I should be cleaning the house...

... as it's Christmas eve tomorrow and don't want to come back from seeing family to a mucky home. And yet, I'm sitting writing emails and watching TV while feeling a bit sleepy.

I have to confess that beyond practical arrangements, family logistics and some impressive forward planning in the present department, I've let Christmas go over my head a little.
Is it just me, or is it that because Christmas happens on a regular basis and is just one of those things you know about, it never really occurs to give it a fresh look instead focusing on the messages of hope, peace and new beginnings. Bit of a cop out?


This year has been a time of honesty and the beginning of an awakening for me. I'm tired, and I want to curl up and eat too much. I could try and focus on all of the lovely themes of Christmas, but the way I'm feeling now means I really don't think it would be all that authentic. The choice is this: coast for another Christmas and survive out the year, or rid myself of any falseness and decide to be deliberate in all I do... and feel.

Christmas is also about light shining in a dark world. I think I'll try my best to have a mental tidy up over the next few days, shine a light into the dark areas of my mind, take a fresh look at this Christmas lark and come back to a new start. I'm going to go and clean the house too.

Merry Christmas x

When I grow up

It's funny how there are occasional themes to a week.

At a Nightchurch meeting last week we shared in an exercise from Brian McClaren's book 'Finding Our Way Again'. The idea is simple, in the context of thinking about your character - fill in this sentence for 1) a day ago 2) a year ago and 3) ten years ago;
'I am more ..... than [time frame] and less .....'

Next, what would you like your character to be in ten years?

Finally, what kind of trajectory are you on, and what can you do to make sure you're on the way to being who you want to be?

I decided I want to be confident in ten years, and to get there I need to not let my insecurities hold me back. This sparked a conversation about what confidence truly is and whether that's what I meant... but that's for another time.

At a work team meeting yesterday we reflected on the stages of life and which characteristics infancy, adolescence and adulthood all have. The final question was 'what do you want to be when you grow up?'

My answer was 'effective, I want to change the world and be effective in what ever part I have to play.'

There was a moment of quiet and I thought back to the theme that had emerged over these seven days. I realised I'd not given the most real answers and a far more honest one kept popping into my head.

When I grow up, I want to be whole.

What's my trajectory to that?! What can I do to help me achieve it!? I'm not sure I even know what it really means... but it seems like a destination worth journeying towards.

I'll keep you posted.

When your body says no more...

... it gives in to a cold.

I'm not the type of person who takes time off work with a cold, but I am very empathetic when others have one because the fuzzy yukkiness of a cold is truly awful! I have a mild cold right now, mainly through exhaustion but now I come to think of it I've been surrounded by ailing folk for weeks now so I suppose the inevitable has simply hit.

Something as inconsequential as a cold can really take the wind out of you - you suddenly wonder how you ever took breathing through your nose for granted or if it's always been so hard to listen to people talking to you... you ponder if you'll ever taste again or how if you'll live your life feeling like your head weighs the same as a house. It's all a bit pathetic really.

But actually, not at all long after a cold has cleared, you've forgotten it was even there and everything is 'normal' again. Hurrah.






It's been over 3 months since I returned from Uganda.

I run a campaign based on my experiences in India which encourages a symbolic act as a reminder of the state of the world.

I just went to the fridge and whinged I had no food.

Right.

It's easy to rant about the world (particularly when it's a big part of your job), it's even easy to really mean it when you do. But taking the attitude and making it stick, taking the pledge to be counter-cultural and letting it seep into your lifestyle, not feeling sorry for yourself when you have a lapse of perspective... that takes time, and will power.

So keep me in check please.

A Quote

"Christian Aid is not a colonial arm of the church, saying "We have the resources and we'll export them". Rather it says, "We believe the Holy Spirit has given gifts and sensitivities to all people and we will enable [them] to improve the life of their own nations"
John L Bell, The Iona Community

That ending poverty thing

If you look at the word ‘poverty’, you may notice something within it if you look really closely? There in the middle is the word over. This is the focal point of the new Christian Aid campaign, - poverty over. It came about when a secular marketing agency looked at everything we produced and all of our hopes and dreams, and came back to us simply saying – you believe in ending poverty don’t you? Well then that’s all you need to say. No gimmicks, no gloss. They effectively took us at our word.
It’s a brave thing to do – we really have risked being a laughing stock; no bases covered, no plan B, no excuses.
But when you consider it, human history is made up of instances where massive social change has occurred because of a determination to act. The ending of slavery, the collapsing of apartheid, and the eradication of smallpox within a decade are all examples. The scandal of poverty must be added to that list. The world has more wealth, more knowledge, greater interconnections and a greater capability to do so than at any other time in human history.
We are not calling for marginal improvements on what has gone before, instead fundamental changes in the global, national and local structures that create poverty are needed.

Christian Aid’s determination to end poverty is driven by the belief that the work of building the Kingdom of God is continued by his followers today. So, the church surely has a key part to play in all of this. Are we ready to really act with determination, regardless of what others say? Are we ready to take the gospel and put it into action? Are we ready to be taken at our word?

Wear black tomorrow to stand in solidarity

I’ve had the privilege of meeting some incredible people around the world, particularly in India and Uganda who have become the inspiration for an idea called Thursdays in Black. Gender inequality is one of the key factors hindering the eradication of poverty and there are people working in this area across the world who wear black on a Thursday as a personal protest and stand of solidarity, and I wanted to be one of them. This idea grew into an initiative which is fast becoming a movement of people from all backgrounds wanting to stand with those affected by injustice and effectively bringing about change to the structures and systems which favour some over others on the basis of gender.
I want to put the conversation on the table – the world is unfair. Men and women can work together to end the inequality between them, and then we can start to end poverty.

I don’t think it’s enough to have a campaign message though. Any campaign with such high hopes has to be shot through with integrity. That’s why for Thursdays in Black it’s as much about our ethos as it is about the message.
We want to stand out not just because of the cause but because of the way we operate – we will be ethical, transparent, eco friendly and deliberately un-glossy.

I probably sound a bit idealistic – I am. I have to be… the world needs some ideals to live up to, an un-cynical dream to grasp, and I just thought it was worth giving it a go.
We will be outspoken for the sake of those who are silenced. We will be outraged alongside those who are oppressed. We will be different because it’s about time.
Only with these high standards can we begin to be effective and most importantly be true to those inspiring women we represent.

I don't want to be able to email from my phone.

I upgraded my mobile phone recently and realised that I may be older than my years when I said ‘I just want something that calls people and sends texts’. The only ones available to me were all singing all dancing internet accessing music playing calendar diary voice recognition wide screen touch pad gadgets. For the same price I had the choice between a very basic phone which indeed just made calls and texts and was very similar to the one I had nearly ten years ago… or one of the fancier models which quite honestly just looked nicer. I was sucked in by the sexy mini computer phone… and now I can’t work out how to use it.

Technology has changed the way we communicate, work, study and worship. I can see via Facebook what nearly 500 people I’ve met at some point are doing and feeling without even talking to them. Teenagers in Uganda gave me their email and mobile phone numbers to stay in touch when they’d saved up enough shillings for a slot at the town’s internet café. It’s safe to say the world has got a lot smaller, and yet a lot less personal. Can anything really replace face to face contact?

The changing landscape of communication and technology offers us some valuable opportunities to connect with a wider group of people, to be efficient and be creative in new ways. However some of the greatest human achievements have been realised when people stand face to face. We cannot forget, amongst the impersonal connections and faceless cyberworld that we are all created as unique, named individuals with the inbuilt need for relationship. So while modern technology offers a level of networking, we need to work hard to invest in personal relationships which go deeper than a profile picture or status update.
The church is challenged to keep up and adapt to a rapidly changing world. But as well as technology being a great resource we can use, we are already equipped with just the tool for the job. We are good at loving people.