I`ve been sitting watching the waves this evening, its something I enjoy doing. So thought I`d share them with my readers. The Communion service I went to this morning, really touched me somehow, it was quite moving and seemed to speak exactly what I needed to hear. I know it wasn`t addressed solely to me, but it could have been for the relevance it had. It did make me think and realise too, that I do need to make more time to read my bible, and to not just read it, but to think about what I`ve read and to pray more. There is a big difference between just reading words and saying I`ve read that!, to reading words and actually thinking what they say and mean, isn`t there?
But, not living on my own, it is difficult to get a quiet half-hour or so to do that, without being disturbed. But I really must try harder to.
Don`t know why, but I`ve got on to writing about colours this week… so let`s have another day of it!....
What do certain colours bring memories of? For me its: -
Red – wobbly jellies an aunt always made and brought which weren`t quite set!
Yellow – a singing canary
Green – home – the paint outside was always green
Blue – has to be - the sea!
Navy blue - school uniform
Brown - chocolate
Black - coal in the old coal shed
White - lilies of the valley
Thinking about colour after I wrote that yesterday, If red is danger, then black seems to be a sinister colour, a bad colour, it often seems to be used to depict evil and wrong.
I used to have a dislike almost a fear of black dogs, thinking somehow that because they were black they were dangerous, until I met a friends old black dog and my reactions changed at once on meeting it. He was `an old softie` very loveable and I became very fond of him. So it just went to show how preconceived ideas about something can be so wrong. Oh, I know not all dogs are the same, in the way that not all people are the same, but it proves one shouldn`t perhaps judge things by colour after all, doen`t it?
I wonder why it is that we (or I, at least), seem to refer to insects etc., all as “he”. Yesterday, getting hold of a book at work to fill in some information on, I suddenly spotted some legs moving on the edge of it! With an aggghhh! I quickly dropped the book, and made the person next to me jump!
Yes, you`ve guess it, it was a spider. It dropped to the floor and I said there he is. And it dawned on me later that I tend to always say he, when describing creatures etc., yet, there must be female ones. Wonder why they are all `hes` to me? Do others do the same? But thinking about it, as I write this I realise there`s an exception to that… I call ladybird`s `shes`! Maybe its because of the colour?!
I`m sorry to say it, but it makes me question my faith. Why does a God of love allow this to happen? I can understand in a way when terrible things happen because of things people have done, because God gives us the choice of how we live our lives, but natural things I can`t understand.
I think I`ve written before about the amount of food that gets thrown away by shops just because of a date, when there`s actually nothing wrong with it. How can we justify doing this, when so many starve? OK I know we can`t send them it, but why, oh why don`t the firms cut down on over ordering, and then maybe they could consider giving the equivalent of what they lose in wastage to help the starving instead. For example why do the shelves still have to be as full of bread etc., late in the day as they are in the mornings? (that causes a lot of waste, because it has to be destroyed the next day) and that’s only one product. Surely customers are aware enough to know that if they are late there won`t be much to choose from. Am I alone in thinking this way?
The answer to the question on my blog of yesterday, is that I read in the paper that it costs parents over £2,000 to keep a child amused during the school holidays! I couldn`t believe it, I had to read it twice! What on earth do they do to need to spend that amount?
And then I look at the television and see all the poor starving children and families in Niger, and it really makes me mad to think of the way we squander money away on useless things, when so many haven`t the basic things to live on.
How can anyone justify spening £2,000 on a child in just 6 weeks?
Why is it, that for weeks there`s nothing special on, yet as soon as I`ve accepted an invitation to something, I discover the date of the event that I really want to go and see, and of another that I`d like to go and see (yes some Flower Festivals!) are exactly the same weekend? One of them was particularly good last year. And being a working person there is only one day of the weekend that I can go, so it`s no good saying I can do both. The thing I`ve accepted the invitation for isn`t even that interesting as all the other folk that will be there are in the older generation – in their 80`s! I think they only asked me, because they asked my parent to it. Yet, how can I get out of it? I`m in a quandary over what to do.
Why, I wonder is it that if you walk through a town or anywhere on a Sunday morning you can tell the people who are going to church, just by looking at them - by the way they are dressed?
Why do we keep certain clothes just to wear on Sundays?
Is it just because it`s traditional and always been done?
Is there a deeper reason, like giving ones best to God?
Yet, does it really matter what we wear to go to church? Isn`t it more important that we go than what we wear?
I wonder, is that why people and especially young people are reluctant to come to church, because they feel their choice of clothes isn`t consistent with what they see as “church people”.
I`m restless today. After a busy week last week, tiredness caught up with me yesterday. Today I thought I`d take myself off along the coast for the day. I got some rolls and ham for a picnic lunch, took a chair and a book, and off I went. I sat on the grass along a cliff top and enjoyed it for a while, the sun was warm it was quite peaceful. Then after an hour or two I began to think I shouldn`t be sitting here, I should be back doing……all the jobs I`d left behind. But yet I didn`t want to go back, but neither did I want to sit any longer, and for once I didn`t feel like going for a walk either. A cool mist came in from the sea, so I drove back a bit along the coast and stopped at another place and sat by the water, but again after a short while, I was restless and moved on, stopped at another Staithe, then after a while moved on again.
Why can`t I sit and relax, why can`t I settle. Is it that I miss the busyness and purpose of last week, and now feel flat? I don`t know.
I was writing yesterday about “soaking up the atmosphere”. I`ve said before on here how I enjoy looking at stained glass windows, so that takes me into different churches. I wonder if it`s just me, or do others find the same, that as soon as you open a church door even though they are all churches, they all seem to have a different feel about them. I don`t mean different to the outside world, although they do have a difference to it, but I mean different from one another. Some I like the feel of, some I don`t; some feel welcoming, others don`t; some make me feel uneasy and I want to get out as quickly as I can, others I`m content to walk round and look and absorb it. –
- All different atmospheres.
Yet, why are they all so different?
I`ve been involved with a Flower Festival this week, and have experienced some moving moments.
There was the time yesterday afternoon when I looked across the church and among the people walking round, I spotted the head of someone I knew, standing tall and looking at the flowers. Perhaps nothing unusual in that you may think, but for about the last five of six years he had been in a wheelchair following a stroke, and this was the first time I had seen him walk. It made me feel very emotional. It `made my day`.
The previous day, I`d been very moved by an elderly lady of the church, for years she`d been very, very active in all sorts of ways and particularly with baking lots of goodies, now she was unable to do this. But she came and sat on one of the seats and was cheerfully greeting and talking to people as they passed, giving them a good welcome. I went to speak to her and she said “I can`t do anything now to help the Festival”, I told her that she was doing a very important job, just by being there to speak to people. Then on just giving her a simple flower festival badge to wear, she said “you`ve made my day”. It really made me think - how just a small insignificant thing like that, could mean so much to someone. Her determination to be there, and her attitude to her problems (by being cheerful and not complaining about them), and her obvious pleasure at such a small thing, was so moving.
I keep hearing the expression The Third World.
It makes me want to ask, what or where are the
and who or what makes up the
Why are the poorest countries referred to as The Third World, surely there is only one world?
We may have different life styles but we are all on the same earth, the same world in the same universe.
By saying we have different life styles, I`m not meaning that they should remain poor, far from it, but I`m wondering about our use of language in describing them.
Do the people in the poorer countries refer to us as the
In these days of political correctness, it seems very exclusive to use the term third world, when we do all live in one world. Surely there could be better expression, if one is needed at all.
Now-a-days so many businesses and firms just ask for a postcode and then in an instance their computer can tell them your address. It makes me wonder (not that I`ve anything to hide) just exactly how much information is stored about me on various data systems. And if that`s the case what difference would it make if we had to carry a card, if our information is already known.
It would certainly assist shops, pubs etc., when it comes to knowing the age of a young person – or perhaps those young ones are the ones that are against it!
Why is it, I wonder, that even in the narrowest of spaces, in queues in shops, in the aisles of markets and many other places, men will stand with their arms akimbo? They block gangways, take up the space of two people, they`re in the way of people trying to pass, and they seem oblivious to this. How I long to say to them “put your wings down”. Why can`t they stand with their arms at their sides?
I expect some body language expert would tell me there`s a reason for it, but I fail to see what it could be.
To stop and take time for ourselves.
That discovery came to me from my day out yesterday. The break away from routine and work, really did me good. I should do it more often! I feel very relaxed and calm today.
Now, I`ve just got to remember that!
And to do it more often!
