Pilgrim's Progress

My Times are in Your Hands

HAPPY NEW YEAR! The bongs are just fading away ...

This image came out of my turn-of-the-year mullings ... peering into another year with its unknowns, looking back over a year I haven't really processed yet.

And yet, in the thick of it, without being "fluffy", there's a mysterious quiet confidence that my God is more than enough for me, even when life is too big, which it is right now, and that our lives really are held in his hands.

Whatever happens on your voyage in 2007, I pray you will be conscious of his hands holding it all together. Perhaps you can pray this for me too!

Have a Great Christmas

Season's Bleatings

Time for me to join the Christmas rantings in blogworld - I love reading Mark's annual rant about the cattle shed.

My rantings too are not about Christmas per se, but the kitsch traditions around it. I'm not a huge fan of Christmas carols simply because they are so often UNREAL in their portrayal of Christmas, and more to the point, of Christ himself. Some are blatantly hangovers of the values of bygone eras (e.g. the Victorians).

So I'm going to wade in with some of my own "season's bleatings" - here are my rewrites.

Away in a manger, no crib for a bed
The little Lord Jesus lay down his red head
Smeared with blood and mucus from the afterbirth
The little Lord Jesus lay down on the earth.

The cattle are absent, the baby awakes
It's time for a breast feed, what a racket he makes
The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay
The real live Lord Jesus, kicks around on the hay.

And my number one rant target, Once in Royal David's city, which in parts is little more than a plea by Victorian parents to subdue their naughty children. Well here's my version:

"Christian children all must be
Wild and fearless, just like He." (excuse the bad grammar)

A Christmas card Victoriana Jesus IS NO USE TO ANYONE. This glossy, slick, unreal Jesus is no saviour to the real people I meet day by day. I need a real Saviour who will climb in and get his hands dirty with MY dirt, and yours too.

Please give us back the REAL Jesus! Anyone else is no Saviour to anyone.

Rant over. I better head off to the carol service now. (Oh, I mustn't forget a dozen teatowels and a lobster outfit for the nativity play.)

Peoplewatching

A bit of fun - playing with some new 3D software (Poser) that allows very lifelike human characters to be created. I'm a people watcher at heart ... I'm endlessly fascinated by human beings and the ways they tick and the ways they relate ... and I'm having great fun bringing some of those observations to life!

What's your interpretation of the above scene? My interpretation is given away by the title, but I wonder what you see?

(P.S. Have had no broadband for 3 weeks hence the lack of postings last month)