Bob Warwicker's blog

A lovely day again, and it’s half term: so a little bit of a longer walk with waste, heavy boxes of books etc. to the car. But who could begrudge these families their fun in the sun on such a glorious day?

Today was unusually warm for February, and it reminded me of the February day 21 years ago when Janet and Hannah and I visited Yorkshire to talk about ministry in Sheffield. That day, we took some time off, wandering around the canal basin in summer clothes.

The moving continues. It is, as they say, an emotional roller coaster.

Still too busy to notice whether I’m missing the churches.

Huge progress yesterday – some rooms now have an echo. And thank you to everyone who has helped out. But I’m still not confident we can finish in time. A generation ago this would have been a much shorter job, with no need to separate materials, and no need to sort into bags for shredding the stuff which might contain personal information. It’s draining physically, brainwise and emotionally.

I’m doing this on a phone because the computer is disconnected ready to be moved. We’re still nowhere near done, as there are many more things to go to different places, a lot of them bulky or heavy. I’ve never before sent so much stuff to landfill as I have recently. We hadn’t avoided it, we just postponed it.

We’re still connected to the wired broadband at the moment, but won’t be in a few days. It’s amazing, though, just how much you can do with all this information / communication GPS infrastructure. But it’s a bit vulnerable, even the electricity supply.

It only needs a really big CME, or someone to let off an EMP, or just the cumulative effect of space crud circulating at many times the speed of a bullet, to make it all go a bit duff.

Our satellites who are in the heavens,
One god in plurality, 
Triangulating for us,
So we can know
Where we are going,
Where we are, to within a jump, 
We thank you for
Your benevolent oversight. 

We praise and thank you actual God
For the human ingenuity and enterprise
That gives us communications and locations. 
Protect us, we pray, 
When it looks like going wrong.
Protect us, we pray, 
When the oversight is not
Quite so benevolent.

Next Sunday’s readings are here.

When I read Jesus’ words in Luke’s gospel, I just don’t know what to say. Just read it. If it isn’t hurting, you’re not reading it properly. But there’s also a trainload of hope there.

God help us all
to love our enemies,
to respect those who hurt us,
at the same time as we try to challenge wrongdoing,
just like Jesus did.

It’s hard, especially when they are arrogant,
especially when they see no wrong
in what they do.

God give us grace
to keep on going,
to keep on loving,
to keep on forgiving,
to look forward
to the coming of your world.

Forgiveness is like
bread, a daily need: to give
and to be received.

…not sure that medium fits that message.

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Just been to the tip – now I know what the people of Huddersfield do on Sunday mornings.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. One of the good things about living here is that the Park is nearby. And lots of people came to enjoy the park, which is good. Mostly unaware of the 370, 371, 372, 373, 901, 537, 360, 501, 302 and 301 buses, they came by car and parked in Quarry Road, which makes things a little less convenient for us. There were times yesterday when a fire engine would have struggled to get through to the flats at the top of the street.

But the real offenders for antisocial parking are the students at Greenhead College. As the school year advances, more of them learn to drive, and they start ending up parked on our street. It only takes a few weeks to learn how to drive, but it takes a lifetime to learn how not to be a plonker. I’m sure I am not there yet.

I doubt whether all the miscreants are young men, but ISTR the insurance companies would tell you that men are generally worse drivers than women. There seems to be a particular kind of stupidity that afflicts people of my gender. Sometimes it’s destructive of others, sometimes not. There was a character in the film The Tall Guy who comes to nurse Emma Thompson for treatment after his dalliance with a vacuum cleaner. The story of this hoover abuser is not untypical of real men. Who hasn’t experienced penile dementia?

So what am I saying… if people have lost their wisdom it’s probably not hysteria (caused by the womb) – it’s far more likely to be the opposite.

Note on language – what I’m trying to talk about is that thing which is the opposite of wisdom – not the opposite of intelligence, or the opposite of mental good health. You can have learning difficulties and still be wise. You can have mental ill health and still be wise. I’ve heard it said that people with depression have a more realistic assessment of themselves and their situation than people without depression. If that is the case, then maybe if more people in politics were afflicted by the ‘black dog’, we might not now be pursuing a unicorn-based Brexit policy. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, though.

God save us
from being too puffed up
with self-importance.
God save us
from thinking that we are the bees knees.
God show us the truth
of our infirmities, our foolishness.
And speak to us gently and tell us
that we are forgiven,
and it’s alright now.

I’m still finding stuff from the past – I’d almost forgotten what my mother’s handwriting looked like.

Mustn’t be distracted, though.

It’s a lovely morning, but Job 2:10 sounds like wisdom… “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”. What sounds less like wisdom to my ears is association of being a woman with foolishness. Still, it’s not very easy to be wise when you’re under stress as Job was. There’s lots of voices in the Job story (including the voice of God) – and it can be tricky knowing what its messages are.

One of the difficult things about sorting out is that things we would use (if we had time and energy and the space to store them) probably aren’t in a good enough condition for someone else to use.

When I started this, I disabled comments because I didn’t want loads of spam. Now I’ve changed my mind, and I’ll test the water and see how much stuff comes in to be moderated. However, having disabled the comments, I can’t see how to re-enable them! I’ll make another attempt when moving doesn’t seem quite so hectic.

We had a bit of a setback yesterday for family reasons, but we’re still going today, and I hope for a productive day bagging up more stuff for the shredder.

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

…These words of encouragement from Paul can now be heard more as words of confusion by some. What did he mean by ‘resurrection of the dead’?

We think about this near our own deaths, or after the deaths of friends – and it can’t always be understood. And yet we derive comfort from believing that we live again in some way. It is mystery.

Some more bits of furniture gone now, many to go. Piece by piece we are saying goodbye to life here. Good to have dinner yesterday with Janet’s father and friends. I tried to do some physics and find a way to transport a dish of hot roasting potatoes half a km. Many thanks to all involved. I still like physics, though I’ve forgotten a lot.

I’m going to miss the places, the people.

Janet’s been working like a lion: thank you Janet! We still have a lot of papers to sort before the shredder’s van comes on Friday. I think we may have more than we said originally. I’ll weigh them on the bathroom scales to clear up any ambiguity about how much a ‘bag’ is.

We use furniture and clothes to the point of destruction – there is much of our stuff that is too knackered to be any use to anyone else. And there was a time when I thought the same might be true of us – but no.

For the readings…

God give us grace
to hear,
and understand,
and do…
even when it is hard.

Blessing for the poor,
trouble for the rich –
it’s hard to take for those of us
who fear we may be more on the rich side
than the poor side.

Give us faith, we pray,
to find new blessings
in community,
in love,
in shared pain and joy,
in Christ.