Radio!

If anyone reads this, (!) I'm on BBC Radio Merseyside tommorrow @ 8:30am. It's Wayne Clarke's show 'daybreak'.

If you're not that local, you can listen to it afterwards on BBC Iplayer.

thanks!

The Responsibility of Democracy

We've all seen the devastation on our screens the last few days, but Haiti has been suffering for a long time before today. In effect, they've been a country struggling because of corruption, dictaorships, and debt.

Pat Robertson made a silly comment that their suffering is because they 'made a deal with the devil'. Well maybe they did...

Please read this. I did, and it opened my eyes to the suffering of Haiti that has been much more long-term than the last few days, weeks or years; and I'm not talking about the disasters nature's thrown at them either.

Why can't those countries that say they're democratic be challenged by this example?

Time will tell.

SNOW!!!

Yes folks, it's here, and boy is it here!

I've just spent about 40 minutes on a bus from Liverpool to New Brighton, sliding and slushing and driving very slow...

I have to admit, the little boy inside me was VERY excited, and secretly I was hoping for a small 'bump' into another vehicle, so I could brag about it, though obviously nothing that would injure anyone. Thankfully, we had a very good driver, who accelerated at the points he needed to, to get going again after stopping, and then easing on the brakes slowly so we didn't slide too much.

It was very exciting, but I'm glad I'm home, and am hoping Meg will be able to get home from work (liverpool) on the train, which will no doubt be a lot safer!

Here's to the little child inside all of us, who (for most of us) will be jumping with joy at all the snow today!

'big grin'

Downtime

As we start a New Year, and all the celebrations are past, and the 'winter blues' set in, it's got me thinking about what Joy is.

It sounds strange I know, but so often we define our lives by what makes us happy, what makes forget the bad, by avoiding negative situations, as if somehow that makes everything better. Talk to the person suffering from depression, and you'll find someone who wants to feel anything positive at all, to escape the feeling of drudgery, the feeling that every day will be the same, day after day after day, without any chink of light shining through.

Yeh, that's how it feels sometimes. But is avoiding 'stuff' the best way to live life?

I'm not advocating a way of life that pretends everything is ok, even in difficult circumstances, or a way of life that masochistically 'exalts' in troubles; I'm advocating a real life, a way of living that admits that sometimes life is hard and the best way to get through it is to go 'through' it. Not avoid, not pretend it doesn't exist, not live in denial, but simply admit to people, 'this is where I am at the moment'.

I don't think faith needs to mean that we're always victorious. If you look at the Cross, Jesus says to us there was a dark time, a time when even He felt abandoned by God, felt isolated, felt alone. Even Jesus knew what it was to mourn the loss of someone, to be frustrated at people's responses to you, to get angry at how people are imposing their own ideas of what and who you are.

Faith, surely, is about more than pasting on a smile.

Faith is looking for God when you can't see Him, it's trusting beyond the darkness you can see in yourself. It's trusting that whatever you see, God can and will bring good out of it, no matter what.

Yes, it's 'downtime', but it doesn't have to be 'give-up time'.