The British Pilgrimage

Day 1

And so it begins......

A ten day Pilgrimage around Britain. Some good ideas behind it really - that it would help British people rediscover the best parts of our nation's heritage, be an inspiration/challenge to those that come and others they hang out with to follow God & make a difference, and a chance to take people (specifically young people) out of their natural environment to discover more of who they really are. Sometimes it's hard being at home whilst trying to figure that out - we tend to keep each other trapped in expectations, our own immovable world view and patterns of (often unhealthy) behaviour. Not a bad plan then. They say that a tourist passes through the land whilst a pilgrim lets the land pass through them.

Cliche it may be but the theory is sound. We either filter new experiences and growth through who we already are and just reinforce something that already exists, or let ourselves be impacted, affected and ultimately recreated by the journey we take. In this particular case: a journey with 11-ish others (a bizarrely biblical number quite by chance) around Britain visiting places and lives of Christian significance and takign part in local mission. And whilst the places we're visiting might not be the ones you'd necessarily expect you'll understand why cathedrals and exciting or famous places aren't on the list. We are, after all, more interested in places and people who have actually done something. Faith without action as the book of James tells us, is dead. In fact: it's worth than dead. It's a joke and a slap in the face of what God came to do for us and calls us to. Which is why we spend half of our time being involved with local mission.

You can, after all then, keep your Christian excitement and hype. People live in the day to day real world.

My real world currently feels like someone is setting off depth charges with little regard for the repurcussions. More immediately distressing is the fact that I appear to have forgotten my razor and toothbrush and at 11:14 on a Friday evening I'm very hungry. Whilst I may end up spiritually fed over the next 10 days my slightly dodgy stomach (endoscopy to follow pilgrimage) tells me that I may not be so well physically fed or relaxed. Not to mention the prospect of beginning to look like a wannabe member of a Bee Gees tribute band.

Today's best quote: "I've never had so much gaelic accordian" - narrowly followed by Andy Prosser's "proof that big isn't necessarily always better"

Health?! - I'd rather be driving...

Actually it turns out there is a pedometre on my phone which has been quite useful in measuring how healthy I am. Turns out: not very.

Neither the ninjas, the bank job nor the komodo dragons have materialised either but I live in hope.

Other than that I have decided not to go to South Africa (just in case anyone was wondering) and the Lord has started talking to me over the past couple of weeks abotu various things. That's been quite nice.

And then I wondered: maybe it's not that he's talking more, maybe it's that I'm listening more? And then I thought: but really, I haven't been listening more. So how does that work?! The message paraphrase of the bible notes the sermon on the mount as saying something like: you're blessed (put right) when you're at the end of your rope - because then there's more room for God to move. I suspect you could paraphrase it more in that the Lord might sometimes be saying: get out of the way and let me do it.

I occasionally have to look after or train young people to do things - it's always a slow and painful process. Often I want to just be like: get out of the way and let me do it. Normally I wouldn't - but sometimes it's the right thing to do. I suspect that God knows when it's the right thing to do. And after all - he is a little more skilled than I am.

All in all, having God's spirit within me saying: "get out of the way old life and let me do it" might turn out to be a good thing. After all. The world could use another does of the heavenly life.

The new health drive

And so it begins. A new attempt at getting fit and my life a little more balanced. Right now I'm not sure that I'm looking after myself so well - at least across the board with the whole body, soul, spirit thing anyway.

From now on I shall be keeping up to date with my health blog: trying to eat more healthily, exercise, get some mental/spiritual time in and attempt to balance my resources. By which I mostly currently mean money, but I'm sure will turn out to be more than mony in the long run. Mind you since right now the bank are cross with me for not having enough money to cover the bills that people tried to take out of my account it does seem that moolah is a fairly pertinent place to start though.

Task number one: obtain income.

Possible solutions: sell body parts on black market, form band and become high-grossing rock star, rob bank, trouble shoot fr extremely high powered business executives, secretly convince everyone who meets me to give me large sum of cash, patent some form of incredible gadetry, get job.

Possible obstacles: necessity for body parts, lack of musical talent or business know-how, lack of balaclava, guilt at stealing money from friends, slightly bizarre current job schedule.

Task number two: clear up nonsense surrounding current study.

Possible solutions: send horde of rampaging komodo dragons to HQ of training organisation, hire ninjas to kill all training executives, hire MI6 agents to convince training executives to give me my diploma right now, wait until July for third attempt at graduation, decide that having a piece of paper to say that I finished isn't really all that important.

Possible obstacles: dragons are notoriously hard to train (also: current lack of dragons), ninjas don't exist (and if they did you wouldn't know about them anyway so you couldn't get in touch with them - but the A-team might be possible), MI6 probaly has some kind of conscience about performing operations for personal gain - especially on commonwealth soil, paper is nice - especially since I worked my ass off to get it.

Task three: get fit

Possible solution: exercise, exchange bodies with someone who is already fit using futuristic consciousness transferral device, brew potion that magically alters genetic make-up of body to be inherently faster and stronger than the average black panther (think million dollar man or 5th element [but male]).

Possible obstacles: laziness, lack of suitably fit other body, no cauldren.

The quest continues....