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.

He's Always Around

OK, you have to give me credit for going a few posts without mentioning some kind of superhero? Maybe you won't, but I accept that I'm a geek and a nerd and still make a beeline for films based on comics I used to read when I was younger. Note, used to read!

Anyway, I didn't get to see Bryan Singer's Superman Returns at the cinema, and watched it this week after succumbing to the low price strategies currently being employed with great success by some high street shops to drag mugs like me inside their doors and convince them to part with their cash in exchange for DVDs.

It's a great film.

In terms of reflecting on the film though, I became aware of how few people actually seek out relationship with Superman. Sure, there's Lois Lane, but there are segments of the film showing Superman rescuing people all across the world. Yet they are only interested in him when he is saving them. Not before, not after. They want to know Superman is around for peace of mind in difficult times, but that's as far as it goes.

Now, this is reflection was influenced in light of the work I'd done on the magi post I wrote earlier in the week. I'm still amazed at how close Bethlehem and Jerusalem are, and I'd never noticed that before. I puzzled as to why the religious leaders didn't bother to go with the magi to find the baby. I figured it was because they were looking for a messiah to deliver them and a baby didn't fit that bill. Maybe they'd wait until he was a bit older and posed a real threat to the political status quo, but thought there was no point taking an interest in him until he actually proved his worth. And so they stayed at Herod's court. Maybe they liked they were inwardly thrilled at the idea that their hoped for messiah had arrived. But they would wait until he did something first.

Just to clear things up, I'm convinced Jesus is real and also healthily convinced that Superman is a fictional comic book character. But I'm convinced that this behaviour of only wanting a saviour in times of need is one that does pervade our culture. I know people who accept that Jesus existed, but want to treat him as some kind of divine rubber ring, stationed in an easy to reach place on the edge of the waters of their life, ready to come to their aid if they should get into difficulty.

But there is so much more to him than that.

Just imagine. If the citizens of Metropolis wanted to get to know Superman, outside of him saving their necks, they could find out all about where he came from, why and see their lives differently.

Just imagine if we took the same approach with Jesus. Not just at Christmas, but all the time-wanting to get to know him and not just to call out to him in times of difficulty. In seeking a relationship with him, everything changes. As Philip Yancey writes, no one who meets him ever stays the same.

Trying To Solve Algebra Equations By Chewing Bubblegum

I successfully managed to avoid sleeping properly last night. This was not a deliberate endurance challenge or some kind of well paid medical experiment. More of a consequence of allowing myself to get on the treadmill of worrying about things. Things which I knew I could do nothing about in the early hours of the morning, but somehow decided were still worth ruminating on for prolonged periods.

Jesus famously taught us not to worry about tomorrow. In fact, he followed up this statement by pointing out the reason for not worrying-that tomorrow has enough trouble of its own and there is therefore no need to add to the troubles each day brings.

After reading such statements, I wonder how it is that some sections of Christianity focus on the concept that following Jesus is some guarantee of an easy ride. He certainly never taught that, and that is not the road that was before him during his earthly ministry.

But I find it encouraging knowing that my Saviour understands the world in which I live. And whereas my worries may not dissolve overnight, I can take solace in the fact that one day, all will be restored with no more tears and no things to fret over.

In the meantime, I understand today why it's important not to worry. Because my lack of sleep yesterday due to worries can have a ruinous impact on my day today. And that could mean mistakes made, words misspoken and generally cause more things to worry about.

If only I'd reread that passage in Matthew 6:24-34 last night. Maybe I would have slept better.

The Generation Game

Recently at our church we had a generation sharing moment, and split the congregation into the traditional market research categories, you know, the ones that rudely awaken most people into realising that they aren't as young as they thought.

On this occasion, I got a shock in addition to the now obligatory reminder that I'm nearly 30.

I was the only member of the congregation to fit in the 21-30 category.

I cast my mind onto those not in attendance and worked out that even with the absent folk, literally only a handful of people in our church fit into this age category.

I don't really know the breakdown of the ages for others churches in Andover, but don't feel optimistic that any of them are hiding away hordes of people in their twenties.

Maybe it's just an Andover phenomenon. Perhaps bigger towns and cities find it easier to attract twentysomethings and keep them part of the church family.

But I've been alone with this thought for a couple of weeks, so thought I'd blog it in the hope that it stops bothering me.

In a way, I hope it doesn't though.

It reminds me that for all my concentration on working with young people and getting the message out to them, there's an even greater need to get the message out to my peers. It may be more difficult to appeal to them, as the lure of careers, mortgages, socialising, relationships and so on gradually impeaches on their time.

But it's necessary to take on the challenge of doing what is difficult.

Without that, there will be a missing generation in our church.

Why Heaven Isn't A Half Pipe

I've had the day off work today and have spent around three hours wondering around carrying out various tasks. And now my knee hurts.

Now, I'm not going to waste blog space by bemoaning the state of pavements or the potentially leg breaking movements required to avoid the marauding terror represented by twin pushchairs, overloaded with children and massive bags of Christmas shopping.

Instead, in a cheap attempt to provide my readership with a few laughs, I will explain how it came to be that I'm now wincing in pain after some relatively straightforward exercise.

In June 2005 I made my first venture into a skate park. Thankfully, this was not some kind of mid-twenties crisis-I was one of the adults accompanying some of the young people from my church and some of those who attend Fusion.

Looking back now, I realise that had I kept this clear divide, reminding myself that I was an adult with a job to go to and many bills to pay and that these were young people I served and who would heal a lot faster than me, things would probably be different today.

Throughout the course of the evening, I began to develop the foolish notion that this skateboarding lark couldn't be that difficult. After all, I go surfing and I'm not a great swimmer, so if I could conquer those issues and develop the necessary skills to surf, surely skatebaording and blading would be no different?

I managed to keep such ideas to myself for the majority of the evening, until the point in the evening was reached where the young people began to dare the leaders to tackle a variety of hazardous challenges.

Hannah was dared first, to go down the half pipe on her blades. To set this in context, the half pipe is about seven feet high of curved wood with a mattress of concrete at the bottom.

Hannah understandably had a variety of reservations about completing this challenge but the young people had already decided that they weren't going home without seeing one of their youth leaders make a public fool of themselves. Seeing as that comes particularly easily to me, and in light of self talk earlier declaring that "It can't be that hard", I stepped up.

Squeezing into a borrowed pair of blades that were two sizes too small for me, I approached the edge of the half pipe. Little did I know, doubts over my ability to do this were also at the edge of the half pipe. But I couldn't possibly back down now. That would make me look stupid.

Although, not as stupid as I would look a few seconds later.

With a deep breath, I stepped forward and began to roll down the half pipe.

And I fell.

To describe me as falling with style would have been a generous overstatement. An ungainly mess of wheels, flailing limbs and panic stricken expressions would be more accurate.

And now I was in the really dangerous place. It surely could not be that difficult to do. So, I hauled myself up back to the top of the half pipe for my second attempt.

Second attempt, same result.

The second attempt was when I began to feel the pain in my right knee and lower back, but the laughter had somehow knocked into my pride during the second fall.

So I tried a third time.

Dragging myself up the slope again, resembling the moment in Revenge of The Sith when Anakin Skywalker, minus arms and legs tries, to pull himself up a hill, I was certain I could complete the challenge this time.

No chance. As I crashed down this time, the laughter was tempered with a few sympathetic murmurs as the pathetic spectacle clattered into the ground again.

The protest from inside me meant that this was definitely my last attempt. As I got back to the top of the ramp and took the blades off, Hannah completed her descent of the half pipe on the first attempt.

In time, people who were there began to say encouraging things, like I had deliberately put myself in that position to relate to our young people. Maybe. But realistically, as soon as that first attempt had failed, it was stupid male pride that had driven me to throw myself down the ramp on two further occasions.

Stupid male pride that probably explains why my knee hurts today.

Magi

I didn't expect our arrival in Jerusalem to cause as much upheaval as it did. After all, we had journeyed with the expectation of finding the baby who was born to be king of the Jews. Herod and his people developed faces filled with anguish and panic.

Not that we hadn't suddenly become worried either. Thoughts flashed across my mind. Had the long journey all been in vain? Is it possible that we could have misread the stars?

We didn't get any answers to where the King had been born during that first audience with Herod. As we were ushered out of the throne room, we overheard instructions being made to assemble the chief priests and teachers of the law. I began to feel optimistic again. If we had made mistakes on the way, surely the religious leaders would have ideas as to where their promised king had been born. Maybe they could even guide us as to where he would be.

I can't explain how uneasy I felt on hearing that we had been summoned to a private meeting with Herod. It didn't take long to have heard rumours of Herod's cruelty around the court. I didn't particularly relish the prospect of being isolated in the presence of a man who had shown no qualms about ordering the execution of his wife, mother-in-law and his own eldest son. Although we were respectable people, I had no doubt that if he could murder members of his own family, he'd have no problem permanently removing us foreigners from his court and life itself.

However, it was Herod the politician we encountered behind closed doors. After asking for more explanation of how we had followed the star, he explained that the chief priests had outlined to him that Bethlehem was the place where the king would have been born. In the course of this discussion, we were involuntarily recruited by Herod to go to Bethlehem to confirm the birth of the king and report back to him. So he could come and worship him, he said. I felt uneasy.

Preparing to head for Bethlehem, you can't imagine how relieved and excited we were when the star that had set us off on this long journey in the first place appeared to be going ahead of us. We weren't just doing an errand for Herod, there was a sense that something altogether more important would be there at our journey's end.

Soon we arrived in Bethlehem. The star stopped over a house. Inside we found a couple and a child.

In hindsight, there should be something embarrassing about a group of grown men not just giving gifts, but falling to their knees and worshipping a child. But when we saw him, it didn't feel like there was an option not to fall down before the infant. Shame was chased away and our hitherto expensive gifts seemed insignificant.

He was just worthy of being worshipped.

That night, the peaceful sleep you would assume would follow after a long journey is completed failed to materialise. The most vivid dreams about the hideous consequences of letting Herod know where to find the king. One of us having this dream would be enough to put down to chance. But the morning brought the revelation that we had all had been shaken by the same vivid dream.

I looked over my shoulder a number of times as we started off on our alternative route home. Herod would no doubt find our decision not to return to his court with information tantamount to treason and would surely show us no mercy. More importantly, I didn't want our presence in the area to give away the location of the baby king, as the dream had convinced me that Herod had nothing but elimination planned for the child. The six miles between Bethlehem and Jerusalem was not nearly enough distance to be considered safe as far as I was concerned.

As soon as we had reached a safe distance away, thoughts turned from the threat posed by Herod to contemplation on the wondrous sight that we had found in Bethlehem.

How would his kingdom be brought about? Would he remember us?

Despite the great distance that lay between our location and home, and the distance in years that would have to go by before the baby king had grown up and could establish his kingdom, I had an unshakable feeling in my heart.

My eyes had seen the king.