Decided I wanted a change of design on Living Wittily. A recent photo of me at a wedding reception replaces the previous relaxed-tourist-at-the-Eden-Project, pretending he's in the jungle. To forestall rude comments I am virtually teetotal (when asked during a recent health check how many units of alcohol I drank I estimated around 12 – a year! the safe limit is 21 a week!!) – so the smile is genuine pleasure in the company and the occasion!

By the way, I do sometimes look spectacularly bad in photos – I have several which if ever I begin to take myself too seriously I just might post. Possible titles include "The Wayward Pressure Hose"; "The College Hoodie"; "The Sweaty Cost of Fitness"; "The Ridiculous Hat"; "The Cardigan Clad Scholar". The clown in the above painting is not one of mine – or me.

Also making a few changes to links on the sidebar. I'm not all that interested in accumulating long lists of links however generally useful. There are those who do that really well and if you're looking for more comprehensive lists click on Jason Goroncy and Ben Myers – enough links there to span the widest interests.

Short "First Call" lists will replace the miscellaneous list of links to other Blogs, and will include Baptists, Biblical, Theology, and Poetry and Theology. Living Wittily will continue as a forum for exploring what it means to serve God wisely, creatively and obediently; to follow after Christ gratefully and faithfully; and to live in the power and grace of the Spirit. And to do so with a voice that looks humanely forth on human life in a world that is God loved, reconciled in Christ and still creatively touched by the Holy Spirit.

What I'm trying to do is still best understood by this early post, which explained (and still explains) the motto at the head of the Blog, and what I'm trying to be about.

I am now the possessor of one of those socially problematic garments, perceived as even sinisterly threatening by tabloids and other culturally alarmist groups. I've worn it in public a number of times. It's a College hoodie. Some of our students took the College logo, had it converted to a graphic for printing on textile, added the motto – Live – Love – Learn, and took orders. I ordered a hoodie. Black with a white logo, and the motto backgrounded in rust red.

I can now be seen wearing it in the two places where such a garment is both useful and non-alarmist for people nervous around sweatchirts with hoods. When I'm running round the park on the days it's a bit cool, I wear it – hoping maybe it even makes me look a bit cool. Early morning at my desk before the heating clicks on, it's an easy comfy top – and the hood makes me feel and look even more like a monk at prayer, given my now permanent minimalist hair style.

I'll maybe get Sheila to take a photo, and post it some day when nothing more interesting is happening in the world.

Mossy Oak Personal Size Giant Print Bible, NKJV

Camouflage, Bonded Leather

"Outdoor enthusiasts now have a Bible from Mossy Oak®!
The number one brand in camouflage brings their enthusiasm for the
outdoors together with the passion for God's Word. "It's not a passion.
It's an obsession." That's the way every Mossy Oak® fan feels about
their camouflage Bible. Enjoy all of God's creation while reading God's
Word!" (From the publisher's blurb!)

Is it just me, or is there something odd to the point of daft about wanting a camouflage Bible?

Who are we hiding it from?

And if it is camouflage what's with the big orange packaging?

More seriously, how come those who say they take the Bible seriously and are passionate about it, (note it's the New King James Version), trivialise by commercialising, and titillating the consumer taste-buds of any niche market with daft dollars to spend, and try to persuade us this is spiritual, OK, sensible. 

Is an ordinary straightforward pocket size Bible nae use outdoors?

Does this one have a built in compass? Is it waterproof? 

Doesn't the Giant Print make it a cumbersome addition to the haversack?

Published by Thomas Nelson, who also publish the Word Biblical Commentary – but, mercifully, not yet in a camouflage edition.

Just been out doing the messages. (Shopping to the uninitiated)

Someone's carrier back had burst and some groceries littered the road.

Car in front of me runs over a large tub of coleslaw.

Big audi coming the other way is now beautifully garnished on the driver's door!

Don't want to be lacking in Christian empathy, but glad it wasn't mine.

Two good friends have just been adopted by a Clumber spaniel. Kimi arrived over the weekend on a quality inspection visit and is well pleased, other than the usual hesitations of dogs who expect high standards of accomodation and cuisine. But she's decided to stay. However being a Clumber spaniel she is genetically programmed to assume a more superior status than her ordinary springer, cocker and king charles cousins (note the lower case in their breed names). She's also a bit fussy about who gets to stroke her, and highly selective in those she deigns to acknowledge with as much as a tail wag. Next time I visit I'm hoping to be noticed.

But when it comes to landing on your paws Kimi, it doesn't come better than landing in the living room of two dog loving folk like my friends. Just to ensure things go smoothly I prepped the new owners by presenting them with the well known dog manual, Feng Shui for Dogs! You know – bed beside radiator, food and water accessible and in dishes that don't skite across the shiny floor every time you eat from them. That kind of thing! Enjoy Kimi – if there's a promised land for Clumbers you've found it!

Nice paper eh?

Was used by a distant member of the family to wrap my niece's daughter's birthday present last week. (can't bring myself to say grand-niece).

But there was half of it left.

So it was used to wrap my birthday present as well.

Said present was a limited edition cartoon print of a laid back cat, whiskers in non twitching mode, relaxing and sleepy, – and with a matching birthday card with the clear instruction to go ponder and change my ways. Wonder if there's a night school where you can learn laid backness; would need to be a beginner's class.

Monday afternoon went out the front of the University on to the High Street. The local authority local heroes were busy with shovels hurling rock salt on the pavements off the back of a big yellow lorry – five of them for a pavement. Health and safety by the shovelsfull.

At which point I have a vision of fish and chips, shovels of salt, and a possible clue to the West of Scotland epidemic of heart problems and sodium induced high blood pressure!

Well Ian has. and Bob has. My lost reference has been found. It's on page 64 of Grain of Truth. And whether or not there is rejoicing in heaven, there's a fair amount of positive and affirmative mood change going on here!

Thanks Ian – won't slay the fatted calf but I owe you a coffee. And thanks for the pointer Bob and the subsequent reference details – not sure how to send a coffee transatlantic.

I lost it. I don't know where. I was sure I'd put it safe. But I've looked in all the obvious places and can't find it. The annoying thing is I'm usually so careful with such things. I can't even blame anyone else for taking it, losing it, breaking it, stealing it, hiding it. I was the last person to see it. The responsibility is entirely mine that I can't find it. So can any of you good and patient people who frequent this blog help me find it?

I've lost a reference. It comes from Hans Urs Von Balthasar, I think from his book Love Alone is Credible. I've re-ordered the book but need the reference, like, now!? – for an article at the proof stage.

Here's the quote I need to pin down – any Balthasarians out there who can help find this – if you could love would indeed be credible (which by the way is a more reassuring statement than the bland overstatement that love is incredible!).

"Only in Christ are all
things in communion. He is the point of convergence of all hearts and beings
and therefore the bridge and the shortest way from each to each."

By the way – the guy in the photo isnae me – cos I hivnae got a moustache. But I liked the idea of a magnifying glass on a headband with a wee searchlight as a research tool for those who mislay important references.

One of the fun poetry games going the rounds in some blogs is called The Fib. You can find out about them here, at the site of The London Word Festival.

In brief, the idea is to write a poem of 20 syllables in which the number of syllables in each line is the total of the two previous lines  – thus 1,1,2,3,5,8.

You can of course continue upwards so that the next line is 13, then 21 after which it gets too silly I think.

But  it can make for a good semantic workout. A bit like Haiku. Decided I'd like to try it.

Over a freezing weekend, watching the small garden birds attacking the seeds and nuts, and watching our 16 year old cat watching them longingly from the warmth of our living room window, the following two TIMS eventually got wrote!

Coal

tits,

hungry

in winter,

raid seed silos as

nature’s precision plunderers

 

Cat

Crouched

cat,

hunter

of bird-food,

now too old to pounce,

yet young in imagination.

Going to try graduating to the 1,1,2,3,5,8,13 structure next time.