One Man and His Blog

After work on Friday night, a small bunch of us went out for a few drinks. Most of the group were from the team that work at the other end of our office, who are all pretty good for a laugh or two. However, there are two guys in particular who have a tendency for friendly-but-heated arguments; and lo and behold, they only went and had one about Christianity in the middle of our drinking session.

More specifically, the argument went thusly: Colleague #1 made some reference to his being a Christian, and Colleague #2 countered that by asking on what grounds C#1 was a Christian. C#1’s reply? "Well, I was in the Boys’ Brigade when I was a kid, and I try to live a good life and, you know, think about God sometimes…"

Anyway, this went on for some time: C#2 questioned whether this was enough to qualify as a Christian, and C#1 said he was clearly more of a Christian than C#2 because C#2 is gay and therefore lives a lifestyle that God doesn’t approve of, and C#2 countered that firstly he was an atheist and therefore likely to be less of a Christian than C#1 anyway, and secondly that C#1 lives with his girlfriend and so is living a lifestyle that God doesn’t approve of just as much as C#2 is. But C#2’s most convincing argument was that, if C#1 actually believes that there is an amazing, powerful, mighty God who has made us all, then (in C#2’s words) "surely you should want to say ‘hello mate’ to Him from time to time, and actually acknowledge that He exists". Meanwhile, Colleague #3 and I (the only two people there who would be considered "Christians" by the mainstream definition of the word) listened intently, chortled a little, and struggled to get a word in edgeways.

This wouldn’t be so bad if, in C#1’s mind, living a good life and thinking of God occasionally was enough for him to go to heaven. But from what he was saying, C#1 doesn’t think that; it sounds like he knows he has to turn away from everything that doesn’t honour God, but he intends to leave that part of it until the last minute so that he can do whatever he wants and enjoy himself up until then (because everyone knows Christians aren’t allowed to ever have fun or enjoy themselves because God hates That Kind Of Thing, right?). C#1 reckons this will be enough to get him into heaven while C#2 will be burning in hell with all the other gay atheists and suchlike. As you can probably guess, I’m not so sure.

I don’t claim to get everything right, and I can’t take a speck of wood out of someone else’s eye if I have an entire tree in mine. But it just shocks me to think that so many people who would call themselves Christians, and genuinely honestly believe they are Christians, might not actually be Christians at all, and might not realise it until it’s too late.

On the train yesterday, I saw a poster advertising the city’s big Christmas pantomime for 2007, which this year will be Aladdin. And knowing his popularity with many folks around here, I thought I would mention the big star name in the cast is one John Barrowman. (Surely they should be doing Captain Jack and the Beanstalk instead…?)

Anyway, what I found interesting was that, along with John and the usual selection of people you’ve never heard of, the poster proudly proclaimed that the Daleks would also be appearing. How awesome is that?! I can see it now…

Daleks: "YOU! WILL! BE! EX-TER-MI-NA-TED!"
Barrowman: "Oh no we won’t!"
Daleks: "OH! YES! YOU! WILL!"
Barrowman: "Oh no we won’t!"
Daleks: "OH! YES! YOU! WILL!"
etc…

Right from an early age, I have never liked tomatoes. If I eat them, I feel like I’m going to vomit; therefore I try to avoid eating them wherever possible. That said, anything tomato flavoured but no longer really resembling tomatoes in taste or consistency anymore (ketchup, tomato soup, pizza base etc) is fine.

So today, I was in Tesco looking for some pasta sauce, and as I was looking at the label on a Dolmio jar to see how many servings it contained, I noticed something quite unexpected. Apparently, this pasta sauce can be counted as one of my five recommended portions of fruit and vegetables per day.

Now, that just sounded odd to me. OK, so the ingredients list claimed the contents were 78% tomatoes, but they weren’t really in any state where I would consider them to be tomatoes – after all, I was actually planning to eat them. Maybe this is one of those oddities where I’m thinking something’s bizarre and everyone else in the world doesn’t, but I just didn’t expect that.

However, it’s got me thinking now. I always used to say, somewhat tongue in cheek, that a packet of Opal Fruits/Starburst (delete as applicable on the basis of how old you were when you ate them) should qualify as five portions of fruit – strawberry, orange, blackcurrant, lemon and lime, unless they’ve changed the flavours since I last ate some. I was only joking, but now I’m starting to wonder.

Well, if it’s true, and there really are lots of things that count as portions of fruit and veg despite appearances to the contrary, it’s going to make it much easier for me to stay healthy. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m still a portion down for today, so I’m off for a Terry’s Chocolate Orange…

I had a text on my new phone this morning from my soon-to-be housemate asking if we could catch up about stuff sometime today. So I just rang her and, as is often the case, she didn’t answer so I left her a voicemail. All fine… until the end of the message, when this happened…

"…so give me a ring and we’ll sort it all out. Cheers mate!

(pause)

…Erm, I’ve got a new phone, and I haven’t quite worked out how to end the call yet…

(pause)

…No, not that button…

(pause)

…Not that one either…

(pause)"

After which, I finally tracked down the elusive call-ending button. I do love my new phone; I’ll just love it more when I’ve worked out how to actually use it.

If you happened along here overnight you may have spotted a meandering navel-gazing entry. Well, at 1 in the morning it kind of made sense, but in the cold light of a new morning it just looked a bit self-pitying. So I’ve taken it away. For those of you who missed it, you didn’t miss much.

Anyway, the second busy week at work has been busier than the first. I’ve also signed up to do something through a friend at church, and am only now realising it’s going to involve more commitment than I had thought. So I’m generally feeling a bit worn out; and that’s before I throw in the cause of the late night navel-gazing.

But it’s not all bad. I went to a party last night and rather enjoyed myself; I have a couple of days off in the next week or so; and my friend is likely to be moving into our place in about a week’s time. Plus there’s the scary-but-exciting stuff I was telling you about earlier in the week, which I’ll hopefully know more about later on today.

All of which leaves me somewhat confused. Things are great and rubbish all at the same time. My head’s all over the place. I know God doesn’t always make life easy, but I really wish He would.

God is doing something.

I’m still not entirely sure what it is, but it’s big and scary. But scary in a good, encouraging, uplifting way, not a nasty horrible way.

I’m a little bit excited and a big bit freaked out right now. But mostly just happy.

More news as it unfolds. Or as my brain processes it a bit better.

OK, I should be in the shower (or more likely just getting out of the shower) now and preparing to go to work. But instead, I’m feeling it’s been too long here, so I thought I’d give you a high speed update on what’s beeen going on in the last week. So here goes:

Work = busy but good. Hasn’t seemed as busy as last year, which is good news, as it means I’m less likely to spend two months off with stress this time around. Seemed to be picking up a bit yesterday though.

Church = fantastic. We had our first service in our new building on Sunday. The construction work etc has been going on for about three and a half years on and off, and although it’s still not completely finished, it looks darned impressive. We kicked off with a baptism service and ten people got dunked, including five of the youth group. A very happy day indeed.

Life in general = trucking along. Nothing major to report, other than I finally got a new mobile yesterday. Those of you with long memories may remember me whinging about how useless my phone was several months back. Well, I finally decided it was time to ditch the old one, especially since it didn’t want to recharge when the battery died, so yesterday I went and upgraded to a much thinner, nicer looking one. I’m still figuring out how it works, and I think I may need to get smaller fingers to work all the buttons properly, but generally I’m very happy with it. And indeed, with life in general at the moment.

So there you have it, the last week of my life in a nutshell (possibly with typos as I’ve done it in a hurry, but I’ve taken out all the ones I spotted). Now if you’ll excuse me, I really must go and have a shower, because I smell.

The annual busy period at work started last week, will continue through this week and next week.

Plus, between Monday and Friday of this week I have a total of one free evening.

So, don’t be surprised if I don’t pop up much in the next few days.

Just to briefly report, after church today I kind of invited myself round to my friends Sue and Dewi’s house. We had a lovely evening of chilling, chatting and Chinese takeaway. Just what I needed to ease me into the crazy week ahead.

Now, if only I’d found time to do all the important and useful stuff I should have done this weekend…