Merry Christmas! It’s been wonderful to hear news from around the world with Christmas letters and emails pouring into my inbox.
This year has been an interesting but very fun year for me. I have (in no particular order):
Quite astonishingly, I have now been in London for 2 and a 1/4 years and feel like a proper little Londoner. I’m very lucky to have a wonderful little flat in Zone 1 (near Russell Square for those that know London) with an Aussie girl and a Swedish guy. I am really lucky to have plenty of spare time to pursue other interests.
I am really enjoying being more involved with my church, Holy Trinity Brompton, and one of the highlights for my pastorate (a small goup that’s not so small) has been involvement in a homeless shelter over the Winter months. I’m also involved in a start-up charity that will be setting up a halfway house for women coming out of Holloway Prison and looking forward to our first major fundraising event in mid-February. In a moment of total work boredom I also agreed to be a voluntary project manager for a major youth development charity based in Toronto, the wonders of the internet mean I can do this virtually. It’s fabulous to have time to do all these things and in some ways this makes up for the less interesting parts of my full-time job.
Next year holds a number of delights - the most exciting of which right now is a trip home for a month in March/April. It’s my first trip home since September 2006 and I am really excited at the thought of seeing friends and family again. If you’re keen for a catch-up, I’d love to see you. Send me an email and we’ll organise a date/time.
For a few photo highlights of 2008, visit my Webshots photo site and head for the “Best of 2008″ album.
It would be lovely to catch up with as many as possible while I’m home next Easter.
Have a Happy New Year and I hope to see many of you in three months or so.
Love and hugs,
Fi x
Dixons / Currys promised to deliver an oven tomorrow. They overbooked their deliveries and can’t deliver now. I know it’s human and me being angry isn’t going to help but it kinda screws up my Christmas dinner plans completely and I’m annoyed.
I do not recommend ordering anything from Dixons / Currys if you want it to be delivered quickly.
Grrrrrrrrr . . .
For some reason I can’t sleep, at all, tonight and it’s now 5:15am and in an hour and a bit I need to get out of bed and head to work. Fun! Instead of clearing up my desk or working out where to move my furniture to next weekend (see the ‘Trying to remember how to say no’ post - it’s not about sex). I am posting random things on my blog and listening to Last.FM. Why not?
Oooh . . . so I’ve discovered the wonders of H&M, not the NZ one, but the kinda that sells good clothes for cheap and has nice ones at the Knightsbridge branch. It makes me so happy, in a silly kind of way.
Other things that make me happy - let me introduce you to The Boy Least Likely To:
Based in London, providing insight into the families of second-generation immigrants, it’s a colourful book full of life and crazy description. It changes direction quite suddenly but as usual the threads all tie up in the end.
However, I enjoyed it enough to try again so in a month or so I’m going to re-read it and see if I can work out what bits I’m missing. It’s like hearing only three parts of a four-part harmony, there’s something not quite there, and in this case it’s not the author, it’s definitely me.
I do, however, really love some of the characters. All the younger generation are so intricately tied together. And Hortense, a Jamaican Jehovah’s Witness constantly convinced of a new date for the second coming, is a wonderful side step from everyone else.
It’s the reason for the lack of blogging, the reason for the lack of sane responses to emails, and I’m going to blame my insanity on being silly busy for most of my life.
So here’s a list, half to remind myself of what I’m trying to complete, and half for you to see what I’m up to:
1) Pastorate - my church divides itself into large small groups known as pastorates. They’re a necessity in a church of 3,000-4,000 back when there was only five services on a Sunday. There’s now seven. We meet every second Tuesday at church for some prayer, teaching, and food. It’s a solid evening. Anyway my pastorate are a fairly socialable bunch so we have fairly regular nights out together and enjoyed a wonderful weekend in Ireland last month. Apparently I’m something resembling an outreach officer for the pastorate, which brings me nicely to the things that we do on the other Tuesday in every two weeks…
2) St Matthew’s shelter - provides shelter and food for 35 homeless men and women in London on a Tuesday night. It’s part of the West London Churches Homelessness Concern and the shelter rotates around churches in the West London area each night of the week. I pull along 5 pastorate members every other Tuesday to help with setting up, serving food, and building relationships with some of the most amazing people I’ve met in London, who also happen to not have anywhere to sleep.
3) TakingItGlobal - youth activism and involvement in communities worldwide. I’ve been involved forever and a day it feels like *but* I am now a voluntary project editor for them, which works nicely as I can do it virtually and whenever I have time. With over 2,500 projects worldwide registered with TIG, I help in all sorts of ways. It’s a blast!
4) Paid employment - I am currently employed as a policy assistant for the established Church in the pastoral and closed churches division. It pays the bills and allows me to do lots of other stuff in my spare time. I don’t intend to do it forever.
5) Halfway house - I’m helping with a start-up charity that will setup a halfway house for women coming out of Holloway Prison in London. I do website design stuff and pretend to be fairly au fait with all things IT. I also now organise fundraising events because I like organising and event management. It’s fun and I find it oddly relaxing.
6) Swimming - I theoretically swim 3-4 times a week, depends on the week, depends on what I’ve got on, depends on silly things, but I love my new Aquabeat so it keeps me fit and happy.
7) British Labour Party - I am a new member of the British Labour Party and will be helping to ensure that the Tories don’t win like National at the next Brit election. The New Zealand election result made me realise that I am quite definitely a centre-lefty, not a ‘centre-right with a little bit of Act thrown in or good measure’ person. I am looking forward to getting back into campaigning.
I think that’s it for now. Those are the things you’ll hear me talking about most often. I am loving being involved with a few NGOs and charities, and having time to do that is really precious. I’m off to Wales for Christmas and will spend New Years with a few of my LSE friends celebrating what I hope to be a very exciting new year.
For my sins, my current addictions are Christina Aguilera (…you can stop laughing now) and Tim Hughes.
But seriously . . .
It’s with my love of music and international development that I’m promoting a new album. CompassionArt is, as they say, “a charity which join the dots between art and poverty” and they’ve just produced an *AMAZING* album with 12 Christian songwriters creating a fantastic collection of songs. Best of all, the twelve writers nominated a charity to which 1/24th of CompassionArt royalties will go to. The remaining 50 per cent of the funds raised will be distributed among projects that CompassionArt wants to give extra support – such as the Watoto community in Uganda. There, orphaned children are given food, shelter, education and a loving, caring home as they rebuild their lives. CompassionArt will provide funding for a series of music and arts centres that support the world-famous Watoto Children’s Choir, as well as offering essential training for those wanting to pursue a future in the arts.
By buying this album, you’re helping to change lives. It’s not about 1/2 the profits going to recreate a rainforest (although that’s very noble), it’s 100% of all the money made. Every single $. It’s not often you can say that.
It’s out in WH Smith and via Play.com in the UK, and information on where to get for loads of other places worldwide is on the website. It’s not out in NZ yet as far as I can tell but I’m sure it will be soon - keep your eyes out guys, it’s a gorgeous album and so worthy of support.
You know what - I think these guys explain it much better than I do.
I like this post and I think it makes some very valid points and is also very funny - so much so that I’m posting it here to spark some thought and maybe discussion.
I am not gay. In fact, most times, I’m not even remotely happy. So, it irks this married, quasi-grumpy, heterosexual California male when a Mulligan’s Stew of religion, intolerance, fear and politics is plopped on my table like a steaming pile of sanctimoniousness and dubbed “The Defense of Marriage Act.” I’m talking about Proposition 8, a nifty little exercise in backwards thinking that would amend the California State constitution to define marriage as something that can occur only between a man and a woman.
Am I missing something here? With this country coming apart at the seams on a myriad of levels, gay marriage is seen as a major issue? The standard line is that gay marriage threatens “the sanctity of marriage,” because - as we all know - divorce, cheating, incest and domestic violence don’t.
I believe the only threat gay marriage poses is that it may change the content of country music forever.
Now, the pro-Proposition 8 cheerleaders are your usual group of loveable misanthropes (Come on down, Focus on the Family!) but with a couple of notable exceptions. Members of the Mormon Church, their magic underwear in a twist, have funneled over $17 million into the anti-gay marriage treasure chest. The Catholic Knights of Columbus, an all-male group known for wearing funny outfits while calling themselves “Grand Knight,” “Chief Squire” and “Friar” as well as doing some amazing charitable work, has kicked in over $1 million for reasons that elude me.
The folks supporting Proposition 8 have come up with a myriad of reasons for pushing the “man-woman marriage” effort. They say that if same-sex marriage continues to be recognized in California, gay marriage will be taught in public schools. I assume that class will come before Gay Math, Gay English and Gay Geography but after the infamous Gay Recess.
Churches will be sued if they don’t perform gay marriage ceremonies. Religious adoption agencies will go broke if they only continue to grant traditional moms and dads the right to adopt. Ministers and priests who preach against same-sex marriage will be sued for hate crimes. Photographers will be sued if they refuse to take photos of gay marriage ceremonies. Doctors will be sued if they deny artificial insemination to gays. Hordes of pixies will re-arrange the sock drawers of heterosexual men, substituting sheer silk socks for those thick cotton ones you wear on the job. (I made that last one up. Could you tell?)
The proponents of Prop. 8 simply want traditional marriage to be declared the law of the land. (I can’t wait for the return of arranged marriages and dowries, can you?)
No matter how much legal and political reasoning is spewed, however, it’s pretty clear that the definition of marriage being between a man and a woman is a religious one. Period. Gay marriage threatens people’s religious beliefs…even more than pixies in the sock drawer.
That’s saying a lot.
There are a lot of folks who believe the Bible word for word…when it suits them. People who aren’t keen on gay marriage, or just gays, usually preach Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” If you mention that, way back when, an “abomination” referred to a ritual offense (Goat herders were an abomination to the Egyptians. Pork chops were abominations to the Hebrews.), they come up with Leviticus 20:13. “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they surely will be put to death.”
So, let’s say that the Bible is true. Word for word. It’s all true. It has to be obeyed. Period. No wiggle room. If that is the case, about half of the American population will be dead from public stonings in, ohhhhh, about three or four days.
Ya, see. The Old Testament wasn’t really big on mitigating circumstances when it came to crime or, as it was known then, sin. Just a casual look at the Ten Commandments could bring down American society post haste. No lying? No adultery? No swearing? No pining for someone else’s wife or big screen TV? There goes the fabric of our nation!
In Mosaic Law, such offenses were punishable by public stoning. This has nothing to do with “The Summer of Love,” my fellow Boomers. This entails a bunch of righteous folks picking up rocks and slamming them into sinners until their sorry skulls are scrambled.
Some of the sins punishable by death were beauts. If a kid sasses his parent, he’s dead meat. Striking a parent? Ditto. A fellow marrying his mother-in-law is also doomed, although that seems redundant. If a betrothed woman is sexually assaulted and doesn’t scream, she’s up for stoning. (However, if a man rapes a virgin, his only punishment is a wedding. Hmmmm.) If a lass isn’t a virgin when married, she’s also boulder-ized. If you don’t worship the God of the Old Testament, your life gets real rocky real fast. If you work on the Sabbath? R.I.P., overtime notwithstanding.
Justice in the Old Testament was meted out with, er, gay abandon. Kids who made fun of a bald guy were eaten by bears. Promiscuous women had their noses and ears cut off, their children taken away, were stripped and burned. If a single woman had a boy out of wedlock, she might merely be shunned but the kid and his descendents were condemned to Hell.
Oh, yeah. All you country club devotees? Divorce, by implication (“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”), means you’re destined for a stoning before happy hour.
People who are Bible literalists, aside from the fact that they consider “The Flintstones” a docu-drama, tend to pick and choose their moral instruction from the Book as if they were at a salad bar. If they didn’t, most of them would be walking gravel pits. (Those who are anti-gay ANYthing, for instance, might be interested to know that the world “homosexual” didn’t appear in the Bible until about one hundred years ago. What? Did God come down with White-Out?)
What constitutes “sin” is also up for interpretation. It wasn’t a bleeding-heart liberal, for instance, who changed the Biblical commandment translation from “Thou shalt not kill” to “Thou shalt not murder.” It was someone who realized that, Holy Crap!, that “kill” stuff includes religious-fueled warfare!
When I was a kid, growing up Catholic, a mortal sin was the Big Kahuna of “no-nos.” Unless you confessed to a priest pronto, you were damned to Hell.
It was a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday. Seriously. It was also a mortal sin to take an ax and give your family forty whacks. So, when Fridays rolled around, this chubby little kid was faced with a decision. If you go the sin route, which one do you choose? I always opted for the sin that included a side of fries. It was just as damning as mass murder but much tastier.
California, for some reason, has always led the nation when it comes to quirky trends, from the sublime to the sub-moronic. We elect washed-up actors as Republican governors in a state derided as being uber-liberal by… Republicans. We promote meditation in-between Bo-tox injections. Only some of us see the irony in all that.
Proposition 8 is mean-spirited irony stoked by fear of…whatever it is we’re not. By invoking the specter of “traditional marriage” and making it the law of the land, we’re dangling one foot over the abyss of traditional inequality.
It wasn’t too long ago that inter-racial marriages were illegal. Segregation was the law of the land. Blacks weren’t considered fully human. Women weren’t allowed to vote.
All of those facets of our society also had their roots in the Bible. Not too many thinking Americans would defend them, now.
I’ve written a lot of fantasy fiction in my lifetime but, for the life of me, I can’t see how a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman threatens my marriage…unless they move next door and play loud music at 2 AM, or let their dogs poop on my front lawn or get drunk and beat the crap out of each other and toss beer bottles around at all hours. You know, stuff that gay couples might do that heterosexual couples would never dream of.
I mean, look at all those gay couples on “Cops” week after week. Uh. Oh. Never mind.
So, Californians, vote “no” on Proposition 8. The rest of America? Be on alert should a similar proposition pop up in your neck of the woods. It’s about religion. It’s about denying people equal rights. It has nothing to do with government. It has nothing to do with law.
And, to all those sanctimonious saviors of traditional values out there who feel condemnation is the cure-all for everything you see that you don’t agree with?
Here’s a Biblical quote for you. Mark 9:47. “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.”
There’s no quote to advise you on what to do after you’ve run out of eyes.
I’m just sayin’.
October snowfall: London had its first October snowfall since 1934
Snow and sleet also fell in northern Scotland and south-east England as temperatures plunged to -4C in parts of Britain.
Football matches were either postponed or abandoned at Luton, Northampton, Walsall and Wycombe because of the weather conditions.
Sky weather presenter Denise Nurse said: “It’s highly unusual to have snow in October - we haven’t seen October snowfall in London since 1934.
“But today will be cold, bright and frosty. Snow this afternoon will mainly affect Northern Ireland, Wales and the north of England. It’ll also be breezy, feeling almost blizzard-like.
Cheers for that Sky News :o)
