Second Life
Has anyone come across this site before? I read about in the metro on the way into work this week, and thought I'd have a look.
It's a whole virtual world (when I last looked over 11,000 people logged in) where you set youself up with a virtual identity, can travel and interact with other users.
People build homes, offices, bars and even churches. Found one church with over 400 members. It offers sermons (down loaded from real churches) worship, prayer rooms.......
I have to say that I've set myself up a new persona - Tobias Flamand (sounds quite grand doesn't it!)
Anyway have a look, and let me know what you think (it's free, although you can pay something like $6 a month)
Gavin
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
The Race Defeat! He lay there silently, a tear dropped from his eye.
"There’s no sense running anymore- three strikes, I’m out – why try?”
The will to rise had disappeared, all hope had fled away.
So far behind, so error prone, close all the way.
“I’ve lost, so what’s the use,” he thought. “I’ll live with disgrace.”
But then he thought of about his dad who soon he’d have to face.
“Get up,” an echo sounded low, “Get up and take your place. You were not meant for failure here, so get up and win the race.”
With borrowed will, “get up,” it said “you haven’t lost at all, for winning is not more than this – to rise each time you fall.”
So up he rose to win once more, and with new commit, he resolved that win or lose, at least he wouldn’t quit.
So far behind the others now, the most he’d ever been, still he gave it all he had and ran as though to win.
Three times he’d fallen stumbling, three times he rose again. Too far behind to hope to win, he still ran to the end.
They cheered the winning runner as he crossed, first place, head high and proud and happy; no falling, no disgrace.
But when the fallen youngster crossed the line, last place, the crowd gave him the greatest cheer for finishing the race.
And even though he came in last, with head bowed low, unproud; You’d have thought he won the race, to listen to the crowd.
And to his dad he sadly said “I didn’t do so well.” “To me, you won” his father said. “you rose each time you fell”
And now when things seem dark and hard and difficult to face, the memory of that little boy helps me in my race.
For all of life is like that race, with ups and downs and all.
And all you have to do to win – is to rise each time you fall.
“Quit! Give up, you’re beaten,” they still shout in my face.
But another voice within me says “get up and win that race!”
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Friday is Shabbat time.. I love our friday shabbat time. It marks the end of the week for us as a family, and the beginning of the weekend.What do we do?
Well, it starts of with Ruth making the Challah ( a breah made with honey) first thing in the morning. As she is making this, she is praying for those people who are going to be sharing Shabbat with us.
The meal starts with Ruth lighting a couple of candles to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world, and that we want his light spread throughout our home.
Next we wash our hands - as the Psalmist says "who can ascend the hill of the Lord...." As we wash our handed we say " I dedicate my hands to the Messiah, the hope of glory to serve him only"
Next I serve the wine, ( or whatever is being drunk at the meal time). In Jewish times, wine represents Joy, so the way we incorporate this into our meal, is by reminding us that as Jesus died on the Cross, he is no longer there, he is alive with us now. We also, then take it in turns to thank God for something good that has happend during the previous week. It's great to hear Isi & Toby joining in thanking God for things that have gone on in the the previous week.
Finally we come to the Challah, which has been sitting on the table covered by a cloth. The challah is a link to when the Jews wandered in the wilderness and God provided the Manna for them to eat. He provided a double portion so that they did not have to collect any on the sabbath.
As such, we have two loaves of challah - we use this as a reminder that Jesus is the bread of life, Jehovah Jirah, the God who provides. He provides for all of our needs.
This is one of the best "new" traditions that we have put in place for "the pages".
Thanks to the Sharmans for introducing it to us.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
Love Is…….
I’ve started to read a book which is based on meditations on 1 Corinthians 13 by Les & Leslie Parrott.
Thought I’d put a few things down about what it says.
Love is Patient – There’s a story about a wise man in China, who got along with everyone, never argued with friends or family. He lived in harmony.
The Chinese emperor heard of this man and asked him to write in 10,000 words the way he managed to live like he does. Some time later the man provided a scroll which contained the answer. He had written 10,000 times – PATIENCE!
How much patience do we have with the people we come into contact with? Do we get frustrated with our friends and family? Patience is measured by our ability to endure something we’d rather not.
Love is Patient – just as our patience is exhausted, love empowers us to find a little more.
Love is Kind – “Love is kind, gentle, benign, pervading, and penetrating the whole nature, mellowing all which would have been harsh or austere” (Wuest’s Expanded Translation)
A definition – Kindness is love’s readiness to enhance the life of another person.
I found this an en-lighting: kindness comes from small behaviours. We don’t think of big donations or grand contributions as kind. We call them “generous”, “charitable”, or “benevolent”. It’s the small things we call kind.
What small things can we do for each other that would be kind? Does kindness come from a million small behaviours that enhance the lives of the people we meet?
Love does not envy – How often are we tempted by various things but do not give into them, yet suddenly get caught up with envy.
I know I’ve been caught at the most unusual times, generally during worship – listening to other musicians and think “I wish I could be up there playing rather than being here”. Suddenly, before you know it, your mind is no longer on God but on other things.
What is envy – more than jealousy which focuses on possessing what you desire, envy focuses in taking something you desire away from another person who owns it.
Aristotle called envy “the sin against the brother” – His meaning that envy is most keenly felt between two people who are closely related. The most common places for envy to show its head is where we come across people who are like us.
Am I envious of a guitarist? No as I have no ability to play a guitar (apart from the chord of G!), however, another saxophonist that’s a different matter.
We have to remind ourselves that to Love is not to be envious!
Love does not boast – I think that the only thing I can say about this is put a copy of a paraphrased version of 1 Corinthians 13 below. It speaks for itself!
Paraphrase by Angela McCord
If I go to language school and learn to speak a hundred different languages, preach to thousands all over the world, and lead all to Christ, but have hate in my heart in a silent war with my neighbor who's built his privacy fence on my side of the boundary line, my words are nothing except the screaming of a heavy metal rock band.
If I have a doctorate in theology, science, language, arts and literature and can raise mountains out of the dust of the plains, but am only concerned with the size of my paycheck, wardrobe, and house, it is as if I don't exist ... have never existed.
If I give up a good salary opportunity to work in compassionate ministries, tithe ten percent, give the rest to the poor and eventually die for them, but only do it to get my name in the paper, and I lose sight of the lost hungry souls, I certainly don't gain anything but lose my own soul.
Love walks the floor all night with a crying baby, smiles as she greets new visitors in Sunday school. She doesn't want what she doesn't have. She doesn't say, "Look how wonderful I am," but "Look how great you are." She doesn't snub anyone, isn't always looking in a mirror, and doesn't make a mental list for retribution when things don't go her way. She doesn't close herself in but opens her heart and makes herself vulnerable to others.
Love remains while the world crumbles around her.
While we live here on earth we can only see love in other people, a very imperfect reflection of the love of Christ, full of faults and human failures. But in heaven, we'll see Love in the form of Jesus. And now I can know in part -- full of my own humanity, but then I can love perfectly, even as I am completely loved.
The only things that are really important are faith in God, hope for the future, and love from God for every man. But you cannot have faith or hope until you first understand and demonstrate love.
I can work with the poor like Mother Teresa, write literature like C.S. Lewis, sing like Sandi Patti, move people like Gloria Gaither, preach like Billy Graham, have spiritual insight like James Dobson, be a great leader like Martin Luther King Jr., and martyr like Ghandi, but until I love like Jesus my soul is lost.
I’ve started to read a book which is based on meditations on 1 Corinthians 13 by Les & Leslie Parrott.
Thought I’d put a few things down about what it says.
Love is Patient – There’s a story about a wise man in China, who got along with everyone, never argued with friends or family. He lived in harmony.
The Chinese emperor heard of this man and asked him to write in 10,000 words the way he managed to live like he does. Some time later the man provided a scroll which contained the answer. He had written 10,000 times – PATIENCE!
How much patience do we have with the people we come into contact with? Do we get frustrated with our friends and family? Patience is measured by our ability to endure something we’d rather not.
Love is Patient – just as our patience is exhausted, love empowers us to find a little more.
Love is Kind – “Love is kind, gentle, benign, pervading, and penetrating the whole nature, mellowing all which would have been harsh or austere” (Wuest’s Expanded Translation)
A definition – Kindness is love’s readiness to enhance the life of another person.
I found this an en-lighting: kindness comes from small behaviours. We don’t think of big donations or grand contributions as kind. We call them “generous”, “charitable”, or “benevolent”. It’s the small things we call kind.
What small things can we do for each other that would be kind? Does kindness come from a million small behaviours that enhance the lives of the people we meet?
Love does not envy – How often are we tempted by various things but do not give into them, yet suddenly get caught up with envy.
I know I’ve been caught at the most unusual times, generally during worship – listening to other musicians and think “I wish I could be up there playing rather than being here”. Suddenly, before you know it, your mind is no longer on God but on other things.
What is envy – more than jealousy which focuses on possessing what you desire, envy focuses in taking something you desire away from another person who owns it.
Aristotle called envy “the sin against the brother” – His meaning that envy is most keenly felt between two people who are closely related. The most common places for envy to show its head is where we come across people who are like us.
Am I envious of a guitarist? No as I have no ability to play a guitar (apart from the chord of G!), however, another saxophonist that’s a different matter.
We have to remind ourselves that to Love is not to be envious!
Love does not boast – I think that the only thing I can say about this is put a copy of a paraphrased version of 1 Corinthians 13 below. It speaks for itself!
Paraphrase by Angela McCord
If I go to language school and learn to speak a hundred different languages, preach to thousands all over the world, and lead all to Christ, but have hate in my heart in a silent war with my neighbor who's built his privacy fence on my side of the boundary line, my words are nothing except the screaming of a heavy metal rock band.
If I have a doctorate in theology, science, language, arts and literature and can raise mountains out of the dust of the plains, but am only concerned with the size of my paycheck, wardrobe, and house, it is as if I don't exist ... have never existed.
If I give up a good salary opportunity to work in compassionate ministries, tithe ten percent, give the rest to the poor and eventually die for them, but only do it to get my name in the paper, and I lose sight of the lost hungry souls, I certainly don't gain anything but lose my own soul.
Love walks the floor all night with a crying baby, smiles as she greets new visitors in Sunday school. She doesn't want what she doesn't have. She doesn't say, "Look how wonderful I am," but "Look how great you are." She doesn't snub anyone, isn't always looking in a mirror, and doesn't make a mental list for retribution when things don't go her way. She doesn't close herself in but opens her heart and makes herself vulnerable to others.
Love remains while the world crumbles around her.
While we live here on earth we can only see love in other people, a very imperfect reflection of the love of Christ, full of faults and human failures. But in heaven, we'll see Love in the form of Jesus. And now I can know in part -- full of my own humanity, but then I can love perfectly, even as I am completely loved.
The only things that are really important are faith in God, hope for the future, and love from God for every man. But you cannot have faith or hope until you first understand and demonstrate love.
I can work with the poor like Mother Teresa, write literature like C.S. Lewis, sing like Sandi Patti, move people like Gloria Gaither, preach like Billy Graham, have spiritual insight like James Dobson, be a great leader like Martin Luther King Jr., and martyr like Ghandi, but until I love like Jesus my soul is lost.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
The Christ Centred Marriage - Following Freedom in Christ, Ruth and I are reading through the above book. I have copied an extract from a Michael P Holden which really struck a chord with me.......
"Marriage Licence – A Learner’s Permit
It’s a wise groom who has to be dragged to the altar. He knows what love is. It’s death! If the lovers don’t’ know this, they’re headed for trouble. Never will you have your way again. You can’t be happy if the other person isn’t. No matter who wins the argument, you lose. Always. The sooner you learn this, the better off you’ll be.
Love is an exercise in frustration. You leave the window up when you want it down. You watch someone else’s favourite TV programme. You kiss when you have a headache. You turn music down when you like it loud. You learn to be patient without signing or sulking.
Love is doing things for the other person. In marriage two become one. But the one isn’t you. It’s the other person. You love this person more than you love yourself. This means that you love this person as she or he is. We should ask ourselves frankly what that impulse is that makes us want to redesign the other person. It isn’t love. We want the other person to be normal, like us! But is that loving the other person or ourselves?
Love brings out the best in people. They can be themselves without artificiality. People who know they’re loved glow with beauty and charm. Let this person talk. Create the assurances that any idea, any suggestion, any feeling, can be expressed and will be respected. Allow the other person to star once in a while. A wide’s joke doesn’t have to be topped. Don’t correct you husband in the middle of his story. Cultivate kind ways of speaking. It can be as simple as asking them instead of telling them what to do.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. Married life is fully of crazy mirrors to see ourselves – how stubborn, how immature we really are. You may be waiting for your wife to finish because you never lifted a finger to help her.
Love is funny. Its growth doesn’t depend on what someone does for you. It’s in proportion to what you do for him or her. The country is swarming with people who have never learned this. So are the divorce courts.
Michael P Holden, The Pentecostal Evanggel, no 3099 (30 Sept 1973)
"Marriage Licence – A Learner’s Permit
It’s a wise groom who has to be dragged to the altar. He knows what love is. It’s death! If the lovers don’t’ know this, they’re headed for trouble. Never will you have your way again. You can’t be happy if the other person isn’t. No matter who wins the argument, you lose. Always. The sooner you learn this, the better off you’ll be.
Love is an exercise in frustration. You leave the window up when you want it down. You watch someone else’s favourite TV programme. You kiss when you have a headache. You turn music down when you like it loud. You learn to be patient without signing or sulking.
Love is doing things for the other person. In marriage two become one. But the one isn’t you. It’s the other person. You love this person more than you love yourself. This means that you love this person as she or he is. We should ask ourselves frankly what that impulse is that makes us want to redesign the other person. It isn’t love. We want the other person to be normal, like us! But is that loving the other person or ourselves?
Love brings out the best in people. They can be themselves without artificiality. People who know they’re loved glow with beauty and charm. Let this person talk. Create the assurances that any idea, any suggestion, any feeling, can be expressed and will be respected. Allow the other person to star once in a while. A wide’s joke doesn’t have to be topped. Don’t correct you husband in the middle of his story. Cultivate kind ways of speaking. It can be as simple as asking them instead of telling them what to do.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. Married life is fully of crazy mirrors to see ourselves – how stubborn, how immature we really are. You may be waiting for your wife to finish because you never lifted a finger to help her.
Love is funny. Its growth doesn’t depend on what someone does for you. It’s in proportion to what you do for him or her. The country is swarming with people who have never learned this. So are the divorce courts.
Michael P Holden, The Pentecostal Evanggel, no 3099 (30 Sept 1973)
'Bridget' on blades.
I have been working on activities where I can learn to laugh at myself lately. Not being known as person with 'inner poise' (or even outer balance), I decided that I should accompany my kids plus my 10 year old nephew to the local roller skating. I should add that I never had any skill at roller skating, and that some twenty years on from my last attempt on blades, nothing much had changed! It was ok going slowly when I had the excuse of a 3-year-old hanging on to my hands, but after Isi and Toby gave up, I was the only person 20 years older than the rest of the skaters who did not have a child attached but was still moving precariously in the outer area of the rink (see the photo)! Not to be deterred, I did keep going for some considerable time and only crashed to the floor - Bridget Jones style - in the final circuit. It was definitely good for a laugh - mostly other people's laughter - so who knows what exploits I will get up to next, although I don't think I'll be making it on to the big screen!
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
My Wonderful Wife - Do you know what - she's gone and surprised me (not easily done!)
Friday 28th July, I had agreed to meet Ruth for lunch at the Bull Ring. As I start to go out form work she calls to say that she's running late, which is fine, so I agreed to meet her by St Martin's church.
I get there and find she is sitting there with a red rose and bag with other things in! (chocolates, a novel, card)
She makes me sit down and open a card she gave to me. This card says that for the next 24 hours she's in charge and whisking me away (!)
I have to say that I was taken aback - even protested saying that I have a meeting in the afternoon which I need to attend.
"No" she replies - "the meeting does not exist, your boss had agreed to give you the afternoon off and the meeting has been set up as part of the deception".
Well knock me down - this is the kind of thing I'd do, and in all honesty find it harder to be on the receiving rather that organising end.
Yes, Ruth had it all arranged, copies of e-mails from my boss (who's been in on it for a number of weeks), her mum was going the have the children on Friday night, and Pete & Mel were having them on the Saturday, the bags were packed and at her office and so we could go now.
It appears that everyone was in on this weekend apart from me (although, Ruth did leave a map in the printer at home and came up with a reason for it being there.)
Off we went to Langar Hall north of Melton Mowbery. We arrived and the champagne was on ice outside our room, which you can see was an isolated room by the croquet lawn!
We had a lovely walk around the grounds and got ready for dinner.It was so wonderful to be able to spend the time together and talk outside of our usual environments.
I can honestly say that I will remember the occasion for as long as I live, and can really see how much Ruth loves me.
I've said to Ruth that I have no problems with her organising this type of thing again!!!
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Quote me Happy - I should say "not"
I had my car insurance quote through for £590. I called Norwich Union to query the price and was advised that they could do it for £500.
The only reason they could give for the sudden reduction was that they gave me the special "online" discount.
I have been what one could call a "lazy" policyholder when it comes to shopping around for quotes (sad really as I have worked in insurance for over 20 years!
Anyway, decided to look around for a new quote and heard about this site called Confused.com.
A great site - managed to get a quote for £300 (which had a lower excess than NU) with a company called MasterQuote.
I would recommend every one trying this site for Car and Household insurance. You only have to put the information in once and it searches all the different insurers web sites for quotes.
I had my car insurance quote through for £590. I called Norwich Union to query the price and was advised that they could do it for £500.The only reason they could give for the sudden reduction was that they gave me the special "online" discount.
I have been what one could call a "lazy" policyholder when it comes to shopping around for quotes (sad really as I have worked in insurance for over 20 years!
Anyway, decided to look around for a new quote and heard about this site called Confused.com.
A great site - managed to get a quote for £300 (which had a lower excess than NU) with a company called MasterQuote.
I would recommend every one trying this site for Car and Household insurance. You only have to put the information in once and it searches all the different insurers web sites for quotes.
Friday, July 28, 2006
This is me (Gavin) with my family, Ruth, Isi (7) and Toby, nearly 4!
The first time I have done anything with a blog. Will try to keep this going for a while - due to have knee surgery in a week, so will have plenty of time!
The first time I have done anything with a blog. Will try to keep this going for a while - due to have knee surgery in a week, so will have plenty of time!
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