New Kid on the Blog

On the way home this evening, from my second meeting of the night and at the end of a full day, I stopped. It was a gorgeous evening, but as the clouds started to appear lightning flashed across the sky and grew more and more active and exciting over just a few minutes. I had to stop and just look - I sat there for half and hour waiting for each new burst to appear, for the sky to be lit up again. I thought I would try and write a poem - but settled for some prose instead... Silent Lightning It started orange, glimpses of sunset flung out of the sky landing left and right, each bolt giving the countryside around it a sudden burst of light. Skeletal fingers of fire chased each other through the clouds and then disappeared. Every now and then it looked as if the sky above the clouds was bursting in to flame. As the now invisible sun dipped further and darkness fell, the flames that lit the sky were swapped for photoflash bursts of eye-numbing light. Falling to earth, or filling the sky t...

After disconnecting from blogger last night i picked up a pen and my notebook and rediscovered the feeling of having to write. I had to make myself stop at three pages as all the words that i'd obviously been saving up flowed out. I wondered whether it was something to do with the act of using a pen, but then having said that I love to write on the computer. Perhaps it was just the resolve to actually get on with it and to work at it. It was the same today - I found myself with a few minutes to stop whilst visiting a local hospital - I sat down with a coffee and 'whoosh' out came the words. I've never felt that compulsion that other writers have talked about until today - that feelling that I must write, as though the words are trapped inside and they need to come out. The three pages was a doddle, took about 20 minutes. I think that creativity is something God-given, i also think that it is given to everyone and we can use it or not as we choose or have opportun...

I've been away on a holiday, and a very good one it was too. I spent some time with my family (I love being able to say that), ie wife and kids, and stayed with a great friend in York then we were very kindly loaned a house in Fairlie, West Scotland, on the Firth of Clyde. It was a time to rediscover an old friend and why he is such a great man, to have some very high quality time with the loves of my life (Jo, Katherine and Jack) and to rediscover a bit of the creative urge that got me into this writing business in the first place. Jem (the aforementioned great friend - blog link is on the right of this page) is doing something about creativity - a course or something. As part of this he disciplines himself to write three pages of text a day. This seemed like a good idea, so for the last part of the holiday I tried it for myself. It was amazing, the words poured out of me, my thoughts, my feelings, images in words, things which made me laugh, things which made me think. I couldn...

Online quizzes are fun. This was the latest from Quizfarm.com ( http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=44116 ) You scored as Friedrich Schleiermacher . You seek to make inner feeling and awareness of God the centre of your theology, which is the foundation of liberalism. Unfortunately, atheists are quick to accuse you of simply projecting humanity onto 'God' and liberalism never really recovers. Friedrich Schleiermacher 67% Anselm 60% Jürgen Moltmann 53% Karl Barth 53% John Calvin 47% Paul Tillich 40% Augustine 20% Charles Finney 20% Jonathan Edwards 13% Martin Luther 13% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com