A little more poetic

To sinful patterns of behaviour that never get confronted or and changed,
Abilities and gifts the never get cultivated and deployed-
Until weeks become months
And months turn into years
And one day you're looking back on a life of
Deep intimate gut wrenchingly honest conversations you never had;
Great bold prayers you never prayed,
Exhilarating risks you never took,
Sacrificial gifts you never offered,
Lives you never touched,
And you're sitting in a recliner with a shriveled soul.
And forgotten dreams,
And you realise there was a world of desperate need,
And a great God calling you to be part of something bigger than yourself -
You see the person you could have become but did not;
You never followed your calling.
You never got out of the boat.

Let us not be those who never risk but those who are the first to climb over the side.

Not quite Agincourt, but.....(something meaningful for once)

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk to failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.



So, the man (or woman) who does not risk, is not free. The man who lets his actions be determined by uncertanties that the future may or may not hold, is not free. He is controlled by the future.

Jesus said: "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6: 31-34)

Blaise Pascal:

“The present is never our goal: the past and present are our means: the future alone is our goal. Thus, we never live but we hope to live; and always hoping to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so.

So it is my hope and prayer that I never live my life bound by 'what if's'; that I live in the 'now' using whatever God has given me and the time He has allowed.

Let us be the people who risk and are free.

One step beyond

Here is the answer you've all been waiting for. Once again I'm sat in Black Medicine as my dastardly flatmate has run off with his router, so my time is limited, but at least the coffee is good.

So last Friday, I made the decision to leave Agape in the summer and return to marine biology. This will most likely mean initially returning to Newcastle to do a masters in Tropical Coastal Management. Those who know me pretty well will know that this has not been undertaken lightly, and if there's one thing I've learned, don't give yourself 6 months to make a decision - it's far too long!

But I have prayed and thought about this long and hard and really believe that this is where God wants me for the moment. The pros and cons lists had many reasons for doing both, and in the end I had to go with the heart I believe God is giving me.

This doesn't mean that I will cease to be a missionary, by any means. My context has just changed. God, who I believe to be the one unchanging truth in this world, will continue to be the center of my life, and the reason for everything I enter into.

So there you have it. My life is about to change yet again. Sorry to keep you waiting this long. And sorry you've had to find out about this this way if you haven't seen me face to face. Thanks to all of you who have prayed for me and helped me through this process!

Once more into the breach, dear friends

Many of you have been asking me recently how my decision making is going regarding next year (for those of you who haven't, this is about whether I commit long-term to Agape, or return to marine biology). You'll be glad to know, I've reached a decision - not everyone will be happy, some will not be suprised. And I'll write more fully about it when I have more than 10 minutes battery left on my laptop and am not stuck using the internet in a cafe when I should be packing my bag to go home for Christmas...

I'm sure I have valuable things to say. I'm sure most the people who write blogs feel they have valuable things to say, but how many of us actually do, or at least how many of us actually manage to convey it in meaningful and instructive ways. With the regularity of my blogs falling to under a week, and the content of it sometimes actually resulting in a net loss of brain capacity once you've read it, my readership has gone down. Or at least no-one bothers commenting any more.

Isn't that what all bbudding writers want? Just on eperson to write a comment? To give them a shred of self worth? To make that 5 minutes, half an hour or whatever spent writing actually seem worth it?

My reasons for writing stuff here are pretty unclear. I originally started it as a way to keep people informed about what's going on with my ministry up here, but nobody ever really seemed to bother with that (although in case you're wondering, its very busy, I'm in the middle of sorting out trips to Lithuania, hosting people from Canada and orgnasising a couple fo film festivals along with all the usual stuff), so it became an outlet for random stuff.

Right now, I'm sat prone on the lovesac after wrecking my ankle (the other one this time) in a classic rendition of Sod's Law. So i've got nothing better to do than write drivel. Actually if you think about it, not one jot of what I've written so far has had any point to it.

But as usual I will insert the promise to write more regularly, and more relevantly. And who knows, maybe people will start reading more and giving me that little bit more sense of worht to the world.

As a reward for reading so much rubbish, follow this link for some YouTube fun

John Piper is Bad - the video

My word, this made me laugh

I'm lost....no, I'm really lost.

Stories stories. I feel obliged to write something seeing as I'm off to Skye tomorrow and will e away from the entire world of communications (except TV) for 4 days.

I'm really at a loss to write anything of worth; I said I'd write about last weekend (well, 10 days ago) and the diving jaunt, but I'm out of wittism energy. Lets see how it goes anyway.

So we went off to Loch Fyne for the Uni dive club training weekend. The weather was, as usual damp and grey (except the early morning of saturday - see pics here) but the banter was high and generally we had a lot of fun. I learned the joys of driving a transit van whilst towing a boat and how not to take out the wings of parked cars. Quality whisky was consumed and deep, spiritual conversations were had. And then on sunday, all hell broke loose. First one girl had to go to hospital (an impressive 2 ambulances turned up) for a few hours to treat shortness of breath and a high pulse brought on by breathing salt water....and then on the way home, the transit van had a wee accident (I wasn't driving this time) and after nosing the car in front (with near on a ton of weight behind it), decided it wasnt going to go anywhere any time soon. It was a looong day.

With an absence of anything else to say, can I point you to this, for genuine, laugh out loud entertainment.

Because I know Gayle will be reading this...

Well I'm a lame-ass, but finally, here's the story of the hostel. My apologies in that it will lack the humour and relevance that it might have done, had i written immediately after the event, a full 12 days ago.

Anyway, so 2 weekends ago, the aussie rules boys took a trip to Galway, Ireland to play a game against Dublin and watch the first test of the International Rules game against Ireland and Australia. Booking hostels is a bit of a nightmare because its the Irish bank holiday weekend and a ton of people are also coming to watch the game, but we manage to get a room for 7 of us at a delightfully named place called the Salmon Wier.

12 Euros a night. Turns out you get what you pay for. For those who google the salmon wier hostel, Galway, and my page turns up, dont go. Our room was a 12 bed dorm, with approximately a foot of space to walk between. Most the beds were taken up by apparentyl long term residents hanging suits and stuff off the bed. But hey, its a bed and a roof over the head. It has a 3am curfew, but we can live that (just about).

We go out, drink some Guiness, listen to some Commitments-style band and most of us get up at 2. I wake at 9:30 to an eastern european accent (you'll have to use your imagination here) shouting "you have 30 minutes to get out!" and "I can make this worse! I will throw your stuff on the street". Oooh, I think, someone's getting kicked out. Until I hear him say "all of you! get out". And it slowly dawns that we're all getting kicked out.

To cut this story slightly shorter, basically we established that apparently someone had arrived at 5am, and someone had let them in. This had woken a couple of people and they'd complained. Now it's important to realise that at no stage was a direct allegation made against any specific person, and also that its a FLIPPING HOSTEL. People come in and out. You wake up, you go to sleep. In my opinon if there's rules against coming back late, then there should be rules against getting up early. Noone wants to be woken at 7:30am to the sight of naked rambler arse (an incident from a cycling trip in Yorkshire).

Anyway, Eastern European justice (see the trial of Michael Shields for an example) appeared to prevail. He point blank refused to even talk to us about it, apart from to repeatedly tell us to leave and hand over the money we'd paid in advance for the Saturday night. I'm not normally an angry person, but this was pretty ridiculous. I've never heard of anyone getting kicked out of a hostel except for attempted arson or walking in on Women only dorms (Monterey, CA).

Anyway, by some miracle, we got a room in another hostel, run by a nice Irish bloke with no curfew. We lost our game to Dublin, blaming the weather (lots of rain, unsurprisingly), Australia lost to Ireland in the last minute and generally good craic was had. But never go to the Salmon Wier. And if your interested in some mediocre pictures, check out flickr.

Next Blog installment, the story of last weekend's diving trip to the west coast - fireworks, 2 ambulances, hospitals, underwater jeeps and transit van crashes.

Question: how hard is it to get kicked out of a hostel?

Edit...This question has an amusing story attached to it. I should have written it earlier, but I didn't. So you're gonna have to wait until next week for it. Bet you can't wait.

I'm I selling you out?

Today I was walking up one of the Closes that lead from the mound to the Royal Mile and in a hidden courtyard spied two men fighting with broadswords. The ceased before I thought of whiping out my camera, but it brightened my day.

In other news, I watched part of some program, the name of which escapes me, but it was about a load of teenagers from different backgrounds who went off to live together to prove to their parents that they were mature enough to be independant and should be treated as an adult. My emotional response to this reminded why I should never be a youth worker, and if I do, the police should be warned first.

Yeah, I'm More Than Fine.

They say a picture says a thousand words. This was taken on Friday Oct 13.




A full 18 days before Halloween and an even fuller 73 before Christmas. And I have no idea how long these had been up before I took the picture. A thousand words would probably not be enough to express my ire. I understand the marketability of Christmas, but is there a single benefit of putting this up so ludicrously early. It almost makes arson worthwhile.

The place in question , incidentally, is the club Why Not? (which lends itself to the huge numbers of obvious jokes, including, why not just keep the christmas decorations in a box for another 6 weeks?) which is in Edinburgh.

Incidentally, this is the first note I've written on the new Mac. It rocks. Bye bye Mr PC. Forever.

Proud Edward's Army

Corporate joy is a strange thing. Pack yourself into a pub full of smelly guys, where there is so little space you don't stand a chance of getting to the bar and the unwshed hair of the bloke in front of you infringes on your breathing space and continually threatens to fill your mouth; add a few small girls who have no chance of seeing any of the tvs but have no idea what's going on; throw in a few indiviuals who support the wrong team, and attempt to watch a high tension sporting event.

Twice in the last 6 months have I engaged in serious in such activity - The Calcutta Cup match (Scotland v England) in the Six Nations (which is rugby, for those of you who are Americans) and yesterday, when Scotland played France (at football this time). Both times Scotland we're expected to be hammered and both times Scotland squeezed out a (debatably) deserved win. Which brings me to my point about coporate joy.

Whenever Scotland scored decorum was allowed to go out the window. AFter spending 60 minutes trying not to let your head get in the way of the view of the big hairy guy behind you and subtley trying to elbow the guy in front to keep him from stepping to close to you, as soon as the ball goes in the net, you're allowed to leap, holler and yell. The big guy behind you gives a bear hug while you give the bloke in front of you a big kiss, all the while directing sneers at the french/english around you. It's a strange thing that can manage to strip away British reservation, but it's a good thing. Is it something to do wtih Scotland's underdog mentality? Possibly. People will celebrate goals at any game, but the extent to whcih a win over England, or a goal against the World Cup runners up is celebrated may only be matched south of the border by a win over Germany (rare) or getting somewhere close to the winning the world cup (rarer in football, not quite so rare in rugby - I confess I allowed myself a little loss of dignity when England beat Australia in 2003).

Anyway, a largely pointless thing to write about, but I realised how much fun (and fleeting) these times can be and wan't to savour them just a little longer...
Images after the Scotland v England match watched in sunny Oban...



And if any of you are questioning my nationality, send me a note at the relevant address. P.O. Box I-Don't-Care

I lament the lack of writing talent in this generation

So, finally, the story of the lovesac. In pictures. The story starts here...
A lovesac store in Vegas. It's the last day of my holiday, and Tom introduces me to this thing called a Lovesac. Before we go any further, I'd like to clarify, IT'S NOT A BEANBAG!
Anyway, my birthday was the following week, I was feeling splurgy and, spurred on by sales staff who assured me it was light enough to travel back with me on the plane, I bought a lovely a Lovesac (a Moviesac to be precise).

Only, once I got to the airport, it was revealed that actually the beast was too heavy for the plane. 20lb too heavy. Not a problem, I hear you say - leave it with Tom. But Tom lef thte airport as soon as he dropped me off. That's OK, call him up and ask him to comeback, you counter. Actually, it turns out I don't have Toms number - its hiding in the depths of an email some where.

So I'm stuck in the aiport with a 40kg big thing, 70 minutes before my flight takes off and nowhere to run. It transpires that the only internet terminal this side of security is out of order and the lady at lost and found wont let me 'lose' it unless it's been through security. She will, however, check my email for me, which would be fine if she had the intelligence to use my name and password correctly. I blame the airport slot machines.

After much too-ing and fro-ing, frantic attemted and unsuccessful calls to various people, I discovered that the terminal has free Wi-Fi. Simple - just find someone with a laptop and I'll be fine. Except the one time I need one seems to be the ONLY time no American is teched up. Ultimately, however, i do find one, call Tom, who screeches around the corner a full 30 minutes before the flight goes airborne.

Cue my turn to sprint through the airport 'Love Actually' style, only to find the biggest queue for security and the need to take a train to my gate. Anyway, I arrive 15 minutes before take off and make it on, in the process soaking my fellow passengers with the rivers of perspiration streaming from my pores.

This story is long enough, so I will conclude by saying that the process of getting to Scotland was long, drawn out and costly. Basically a big big hassle. I wished I'd sold it on ebay far too late. But when it arrived, Boy was I happy! I jumped in my little car and ran all the way to Glasgow to hunt down a dirty warehouse where my baby was hanging out. This truck is an example of the transport she had to suffer.

And this is her sitting in my boot.
My flat mate John helpfully offered a hand in the final leg of transport.
And then she was cut free and allowed to grow. And how she grew!

In short, my non-beanbag (who really needs a name - any suggestions) is gorgeous and THE most comfortable place to spend hours watching football and scrubs. So I extend an open invitation to everyone to come experience her warm embrace.

Oooh a new feature?

IMGP3114
Originally uploaded by Algape.

Turns out I can now post pictures to the blog from Flickr. This isn't so great as I can't see anyway to post more than one picture. If I work it out it might become more exciting. So anyway, this is me and Chris. Chris has just left to go to the middle east to work for Agape for a year and I will miss him a lot.

In other words, I need to blog about the lovesac and 'Honey Alert' (don't visit this if you're at work!), but that might have to wait until the mayhem of Freshers is over.

Lost and Found

I gotchya James, but I don't have your number. Or your new email address. So help me out here...:)

What's that coming over the hill? Is it a Panzer Tank?

Right. Since the last post. Malta, Nottingham (agaaain. Why do they never change the menu? Although the duck in orange and rosemary was a surprise and spankingly good). Edinburgh, finally. Normally I would describe myself as a person with persistently itchy feet, but this summer, despite having done more travelling than an STD in Bangkok, I have found myself persistently missing Edinburgh. This place rocks.

So before the trip with Granny to Malta, I realised that it would be my last bit of Fringe Festival action this year, and that a sensible plan would be to make the most of it. So Monday and Tuesday both involved 4am returns to bed (and involved much high jinks and the story of the woman who 'I altered' - I would relate it but it is a little egocentric and people might (possibly rightly) of being big headed) and then Wednesday involved just not bothering to go to bed at all. I had to be at the airport for 6:30am, so rather than getting an hours sleep and trying to make it there, I figured it would be more fun just to stay up (although going to bed might have meant avoiding Mr Old Man obviously lost watching a ska band who relentlessly talked to me about Elvis for half an hour). Needless to say, the rest of the day was pretty hellish, and the family saw the worst of me (apart from when they got to see my athletic prowess, running through the airport Love Actually style to get to a post box), but when we got to Valletta, it was very pretty.

In fact, most of Malta is pretty, as long as you stay near the coast. The rest of it is dry and dusty, but seeing as its a small island, a lot of it is coast. And the diving is incredible. I got to do a couple of dives with a random guy running a dive school out of an old Ice Cream kiosk, on some wrecks and through some caves. This isn't a very interesting story to anyone who doesn't dive, but I saw a few stingrays, and flying gurnards and stuff you dont get in the UK.

The other thing Malta has lots of is old stuff. The have religious temples 1000 years older than stonehenge and lots of catacombic tombs. Here's a picture (OK, there isn't cos blogspot aren't letting me, but check out Flickr instead).

The Nottingham trip doesn't have much to report on other than that I led worship for our Student Ministry staff conference we had, and my voice got likened to Chris Rea's. And the man was serious.

Oh and has anyone heard of Bic Runga? She's incredible and I got to stand right at the front for her concert last night. I know you're jealous.

Edit: In response to the comment - no the Lovesac has not yet arrived, however the saga has extended with the addition of more costs assosiated with customs. But today is the day it's supposed to land in Liverpool docks. So as long as those cheeky scousers don't nick it, we'll be alright.

Lovesac, Baby Lovesac!

My hiatus is over folks! Until the next one, expect regular wit, charm and lengthy ramblings from the flotsam in my brain.

In the time gone many intersting and amusing things have happened, most of which have vacated the the well filed and ordered part of my brain, but as and when the numbskulls trip over them,I'll be sure to write about them.

So befiore I forget, I love Edinburgh. The more observant of you will have noticed that I spent the lion's share of the last 3 months not actually being here, but I am now, and it's great. The city is visibly pulsating with festival energy (someone I met last night saw a full on 10 man fist fight and 1pm in the Grassmarket with tourists just wandering by - they probably just thought it was an incredibly realistic show promo) and for some reason right now I'm sat sweating inside not enjoying it because I'm blogging to avoid writing a Newsletter and renewing my car insurance.

Anyway, last night I went to see my first show, the girly-haired Irish comedian Ed Byrne. In short he was very funny. Very funny indeed. References to Jade Goody being a bigger waste of space the more weight she loses and les physical space she takes up, Westboro Baptist church (Those of GodHatesFags.com fame) being mental and James Blunt being a "scheming f-ing rat" made me laugh a lot. But the cliche about things being funny because they are true is, in fact, true. Mr Byrne going on about the times when girlfriends ask what you're thinking actually made me cry. Come up to Edinburgh and go and see him. You can stay with me.

AS you may have guessed from the title, this blog was supposed to be about my Lovesac saga. No, contrary to popular opinion, it's not a euphanism about my genitalia or testicular cancer, but about the purchase of the comfiest thign you will ever sit on. Needless to say, it is a long story. And I'm already wiped after writing this. But it will come. Oh yes, it will come.

Ciao, bella!

Apologies for lack of posting. No, I really am sorry. You have been missing my wit and insight terribly over the last few weeks, I'm sure.

Anyway, I'm in Nottingham with hundreds of Europeans. People are speaking all sorts of languages I've never heard before. It's lots of fun. And the sun is shining. And Aston Villa have a new manager. I'm very happy.

Until next time, adieu

Like a burning ring of fire

Tom's in a meeting so there isn't much else for me to do except write another post. Wow. 3 posts in a week!

Anyway, VEgas is a lot of fun. Its darn hot though - they're in the middle of a heat wave and tomorrow will be 112 degree farenheit (or 44.5 Celcius). You walk out the door and it's like you're walking straight into an oven. No wonder the US uses so much energy, what with A/C running full blast in ever car, building, office and casino.

Speaking of casinos, I doubled up and won $20 on my first trip to a black jack table, which was nice. Although, when drinks are $6 for about 2/3 a pint, you need as much winnings as you can get! So, I've seen the strip, watched the fountains at the Bellagio, seen scantily clad fat women dressed in some roman attire, and taken pictures of the fake eiffel tower. And yes, it's lots of fun. Tonight I have a poker game, which will give me a chance to prove for once, that I can actually play poker, and don't always fall asleep haf way through.

And tomorrow I'm off to the lake with Tom's church, which, given the heat, is probably just as well.

And Linus, I still don't know who you are and it's driving me crazy. Readership is so low, that I doubt you're gonna be giving many cookies out, so give me some more clues!

Viva Las Vegas

This is probably the best holiday ever. Fun is to be had everywhere I look. Except on overnight Greyhound bus trips (incidentally, why on earth are all the greyhound stations in the ghetto part of towns?).

So San Diego was great. I did some tourist stuff, such as visiting the zoo, and sea world (which was great until the Shamu show, the one with the killer whale, started spouting crap about there being 'a truth that two species are trying to connect'. I've never heard such emotional guff in all my life) and going over the Coronado Bridge, which was made famous for me in the movie Anchorman, when Ron Burgendy's dog Baxter is kicked off it. And I also made lots of new friends. My intial plan was to stay in a hostel and hang out with people I knew already, but they introduced me to more people, and I ended up staying in the house of a guy called Nino. He produces a magazine, Bubblemag, which is very good and I thoroughly recommend you look at. Incidentally, there might be an interview with me published in there sometime in the future.

So for the weekend, I hung out with my new friends. I tried and failed to learn to surf (ALWAYS wear a rash vest, until you're very very good). I wen't to Nino's Grandma's birthday party, I went to a Saturday church service at Maranatha Chapel, where I disagreed slightly with the pastor, and I went to some musical stuff and met some very very very talented young musicians. And then in another God ordained coincidence, Nino's roommates parent's were travelling north past Monterey at exactly the time I was heading up there, so I got a free ride and didn't have to take the nasty bus.

Monterey was fun, and rekindled some memories, but nothing much of blogable note happened apart from the girl who gave me her phone number. Now I'm sure some of you might find this suprising (ha!), but I've never been directly given a number by a girl. Basically, what happened was that I headed to the Monterey Aquarium reception desk to try and find my friend who worked there. I oozed British charm and smiled sweetly and the girl, whose name was Misty, was very helpful and helped me find the guy. She also let me leave my big heavy dive bags behind her desk. And so, when I went to pick them up the other girl slipped me a piece of paper with the inscription "Misty, (phone number), call me!". OK, so it could have just been a joke. I didn't call her to find out, but it makes a good story anyway (if I was actually anygood at story telling).

And now, after 18 hours of travelling from Monterey, I made it to Vegas, where it's hot and garish and as soon as I got off the bus, was offered weed, ecstacy and LSD. Party town. Lets see if it's as fun as San Diego.

And by the way, Linus, of course you can be my sixth reader. I'm honoured to have you. But who exactly are you...Stop hiding hehind a pseudonym!