A good day for a little self-assessment. Here are some highlights from my journal over the last twelve months. Excuse some of the grammar. I don't worry quite so much in my journal. This is the first time I have ever shared anything from it:
May 27th 2010
I'm still comfortable as a liberal evangelical who contrives to seek after truth. I believe in grace and I believe the Bible provides us with all we need - but not literally.
August 3rd
And so it came to pass that in addition to a regular sore mouth and dodgy knee God allowed Satan to lay waste to plumbing systems, car roofs, domestic appliances, St's computer and, as the final straw, his back, which he tweaked placing an item carefully on a desk. So St spent his days reading, and writing long-hand, and altogether catching up with stuff.
August 10th
How lucky I am to have a job where my reflections on life and faith are part of what I do.
August 31st
...this dissonance between what I appear to be and actually am feels close to rupturing sometimes.
September 9th
There is absolutely no point in pushing and promoting the programmes if God is not in them. I wonder, this a new thought, how it would be if I announce to the church, or even the town, that I don't intend to do anything next year?
October 28th
St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. How long ago St Jude's, Mapperley now seems, although it was then that I started my journalling. The diary entries in 1987 seem, by comparison to now, to be childish scrawl. The faith was simple; the solution to problems obvious. In fact I was 32 so even more evidence there of my late development. Today I am a much more complex person in a world that cries out for simplicity.
November 4th
If I was God and planned to grow a church I wouldn't grow anyone I am leading. That's a great statement because if my church grows it would mean there was no god. I just don't think I'd trust me with it.
January 1st
I find it interesting that I now enter the last full decade of my working life.
January 17th
Pastoral care is all well and good but if you can ally it with generosity it has far more impact.
March 16th
How many ways don't I care about little details? Let me count the ways. No, let's not bother.
March 31st
We have just read Exodus 29 and the blood-soaked account of Aaron's family ordination. How do you get oil and blood out of embroidered cloths?
April 9th
I got a one month extension to my book deadline. ... Now I can concentrate on a silly season in the life of my church with a clear conscience.
2 comments:
Interesting insight into how your mind works!
How about publishing some more or are there superinjunctions out preventing that ? .... or is it just discretion?
[would we be shocked if we knew the rest?]
Nevertheless I would defend your right to privacy at all costs.....
Your comment from May 27th last year really resonates with me. I'm just not sure how far from the line that separates a liberal evangelical from an evangelical liberal I am, or whether it matters!
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