the 99%

I am part of the 99%.

We are hypocrites.

Oh dear, he's off on a rant.

We protest against fracking in our country, against nuclear weapons in our country, against restrictions of civil liberty in our country. There's a host of things we don't want in our country. And sometimes we raise our voices for things we would like to see happen in our country too.

Which is all well and good - except we are quite happy that the things we don't like happen somewhere else and we can benefit. Did you choke on your tea there? Tell me that nothing in your life has come at someone else's loss.

I don't want fracking due to the general irresponsibly of the process. But I'll still put fuel in our car that could have come from places like Angola and Ghana which are equally beautiful and arguably more at risk of being left severely damaged by the processes of oil extraction, refinement and transport.

I ride an aluminium bike. I ride it a lot rather than taking the car. But then aluminium is one of the most environmentally-damaging metals to mine and refine.

I really don't want nuclear power or weapons, and may choose my energy supplier accordingly, but I still plug in scored of electrical and electronic devices. So there's still a cost.

And no matter your views, let's not start on the perceived oppression of Europe, Westminster or Holyrood. Do you get to leave your house? Do I get to choose who I work for? Do my children have the chance of an education and life expectancy of more than 20 years?

Can I freely and with confidence proclaim that I am a follower of Jesus and I have faith the God can do more than I can ask or imagine? Yup.

I ran for 13.5 miles to STOP HOMELESSNESS. And do I look for ways to stop the causes of homelessness in the other ways I live?

I might make noise about things that I don't like. You may do that too.

But I perhaps today I have my eyes a little wider. And my awareness a little broader. And my longing a little bit fuller.

And I get it. I understand we're not responsible for other people's land. And I'm not for unilateral action and enforcing my world as the only way. And I am not the saviour of the universe. Nor am I the only one who cares about these things.

BUT, if I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal, then I have no love. I have no consideration for the impact of my actions.

Can I raise my voice for local or regional action without being mindful of what impact my actions are having elsewhere.

If I do, I am a hypocrite.

I'm happy for someone else to suffer as long as I don't.

Our desire for cheap goods has made China's economy what it is today. We knew what we were doing (getting more for less). But did we really know what we were doing? (international trade history in two sentences, I think not).

While I hope for a fairer system of government, I might shake my head 

And I write this in a wearied state of mind, and in very stark language. But such is the way of clouded thoughts and tension. 

That's it. We hold this in tension.

I'm part of the 99%. And I would like to see that change.

Wouldn't you?

Back from wherever

It's usually good to take time out from something you enjoy, just every once in a while.

To get a fresh perspective, I sometimes need to get out of the instant connection to a thing. 

Often a wee lateral thinking game can help change your perspective or look at a thing differently. But, to break out of a rut of giving way too much focus to the minutiae of the digital connection I had across multiple platforms, I needed to switch off a few things and focus my finite attention in other places.

It wasn't about shunning people or technology. Or about trying to be better than anyone. Nope. It was about focus and attention. You guys are great, but you aren't the source of love, hope, grace or peace that I need to more than just survive.

And now I'm back. And so what, I hear you say. Who cares?

So what happened? What did I learn? What mysteries have been brought to light? What creative genius has been sparked?

To be honest; not a lot.

Actually, that's not true. Mrs theWeir and I have had a pile of good times. And I finally sorted out calendar sharing so we know what's going in without having to have a daily meeting. Not that we ever did. Which may have been part of a wider thing.

But no matter.

I also cleared up my to-do list and work email box. Both down to zero before we went on holiday. Some hard decisions had to be made about priorities, but a fixed end date and a strong desire to not change it meant things got done that needed done.

Even better was being away in another part of our beautiful country, being a wee family unit, seeing friends, doing relaxed-pace things and getting to take some pictures.

Having a suspected shin-splint put a swift halt to my running for a few weeks too. Which was quickly replaced by finding longer (and quicker) cycling routes to work.

And I found other things to take the place of reading a Facebook timeline or Twitter feed every few hours. 

Then I started playing Angry Birds.

I'd love to write this and say that I made a more concerted effort to pray and listen for God speaking as I read the bible. And while I certainly did more of both things, there was no earnest early mornings.

But I did pray more. And I certainly read more. But I think I have been listening more. Actually I'd say I'm listening the same, but I'm listening for something different. For a still small voice.

As I re-engage with social media, I'm praying I keep listening. Keep putting God first. You guys are great. But He is greater.

Grace and peace.

soft on Yeltsin

I remember reading this article nearly a year ago.

Mr Gorbachev talked about some of his regrets. How he should have known better. Mr G has regrets, but he didn't do anything at the time. So are they just rose-tinted and fuelled by hindsight and a desire to have remained in power for longer? I don't know as I can't ask the man what the real motivations were.

I'm sure most of us don't want to get to the point where we find ourselves at 80 years old (Lord willing) with a pile of things we wish we'd said or done.

Of lessons we wish we'd learned the first few times, not the twentieth time. Or we've still not learned.

Lots of sporting analogies and blasé statements fill our Twitter streams and Facebook feeds. The reality is, however, that life is all about making decisions.

Too often, I think we make the decision to drop out. To not even make a choice and *let fate decide*. Really?

Is that life in all it's fullness?

I don't think so. I'm not for making 100 strategic decisions about your day before you've got out of bed.

But there's an opporuntity for those of us who want to listen for the Spirit of God as we follow the way of Jesus to find out there's much grace to be discovered as we make decisions in light of His truth and His mercy. If He is with us, are we paying attention? Are we bothered? There's no magic formula, but by faith all things are possible.

In fact, maybe we can avoid regret by spending less time looking through the rose-tints and more time in the present that shapes the future.

How do you do it?

entirely possible

A few years ago, I had the privilege of being asked to speak at the KC.

The content was to be from the beatitudes - Matthew 5. In preparation, I noticed a few things that stood out, but the thing I really wanted to emphasise were inspired by something I'd heard from someone else.

The Lord's/Disciples prayer is smack in the centre of the passage known historically as the "sermon on the mount".

And it's made up for five things:

1. Acknowledging God is bigger than we are (Our Father in heaven, holy is Your Name)
2. We need His ways of thinking and doing (Your kingdom come, your will be done)
3. Help us deal with the past (Help us forgive our debtors)
4. Thank you for being with us in the present (Give us food to eat)
5. Let's go into the future together (Help us forgive those who will wrong us)

This has been in the front of my mind for a few weeks now.

It's a simple faith.

To stop trying to do it in my own strength. Stop treading water.

I think I had got in a rut of existing without living in an awareness of the presence of God. Yeah, I might talk about walking with Him, but am I stumbling in the gloom of self-indulgent, pseudo-darkness?

His timing is perfect. His ways are just.

There is a growing sense in me of the possible. Of what can happen. Of what can be.

Let it come.

Walking vapour

Broken

If you keep an eye on such things, you'll have noticed that the social news service Digg was recently broken up and sold for parts. The name, domain, code and some other bits for $500k. $12m was paid for the Digg team members and $4m for some patents.


And as Alexia Tsosis pointed out, a few short years ago people were begging their friends to vote up their posts.
But it's the way of all things. Not just technology. Sure, there's people still fascinated by cars of all styles and models. People collecting stamps from 100 years ago. And people value a while pile of things.


Something is hot. Then it's not. Sometimes that is through planned obsolescence, other times that's because there's a newer, faster, hotter, cooler, smarter, thinner, efficient-er version or the product or service.


But then if we're honest new is *always* perceived to be better. Often new actually is better.

And it's not really a product of more consumerist society. Not really. We've done this since we started making things. And that's also known as advancement or evolution.

And that's why it's all meaningless.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”    says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless.”

With meaning

Actually, the original work is not "meaningless". It's more like "vapour". It doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of a lifetime. Or an eternity.


I wrote about this a few weeks months back when reflecting on Jimmy's passing.


But vapour isn't hopeless. It isn't without impact.


At the weekend, I ended up in St Andrews at the RVLTN event. A far better musician than me was playing. In fact a whole pile of them were. It was nice to get a free ticket from my friend. Ten years ago, I think the band I used to play with would've been kicking around this kind of event. It was nice to be there without an agenda. Without time pressure. Just to see what would happen.


I had the privilege of meeting and chatting with a pile of people - some old friends I'd not seen for years, some new friends who I hadn't had that long to chat with. There were people I wanted to speak with by didn't want to be *that guy* either.
So lots of conversation. Lots of questions. Lots of experiences to listen to and learn from. And despite the beauty and treasure of those moments, it's still vapour?

Yes.

It's vapour because it doesn't last forever. It's vapour, however, that's preparing us for something. For somewhere. Here and now. And forever. And I don't get it. I don't have it all figured out. But I'm graced with these moments. I want to make the most of them. 

"Just because your present doesn't mean that you're here"

Even if I was to part of the best band in the world. Or be the best person I could be. It's still a twinkling of an eye. But it's not pointless. Because each moment shapes the next one.


The world needs present people. People aware to the moments going on around them and listening for the still small voice (or the really loud one) saying: "this is the way you can show grace and mercy to people. Just walk in it."

***


As a side note, I'm so aware there are people I haven't seen for years and if we've been trying to connect in person and it's not happened, I'm sorry. It's really nothing personal, but like many of is, my bandwidth is limited.

Atmospheric pressure

I live in Scotland. I was born here.

Something in the water means that as a nation we talk about the weather a lot. And given the ridiculous amount of rain we've had in 2012, there's more water.


Let's clear something up: I'm not a meteorologist.

I suspect most of you aren't either. In fact, there's only 25,000* professional meteorologists on the planet. That's 0.000004% of the people alive right now. Give or take.

I can't talk about the ups and downs of isobars or the movement of fronts. But I think that despite all that we are aware of weather more than we realise. More than simply talking/moaning/pontificating about it; weather impacts us. The atmosphere we live in changes our breathing. Our body changes based on the atmosphere it's alive in.

The other morning, the atmosphere was heavy. And the temptation is to get wrapped up in that. To focus on that. To make the atmosphere the thing that matters.

(*made up statistic based on there being 9,400 in the US in 2009)

For whatever reason.

Actually, it's mainly for one reason. To keep our eyes on ourself. On what we are feeling. On how we think it's all going to end. But that's the problem. Billy Connoly once said:

"My old fishing pal Jimmy Kemp said there is no such thing as bad weather, it's only the wrong clothes." (from here)

And isn't there truth to that? That we can think we're the centre of it all. And to the weather/atmosphere/job/audience/relationship should be what we want it to be.

Yet for the follower of Jesus, I believe we have the opportunity to more than survive the atmosphere. Not only is God in the high pressure and the low pressure. He is also bigger than it.

"He is here. In the valley low. He's here. I feel Him in my soul. Our God. Here and now."

And how do we get the atmosphere to break? We can try and push through, do it on our own ("I can do it all by myself", as the weeWeir would have me believe). We might not use that language as more mature humans. but the same spirit still rises up in us. At least it does in me.

We need one who calms storms and makes planets outside and inside the atmosphere. And he is the One who knew us before we were born. As a few friends and I have been challenged by recently, we need to become less self-dependant and more God-dependant. 

How else do you overcome the rain?

There's nothing new under the sun

This all came to mind as a few different things converged. 


Last week, Jimmy Adam passed away. He was an Edinburgh taxi driver, a collector of *things* and the first person I can (currently) recall being a bit of a technology geek. Certainly the first person I can remember having knowledge of how PA systems worked. He was unashamedly himself, full of life and most of all, I always remember him making time for me if I was around their house or at their church. I wasn't able to attend the funeral, but my Dad said it was quite something - full of life, and amusingly, the traffic jam outside was a sight Jimmy would have been proud of.

It's exam time in Scotland. And in England too. And probably in other parts of the world, but I can't confirm or deny that. Anyway, I was reflecting on other influences on my youth.

For my Higher English dissertation, I wrote about Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut Junior. The premise of my essay was that the story was really about there being nothing new under the sun. As the main character in the book shifts back and forward through time, the cyclical nature of his experiences was stark to me and while his cynicism increased, the core of the issue was the same. 

There's nothing new under the sun.

The phrase is taken from a book in the bible. I love the book of Ecclesiastes. Many people don't. But it's wonderfully grounding. And there's some great teaching on it from Rob Bell and others.


The word translated as "meaningless" in this book is more like our word vapour. It's passing. It's not going to last. The writer of the book is calling us to remember that the troubles of life aren't forever. There's ebbs and flows, but the fabric of our physical existence isn't all there is. Jesus would later come along and say “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”


I love how Jesus' overcoming wasn't the aggressive forcing of a worldview or the killing of anyone who stood against him in person. But he overcame by having identity and therefore security based on an understanding of who he was and what that meant for how he lived.


It's liberating to have a wider view than current moments of trial. And this week for me has had a few. I'm sure it has had many for you.


So when I saw this tweet and followed through to the article, it was a great reminder of the repetition we experience in life. The first Santram ad was witty:





The spoof by Nando's was a bit cheap, but had a humour to it:





The reply from Santram was classy: 





But actually, the first ad was a bit of a re-working of someone else's idea anyway:





Because there's nothing new under the sun. Or on the internet.


People will rip off your ideas, your wallet and even your emotions. Trials will come. For those grieving the passing of a loved one, may you be comforted. 


But there's a hope beyond our present experiences that means we don't have to fear those moments of loss. We can embrace them as part of the journey. As how we grow. As how we can become more like Jesus.

Three words for 2012

Last year, I wrote three words to set the course for the year. And promptly forgot about them.


Alive | Growth | Proactive


This year, I wasn't really thinking about three words as I was struggling to have the mental space or energy to think about it. Then a funny thing happened.


I was thinking about a focus for writing about this year - after last year's eight-thirty project, and the themes of faith, hope and love were really sticking with me. I mentioned this yesterday. 


So those three words are going to be my three words for 2012.


To grow in each area. To live in the light of them. To get closer to God in the midst of it all. I even drew a picture.

As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthans 13:13:


"so these three things continue forever: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love."


or as Eugene Peterson translated it:


"But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love." Read the whole passage for the context ;->.

300 not out - and four to go

It's 2012. But you knew that already. Or maybe it's not and you are reading this from the future. Welcome back.

Welcome, in fact, wherever you are on the space-time continuum.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm soon about to reach the end of my 365 project over on blipfoto.com/eightthirty. The idea behind the project was to take a photo every day at either 8:30am or 8:30pm. I started on my birthday in 2011 and it's soon to be my birthday in 2012.

A few weeks ago, I decided that while the discipline of taking a photo and writing about it was something I was really enjoying, the original intention had morphed into something else.

I want to write more about faith, hope and love. And the journey of discovering more about these three things. And the tension that exists to live in the light of what I hold to be the eternal nature of these truths.

So my intention is to keep writing. And to keep taking pictures. I'll aim to keep going with eight-thirty. But I will be doing more writing here. On the old blog, 300 posts and counting. I'll be tagging entries with 13-13 (a reference to 1 Corinthians 13 v 13, in case you missed that!).

It's coming towards my new year, and this is one of my goals.

What are yours? Can I help you work towards them?

what's your number

According the BBC website today, my birth nearly thirty three years ago meant that I was, well you can see the numbers.

Not hugely significant, if you look at it like that.

But numbers aren't everything, are they?

We aren't defined by what our number was. Neither is our identity wrapped up in our place in the queue.

Our real identity is wrapped up in who the creator says we are, which is far more appealing.

Interestingly, the God of the universe seems to care enough about us to have numbered the hairs on our head. The length of our days. The deepest thoughts of our hearts.

And that's a very encouraging thought.

What does resurrection mean to you?

On Easter Sunday (yes, a few weeks ago now), we were asked if we wanted to share a little something about what Easter means to us.

Easter for me is about death and resurrection.

I didn't prepare anything. I didn't expect to have anything to say, but when the moment came, I was compelled to share a few words.

Through tears and trembling, I said something like:

Resurrection and Easter is about:

Hope where there was none

Peace when their is none

Life where their is none

Grace where their is none

Wholeness where their is none

Strength where their is none

Forgiveness where their is none

How about you?

PS: I love this little video about resurrection.

we don't have a clue what's going on.

The future. The undiscovered country. "Next".

As I read it today, I loved this cartoon on the XKCD: Future Timeline. It's an image showing top-ranked Google search results of predictions/claims for each year until 2101. I won't post the image here as it's *way* too big.

If we're honest, we're all control freaks - to a greater or lesser extent. I've come to this conclusion in recent days after conversations with loads of people. More often than not we want to be in charge. That might be through simply understanding what is happening, or by literally being in control of what is going on. I know I am guilty of this a lot of the time.

But what struck me as I chuckled through Future Timeline was that we really have no idea what's next.

Sure, we knew there was a lot of fuss being made about a wedding last week. We knew that there was a sunrise and a sunset. But we didn't really expect to see news reports like this, this or this.

I guess during the last few weeks, it's been all too apparent what it means to have faith. To trust that God is good and that his Love (and Mercy) endures forever. To believe that He is able to do things in and through us that we just can't do on our own. Like cope. Or overcome. Or keep walking. Or stand when there's nothing left to stand on.

And faith comes through hearing. What I hear impacts what I believe. For sure. But I'm not blindly following, but humbly listening for the voice of the Father. He speaks. Often I'm not listening. Often I'm too caught up in what might be, what needs to be done, what seems to be important. This turtle cartoon speaks right to the heart of that. If I loose a file on a computer, is it really that important?

Maybe tomorrow we can walk on water. Who knows. I'm not worrying about it. Because that won't change a thing.

As a friend once said; "every breath is mercy".

Keep breathing.

water works.

I've found myself much more likely to cry recently. It's not an easy thing to say, but it's the truth. I'm sure I won't be the first person to say that, but there you are.

What points me towards precipitation? More often than not, it's stories. Stories about life, allegories intended to teach, hopeless and hopeful stories.

Our traditions of storytelling are many and varied, and the ones I connect with most obviously are probably films. But books do it for me too. In fact some recent songs have brought me to tears.

It's usually tales of reconciliation that get me the most. Of estranged family members reconciling. Of the lost child coming home. Of the proud parent realising that love is more important.

But it's the reality of the story that makes it all the more compelling for me. That doesn't mean it has to be in what we'd call the "real world", or in the present. But it has to be *real*. Which is something else, isn't it.

So it's good to weep. It helpful to admit that we aren't that pillar of strength - a rock that cannot be shifted. We are human, after all.

If it's great news or something devastatingly harsh, tears are alright.

On such a day as this eleven years ago...

Eleven years ago, just about now, Jenny and I were climbing into the back of a car (driven by my brother-in-law, Graham) and heading off on honeymoon.

Eleven years ago today, Jenny and I got married, looking a little like this and completely unaware of what lay ahead for us.

Eleven years ago today, Jenny and I left our old experiences of our families behind and became a new part of the same families.

Eleven years ago, I cried saying my vows and later a wedding toast that makes me shudder to remember how poor it was (I'm grateful that YouTube wasn't around back then...!).

Eleven years ago, my Nokia 5110 was pretty cutting edge...and now I'm typing this on an iPad! Crazyness.

Eleven years ago, Jenny and I committed ourselves to each other and a lifelong journey of supporting each other through the highs and carrying each other through the lows.

Eleven years ago, Jenny and I might have strained to believe that we'd have had so many wonderful experiences in life, work and home.

Eleven years ago, Jenny and I may have struggled to think that we'd have such a tremendous weeWeir, that Jenny would be a Midwife and i'd get to do whatever it is I do for a living. We'd have been confident of having such great friends and loving family though. ;->

Tomorrow, year twelve of our great adventure together begins as the journey continues.

You are part of that journey, and we're glad that (most) of you are in it with us. For those who have helped us get this far, we are grateful. For those who are still with us now, thank you. For those who've just joined the fun, welcome.

C'mon, Mrs theWeir...let's go...

you are not alone

A couple of weeks ago, I got a wee bump in followers on twitter.

Then later that day, I got a message from someone saying:

"@theWeir I read "the egg" today and it blew my mind. How did you come up with that?" (it's here)

I didn't recognise the author of the message, and more importantly, didn't remember writing anything called "the egg". A quick check of blog

titles and writings confirmed that I was being mistaken for someone else.

But who were they looking for, and what was "the egg"? I replied thanking the person, but suggesting it was a different Andy Weir. They passed me this link.

Now I knew that this wasn't me as my relationship with God doesn't lead to reincarnation...

I thought not much more about it until I opened up Google Reader and found a whole load of results in my "tracking" RSS feeds. I'm sad (or vain?) enough to keep an eye on what my name shows on Google and twitter searches.

Not because I expect to find some scandal about me, but just to know what's being picked up about people with the same name as me. Mitch talks about it a lot in the area of Personal Branding. While I'm not in the game of building a brand of Andy Weir, I do want to be aware what Google says about me as that can impact the perception a prospective employer might have of me.

And here we are ten days, and an 800% jump in website views for my homepage later and I'm still getting results about "the egg" and a steady stream of new twitter followers. When I tweet about Jesus, do you think they'll be confused?

Too late.

I posted this earlier:

"thoughts of future, possibilities and faith mingle with weariness and uncertainty to leave me open to grace & peace. a re-drawing of things."

And got a reply:

"@theWeir Dude, did you write "The Egg" or not? Am I following the right Andy Weir? :) But seriously..."

The answer, was clearly "Nope"...

What's my reply to "the egg"? I have a future and a hope in Jesus that lasts longer than I can understand. There is enough Grace and Peace in the Love of God to calm the most tormented soul and there is one life to live for the Glory of the King and that's what I am all about.

I have no pity for the other Andy Weir. I have respect for his writing. It's a beautifully created narrative. My worldview is different and I can cope with his being different too. Some of the ideas in "the egg" resonate with truth I can agree with.

But my hope is built not in my attaining God-likeness but in being given the gift of life in God, of losing my self and finding wholeness in Christ.

Of being reborn into His likeness...

I never knew you

Isn't it amazing how people are great?

Too often we hear how we're hard done to, cheated out of what we're *entitled* to and generally at the wrong end of the wedge of happiness.

Well, it's not really like that in the real world. We all face challenges, sure, but we are very seldom alone and I'm wondering if we do find ourselves genuinely alone and facing a significant problem, it's maybe because of the choices we've made. Of the distance we've kept from others.

So it's with a grateful heart I say thank you to those who supported us with concern, empathy and basically love over the past few days.

I posted some messages on Twitter & Facebook about us taking the weeWeir to hospital at the request of the Doctor, as well as sending a few SMS messages to close family and friends.

The replies brought me to tears, realising we were not alone.

While we were not on our own, we knew that God was with us through it all, we also knew you were with us too. And for that we can only say

Thank you. You know who you are.

The weeWeir is doing better thanks. We continue to keep an eye on her and see how she does in the days ahead.

War. What is it good for?

Getting things, done, apparently.

We all face challenges in life as we deal with *stuff*. I've felt a little more Resistance than usual over the last few months, with situations at work, the selling and buying of houses and a few other things. Sure, none of them are ending the world, but there's a sense in which they do impact how I live.

Some things I've read recently - and thoughts in moments of quiet and reflection - have encouraged me to keep going in the face of adversity.

I'm not a fighter. Never been much good at it. To be honest, I don't do conflict very well. However, there's got to be times where we stand up for what is right. What we believe in. What we hope for. If we don't, we're as well bowing down to the nearest collection of dust particles and pledging our allegiance.

God speaks. God breathes. God is light, life and hope in the midst of death. Those are not glib words, but the tear-soaked reality of experience. You know how that feels.

So I found this post on Lateral Action, featuring Steven Pressfield utterly compelling.

Resistance.

We face it. Either from not releasing the hand brake in the car, or by believing that we can't do something.

What do I do in the face of Resistance? Give in and satisfy the temptation or press on towards the goal. To stand up for what we believe in and see it through.

It's hard work.

But that's okay. We're not afraid of hard work, are we?

Or we're not afraid of a little discipline, are we?

I found the story of Collette a little harsh for our modern mindsets - but the discipline of limiting our media consumption really chimed. Challenged by something Clive wrote a while back, I try and take shabbat from consumption regularly, but would value becoming more disciplined on this front.

So war is good. When you are fighting Resistance...

How about you?

What Resistance do you face and how can we help each other over come.