Back From Holiday..

I'm sat in my snug watching my new telly (thank you +John). Its 2pm and I am still in my pyjamas, enjoying the last 24 hours of holiday. Its been a good two weeks: I think I have clocked up a couple of thousand miles one way or another, driving to Bristol, flying to France, road tripping back and doing the ferry, a sneaky look at the college renovations, Devon, Luton and back to here.

I feel rested, refreshed and pleasantly surprised at how easy it has been to switch off.

But now, its time to gear up. I am excited about the next blast. This term is when I start to really do my stuff in the estate. I have a plan, written I hope prayerfully, and it starts its roll out now.

Phase one of the plan is allowing my heart to get broken by this place. Its about being soft and yet strong I think. I'll try and update as much as I can here.

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A Week Today

A week today, when all the furore has ebbed and the markets have bottomed out, our nation will awake to the sounds of bugles and church bells as we commemorate 100 years from the start of the Battle of The Somme. I am an historian by background, and the Somme for me is emblematic of a human tragedy that need never have happened. My reading of it is this: we began a war from a variety of odd alliances and murky motivations, capped off finally by a sense that no-one had the will to stop it. In order to give the war effort impetus, posters, propaganda began to be bandied around about the enemy, about what they would do to children and how they needed to be stopped. It worked as a recruiting effort- young men, boys, and women all joined the war effort. They joined as an act of patriotism, tinged yes with fear, but also a sense that it might be the right thing to do. They joined from across the country- but at the heart of the front line forces were thousands and ten of thousands...

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So I'm meeting the DDO again tomorrow, where we will look criteria G: faith. One of the questions is; 'what is your gospel?'. Its a really interesting question; one that I have probably answered in many ways through the last 16 years. Today I think it is.. 'God made humanity to live in relationship with him, we chose to wander away from that and so the world has ended up essentially still good but just a shadow of what its meant to be. Thats true both of us individually and humanity in general. God has made a way for us to restore our relationship with him, and to become agents in restoring how things were always supposed to be. That way: is Jesus. As part of God, he lived on earth modelling the way that God chooses to change things. He kicked out demons, healed the sick, dignified the poor, and chose to subject himself to a world that hated him. He invites us to live like him- and gives us hope of doing just that through the Holy Spirit. The Bible uses the im...

Jude Smith

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