dis·ci·ple

Trying to put together a discussion for homegroup on Tuesday.

The theme is discipleship. It's a word I hear a lot, so I decide to check the specific dictionary definition of the word.

Here's what I found:

dis-ci-ple (n)
a. One who embraces and assists in spreading the teachings of another.
b. An active adherent, as of a movement or philosophy.

Which has kind of stopped me in my tracks.

I can't talk about being a disciple.

I'm not a very good one.

Of Things Light And Aligning

You shine on us.

You align us.

Not sure where this little couplet has appeared from in my head over the last couple of days. Usually when something inspired appears to me from nowhere, it turns out that someone had mentioned it a while back and it has only just filtered through to the front of my brain.

I've Google searched it to see if it's a song lyric or a quote, but no-one is owning up to it.

But I'm using it as a prayer, wherever it has emerged from.

I don't just want to be someone who is aware of God's light shining. I want to get aligned to the source of that light, so I become more like Him. It must be the case that the more aligned with God's light I am, the more effective a light and pointer to the greatest light I might be able to be for those around me.

I can't be a light independent of the source, although I'm acutely and painfully aware that this is often the case.

Sometimes it feels that I always have to relearn the same lessons. I want to not just appreciate the light, but be aligned to it. In a meaningful way.

Travelling Into Daybreak

Having the time to look at the blog a bit today made me realise that the title 'Cleverly Disguised As A Responsible Adult' was a little outdated. It was a reference to when much of my time was spent doing lots of youth work and generally acting like some distant relative of The Boy That Never Grew Up.

But life is seasonal. I don't find myself doing as much youth work now. This season of my life is currently consists of spending lots of hours commuting to my office via train. I thought that in the interests of integrity, this should be reflected in the updated blog title for this current season of my life.

The travelling can prove ardouous, especially as the trains often prove unreliable in my quest to get from Bristol to Basingstoke and back each day.

But even the most mundane parts of life can expose us unwittingly to things which are deeply and prfoundly spiritual.

After walking to the station in the darkness, the train departs whilst the moon and stars are still in their ascendancy. The early part of my journey continues in this unbroken gloom, with my location remaining a mystery until the train reaches the outskirts of the next town where a stop is scheduled. Then, just as I get the bearings of where I am, the train departs and plunges me back into darkness, leaving me speculating once again about my position in the world.

But, without fail, at one unpredictable moment in the journey, the darkness begins to dissolve. The sun appears on the horizon, splintering the pitch black sky and breaking through to dabble the sky with pastel colours of orange and red. Although some areas are still in shadow, there is the assurance that the time of darkness is short, and soon the sun will fully rise.

This moment changes what happens to me on the train. I stir from being slumped next to the window of the train, which is what happens when the darkness reigns and I have nothing to focus my eyes on

And for the rest of the journey, I don't feel lost.

The light of the risen sun reveals to me where I am.

I can focus on where I am going on this new day.

It's A Race

It's often been said of me that my default setting is to be independent, and those people are probably right.

I'm not trying to be arrogant and say that I can do without any one's help, but most of the time I feel that there are so many things wrong with me as a person that if I didn't have independent tendencies, I'd be someone who caused a real inconvenience to the people around me.

That said, the 10k run that I completed in September taught me a few valuable lessons that I hope I learn from.

I hope that I understand the benefit of being part of a community who are running towards a goal together. To be part of a group with a common cause, and where just finishing the race was the goal. There was no prize for first place. It didn't matter how many other runners I passed, or how many others passed me.

Spiritually, I'm often guilty of treating the race of living life as a Christian as being a competition. That I need to be in first place, recognised and lauded for my performance. And as I'm rarely in first place, I look with envy of those who are doing well in their race. I wonder how much better off I will be as a follower of Jesus if I choose to adopt the same perspective that I managed to grasp during my sponsored run; that I'm running as part of a community. Not trying to emerge from that community as number one.

I hope I understand what it means to be cheered on by a great crowd. I approached the last 500m metres of the course with heavy legs and a burning sensation in my lungs. The community of runners had started to flag and those who had acted as pacemakers to me earlier in the race had fallen behind and I was a good distance away from the nearest other runners. I contemplated stopping running and slowing to a walk. I didn't want to do this-I had challenged myself at the start line to keep running the whole distance, and not resist the urge to slow to a walk. With the pacemakers gone, the temptation returned to the surface.

Until I rounded a corner and began to hear the noise of the supporters on the finish line. Clapping. Cheering. Urging the runners to continue.

Urging me to continue.

I managed to glimpse Rachel's face in the crowd. Clearly I was spurred on by this and determined not to falter and appear weak in her sight. But the others who didn't know me were still cheering, still clapping, still yelling encouragement to me to keep going. And I suddenly found myself not wanting to fail in their sight either.

The writer of the book of Hebrews talks to his readers of being surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and how the presence of these witnesses should act as a catalyst to get rid of everything that is trying to hinder the completion of the race and encourage them to persevere and keep their eyes on the goal. Maybe I understand this concept out of experience more than just theory now.

What I mean to say is a thank you to those who sponsored me and supported me on what was quite a crazy idea in the first place.

Thank you to all of you, seen and unseen, who invite me to be part of a community of followers of Jesus who are running the race of faith together, not in competition. And thanks to those, seen and unseen, who send love and encouragement my way to keep running, even when all my instincts are saying it would be easier to give up.

I hope I keep running.

A Brief History Of Time Away

It appears months, not days have now passed since my last blog. Rather than suddenly try to blog everything that has happened since my last post, I thought a summary of what has kept me away from this page would work better than a list of unfounded excuses as to why I have not kept this blog updated as much as I should have done.

Moves: 1
Have moved from Andover in Hampshire to the city of Bristol.

Life Changing Experiences: 1
Whilst on holiday in France, I asked Rachel to marry me. Thankfully for me, she said yes! We're arranging an April 2008 wedding, which will be requiring a lot of effort to organise.

Long Commutes: 70
I have been getting up at 4.30am each morning to do the two and a half hour each way commute to the office. The absence of a decent laptop battery has caused me to be unable to use the journey time for updating this blog, before you ask why that time has not been put to better use!

Books Read:
Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows- JK Rowling
The Year I Got Everything I Wanted- Cameron Conant
Atonement- Ian McEwan
The End of Poverty- Jeffrey Sachs
The Great Divorce- CS Lewis
Mere Christianity- CS Lewis
The Complete Polysyllabic Spree- Nick Hornby

Albums Purchased:
Remedy- David Crowder* Band
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace- Foo Fighters
Man On The Roof- Stephen Fretwell
The World Is Yours- Ian Brown
Once Upon A Time In The West- Hard-Fi

I’ve had some time off this past week, which has meant I have had a chance to relax and reflect on what has been an eventful few months. I thought it would be a good point to blog again, even if it is to point out the things that have happened, the books I have read and the music being listened too at the moment. They will undoubtedly have an influence on what I write and the person I am becoming.

Depending on how good my writing is during these next few months, you may or may not detect the influences of these factors at work in my life in what I enter on this site.

I just didn’t want you to think that I’d been wasting my time.

Recollection

Electrical storms enticed us.

Each flash of lightning encouraging us to take another step towards a higher point, to find the best vantage point that we could.

To experience what, we did not know.

Except that away from the haze of town, going higher took us closer to the source, to bear witness to a force of nature.

Away from the street light led pollution that diluted the impact of every flash that seared across the night sky.

Away from the noise of traffic and people, we could clearly appreciate the orchestra of thunder. Growing as it did from a low rumble into the kind of fearsome crescendo that sends animals for cover and children towards the comforting arms of their parents.

In this place there was just us.

Bono sings if the sky can crack there must be some way back, for love and only love.

I dared to respond to that philosophy as I witnessed the night sky splinter under the influence of another fork of lightning.

I reached out my hand in the hope that you would take mine.

I found that your hand was already extended towards me and willing to be held.

An act of love.

A demonstration of grace.

In that moment I could dare to believe that there could be a way back for me.

That the lost years would be restored.

I felt acutely assured that even though the power of the storms of the evening would subside, in the morning, sunshine would warm my heart again.

The Curse Of Stuff

I'm not sure if this post comes because I've just started reading 'The Irresistible Revolution' by Shane Claiborne and feel convicted about the number of possessions cluttering up my life.

Or whether I'm just weary after packing box after box in preparing to move out of my flat.

But I've aware that 'stuff' hasn't lasted. And 'stuff' has not fulfilled the promise that it seemed to have on first sight.

You know what I mean. The item of clothing that you just had to have. The cool item of furniture that would impress all your friends. That DVD. That CD. Those shoes.

At the time, you wonder how life could ever possibly be fulfilled and doubt that you could ever be happy again without those items.

And today, many of those same items are going into a bin bag to find their future entirely dependant on the tastes of customers in a charity shop at a given moment in time.

Turns out that I can live without them after all.

Just wish I'd realised that at the time.

Being Indifferent Makes No Difference

Philip Yancey wrote that 'the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference'.

Like most things that he writes, that quotation is both insightful and inspiring. And if understood properly, should make a lot of us feel uncomfortable too.

I don't need to explain to anyone reading this that our world is hurting and there are so many in such dire need of help. Of love.

And yet I find it so very easy to be indifferent. So very convenient.

To leave it to someone else.

To argue 'Yes, I'd like to but I have to go and...'

To look the other way, turn the music up on my iPod and pretend I didn't see.

To say I'm tired.

To find any number of hundreds of other excuses.

And I find myself constantly bemoaning the state of the world whilst remaining completely indifferent to it.

And this means I need to change and make some brutal changes in my life in order to change the things in this world that I don't like. Changes that mean more than just stopping in the street to sign a petition for Amnesty International or to buy a copy of the Big Issue. Changes that put the onus on me to roll my sleeves up, get involved, forget about myself and what I might want.

What am I talking about?

I'm talking about stepping away from indifference and choosing the opposite.

love.

I'll let you know how I get on.

A Shameless Plug

For those non Facebook-ers out there, thought I'd share the most interesting development in my life in the last few hours on here as well!

So, I've signed up to run a 10k 'race' and I'll be doing it to raise money for Cancer Research (I use the word race very, very loosely. Even if there is a prize for finishing first, I'll be nowhere near it!)

I've got a sponsorship page and everything, and if any of you lovely people want to throw some money at it in anticipation of me trying to complete 10k without laughing at the thought of it too much, i'd appreciate it!

The link is here:http://www.10ksponsorme.org/paulnoyce

Cheers!

What Happened To The Revolution

Things have been a little quiet around here of late.

To be honest, I have not felt like there was anything worth saying.

So, quite a lot of my time has been spent investing in two areas.

Firstly, I've been spending a lot of time on Facebook, trying desperately to define my worth as a human being by trying to rack up as many friends as possible. I'm on 19 at the moment, lame when compared with Rachel's 46 and even more pathetic when compared to my friend Sarah who is somewhere in the region of 260.

As the Christian subculture is a relatively small one, I've come across a couple of friends on Facebook who have amongst their number, some classmates of mine from London Bible College. I've not yet requested for them to be 'friends' with me. It seems hypocritical to call people my friends who might need to be filled in about the last four years of my story. And, to be honest, I still feel nervous around those who are quite clearly investing in making the world a better place. They seem to be living out the dreams and visions we talked of so often over late night hot chocolate and biscuits, whereas I seem to have given this up for feet planted firmly in the middle of the road, not doing anything of lasting impact for the world.

In addition to being sucked in by and feeling on occasion quite lousy because of what this Facebook tomfoolery exposes in me, I've been looking through a selection of half finished notebooks that represent my journals for the past few years. I rarely have the discipline to keep a record of thoughts (which probably explains the infrequent posts of late too), so each renewed effort has a new notebook.

Going back through these books for a few years, I see a clash between the naive idealism of my dreams and thoughts in the late 1990's, and the dark concepts and dreary outlook contained in the journals for 2003 and 2004.

So there's been some laughter at how some things have worked out, some red eyes and tears at the way they haven't and some wake up calls to things which used to burn brightly in me that I have allowed to dwindle dangerously close to extinction and now feel inspired to stoke up once more.

The connection here? It's that I need to take a chance more on community. Change will never take place on the pages of closed notebooks resigned to collect dust on bookshelves.

But it will come if I choose to model the thoughts and passions of my heart to those around me.

And in turn, their passions will influence me, and pretty soon we are connected to a movement and a cause that cannot die out because we are not flying alone but with others.

Lessons In Neighbour-ology

Don't worry about looking up the Oxford definition of neighbour-ology. It's a term that one of my lecturers used to describe the art of taking seriously the challenge of Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan.

It's also a term I had forgotten about until an experience last Monday night where I undertook an unscheduled refresher course.

I was outside the Southampton Guildhall waiting for the doors to open at the Arctic Monkeys gig I was attending. Being sat down made me a target for a guy who shuffled up to me and asked me if I knew was diabetes was.

Upon hearing my positive affirmation, that yes, I did indeed know what diabetes is, the man pulled out a needle box and began to explain that he had to get home as he had argued with his girlfriend and needed to get home to get the required medication. This was where I came in, as the man was requiring my loose change in order to get the bus home and safely get some medication on board.

I backwards bartered with him, providing the £3 required for the bus fare rather than the £1.50 he was prepared to compromise and ask me for. There followed what appeared to be a look of genuine disbelief that he had found someone prepared to help.

So, for about another ten minutes I felt relatively satisfied and mused on the possibility that this act of grace would somehow start this guy on a journey that would lead him to know the author of grace himself.

And then I saw him again.

This time he was talking to some other people in the queue. The needle box was not being employed this time but change was still being handed across by well meaning gig goers.

I looked at him, determined to engage eye contact and make him aware that I knew I had been lied to.

Eye contact was made, he pulled his hat down over his eyes and shuffled off in a different direction.

And that was when I took the refresher course in neighbour-ology.

Martin Luther King Jr once said of the good Samaritan story, two people walked past the injured man and asked 'what will happen to me if I help', whereas the good Samaritan asked 'what will happen to this man if I don't help'.

I'd got that bit right I think. That if I was being told the truth, there was no option but to help.

But my involvement is simply to extend grace to those who are in need. If they then choose to abuse that, I cannot complain. As pointing the finger quickly points three right back at me as a reminder of how often I abuse the grace of God that has been extended to me by not living in gratitude every moment because of that gift.

The temptation is to become cynical and to start to analyse people asking for help. I can start to judge who I deem worthy of help and minimise the risk of my generosity being abused.

Or I can learn from the concept of neighbour-ology as outlined by Jesus' parable. Everyone is my neighbour. It is not an option to chose who will be my neighbour.

Everyone is.

Everyone.

So, the chances are I'll give again to someone who comes up to me with a need and asks me for money to help them. And no doubt again I'll have further experiences where that help is then treated with disdain. But the alternative is that I live for myself only, refusing to see anyone as neighbours. And then I would develop a cold, cynical heart and would need to be pitied more than any street beggar.

Everyone is my neighbour. There's no option not to help those in need.

On a connected note, there are some links on this blog to organisations who are being great neighbours and living out daily the parable of the good samaritan. I urge you to check them out, maybe there's something you can do today to help them change some lives.

How Things Really Are

I'm convinced that the mirror in Rachel's bathroom hates me with a passion.

You see, when I am at my flat, I am used to the way I appear when I stand before it in the morning whilst I get ready for the day.

And yet when I am visiting Rachel in Bristol, as I am this weekend, I am constantly shocked by the way I look in a different mirror.

This other mirror has clearly not been in discussion with the mirror at my flat.

The mirror at Rachel's is more than happy to mercilessly expose the growing number of grey hairs emerging at the side of my head. It makes my skin look rubbish and my eyes even puffier and bag ridden than I had expected.

It's not always a pleasant experience to be shocked into seeing yourself as how you really look, especially when you have a perception of how you look to others. But it is necessary.

As well as the physical rude awakening yesterday, I had the same experience spiritually at the Good Friday service I went to.

I saw myself spiritually as I really am.

Ugly.

That no amount of hours invested in church related service can change that. Years of theological study cannot change that. Pretending to know and do the right thing cannot change that.

The only possible way that I have any hope of being changed from my spiritual ugliness is through what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

And I'll be forever grateful that He went through what He did.

For my sake.

And yours.

More Writing About Not Writing

I was engaging in what could loosely be described as 'research' yesterday and ended up on a random blog where I located the following sentence:

'I'd like to be a writer, but then I go weeks without writing anything. And I think that I like the idea of being a writer more than I like writing'.

I smiled as I read that.

Mainly because it seems like a sentence that could also apply to me. I wondered that despite the explosion of blogging and people being able to freely publish their own work over the internet and dream that they would be able to do this for a living, how many are actually serious about putting the effort in. Or how many, like me, can manage to work a full day and still be motivated to sit in front of a computer screen after they get home from sitting in front of a computer screen all day.

But, to give an update on the imaginary book that I got so excited about writing in a previous book. I came up with some chapter titles, and a theme for each. And then scrapped them because they were rubbish.

So I'm back to square one.

But then, as my friend Tim used to tell me, everytime you throw something you have made away, you get closer to what you really want to create, even if you don't feel like you are making any progress.

The Years Go By

I know it has been a long while since I last posted anything of any substance on this blog. A poor effort for a site that is supposed to keep people up to date with things I have been pondering on.

Further to my post about the power of words, I've been slightly worried about posting things for the sake of posting. As a result, I've ended up not posting anything.

But I wanted to share with you a bizarre experience that happened to me last week. I opened a book and out dropped a letter from my friend Louise dated 30th June 1997.

What struck me was how relevant much of the content was, and how relevant to me right now some of the content was. Now, I'm no stranger to the concept of letters written to a specific moment having relevance to me today. After all, much of the New Testament is made up of letters written to a certain group of people which because of their inspired status, are also able to have a relevance far beyond their original intended readership.

But you don't expect similar things to happen in letters from friends.

Case in point being the following sentence:

'Oh, by the way, keep your ears, eyes and heart open to God. Get ready to write.'

So, written ages before blogs were even invented, a throwaway, by the way type sentence written nearly ten years ago has been reminding me of two things.

Firstly, the writing comes as a second to the openness before God.

After the openness comes the readiness to write and then pass on the good that has come from having ears, eyes and heart open before God.

It seems that over the post month one, other or both of these elements have been missing.

Hopefully I've got the point Louise was trying to make to me ten years ago. I would hate to have to learn this lesson each decade.

Which should mean I'm start to change as I have my ears, eyes and heart more open to God.

And that should mean I start posting more often again.

What's Next...

My friend Vicky has recently started her own blog. She's a quality person and has a lot of good things to say, so am looking forward to seeing what kind of stuff she comes up with on her page.

As I was at a loose end this afternoon, I came up with the relatively geeky concept of seeing exactly how many clicks it would need on the 'next blog' icon at the top left hand of the blogger page before I got linked onto Vicky's blog.

It sounded like a fun game in theory, but after about ten minutes I was bored and had been to the blogs of many, many people. Blogs about business, about their children, their sporting prowess, their failures, some stuff in Chinese I didn't understand, some weird photos of cats in funny outfits and some commenting on the news stories of the week.

What I learnt was that there are lot of blogs out there that you could be reading.

But you are reading this one rather than looking at ones with weird photos on, and I just want to say thank you.

It's humbling to know there's a lot of competition for your attention out there, and to send out some thanks for spending a few minutes in my world.

I've just sent Vicky a text message to ask if she doesn't mind having her blog linked from this site. Until then, you'll have to keep using the next blog button.

But remember I cannot be held responsible for what you may find on your journey into the depths of the weird, wacky and wonderful world of weblogs.

Potential Breakthroughs And Film Recommendations

I went on a course last year through work where I was encouraged into taking steps to fulfilling the dreams that would make you feel alive. One of the things that I mentioned was the enjoyment I get from writing. The concept of me writing a book was mooted about with the facilitators of the course, so I purchased a blank notebook from Paperchase.

Apart from the NASA-like title of 'Project One' on the inside cover, the notebook has remained blank since November. But I think I've finally got an idea that I'm interested in enough to dedicate time and energy researching, as well as thinking about wanting more than a couple of people to read. It might end up a book, it might be an article. But I want to do it, and it's the motivational battle I've lost frequently since November.

So now I have the motivation, I just need some creative genius from somewhere to get it all together.

Speaking of creative genius, those of you stuck for something to do this weekend, go and see Hot Fuzz. It's great and I haven't laughed so much in a long time.

On Speaking, Listening And Being Angry

We're nearly a month down the line from my last post, so feel it appropriate that there should be an apology to my select readership about the delay in posting anything new.

I have been busy running around here, there and everywhere as usual, but have also been revisiting the topic for my BA dissertation in my Bible study over the last few days. My topic intended to look at the media and see whether it could relate to the New Testament book of James and the challenge to be wary of the power of our words. I'm not going to post any of that dissertation here, so don't worry. It was soundly panned, so no need to inflict it on a wider audience than has already been exposed to it.

But over past days I have been pondering again on the challenge in James 1:19 to be slow to speak, quick to listen and slow to become angry.

I don't just want to add more words to the internet just for the sake of being able to do so. Hence the slow to speak and slow to blog for the month of February.

The second part of the challenge is to be quick to listen. I've made it my business to listen a lot this month. I have heard a lot. Problems from colleagues. Disappointment towards me from other Christians. Friends who are over the moon. Friends who feel they are facing down into an abyss.

The point I've realised in amongst all the words I have heard is that all of them have have a profound impact on my month, and in some cases, my life as a whole.

Having realised afresh the power of the words of others, I've been more determined to be slow to speak and appreciate the power of my words on others.

For me, this stems from a paranoia that I have nothing of any benefit to say to those who look to me for words. My team, the young people I work with, my church, my family, my friends all look to me for words. Yet for all my worries that I've got no idea of the right thing to do or say, I never stop to say 'I don't know'. Which would be preferable to saying some words to fill a silence and actually then finding that those careless words have had an impact far beyond their original intention and made something worse.

It's a tough challenge. I spent a year living with these speech ethics in James running around my head for the disseration, and I still feel I've not got them sorted out, five years down the line.

I hope it doesn't take another five years to realise I should be faster to listen than I am to respond with words.

And I know what you are thinking. He's not addressed the third part of the challenge, about being slow to become angry.

I'll get round to that as soon as I have mused on it some more.

But don't push me on it. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

The Weapon Of Our Warfare

My friend Joe got married yesterday.

I had the privilege of being able to attend, it was a beautiful service. Having been to quite a few weddings in the previous twelve months, Joe and Jessica had organised a wedding service that would have managed to surprise even the most experienced wedding crasher.

The service took place in a church in central London that had been standing for over 300 years. Sure, things had been amended inside due to repairs required over the years, but there was a sense of history that hit you as you walked through the doors.

The music and singing was great, and there was something absolutely revolutionary that in central London on a Saturday afternoon, where most other people are out worshipping at the altars of high street shops, football grounds or entertainment, a bunch of people were chosing to focus on someone bigger than themselves.

It was also great to see some old friends at the service and to catch up.

I'd been to a wedding where the bride and groom had taken communion after the vows, but the whole congregation shared in the eucharist yesterday afternoon. It seems such an obvious and simple thing to do, but it put the focus for me back on the most outstanding act of love and sacrifice in history. Joe and Jessica have it sussed that their love is possible because of a bigger act of love on Jesus's behalf.

One of the stained glass windows of the church contained a picture of a shield with a number of symbols on it. I couldn't make them all out, so the full significance was probably lost on me. But I was struck by the sentence underneath it.

It read: The weapon of our warfare.

My first glance was to see it negatively, but as I watched and listened to Joe and Jessica make their commitment to each under under that slogan, I came to a renewed realisation.

The weapon we have is love.

And I wondered if I was more effective at loving people, what difference would that make to the battles and warfare I encounter on a daily basis. The answer that resounded in my head was a simple and obvious one. A lot.

And if all of us committed to wield love and grace rather than weapons of hate, it could change the world.

twentyeight

So, I've officially survived what the NME describe as 'the year of rock and roll death'. That is to say, such rock luminaries such as Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain all died aged 27.

Whereas I do have rock music preferences, I hardly epitomise the lifestyle of rock and roll excess, so perhaps it's not surprising that I'm still here as I embark on my 29th year.

The thing that bothers me about my birthday today is those named above had already established their legacy to music at the time of their death. However, I am not a rock icon but a mere mortal. I long to have some kind of lasting impact on the world with my life but quite a lot of the time am not even sure what direction I am headed in, let alone what my legacy to this world will be.

Have I become the kind of person I didn't want to become ten years ago? I worry that I've morphed into a man who is a slave to work and less and less capable of creating a lasting and beneficial effect on the lives of those around him.

Maybe I'm just in a melancholy mood because I'm getting older.

But maybe I'm onto something and need to take the chance to make a change before I get to a point where the opening for that change has long gone.

Court

I had to go to court this week.

Naturally, I didn't do my preparation beforehand and ended up getting hopelesly lost and muddled up on the streets of Salisbury. Not being used to going to court, I had made sure that I was relatively smartly dressed so that when I went into the court they didn't throw me out of the building. So I found myself a long way from where I should have been, rain driving into my eyes and wind threatening to blow me into the path of oncoming traffic, suited and booted and trying to stop total strangers to ask for directions.

I noticed than when you stop people in the street to ask for directions to the court, there is an immediate change in their body language. There is a flash of panic across their eyes and you can practically see the speech bubble above their head form and the following thoughts take shape.
'Why does he need to go to court? Is he a criminal? Why else would he be smartly dressed unless he was trying to avoid the consequences of some heinous crime?!'

Without wishing to encourage accusations of paranoia, it did appear that the handful of people I made contact with whilst on my adventure to find the court all reacted negatively towards me. If they had known the full story, that I was headed to court to make final arrangements for a divorce and not to be sentenced for a criminal act, would they have reacted differently? Maybe. But their reactions made me feel like a criminal and I didn't enjoy feeling like an outcast as I finally began to trudge in the right direction towards the court.

The experience has made me acutely aware of the judgements that I make of people based on snippets of information and not the full story. And even then, it's not my job to judge people.

Thinking of this on the train home, I found myself once again astounded at the concept that Jesus encountered some of the most undesirable people in the eyes of the society he was born into. He knew all about their stories, and yet looked beyond all those circumstances and refused to judge them. He didn't treat them like criminals, but as friends. And rather than offering them a short shrift to keep them away, he extended an offer of life.

Not a life defined by how badly you had done or what mistakes you had made up to that point.

But new life.

A new life with him.