Way back at the start of 2012 I blogged my ambitions for the year. As I mentioned then, I don’t find the “New Year’s Resolutions” thing at all helpful, and much prefer to identify where I hope to be in 12 months times.
All of that said, I had more or less forgotten about this list since I wrote it! However, given that I can’t see much opportunity for covering off the ones I haven’t managed in the next 19 days, may as well assess how I did now!
Go climbing regularly – at least 10 times in 2012 – ✔
Sooo close – 9 times in all. I missed January, June, and August. but that’s still not bad in my books. I’m noticeably better, in terms of stamina and grade.
Last session I did 8 ascents (5, 5+, 5+, 6a, 6a, 6a+, 6a+, 6b), and ran out time before I ran out of puff. I’ve also now navigated three 6bs over the course of the year, which is three more than I’ve ever done before!
[Edit – Sneaky little climb on 29th December has bumped me up to ten!]
Finish my 365 project (in May) – and probably start year 2 – ✔
Yes indeed. Finished year one with 3 ‘cheats’. Am being much more relaxed about the rules in Year 2, and while my aim is to take a photo every day, I’m not too fussed when I assign a photo from a different day, as long as I took it recently.
It remains a proect I highly recommend to anyone, and while I’m devoting less time to it in year 2, it’s still higely enjoyable. I also created a photobook of my 365, which (I think) looks great.
Maintain my current weight – ？
More or less. It’s crept up a bit higher than I would ideally choose.
Deliver Growing Leaders course again. – ✔
Oh yes. Another fantastic group of people, who threw themselves into the material, and who have all grown as a result.
Go camping – ✘
Not so much. In fact, not at all.
Go walking – ？
I think I had intended a proper walk when I wrote this, which we haven’t done – but we go for toddles in the woods at least once a week, and the occasional trip to Fountains.
See my (non nuclear) family – ✔
Twice this year, although in less than entirely happy circumstances.
Cook an interesting dish – ✔
I’d forgotten all about this, so while I’m sure I have cooked some interesting things this year, I’m not sure what.
Two that I have got evidence for are the little Christmas Cakes I made as graduation gifts for my growing leaders class, and some mince-pie cakes I cooked for the work Christmas Competition.
Enter a photographic competition – ？
No, although I did have a couple of pictures printed in the local paper.
Complete the Practical Photography DSLR Skills course, if they run it this year – ✔
Oh yes – and with a certificate to prove it.
Get my Microsoft Certified Professional Developer – ✔
Yes – just in time for them to change the rules, so I more or less have to start again!!
Pray and read the bible every day – ？
Moving swiftly on..
Keep blogging semi-regularly – ✔
Ah, now this isn’t so bad. 31 entries on eutony.net, and one a month on katartismos.net since July.
I’ve also switched eutony.net over to WordPress this year, which I have to say I like a lot.
Follow God, be a great husband and a great Father – ？
Doing my best!!
So there you have it – 7 definite ticks, 6 maybes, and 1 definite fail.
No. 2 Son is at a delightful stage of life – learning new words every day, and eager to try out his enhanced vocabulary.
We did fireworks recently, and he watched from inside the house (our reasoning being that cold and loud were not good combinations). His assessment was along the lines of:
Bang bang bang. Do again. Do again. Up sky. Do again do again do again.
Up Sky being a rocket, of course! He also pretended his torch was a sparkler, twirling it round and round like his dad and brother outside.
This morning was another great example. He finished his toast, and wanted more toast. We offered a satsuma, and we got, by way of reply Oooh Yes PLEASE. Yum yum yum.
His final cute quirk is wanting to take books to bed. He can’t read them, or even see the pictures once the lights are off. But he’s apoplectic if we try and take them out of the bed!!
Just a quicky to note that twitter switched off the old school (original) API last night.
Where you used to use http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline you now have to use https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statusus/user_timeline
I’ve updated the Weatherbot page (and the weatherbot itself) to reflect this change. In case you’re not aware, the Weatherbot is a sort of tutorial into how to use OAuth and the Twitter API.
Unfortunately, this change also broke my tweetrate calculator, and my twitter timeline on the front page. They should be fixed now, but they still use v1 of the API which is due to be switched off at some point….
When I was a bit younger, there was a sort of craze in Christian circles for wearing rubber bracelets with the initials “WWJD” – or “What Would Jesus Do”. The idea was, I think, to provide a tangible challenge to yourself about your behaviour and decisions. When one found oneself in various situations, when question “What Would Jesus Do [in this situation]” would spring readily to your mind.
I think that some people took offence at the notion that we can either claim to know the mind of Jesus, or reduce him to a bangle. A sort of counter movement started, making it stand for “Why Would Jesus Die?”. This comes with the added benefit of bringing in an evangelism ‘opener’ (“What’s your bracelet”, “It stands for Why Would Jesus Die – let me tell you about it”). I confess I have difficulty with evangelism openers – my experiences of being on the receiving end “cold calling” or “intentional” evangelism have felt nothing but unpleasant and contrived (and this is as a Christian myself!!). Besides which, I think it’s far more meaningful and real for the conversation to run,
“What’s your bracelet?”
“It stands for ‘What Would Jesus Do'”
“Huh?”
“Yeah – I know. It’s because I believe in Jesus and try and live the way he wants he me – and each time I have a difficult decision I think to myself “if Jesus was here, what would he do?””
“But didn’t Jesus die, like, a thousand years ago?”
… and so on..
The criticism regarding knowing the mind of God is more serious in my mind. We can’t know what Jesus would do in a given situation. Principally because I don’t believe he responds to situations or events – he responds to people. To recognise a situation as a parallel of one portrayed in the gospels, and therefore go “aha – this is what Jesus would do” is at best misguided and legalistic, and at worst dangerous. That said, I believe that God judges and honours our hearts, and a starting place for young Christians, setting Jesus up as your role model is not a bad start. Come to that, he is, of course, all our role model, which is partly where “WWJD” came from in the first place.
Further evidence of the know-ability (or otherwise) of Jesus comes from the disciples themselves. After nearly 3 years of being with him all the time, they still didn’t know him, and he still surprised and confused them with his actions. Given we only have a few score pages of his life, and not even then a biography, how we can lay any claim to know what he would do?
The reason I think we can has a number of facets:
He was formed by the same scripture we have – i.e. what we call the Old Testament.
We are being transformed into his likeness (2 Cor 3:18).
We can have a relationship with him.
This last point is the clincher for me. I have been married for 12 years now, and I can fairly reliably predict how my wife will respond in certain situations. She often still surprises me, and she is a wonderful and interesting person, but I feel I know her pretty well. When she is away with the boys, I still run the house a certain way because she would want me to do it that way, rather than following my more natural inclinations (I’m thinking of things like drawing the curtains at night, doing the washing-up at least once a day – that kind of thing!!).
I think the same applies with Jesus. I have been walking with him and towards him for essentially all my life, to a greater or lesser degree. I made a conscious decision to be his when I was about 14, and became filled with the Holy Spirit when I was 20. Since the latter in particular I have been changing and drawing closer to God and – yes – got to know him a little bit. The question “What Would Jesus Do”, or alternatively “What Would Jesus want me to do” – which is largely the same question – is not too hard to answer. The difficulty is remembering to ask the question, and not just react and get drawn into the heat/minutiae of the situation.
Which brings up right back to the bracelets.. (see also my remember blog post from a couple of years ago).
After reading about in Practical Photography, and feeling like my 365s were becoming a little stale, I decided to a “colour week” challenge.
I’ve just finished the first one (red), next is white, then blue, and then I’ll think again. Anyway, these things are best presented en masse, so here is “red”:
I was worried I’d borked my Asus slider earlier this week.
I’ve got the excellent SwitchMe app, which allows me to have different profiles for the different people who use the tablet. For it to work properly, you also need to have rooted the device. This is working very well.
However, this week Asus released a Firmware update, which refuses to install. It downloads fine, reboots the device… and then says the update is available again.
So I thought, perhaps it’s because I’d rooted the device. So I temporarily unrooted using OTA RootKeeper. Bad idea – when it rebooted, I was completely locked out. The lock screen refused to go away. Fortunately I could get in via adb shell, and tried various things to turn off the lock screen, or get root back – no joy.
Just before I decided I’d have to do some sort of emergency recovery process, I discovered sfink’s page about how to get root back! What a hero.
The steps were:
adb shell
cd /system
./usr/we-need-root/su-backup
mount # to see device of /system
mount -w -o remount (device) /system
cp usr/we-need-root/su-backup xbin/su
mount -r -o remount (device) /system
I rebooted, SwitchMe was working properly again, and I was in.
Still haven’t got to the bottom of why the Firmware won’t install though…
I’ve created a new website/blog called katartismos.net that I have decided to ‘launch’ today. It’s from the greek word found in Ephesians 4.
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Ephesians 4:11-13
My heart is for equipping the saints. Or perfecting, or preparing, or training, or knitting – however you choose to translate katartismon.
It has this that has lead me to start that website. Somehow I (and hopefully others) can post resources, ideas, and encouragement for ways to engage with God and the Bible, and walk more closely with Him.
At present I have only one post up – All about Lectio Divino, or Holy Reading. I have a further 5 posts in the pipeline, and my plan is to try and put up one a month or so. The topics I have slated in are on journalling, experiential bible study, quiet times, the awareness examen, and life verses, although not necessarily in that order.
The key thing for me is that this is not theoretical or academic stuff. These are things I use in my own life, and have used with others, that are fruitful useful ways to keep on going and to move on with God. They are practical too – the point is you actually try them out for yourself! None of them are my invention or particularly new – I am merely the recipient and beneficiary, and want to pass them on.
There was quite a funny little exchange on Twitter a few weeks back, when Catherine Fox mentioned the Dean Martin song That’s Amore (you know – “when the moon hits your eye like a big-a pizza pie, that’s amore”). This launched a series of alternative lines, which I thought were worth collating. You may beg to differ!
Sorry they aren’t formatted properly – writing this on the WordPress Android app, and it’s too painful to try and do the tweet magic.
Chris Upton @Turkeyplucker When an eel bites your thigh and you think you might die, that’s a moray.
Jeremy Parsons @jdap When your fav’rite main course has a nice cheesy sauce, that’s a mornay
Catherine Fox @FictionFox When you’re prancing in France a traditional dance, that’s a bourree.
Catherine Fox @FictionFox When your MP is posh and he’s got loads of dosh, he’s a Toray.
Catherine Fox @FictionFox When your soft fruit is pulped so it’s easily gulped, that’s a puree.
Stephen M Day @therevsteve Dolly Suite or Cantique, Requiem magnifique, it’s a Fauré
Neil Bower @icycleboy When one tweet’s far too long & it’s all gone quite wrong, that’s a bore-hey?
Richard Bateman @richardgbateman When you hear English folk by a Macclesfield bloke, that’s Jim Moray.
