gleanings

words

tiredness / but mid journey / so need to find a way to keep going ...

talk (or write) / but it's not enough ...

where is this going

an empty computing lab / maybe this blog can take (another) rest ...

exhausted

this week's theme (it seems) / reaching the middle of the day, and having no energy to continue / maybe I'm just getting old ...

half day

I honestly think that, if I could afford to, I'd be better working part time / many days, I've been able to apply myself until lunchtime / but the afternoon has been the killer / I simply don't have enough energy these days to work effectively through the day ...

concorde syndrome

I believe that biologists use the phrase 'concorde syndrome' to describe the phenomenon whereby an animal or a bird persists with a strategy, even when it has become apparent that the strategy is failing / the analogy is clear / having spent so much already on the Concorde programme, the UK and French governments had no choice but to keep going / another phrase - white elephant - comes to mind / perhaps, with hindsight, there was an element of heroism / Concorde was a beautiful aircraft / but (biology again) an evolutionary dead end ...

faith / Zechariah had faith / he had asked for a child / he kept on doing his priestly duties / but when an angel told him that his prayer was to be answered, he (allegedly) disbelieved / and was, as a consequence, struck dumb ...

how often have I read: to-day is the day of salvation / and believed it / hoped for a breakthrough / an end to frustration, inner turmoil, despair / someone tweeted it, in Greek, yesterday / but maybe what God means by salvation is different from what I hope for / maybe the corner isn't ever going to be turned / maybe the best that I can hope for is another 8 (or 9) years of trying to do a job which I cannot do / and then retirement ...

should I, in that case, spend the first half hour of each day (after the cats have been fed) sitting with a cup of (instant) coffee, reading the bible, helped by notes, praying / it always lifts my spirits / injects some hope into the day / but by lunchtime, that hope has evaporated / and the afternoon feels like a prison sentence (worse - I can be further punished for not having done what people expect me to have done) ...

empty space

Jesus made an analogy (sort of) / he talked about a person having a demon cast out, but then the demon returns, finds the place swept and clean, and moves back in, with seven of his friends ...

of course, nowadays, we don't believe that people can be possessed by demons / although it works well as a plot device in a movie / so, was Jesus mistaken / it seems odd / the old testament doesn't refer to demon possession / but, wasn't Saul tormented by a demon? / it seems to be a phenomenon which only happens in the context of Jesus' life on earth / of course, that was a unique event, or series of events / maybe demons possessed people then, and only then ...

not helpful / the reason why I recollected the story was this / if one decides to engage in a moral battle / to give up a bad habit, say / there is a danger of ending up in a worse condition than when one started / the bad habit may be defeated / but a wilderness has taken its place / and what eventually occupies that wilderness may be worse than the original bad habit ...

better, a cheerful sinner, than a grouchy puritan (maybe) ...

guidance

one of the most attractive things said by preachers is that God will guide you through your life / we face so many crucial decisions / career, location, relationships, etc / it's a comforting thought that an omniscient heavenly father is helping us to make the right decision at each crossroads / if it's true, that is ...

whenever you challenge them on specifics, they become defensive / of course, they say, you won't see a message written in the clouds / or a voice telling you what to do / you have to make the decision yourself / ask friends for advice / and you will make mistakes (well, they don't say that, but it's pretty obvious, if you have to make the decision yourself, with limited understanding, that you will make mistakes) ...

so / you get it wrong / did God intend that you would get it wrong / did he expect you to choose the wrong path / if you'd been listening, would you have made the right decision / but, we're going round in circles / I wanted to hear a voice, and you said / never mind ...

not helpful, at all ...

religion

the people who stand in pulpits, and preach, or sit at their desks and write bible notes are, generally, professional Christians / it makes sense for them to think of themselves as God's servants / their working environment is all about promoting faith / they can talk about following Jesus, because he went around preaching and teaching - so do they ...

but / if you work for a secular institution / your religion becomes something that you practise at weekends, or evenings, or perhaps lunch hours / in a church environment, you can talk about God being ever present, omniscient / because that assumption is never challenged / but if you're trying to fix an IT problem, and you don't know how to go about it, then you have to say something like: if Jesus were here, he would know what to do (to yourself, obviously, not out loud) / so, pretty obviously, if there isn't a clear way forward, Jesus isn't around (or he's not letting on) ...

presumably, even though Jesus lived 2000 years ago, he does understand modern IT ...

blame

it was your fault / it wisnae me ...

we all make mistakes / we are all inadequate, in some way(s) / (king) david's big mistake started when he saw bathsheba washing / I guess that, once uriah was dead, he thought that he'd got away with it / until nathan showed up / and made it clear that God wasn't happy ...

God chose david to be king (of israel) / before david, God chose saul / saul never recovered from his mistakes / there isn't a great deal of hope, to found reading this part of the bible ...

letting out the hurt

blogging (no doubt) has many purposes / one is to release, or to express / to describe (generally unhappy) emotions / in the hope that their power to hurt us may be reduced ...

there is an obvious danger / if what we write gets read by someone who may be offended / or the reader may simply not understand / it's like (real) life / often, we don't say what we feel / because we don't wish to offend / or be ridiculed / or expose a vulnerability / or, even, we do not wish to cause people to think less well of us / we think (probably correctly) that if people knew this about us / they would despise us ...

but if we always contain / remain tight lipped / turn the matter over and over internally / not daring to speak / we may pull through / we may manage to think it through / to reach a version of what we are thinking that can be safely expressed / the difference between: I do this (bad thing) sometimes; or: I used to do that (thing which I now, of course, regard as unspeakably awful) / what choice do we have / if we speak, we are criticised / if we remain silent, it hurts / but we think that, eventually, we shall find a way through ...