All Nighter

It is currently 3:30 am.

I have been working virtually non-stop on my essays now for twelve and a half hours, sat on my own in lecture room one.

I have drunk 7 espressos, and done ALOT of work.

I decided to take a moment and write this blog at the halfway point. I have 2 essays 99% completed now, with footnotes, bibliographies and all that jazz. One was 3000 words, the other 2250 words.

I now have another 3000 worder to complete, and another 1500 worder.

I expect that I will be finished around 9 am. This is going to be interesting.

I could just say 'sack it', go to bed, miss a few deadlines and not get the first I know I am capable of...

But I'm not going to do that, for several reasons.

I found out yesterday morning at the hospital that our baby is another little boy, and today while working was hit by the same feeling I had when we were pregnant with Joel; a sort of reality check moment something along the lines of 'Wow, I'm about to have a child, I must provide for it, I must do something with my life', but this time I was so pleased that I'm over halfway through my degree now, and en route to getting a first, that the feeling came as a sigh of relief rather than a moment of panic.

The awareness that these essays I am writing are my family's future mean that it's ok, I'll pull a 7-espresso dazed 24 hours of non-stop work all-nighter, because this is my wife and my sons we're talking about here, and they will have the best of me.

Anti-Semitism

Here's a question for you.

Why do so many people just absolutely hate the Jews?

I don't get it at all.

I mean, I don't personally know any Jews, and I have no problem with them whatsoever

But why on earth have so many people, (and not just Hitler and the Nazis) simply hated their guts and wanted to erase every trace of them from the face of the earth?

I truly, truly don't understand.

Roald Dahl for example, writer of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a self-confessed anti-Semite, mega-successful Hollywood actor Mel Gibson recently had a huge Jew-hater rant to a police officer, and one of the worst is the great Christian reformer Martin Luther - that guy was violently anti-Jew, calling for them to convert or be murdered!

Why were they repeatedly expelled from countries all throughout the world, all throughout history?

Any idea at all? Anyone?

4 Essays In A Day

The combination of losing my Grandad, having a sick and pregnant wife, a one-year old baby, going to hospital several times and having a job has meant that today is the only full day I have had in 2 weeks to work on my essays, all of which are due on Thursday. I have done a decent amount of work on them so far, but the barrage of life which I have been attempting to stand up under has been distracting me quite effectively, and so now I am sat in my parents front room in Richmond with my laptop, totally exhausted at 11 am, hoping to be able to get somewhere near completion of all my essays in one day.
Fat chance.

I think Ill post updates to this blog post as I go to help keep me sane :)

Bring it on (in the most weary sense possible).

Update 1 - 13:22
It's amazing what food, drink and a shower do for a mind that needs to focus. I have a thousand words done for 'covenants' now, and 500 more to go before I comb back through the whole thing adding footnotes, condensing sentences, and finding sources on google books. The baby is sleeping (glory be) and I am finally feeling 'in the zone'.

Update 2 - 16:07
We had an appointment at 2 to look at a house were possibly moving to in Catterick. I just got back on and am no further forward.

Update 3 - 17:03
The first rough draft of 1500 words on Covenants in the Old Testament is now finished. Moving on to the significance of Martin Luther now. Just had a sandwich. Ham and Wensleydale cheese. Nom nom nom.

Update 4 - 19:17
1500 words done on Martin Luther so far... And just went to pick up a curry for Sydney. Man, Luther was a racist! That dude really hated the Jews. Another 1500 to do...

Update 5 - 22:55
Just had a very long talk with Sydney about University stuff, still not done much more. Aaaaaagh.

Update 6 - 00:05
Spent an hour working through it all and deleting fluff and pointless filler from the essay. I still only have 1500 words. Gonna go pee, then have a bit to eat and a drink and see if I have any more work left in me.

Update 7 - 01:10
Hrrrngg. Orange yoghurt is the best yoghurt. I am so tired. MMM nice warm fire. Im going to bed now. Got 2200 words done on Luther. All 4 essays are done up to a first draft. They all need tidying up considerably and all need loads of references, but that will have to happen another day. Good night, and good riddance.

Goodbye Grandad

I found out last night at 10:45 that my Grandad passed away.
It's the first death of a close loved one I've ever had to come to terms with.
My body celebrated the occasion by kindly sending my stomach haywire and hospitalising me via ambulance within an hour of the news.
It was not fun.
Apparently the mind and the stomach are closely linked, and the stomach produces excess acid when I am anxious.
Last night it produced so much that it began eating itself.
I spent half an hour curled up on the stairs in miserable agony before the medics arrived.
Man, that really hurt.

Hearing the news about Grandad was like a slow-motion car wreck where you don't actually feel the initial impact but just see everything disintegrate around you in horrific style.
It was like being punched in the stomach by an invisible fist, and not feeling it, but seeing your guts exploding everywhere.
The medics put me on gas and air (oxygen and nitrogen) for about 3 hours, because the cause of the pain was acid and the cause of the acid was anxiety, so they need to chill me out.
I'll be honest, it was fun spending 3 hours high as a kite. It certainly kept the acid at bay.
I experienced that dopey stoner place where you 'understand, man', and not only that, but you understand that you understand, man.
I realise why so many stoners get philosophical under the influence - life makes a sweet kind of stupid sense when you combine low-level euphoria with a fractionally operational brain.
Happy plus stupid equals a gormless satisfaction, which sometimes is preferable to enlightened, painful understanding.
Death is such an impossible thing to fully process.
Where is my Grandad now? Is he anywhere at all, or has he ceased to exist?
You may answer 'yes' or 'no' as you read, but whatever your persuasion, you dont really know.
The only true answer is 'who knows'.
There is no real intellectual proof that he exists in heaven, or is once again in the simple oblivion that existed before birth.
The not-knowing is infuriating, enraging, so typical of the fundamentally frustrating and vexing nature of life.
It's almost as if the point of life is to exist with the knowledge we desire permanently just out of reach.
I wish I had some kind of belief in which I could take solace about my Grandad and where he is now, because then I could begin to process it all.
Its hard to get closure on something when all the answers are 'I dont know'.
He was a great man, and I will miss him alot.
Thinking about these things is infuriating enough to hospitalise anyone.

Christmas 2011

What a mental Christmas break this year.

We all came up to Richmond on the 18th Dec from Derbyshire, and moved into the guest room at my parents' house. Me and Dad went to see my grandad, who is now in a nursing home and is very frail indeed. I was honestly scared to see him because he was always my favourite grandparent and to see him in a deteriorated state would be too upsetting, but he was surprisingly himself. He was very shrunken, and his responses were slower and sleepier, but that was definitely my Grandad, he was still totally himself and totally there. It was a bittersweet experience but I am glad we visited him.

Christmas Eve was an emotional rollercoaster ride; mid afternoon I was on the verge of a full-blown anxiety attack because for 6 days I had been unable to escape continual noise (house full of family), excessive heat (everyone else likes it toasty), and clutter and mess (a 2-person house is now holding 5 and one of them is a toddler). For someone who gets an enormous sense of wellbeing from a tidy, quiet and cool room, 6 days of wreckage, noise and sweltering temperature was taking its toll.

We then went to a local church (which shall remain nameless) for a Christmas Eve service, which was literally the dullest thing I have attended in my entire life. There were about 15 over 60's in attendance, and one family, and the service was 1 carol followed by a long meandering story which could be permanently filed away under the 'dreary' category. Joel went home with his grandparents, and me and Sydney went out to meet up with a bunch of friends in the Black Lion pub, where I caught up with about a dozen old school friends, some who I hadn't seen in over 10 years! It was a great time, and well worth enduring the church service for. Later we bought and ate a kebab, and made our way home. Then at 5 in the morning, delirious with tiredness me and Sydney lapsed into unstoppable, uncontrollable giggling because she said out of nowhere 'what about team sleepy?' with wide puppy-dog eyes. You had to be there for that one I think. Married couple in-joke. But wow. I laughed hard. For a long time.

Christmas morning came, and I made Christmas dinner again this year. Turkey, ham, stuffing, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, fresh vegetables, rissoles, gravy and cranberry sauce. Definitely a success on the cooking front this year - I reccommend (of all the bizarre things) using goose fat to make your roast taters and parsnips. 'Tis righteous. We opened our presents and then at 3 watched the Queens speech. She kinda preached this year, she acknowledged how much suffering the world is enduring at the moment, and then basically pointed to Jesus as the answer. The experience of sitting there hearing her say those words, and knowing that probably almost every other TV in the country was tuned in and hearing the same thing was a deeply spiritual experience. I know my faith is all topsy turvy and being worked out again from scratch at the moment, but hearing Queen Elizabeth say those things to millions of people brought tears to my eyes, it was inexplicably beautiful.

The last 2 days have contained a bigger range of emotions for me than a year usually does. Pretty wild.

Well, anyhoo, here is the rundown of this year's present haul.

An Xbox 360! (my mate Jono gave me this because my old one broke and he had a spare. Awesomeness!)
Skyrim (I expect to be posessed by this game for the next 6 months ala Oblivion GOTY version)
Michael Buble's new Christmas album! (I will also be pointing and winking at people while saying 'bada-bing')
Harry Potter 7 part 2 DVD (expelliarmus)
Avatar DVD (blue meanies)
A notebook (good for writing in)
Some hair wax type product (good for frying an egg in)
Shower gel (good for making me smell like man)
Gourmet choccys (good for making me fatter than I already am)
and generic Boots anti-perspirant (good for informing me I smell a little too much like man on occasions)

Berry Crimpmas Everyone!

When Apple Releases A Mac Game Console...

Apple are rapidly overtaking Microsoft in having a finger in every pie, but their games console is strikingly conspicuous by it's absence. The world runs on money, and there is no question of the money to be made in this arena, so it's not a question of whether they will release one, it's just a question of when. When they release something new, they tend to only be willing to venture into new ground if their release will blow everything else out of the water, so I think it is not too far a stretch to assume that when the MacBox 360 is released, it will be something immersive on a scale not seen before.

Total immersion MMORPGs are probably going to be their direction: you know, like a wii crossed with World of Warcraft on crack. Virtual Reality contact lenses, wired gloves, socks and other attachments, supernatural video game powers you dont just see on a screen, but experience and feel in real life. The sensation of blasting lightning from your fingertips or feeling the force actually flow through you in a Star Wars game, dizziness and vertigo as you fly through suspended islands on a dinosaur in Avatar, learning and perfecting your 'expelliarmus' in a Potter game, or being a hobbit / elf / ranger in Middle Earth and actually interacting with millions of other people all over the world in realtime. It won't just be fantasy sci-fi geeky stuff either; imagine Grand Theft Auto, or Medal of Honor! Imagine going to the movies and seeing an incredible film, and knowing that for £30 you can get the game from Tesco and actually explore and experience the world you just saw, with it's smells, smells, textures, tastes, people, customs and quests. People will not leave cinemas wishing they could live in the world they just saw, the films will serve to sell them that world, and they will go to Tesco and buy it. Incredible genius.

The thought of combining the determination of Apple to out-do every competitor, with the level of sophistication now available in the games console world, leaves me wondering how long it will be until they suddenly push the whole market ten years forward from the Wii and Kinect, and provide something which many gamers will retreat inside, rendering the real world their actual 'second life'.

Exciting and terrifying times!

Early October

In the whirlwind of work, study, family, food, sleep, friends, music, rain, shorter daylight hours, lectures, laughter, and life, things feel so different.

Im sat in a classroom at 4 pm, it's early October. Over the summer, when there was very little to do, I felt very different. Pretty bored, calm, and thoughtful. Now, things never stop. I have virtually no time to quietly repair and reflect, I am just caught up in the whirlwind. My feelings have become so rich, so heady and intoxicating. Sat in a bright classroom while it grows dark outside and a light rain falls, I feel a tired excitement and joy bubbling beneath the surface, shot through with a weariness and a mild dizziness. I'm strangley aware of my sagging shoulders and the hair lying on my forehead and face. Im in a world of words, words on the projector screen, words on the whiteboard, words on my computer screen, words in the air, words from the lecturer, words from the students, words on the book on my desk, words on the cigarette packet on my mate's desk. They're all bouncing off my brain, which is choosing and absorbing them in spite of me. And still my undulating swelling and falling dizzy feelings are rolling around in my head and in my stomach. I feel like a pebble in the tide, and strangely enough, Im kind of enjoying it.

Bookmarking A Good Day

Today was a good day. Me and a load of students lay out on the grassy slope orchard that leads from the main college building down to the canteen, and we just studied for hours, hanging out and chatting. It was way hotter today that it has been for weeks, and we all sat down on the grass in the blazing sunshine for ages, about 15 of us, all barefoot, and some of us studied, some climbed the trees, others just sunbathed, and we were all hanging out, joking, laughing and having a good time. It will be a good memory. When we got hungry we just picked apples and pears right off the trees and ate them, and after a few hours we decided to go down to the river at the bottom of the hill. We crossed the road, jumped a fence, walked the field, and went down to the water, where some of us paddled, and a bunch of the lads got topless and waded into the river up to their necks, made loads of noise, wrestled, and just generally had a good time.

Later tonight me and Sydney went down to the common room where we all just hung out for hours, talking and joking with the crowd there, and batting a blue balloon around for hours. Me and Sydney came back up to the flat with an all over good-feeling from just being around a great group of friends.

Definitely a good day I want to remember.

The Books I've Read This Year

These are the books I've read cover to cover this year since last September...

The Booklist

The Making Of Methodism
A Preaching Workbook
Embodying The Word
Theology The Basics
Mission Shaped Evangelism
I Suffer Not A Woman
Evangelism That Really Works
Beyond Anger
Threshold Of The Future
Tend My Flock
What's The Difference
Love Wins
The Problem Of Pain
The Life And Work Of A Priest
Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
Tina Fey Bossypants

(and there's been loads of others I read chapters from, or half of).

Total Exhaustion Wipeout Collapse

You know when you've been working consistently under alot of pressure with very little let up? Ive been doing that since september. You know how sometimes when you've been going and going and going with work, and then you stop and start resting, you sometimes get sick? thats definitely happening to me now.

Ive gone from essay deadlines, exams, driving test, car purchase and the usual pressures and responsibilities of parenthood to the next 4 months (13 May - 13 Sept) of no deadlines, lectures or academic demands, and my body has realized this, waved a little white flag, and collapsed into repair mode. Ive spent the last few days deeling ill, dizzy, depressed and exhausted... its pretty lame. I kinda want to hibernate untill all this nasty-feeling-ness is gone.

Driving Test

Well, today is the 7th of May, and 2 days ago around this time I had just passed my driving test. It was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life. I was more nervous taking the test than I was on my wedding day, than I was on the night I proposed. It was awful. I couldn't sleep the night before, I ended up taking antihistamines to knock myself out so I would actually get a few hours before my 730 pickup outside the college! I spent the entire day before (the 4th) just filling my time with as many different activities as I could come up with to distract myself from being nervous about the test. I have driven a manual car for 3 years no problems at all in the states, and so have a considerable headstart on most learners, but I knew how easy it is to make the 1 'major' fault it takes to completely disqualify myself in the test. The examiner was a small balding bearded round Sheffield-type bloke with a very strong accent who looked like a slightly squashed John Peel. He was nice enough though.

I took the test in Buxton, and passed with only 5 out of a possible 15 minor faults. After the test, Simon my BSM driving instructor dropped me off in Sheffield, where I did a little shopping, then hopped on a train to Stockport and bought a car. We got a 2002 Kia Rio Sedan (automatic - so Sydney can drive it once she passes her test), which is in great nick, has A/C, a cd player an iPod hook up, 44,000 miles on the clock, gets around 37 miles to the gallon, and is easily spacious enough for the three of us and all our stuff for when we go on holiday, or to visit the family back in the North East. All in all, an excellent deal, and a blessing I am thankful for.

Now I can start gigging again, I can get a decent part time job, we can go get groceries whenever we need them (oh luxury!) and we can actually explore the beautiful part of the country we live in. One is thoroughly pleased, what what.

Day 1

Day one is done, and all in all it was good. The college in incredible. It is small, there are less than 50 full-time students on the undergraduate and postgraduate courses combined. The first meeting was today at 630, where we worshipped for a short while, then all introduced ourselves. It was really nice to be able to introduce myself as married, because the colliding atmosphere of testosterone and estrogen at the first meeting combining was palpable. I remember attending Christian events in the past in England where there were lots of singles present, and it felt like a meat market back then too. The Christian singles meat market is so much more intense in the UK than the USA, because there aren't as many Christians here by a long shot, so the choice is considerably less and the chances of getting a good-looker into the bargain are even lower!
I've hardly been here a day and the desperation for a significant other looks like it is constantly bubbling barely below the surface for quite a few of the un-attached here. Maybe it's not, maybe I'm just being horrible. That is certainly possible.

The tutors Ive met are great though, and everyone is very approachable. The college is set in unbelievably idyllic surroundings, in the derbyshire peak district. The whole campus is built on a steep hillside looking out over tree filled valleys and hills, and it seems to rain at least once every day, sometimes all day (which is perfect for me). The college itself feels wonderfully old, with carved wooden staircases, a wood-panelled common room decorated in rich red with comfy chairs, a pool table, a piano and 15 foot tall windows looking out onto the college rose gardens and grounds. Our flat is amazing, set on the 2nd floor (3rd floor to all you americans), and with those same 15 foot high windows, me and Sydney both agree it is far and away the best place either of us have ever lived in.

Over the course of getting my degree and living here I intend to blog and document my thoughts here,

My biggest concern is becoming very isolated in this rural setting, and losing sight and focus of Christianity and Theology in the real world. However I am very excited about becoming a pastor and having a church. Woop!

Sudden Change of Uni Plans... and why

This coming Friday, a bloke will come to our house and take our washer machine, fridge and freezer for some sweet moolah. Saturday we will move half of our things from our house to my parent's place in Richmond. Sunday, me and the other half of our stuff will relocate 90 minutes south, to Cliff College, with wifey and Joelly to follow soon after.

When I was 17, I committed my life to Christ properly, and I count myself as genuinely having my own personal faith from that point (previously it was much more under the shelter of my parent's faith, not having wrestled the issues through myself). One of the first things I felt when I became a Christian was that God told me I was going to be a pastor one day. I laid out a fleece (as in the story of Gideon - judges 6 I think) to confirm whether this was true or not, and the answer came back as yes. Now I personally don't put much stock in laying out a fleece to hear from God any more, it's too much like testing God, treating Him like a slot machine, and is kinda presumptuous. However, in that absolute infancy of faith, perhaps God honoured what was a genuine attempt to hear from Him on a matter concerning my calling and destiny.

This took place at Grapevine, a week long Christian festival in Lincolnshire, and I talked to a South African pastor there, Francois Van Niekirk about my experience, the fleece and all that. He seemed very enthusiastic that this was God, and prayed for me in this calling.

Ever since then I have thought back to this time every now and again, wondering if I really did hear God then. When I started working for Greggton UMC in Longview TX I felt I had found my denominational church home in United Methodism. I began giving some thought to getting ordained, but nothing came of it. After 3 years at Greggton I moved to another United Methodist Church, Grace Crossing, and once again began pondering becoming a pastor, and getting ordained. My then pastor, John, seemed surprised when I told him I had decided not to pursue ordination, but at that time I remember praying a 'big hairy prayer', which went something along the lines of 'God if you want me to be a pastor, please cut off every other way forward, and let only that door open.'

This month I was due to start my BA hons course at Teesside University in musical composition with a view to becoming a lecturer. However, the way forward has been very very awkard and difficult. Student Finance England have been profoundly useless, and even though I applied for the Student Loans in April of this year, they still had no answer for me 3 weeks before the start date.
It reached the point where it had become too late, and we would not have been able to have made enough money to get by if I continued with my intention to go there, due to SFA's never ending piles of bureaucracy. I called them and canceled my loan application, and emailed Teesside Uni to cancel my place on the course. After a few days of 'what now', and talking our next steps through with Sydney, the thought of pastoring crept back in, and we began discussing it, remembering the big hairy prayer. We decided that, as this was the 5th failed attempt to get a music degree, perhaps this door was being closed by God, and maybe we should at least try pushing the theology/ordination door to see if it opens.

I don't believe in hearing the voice of God in my head or audibly, and I don't really put much stock into 'prophetic words', having received so many bogus ones in the past. I believe God guides us through circumstance, and kinda view the difficulty in getting everything in place for Teesside uni as Him doing that. I felt that if I pushed this door and everything immediately fell into place like it hadn't for music, then that would be enough for me to accept it as God's way forwards.

I googled bible colleges, and looked for the nearest one. It was just outside of Sheffield, in Derbyshire, and historically Methodist (although now it is focused on the wider base of the Evangelical Alliance), Cliff College. I made a phone call to inquire, and less than 24 hours later I had a place on the course,  accommodation sorted, and the support of my wife, family, pastor and friends. Craziness.

I am very excited to walk down this path and to see where me Syd and Joel end up...
I have now and in the past always thought it is a shame that there is no vibrant seeker-friendly contemporary church in Catterick Garrison, but who knows, that may or may not be something in my future, its in Gods hands now apparently, and thats ok with me :)

Confession #1

Sometime when I was 18-19ish I made a decision which has affected my life ever since. That decision was to decide that it's ok to lose my temper if someone repeat offends enough times in a particular way.
I have always found it hard to handle when someone says they will do something, then consistently over several months continues to not, no matter how many times they re-iterate that they will. After a while I start losing patience in these situations, and invariably end up losing my temper with the offending party one way or another.

It was with my mum where I made the decision to lose my temper 'justly' over a fairly petty issue, and that has stuck with me since. It's been I think nearly 10 years since that, and now I realise that this is actually not OK. That question I asked myself internally was something like 'if someone keeps saying they will do something, and consistently not, after how many times is it ok to explode at them?'. I answered myself 'quite a few', but I think now that answer (when it comes to my family and loved ones) needs to be zero.

Matthew 18²¹Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"  ²²Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Gratitude

I am so thankful to have been raised in such a great family. Me and my Dad are very close and spend lots of time together, my Mum is the sweetest most unconditionally loving person I have ever known, and my brother is one of my best friends and was best man at my wedding.

I am also so very thankful for my wife, who makes me laugh every day, and is always devoted and affectionate, and loves me with her whole heart, and for my baby son, who brings sheer raw joy like I've never known with his wide gleeful smile, and his coos and chuckles.

It's a privilege to be part of a church family too. Being a Christian is like a passport to finding a welcome in whatever town I find myself in, whether in the UK or the US. There is always a church, and almost always a warm greeting, cup of tea and conversation.

How anyone could ever be abusive to their child is utterly beyond me, although I suppose I haven't been on the receiving end of it in my life and so don't have a warped view of parenthood. 'Hurt people hurt people', is a true saying, and my life so far has been no bed of roses, dealing with anxiety attacks, depression and all that for most of it, but if it came down to a choice between having none of the medical issues I have to deal with, or having none of the family I have been blessed with, I wouldn't have a second's hesitation in choosing to have my family every time. The good stuff definitely outweighs the bad stuff, by a long long shot.

What a terrible thing it must be to be that person who continually sabotages themselves, and their relationships with family members. It must be a bitter pill to swallow. I really hope I never do anything to wreck the wonderful thing that is my family.

Winter, London, and the Future

The weather has just started to turn this last week or so, and a cold edge has started to come in (thank God). Wont be long now til the weather is becoming decidedly winterish, til we start making family plans, wearing thick coats and scarves, and buying in bottles of festive liquor... This year if I can I want to make it through to Richmond for the turning on of the Christmas Tree Lights, where they give out hot drinks and glasses of sherry in the freezing weather. Awesomeness...

Two Christmases ago we were in Richmond (one of the most magical places in the world) for New Years Eve, and as it drew near to midnight we left the pub we were in and went to the town centre, where there must've been 200 people all gathered round the town Obelisk, counting down the last minute, then cheering, hugging and kissing. It was cool. We might do it again this year.

It will seem like no time till I am looking back on this blog and have completed my course. Hopefully I will have my masters too, and maybe we will live in London. I want to experience Christmas in London, I want to walk through trafalgar square when it is snowing, wrapped up in a warm coat with my family, holding a black umbrella, watching the cabs drive past, and planning a hot meal when we get back to the house involving several courses infront of a roaring log fire...

Into the second third & Joel Rolls

Well, tomorrow I turn 27, which, as my Dad says quite often, is a significant age.
In the UK the average life expectancy is fractionally below 80 years at the moment. This means, that I have now left the first third of my time on earth behind me, and am into the second third. It feels like it too.
I feel like an adult now, almost entirely, which is weird.
Im now a husband, and a father. I think perhaps the significance of this birthday is that being a youth of any description is finally 100% gone. If the first third was childhood and youth, I suspect the next one will be family man time. From the prime of adulthood through to being middle aged, 27 - 54. Then maybe the last one will be being a grandparent, going from middle aged to elderly, from 54 - 81 (if I'm lucky!)

Today Joel rolled over from his back to his front four or five times, and back again, for the first time. It was incredible to watch. He also fed himself (very clumsily) with a baby spoon a few times today, another first!
As me and Sydney walked back from Morrisons this evening, she was carrying Joel over her shoulder while I wheeled the pushchair and carried the shopping. He was looking back at he over her shoulder with beautiful, wide, intelligent eyes, and giving me these huge joyous open-mouthed grins - it made me so happy. I realised in that moment that I want a big family. I want more children, and (Im glad to say) so does Sydney.

I wonder what I will feel and think when I start approaching 35, 40, and those years when apparently the old mid-life crisis is supposed to hit. What will I do between now and then? Will I look back with bitter regret or with pride? I think I've done pretty OK in the first third, I think for the most part I have tried to put God first, and at the end of the day, that is the main thing. For the first third it was very much all about me, as I was a youth, single, and pretty much just finding my way. The second third is going to be very different.

I am aware that if and when we have a larger family, the things I do will impact my children so hugely that it's terrifying. I know that I can scar a kid by losing my temper just once, there are times I might get angry or be flippant that will never leave their memories, and be upsetting to remember right through into their adulthood. In another 27 years Im going to have to look back over how I handled being a dad, and all the mistakes I'm pretty much going to make (being an imperfect human). I wonder if Ill be able to look back positively next time. Maybe, but only by Gods grace.

Good things

Last few years I have been dealing with RLS, which is Restless Leg Syndrome, meaning when Im trying to sleep my legs and lower back are constantly agitated and can only be relieved by exercise (not ideal when trying to sleep). After a little research online I found out that anti-histamines can cause this condition. I had been taking them everyday because i have allergic reactions, but I stopped taking them and the RLS is gone! Woop! RLS is like torture, if I had to choose between a broken limb or RLS, it'd be the limb.

Anyhoo, that is really good news and something to be very happy about for me! I can sleep without being in constant discomfort! OW!

I hate having to take pills or medication for anything. I'd love to be free of all of them.

Other good stuff that has happened these last few days - I got a new netbook for my birthday :) which I am typing this from, (bought a used refurbished one, which arrived in mint condition and was £400 cheaper than brand new),got a new vacuum cleaner (I am a weird bloke - I love to know the place is clean and tidy, and am slightly obsessive about it), we got a darling little 9 weeks old kitten (she is black semi-long haired, very sweet natured, and we've named her sophie), we got some great new chairs for the house at an incredibly low price, Joel had his first feed of real food today (apple sauce type baby stuff - he dig it mama), our back yard which was formerly just 4 walls of brick and concrete, and a cracked concrete floor is now taking shape with some trees, some outdoor seating, and some plants and things. I made a call today and found out I have been approved for student financing to go to Uni in exactly 10 weeks, and I cannot wait!!!!

We found a fairly unusual cable at tescos for £4 which enabled us to hook up our stereo system to the tv, anwatch movies with incredible sound, which has also been awesome.

All in all, it's been a really good few days.

Self-Awareness

When I was in my teens and early twenties I literally thought I could do anything - become fabulously rich and famous, become a rockstar etc etc etc, the usual stuff. It's amazing how little I actually can do. I've discovered, having done both full-time and part-time work, that due to crippling anxiety attacks and depression, I can't sustain 40 hours a week without eventually having a complete meltdown.

I have discovered that, having worked in church and in secular jobs, I much prefer ministry work.

I have come to accept that I will probably never be rich. Rich people work their backsides off, well over 40 hours a week, and that is something that I simply physically can't manage. I might as well abandon riches as a pursuit. It's easy to dress riches up as 'security', but I guess it depends what you are PURSUING primarily. Am I thinking about getting my degree and getting qualified with a primary motive of money? Honestly, yeah I probably am. Is that morally right for a Christian? No idea.

The best and most enjoyable job I have ever had was working for Greggton UMC out in Texas, which was a part-time ministry position as a worship leader. Is there really anything wrong with doing what you can manage and what you are good at?

The single job I am most skilled and equipped for is worship leading, but with that being a non-ordained role, the pay is not very high, and as I can't physically hack 40 hours per week, that reduces the income even further. However, is that what I am meant to do? Is God directing me into something which is His Will by cutting off all the alternatives?

I have settled over the past five years on a view of God as a supervisor watching over the chessboard of our lives, who will sometimes intervene if we are moving too far in the wrong direction. Could it be that all these realizations that I have been coming to are to make it clear that all I can do and be happy is lead worship? I will probably never be rich, as I cant work 40 hours, I will almost definitely never be a famous rock musician, Im too old and definitely the wrong shape!! So with those two temptations aside, what remains?

I suppose the best thing for me to do is to do the thing I'm best at. Try saying that 3 times fast. I believe that God has directed my life path by simply blocking off the tangents I try to pursue, and allowing me to follow the ones which are necessary. If I didn't have acid reflux I would've applied to join the police force when I was 20, but you cant join up if you have any medical conditions requiring regular treatment. The same applies for joining the air-force. I couldn't handle working full-time for Orange, even though I really enjoyed the work, and it is looking like I may not be able attend the degree place Ive been offered at Uni yet again (4th attempt foiled...) for reasons which are out of my control. Perhaps I'm just not supposed to go.

Meh, maybe it's just life being random. Incredible, unexplainable, verging on miraculous coincidences have happened in my life where practically any Christian would say 'that was clearly God', yet they have turned out to be simple coincidences - red herrings which weren't God, and served no purpose other than to illustrate how impossible God can be to hear. So maybe this is simply life being life, who knows. Definitely not me.

Baby Joel

Joel Daniel Hargreaves was born 18-03-10, weighing 7 pounds, and with red hair! Which is really cool, but funny because the only redheads in our immediate families are my paternal grandma, and Sydney's maternal granddad. He is pretty much the cutest thing Ive ever seen, and I love him to bits already.

1 week overdue, Sydney started having contractions at 4:30 in the morning having not slept at all that night. We went to the hospital at 7:30 when the contractions were happening 5 minutes apart. We stayed at the hospital til around 1:30 in the afternoon, at which point they asked us to go home so Sydney could take a hot bath and get some rest. At first we definitely thought this was dumb and didn't want to go, but we both agreed in hindsight that it was definitely the right thing to do, as we were both able to have a good home made meal and to rest up on the bed for an hour or so in peace and quiet (labour wards are not quiet at all, just incase you didn't already know that!), and Sydney was able to take a warm bath, which did wonders for her back, and caused her waters to break.

Around 15 minutes later my good friend Paul came and picked us up to take us back in to the ward. Sydneys contractions began getting extremely painful after a few more hours, and so she used some of the 'gas+air' which helped, but eventually the contractions were just too much, so she requested an epidural, for which our very helpful midwife fetched the doctors (and bumped us to the top of the list because Sydney was having such a hard time).Whereas Sydney had been on the verge of screaming with the pain, once the epidural was all hooked up, she was fine, positive, and more than a little stoned. She decided on the spot that epidurals are the greatest invention in the history of man.

The next long hours passed as the contractions increased in strength and frequency (and thankfully not pain), until around 3AM Sydney was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. This was exhausting for her, but didnt hurt. She pushed with the contractions for 2 hours, and at 5AM the doctor came in to use the suction cup and forceps, but Sydney asked to be given a little more time because she wanted to give birth without the extra aid which could potentially hurt the baby a little. The doctor said that usually they would only wait 1 hour before using the forceps, and as Sydney had been pushing for 2 hours now it was best to use them, however as he was saying this another contraction came, and Sydney gave birth at last! Baby Joel was born at 5:15AM, crying and cute.

The biggest surprises were how big he was, even though he's pretty little compared to the average newborn size, the umbilical cord being blue (seriously - alien blue), and his hair being thick and red. We came home at 7PM the same day, and Mum and Dad came over to meet their first grandchild!

In total, Sydney was awake for nearly 60 hours consecutively!! I took a few hour-long naps curled up on the ward floor listening to the 4 Coldplay albums constantly, which i expect will always remind me of Joel's birthday now. All in all, a great day :)