Category: Blessings

While we were on holiday in the Lake District last week Jonathan and I managed a day in the mountains. We’ve been trying to climb hills that we have never climbed before. Travelling new paths is something that seems to be deeply engrained in my character, it’s never quite as satisfying when I know where I am going. This time we (I) decided upon Grassmoor.

Grassmoor is one of those mountains that comes in parts. You don’t just go up and then come down. I suppose you could go up and then come back the way you came, but that seems very dull to me. If you want to come back via a different route you have to do some more climbing.

We were travelling from the Keswick, Braithwaite side so we took the long walk up the Coledale Valley until we started the 852m climb to the top via Coledale Hause.

Once you’ve reached the top you have three choices for a way down:

• You can carry on down to Crummock Water, but then you end up miles away from where you started and you need to get someone to pick you up.
• You can go back the way you came – dull.
• You can go back a little way and then climb Crag Hill, but once you have taken this route you are also committed to climbing Sail also.

The easy route is to go back the way you have come but it doesn’t bring any new excitement with it. It’s the path you have just travelled with the same views as you’ve just seen.

If you take the harder path you get new perspectives on things, you get to achieve new things. It requires more effort and takes more out of you but the rewards are higher.

As we came down of the peak at Grassmoor Jonathan and I looked at each other and then we looked at the climb up to Crag Hill and then we looked back at each other.

“Are we up for doing this?” I said to Jonathan.

“Yes, lets.” He said in reply.

So we set off and we climbed back up nearly as far as we had come down, there’s only 13m difference between the two peaks. We enjoyed the new views across Crummock Water and Buttermere. We looked over to Great Gable standing majestically overlooking the whole scene and reminisced about our last climb. We looked down the other side to Keswick and beyond to Skiddaw.

But we hadn’t finished, we’d still got to climb down and back up Sail.

Between Cragg Hill and Sail there is quite a narrow ridge with a steep climb back up. It was hard work, we were tired.

Back on another summit we enjoyed our last breaths on the peaks before our descent. We enjoyed the new views down to Derwent Water and across to Helvellyn. It felt good to be on the top, it was good to have pushed to achieve more and succeeded. What a blessing.

This kind of follows on from my last post on Skilled Medical Staff, but I make no apologies for that.

I have been struck recently by the variety of skills that abound.

For weeks now the shower in our en suite (yes we have an en suite) has been dripping. The shower is actually against one of the walls in the bedroom so we could hear it dripping. Most of the time this hasn’t been a problem, but both Sue and I have had a few nights where we haven’t been sleeping as heavily as normal. In our lighter sleep all we could hear was the stead drip… drip… drip… of the shower. It was starting to drive us nuts. I finally phoned the manufacturers of the shower to find out how to get it fixed, they supplied me with a part and a skilled engineer.

Yesterday the engineer came and fitted the new part (he wasn’t supposed to come yesterday, but that’s another story). It took him less than 30 minutes to fit. He knew what he was doing and just got on with it. Now the shower is at peace. No drip… drip… drip… just peace, it’s lovely.

We had to get the person with the skills to come along, his skills were worth it.

Over the weekend we had a classical quartet performing at church. They were all highly skilled musicians who gave us a wonderful evening. We didn’t have to worry about whether they were up to the job, they were skilled. It was great to be able to relax into the music and feel it’s movement.

We are doing some large scale building work at church. While the classical quartet were practicing on Saturday I spent a little time watching two men roofing our new building. It was amazing to see how they skipped up and down the steps and along the roof carrying heavy tiles.

I marvel at these skills because I don’t have these skills. I’m thankful that others do. I would be stuck without them, but more than that, my life would be a lot duller without them.

The Bible talks a lot about the different skills in the church and how they are all needed. The most famous passage is one that compares the church to a body.

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.

Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?

But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”

1 Corinthians 12

A whole load of different skills, but all part of the same body.

I have to admit to sometimes being the hand saying to the ear – “can you get one with something”. The Bible tells us that those who are listen have as much value as those who run around and do. It’s not just coincidence that these words about the body are followed by some of the greatest words about love ever written.

I am a money worrier. I’m normally a very good sleeper, but if something is going to keep me awake at night it’s money.

Like most people, I don’t worry about having too much of it, I worry about the lack of it.

Today someone sent me a link to a web site that calculates where you fit in the Global Rich List.

Tell it your income and it will position you in the list. This is where I am:

That’s right, right up there in the top 1%, in the top 0.43% to be precise. So for every person above me in the list there are 232 people below me. That’s 232 people less well off than I am. There may be millions of people better off than me, but there are billions of people worse off. Most of these people are not worse off than me by a small amount, most of them are worse off by a long, long way. I’m part way up a curve that goes all the way down to nothing.

Jesus had a lot to say about people who loved money.

He once met a rich young man. The rich young man had been a very good man, he’d obeyed the rules all of his life. He knew what was right and he knew what was wrong. But Jesus knew that there was more to it:

“If you want to give it all you’ve got,” Jesus replied, “go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me.”

That was the last thing the young man expected to hear. And so, crest-fallen, he walked away. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and he couldn’t bear to let go.

Matthew 19

What a missed opportunity.

Great wealth brings great responsibility.

This morning was a walking morning. When I looked out I of the window to assess the weather I saw that it was damp and misty, but not actually raining. It’s been a very damp June and July this year. Rather than put on the full rain clobber, I put on a sweatshirt jacket and left.

The mist was a bit heavier than I was expecting, and eventually I had to take my glasses off, because it was clearer without them than with them. I put them in one of the pockets of the sweatshirt jacket.

After a pleasant walk I arrived home a little damp, but not soaked. I have this routine which results in me going walking in dirty clothes so that I can put them in the wash when I get back. This morning was no exception.

(Those of you who are quick will have already guessed the ending by now).

Mid way through this morning I wanted to quickly go down to the shops, taking my car. In order to drive I really need glasses, legally I’m apparently OK without them, but I don’t know how anyone could drive safely with this level of sight. I did the usual glasses search, desk, book shelf, kitchen window, sideboard, Sue’s desk, Sue’s bookcase, bed-side cabinet. Why are there so many places you can store glasses. But no glasses. It was time to stop and try to remember when I last had them.

The washing machine had just finished its cycle. I approached it with some anxiety. Opening the door I reached for the jacket hoping that they would have been protected in the pocket, but they weren’t in the pocket. Expecting the worst I emptied the rest of the machine, there at the bottom were my glasses.

Fortunately they are not a mangled wreck, somewhat cleaner than before, but OK.

It’s nice when things are that way around, too often it seems like things turn our worse than they first seemed.

Over the weekend Sue, Emily and I decided that we would go and explore a waterfall (Jonathan was at work).

Waterfalls a great.

It’s rained rather a lot this year so we knew we were in for a treat. Our chosen waterfall was Skelwith Force near Skelwith Bridge. It’s not the tallest waterfall in the Lake District, but it’s one of the most powerful and it helps that there is a rather good Cafe near where you park the car.

As expected, the falls were full. Water was gushing over the edge and pounding onto the rocks below.

At the top of the falls I’m always slightly mesmerised as I watch the water flow over the edge, sometimes I’m sure it’s trying to pull me in.

Emily and I ventured down the rocks to the bottom too, there the falls gave off their thunderous roar and belched their spray.

The falls were so full that a couple of canoeist who looked fairly hard-core decided that they would give it a miss. It was very powerful.

Sue and I wondered for a little while about how much water was travelling down the falls, we tried to compare it to the amount of water in a swimming pool. How long would it take this waterfall to fill out local pool? We didn’t actually come up with an answer, but we knew it wasn’t long.

There a description of Jesus in the book of Revelation in the Bible and it says this:

His head and his hair were white as wool or snow, and his eyes looked like flames of fire. His feet were glowing like bronze being heated in a furnace, and his voice sounded like the roar of a waterfall. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp double-edged sword was coming from his mouth. His face was shining as bright as the sun at noon.

Revelation 1

I’m not sure what a voice that sounds “like the roar of a waterfall” would really sound like, but I do know that it’s going to be powerful and I think that is what I am supposed to understand.

After we had visited the falls we carried on towards Elterwater where we marvelled at the tranquility of the water waiting to be sent down the falls.

Unfortunately we forgot the camera so the picture is from somewhere else earlier in the year when there was as much water around.

Today is an eerily quiet day.

I live a few hundred metres away from the busy M6 motorway which brings constant noise. I rarely notice it because it’s always there.

Today is different, today is quiet, very quiet. It’s so quiet that the keys on my keyboard sound loud, even the click on my mouse is too loud today.

This morning at around six as I was in that semi-asleep state just before waking I heard a load of sirens but didn’t think anything of it. I still didn’t think anything of it as I went out for my morning walk, but I noticed that something was different, I wasn’t sure what.

It wasn’t until I got home that I knew what was going on. As I walked through the door Sue told me about a chemical fire at a nearby industrial estate closing the motorway (BBC, LEP).

I hadn’t really noticed the difference while I was out walking because I was listening to a podcast from Willow Creek.

When Sue told me it was obvious, the level of background noise was so markedly different. Once it had been pointed out to me it was eery, it took me a good while to relax into it.

Quiet is very valuable, especially today, with so much of it around. In the Proverbs it says this:

Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.

Proverbs 17:1

Today I am going to try and make the most of the quiet that I have available. I’m sure the motorway will be open very soon and life will be back to normal but until that happens I’m going to work without music and enjoy the birds singing outside.

Today is also a day when I’m reminded how much a blessing working from home can be. The roads are apparently madness out there. Today was Jonathan’s first day on two weeks of work experience and his bus was 30 mins late before he’d even started. Emily is having a taster day at the high school she will be going to in September, Sue did a great job of fighting through the traffic to get her there.

I really like things that are elegant in their simplicity.

Books are a good example of this elegant simplicity. In one respect a book is just a set of pages with ink on them, bound together with some glue. How simple is that! But a book is also very elegant. Walk around any book shop and watch as people pick up a book, they hold it with care as if it’s something special even if it’s a £3 paper back on offer.

Interacting with a book is very simple too, you just open it and read it. People don’t need to be taught how to use a book, although there is a funny video on YouTube that may be evidence to the contrary. But it’s more than just simple, reading a book is a very elegant experience. I can read small pieces of information off a screen all day, but ask me to read pages and pages of text and I’ll have the book any day.

Pencils are another example of simple elegance. Take some graphite and encase it in wood, simple. Hold a pencil and start to draw with it, elegant.

I think that one of the reasons that I like quotations is that they are simple and the good ones are also elegant.

“Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home” Phyllis Diller

“Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.” Unknown

“Is there life before death?” Graffito

Simple truths elegantly put, elegant truths simply put.

There is a book in the Bible where simply elegant truth is stated it’s called Proverbs.

“The wise in heart accept commands, but a chattering fool comes to ruin.” Proverbs 10:8

“If you search for good, you will find favour; but if you search for evil, it will find you!” Proverbs 11:27

“Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others.” Proverbs 12:15

“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.” Proverbs 25:24

A great theologian () was once asked is he could sum up what was most important about his life’s work, he replied with the words of a simple song that used to popular in Sunday Schools:

“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Simple and elegant.

I live in a country where things get cleaned up.

This was reinforced to me over the last few days.

In the middle of a roundabout near where I live there is a new sculpture of an owl (pictured). It’s an owl because that’s the symbol for the local school (where Emily goes).

When the sculpture went up Sue and I wondered how long it would be before the sculpture was defaced.

It was only a few weeks.

Over the weekend someone decided that the sculpture would look better with a load of white pain all over it.

Yesterday I was out walking and noticed that a man was stood in the middle of the roundabout with a jet-wash cleaning the paint off.

It’s nice to see your taxes at work.

(Yes I did stand in the middle of a busy roundabout to get this picture)

One of the wisest things someone ever said to me about parenting was this:

“The time that you have your children on your terms is very short. After that they have you on their terms”

This friend then went on to explain that they believed that making memories with your children is an incredibly important thing to do.

Since that time I’ve then made it a priority to make memories with my children.

Jonathan is now nearly half way through his teenage years, his time of independence is fast approaching. The time available for me to make memories, on my terms, is slipping away.

I’ve found it helpful to try and think about making memories in two ways; traditions and exceptions.

Traditions are those times, places and activities that we do consistently and repeatedly. I’ve talked before about the tradition of Christmas Tree Decorating at church, but traditions don’t have to be linked to a major festival or external event. We have some family traditions too. We are all looking forward to visiting friends in Edinburgh in the next two weeks, this is something we do a couple of times a year and have done for a few years now, it’s a tradition. Every time we go we build more memories.

Exceptions are those things that we do that are out of the ordinary and special. During our holiday after Easter we did a few exceptional things. The weather itself was exceptional, but that wasn’t what will make them lasting memories. There’s something about exceptions that mean that you need to do something, there is something which makes memories you have had to work for last longer. On one day Jonathan and I decided to go and tick off another Wainwright; this time we (I) chose Great Gable. People talk about all sorts of reasons as to why they climb mountains, for me it’s primarily about building memories. The last day of our holiday was also used for memory making, we went for a picnic by Derwentwater, that’s probably not enough to make a long lasting memory, swimming in the lake in April probably is.

I also try to make the effort to make memories in my Christian life in a similar way; traditions and exceptions. Quiet days used to be an exception, but we are starting to build them into a tradition. If an exception is really good, then it is OK for it to become a tradition.

When I started out on the series of “Count Your Blessings” I wasn’t sure how far I would get, so it was nice to get to 100.

I thought I would use the opportunity to find out which posts get accessed the most. It’s not a very scientific number, because it’s only based on one way that people access the posts. It looks like the top 10 over the last few months are these ones:

• Count Your Blessings #79 – A Little Bit of Extra Freedom
• Count Your Blessings #91 – Decorating Christmas Trees
• Count Your Blessings #83 – Psalms
• Count Your Blessings #92 – Law and Order
• Count Your Blessings #89 – Childhood Memories
• Count Your Blessings #82 – Sparrows in the Rain
• Count Your Blessings #88 – Rainbows
• Count Your Blessings #94 – Happiness
• Count Your Blessings #39 – Frosty Morning Memories
• Count Your Blessings #90 – The Alarm Call of the Blackbird at Dusk

I’d love to know different this list would have been if I’d had the numbers from the start – unfortunately I don’t.

I’ve had all sorts of feedback on the series; I’d like to say thank you for that. It’s nice to know someone is reading.

As a young teenager I earned some much needed money doing a paper-round. It meant getting up early in the morning and dashing around a set of houses on my bike. One of the first things I did with the money that I had earned was to buy a mobile cassette player. I can’t remember what make the first one was, but I can remember what it wasn’t. I wanted a proper Sony Walkman, but I couldn’t afford a proper Walkman, I had to settle for something more affordable.

(For anyone out there who is younger than 20, the original Sony Walkman had nothing to do with phones or MP3 players, it played cassettes. If you don’t know what a cassette is then I’m sorry, it’s not my problem that your education has been so incomplete.)

Every morning (except Sunday, because that was someone elses problem) I would get up, reach for the portable cassette player, select a fresh tape from the pile in my room, stick the headphones on and set off. It wasn’t the safest thing to do, but the music on those tapes made a tough job enjoyable. One day I would be joining U2 at the live Under a Blood Red Sky concert. The next day I would be taken to the strange world of Talking Heads. On another day it would be OMD. Listening to the music took me to another place where my fingers weren’t frozen to the handlebars, or where the rain wasn’t seeping down my back.

I probably spent a disproportionate amount of my paper-round money on batteries keeping the portable cassette player and bike lights running.

There were a number of portable cassette players that joined me on that journey. Each of them would eventually buckle under the strain. The first one was probably the size of 3 or 4 cassettes, eventually I worked myself to a tiny player (JVC I think), that was bright red and only just the size of a cassette box. I thought it was tiny.

As the years passed I changed my job. My brother got a job as a Chef in a Hotel near Scarborough. I could earn more working in the kitchens at weekends and holidays than I could on the paper-round. Scarborough was a 40 minute train journey from home so I would travel up, work, stay over work and then travel back. The train journeyed through some fabulous countryside, but the travelling was made even more enjoyable by the accompaniment of Bob Dylan and Depeche Mode.

I never had a portable CD player. Not sure why, I think that portable CD players became the accessory of choice during the time Sue and I spent every waking hour together, so there was no need.

Then I learnt to drive and a new type of portable music came into my life. Having money meant that I could experiment with all sorts of music, it was at this time that I discovered Bruce Cockburn whose songs still speak volumes to me.

My portable music is now on my phone, 2GB of it. I can’t imaging how many cassettes I would have to carry around to have access to that much music. I’ve started appreciating my portable music again. Most mornings I try to go to the gym or take a walk for exercise, I take my music along with me. There are times in the gym that I would stop and give it up, but the music keeps me going. I’m currently listening to all sorts of music, the newest is probably Delirious?.

Music plays such a huge part in my life, it fires my imagination, it takes me to other places, it lifts me up, it spurs me on, it calms me down. Being able to take it with me is such a blessing.

When I take a walk in a morning I am very blessed by having loads of different routes available. I have come to know how many people I can expect to meet on each of the routes. Sometimes I choose a route where I know I am likely to meet a few people walking dogs who will give me a hearty smile and a “good morning”. At other times I deliberately choose a different route knowing that I will be the only one there. My favourite lonely walk is actually down the drive of a nearby hall, although you’d expect to see people, I have never seen anyone down there early in a morning.

Sometimes I feel like I need to recharge my batteries in a way that only lonely places can. I suppose it’s a bit like a mini wilderness time.

There is something very special about these lonely places, they seem to open up a different type of intimacy with God that just can’t be experienced in crowded places. I have felt an intimacy with God in very crowded places, but the lonely places bring something that is more personal.

Jesus had times in lonely places too:

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:16

If it was good enough for him – then it’s certainly good enough for me.