Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid

Just read this article, and liked it :)

Original can be viewed at http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/11/18/mentally-strong-people-the-13-things-they-avoid/

A Visit To A Traditional Church

I went to St Mary's Anglican this morning for the Sunday service, in my hometown of Richmond. It was quite an experience. Being raised in churches with rock bands and video screens, I went there with the intention of developing my experience of traditional services, but had no idea what to expect.

Anyone who knows me, knows I am usually quite involved in the life of whichever Church I am attending, and as such, often am very at home in and around all things churchy. This morning I felt like such an alien!

Dont get me wrong, no-one did anything bad, it was just such a different world to anything I've ever known as church. I felt like a bit of a prat, not knowing what to do at communion, not knowing when to stand up and sit down, and not knowing one single piece of music which was sung, except the first verse of 'While Shepherds Washed Their Socks By Night.'

There's a new rev at St Mary's, a chap called John, and he seemed like a decent bloke. I'm going to go back and try and get involved in it all, but its fascinating to experience church as an outsider. It's been a very long time since I've felt like that.

Why do my self-published kindle books keep crashing and freezing?

The question has irritated the bejesus out of me for some time.

I am an author who self publishes on kindle through amazon's kdp platform. As the majority of epublishers require, I write my books in Microsoft Word. My shorter books work fine when I read them on my Kindle Fire. However, anything with any length starts hiccuping and freezing, and sometimes crashing the kindle whenever I flick through pages too fast, or click on hyperlinks.

I downloaded all of the free Amazon authored guides on correctly formatting your book for kindle, but alas they were as useless as a dead snail.

I scoured the forums, blogs, and even attempted the monumental task of getting some help from the kindle email support team on a problem beyond the most basic. Unfortunately, I found not a thing that would help.

I found this very frustrating, because clearly someone knew what to do. I own several Bibles on the kindle, and the authors/editors had filled them with more hyperlinks and cross references than the Encyclopedia Britannica, yet the whole thing flowed and read smooth as pie, without ever crashing or even pausing to catch its breath. HOW.

It seems however, after nearly 2 years of experimentation I've figured it out. The problem, dear irritated author, is not you. It is Amazon's woefully inadequate conversion system. Thankfully there is a way around it. It's by making a clean epub.

There may be other ways to do it, but here is how I did it, and it worked, oh glory, it worked:

1. I deleted the Word generated table of contents completely.

2. I copied the text of my long-ish book, and then pasted it into notepad in windows. This helpful little program strips away all formatting of the text, and any of that troublesome and nonsensical code which MS Word tends to confuse everything with.

3. I then copied all the text a second time from notepad, this time placing a completely unformatted version of my book onto the clipboard, and pasted it back into Word, in a completely new file, which I saved.

4. I wrote out a text-only table of contents myself, not leaving any spaces between entries. I then added a bookmark at the word CONTENTS. The bookmark is: ref_TOC

5. I went through the text and reformatted it without ever using 'styles'. I only used bold, italic, underline, the enter key, and increasing the size of titles to 14 instead of their native 12. I didn't change any fonts from Times New Roman.

6. At every chapter start, I inserted a bookmark, naming each bookmark something i would easily recognise.

7. On each entry of the table of contents I had written up myself, I highlighted each one and inserted a hyperlink to the corresponding bookmark. In this way I built the whole table of contents myself.

8. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: I then went back into the 'insert bookmark' page on word, and ticked the box which lets you view hidden bookmarks. Any that I hadn't made myself, I deleted. In some books there were over a thousand. No wonder it took so flipping long for my kindle to sort through all that.

9. So now I had a relatively simply formatted book, without a word-generated toc, rather using my own one made by inserting bookmarks and hyperlinking titles in a table of contents I had written myself. Dont forget the ref_TOC bookmark. The next stage is to convert the book to epub format.

10. There are various programs that will make your word.doc file into an epub, but the one that easily worked the best for me was (shock, scandal) a different e-publisher. haha. I signed up to a site called smashwords (apparently the number one distributor to barnes&noble, apple bookstore etc) and set up an author account. I uploaded the text of my book as a potential smashwords publication, and their conversion engine did the rest. They're way better than the amazon conversion system, although their website is less visually appealing. I didn't upload a cover though.

11. The smashwords upload and conversion system generates your book in a wide range of ebook formats. I downloaded the epub one. I then logged in to the amazon kdp platform and opened up the book that kept crashing. I uploaded the newly created epub file as my kindle ebook text INSTEAD of a word.doc file, and kept everything else, including my amazon uploaded book cover, the same.

12. I then downloaded the newly converted book and sent it to my kindle fire, and thanks be unto the Lord, it finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, worked! From now on Im going to be formatting every problem book this way. Yes, it takes longer, but it also removes the risk of disgruntled customers and negative reviews because the book keeps crashing (yep, I had one).

So, in conclusion, the best way to get a clean, fast, non-crashing book on amazon kdp is to convert your text to epub through smashwords, formatting your table of contents as outlined above. The smashwords website offers a free ebook explaining in detail how to format your book according to their publication standards, which you will absolutely have to follow if you intend to publish with them (which is a very good idea), but you only really need to do the steps Ive outlined above to use their excellent epub converter on your amazon kindle book.

I hope this helps :)

An Autumn Poem

An Autumn Poem
James Hargreaves 15/09/2013


Wretched summer is gone,
With its oppressive, smothering heat,
And the wind has blown cold for a week.

The air outside is no longer spread,
With the frying sun that tangles my brain,
And the sticking swelter which ruins the day.

The house inside is no longer a spit,
A nervous breakdown, a constant fret,
A perpetual basting in anxiety and sweat.

Instead, the sky is overcast,
Outside, a happy world of grey,
Inside, a cosy fireplace.

The radiators' click and smell,
Of heated metal glowing in the wall,
While the cold seeps in through every door.

The trees and hedges flap in the gale,
While I watch in comfort from my easy chair,
The rending wind that fills the air.

The leaves have not yet begun to change,
The sun doesn't yet shine from the side,
But this sunset is sweeter than the day and the night.

What Jesus Said About Taxation

In Luke 20:25, Jesus responds to the question of whether God wants us to pay taxes to Caesar or not, by saying "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's". An interesting and clever statement.

Again in Matthew 17:25-27, this conversation occurs:

When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”
"From others,” Peter answered.
“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

Very interesting. Kings should not tax their own people? He pays the tax anyway so that he will not cause offence, but would he have done it if Peter had never told the tax collectors that Jesus would pay? Who knows.

In the Luke 20:25 passage, I note that Jesus does not say "Give to Caesar whatever he demands", but rather "whatever is Caesar's", implying "whatever he is entitled to". What does this imply for us today? Are we permitted to apply this to our current government? Can we in good conscience before God withhold money which the government demands, if we judge them not to be deserving of it? I actually don't know. Jesus did pay the tax, although Luke 20 implies it was not with any great measure of enthusiasm, but rather to not cause a load of unnecessary scandal (or perhaps to be aware not to damage the weaker faith of others - See 1 Cor 10 & Rom 14).

It seems that in these two passages, Jesus made it clear that just because a government requires money of you, does not mean that God expects you to give it. Titus 3:1 and Romans 13:1 reinforce the importance of submitting to governing authorities, and recognizing that an orderly and policed society is God's will (at least that's how I understand it), but this must be taken alongside the two gospel passages examined above, so that Jesus appears to suggest an exception, as long as it does not cause offense. Jesus does not, however, promise that you won't get arrested and stuck in prison if you get caught not paying your taxes!!!! So don't be an idiot.

University is finished!

Its the 8th of May. A few days ago I emailed my completed dissertation in to Cliff College, and yesterday I posted the paper copy. I can't believe that it's all done now. That moment of pushing the white A4 envelope with four 2nd class stamps on it through the red letterbox on Westmoreland Street in the blazing sunshine heralded my last submission as a degree student!!!

Since I emailed in the pdf, my body has started the slow recovery process from the last 3 years. Its so strange, but even in the 2 summer breaks between academic years, I never really switched off. It has been hard, and its so weird to exist again without that pressure in the back of my head. I can really tell that my body is now resting; taking something of a larger-scale sabbath for the past three years. I am just sleeping constantly, resting resting resting. It feels nice. I also feel an exponentially increased ability to focus. With degree gone, I now have a good void - I have no idea what its going to be filled with, what's next, but I'm peaceful and pleased nonetheless.

A lot of students struggle to really apply themselves to their studies. I was the opposite, I found it literally impossible to switch off from them. I wonder what sort of person I am going to become now that my degree is complete and my attention and focus are much less distracted? I expect it will make me a nicer person. Or at least, I hope it will.

I feel very very tired, and in need of a really good holiday without the kids, but I feel at peace and kind of satisfied too in amongst the exhaustion, and soon I will have the energy to start tidying up the house, packing away those academic textbooks, and getting back into normal society a bit more. All that's left now is the excitement of waiting for my remaining marked essays to arrive in the post, and then walking across a stage in about 6-7 weeks time wearing a black gown and hat, and feeling very very pleased with myself indeed :)

Genesis 1:9-13, the third day

This is part 3 of a continuing series, which will not make sense if not read in order.
Part 1 can be read here
Part 2 can be read here


Quick Recap of days 1 and 2: On the first day God first created matter. He then created moral and visible light, and chose to embody the light, irreversibly. He left and returned, marking the beginning of the second day. In the second day he caused the universe to expand, causing the bodies of matter to form into clumps, and the vacuum of space to exist between them. He caused the gases to emerge from the matter on earth, and to form the atmosphere. He then left, and now returns for the third day.


Genesis 1:9-10
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Here we see what has happened in the second 'night', that is, the time in which God left the universe for a while before returning to bring the dawn of the third day. The planets have begun to settle and the solid matter in them has begun to lay as sediment. At this point, the focus of the story zooms in to focus on the earth specifically. During the second day the planet was suspended in space, and the atmosphere for the earth was established, and now by the dawn of the third day (which can be seen to represent God's return to the universe), the solid matter and liquid in the 'waters' are settling and taking set locations. The solid matter forms into land, and the liquid matter into the oceans and seas. Again we see God's command in the development of the lands, and his intentional involvement in how they developed, not allowing things to just be random but rather guiding them intentionally. He gathers the water under the sky into one place (as opposed to the many different places they are gathered today, post-Noah), which gives the impression of one great vast ocean, and the resultant one great land mass.

We can also see evidence from elsewhere in the Bible of God's direct involvement in the shaping of the earth, rather than purely natural unguided processes being the cause; in Job 38:1-11 God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind, and informs him that God 'laid the earth's foundation', 'marked off it's dimensions', 'stretched a measuring line across it', and 'laid it's cornerstone'. This is poetic language, but it nevertheless gives the clear impression that He was completely and intricately involved in the design of our planet on every level and layer. God set the earth's core in it's place (the foundation), determined the size of the planet (dimensions, measuring line), and laid the first metaphorical brick (the cornerstone), which could be seen as the inner layers of the planet surrounding the core. It was all carefully designed and planned by Him, presumably so that it would provide the specific and exact conditions which would allow earthly living beings to exist.

In Job 38:8-11, God continues to talk to Job about his creation on day 3 (having already discussed days 1 and 2 in the preceding verses), saying;

'Who shut up the sea behind doors... 

wrapped it in thick darkness... 

when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 

when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; 

here is where your proud waves halt’?' 

After the falling of thick darkness (when God left His creation again for a while at the end of the second day), He returned on the third day, and 'set limits for [the sea]', personally establishing and designing the shape of the land and the ocean on earth when he commanded that the seas 'be gathered into one place', telling them ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’.

At this stage in creation we get the first hints of some of what God might have been doing elsewhere, outside of our universe, during the first and second nights. We see the first created life appear, but by the time we have our first glance of it, it is already fully formed and in glory. On day three we first see the angels appear: Job 38:7 tells us that when God laid the earth's foundation, 'the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy'. Morning star is believed to mean 'archangel' (see Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:14). So we see that by this point, the angels and archangels have been created. We are told nothing about the story of their creation at all, they enter our story as spirits who are referred to but never fully explained. They are the first living things which the Bible shows to have been created by God. We can also see that although angels inhabit a separate dimension of reality to humanity, they can nevertheless inhabit our dimension too in some measure (for the angels to be able to shout and sing for joy at God laying the earth's foundation, they would have to have been able to observe it). So, we can see that the first (recorded) created life that God made was the pan-dimensional angelic race.

There are however no demons at this stage, as the fall of Satan has not yet occurred. Ezekiel 28:13 tells us that Satan was in the garden of Eden before he became evil, and by this stage the garden of Eden had not yet been planted, so he was not yet a fallen angel. Revelation 12:4,9 and John 8:44 show that it was Satan who began the first sinning, and caused other angels to fall, and as he had not yet fallen into evil yet, it can be assumed that no others had either, and so the angels were universally good at this stage.


Genesis 1:11
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.

Now we come to the next forms of life to be created after the angels; vegetation, plants and trees. Gen 2:5 states 'Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground', showing that the plants and trees were created in seed or bulb form, and did not immediately grow. Plants need light and water to grow. They had light, because God and / or the angels were there (it was 'day' without there being any star or sun yet as a light source), but no rain to bring about the growth of the plants, and no man yet either to fetch the required water. Verse 2:6 tells us how God remedied this situation so that the plants would grow; 'streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground'. So, God created the springs. Some of the water which at that time was only in the one great ocean, was routed through the underground to burst forth in springs, which formed streams and rivers (the names of some of these are given in 2:10-14).


Genesis 1:12-13
The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

We see from God's creation of the springs to enable the plants to grow, he was not just waving a magic wand to make them grow, he was setting up the sustainable system of nature which would enable the plants to be properly watered. The text leans toward the assumption that it was this system of springs (and the light from God) which caused the plants to grow. If they were growing by natural means (water and light) then this day had to be long enough for trees to grow and to bear fruit. This indicates that the day was not literal, but figurative, meaning 'era'.

Verse 2:8 states 'Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden', telling us this in retrospect. 2:9 continues describing Eden, stating that God 'made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.' It doesn't tell us specifically when God planted the garden, so we may therefore make an educated guess. It seems the most likely that here on the third day when the rest of the vegetation was made, He also made His garden. This also fits with the pattern and theme of His creative activity on this day. The planets were settling into fixed forms and shapes, but he took particular care, interest and involvement in cultivating one of them; earth. Then on earth wild vegetation, plants and trees were springing up on the great continent He had made, but he took particular care, interest and involvement in cultivating one area; the Garden of Eden. It gives the impression of zooming in to his area of special interest in the universe, then zooming in again even closer to greater detail on the part of that planet which held his special interest. He created great fields of natural process, with small areas of personal design.

The Garden of Eden was an area of joy and privilege for the angels too. When God speaks to Satan in Ezekiel 28, we learn that before he became evil, he walked in Eden. In Ezekiel 28:12-14, God reminds Satan of what he once was;

'You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 

You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you... 

Your settings and mountings were made of gold; 

on the day you were created they were prepared. 

You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. 

You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.' 

It is not clear whether the holy mount of God and Eden are the same thing here, nor is it clear what the fiery stones are, but the prophecy goes on to say that when Satan became fallen he was 'expelled' from among the fiery stones, and we see that 'every precious stone' adorned him. Was he a fiery stone? Did he wear these stones as a signal of his rank and station? This could have been a reference to his rank as archangel, from which God cast him out. This theory could be evidenced by Ezekiel 1, where the prophet has a vision of God with four angelic beings directly beneath him, who are described as follows;

'The appearance of the living creatures 

was like burning coals of fire or like torches. 

Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; 

it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it.' 

'Burning coals of fire' sound like fiery stones don't they? I think, as 'the fiery stones' are referred to nowhere else in scripture, it is certainly at least a possibility that the fiery stones from among which Satan was 'expelled' represented his rank as a very high archangel, quite possibly the same ones which Ezekiel sees directly below God Himself in his vision. Perhaps 'walking among' the fiery stones, meant he was one of them, a member of their order, the lost fifth archangel? He is described in Ezekiel 28 as the 'seal of perfection', which to me implies that he was possibly the greatest of them, second perhaps only to God. Isaiah 14:13 tells us Satan's thoughts which lead to his expulsion from Heaven; 'I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God'. It can be seen from that verse that he had a throne that he wished to exalt even higher than the prestigious station God had already given him. If he had a throne, possibly he was the 'king' or chief of the 'fiery stones', the living creatures that were adorned with precious stones and shone like fire. The archangels directly beneath God himself.

This being, the un-fallen Satan, whose name the King James Bible renders as 'Lucifer, son of the morning', walked in Eden for a while. We know that after the six days of creation when Satan instigated the fall of Adam and Eve, he was fallen, but we also know that at the time of the planting of Eden, he was not fallen into demonhood because the Bible states that he walked in it as an angel. Therefore at some point after the third day, Satan became evil. Verse 1:31 states that on the sixth day, 'God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.' God made Satan (as an angel of light) and so Satan must be included in this pronouncement over all things made. His fall therefore must have been after the sixth day too. He was therefore around for quite a while as a good guy. Interestingly, this shows that Adam and Eve probably first knew him as an angel of light in Eden, and at the time of their temptation they might not have been aware of his changed nature.

Revelation 12:7-9 describes some of what happened between day 6 and the fall of man:

'War broke out in heaven. 

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, 

and the dragon and his angels fought back. 

But he was not strong enough, 

and they lost their place in heaven. 

The great dragon was hurled down—

that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, 

who leads the whole world astray. 

He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.' 

Jesus remembered seeing him fall, telling his disciples in Luke 10:18 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven'. The reference to lightning here made by Jesus again links back to the possibility that Satan was one of the winged guardian angels which were directly under God, and was their chief. In their description in Isaiah it states 'Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it.'

It is therefore a credible hypothesis that at this stage in the third day, Lucifer was the leader and fifth member of the great guardian angels directly under God, and in this form he walked the newly formed Garden of Eden.