Jude Smith

.. must be time for all of England to pray for someone's foot!!! Yep this time its a double whammy- the boy wonder (?.. dangerous, aggressive, likely to get sent off) Wayne Rooney, carried off yesterday, and the "not 100% happy" Michael Owen. What is it with Englishmen and their metatarsals? Are we allowed to suggest that the very pretty boots that they wear are simply unhelpful for the crunch of the English game? Are we evolving too slowly? Whatever the reason, money is that teh Sun will carry a weird Yuri Geller/ prayer fusion in an attempt to heal Waynes foot! I;m sure some theological debate can follow about whether we want his foot to heal but lets leave that for another day!

Spent today at the wonderful Turvey Abbey. Had a lovely day beginning to dive into a long reading list.. Found this beautiful comment (which may be related to my rant about various blogs!) on the nature of the Anglican Church. "Its credentials are its incompleteness, with teh tension and travail in its soul. It is clumsy and untidy, it baffles neatness and logic. For it is sent not to commend itself as "the best type of Christianity" but by its very brokeness to point to the universal church" (Michael Ramsay). Incidentally the whole day got me enthused about reading more stuff- so thought I;d take this chanec to advertise my Amazon Wish List (name Miss Jude Smith) if you want to surprise me!

I have found a new way to make myself irate! I happened upon a few links to "emergent" expressions of church. The end.

Lurking with slight bags under the eyes are a hidden army. They may look jaded today , sat at their computer terminal, punching out needless and endless numbers and words. But ask them what happened in episode three of the second series and they will suddenly burst into life. They will tell you who said what, what they meant by it, why that’s important and where its referred to again. These pasty faced folk are the box setters. And we are an ever growing breed. Whether its series five of 24, seven of the West Wing, a rare series two of the X-Files, many many of us have succumbed and now face a serious addiction. It starts fairly innocuously. You buy the box set because its cheap in Silver Screen and you missed a few episodes in series one. Then you find yourself not just watching the missed episodes but taking in the whole series- often in just one sitting! Then you go to Amazon and order (or perhaps even pre order) the next series. When it arrives the whole things becomes an e...

.. for reasons which I shall not go into here, I'm just faffing in the office, accompanied by the sounds of piano and prayer from the main space. I should be writing a sermon, or painting a prayer space, or raising my salary.. but no.. I'm searching out all things West Wing. And in my sadness I have found.. that there are whole websites dedicated to the question we're all asking.. "will Josh and Donna get together?" I want to say yes, and was very excited that Donna has reappeared.. but people make love story videos about the whole thing, whihc is just a LITTLE freaky.. well its a lot freaky but hey! But they also have photos!

I've been doing my "usual" trawl of people's blogs this morning (am deciding whether I can face heading into London or not!) and I've noticed that there is a huge range of vulnerabilities in people's blogs. Some people are happily telling about new relationships, others issuing invites, some retelling stories. I think I tend to just rant on my blog.. hmm.. what are the limits? ARe there rules about what you can and can't say? I wonder...

A number of things happened when I was away (it doesn’t happen in a week but go away for two and its crazy!). There were the usual (but annoying) slight trashing of house (and I just discovered Boiler room!), build up of post and so on.. but they built a big cube outside Lea Manor, they built a house by Barnfield and put up some big sign outside the college there (haven’t finished the roadworks yet though). But more than that they have purged the railway. No longer is my train of choice a Thameslink. Its now a First Capital Connect (all those F’s and C’s will surely come in handy for ranting commuters!). All very good, but the change over is very Stalinist! Whilst the trains are blatantly the same, all references to the company formerly known as Thameslink have been removed.. even down to black marker pen covering station names on the maps.. I’m even looking over my shoulder lest the KGB storm my café hidey hole for my mention! But the train was on time.. so I shall return to my ...

Hi Just a brief one in an interlude between SH1, Devon and SH3.. I;m sitting in a very nice waterside cafe in Bristol.. had a good Spring Harvest week 1, lovely to see Alex and Dave last night, now have just made the mistake of checking my emails. Its left me strangely down- lots of people getting on with things where they are. All good news, but has maybe left me feeling a bit jealous. Think I am finally fed up of being everywhere and nowhere. Hmm.