Buy nothing Christmas

I see from my Advent Calendar that the Canadian Mennonites are credited with the initiative that put an alternative slant on the retail experience, and have started a Buy Nothing for Christmas experience. I am glad that this is now looking mainstream. It must be, as I heard a talk on Radio 4 this week about how the once wacky and goody goody Buy a Goat campaign has been seen for what it really is, a great idea.
In fact I see from the Oxfam Unwrapped catalogue you can now pay to train a teacher.That does appeal,thought it wont be half as good as my years in the Nunnery of the North, The College , Ripon, whose worthy motto was
Nisi Dominus frustra (O God are we frustrated), or Psalm 127,'Unless the Lord builds the City the labourers labour in vain".
The whole of our family has pledged not to give any gifts ,except to the under 5's. This is our 3rd year. We have all found that the relief is tangible. Spouse and I do not send cards to anyone we see around in our town. Spouse has refused to allow me to concoct a Round Robin. I am enjoying putting handwritten letters with cards to friends we rarely see, and have rediscovered the joy of it. I have time of course, since I have decided to withdraw from TV more often, especially as S has discovered ITV3 and has been known to watch the same episode of Poirot 3 times in as many weeks.
I have one small niggle . What will we do when the 5 small children in the family are no longer under 5?

Survivors

I loved the last series, in the 80's and have kept a stock of candles, dried peas, water purification tablets and matches ever since.
I have been following the excellent blog of Bishop Alan and love all the images and inserts, video clips and out of the box thinking . I have wondered how he manages to overcome all the copyright issues. So I have had (helped by our new Youth Leader)a go at downloading an image from a dedicated source, in this case the BBC website .This image is not mine, I have never seen Max Beesley in the flesh,so I thank you BBC and give you all the credit for allowing me to 'copy from location' as the dialogue box on my Mac says. You have however got it wrong. He is not handsome , he has funny eyes and no one on the BBC will ever be as gorgeous as Paul Daneman. I also well remember series from the BBC in the 1960s. Mr Darcy and Captain Wentworth, were played by PD I am sure. Or was it Alan Badel...

The irony in this whole learning curve is the way our new youth leader is having to lead someone from the wrong client group.

My Dreamweaver Evening course at the Yorkshire Coast College in the summer was done at great cost. The Carpark was a nightmare . I managed to get a perfect space every week by arriving so early the other students were probably watching Neighbours. The computers were a foreign country. All the very latest Macs. Did they not even realise that when most were learning div tags this student had still not even found her personal file . I struggled, and did ask for help after that, all the time. And then there was the written work I had to do. This was an evening class for goodness sake, not the Open University. What do I want with all the university credits I now have to my name? Why cant evening classes be the way they used to be ? So I can now do Dreamweaver. I have now my very own Mini Mac, sitting next to my laptop with Vista. I suppose you would say I was bilingual . I now prefer 'move to trash' to 'delete', the Mac is so logical, and friendly.Get to the point-all this effort , and the course was not technically needed at all . The blogsite , yes you heard that correctly of our parish is now up and running . It was not done with Frontpage or Dreamweaver but simply and easily on Blogger just as I have been doing in a simple way for several years.
A happy band , lead by the Topman in the whole of the ICT world aka the H... S....t has today handed over www.fileyparish.org.uk on an unsuspecting world. And the Youth Leader and a Maths teacher in the team have been helping me to update my blog skills. No carparking, no written work , not a young person but a grateful and happy one. I am not stockpiling night lights any more. I have things to do , places to go, hyperlinks to arrange, photos to take ,following to perfect, gadgets and widgets to use.......

Sam Foster

The web advent calendar on links below is worth a look.
Picture of Sam Foster for you.Just as I was thinking no one had heard of Fresh Expressions along comes Sam Foster. My friend Alison in Harrogate has lost her church building to Redundancy, and what a blessing that has become. We are watching as a Fresh Expression movement hits Scarborough Deanery, and wait expectantly for out of the box happenings here. I wonder which churches have such small congregations they are thinking its time to regroup some where else, and not bear the cost of upkeeping unattractive and expensive buildings. Or those tiny congregations lovingly a remnant in villages , just open and expectant for the Lord to take them to a new sort of Meeting where HE is in charge.

http://www.whywearewaiting.com/