You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2007.
How to find the real charitable you.
Intelligent Giving has a quiz going. They’ve had a deep look into my soul and have realised what others have so far missed… I am Angelina Jolie.
Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
Prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake which we used on the leadership day last week. Cheers to Mark Berry and the setting sail meditation.
Epitaph on my own Friend
An honest man here lies at rest,
As e’er God with his image blest;
The friend of man, the friend of truth,
The friend of age, and guide of youth:
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d;
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.
Robert Burns
A friend and colleague, Luke FitzHerbert, died three weeks ago and his wife, Kay, sustained serious injuries. A tragedy. Those who knew him were genuinely rocked by the news. The Robert Burns piece was included in one of the tributes paid to him and it made sense to post it tonight.
Luke was a one-off. He made a room better for being in it. He was charming, generous and challenging when you needed to be pushed a bit. We wrote books with him, trained with him and agitated with him in many conference centres, town halls and seminar rooms throughout the country and beyond, especially London, Liverpool and Hungary. He was good enough to believe in us when we started out and encouraged us to make things happen.
He believed in the power of individuals to change the world for the better. And that made all the difference.
Kay wrote after the accident: As Luke would want I am being as positive as I can and concentrating, not on my loss, but on my rare good fortune in sharing 43 exciting years with such a dazzling man.
1. Politics without principle
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Wealth without work
4. Knowledge without character
5. Commerce without morality
6. Science without humanity
7. Worship without sacrifice
Mahatma Ghandi
(Big cheer to the the Daily Telegraph for the title of this post.)
Perhaps swayed by thinking ‘we do because we can’, some sermoneers, including His Rowanness, are intending to post their preachy bits on YouTube. Not sure which of the current categories sermons fit under – people or comedy or entertainment? There are already about 2000 ‘sermons’ there, and there will be more, but the really good sermons are the ones that aren’t listed and styled as such, like this one. If you don’t get all hot eyed at this one you don’t have a pulse.
As a favour to a friend who has dial up and not broadband I promised to post this picture as he doubted my prophecy. I give you: Next Big Thing for Christmas – the Upside Down Christmas Tree.
The Upside Down Christmas Tree (arbre de parapluie for our French readers) is popular in the US as it saves space, decorations can be better displayed, it’s a conversation starter, and the killer application, you can get more presents and bigger gifts under your tree. Don’t know how we managed before.
There are 358 days of turbo-consumerism left to get a tree. I think there are pre-lit versions for the extra busy.
Here endeth the prophecy.
‘…cooking is either necessary, because you starve, or cooking is love, because you care’
Kitchen Congregation – Nora Seton
Getting Lay-ed 