New year - Back again!

(Edinburgh Castle just after midnight at New Year!)

After a bit of a break (2 months) it's time to start blogging again.  It has been busy with Church stuff (we're in the middle of an interregnum) and fairly hectic with a new boss at work. We've also had a few wee health scares.  Luckily, they came to nothing (I'm just middle aged, male and need to take a tablet to stop me going to the loo as often).  I am looking forward to a wee break later in the month as we will head off to York.  We did think of Aberdeen, but the hotel costs were rather prohibitive.

A new year can be an interesting experience.  We went to a Watch night service on Auld Year's Night which was part reflection and part looking forward.  That is something we can all do with from time to time.  I have recently restarted my use of a Spiritual director, which involves both those things. Reflecting on what has been and looking towards how things may develop with God.  Partly this was prompted by my need to review my Rule of Life having joined  Rachel in the ranks of the OHP Tertiaries and partly by the nagging sense that I'd allowed myself to drift in terms of  my organised spiritual life.  I've been slotting things in here and there and need to focus a bit.  I'd say my reflection has been profoundly influenced by my ongoing experience of AA.  There I have learnt radical honesty and a willingness to be me and accepted as such.  Ideally this should be our experience of God in  prayer and in the Church.  It isn't always and when it goes sour people can be deeply scarred and wounded. And even driven away from any form of religious observance.  Luckily I was never totally destroyed by my negative experiences in life.  My core of belief and faith remained.  How I expressed it and worked it out in the rest of my life adapted and changed.

The Season of the Epiphany reflects a little of this.  The Magi changed their world view through the process of their journey towards Christ.  So do we if we let Christ direct and mould us and remain open to the possibility that God truly will enter into our lives and make a difference.

Into the future!

 

Happy New Year!  And our first real action of the year was ... to post the darn invites to the wedding!  Yes, I know the thing isn't till June but getting replies back, giving folks time to arrange annual leave etc meant that the Boss ruled that we do it now! Still, addressing cards whilst parked in front of a roasty hot coal fire isn't really a hardship!  And it's done!

'Twas a quiet New Year - my having a tummy bug that meant I had a cup a soup as my entire daily food ration made this unavoidable, but a day snoozing whilst drining ginger beer with the occassional dose of immodium sort me fairly quickly and I enjoyed a 2 day lurk in the borders to recover.  So now it's back to normal. Let's see what the year brings!

The New Year's here!

And a very happy one to all of youse out there.  Last year I wrote: "Looking back, 2009 was (to quote our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth) an Annus Horriblis indeed, breakdown, sick leave, therapy, quitting parish ministry, unemployment and owning up to alcohol problems. 2010 can only be better (if it ain't, then it's find a coffin year). Funnily enough, I feel I now know myself better and am slightly more comfortable in my own skin. So moving on is more of a possibility."  Looking back "moving on" happened big time for me - a new job and getting a girlfriend!!!! Oh yes and I am still sober. Surely there can't be any more radical a set of changes for me in 2011 - can there?  I don'treally care, as so far it all seems to have worked very well.  Suppose it'll be a case of "watch this space"!  Mind you I failed to kick the weed - so we try that again (48 hrs into it and ain't smoked yet, so...)

I am now almost snuffle free (Vapour Rub rules!) and work is a fairly easy-ish run tomorrow.  So it's onwards and upwards.

Decadence on Ne'erday

Not quite champagne and smoked salmon and scrambled eggs but bacon and egg rolls, warm pain au chocolat and freshly brewed coffee, whilst watching the New Years Day concert from Vienna and thinking Valentino really should design more ballet costumes, counts as really rather decadent start to the new Year!

Looking back, 2009 was (to quote our Sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth) an Annus Horriblis indeed, breakdown, sick leave, therapy, quitting parish ministry, unemployment and owning up to alcohol problems. 2010 can only be better (if it ain't, then it's find a coffin year). Funnily enough, I feel I now know myself better and am slightly more comfortable in my own skin. So moving on is more of a possibility. My New years resolution: to continue growing and putting aside things that diminish me. I will start a smoking cessation programme next week, as that's the next evil to crush. Is my approach to this year "Look forward in faith"? Not quite, more look forward in trust - because I got here alive, sane and sober and that was far from certain at one point. The year in retrospect has been a case of finding that the Faith or Credal part of my religious life is not actually as important as the trusting to the actual reality of God working for me and my best outcomes. A learning that intellectual faith is less important than the lived variety. Don't live in your head so much, live in the world.

And for a New year theme song? Oh, Francis Albert and a great Jazz number: