Change of venue

I'm now blogging on Wordpress - at least for a while.  For a few weeks I've been running both, but that's not a sensible or viable long-term approach.  So from now on, you can find my ramblings at:

http://endlesslyrestless.wordpress.com/

I hope this doesn't cause inconvenience for those who pass this way from time to time.

On blogging

No single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important to my life than blogging. It has changed my life; it has changed my perspective; it has changed my intellectual outlook; it has changed my emotional outlook... and it’s free!

- Tom Peters

Having a break

There's a lot going on in my life at the moment - work, family, stuff - and anyone reading this will know that my posting has been erratic (quantity and quality) for several months now. Rather than limp along in this way, I'm going to take a few weeks away from blogging to re-focus, re-calibrate, and re-think.

Will I be back?

In the immortal words of Kenny Dalglish: "Maybe's aye; maybe's no!"

I will commit to one more entry (before the end of October) - to let you know the outcome of my ponderings.

Bloggers block

I've got so many ideas swirling around in my head just now, but somehow I can't settle down to write anything. I suspect that it'll fall into place in due course - if I can just let it happen.

In the meantime...

This seems to confirm that there can be a silver lining to a raincloud.

Synchronised Blogging Day: The Resurrection

Slipstream is having a synchronised blogging day on the topic of the Resurrection. I don’t recall playing on one of these days before, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Anyone who gives the Resurrection any thought at all is surely prompted to start asking questions. Depending on your starting point the questions will vary – but I’d hazard a guess that most of them will start with the word ‘why?’.

I fear that the church in this country tends to answer questions about ‘how’ – how did it happen; how can you be sure? Many Easter sermons will focus on the historical facts of the event. Now I think there is a place for that, but not in an Easter sermon. For me, the key issue isn’t the historical accuracy, but rather what does the Resurrection mean.

If the end of the Jesus story is the cross, then all we are left with is some radical ethical teaching and some miracles. But at the Resurrection – and beyond it – we are offered amazing hope. The hope that lets us dream and have visions that the imbalances in our lives and our world can be rectified and harmony can be restored. It’s the hope that through reconciliation with God we can be empowered to transform ourselves and our society.

I also think that in shifting the emphasis we can learn - from postmodernity - that questions are OK; that people can live with ambiguity and uncertainty. And if we can learn this, then we will be better placed to walk beside others on their spiritual journey, gently answering their questions, honestly acknowledging where we don’t know things; having a meaningful conversation rather than being dogmatic. In fact, as I write this I have the image of the risen Jesus walking to Emmaus. Too often, I fear, we drive people away by propounding absolute certainty, without leaving room for doubt and exploration. The disciples on the road to Emmaus came to the right conclusion after a time – maybe we could learn to let others complete their journeys, but with appropriate help from us.

Finally, the picture that I’ve posted is a sculpture by Lyn Constable Maxwell – thanks to Jim at Living Wittily from bringing it to my attention. Anyway, maybe to really understand the Resurrection fully we need to stand back and see the cross in perspective – and open our arms to others and our minds to the possibilities that hope can bring.

A conversation with myself?

Sometimes I wonder why I keep this blog. What purpose does it serve? Will I ever refer back to the entries? How will I retrieve the thoughts and notes etc that appear here? Will anyone else find value in it?

But maybe that's to look at it from a logical, process-driven perspective.

What if I free up my thinking and just enjoy using it? It might help me to keep thinking, observing and reflecting; joining up dots; simply noting and plotting some dots etc, etc.

Maybe I'll refer back to it; maybe I'll record some thoughts systematically; maybe I won't!

And I'd like to be more CREATIve here - express myself more. If it's for my use and pleasure then it doesn't have to be perfectly punctuated, or even written in sentences. Some entries might only make sense to me... but so what?

Inspired?

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.
- Leonard Bernstein

Inspiration seems to have deserted me lately - at least in relation to blogging. I seem to recall Lins posting something about Paul Simon saying that you should just keep writing, no matter how much rubbish you produced. I don't think that I'll adopt that approach, but maybe a few more entries wouldn't go amiss - even if they aren't works of genius!!

Low level blogging

I haven't been blogging (or commenting) much recently - lots of excuses, no reasons. I'm reminded of a quotation from Virginia Woolf:

"I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street."

So rather than lose all of my blogging friends, I thought I'd better step off the kerb again!

I've had lots of ideas for blog entries (even put them together in a file), but zero output. That's life at the moment.

This entry simply a re-entry to blog-land. I checked out Lucy's place and came across one of those cyber-quiz thingumyjigs. I could have answered most of the questions at least twice (Does that mean that I have a split personality? If so, how many ways has it split?...). Anyway, my output is below. Play if you like - but remember there are other sources of careers advice available!!

You Are the Philosopher

You love thinking things over and developing theories. Learning is very important to you, and you pursue knowledge relentlessly. You love to talk about the things you know, often in more detail than people would like to hear. And you know a lot! You're always taking on new subjects, interests, and hobbies. You are at your best when you are left alone to ponder your newest ideas and experiments. You tend to withdraw from environments that are loud, contentious, or passionate.

What Role Do You Play?

It's my first blogging anniversary...

... and 250th entry. The combination of milestones was achieved with my customary forward planning and attention to detail - i.e. none at all. I should have planned to write a literary gem describing the strange joy and complulsion of blogging. But I didn't.

So instead I'm just going to post this clever flyer that came through e-mail today. I hope the humour transcends parochialism.

As I can't get the image any bigger than this, I should explain that it's advertising "a three week guide to bluffing contemporary art" at the Baltic Centre in Gateshead.

Launching a new blog

After much vacillation, I’ve decided to launch a new, parallel blog. It’s called Thrupenny Thoughts and will contain various bits and pieces around the theme of developing daily discipline. I’ve been thinking about it for a while – partly as a means of committing piles of paper to electronic format and clearing up some of the accumulated mess in our house.

It’s also partly due to the coaching session that I was talking about yesterday – doing something that might make a difference to someone and also committing myself to a course of action that I’ve been toying with for some time.

I will still be posting the usual drivel and inanities here.

Van's blessing

Today is watercooler day over at Ethos (thanks to Camel Crossing for the link). I don't usually join in with these kind of things, and I didn't answer the question about music - but I thought that this fitted the general idea of Arts/Culture ... (I have commented before about my occasional difficulties with rules and conformity!)

As I was reading the Ethos post, I was listening to a Van Morrison concert recorded for Radio 2's music club - it's fantastic. I love the way that he takes familiar songs, gives them a new twist, and turns them into something even more magical - just listen to 'Have I told you lately' and you'll see what I mean.

It seemed to be something worth talking about at the watercooler.

At the start of the concert, Johnny Walker quotes Van Morrison:

"There's always tunes and words going on in my head. I don't know if it's a curse or it's a blessing."

Listen to the recording (I don't know how long it'll be there - so do it soon!) and make up your own mind.

Blogging dilemmas update

I'm grateful to That Hideous Man for his comments, which confirmed my own instinct. So I did have a conversation with one of the parties, and all is amicably sorted. A simple administrative oversight lay behind the problem, so the 'offending' blog entry has been removed - and maybe, I've got a new 'electronic friend' in the process.

Blogging dilemmas

Dilemma #1

I sat down with a cup of coffee to clear out my e-mail this morning. I thought I'd give it about 15 minutes, then go and do something else. Well, I deleted one e-mail at a glance, and moved on to read the next one. There was a phrase in this one that I particularly liked, but it was only referred to as 'someone once said ...' So I Googled the phrase to try to find the original source and context. This story continues under Dilemma #2 below.

The point here is that a 15 minute e-mail clear out has resulted in one deleted e-mail, and more than 20 minutes so far pursuing a tangential thought, ultimately resulting in this blog. So how do you stop the Internet in all its guises from consuming too much time?

Dilemma #2

This is the real thrust of this blog entry. Having Googled the phrase, I came up with only 2 results. One was from the document that I had been reading. The other was from a blog, which I then had a look at. Worringly, the entry relating to the phrase that I was hunting was exactly the same as the e-mail that I had received. I mean, word for word copying - but without any acknowledgement of the source. The blog author has a different name from the e-mail author. They were both published on the same day - yesterday.

So what to do? First of all let me say that one of my pet hates is plagiarism. I'm all for using other people's material, and quoting it verbatim - but acknowledge the source, or at least indicate that it's not your original material. Aye, I know there will have been times when I've fallen short of this standard - but not the the extent of a whole blog entry!

In the preface to his book 10, J John writes:


"There are lots of quotes in this book and where I can I have tried to give due credit to their authors. The eighth commandment applies to words as well as things... For the unconscious use - or abuse - of any such material, I ask forgiveness."

Should I enter into an e-mail dialogue with either party or both, or should I let it go?

There is a discipline involved in getting this kind of thing right, but surely it's not too onerous. Of course, beyond the lazy/careless excuse there are other explanations, but I'll leave that to the consciences of the individuals concerned.

I once came across a situation where a whole series of presentations had been pinched from the Internet and only changed where there were specific cultural references that wouldn't have worked. I ignored this at the time, as it didn't seem to be worth picking a fight over. I now regret that decision.

Thoughts would be appreciated.

Feel the vibe

This marks a half-century - my 50th blog entry. Not overly impressive, but worth noting in a minor sort of way.

Dolly Daydream (my teenage daughter) introduced me to Netvibes recently. What a cool thing! You can organise most (though not all) of the websites, blogs etc that you visit. You can get news updates and any other RSS type feeds from the Net. Maybe I'm the last person on the InterWeb to catch on to this (which wouldn't come as a surprise to Dolly D!). But if you haven't come across it yet - have a look.

Normal blogging service will resume shortly (when I have more than 5 minutes to spare!).

Mind clutter

I was thinking about the purpose of blogging over the weekend - or more accurately the addictive nature of it. Also, I realised that (for me) there's a tendency to get on a hobby horse and get a bit stuck. I guess that one side-effect of being passionate is the tendency to be obsessive about things. (Actually there's another blog in this - about intelligence and shadows.)

I came across a phrase that seemed to sum up my issues - 'mind clutter'. I like that, so I found myself wondering what the Scots version of this might be. 'Mind midden' came to mind, but I prefer 'psycho stoor' - you know, the stuff that gets in the way of your thinking.

So I think that I need to be more aware of what's happening in 'ma heid', and driving home tonight, I heard Tim Hughes (the worship leader guy) talking about a way that he keeps himself balanced. Once a week he reflects on these 5 areas:

- What's been the highlight(s) of the week?
- What have been the low points?
- What’s the key lessons that I've learned?
- Action point - to help you develop
- Warning - be aware of attitude, situation, balance of life etc.

I might try this out - and see what happens through this blog! Feel free to pass judgement and comment!

Out of Office

I came across this today - some of these are real belters:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6943223.stm

The out of office stuff amused me, and the phrase "mouse arrest" tickled my fancy.

But there are serious aspects as well.

In Sunday's Observer there was an article about the level of stress caused by e-mail. Apparently senior managers (not this one!) spend 4 hours per day managing e-mails.

We are in danger of becoming victims of our technological success. I remember Fred Macaulay on Radio Scotland saying that if e-mail and the telephone had been invented in reverse order, we would be raving about how great the phone was because yoiu can actually speak to people. Anyway, this sort of stuff has been written about loads of times before, so I'm not going to bang on about it.

I was intrigued by some of the stuff in the BBC article, about loss of inhibition and self-disclosure in e-mails, blogs etc. We seem to be wary (maybe it's a Scottish thing) about revealing our feelings and emotions - yet we are liberated by our keyboards.

I came across an Albert Schweitzer quotation:

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."

Maybe in our electronically connected, but socially isolated, world the inner fire can be rekindled by a virtual friend - or at least by electronic communication. Of course, it's a poor second best, but ... better than nothing.

The Bible as blog?

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few people engage in it.”
- Henry Ford

I was listening to a sermon while driving to work today (podcast from St Michael le Belfry’s in York). Anyway, the details don’t particularly matter, but it occurred to me that there are aspects of the Bible that have similar features to blogging.

For example:-
¨ There are every day stories of every day people – e.g. Ruth, Esther.
¨ There is poetry and philosophical musings – Psalms, Proverbs
¨ There are thought provoking developments of previously accepted norms and wisdom – the gospels, e.g. the Sermon on the Mount.

But what resonated most with me were the reflective aspects of Paul’s writings. In Romans chapter 6, he expounds the transformation that has come about through the work of Christ – “You have been set free from sin …" (verse 18). Yet in chapter 7, as he reflects on his – and our – ongoing sin, he concludes: “So then, I myself am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (verse 25b)

Maybe I’m wide of the mark on this, but any thoughts, comments or better examples would be welcomed.