Category: Blessings

One of the great things about taking a walk in the woods at this time of year is the discovery of conkers.

Anyone who has handled a conker will know exactly what I mean when I say that I love to handle them. Fresh out of the shell they are especially tactile.

Although there is a pile of them in the pictures I actually prefer to have a single conker in my hand and to rub it between my fingers enjoying it’s smoothness on different parts of my palm and fingers.

These particular conkers have now been in my office for a couple of weeks and the experience has changed them. They are no longer soft, they have become much harder and have taken on a much darker look. They have shrunk quite a bit too. The smoothness is still there, but not in the same way. They have dried out.

Life can dry us out too sometimes. We need constant watering to stay fresh.

We like hugs in the Chastney family. Jonathan may be 14, but he still gets and gives hugs. Emily seems to run on hugs. Sue is a great hugger. 

Long may it continue.

I’ve recently been introduced to a web site that’s been going for some time called Free Hugs. There’s also a video on YouTube:

As a British male hugging is a cultural nightmare, especially outside the family and that’s a shame. There are a few close friends who I would give a hug too but not that many and I would almost never hug a stranger.

I actually prefer the word “embrace” to the word “hug”, it seems a bit more masculine.

I’ve recently been reading a book about looking after the brain. This book talks about diet and exercise as important factors. It also talks about the brain’s need for us to be tactile and to have face-to-face communications. When I first read about the brain’s need for us to be tactile I was surprised, when I gave it some thought it made a lot of sense.  I often work from home and there are days when I feel this urge to go out and meet someone, anyone. When I get this feeling I normally walk up to the local shop and buy some trivial item, what I’m really buying is a short conversation with a real person. I don’t give them a hug, but I would if the culture would allow.

There’s are all sorts of places where a hug, or embrace, is found in the Bible.

Jesus used an embrace to illustrate His kingdom in Mark 9:

They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he asked them, “What were you discussing on the road?”

The silence was deafening—they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest.

He sat down and summoned the Twelve. “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.”

He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, “Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me—God who sent me.”

In Acts 20 this happens:

We met on Sunday to worship and celebrate the Master’s Supper. Paul addressed the congregation. Our plan was to leave first thing in the morning, but Paul talked on, way past midnight. We were meeting in a well-lighted upper room. A young man named Eutychus was sitting in an open window. As Paul went on and on, Eutychus fell sound asleep and toppled out the third-story window. When they picked him up, he was dead.

Paul went down, stretched himself on him, and hugged him hard. “No more crying,” he said. “There’s life in him yet.” Then Paul got up and served the Master’s Supper. And went on telling stories of the faith until dawn! On that note, they left—Paul going one way, the congregation another, leading the boy off alive, and full of life themselves.

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?

If you read this post regularly you have probably picked up that I get a lot of inspiration from my regular walks before work. Working from home, as I do, I find it’s very important to get my body to wake-up before I get to work. It would be very easy to be really lazy and not move beyond the bounds of the house but that would eventually drive me crazy.

Taking the daily walk wakes my body and my brain.

(This is where I walk most of the time)

Right down the middle of this walk run a couple of brooks, one of them is Savick Brook which travels all the way across Preston and eventually becomes the new Ribble Link Canal.

Today these two brooks had been swelled by the last few days (and nights) of rain.

I love to sit and watch rivers like this. I like sleepy river too, but there is something far more interesting about rivers that are gushing. There’s something mysterious about the chocolate brown water rushing by. What is it carrying in the darkness? What will it have washed way when it subsides?

As a child we went on holiday to Scotland – at least I think it was Scotland. I am not renown for my ability to remember childhood events. The cottage we were staying in was right next to a river. There was also a stone bridge carry a track to a farm beyond the river. I have had many wonderful holidays in Scotland where the weather was very kind to us. On this occasion it rained for days, it tipped it down.

At the start of the holiday we could see trout in the river. As the week went on the river at the back of the cottage swelled. The clear water that let us see trout turned into a brown soup carrying sand, silt, branches and all sorts of other debris. We wondered how the trout were surviving in all the turmoil.

The stone bridge that had looked so immovable before started to take the strain of everything being thrown at it. The river became wider than the archway, whirlpools formed at the edges. We watched as branches got sucked into the whirlpools, being spat out further down the river.

I have glass of water sitting by me as I write. It looks all peaceful and calming. Combine it with profusion of water then tip it down a hillside and the effect is quite different.

At the weekend we were on holiday in Derbyshire and went to Dovedale. Dovedale is the remnant of a huge cavern which has long since collapsed, but all the signs are still there to be seen. Jonathan and I went up to some of the caves and archways. It was great especially because it was a little precarious at times. Masses of rock, washed away by a river.

The Message uses the picture of a river overflowing its banks to represent some of the words of Jesus:

“When a woman gives birth, she has a hard time, there’s no getting around it. But when the baby is born, there is joy in the birth. This new life in the world wipes out memory of the pain. The sadness you have right now is similar to that pain, but the coming joy is also similar. When I see you again, you’ll be full of joy, and it will be a joy no one can rob from you. You’ll no longer be so full of questions.

“This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I’ve revealed to you. Ask in my name, according to my will, and he’ll most certainly give it to you. Your joy will be a river overflowing its banks!

“I’ve used figures of speech in telling you these things. Soon I’ll drop the figures and tell you about the Father in plain language. Then you can make your requests directly to him in relation to this life I’ve revealed to you. I won’t continue making requests of the Father on your behalf. I won’t need to. Because you’ve gone out on a limb, committed yourselves to love and trust in me, believing I came directly from the Father, the Father loves you directly. First, I left the Father and arrived in the world; now I leave the world and travel to the Father.”

Luke 16

Our joy at being able to talk directly with God (because that is what he was talking about) will bring joy that will be like a river overflowing its banks! Now that is a powerful joy indeed.

Tonight Sue and I went out to our local book shop and participated in the weekly quiz. Just the two of us.

Until recently this adventure would have required a specially choreographed dance involving a trusted baby-sitters and numerous conversations with Emily to reassure her that everything was going to be OK.

We are now fortunate enough to have a son who is old enough to look after his younger sister. Not only is he old enough, but the two of them get on well enough for us to be confident that there will be no blood on the carpet when we return.

Thanks kids.

I went out to the gym this morning before starting work. I don’t shower at the gym, so got back wonderfully sweaty and just a little smelly (I seem to be sweating a lot more than I used to).

On arriving at home, I jumped into the shower for a wash. When I got out of the shower I put on clean clothes. This wasn’t a special occasion, putting on clean clothes is something I do quite regularly (too regularly for the washing machine sometimes).

We have a saying in our household: “You can tell how good a day it’s been by the state of your clothes”. Muddy clothes symbolise a great day. We are fortunate to be able to make such a statement. We don’t worry about messy clothes because they can soon made made clean again.

Just before we went on holiday our washing machine broke down and we had to rely upon the generosity of friends. Our friends were wonderfully generous, but it was still a hassle.

Now we have a new washing machine (7Kg load, no less) the hassle has been reduced significantly, but I wanted to remind myself that this situation is a luxury. So many people live in situations where such luxury is only a dream.

One of the things I love about being on holiday is that I reconnect with how big the sky is.

It helps, of course, when you are sat on a beach where the sky seems so much bigger anyway. Sometimes it’s like the sky and the ocean are merged together to form a single complete continuation. Sometimes though the ocean reflects the sky so that it forms a funnel.

While we were in France we saw some fabulous skies.

One day we went out to Chateau de Dinan which is a huge rock formation sticking out into the Atlantic. It’s only connection to the mainland is a huge stone arch. It’s like it is defiantly saying “attack me if you dare”. There is nothing between these rocks and America, other than Atlantic Ocean. As I looked out the sky felt huge.

Another day we went to Quiberon. Quiberon is a peninsula that sticks several miles out. As we traveled that day the sky was low and it was raining. Our hopes of a good day weren’t high as we sat under the shelter of the car’s estate boot for lunch. The sky certainly wasn’t big then. Being true Brits though, we stuck with it. It was still raining when we decided to go swimming despite the cold and the rain. As we entered the water the rain stopped and the sky started to expand and grow. At one point a huge black cloud stretched out in front of us like some huge space ship inspecting the small planet beneath it. At others the sun broke through to reveal the true expanse of the sky.

The other night Sue and I were out late in the Lake District with friends (that’s another story). The Moon was up and the stars were shining. We decided that there was still adventure to be had and things to be seen so we headed up Kirkstone Pass to be as far away from light as possible. The Stars and the Moon gave another view of the vastness of the sky.

When I was younger the vastness of the sky used to make me feel small and insignificant. When I became a Christian I saw the sky differently, I saw that the vastness of the sky was a confirmation of God’s great love. God could have chosen to completely disregard this tiny little planet in the middle of the vastness of universes, but He didn’t. God chose to send Jesus to this earth for this people. That makes this earth and this people massively significant.

How do you view the experiences of your life – do you think of them as extraordinary, ordinary, or plain dull.

I’ve always regarded myself as quite ordinary. I was born, I went to school, I got a job, I got married, I had children, I get older. Nothing too extraordinary there.

Recently I have found myself in situations where someone has been describing something wonderful that they have just discovered. I have been polite, I have smiled and listened, but inside I have been thinking something quite different. Inside I have been saying to myself that this wonderful thing that they have discovered is obvious.

Other person: “Graham did you know that (insert something interesting)”

Me (outside appearance): Smiling and listening politely.

Me (inside): “Well obviously”

Is this because I tend to interact with people who are a little slow on the uptake? On the contrary I talk to all sorts of interesting intelligent people, people who amaze me most of the time.

Why are these things obvious to me then and not to them? Because my experience has been extraordinary. There is no-one in the world who has had the same set of experiences that I have, not one. There is no-one in this world who has seen what I have seen, not one. There is no-one in this world who has thought about a situation or an experience in the same way as I have, not one. My experience is extraordinary.

Each individual experience might occur millions of times throughout the planet, but no-one has had the same set of experiences as I have.

Every one of these experiences has contributed to who I am. These experiences make me unique.

Your experiences make you unique too.

That uniqueness means that we should look at ourselves with a sense of wonder. That uniqueness means that we should look at each other with a sense of wonder. Things that are unique are special.

I have recently been re-reading a book called The Grace Awakening by Charles R. Swindoll. Today I read these words:

“Variety honours God, predictability and mediocrity bores Him. And if there is proof that He differences, take look down the long of fame in church history.”

and

“He [God] wants each one of us to be unique…an individual blend and expression unlike any other person. That is by His design. There is only one you. There is only one me.

Uniqueness is good. Uniqueness is wonderful. Uniqueness is a blessing.

I suffer with a problem that I think many people suffer with – comparison. I compare myself with others. Is my career going as well as theirs? Do I have this thing that they have got? Am I as fit as they are? These comparisons traps me into a desire to be just like someone else and detracts from my uniqueness. It’s a trap, a snare. My uniqueness makes me special, I don’t need to be like anyone else.

I need to learn that I am unique and that my uniqueness is a blessing – I suspect I’m not the only one.