Worthily Lamenting Our Sins

I hadn't intended to work my way through the Collect for Lent in this blog, but it seems that I am - so carry on I shall. 

I was trying to explain to two Year 4 classes why Christians 'do' Lent. I told them about reflecting on the events that follow on from Lent, that by giving things up we give ourselves space to think about God. I said that some Christians like to take on new things like helping other people, doing some good deeds maybe. They coped with all that very well.

Then I said that Lent was a good time for us to think how we have sinned and how we might like to change and be a little better. A lad asked if it was my job to tell people that they have been naughty. I said no. He asked if someone else told Christians that they had been naughty. I said no, no really. He then asked why Christians thought they had been naughty when no-one had told them. I said that because we know we are not perfect that we kinda just know. He then asked if that is why Christians are always sad-looking. Game set and match the lad. I was lost for a quick-fix answer!

The thing about being a Christian is that we are in constant danger of getting the focus wrong. Many of us seem driven to place our sins in the middle of the canvass that is our lives rather than the goodness and love of God. I think that that is because we can more easily believe that we're 'but worms', rather than believe that God loves us. One is innate, the other acquired. I don't believe that we worthily lament our sins. I think that we tend towards obsessively grieving them. 

So what is worthy lamentation, Mr Curate? - I hear you yell with one voice.

Worthy - useful, of value, virtuous

Lament - to express grief, mourn, to regret

In short, we are called to attend to our sinfulness and our sins with valuable regret, with virtuous mourning - not obsessively. In other words, we take note, we regret, we mourn and we learn; we learn, we express sorrow, we seek forgiveness and we move on. This takes inestimable courage. Most of us are given two arms, two hands and one heart. As I say to my kids, there is only so much I can do at once, and so it is for us. If we are laden with our obsessive griefs, we will never have the capacity to embrace the love and hope that underpins any and all forgiveness. 

I think there is merit in assessing the value of self-reproach that never wains. Many (if not all) of us have those things in our hearts that we labour with after years and years. Such energy and dedication is required to carry such a load when in the end we are called, as Jesus followers, to lay them at the foot of the Cross and accept the gift that was once hanging upon it. I might even go so far as to say that endlessly burdening ourselves with our past sins, especially after receiving absolution, is a sin itself - a sin of ingratitude and wasted time and energy. At worst, it may even err towards a sin of vanity. 

Vagrants and Christianity

We are considerably blessed in our particular church. One of those blessings is the considerable breadth in the types of people who grace our edifice. We are well used to Bishops visiting us, even Lord Lieutenants and town Mayors. All part of a day's work here at St. Mary's. At the other end of the 'social status' scale, we are oft visited by members of the homeless community, and some even make a bed under the Lady Chapel altar, for it is snug, and you could remain undetected for literally years. 

Last Sunday, a vagrant entered the church. He was, in every sense of the word a hobo, a tramp, a ragamuffin. It would not be unkind to report that he smelled appalling, and his clothes had that rather crumpled look of one who had slept in them. His hair was a picture too - balancing atop his head at an alarming angle which testified to its unwashed, un-brushed state. I am not sure if wasn't full of vermin and lice - but it would have been entirely conceivable. That said, his breath would have purged his hair of any livestock. Please don't think me unkind, for I am simply reporting the bare facts.

What caught the attention of the parishioners was the demeanor with which he stumbled into the church. There was something wild about him - that sort of expression we all get when we are about to miss a train. This dusty crumpled fellow had a wild look in his eyes, a breathlessness. It was that which was the more alarming, not his appearance and odour. God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform - and rather than coming into church to bum a cigarette or to beg for some cash (though he would have claimed [and appeared] to have needed it), he did something very different. He didn't ask for food or even for a place under the Lady Chapel altar. No, he simply walked behind it, looked at the gathered throng - who, believe me, were rather uncertain of what was going on at this time. 

Then he celebrated Mass. 

For this is what happened when the Curate forgot that the clocks went forward last Saturday night, and fell out of bed at 8.01am. That the service was due to start at 8.00am only added to his consternation. No time for collars, no time for ironing shirts - no time at all. 

The Blessed Virgin Mary and Apples

If you happen to be a typical bloke, and of a catholic disposition, today your cup doth runneth over. Today is a convergence of two wonderful events, two moments in time that will leave their mark. 

Today is Lady Day and today is the day when us Brits can get our hands on the second generation iPad. That God should choose the Feast of the Annunciation as the day when he unleashes Steve Jobs' best is interesting (to someone). 

Interestingly too, today will bring with it that little gaggle of folk who like to moan and whine. In the case of the iPad, we will hear how its camera freezes in FaceTime, that it is an over-priced trinket; a pointless bauble. Then we would hear the other camp tell us that the software will be ironed out in the next iOS update, yada yada yada! Any the wiser? No, me neither - but people will moan because something positive and innovative is happening. 

In Christian circles, there too is a gaggle of those who, rather than giving thanks for the 'Yes' of the girl Mary, will complain about the near-heresy of this Mariological stuff. It is interesting watching some people squirm when you talk about Mary, like for them she was an uninvited guest at the party where Jaysuss and the Speerit are the only headlines. I remember how upset some ordinands got at my college when someone rang the college bell for the Angelus (a prayer rooted and based entirely upon a gospel account). It was like we Marists were indulging in child-sacrifice and voodoo. Oh the fuss ... 

Detractors often work in the dark. Not in the Gollom sense, but in the uninformed sense of the word. The techno-whiners tend only to focus on the glitches, the little bugs. The same for Christian focus on the person of the Blessed Virgin Mary. People become gusset-rotated because they think that we are deifying her. We are not. We regard Mary as close to God and as one who can and will intercede for us. In a sense, we ask Mary to 'do us a favour'. Now, before you all yell in unison that our relationship with God does not demand a 'friend in high places', remember that by such an argument you will stymie all corporate worship and intercession as similarly pointless. 

Apple's iPad2 is a truly beautiful thing that, let's be honest, speaks so well of our creativity as humans. Even in my tender years I marvel at this stuff (not forgetting that only 25 years ago when I was in my secondary school, we only had 3 Commodore Pets, with four 'k' of memory for 800 of us). We are ingenious and even if you are not disposed to gadgetry as I or Bp Alan are, you cannot fail to be moved by what we can achieve when we put our minds to it. And so I direct you back to Mary. Even if the whole theotokos stuff troubles you, you cannot fail but be moved by a teenage girl submitting to the will of God in an act that would change the world in ways that Steve Jobs can only dream of. She has no education, no real direction in her life, but she was chosen as the normal person whom God wanted in his humbling of himself for us. The might and the majesty of a universe creating God was brought to a a fusion of gametes - a cell, invisible to the eye, ready to grow in this girl. Whatever you think of Mary, be amazed at what she represents for us all. Frankly, if it weren't for the Blessed Virgin Mary, I doubt any of would have iPad 2s to drool over. 

Create and Make in Us ...

I have been enjoying the series 'Wonders of the Universe', presented by the annoyingly cool Brian Cox [once a rocker, now a professor - and he still looks like he is 20 years old]. I have no formal scientific education but I think that my pragmatic learning style allows me an instinctive grasp of physics and chemistry. In short, I understand intuitively that all life is founded on structures and processes, that effects have causes that are attributable to other events and that every thing has its order. This programme appeals to me at that level and while I take most of what Prof Cox says at face value, it sort of makes sense in a way I can't quite put my finger on. 

In the last episode that I watched, a factor of our existence that I have always sensed and accepted was explained - that nothing new exists under the Sun. I have no issue with the idea that as human beings we are are a sort of re-shuffle of elements, not new in any way - in the physical sense. The cells that make us up existed elsewhere before they were caused to be part of us. I find that rather interesting - that my nose may have been part of the right foot of a tyrannosaurus or a meteor hurtling through the abyss. As a Christian, I have absolutely no problem with this at all. 

Lest you have not noticed, for Christians it is Lent. The prayer that we (Church of England types) use, the Collect for Lent has already been a subject of discussion here - and today I attend to another bit. "Create and make in us new and contrite hearts". Well, I am only thinking about the first half of that, as the title of this post might suggest. Keep up!

Brian Cox explained the 'science creation'. He did so well and I believed every word. That the gold in my wedding ring was formed only in the heat of dying stars because the quarks that make up the atoms that make up the elements cannot cook at a cooler temperature - I am happy with that. Brian Cox will, I am sure, be relieved to know that. However, there was the inevitable gap. Where did the quarks, the atoms, the elements, the amino acids, the stars and the heavens - where did they come from. How did it all start. 

Quark - from Star Trek. Not Brian Cox.

I believe that God is the only Creator. It says so in my creeds - but this programme applied a logic and a science to that. The building blocks of life, these little bits that join up in temperatures that would singe your eyebrows - they had to be created. Logic demands it. Logic also demands that there had to be a reason why the Big Bang happened, the moment where life was born as we know it. Logic demands that if this were not the case, the whole of history and all of the natural order is nothing more than one huge fluke. I am not sure that even the most robust atheist scientist would hold to that theory. Our Scriptures have applied a poetic approach to all of this born in part of a profound lack of the science that we now know - but it works. The account of the Creation, the acknowledgment that every single fragment of every single quark was fashioned in the hands of God, and that life has simply been a re-ordering of them through time - it holds good. What science cannot offer (to my knowledge) is a non-God account of the breath of life that we all receive - how if this is a huge fluke, why I am me and you are you, both of us loved and known by God. 

A Lent Thought About Blogging

Some say that blogging is a pre-requisite for Twenty-First Century priesthood. Some say that blogging is about 'community' where we find a lovely circle of friends. Some say that to blog means drawing pictures of  other bloggers, quite a lot. 

I pondered this as I prepared lunch yesterday (a roast chicken with a garlic and vermouth gravy, orange sauteed chard, taytoes > 'ark at 'im) and after a couple of events that were oddly evocative of blogging that had happened in the days before. There is indeed something that is just like blogging.

This follows on from my last post, itself born of a chat I had had with someone who wanted to take this up, and the way it feels to write a first post. Those of you who write blogs will, I think, recognise this feeling. The thing is this, you are assailed with an empty white box on the screen into which you are required to write ... something. There has been no handbook about what to write, the later skills that we acquire to augment our words have yet to form, we have no readers because as yet the blog doesn't exist. Anyone with a scintilla of sense would run a mile at this point, but bloggers of the world lack such a scintilla - we are drawn ever closer to the flickering light of our monitors. Ever closer ... write something ... you know you want to ... c l o s e r ... say it ... you have wanted to all your life - and so on until words form in the box. As we write, we may have a sense of being conquerors of the world, wearing the rictus grin of the chimp here featured! Mine, all mine - readers .... p r e c i o u s!

There is surely a formal psychological diagnosis for those who blog, not because of the formation of the habit or the developing corpus of thought, but because we all wrote a first post. And then published it. And then stalked around the house in a state of mild panic imagining in our worst dreams that 6.2million people are now laughing at what we wrote. At the very least our heart beats faster, we perhaps perspire a little. After we overcome this hurdle and write a second post, we become lost souls - delinquent bloggers. Addicts. The addiction of blogging brings lots of amusing and not-so-amusing characteristics, but addicts we are. 

Anyway, I came here this morning to tell you what blogging, or at least writing a first post, is like, for those of you who have more sense don't do it. It is detached, without a context, and for all the world like talking to an answer-phone. The thing is, do any of us perform as normal sane vital human beings when we leave messages on such machines? No, of course not. We burble, we giggle, we say things that we would never ever dream of saying in the flesh, we talk too fast, feel oddly silly and are left after the encounter with an increased heart-beat. 

My name is David Cloake, and I am a blogger. 

I Want To Start a Blog

I have been asked again this morning to offer advice to someone who is hoping to start writing a blog. When I was last asked, and then promptly barked the answer at the speed of light steeped in the jargon of such activities, I thought perhaps it would be best if I wrote it down. Other guides are available, but mine is the most beautifully crafted!

Before you start:

1. You will need a Google account (the key to almost everything these days). Follow this link and press the 'Get Started' link. 

2. You will need a name for your blog in a moment, so think about that before you are rushed. Also, this process will give you an internet address, so think that through too. 

3. Have some time to set this blog up - twenty minutes or so at least.

Getting Started:

3. Return to the link I previously gave, and press 'Create a Blog'. You will be moved through a logical step-by-step framework, so don't worry!

4. You need to give your blog a title. I favour creativity in this as in an expanding range of blogs, good names add to the experience. Bloggers like Daydreamer, Seeker, Dreaming Beneath the Spires and Doorkeeper set their stalls out well in their titles, for example. Titles are the first taster for prospective readers, who will have to do something positive to read your words (that is, press a button). "My Blog" wouldn't interest me (unless you were famous already), but I am but one person!

5. You will then be asked to choose a Blog Address (URL) - don't panic. This will become the internet address that people will need later to put into their computers to read your blog. The catchier the better in my opinion! Have fun, but be careful. Priests with a sense of humour addressing their blogs www.idontbelieveingod.blogspot.com may live to regret their moment of ironic wit! You now have an internet address and a name!

6. Verify the word! Google love you to do that quite a lot in blogging. Then press continue (and worry-ye not, you can still run away screaming when you come to your senses. You have committed to nothing, not sold your soul, caused the collapse of a major bank or the dis-establishment of the Church. That comes later).

Creativity Time:

7. Now is the time to make your blog look pretty! When you have negotiated the start screen, discovered that your title was snaffled by someone else and think again (several times), you will get to choose, at this point, from eight templates. You can change these later, and more choices become available later too. Have a fiddle, but don't lose sleep. Pick a template and press 'continue'

8. You only went and made a blog. Stop shaking, it's OK!

9. You will notice, in small blue letters, that you have two choices:

• Start blogging now
• Customise how your blog looks

I will follow the latter option as it leads to the former in the end! Press 'Customise how your blog looks'. 

10. You will now see your blog in front of you, large as life. It will have a title, any profile that Google holds about you, follower buttons, and a tool bar at the top of the screen. This may be the point where you shudder and run away, but try and stick with it. At the point where the tool bar is set, you will discover many more templates or variations on the theme you had already chosen. Have a fiddle and see what you like, and what suits your personality (your blog personality, not your real-world personality - there may be a difference). The advantage here is that you can see the end result each time, so visualisation is possible here rather than earlier.

11.  Background - in the top tool bar, on the left-hand-side, you will see that the second in the list is 'Background'.  You can add more flourishes to your blog, or even add your own imagery if you wish! The choices are in the hundreds here, so have fun!

12. Skip down to 'Layout' in the list at the top left. This is the physical structure that your blog will take. I should say that very few blogs are just titles and slabs of text. Such blogs are less inspiring and less of a positive online experience (not an absolute rule, and only my opinion). You will almost certainly add gadgets later, and how your page is laid out will require a choice now. You will see that I favour a 'bar-text-bar' arrangement, but look at other blogs and see what suits your style! Avoid clutter, though.

13. When you have fiddled around with styles, structures and imagery, you are just about there. If you wish to change letter styles and colours, you can do that under the 'Advanced' option, but I don't recall doing that on mine. Each template brings its own styles, and they are pretty good! Time to unleash your blog in its raw state! Press 'Apply to Blog'. 

14. You may be tempted to press that button lots of times, because nothing on the screen changes. Do if you want, but you will achieve nothing except wear out your mouse. The changes have been made, trust me (I am a priest, you can)!

Writing your first post:

15. At the top of the page, to the left of the orange 'Apply to Blog' button, are two blue buttons. 

• Back to Blogger
• View Blog

The first will take you to the 'Edit Layout' page where you can shuffle your page elements around, add gadgets and tweak the blog. If you do nothing here at this stage, that is fine - you have all you need to start. When you have written a few posts, look at the gadgets that exist - blog-roll lists etc will be a good idea later.

'View Blog' takes you to the present finished article of your blog as the world will see it. If you have got this far without having a melt-down, you have my congratulations at the least!

16. You may, at this point, want to write something. If you want to write later, note your web address so you can get back easily later. When back, follow this from here ...

17a. If you are returning, enter your web address and you may be asked to sign in using your Google address and password that you may have set up at the start of this process. You will be taken from your login page to the Dashboard - where you blog will be listed together with your Profile information etc. Press 'New Post'.

17b. If you are opting to write something at the time that you build your blog, look to the top of your screen in the solid (probably blue) bar, and press 'New Post'.

19. Off you go ... you are a blogger in draft. There are techniques for making best use of titles, images and content, but this is not the place for that sort off stuff. Labels help people find your content, so add key words separated by commas. When you post is ready to be read, ready to be viewed by your potential admiring public, the look below the text box and find 'Publish Post'

20. It is done ... you are now a blogger in fact!

For general guides and tips, or at least the ruminations and other miscellaneous chewings from a bloke who wears a dog collar, read here. Oh, and don't forget to tell people about yourself. 

You Hate Nothing That You Have Made

The events of the past few days have literally and figuratively shaken our world. We are in an age where we, even since the days of the last great Tsunami in 2004, can watch a disaster unfold - moment by moment, inch by inch. I doubt that any of us will forget watching an unremitting, unstoppable wall of blackened filthy water consume all things in its path. Modern technology can put us in the middle of a catastrophe in a way that we have never experienced, though allowing us the opportunity then to turn off or log off. 

As Christians, we are in our season of Lent. This is, I think, a unique season where we have a consistent Collect prayer throughout. It is prayed in addition to the collects for the day on the various Sundays, but it remains the spiritual heartbeat in the Church of England liturgical Lent. Its words are as follow:

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

It is a beautiful prayer, perhaps laden with the uncomfortable language of the Middle Ages, but none the less potent. I was struck last week by the tragic event that unfolded in Japan, while set against the backdrop of this prayer that forms another of my own focuses. The notion that God hates nothing that God has made is somehow benign in 'normal' time, but takes on an entirely different character in the wake of the earthquake whose aftershocks still shake as I write this. 

I was asked twice, quite reasonably, on Friday how God could allow such a thing to happen and for so many countless (and as yet uncounted) thousands to lose their lives. I have prayed about this at times in my own life, and in those times where our world seemed to be struck by yet another celestial thunderbolt. It became clear to me that God no more lets this happen to a living planet than I, as a parent, let my children fall and hurt themselves - yet it happens. Our planet is alive - it was made that way. For its life and ours, there needs to be certain 'behaviours' that our Earth experiences. It needs to move through space and it needs to 'breathe'. For these to not happen would mean that we could not and would not exist. These things I understand. These behaviours are the means by which our world is beautiful, that for many of us, a spring day can give way to a beautiful summer and a fruitful autumn. If Earth were a turgid rock, frozen and still, we would not be and we would be no more than a larger version of our moon - and yes, endlessly safe. Such a living planet demands all the shades of colour that life imply - the good and the bad. 

I have no doubt at all that our loving God grieves every lost life in every natural disaster. I grieve the injuries that my children sustain but I cannot immobilise them into an inert and eternally safe environment. I would kill them in one way or another by wanting to keep them safe from any harm or the costs of living life fully. I pray for the people of Japan as well as those people in the places where life is thrown into chaos by the life our planet needs to live. what I cannot do, though, is blame God. God is not to blame, although I understand the need to wave our fists at heaven at times. In my frailty as a human being, if I can love my children enough and be a source of comfort when they feel pain, I have such hope that in the face of a global injury where so many have lost their lives and families are left in tatters, that God can be a source of light and hope for us all as he grieves with us. God hates nothing that God has made, and with such love, everything is not lost. 


The essence of my sermon preached yesterday (as distinct from the one that I had prepared and didn't preach)

Blog Notice

Because I am perhaps the most helpful male Homo Sapien that ever walked upright in the whole world ever, I have pressed a button behind the scenes of Blog Central so that those of you who read this on a mobile device can receive this drivel in a tiny-weeny form. Am I not the tops?

I can feel the love, brothers and sisters; I can feel the love. 

Now sponsor me for this parachute jump that I am doing. Too few of you have, and you only need a credit card to stand me the cost of a gin and tonic (gift aided please). Thank you!

And as it is a Saturday, a suggestion: Mr Hargreaves, you need to write a Little Mr Helpful book next time - this look doesn't quite fit my hard-man-of God image!

Busy Church

I don't normally speak of the specifics of the parish church and her life, because I don't have the right to talk about others without their say so, especially as I am one of their priests. I just don' think it is right to use the parish as my blog fodder.

But today I am going to break my own rule. I have just returned to my modest abode after a morning at St. Mary's. Look at the picture - a magnificent little edifice! Costly, though ...

But don't let me keep you in suspenders - there is a reason why I am smashing up my ailing keyboard for your entertainment.

I have left a church with a toddler group in full-swing, comprising at least thirty kids and their chauffeurs - all singing Tommy Thumb and chasing bubbles. I left a group of twenty older kids, with their teachers, enjoying cups of squash after I toured them around the church, the bell tower, and after messing around with incense and the sanctus-bell.  They drew their pictures and asked some very good questions, while I tried to fill in the blanks. In the office, the administrator was dancing the dance of insanely stressed while her accumulated technologies conspired against her. In there too was an engineer trying to sort the issues, the 'folding-ladies' folding the pew sheets, and the faithful admin volunteer working with the one functioning photocopier. In the other corner of the church a gathering of adults who attend a support group were sipping the tea and chatting, and in the other corner of the church the Refectory was trading nicely. The sun cast into the building through our stunning windows, and the church was buzzing. One of the teachers had told me how she had warned the kids on pain of death to respect the silence of the church - and how good it was that it was so busy and active (and friendly), and how much the kids felt at home and relaxed. 

Like so many churches, we have our little problems. We try to get along as well as we can, and so often it comes down to money. Our church is expensive because we insist on keeping it open for everyone to visit, all week. Heating and lighting are not cheap, but we must provide this place. Now this is not an initiative that we can label and put into a self-starter book. I can't market this across the world with subsidies from the pasta industry and by which I can achieve international celebrity. I doubt I could even talk about it very much save for on my own blog. Simply, we opened the church and people came in. They saw and they liked. On this bright Friday morning in March, a church was full of people, all busy, all there by choice, and all happy to be there. 

It's not rocket science, it only costs more. 

Temporary Tattoos and Promises

Today, my wonderful friends, is Ash Wednesday. You may be reading this regretting the last eight pancakes yesterday (and after all, twenty is plenty). If you are like me, you will already be building a jolly chunky sense of guilt for not having made clear decisions about the forthcoming observance of Lent. 

Well, time to do something about it. Tonight/today sees the Ashing services (for those of us who do things properly that way), and those slightly amusing moments when we all travel home afterwards with our temporary tattoos of varying sizes. For me, I am a great believer in the ash-cross being nothing less than the burn of a branding iron that we carry upon our heads, not willingly or even gladly, but because we must share in the shadow of Christ's own crucifixion. We will only remember that we have a dark charcoal splodge on our bonces after we return home, wondering why the people we have passed in the street looked at us strangely. Good that they did though. They will have noticed our faith in a world where we often have call to conceal it. 

For us in our part of Aylesbury, we will be welcoming our Archdeacon, Karen Gorham, to talk to us on the theme of the anniversary of the King James Bible. She blogs too - and is doing so for Lent. Read her. And so the great observance of Lent commences. For many it will feel like a period of reflective self-chastisement, and for others an opportunity. Lent is perfectly placed in spring that it may be a beautifully hopeful, positive season, not so much the sackcloth-and-ashes-only festival that some would have us adopt. For some it is about giving things up, and that is good. Sacrifice is good. For me, I am one who feels that I should take something new on for the Lenten season, as I will have to make the sacrifice of time elsewhere to make space for it. I am going to read a book [see link below] that an atheist put in my hand (they received it in error in a book delivery - how spooky is that). More reading is a struggle and will demand that I stop for more time in the day. I will also commit to writing two pieces of work that contribute towards my professional development. Laborare est orare, after all. There will be more liturgy of course and the prayerful build up to the Triduum, a matter of some professional pride for us of a catholic disposition. So much to do, such hope for Lent. 

So, you may be giving up the booze, or maybe chocolate. You may be working towards the Tear Fund carbon project or putting time aside. You may still have no plans save for a small awareness that Lent looms. Whatever you are doing or not doing, you will have my prayers. Entered in the right frame of mind, Lent really does have the potential to be the most amazing time for Christians. Good-o!

What is The Price of a Smile?

You don't need to say it, I just know. Go on, you missed me, didn't you! It's alright, I don't mind you saying so!

Enough of that. I am back in the saddle after a week away with the family and the wife's family in a wooded place without cars where food is costly and the coffee strong. I have cycled up hills, climbed unimaginable heights, spent so much time swimming that under this black shirt I still look like a flabby walnut, have eaten more food than Mr Creosote, slept more than I have in years and won an immoral amount of money at poker (imaginary poker, imaginary money, computer game on the gadget). All in all, a good week has been had, and as I sit here in the middle of my first proper day back, it is a clear blue day and the sun is bright and warm. Kids, I am on top of the world.

I have a choice. I could have written one of about eleven currently embryonic blog posts that clutter my blog-cortex. I choose not to, because I simply want to record how I feel being me in this moment. I think my choice was also made when I saw how many grumpy blog posts were in my Reader, and knowing that I am apt to collude and add to their number, have opted not to! As an aside, what a miserable whining lot us bloggers are at times?! Anyway ...

I want simply to say that I feel great today. I have over a hundred emails wanting something from me, but I don't mind. I have a couple of acute pastoral conundrums to wrestle with, and that is alright too. The garden has sprung into life and needs taming. The cars are be-speckled with the gloop of country roads and need cleaning. All this is just fine. Lent is fast approaching and I have to fully resolve how I will observe it - but that just doesn't seem to matter. I am feeling good, the world is bright, the colours are more radiant, I am capable of anything, nothing can stop me this day. In this day I have received so much already, and the price of a smile? Simply the cost of being glad for what I have.