Situation normalish

Hello. So ... soon ended up being 3 months later, oops! Sorry about that.

Rach and I moved into Hastings at the end of July and have spent some time getting used to our new home and surrounding area. It's been really nice so far. There's certainly a lot more going on around here in comparison to Swindon. It think it helps that there are some other towns fairly nearby too, such as Rye and Battle.

I started work about 3 weeks ago and settling in nicely into that. I don't think I could ever take working for granted, all I can say is I'm glad and blessed to find one after what was only a short while of searching, but felt like a lot longer!

While settling back into a work routine I've looked at where I can get spare time here and there. Making music can take a while, but I found some android apps such as the 1 bit version of pixitracker, that encourage me to use small breaks (such as in my lunchtime) as a way of working on music without encroaching on the day to day stuff of life. Here's an example.

I will

Update this page properly soon! I've had a bit of a busy one, what with preparing a move back down to East Sussex. Most recently we secured a place to live in Hastings. I'm still looking for work down there, but there seems to be a LOT of opportunities to follow up, so... that's what I'm doing! In the downtime be sure to read more proliferate blog writers and perhaps read a cool webcomic that include bears that look like potatoes such as http://nedroid.com .

Speccy

Made this over the weekend. It's the first time I've used the old ZX Spectrum music engine for music, and it sure is quicker to make things in, forcibly so, as you have limited options to fiddle about with. Its fun in a nostalgic way to use this system as it was my first exposure to videogames. My brother and I used to play the spectrum decades ago, waiting sometimes for 20-30 minutes just for a game to load from the tape cassette, even turning it round to side B if it hadn't finished loading by then! Half the games we had weren't all that much good, but we forgot which ones were, so I remember trying out all of them one by one and occasionally stumbling upon a great game. Dave enjoyed a Brian Clough Football Manager game, I seem to remember being happy when he decided to put me in his custom team once, only to find out to my dismay that the first game of the season gave me a career ending injury!

Hello trouble

I was struck by something that appeared on Richard Walker's blog today, about Thomas Nagel who has distanced himself from using scientific reason as a basis for understanding everything that the universe contains.

What strikes me most is what he said about his atheism;

“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

I have a lot of time for what he's saying here - I think he's being a lot more honest about the real intentions of his atheism than those that use the scientific route to solidify what is essentially an uneasy feeling towards the idea of a God. The idea that, if there were a God, that made the universe as it is, it would bring a lot of trouble to our heads. And potentially to our souls.

It would bring about questions, and worst of all, the kind of questions that may never get a satisfying answer.

-If this world is yours, why make it like This??
-Why are you not more visibly active?

There can also be more awkward questions based on looking inward rather than outward too, like

-Am I a dead man?
-What is your opinion of me?
-Are you a God of mercy, or of judgement?

Either way, one things for sure, and it's a point that Thomas Nagel and I and Jesus all share; if you catch sight of God and what he is about, there is trouble coming.

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me"

Upheaval is a painful process. Especially when it involves what we count as the basis of our lives. We may have built up our life to be supported by so many things, people, ideas, and to lose that in favour of a God we do not see in the flesh - well, it seems a fragile and vulnerable path to take. Not to mention the potential backlash from friends and family that may never see you in the same way again.

Clearly Thomas Nagel is not after upheaval or suffering, if he can help it. He doesn't want to believe in God, because of the repercussions, because of what it would then mean. I don't blame him at all, it's almost unaddressable.

However, I think that he may have underestimated that there is a problem with "avoiding the problem". If we do not even entertain the questions that arise if there was a God of the universe, or look intently into what others think of the outcome, then we could end up assuming for the rest of our lives that belief in God comes with its burdens, and that our beliefs or systems of thought without a God are burden-free.

"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light"

This is one of my favourite verses in the bible. It is Jesus talking honestly about what following God means. It means that we take on a burden, but it's not going to be like any burden we've ever known.

I think I like it a lot because it's so mysterious and can mean a lot all depending on how you view the word light. Does it mean his burden is not heavy, that we are exchanging our burden of a unrelenting life sick of self-sustaining, with a not-so-heavy burden of co-dependence, where it is easier and yet there is tension because we know that someone else has a say, someone that is remarkably different to us?

I think it could also mean that his burden is light, freedom from darkness - that we are exchanging our self made quandaries and circular patterns of thought and behaviour, with receiving something new that we never saw before. That our burden is the Gospel, to be able to see the good news of Jesus that truly satisfies our hearts, but brings us to our knees in humility, and for the people that don't know Jesus.


Overall, my belief is that it is healthy to consider ourselves as having a burden, and that, whatever it is, we should strongly consider whether it is the burden that we wish to have for the rest of our lives. What I get from what Jesus says, it seems that options are available.

As for me, I've chosen my burden and I do not regret that it is light.

"But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed."

Truce

Another one I finished up today. Sometimes it's hard to bring about peace and forgiveness, sometimes it will be costly. As Jesus took the first step to form a truce, breaking the silence through a deadly cost, I think of the steps I wish to take in my own life.

A short one

Something to get back into using the platform. Hysteria took a while so I took a break, but found the time recently for something small and fun.

Brain teasers

So the rules are -

1. Answer for one point (in the comments section at the end of this post) what comes next in the pattern.
2. You get an extra point if you can say what the pattern is.


Are you ready?

a) 1, 2, 4, 9, 7, 7, __ ?
b) 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 13, __ ?
c) 2, 4, 9, 16, 16, __ ?
d) 1, 5, 9, 15, __?
e) 5, 1, 2, 1, __ ?
f) a, a, b, c, e, h, __ ?
g)





h) 3, 1, 4, 1, 5, __ ?
i) 44344, 33233, 22122, 11011, __ ?
j) e, g, b, d, _ ?

There's 20 points up for grabs in total - if you end up getting 15 or more, I'll muster up some kind of a prize..