The other day I wrote on my other blog about how I normally start the day.

One of the things I highlighted was:

“Quiet time – I listen to quiet music, read and relax. There is a sofa in my study which I use. I read from books during this time because the great thing about a reading a book is that you can’t flick to some other application while you are doing it. If I have thoughts about things I need to do during the day I will write them down so I don’t forget them, but I won’t do anything about them now.”

This quiet time normally involves reading a Psalm. I’m currently reading through them in The Message version.

The great thing about the Psalms is that they cover the full spectrum of life. I used to think they were all written by someone who was on a high, but as you read them you realize that the different authors were clearly in different places and different situations when they wrote them.

Protected: Psalm 3

God! Look! Enemies past counting! Enemies sprouting like mushrooms, 
Mobs of them all around me, roaring their mockery: 
“Hah! No help for him from God!” 
But you, God, shield me on all sides; 
You ground my feet, you lift my head high; 
With all my might I shout up to God, 
His answers thunder from the holy mountain.

Alone: Psalm 5

Listen, God! Please, pay attention! Can you make sense of these ramblings, my groans and cries? King-God, I need your help. 
Every morning you’ll hear me at it again. 
Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on your altar and watch for fire to descend.

Told off: Psalm 6

Please, God, no more yelling, no more trips to the woodshed. 
Treat me nice for a change; I’m so starved for affection.

Running scared: Psalm 7

God! God! I am running to you for dear life; the chase is wild. 
If they catch me, I’m finished: ripped to shreds by foes fierce as lions, dragged into the forest and left unlooked for, unremembered.

Wonder: Psalm 8

God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name. 
Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs that drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble. 

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings. 
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?

Thankful: Psalm 9

I’m thanking you, God, from a full heart, I’m writing the book on your wonders. 
I’m whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy; I’m singing your song, High God.

And that’s just a few of the emotions and feels expressed in the first 10 Psalms. There are another 140 to have a go at.

I like to read through different translations because they bring out different aspects. The older versions are more poetic, the newer versions tend to be more forthright and gritty.

Although the weather forecast was for it to brighten up today, it has rained all day. We are good at rain in Lancashire.

I’m now quite glad I mowed the lawn yesterday and didn’t put it off for another day.

We get quite a lot of birds in our garden. Today it was the turn of the sparrows.

The sparrow is quite dull bird really. It’s brown, brown and a bit more brown.

Today they have made me smile, which makes them wonderful.

Sparrows go around in small flocks, we had roughly 30. I say roughly 30 because they never stay still long enough to be counted.

They were definitely English sparrows too. We have two bird feeders half way along a fence. There isn’t enough room for 30 sparrows on one bird feeder. Being true English sparrows they did the correct thing and formed an orderly queue. Four sparrows on the feeders, a queue of roughly another ten along the fence with the rest in the hedge beyond. Each one would queue up, when it was their turn they would land on the feeder and eat. Once they had eaten they would go to the back of the queue.

They seemed to be loving it. They weren’t huddled up trying to escape the rain. They were getting on with their life.

Some words of Jesus: 

“Dear friends, don’t be afraid of those who want to kill you. They can only kill the body; they cannot do any more to you. But I’ll tell you whom to fear. Fear God, who has the power to kill people and then throw them into hell.

“What is the price of five sparrows? A couple of pennies? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows.

Luke 12

What do you get if you take one girl, mix it together with an ample sized cardboard box, a few pens, scissors, tape, bamboo sticks and a little help from her brother?

Answer: Fun

It was Sue’s birthday at the weekend and her present arrived (in car from Ikea) in a nice big cardboard box. The first question Emily asked me when she saw the box was “what’s in it?”. The answer was a chair for the bedroom because Mummy would like to have somewhere were she can sit and read in quiet when she wants to. The second question (which I was also expecting) was “can I have the box?”

Once we had handed the present over to Sue, and left an appropriate amount of time to look at them all, Emily set to work on the box.

Before long it had a roof supported by a couple of bamboo canes which had finished there summer work in the garden. The door that Daddy had cut into one side had been modified so that it was now in a stable door configuration. A windows and some flowers to decorate were also added.

Then the second phase of play began, the imagining play. Emily had created her own house and she was making the most of this new world.

Hours of fun.

Earlier this week the news was full of reports about a letter written to the Daily Telegraph. The letter was written by academic and professionals involved with children. One of the things this letter was calling for was:

“real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment)”.

Emily certainly had “real play” with her cardboard box.

I know a day is coming when she will probably no longer want to play with cardboard boxes, but I do hope that she will never lose the value of “real play”.

As an adult I sometimes think I need to rediscover the value of “real play”. Anyone else feel like that?