Firstly town is insanely busy and there seems to be a bizarre mix of Christmas and normality going on…back on the 7th November Queensgate (the shopping centre) launched their decorations and Santa’s Grotto (I can’t help but feel he should still be sleeping until December!) yet with all these decorations there’s no Christmas music playing so although town looks Christmassy it doesn’t feel christmassy (not that I want it to in November I’d just rather it was one way or the other!)…secondly because of all the Christmas stock finding anything in a shop seems to be an impossible task! In the three bigger shops I went into I had to ask where things were which in theory is easy however tracking down a shop assistant requires a lot of energy and wandering!

I think all this is a sign of getting older…there doesn’t seem to be any excitement in shopping in such a incredibly busy place…however I have a solution!

Wander into down during the daytime (before 4!) on a weekday and it’s quite empty, there’s space to breath…you can walk around the shop without tripping over 20 toddlers, 5 walking sticks and being rundown by an old (or just very fat) person in a mobility buggy thing and because there’s not a million people blocking your view you can actually find what you want!

I think I’m going to do all my Christmas shopping on a weekday…or online which of course is even more relaxed and has no risk of being tripped up or run over!

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in the midst of everything else that has happened lately, tom, travis, and i have all spoken together. first through a number of phone calls, and then a couple of weeks ago we all hung out for a few hours. they’ve all been great, very positive conversations. we’re just reconnecting as friends after four years of not talking. it’s a good thing. obviously the first question for a lot of people will be “does this mean a blink-182 reunion?” the answer is none of us know. we haven’t talked about it at all. right now it’s just good for the three of us to see one another, reconnect, and let the past be the past. the events of the past two months supersede everything that happened before. life is too short. 

It’s good to hear they’re talking again, I know it doesn’t mean a blink 182 reunion but who knows what the future holds, at the moment from the ashes of Blink 182 we have Angels and Airwaves (Tom) and Plus-44 (Mark & Travis) who are both really good…however there is still something missing from pop-punk world without blink (although apparantly Good Charlotte are aiming to fill the void - link)

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So in the last week I haven’t been silent, I have in fact been pondering my next post. I’ve been thinking about a few things this week which will make their way into blog posts soon but for now the thought of blogging seems to be in my mind.

A blog is a strange thing really…I suppose it’s almost an online diary although often less personal but at the same time can be personal thoughts structured in a form ready to enter the blogosphere and find out what the world feels about them…blogging isn’t about complete thoughts…quantity or even quality it’s just about thoughts…well I think so anyway!

So with that thought I leave you…soon to return for more thoughts!

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Saturday November 29h 2008 is Buy Nothing Day, It’s a day where you challenge yourself to switch off from shopping and tune into life.

The rules are simple, for 24 hours you will detox from consumerism and live without shopping. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!

Buy Nothing Day is the biggest 24-hour moratorium against consumerism. People around the world will make a pact to take a break from shopping as a personal experiment or public statement and the best thing is - IT’S FREE!!!

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Tonight was a fireworks/camp fire night…one of my favourite evenings on the youth group calendar…lots of fireworks and no causulties and apparantly young people don’t like soup…

I have a busy day tomorrow, I shall leave the house at 7:30 travel to derby for a day’s Child Protection/Advocate training then return and go straight to ‘The Point’, if I’m lucky I shall get home at 11pm!

I’m also speaking sunday evening at the Yaxley Youth Service which I’m looking forward to…it’s always nice to be asked to be a guest speaker…so it’s a busy weekend

You never know I might think of something interesting to blog!

In other news myself and Joel did some track mixing yesterday so there’s now a properly mixed version of ‘Escape This Town’ on my myspace page!

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So the last few days I’ve been a leader on The CROPS Trust’s Letton Hall houseparty with around 70 young people and it’s been a brilliant funny and challenging few days.

I had the opportunity to lead worship on the first night which I really enjoyed, it’s great to lead in different settings and it was nice to have a bit more freedom on songs, styles and repeats!

I was also asked to lead a seminar on ‘How to read, understand and apply the bible’ and in planning that I found myself challenged and hopefully the seminar provided some useful stuff for young people…at some point I shall try and post all my notes online!

One of my favourite bits of Letton was the ‘Half Hour Hold’…a half hour slot each day of silence…It was great having a chance just to listen to nothing, to be able to read the bible a bit more and just ponder various thought…I highly recommend silence!

Anyway usual blogging should resume from now on!

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Even though I’ve been on the underground numerous times now there’s still something mysterious and exciting about it.

There’s something about waiting on a station not knowing which way or when the next train will come.

There’s something about feeling the breeze begin to blow through the tunnel onto the station as the next train approaches.

There’s something about the mysterious front lights of the train as it hurtles down the tunnel towards the station.

I don’t know what it is but there’s something exciting about waiting on the underground station for the train to arrive…and that mystery hasn’t really faded in the last two years…although now I notice that sense of mystery less often.

The funny thing is that I started writing this post with the intention of simply writing about the underground mystery however perhaps as a result of getting used to Pastor’s making ‘God-links’ out of everyday activities I wonder if God is a bit like my underground experience.

I guess the bottom line with Christianity regardless of whether you became a Christian or grew up through Christianity and gradually made that decission to follow Christ is that our journey’s are much like my tube adventures.

When we first make that committment we experience excitement, a sense of joy and a sense of mystery in not going what will come our way next but as time goes on that excitement and mystery we experience in God seems to fade away…maybe we get used to the feeling of God there, or maybe we forget what the feeling of God is but often I think it’s simply that God becomes so central in our lives He becomes nothing but a part of us.

Occasionally we may suddenly have that realisation of God’s awesome presence much like I did today with the underground but in reality God can easily just drift into our everyday life.

The thing is I don’t think that’s explicitly wrong but I don’t think it’s right…I wonder if the stage of God just lurking there gives us that luke warm attitude talked about in revelation…the neither hot nor cold approach to Christianity.

I believe that God is much much more than a feeling we experience the same way which whether I feel excitement and mystery towards the underground train or not doesn’t change the fact that the underground is part of my life however I believe it’s important to be aware of the presence of God in the foreground of our lives…God shouldn’t be something pushed to the side but should be in the forefront of everything.

I’ve been reading David Crowder’s book ‘Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi’ and he talks about us living lives which live a habit of praise…a life where Jesus much like the clothes we wear are obvious to those around us and obvious to us.

So I guess my thought on the underground is that I’d love to experience that eager sense of mystery as the train approaches, as I feel the breeze and as I see the lights everytime I catch the underground however in reality I won’t but it’ll still be there and in that same way I won’t experience that excitement I found in God the first time that I really decided to follow Him…the first time I invited His Holy Spirit into my life but He will always be there and I will experience Him in all sorts of different ways…in all these ways I hope He will be in the foreground of my life.

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(Luckily our God isn’t like this!)

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It was a great evening and was really nice to hear a real drum kit in Park Road again!

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The Norwich Christian bookshop is due to re-open…here is a link with more information (it’s from a SPCK/SSG blog I contribute to)

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