditions are. Rachel opens her presents right after church at about 9am...they have huge light displays, go carol singing, and (get this) don't have a Queen's speech to listen to! We get married twenty five weeks ago yesterday, and so next Christmas will be a transatlantic collision of tradition. This will be a fun problem to deal with!

That Chris Rea song

Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again. 

Sir Henry Bishop wrote home sweet home. 

Tomorrow i'll find out which is more appropriate.

It seems almost unbelievable to me that it's over five months since i was in England, and over four since i saw my family. It really has gone by in a flash. In an odd but very real way it feels funny to talk about somewhere else as home. I've really fallen in love with eastern North Carolina, a place totally unlike any other. That really wasn't in the plan. But it's happened. I remember walking along the canal in Reading with Sean, what seems like a life time ago and telling him that however much i'd fight it there would come a day when all i wanted to do in the world was to pack up and come home, that i'd just want to sit in the kitchen at my parents house, read the paper and talk to my mum as she did the ironing.

That day never came. I've never really been homesick. Which hopefully will make going home for three weeks a lot easier.

It'll be odd though. I'll expect it to be as it was on 10th July when i left. But it'll be 19th December. Relationships will have been forged and broken, people will have grown up and stumbled, friends will have moved, i'll no longer have a place where i used to belong.

But thats really ok. I'm supposed to be here. It's hard, and lonely at times, but i wouldn't swap the opportunities i've had at church here, and i certainly wouldn't swap how close i am to Rachel for anything in the world. It'll feel like half of me is missing when i leave without her. This is also good. 

And you know what, i'll never really come home. Not until Jesus returns or i die. Then i'll enter Heaven, the world of love. With no goodbyes, no curtailments, no broken relationships, no awkward moments between old friends, just joy and worship forever and ever and ever.

Seven (random things i miss about home)

These are obviously random things. The things i missed the most are clearly my family, wycombe wanderers, and probably you, if you're taking the time to read this.

1) Town centres.
In 1987 Bill Bryson set off in search of the perfect American small town, 'Amalgam, USA' if you like. He aimed to pick out his favourite parts of the towns he found on his road trip around 46 of the lower states. In the book The Lost Continent, Bryson laments that essentially, every town looks the same, that instead of Amalgam USA he found Anywhere USA, a strips of malls, stores and fast food joints. And he was right. I haven't walked through a busy, pedestrianised town centre since i got here. There aren't any.

2) Intelligent, impartial TV news
Only those who have never lived without the BBC would ever advocate its dissolution. It's no surprise that most of the world go to the the World Service or the BBC website for their news. Even the major news networks in the USA (CNN, NBC, Fox) can be incredibly one eyed at times.

3) Cold and dark nights
I know. I'll probably change my mind within hours of landing at Heathrow Friday morning, but i can't help that. It's been 60-70F for the last couple of weeks here, although we did have a cold snap in early November. Yesterday i was walking around in a polo with the sun warm on my back...it just doesn't feel right for December! I want to coat up to leave the house and then fling myself on the nearest radiator as soon as i get in.

4) Radio 1.
For variety and creativity, Radio 1 can not be beaten. It's just that simple. The local music station (BOB 93.3) has about 8 records and most of the shows are syndicated... which isn't bad in itself, but is a bit cheap. Also, most of the time it drives me to listen to talk radio, which is informative, but probably not very good for my effected liberal soul!

5) Driving a manual car
I ^heart^ clutch control.

6) Earnest, English, evangelical prayer.
Matt Herring, now a Relay in Exeter, prays as well and as heartily as anyone i've ever met. It's worth downloading Mike Reeves talks just to him pray (it's worth it for more than that as well!) Prayers here are different and there's nothing less worthy about that, i guess i just miss what i grew up with.

7) Slade and miscellaneous other Christmas songs
Christmas songs here are very classy, and thats cool, but i miss Noddy Holder yelling 'merry Christmas everybody' at the top of his voice while i hunt for cards in Hallmark.

On the bus to Onslow County

One of the things i really value about serving a church of 300-350 people is the diversity of groups that i get to speak to. By this evening i'll have spoken to the main adult meeting, the college age sunday school class, the fourty to fifty years old sunday school class and our group of special needs adults, all in the space of ten days.

What i love about that is it makes me think, and helps me to realize.

It helps me think about the words i use, particularly in the case of the special needs adults. This afternoon we're taking a group of them to Jacksonville, NC, to see the Christmas lights, enjoy a hayride, and eat hot dogs around a bonfire, where i'll lead a short devotion on Luke 2:11-12.

It's been tremendous to work on that for the last couple of days. To think clearly about every word i use. To lose some words like 'incarnation' and 'propitiation' while keeping their glorious truths in the message. it's helped me to...i don't know how to describe it, come face to face with those truths again. Come face to face with the beauty of simple language again. Now, as far as we can, we should learn to use words like 'incarnation', because they are important and God glorifying. But we shouldn't rely, i shouldn't rely, on theological nomenclature too heavily, because church isn't a club for the middle class, college educated people.

And it helps me realize. You know what (and you do know, i'm just saying) the Gospel is the same and true whoever you are, where ever you. If you're a Bible college student or you work at dairy queen, whether you're a politician or a phosphate miner, whether you've written books or you need 24/7 professional supervision, the Gospel is the name, and you need to saving blood of Jesus shed for you. This isn't a new thing i've learnt, but it is a cool thing i've been reminded of. The Gospel is the solid rock in our lives, and our jobs, our pay packet, where we live and who we spend time with are malleable. They must bend, and be infected and redeemed by the truth of the Gospel.

Christmas is 'different' here...Part one in an occasional series.

Hayrides and carols. I could have had a decent guess at what the second part of that was a year ago, but by no means the first. Friday night was my first Christmas hayride. I am so North Carolina right now.

A hayride essentially involved putting on a lot (a lot) of clothes, and climbing up into the back of a dump truck, 12-16 feet up in the air, filled with hay, and riding round town in it, singing carols to invalid members of the church, and then defrosting at Taco Bell thereafter. It was a lot of fun.

We must have had 15-20 kids and teens packed into the back of the truck...the hay bales didn't last long, and soon the back of the truck became more akin to a wrestling arena as...well, teenage boys were teenage boys.

So it was cold, it was high, it was, y'know, sort of dangerous out on the roads in the back of a lorry without anything to hold us in, but a lot of fun. And on saturday we took part in the Washington Christmas parade, which took us around downtown in all of twelve minutes (yeh it's a small town) and that was more normal!

The Compost Pile

One of the reasons i so enjoy reading good books is that i love the pictures authors can paint with words. I love being drawn into an illustration or story. Ever since i read 'Far from the madding crowd' for GCSE English, i've thought words were great.

Rachel and i are reading Piper's 'momentary marriage' together, as a sort of pre wedding prep primer. Each week we try and get some time together where we can be alone and discuss what we've read this week, where we disagree, and why i'm right (i jest). This coming sunday we're headed down to Bonner Point, where our reception we be, to look out over the Pamlico River and talk about chapter four, 'Forgiving and Forebearing.' It will be the highlight of the weekend. 

What links those two paragraphs is how Piper finishes chapter four, and what i'll read to Rachel as we start talking on Sunday:

Picture your marriage as a grassy field. You enter it at the beginning full of hope and joy. You look out into the future and you see beautiful flowers and trees and rolling hills. And that beauty is what you see in each other. Your relationship is the field and flowers and the rolling hills. But before long, you begin to step in cow pies. Some seasons of your marriage they may seem to be everywhere. Late at night they are especially prevalent. These are the sins and flaws and idiosyncrasies and weaknesses and annoying habits in you and your spouse. You try to forgive them and endure them with grace.

But they have a way of dominating the relationship. It may not even be true, but it feels like that’s all there is—cow pies. I think the combination of forbearance and forgiveness leads to the creation of a compost pile. And here you begin to shovel the cow pies. You both look at each other and simply admit that there are a lot of cow pies. But you say to each other: You know, there is more to this relationship than cow pies. And we are losing sight of that because we keep focusing on these cow pies. Let’s throw them all in the compost pile. When we have to, we will go there and smell it and feel bad and deal with it the best we can. And then, we are going to walk away from that pile and set our eyes on the rest of field. We will pick some favorite paths and hills that we know are not strewn with cow pies. And we will be thankful for the part of field that is sweet.

Our hands may be dirty. And our backs make ache from all the shoveling. But one thing we know: We will not pitch our tent by the compost pile. We will only go there when we must. This is the gift of grace that we will give each other again and again and again—because we are chosen and holy and loved.