My day began pretty well!
Breakfast in bed and the promise of pie later, all made by my daughter from base ingredients of course. Although I expect mum helped more than she was taking credit for.
I found out the weirdest thing today, I'd known since last year that I shared my birthday with two twin daughters of a church friend, as I did with my grandmother, but imagine my surprise when I learned from a friends Facebook post that his children, also twins shared the same birthday. I can't imagine there can be many of us who have friends with two sets of twins in their near circle, never mind two sets which both share your birthday. Pretty wacky! (Incidentally it is more common than you think though since Jane also shares her birthday with twins we know well).
I've planned this day for some time, working out logistics, agreeing and shopping for presents and then imagining what I'd do with the day. But something Jane had said earlier in the week made me rethink my plans. Today was Sunday and as such I resolved to rest. Sure thing my friends came round as planned, we watched TV and chatted, running through our plans for future weeks and catching up on the latest stories of injuries and progress (we all run a fair bit). But my aim was to approach it restfully.
I think in a life, probably more than it should, the values of capitalism and achievement consumes time and attention in a way that I think is different from that God intends. I'm a fan of audio books and love a breadth of reading. Right now I reading a book on being Free from Stress and Fear. The emphasis of the book is about daily being present doing what you are doing, rather than skipping forward to your future plans or leaping backwards to past recriminations.
Good advice that and this picture sums up where I was and what I was doing when this struck me, 4 miles from home on a cold January evening, being 'out for a run' the irony of being precisely at that point in the run when I stopped to change clothes and noticed this sign made me smile!
So 44 years old today and that is precisely four times the length of years from when this picture was taken. This is my old secondary school form class from 1980. This picture was significant in my week since it represents a remade connection with my cousin, albeit Facebook only.
He is third from the left on the middle row, myself three more along looking particularly cute with the large ears and jet black hair is me. I reconnected with most of this class through Facebook now and occasionally we reminisce about school and people thinking where they are now. For the record most of our lives see to have panned out as we would have guessed.
So while we are thinking about rest, mindfulness and blogs here is my plea to you all. My son Jake and I share a few bands which we both like but many more on which our preferences differ wildly. This song and the lyrics were particularly poignant on at least three levels for me. Imagine yourself saying to your son, your father to you and Gods instruction for life and blogging.
"Take that Rage
Put in on a Page
Put the Page on the Stage
Blow the roof off the Place"
And just for the record, I case you think God isn't into that and all we see in the world. Try Pink's view on for size it'll blow your mind!
"God is a DJ
Life is a Dance floor
Love is the Rhythm
You are the Music"
Then watch this!
Best wishes and blessings Peter.
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