Neil's wandering blog ... back from China and into debt

Breezy November days

2010-11-18T21:15:00.006Z

Wednesday and Thursday are somewhat wet but very windy. On Wednesday I find a route through forestry tracks to Tobermory, where I am nearly blown off my bike and take one picture to prove I’ve been there. You can see the boats in the harbour are bucking in the swell.

Thursday, I head out to Caliach point, then on to Calgary bay where I have the beach (not surprisingly) to myself ...

...and also enjoy the Calgary Art in Nature woodlands until I begin to get cold despite my seven layers of clothing.

Yes you’ve guessed it I was the only person there too, the problem with which is definitely no cup of coffee.

Mull

2010-11-16T20:33:00.004Z

A wet crossing from Oban to Craignure and I am (not surprisingly) the only bike on the ferry. No fighting for outside seats, which have been carefully designed to collect puddles of rainwater.

Ten miles in the rain up to Salen, and then just enough brightness in the west to tempt me the long way round the west coast to Dervaig, a 37 mile day “with some steep bits”.

About half way, my bike objects to my breaking the “never change parts within 14 days prior to a trip” and the new rear tyre pops out of the wheel rim. After a bit of experimenting – switching the front and back tyres/tubes keeps the problem at the rear so it is a tyre-wheel combination issue – I continue with relatively low tyre pressure and make it to Dervaig

North of Ulva, something big passes over without the roar of a RAF jet. Unmistakable wings and white flash in the tail, first one and then two sea eagles circle over Loch Tuath before heading inland. Very impressive, although I would have liked to see them fishing.

It is getting dark when I get to the bunkhouse, attached to a new village hall built with Millennium funding. As a new build, it is not a character-filled log-fire sort of place but functional, and (not surprisingly) I have it to myself.

And it is 200m from the oldest inn on the island, which is serving Avalanche, a rather nice highland beer from Fyne Ales

A late summer holiday

2010-11-15T20:26:00.000Z

Gilshochill, Summerston. Way-places that give you ideas and feelings because of where you are going whenever you see the names.

Garelocheadhead, Ardlui. Feeling-of-getting-there-places that you might even settle for getting off at.

Crianlarich. “The front two coaches are for Oban, the two rear coaches for Fort William and Mallaig.” Turning left here is new territory as I have never been beyond Cruachan to Oban.

At Tyndrum, the ground is still white with a hard frost, in contrast with the Meadows in Edinburgh where the sun had cleared the grass by 10:30. Loch Awe wears a necklace of ice around its edges and it begins to look very grey.

Taynuilt, and the rain comes on. Again on this trip, I look convincingly old and am not asked for proof of age for my Club55 ticket.

Oban. Another passing-through place best known for its ferries to nicer places. But because everyone has said it is a bit of a dump I am pleasantly surprised, and the fish (local I assume) and chips are excellent.

I pass through.

Disconnects

2010-11-14T20:07:00.001Z

As my first mobile phone, vintage 2002, ages, there is an inevitability that its replacement will be able to do more than this one does. It might even access the internet, which would be both good and bad.

By the way, this in not a Christmas present hint to my daughters!

I’ve tried the idea of a weekly e-sabbath, not connecting to the internet for one day each week, but I either forget or feel the need to keep going with clearing my inbox. I remember telling Pastor Job in Uganda, whose day off was a Monday, to turn his new mobile phone off on Mondays, his wife loved the suggestion but Job himself couldn’t bring himself to do it as he is supposed to be available. Needless to say I found him working the next Monday.

So instead I plan to disconnect for a 6 day slot each quarter during 2011. It doesn’t mean actually going away, but that will obviously help to add value. The first one starts tomorrow, and I am off to Dervaig on Mull. I will be taking three good books and my Sangstream song words to learn.

Bealach

2010-11-13T02:33:00.004Z

After that course for the advisers last Monday, I had a strong sense that I was in a place of bealach. That’s the gaelic word for a hill pass, not a long narrow one, that’s a lairig, more of an up and over the ridge.

The last couple of weeks has been heavy going, rather like the last slog up to the ridge. A bealach is a good place to be, partly because you get to eat your sandwiches. But also because the way then goes down, and because you get a new set of views.

One quote I noticed in a financial advice mailing this week was by J.P.Morgan “When you expect things to happen, strangely enough they do happen.” And I suppose that because I decided in 1995 to leave BP, I began to cause that to happen.

But to go to the very last page of the Hobbit, a book I may well quote from time to time in these posts, Bilbo had a visit from Balin and Gandalf some years after he returned from his adventure to his burrow. On hearing what had been happening,

‘Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true after a fashion!’ said Bilbo.

‘Of course’, said Gandalf. And why should not they prove true? Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies because you hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?’

However, so far I am on the bealach in cloud (a not unusual state of affairs!), and am looking forward to the view appearing.

The Elders at the Gate

2010-11-12T02:02:00.003Z

Back on 30 July, Colin H raised the idea of having a 10 year or even 20 year plan. I gave up on the 20 year idea, but as in 10 years I will be 66 it seems like a good idea to plan that far ahead. This could be dangerous because the last time I had one of these plans was in 1995, when it involved leaving BP by 2005. In the end, I managed that goal in under 5 years and as a result ended up in Karamoja, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and China.

This time I wrote down some comments about what I would not be doing, classic retirement stuff, before I think getting to the crux of it.

“Meanwhile, build up my skills for an elder at the gate role. And specifically skills in listening to God and speaking prophetically into other people’s lives.”

This can be interpreted at an individual level, as my role individually amongst the elders in a Middle East town in Old Testament times. But it can also be interpreted at a community level, I’m probably taking that idea from Michael Frost, who wants to see the local church taking its missional place amongst the community of elders at the gate. Would the community miss us if we closed or moved away?

Image – The Elders at the Gate – James Tissot (1836-1902)

I feel the Money Clinic did that last Monday when we put on a personal budget course for advisers, attended by half a dozen Citizens Advice, Housing Association and council advisers. So far, I would say that the only source of budget coaching in Edinburgh is two churches - CCE and Abbeyhill – but it was a big step up to teach the skills to advisers to augment their own debt advice skills.

Stepping out of routines

2010-11-11T00:35:00.011Z

Since I have a sense that blogs are now rather last year, and quite a few active bloggers have given up or faded, it must be about time as a convinced contrarian to restart mine after a 19 month gap. In fact, I even had a problem locating it after all this time.

I suppose the point which concerns me is that instant publishing of stuff without any filtering or processing is good in one sense, but deadening in another. As a result, our processing of the present can become quite superficial. I think blogging forces me to think and to write about the present in a more considered way, "living life with eyes wide open" in much the same way that carrying a camera around makes me look more carefully at my surroundings.

Earlier in October I said that I would plan to do at least one thing quite out of character every week for the rest of 2010. I wasn’t thinking about anything quite as extreme as this suggestion list from a sibling:

· turn up at a station without any pre planning.

· Start watching EastEnders.

· Say "who cares" when someone gets some facts wrong.

· Be extrovert at a party.

· Buy some smart new clothes.

Let’s settle to begin with for extending my routine world rather than turning me into someone else altogether … but still radically breaking the Duguid clan taboos (a concept which outsiders won't understand at all).

So far we have

· 5 and 19 Oct I went to two lunchtime plays in the Traverse theatre “ A Play a Pie and a Pint series”. Might be routine for you, but thanks to Gill for poking me on this one. Still hoping to get my dad to the Birnam Institute where I am assured nothing at all ever happens.

· 18 and 25 Oct, went out for a coffee at the Metropole on a Monday morning by myself with a Guardian weekly, also an illegal activity. You are allowed possibly to meet up with a third party for coffee. You can also buy a coffee on a train. If neither of these exemptions apply, sensible people have their coffee at home.

· 23 Oct, built on this by having an even nicer coffee at Vane Farm while watching the birds on Loch Leven. Oh, and there is a really nice 8 mile cycle track round the loch to Kinross. Not only does your lunch taste better outside, but perhaps the poem you sat on works better outside too?

There are a number of these benches along the Loch Leven Heritage Way which offer an insight into the work of Michael Bruce, a famous 18th century Scots poet who was born in nearby Kinesswood

Candle on the table in the evening. Thanks to Jill for this former Christmas present, but aren't candles just for decoration? Are you allowed to burn them?

· 28 Oct was in Tescos in Nicholson Street, remember that’s where I had my heart attack 22 months ago. Checked my till receipt (OK, not to do this would be a step too far) and noticed that the cereal bars had come up as 76p instead of 72p. And I didn’t bother pulling them up, even although they would double the mistake to 8p.

Next week’s contradiction will be to go to Mull, an island I haven’t been to before, with a Munro and a Corbett I haven’t climbed, and be quite happy cycling around the other half of the island. Giving me an excuse course to go back later (but that would be to rationalise it).

And perhaps even restarting this blog after 19 months counts as another change of routine?

Setting my targets

2009-04-11T22:36:00.007+01:00

OK, so I've put my head above the parapet by asking:

"... for all of us, if we are going to make changes in our energy, we need targets. What are yours?"

I've been poking my church too, with its £9,000 annual bill but with no temperature monitoring in place. We have plenty of radiator thermostats, but a lot of user fingergepoken and no clear temperature indication. How much does that bill justify on upgraded monitoring and control?

My flat's electricity consumption was 2,475kWh/year over four years (2003-07), but measuring it over the last four weeks, it's down 33% to 1,650kWh/year. However, that's with just me in residence. A mixture of low energy lightbulbs, not leaving things on standby, not overfilling the kettle and so on. But you could also say that, by not having a lodger the usage per person has actually gone up!

This is actually a big issue. The percentage of one person households in Scotland has been rising steadily ...

1981 22%
1991 29%
2001 33%
2006 34%

[Source : General Register Office report - Estimates of households and dwellings in Scotland, 2007 - Table 9]

Looking to the future, according to the latest Household Projections for Scotland issued by the General Register Office for Scotland, the government thinks this will continue to rise:

Between 2004 and 2024, the number of households consisting of just one adult will increase from 770,000 to over a million – making up over 40 per cent of all households in Scotland. The total number of households is projected to increase by 13 per cent to 2.5 million - an average of 14,800 additional households per year.

Meanwhile, my gas consumption has gone down year by year, which perhaps reflects different tenants ...
* 2003-05 Natasha 13,749kWh/year
* 2005-07 Jacqueline and Liana 13,067kWh/year
* 2007-09 Jacqueline and Sarah ... and Neil 11,988kWh/year

But that's still only a 13% decrease. Where do I start with a target? Firstly, get a lodger so I can divide my household usage by two! Beyond that, should I replace the boiler with a more efficient one even although there will not be a commercially attractive payback? How much energy does the new boiler cost to make?

But initially the key step is monitoring - knowing where it goes - so as to pick up the easy steps first. For example, there is a lot of rubbish talked about devices using energy while on standby. Some do - others use nothing. I plan to use my power meter to see just where the electricity is going, and to upgrade some of my building insulation (although there is a limit as to what you can do with my 1903 building.

I've also suggested that my church considers a 10% year-on-year reduction. Would we be prepared to commit ourselves as a holistic community to three steps:

reducing the CCE energy usage (kWh/year - ) by 10% over the previous year (2008 = base year), each year for the next ten years. Thus by 2018 it will be 35% of 2008 level. Perhaps we could omit electricity from renewable sources under certain circumstances.
a target of 70 CCE households signing up to reduce their domestic energy usage by 10% over the previous year, with the option to sign up for transport too.
provide signposts to sources of support for those who sign up, including organising basic seminars and services on auditing your usage and preparing an action plan.

Disconnecting usage from payment

2009-04-10T21:27:00.002+01:00

In my Money Clinic work, I would like to even out people's payments over the months, so the idea of paying a regular amount each month for gas and electricity seems a good idea. Especially since you get the lowest rate for regular monthly direct debits. But there's a problem. It places a disconnect between usage and payment.

We also suggest a greater use of cash so that you feel the value of what you are spending, but this regular monthly payment for energy breaks the link. It's as though Tescos would offer me a monthly direct debit of my recent average expenditure and then let me put everything on the tab each time I go round. That's not an idea I would welcome - I would rather be on PAYG.

What I find is three problems.

You have overpaid into the "Bank of Scottish Gas" without realising it. One client started paying four times as much because of a duff meter reading, and was amazed to realise that the increase in regular payments from £20 a month to £80 a month was not a price increase but a mistake ... and that he could get several hundred pounds back.
Or you are underpaying each month because of estimated readings, and then get a big shock when the utility company finally takes a reading and sends you a bill which tips you into debt. One client, a guy from a lovely warm country, had moved to Edinburgh, rented a flat, paid four quarterly bills based on estimated readings, and then finally received a bill for a four figure sum. The companies are getting more flak for taking too much by direct debit, but I would far rather they erred on the side of keeping your account in credit than giving you a nasty shock later.
There is a lot more in the financial press about saving by switching supplier than being in control and saving by reducing your consumption. Surprise, surprise. Because the financial press is making money out of the roundabout of movers. One supplier has been giving £70 cashback to switchers recently! Ultimately, we all pay this money out of our bills, so those who stay with one supplier lose out.

We need to help people on a tight budget to find a way of keeping track of their energy usage, in a way that is tied to payments. For some people, phoning in a reading whenever they get an estimated reading and getting the bill reissued is the best way. For others, the best way is the good old prepayment meter.

But, ultimately, one big newsline is missing - learning to look at how, both as a society and as individuals, we actually use less. And for all of us, if we are going to make changes in our energy consumption, we need to set targets. What are yours?

Anither bit fixed

2009-04-05T17:00:00.005+01:00

OK, this x-ray isn't my shoulder, it's from the internet.

I had a good visit to the orthopaedic outpatients department on Wednesday, where I had a series of X-rays which confirmed my rotator cuff tendonitis. This is where the tendon which runs between the ball and the overhanging shoulder blade gets trapped in the small space between the two bones. Because it has been around a while, there are clear calcium deposits in the inflamed area.

So I had a corticosteroid injection, to give it a chance to heal up, and by today it is certainly feeling much better. I have to go back in two months. If repeated injections are not enough, the next step is to do some engineering repairs and plane a bit off the underside of the shoulderblade to make a bit more room for the tendon. That sounds sore ...

Community: the new distraction?

2009-03-29T15:28:00.007+01:00

I've been at a short conference for church leaders, where Wes Sutton of the Church.co.uk Network was speaking. A lot of it was about engaging with the community - which, of course, is a trendy thing to talk about. Asking questions like "Is God more at work in the community than in the church?" If so, is it because he is seeking that which is lost? Or because he is more welcome there? That suggestion would be based on the observation that while we are an increasing secular society, we are also a deeply spiritual one.

One of the favoured approaches to evangelism in this environment is the creation of community that not only looks after its own but also cares for the needs of those around. This is mission which is about calling people to become followers of Jesus; it's not (or not just) about getting their souls to heaven.

So we major on community. We try and fail ... and so seek distractions from the fact that our reality doesn't work. What struck me was when Wes asked if community was the new distraction. Has it become the fixit which will make us feel good?

Alan Hirsch writes about something else which he calls communitas in his book "The Forgotten Ways". He defines it as "that unique experience of togetherness that really happens only among a group of people inspired by the vision of a better world [and who are] actually attempting to do something about it." (p278) While the energies of a community are primarily directed inward, the energies of a group of people on a common journey are primarily directed outward and forward - "me for the community and the community for the world." (p236)

Hirsch writes more about liminality and communitas in his blog here.

In the book, he explores the middle class culture - and its preoccupation with not only safety and security but also comfort and convenience. We move from the missional idea of "me for the community and the community for the world" to the more consumerist "the community for me."

(Illustration from The Ongoing adventures of ASBO Jesus)

Hirsch's response was close to Wes's message to us today - what is the opposite of faith? Certainty. Because if you have certainty, it doesn't need faith. Peter would not have been exercising faith in getting out of the boat to try out the walking on water bit if he had been certain that it would work! So to exercise faith we need to move away from certainty.

Hirsch proposes that we need a conscious "move towards the edge of chaos ... away from stability and equilibrium towards a condition of open-ness and creativity." (p232) We need to be more prepared to accept risk, because "risk is the price we pay for genune adventure, and ... without adventure, civilisation is in full decline. The same is equally true of the church. And once again, it is largely because we have structured community in isolation from any real engagement with the world. We are missing a communitas element because we are missing the missional component that takes us out of our safety zones into risky engagement with the world." (p231)

Meanwhile, back to Wes who summed up by asking three questions:

What is it we are doing which relates to our vision of a better world?
What is it we are doing for the community?
What is it that the community is doing for the world?

The Age of Stupid

2009-03-24T12:35:00.004Z

Went to see the new climate change film at the weekend.

The Age of Stupid is a drama-documentary which stars Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055, watching archive footage from 2008 and asking: why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance? The world premiere was on 15 March in a solar-powered cinema tent in Leicester Square.

I felt that it was aimed more at turning those who are already open to change into activists ahead of the December summit in Copenhagen, rather than convincing the sceptics who want to continue as before, regardless of the consequences.

Ken Livingstone has said: "Every single person in the country should be forcibly made to watch this film." Nice idea, Ken. How do we manage that one?

Perhaps I'll let you off the whole film if you watch the trailer. Or perhaps you could then arrange to go to a screening with your friends.

As the website says,

"The number of bums on seats in these first few crucial days determines whether the film is picked up by more cinemas in week two.... or dumped in the bin. Which then determines the size of the DVD and TV deals which follow. And, just to ratchet up the pressure event more, the success or failure of the UK release then determines whether international distributors decide to release in their countries... which then determines whether the Not Stupid campaign does or doesn't get global momentum and does or doesn't influence the politicians who will be deciding all our fates at Copenhagen... so no pressure then."

Watch it. Then you can decide whether to give Ken's approach a chance.

Geek runner

2009-03-23T23:05:00.005Z

I passed my tests back at the hospital last Thursday. So they don't want to see me again, and have cleared me to go and do whatever I want. I suppose that includes running up and down hills in Kashmir checking out springs, should I be so minded.

So yesterday I headed out on my 4.5 mile run, but with the benefit of a rev counter on the dashboard. My Polar heart rate monitor sends a signal to what looks like a wrist watch, shows me my heart rate, and records the average and maximum rates. Instead of running to my usual "puff limit", I ran the first two miles within quite a low heart rate limit - and hence quite slow, before lifting the tempo a little on the return leg.

Is it looking after myself, or just another opportunity to be geeky?

Juxtaposition 3 - Local perspective, global perspective

2009-03-22T21:50:00.002Z

Three perspectives on poverty arrived together this weekend ...

On Saturday, I was attending a discussion and lunch in a lenten series arranged by two local churches. The speaker was Liz Henderson, the minister of Richmond Craigmillar church , in an area of Edinburgh which has a reputation for being "poor".

Then I was reading a new post on Oxfam's UK Poverty Post. There's some very thought provoking stuff on there, not least a 2006 Oxfam video of street reactions to questions on poverty. But the post on Thursday links to the blog of Duncan Green, the head of research for Oxfam GB, where he highlights a new study by the World Bank called ‘The Moving Out of Poverty Study’.

Some of what he writes I quote here:

If the [World Bank's earlier] book was about the statics of poverty – what it is, what it feels like etc, this is about the dynamics – how people rise and fall out of poverty and why. To find out, the Bank researchers talked to 60,000 people in over 500 communities in 15 developing countries, using everything from focus groups to collecting life stories and asking people to design their own local definitions of poverty and wealth.

The results are fascinating ... taking it at face value, here is a taste of its findings:

1. Poor people put the poverty line at around $2 a day, not $1: ... when compared to conventional poverty indicators, [the line] came out fairly consistently near the $2 a day mark.
[My comment: Funny, isn't it, that 2:1 ratio ... "unemployment benefits were 20% of average earnings in 1979, but are only 10% now" - Oxfam UKPP 17 March 2009]

2. Oscar Lewis was wrong: there is no ‘culture of poverty’: ‘Poor people are not listless, passive and alienated. ‘Instead, they take initiatives, often pursuing many small ventures simultaneously to survive and get ahead. Some do manage to move out of poverty.'

3. Poverty is a condition/experience, not a permanent characteristic. The numbers moving out of and into poverty are much higher than the net result (poverty falling or rising) suggests.

4. ‘Power within’ can be a vital first step: ‘inner strength and confidence emerge time and again as a key factor in moving out of poverty. Moreover, self-confidence increases quickly as poor people experience some success. …. [this is] important for how development is done. Development interventions should be carried out in ways that respect and increase—rather than detract from—people’s confidence in themselves and their families.

5. ‘Equal opportunity remains a dream… Poor people face agonizingly limited economic choices, very different from the gilded choices of the rich…

6. ‘Tiny loans usually provided under microcredit schemes do not seem to lift large numbers of people out of poverty. Poor people need credit that enables them to go beyond meeting immediate consumption needs and build permanent assets. Second, credit is more likely to be used productively when it is combined with improved local infrastructure, particularly rural roads, and with help in connecting to and producing for markets.

7. ‘Communities with more responsive local governments have better access to clean water, schools, doctors and nurses, and public health clinics. Furthermore, the quality of education and health services also registers more improvement.’

8. ‘The paradox of collective action is that while it may enable poor people to cope and survive, it typically does not help them move out of poverty…. Poor people as a group lack cash, assets, education, market know-how, and connections with the rich and powerful. When poor people associate only with each other, they bring only their own meager resources to the table. Poor people understand these constraints and affirm that “there is a limit to how much one hungry man can feed another.” The challenge is to extend these positive local traditions of mutual help so that they reach across social lines.’

That’s just a taste – it doesn’t include all the evocative quotes and case studies, or the more subtle debates, but there are rich pickings in here for anyone interested in the reality of poverty and development, big challenges to our assumptions, and blessed relief from all the frustrating generalities about ‘the poor’, ‘developing countries’ and so on.

I think Liz could have easily added illustrations to a lot of these points with a local perspective. I am challenged especially about Point 8. Liz talked about how the good folk within Craigmillar do so much for those around them ... the salt of the earth. But her utopian vision, not one she would put across as a practical solution, would be to go back to a village structure where we are all mixed up, and where the rich help the poor, the gifted help the less able, and we are a complete community. But what happens when we lose that diversity? In my church, which is young, educated, fortunate, well off, we have few people to whom life has been less kind. And, I find, such people find it difficult to fit into our style. So how can we bring our resources to their table, "to extend these positive local traditions of mutual help so that they reach across social lines"?

The third perspective - Rupert was speaking from the Sermon on the Mount again on Sunday. He was emphasising the plurality of the language ... you plural are the salt of the earth. It's also a pro-poor agenda. But we are 40% more unequal in the UK than we were in 1974. And in terms of supporting others within just a few miles we might as well admit we're staying put in the salt pot. It's a safe way to stay salty.

Community hub

2009-03-20T21:31:00.003Z

The church building has been open this week as the hub of a community pothole-filling, streetlight-fixing, graffiti-cleaning week. And we have taken the opportunity of having a table to publicise the Hope Counselling service and the Money Clinic.

We have had a number of interesting conversations, and hope that it will lead to further opportunities within the local community.

You will see our new pull-up banner in the picture; I don't have the designs for the leaflets in a form which can be imported to the blog yet, but will put them up here next week.

The Reverse Book club

2009-03-12T21:11:00.002Z

From my Chief Researcher today:

Just came across this during some research and wondered if you had heard of it – I like the “4 books for £5 per month, and you’ll never see any of them”

Obviously appeals to her Marketing and Website Development side ...

As Michael Palin says on the website,

"This is a book club with a difference - you pay the money and somone else gets the books!

It's a brilliant way of helping readers in the world's poorest countries. It's simple, practical and cost less per month than your Sunday newspaper. And each monthly gift of £5 means Book Aid International can send four more books!

One of the things I've found on my journeys is the thirst to learn more about the world, and this is one sure way to help people get more out of life. Book Aid International sends over half a million books to the developing world every year. Over 90% of them go to sub-Saharan Africa.

By transforming your donation of just £5 a month into 48 books each year, this wonderful charity can help transform the lives of so many people and communities. Each and every book sent gets read over and over again - changing thousands of lives.

I hope that you can consider joining the Reverse Book Club, and help spead the joy of books.

Remember - every donation of £5 means that Book Aid International can send another four books!"

Why don't you sign up and comment (anonymously if you prefer) and see how many books we can send?

Debt - more than numbers

2009-03-09T20:47:00.005Z

I have been put in touch with the author of Fantasy Island Finances by Dave McNeish, and met up with her today ... in fact, we were surprised to discover that we both use the same local coffee place near to The Kings Hall.

Kate Judge was made bankrupt a few years ago, and in her own words,

In 2003, I could not find a book that documented the emotional fall out of being over-extended with credit. I desperately wanted to know that I could survive debt and bankruptcy and that there was hope and light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted a book that could hold my hand whilst I had to deal with all the of letters and phone calls that can plaque someone who is in debt ... ‘'Fantasy Island' was born out of a diary that I kept when I finally awoke to the devastation that my financial ignorance and mismanagement had created. I use these diary extracts in the book as they accurately reflect the raw emotions that were involved when I had to deal with creditors, debt agencies, financial institutions and the bankruptcy court.

I am increasingly suspecting that the role of the Money Clinic in providing support for those with money problems may be much more weighted towards the emotional support than the numbers bit. Yes, we need to be good at the numbers bit, and to have appropriate budgeting tools. But there is so much more.

Sangstream in Comrie

2009-03-08T20:19:00.002Z

A great weekend away with the choir and friends at Comrie Croft, betwen Crieff and Comrie. As well as the 55 or so of ourselves, we were joined on the Saturday evening by a choir from Birnam which is directed by Christine Kydd ... who just so happens to have been our first musical director ten years ago. And a strange thing happened. Every time the Birnam folk struck up a song, the Sangstream old hands jumped in with gusto, because we recognised it from the material and arrangements we had ten years ago. Nostalgia!

There was snow ...

... and song ...

... and the traditional annual Sangstream play, which was Pure Dead Brilliant (and Frank) ...

... and food ...

... and more song ...

... but eventually we began to crash out. Time for bed. See you next year.

Money talk

2009-03-03T20:07:00.000Z

Last week has been exceptionally busy, with three strands of work going on:

I returned to my advice work in the Citizens Advice Bureau on Wednesday and Thursday, but am just working in the New Town branch so far rather, than splitting myself between there and Leith.
We have been running our first Money Clinic student-focused personal money management course over four Mondays. It is a great encouragement to me how Drew and Anne have stepped up and run this, with only occasional advice from myself.
Dan and Liz have encouraged me to upgrade our Money Clinic leaflets ahead of a community open week on 16-20 March, so we are working against some tight deadlines on these just now. Again, it is great how Dan has done the creative design stuff, and Liz has written the copy - in both cases this is their professional area of work (and it shows!), and they have taken time out to do this for the team. I'll let you see more later when it is complete.

Spring in Dunkeld

2009-02-20T19:47:00.001Z

This was the last of my eight weeks "off work" after the heart attack, so I decided to go up to stay with my father in Dunkeld, especially as my sister Ally was to be there as well.

In the spirit of taking it easy, I checked out the new chain saw I had delivered last November, then continued to clear the elders in the area below the house with the bow saw, and transfer the logs over the deer fence for adding to the fuel store. Ally and I also took a walk up the Deuchary, a 3hr20min walk with an ascent of 400m (around Pentlands size).

However, as a result of Ally's excellent catering, I have definitely put back the weight I was losing!

Deuchary view to east

Snowdrops in Dunkeld garden

Pensioned off wheelbarrow

Meet Mr Gum, my alternative atavar

2009-02-16T19:39:00.002Z

So this is the character who reminds my younger daughter of me!

Mr Gum was a fierce old man with a red beard and two bloodshot eyes that stared out at you like an octopus curled up in a bad cave. He was a complete horror who hated children, animals, fun and corn on the cob. What he liked was snoozing in bed all day, being lonely and scowling at things.

He slept and scowled and picked his nose and ate it. Most of the townsfolk of Lamonic Bibber avoided him and the children were terrified of him. Their mothers would say, ‘Go to bed when I tell you or Mr Gum will come and shout at your toys and leave slime on your books!’ That usually did the trick.

Mr Gum lived in a great big house in the middle of town. Actually it wasn’t that great, because he had turned it into a disgusting pigsty. The rooms were filled with junk and pizza boxes. Empty milk bottles lay around like wounded soldiers in a war against milk, and there were old newspapers from years and years ago with headlines like VIKINGS INVADE BRITAIN and WORLD’S FIRST NEWSPAPER INVENTED TODAY. Insects lived in the kitchen cupboards, not just small insects but great big ones with faces and names and jobs.

Mr Gum’s bedroom was absolutely grimsters. The wardrobe contained so much mould and old cheese that there was hardly any room for his moth-eaten clothes, and the bed was never made. (I don’t mean that the duvet was never put back on the bed, I mean the bed had never even been MADE. Mr Gum hadn’t gone to the bother of assembling it. He had just chucked all the bits of wood on the floor and dumped a mattress on top.) There was broken glass in the windows and the ancient carpet was the colour of unhappiness and smelt like a toilet. Anyway, I could be here all day going on about Mr Gum’s house but I think you’ve got the idea. Mr Gum was an absolute lazer who couldn’t be bothered with niceness and tidying and brushing his teeth, or anyone else’s for that matter.

World-wise

2009-02-07T18:49:00.000Z

My Saturday was spent at a World-wise training day for advocacy and campaigning ... this is the education arm of the World Development Movement

I was mainly looking at it from a poverty and debt point of view, but the global trade and climate change issues which WDM majors on are similar in many ways. I don't particularly see myself as having an advocacy role, although I have written to my MP once recently, but we all have to watch this complacency. It's back to Brian D's concern with the oomphlessness he sees in our culture just now. And when we believe that we can stand back, it disempowers us all.

Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou
shalt not be a bystander
Holocaust Museum, Washington DC

Back on my bike, back on my own

2009-02-04T17:53:00.004Z

I visited the cardiac rehab unit today, and was signed off by them, as I was obviously not deemed to be needing support with an exercise regime. They did let me get back on my bike, but asked me to hold off starting running until I have been back to the hospital - which is not until 19 March.

Meanwhile, Jacqueline left for Ulster with her third and final carload of stuff, to move back in with her parents while she does her tropical medicine qualification in London. She initially looked after the flat while I was in East Africa, Kashmir and China, and then coped with the role reversal created by my return 15 months ago. I'll start looking for a replacement lodger in a low-key way and see what (who) turns up.

The photo is from 2005, with Anna, who is also a former lodger! She moved in way back in 2000 as a wee baby and will now be much older than she is pictured here.

Southampton in the snow

2009-02-03T17:20:00.000Z

It's amazing how much Daniel has grown up since my last visit in October, and he now leaves me in relative peace to build Lego towers.

While I was there, it was very snowy in the south-east, with Kent and Surrey rail services suspended. However, the Crosscountry route up through Oxford and Birmingham was not affected and I had a smooth journey home.

[Edit - here is how Daniel later wrote up the visit in his blog - the grammar suggests he had some help from his mum:]

Grandad in town

It was great to have my Dad come to visit for a few days at the start of February, and to see just how well he is after scaring us at Christmas with an unplanned trip to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary's Coronary Care Unit. Obviously Edinburgh's heart doctors and nurses did a fantastic job. Daniel loved drinking "tea" with his Grandad, and counting satsumas into and out of the bowl, although here he seems to be trying to impersonate one for some reason!

Cleared for shorthaul travel

2009-01-31T16:48:00.006Z

On Tuesday, the community nurse just phoned to check that I didn't want a visit ... obviously she was less worried about me keeping to all the rules for my wellbeing than those commenting on my Facebook status. Or perhaps she was just too busy.

So I'm off on my UK travels again, promising not to carry too much weight, and have been in Birmingham for the last couple of days with Chris and Jane and Emma. I enjoyed an excellent Chinky carry-out as, in the interests of sanity, diets only apply when at home.

Now on to Southampton with a split ticket via Bristol Temple Meads to avoid the replacement bus service on the Oxford route. Oh, the vagaries of weekend rail travel.

I've been reading David Gaffney's novel Never Never on this journey, quite a strange tale about a debt adviser in a small town on the Cumbrian coast who is himself up to his neck in debt and loan sharks, and as much in denial as anyone else.

New habits

2009-01-16T20:26:00.006Z

Some of the risk factors associated with my heart attack don't apply to me, notably smoking. But a couple of the others do.

Number one - diet. I'm not going to do a meal-by-meal food diary, because it is a complete pain. But I am looking at what I have in the cupboard right now, and what now comes in with my shopping. Probably for me the main thing is to reduce my intake of saturated fats ,as I do go through a lot of cheese and don't always bother with low fat alternatives to spreads and soft cheese. Last Saturday, my census showed up the expected main offenders as cheddar cheese, cream cheese, spread and soft margarine. But also cocoa and chocolate (for making chocolate mousse to clog up other people!), and, more surprisingly, coconut and oatcakes.

So this week I have a note of my saturated fat intake, and it's just over the limit even without touching the cheddar cheese. That cheese is going to last me a long time ...

Number two - weight. I've bought a new pair of digital scales and made up a chart, which shows my target of losing 6.5kg - around 8%. Most people are surprised that I need to lose so much, but this is based on what I know of my healthy weight range from the 1990s. Progress this week? ... fail! No change at all.

Meanwhile, steady progress on the activity front ...

Back to my local supermarket on Saturday for 9.7kg of shopping in a comfy rucsac
Back to church on Sunday
Up Blackford Hill on Monday
Off to see my GP on Wednesday, for routine blood tests
Choir on Thursday, and Bennets Bar thereafter
Walked into town and back on Friday, around 80mins round trip

The cryptic Facebook status line this week was

Neil has been advised by his midwife to avoid grapefruit.

... which confused a few people, but referred to Jacqueline, my resident medical professional, pointing out to me that grapefruit messes up my cholestorol medication. After which, of course, she was free to scoff my stock of grapefruit.

Steady progress

2009-01-09T19:25:00.002Z

My first week at home has been encouraging, with a daily pattern of doing some exercises, taking a walk and listening to a relaxation CD. Each of these is supposed to build up gradually as I get stronger.

So, on Saturday, I ventured out for a quick lap of Blackford Pond ... around 22mins.

By Sunday, I didn't feel ready to head out to church but I was prayed for in absentia, and had visits from Eugene and Alan in the afternoon.

On Tuesday I decided to explore the world of online grocery deliveries, and booked a Tesco delivery to eliminate all the heavy shopping for the next few weeks. Then I extended my walking with a gently stroll to Morningside and back ... 23mins each way. I also had to begin to develop a defensive line against the "don't do too much!" comments I have been getting from all directions, which is probably only to be expected in the light of my cycling home during the heart attack! But I do take my GTN spray, and my phone, and plan the route and check the bus times so I can cut the walk short ... I'm not altogether stupid, I just give that impression.

On Wednesday, I headed a similar distance in the other direction to the church office. So I suppose that is the beginning of a carefully phased return to work. I have told the Citizens Advice Bureau that I will be taking 8 weeks off, but the rest can be picked up as and when I feel ready.

On Thursday, I had a visit from the Community Cardiac Rehabilitation Nurse, who seemed happy that my rate of progress was not to fast, and agreed to see how soon I could get an appointment with the cardiac rehabilitation unit. [Update - I've got one for 4 February, the day after I return from Southampton - ideal!]

And then, in the evening, off to the Sangstream rehearsal.

By Friday, I was ready to cook for three friends and host a small study group looking at John Ortberg's book "The Life You've Always Wanted".

I have to admit that even I have been surprised at how well I have felt, and just how far I have come this week. But I have also enjoyed feeling more relaxed, and have been taking time to work through Rob Bell's new book which takes a broad sweep through the Old and New Testaments in what is, for me, a refreshingly new way ... much more of the feel of a single story than I had seen before. It was the closest I have come to finding out what Jesus said to those two disciples on the road to Emmaus in chapter 24 of Luke's gospel ... I've always been bugged by that verse "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." Wouldn't you love a transcript of that! Well, I felt I had a wee peek.

New Year in Dunkeld

2009-01-03T19:05:00.004Z

The person who seems most concerned about my heart attack was my dad.

Not surprising, really. It may not be pleasant, but it is certainly natural to have to deal with the death of your parents. However, to have to deal with the death of your children is altogether different, at least in our western context, and perhaps my illness raised the possibility for him of something happening to any of his four offspring, who are all apparently in good health (yes, even me now!) but are 48-54.

So it was good to be able to stick to the original plan and head up with Allie and Neal to Dunkeld on New Year's Day and to stay until the 3rd. Seeing how well I was, just a day after my discharge, was an encouragement for him.

And, since there is a tarmac drive round his house, it was ideal to start my walking programme yesterday ... just walking in circles may be boring, but you can stop whenever you feel tired as you pass the back door.

Out and about again

2008-12-31T18:00:00.001Z

Allie and Neal arrived from England on Monday and have been staying in the flat. Their first task was to put back the living room as it should be … the decorating will just have to wait for a later date.

Today, they came to collect me from the Royal Infirmary, visit my GP practice, and reinstall me in my flat. So, I’m home again!

I had an echo cardiogram today, which used ultrasound to monitor the pumping action of the heart. Although there are some small areas of akinesia on the left ventricle, it was encouraging.

Twenty years ago, they would have prescribed four weeks’ bedrest, but now they encourage you to start on a carefully managed exercise regime from the time you are discharged. So I hope to be able to build up, albeit over a few months, to where I was before – and, because of the drugs, diet and exercise, to be far less likely to have a further attack than before. Perhaps even allowing me to get back to Karamoja, Kashmir or Kabul.

First in the queue

2008-12-29T18:00:00.002Z

I was first on the list for the angioplasty lab today, and the team worked on my right coronary artery with the same professionalism as the emergency work last Saturday. All went well, with another stent fitted, and I hope to be out on Wednesday.

I wondered whether to put up a Facebook status, and came up with “Neil …

has had a heart attack [blunt]
has had his second angioplasty procedure [technical]
is taking a four day holiday for pump maintenance [cryptic]
will do anything to get out of the decorating [oblique]
♥ the NHS [political]

However, if I can’t use a heart attack as an excuse for ignoring my emails, then I would definitely deserve another.

An unexpected turn of events

2008-12-27T18:00:00.000Z

After a quiet Christmas spent stripping the living room, the wallpaper was gone, and the worst of the plaster holes had been filled. But I needed to go and get more supplies, so headed out to Homebase and Tescos.

Just as I cleared the checkout in Tescos, the till slip says at 15:24, I quite suddenly felt distinctly odd, and by the time I had resolved a “2 for £3 dispute” and claimed my 90p (on this occasion, was it worth it?) I definitely felt very unwell. Having hooked my panniers on my bike, I sat down on a doorstep for a couple of minutes to rest.

I must have been aware that a heart attack was a probability, as I identified an old guy standing nearby who works on the checkouts, and determined that if I didn’t feel better in two minutes I would ask him to take me and my shopping back into the store and dial 999. However, I felt just about well enough to hop on my bike and cycle gently home.

By the time I had taken my shopping up the stairs to the flat, however, I felt the same bad chest pains again and, when these got no better after a further two minutes, called on assistance from Jacqueline. She promptly whisked me off to A&E at the Royal Infirmary and immediately got me hooked into their admissions process.

Within a few minutes, an acute heart attack had been diagnosed, I was on morphine, oxygen, aspirin and other blood-thinning drugs, and the angioplasty team had been called in to operate. In fact, there were to be another two emergencies behind me and this brilliant team dealt with all three before finally finishing up.

One of the medical team seemed quite surprised I was so calm, and was quite pointed about checking that I understood how serious the situation was. But I suppose I was working from the position that, if I had been in Karamoja, Kashmir or Kabul, then this was not a survivable event, so any other outcome was a bonus.

What followed was an amazing insight into modern medicine. With only the painkillers for the chest pain, a catheter was fed into the artery at my right wrist and through to my heart. A dye then showed up the blockage of the left coronary artery, which they proceeded to remove, followed by the fitting of a “stent”, a stainless steel mesh section which was expanded inside the artery. I was able to watch all of this on the monitors, but didn’t bother asking for a DVD!

They noted a reduction in the right coronary artery too, but decided to leave it there for today, having been working on me for close to an hour. I hope to have a second angioplasty procedure on Monday or Tuesday.

So, by 6pm, I was settled into the coronary care unit, hooked up to all sorts of telemetry and trying to take in all that had happened in the previous three hours.

Jacqueline had, meanwhile, coped with everything from putting the food shopping away and looking out a personal bag of things, to contacting friends and family. I think she was wondering about her role as the resident medical professional for our very short street, having cared for the student who exited his second floor flat through the window under the influence of multiple substances, then the window cleaner who fell backwards off his perch onto her car, and now her landlord having a heart attack and cycling home into her jurisdiction.

I was soon able to speak with both daughters and reassure them about just how well I was feeling and help them to concentrate on what is, not on what might have been.

An unexpected twist in the 2008 tale, and I think that we can fairly say that the Money Clinic has saved its first life, although not in the intended way.

Christmas shopping 2

2008-12-18T15:43:00.001Z

Christmas shopping 1

2008-12-17T15:40:00.000Z

Juxtaposition 2 - Countervailing forces

2008-12-09T12:14:00.009Z

The Guardian - Monday morning's front page:

People power vital to climate deal - minister

A global campaign in the style of Make Poverty History is needed to pressure political leaders into sealing a treaty on tackling climate change, Ed Miliband, the environment secretary has said. "There will be some people saying "we can't go ahead with an agreement on climate change, it's not the biggest priority". And, therefore, what you need is countervailing forces. Some of those forces come from popular mobilisation ... When you think about all the big historic movements, from the suffragettes, to anti-apartheid, to sexual equality in the 1960s, all the big political movements had popular mobilisation. Maybe it's an odd thing for someone in government to say, but I just think there's a real opportunity and a need here."

BBC News - today, reporting on events which took place as the Guardian went to press with that headline:

Nearly 50 charged in airport demo

Forty-nine people have now been charged in connection with protests at Stansted airport in Essex which caused major disruption to flights. More than 50 flights were cancelled during the protest. The charges came after 56 people were arrested at the airport on Monday when campaigners broke through a perimeter fence, causing flights to be cancelled. Essex Police said the 49 faced charges of aggravated trespass. The remaining seven were arrested on suspicion of public order offences and have been released on bail.

Compare and contrast our view of suffragettes chaining themselves to railings, and our attitude to the current equivalent.

Na Trads 2008

2008-12-08T22:53:00.009Z

Ooh, me on television ... but at least I don't need either a TV or a licence to see it these days, as long as you wait until after the rest of the world has finished watching it and then go to BBC iPlayer.

Sangstream was singing for the second time in a week. Last Tuesday, we went through a timewarp and ended up in a snowy Penicuik to support that long-standing Scottish folk act, the McCalmans. On Saturday, it was the Scots Trad Music Awards at the Fruitmarket in Glasgow, and we were supporting our musical director, Mairi Campbell in the closing set. In return for a few choruses and a verse of Auld Lang Syne, we had the run of the balcony and a free bar, and got to see short sets by a number of excellent acts.

Lau

The programme is available on BBC iPlayer here for the next little while (now, you wouldn't expect me to know how long where television is involved, would you?). The whole thing is worth watching, but Lau was one of the highlights (around 1.07), and I am reliably informed by a fan that you can find me at 1:27:50 and 1:28:30.

I also have a flickr set of the evening. Of course, none of me ... you might just find me in the last two on Pete Heywood's set.

Juxtaposition 1 - All I want for Christmas

2008-12-06T23:09:00.004Z

My head researcher, Allie, has sent me this with the comment that it "
wouldn't be quite so bad if it was on behalf of a charity as a joke and the money would go to something good."

"What better present for the person who has everything than a poignant reminder that they want for nothing? This lovingly crafted vial of emptiness is filled to the brim with unfettered nothingness. Free from the burden of possessions, the weight of responsibility, Nothing is as idiotic as it is brilliant.
Indeed even old Macbeth, though mad as a kipper, realised that life, whilst full of sound and fury (and that was before iPods) is inherently daft and ultimately signifies Nothing. And let us not forget, that 'Nothing' is so important that most of our universe - and the contents of a lot of people's heads - appears to be made up of it.
It's a statement, an empty gesture if you will, a nod at the futility of ownership, and yet despite 'Nothing' being nothing, it is of course packed with millions of protons, neutrons and what have you, which is pretty good for Nothing.
Features
A packet full to the brim with nothing.
Suitable for ages 14 years+.
Size: 17 x 9 x 7cm.

She follows up with the comparison between paying £3.49 + £4.95 p&p for nothing, "versus 100 Oxfam school meals = £6 . I'm guessing which those children would prefer to receive for that money!" You're right, Allie ... the Oxfam dinner lady can be contacted here.

Seed beds

2008-12-05T00:16:00.000Z

“Leadership, particularly that of a [church leader], is really not tied to one’s ability to do great things but to mobilise people, in the context of community, to do more than they could have done alone–more than they ever could have dreamed possible.”

Bob Roberts, quoted by Jon Sampson

Pretty standard stuff, but it's the little phrase in the middle, which you almost miss, which is striking about this statement. In the context of community. But should the leader concentrate on mobilising people, albeit in the context of community, or should they work at building a community which encourages ideas to germinate? It is interesting how much seems to have been starting at grass roots level in our church recently, and the leaders are hardly aware of all the initiatives, far less having to kick-start them like a reluctant motorbike.

Taking time at Fiddle 2008

2008-11-22T01:47:00.007Z

For me, Fiddle 2008 is more than a musical event. I volunteer to collect tickets at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, not out of the goodness of my heart, but to meet people. Now it's 1 am - mission accomplished.

Unfortunately I learned than someone I knew well in the past died while I was working abroad. So, even after a year back in the UK, I'm still playing catch-up from being away.

I learned that another close friend who I have lost touch with is suffering from depression, and know I could have a role there.

And there were many more casual friendships maintained - especially two kippers reconnected after many years.

Earlier, I had been surfing some of the other blogs I visit. I read this on Brian's blog:

People rarely drift into deep community. Psychologist Alan McGinnis notes that rule number one for entering into deep friendship sounds deceptively simple: Assign top priority to your relationships.
Ironically, we tend to devote massive amounts of time to making money, running errands, and succeeding at our jobs, but we neglect giving our most valuable possession - time - to the experience for which we were created: community ...
Maybe the biggest single barrier to deep connectedness for most of us is simple the pace of our lives. How often do you hear (or say) things like, "We've got to get together soon" or "Let's do lunch in a few weeks when things settle down"? The requirement for true intimacy is chunks of unhurried time. If you think you can fit deep community into the cracks of an overloaded schedule - think again ...
You can't do community in a hurry.
You can't listen in a hurry.
You can't mourn in a hurry with those who mourn,or rejoice in a hurry with those who rejoice.
Many people lack great friends for the simple reason that they have never made pursuing community a high priority.

(John Ortberg. Everybody's normal till you get to know them)

Oh, and there was great music too - and the spur to try to find time to play as well as sing. I hadn't heard of The Chair before - try this ...

The world is a chicken coop

2008-11-14T23:54:00.008Z

Yesterday, a German who lives in Nairobi came round to my flat to meet a British couple who live in Mongolia. I first met the British couple in Kathmandu when they put me up on my exploratory short term trip abroad in 1999.

As I talked with the German, we discovered that

as a linguist he was working with the Ik tribe in Karamoja whom I had also visited as a water engineer
he knew Rupert, my church leader who I had been meeting with on that afternoon, from university
meanwhile, that afternoon, he had been sitting next to one of my friends who works in Chad
he was being put up in Edinburgh by one of my daughters' school teachers from many years back

Small world, and we had a very interesting sharing of ideas and experiences from many corners of it.

Today, I set off around the world on a blog tour, and first dropped in to see Brian in Ibiza. He sent me on to see Pete in London, where I stayed to listen to his talk at HTB last Sunday. What he was saying about prayer impacted me quite strongly and I stayed longer than planned, also taking down his wikipedia from the bookshelf to read a little more about the shema. With Pete's words ringing in my ears, I then nipped across to see Bob in Texas, only to find that what he said followed up on those words. That often happens on these trips.

I then travelled up to Tennessee to meet Anne. On Wednesday, she was asking for praver for a "team in South Asia as they execute an operation on a large brothel today. Pray for continued good cooperation with the police and safety for our staff as they enter an especially dangerous situation. Pray that the girls would be rescued quickly as they are currently suffering very violent treatment."

Yesterday evening, we had been noting - but not lamenting - the fact that the old days of the monthly mission organisation prayer meeting are all but gone, and were challenged to use the virtual world to its maximum to communicate our prayer needs and stimulate a response. My friends from Mongolia have a gift for this, and make it easy for many who know them to support them through prayer for their work. Anne also knows exactly how to use the virtual world to support the physical, and the two guys I sponsor in Uganda have her to thank for looking me in the eyes and getting me to do it. This week, she's after 50,000 pairs of shoes and I think she'll get them. She's not been the same since her trip to Uganda earlier this year, and is determined that something will rub off on us.

As I pass through Anne's livingroom, I see Brian Maclaren and Donald Miller down a corridor, but don't go that way today. Instead, I cut across to Africa and meet James and Fiona in Malawi, who are struggling to keep their fresh food without power, and I suggest an old double pot technology known in arabic as a zeer.

On briefly to Tanzania, then to Oz - not usually on my route but just checking up on Matthew in the absence of postcards. I've a round the world ticket, so drop in on Las Vegas and Seattle - to see a friend from China - before heading through to the kitchen to make supper.

Yes, it's not just a small world - it's a chicken coop. I look forward to finding if zeers take off in Malawi. But it's easy to lose the value of what I have seen on the whirlwind tour in the diversity of the experience. Tonight, I know that it is it is Pete's words, noted in my journal, which I need to go back to.

(pics from pkutty.blogspot.com and clangnuts.blogspot.com)

Just nursing the casualties

2008-11-12T18:00:00.005Z

I've been asked a few times recently how I find the work in the Citizens Advice Bureau. Thinking through the answer, I see two reactions in myself to the work.

When I am working with someone through their money issues, helping them to find ways to see their situation and control it, and as lights come on in their understanding of the situation, I do feel energised.

But the situations which I find more difficult are those in the CAB where the client needs what we cannot offer - friendship. A couple of weeks ago, another adviser was looking through the file of referral organisations we have, and said to me "We've no groups that help men." She was helping a client with the advice side of a messy divorce, but he was finding it really difficult and needing some befriending. And we don't have a referral group for that. I would have liked to have given him Brian's phone number ... but.

Last week, I had a client with a very difficult range of issues, despite having initially made a very simple request for information. The more I dug, the more came out. Eventually, he said very simply "I just want someone to fix me." And I had no way of making the link with a group which can, or of someone who can, or of Someone who can.

Donal Dorr wrote:

"The church ... cannot be content to play the part of a nurse looking after the casualties of the system. It must play an active part both in challenging the present unjust structures and in pioneering alternatives."

(quoted by Church Action on Poverty - the "other" CAP.)

Sometimes I'm not sure we're even playing the part of nurse. But we're working on it.

Challenging the present unjust structures and pioneering alternatives requires some prophetic thinking in the current climate. Steve Pierce, who ran some training for us this year, recently wrote:

"Many centuries ago, the prophet Haggai noted how the people had clothes but were never warm, food and drink but were still hungry; they earned an income but had purses and wallets with holes (Haggai 1:6). The current crisis poses a real question. As recession arrives, we may be tempted just to tighten our belts and hope that ‘normality’ will soon return.

The danger is that we patch the holes in our individual finances as best we can, when Jesus calls us to a more trusting, thankful, generous relationship with the gift of money. As a nation, as a global community, is it about back to business as normal or can we create a more caring, just, transparent, regulated and less greedy form of wealth creation?”

(from Gift Horse - the e-newsletter of Stewardship Money)

Welcoming 5 - How not to do it

2008-11-10T20:51:00.002Z

Kenny sent this to Brian, who passed it to me. A great how-not-to, but I really need to watch it twice. First time, it's fun. Second time, look for the little bits of truth at the edges ...

Tithing and debt

2008-11-07T19:50:00.009Z

One of the issues which is raised by some of the Money Clinic clients (the ones with a church background) is tithing, the Jewish practice of giving proportionally from your harvest. It is difficult to separate the original teaching from the particular place it has taken in some church cultures today. Here is one analysis of the original teaching.

In the US church especially, the emphasis on not only paying a very rigid 10%, but requiring that it is paid into the local church, and further by requiring accountability of each other in many cases, seems more to be based on human regulations than God's heart. Especially if you are in debt.

Both one-to-one clients and those on our courses may have significant debts and may not be Christians. One way of summarising my thinking on this is:

You can only teach a Christian about tithing; you can teach anyone who is created in God's image to live generously.

In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller says (p115) “Christianity, unlike Christian spirituality, was not a term that excited me”. That sounds rather dangerous out of context, so if you want to jump on it, go and check out Miller’s context first. But, substituting words, I could say that “tithing, unlike generosity, is not a term that excites me”.

Once the clients are out of debt and able to exercise their generosity, we can always explore whether to reduce their giving to a mere 10%.

Welcoming 4 - Drawn in

2008-11-06T10:59:00.008Z

This is part 4 of a series on welcoming people into our church community. We are exploring what is working well, and what we can do to improve what we are doing. If you are part of our community, we would love your comments. If you aren’t, any comments that can help us would be appreciated too!

Comments are turned off, but please comment on Rupert's blog where they are published "officially".

What happens when someone comes to our church (community) for the first time? It is a daunting prospect, new people, new language … but how can we help people to be drawn into our community? We were imagining the story of a person turning up at our Sunday gathering for the first time.

Well, your friend did eventually turn up, and you realised that, like any party, “start at ten” means come some time after ten. But, by the end of the event you had met some new people that seemed really interested in you … somehow they managed to make you feel that they were enjoying meeting you. You’d got two invitations back to other things that were happening, and while you weren’t sure quite what would happen there, you knew that you would not feel out of it … at least, not if these new friends had anything to do with it.

That was the first step in a whole new journey which redefined what you thought about church, and … a bit later … Jesus. In fact, it was the start of a journey into finding your place in the church community. A month later, you feel that some of those initial friends were rather like doors … opening into a whole new community. One person seemed to lead to another, and now you are beginning to belong in this new circle of friends.

Why did it work? The Welcome Table at the back didn’t appear in this story, and neither did rotas or smiley badges. No new visitor form, to be followed up by a pastoral team. Just people, after a shakey start in this case, kicking in and drawing the new visitor in and befriending them.

What we are looking at is how to make the organic approach work better, and also to put a parallel system of practical helps in place underneath this to try to ensure that new members are drawn in. Do you have any ideas about how this would work?

What about having a picture gallery of all of us, on a couple of the MDF display boards? Perhaps also doing this for us grouped into cells? Or getting more pics into the online directory … or are we pressuring people too much? What about more weekends and social functions? Book a hostel and go to Loch Ossian, or Comrie, or New Lanark for the weekend? Or just leave it as it is?

Comment here.

October round-up

2008-11-01T18:24:00.006Z

I’ve not been writing much here recently, in fact I have only posted the series of posts on Welcoming since 1 October. However, I have packed quite a lot in, including two trips down south.

The first was to visit my daughters in Farnham and Southampton, and take in a family gathering for Daniel’s first birthday and dedication. Due to Helen’s joining a church which throws in the water with the first rite of passage rather than the second, it was also a double christening, for both her and Daniel. Her second rite of passage will follow next spring.

(If I am making a theological point here, it is that it is more important to understand the significance of the two different rites of passage, as parents bringing a child and then as an adult making their own declaration, rather than worrying which one includes the water. A lot of serious teachers and followers manage to end up on each side of this one - I think that this is often an indication that it's an issue about which God doesn't get as upset as we do.)

I manage to start as some will think I mean to carry on, by turning up with a free bulldozer my neighbours were throwing out, and a tub of Duplo acquired from the Oxfam shop in Farnham the previous day. Daniel didn't seem to mind.

Having travelled back to Edinburgh by train on the Tuesday, I headed south again to Milton Keynes three days later for a short Stewardship Money conference. I found this very encouraging, and picked up a lot from others there as well as the speakers.

We have had three new clients at the Money Clinic recently, one from our own church, one from a neighbouring one, and a friend of a member, which is a gradual and healthy diversification.

Meanwhile, the referral of a client to the Citizens Advice Bureau was a good opportunity to clarify the boundaries between us. At the same time, they have requested us to make a proposal for Personal Budget Coaching in January. I’m really encouraged that this approach has come from them. Meanwhile, I have moved down to the branch office in Leith for one of my two weekly CAB sessions … a small, much more informal bureau with quite a different client base than the main one in the New Town.

The big thing we are working on just now is the repackaging of the foundational Personal Money Management course which the Money Clinic offers, based mainly on the CAP Money and Stewardship Moneywise courses. These are both strong in different areas, so integrate well. We plan to use it in quite a big way with students after the Christmas break.

One key part of this rework is to summarise the values which we plan to teach through the course and John, one of the Money Clinic team, is working on this. We will add a summary of this at our “under-construction” website soon. It’s now at least respectable, but not the way we want it yet … another major task I am working on. We want a client who is referred to us to get a good idea from the website of who we are, what we can offer, and what our values are … and to be encouraged through that into making the phone call.

Welcoming 3 - First impressions

2008-10-23T17:05:00.002+01:00

This is part 3 of a series on welcoming people into our church community. We are exploring what is working well, and what we can do to improve what we are doing. If you are part of our community, we would love your comments. If you aren’t part of our church, any comments that can help us would be appreciated too!

Note - These posts have been written by me and edited by Brian Donaldson and the team … comments are turned off, but please comment on Rupert's blog where they are published "officially".

OK. You’ve never been before, but your friend persuaded you … great music, doughnuts … and now you find yourself walking up the steps. Your friend is somewhere inside, and your only thought is to find that welcome face.

The steward gives you a sheet of paper (you wonder what that is, but the print is a bit small and grey) but didn’t actually break off from talking to someone else to make you welcome. Where do I go now? It’s like visiting an unfamiliar multiplex … which door do I go through to find my friend? But no one notices your uncertainty.

You wander through the door which most other people are using (always a good sign), and are in the main auditorium. But you can’t see your friend … can’t see the doughnuts … the band is still soundchecking … and after a few minutes you begin to wonder if the rest of the audience, who are mostly standing around and chatting, can’t see you either. Have you worn your invisibility cloak? You give your friend two minutes to find you, otherwise you’ll be offski.

Practical hint – if you are bringing someone new, arrange to meet them at a rendezvous point on their route and come in with them, it’s like being able to use that VIP channel at airport security. The one person that they already know is their passport to a whole new group of friends.

But the challenge is … why didn’t we notice that new person who had just arrived for the first time. And, equally, do we notice the established member who looked a bit out of it.

The way Rick Warren puts the challenge is - how can I start treating other people at church like my own family?

How can we help people make newcomers feel at home? Literally! Perhaps a simple listening skills course would help, aimed at working through the "Hi, I’m Tom" scenario, helping people to offer friendship and to open doors. How many of us have "the ability to build relationships"? What does it depend on?

Here’s Donald Miller from Blue like Jazz (Chapter 18):

Here is something very simple about relationships … : Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.

If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them. If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say …

When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I am talking to or I don’t. God wants both conversations to be true. That is, we are supposed to speak truth in love … if you talk to somebody with your mouth, and your heart does not love them, you are like a person standing there smashing two cymbals together. You are only annoying everybody around you …

Now … when I go to meet somebody, I pray that God will help me feel His love for them. I ask God to make it so both conversations, the one from the mouth and the one from the heart, are true.

Welcoming 2 - Getting them through the door

2008-10-08T19:08:00.008+01:00

This is part 2 of a series on welcoming people into our church community. We are exploring what is working well, and what we can do to improve what we are doing. If you are part of our community, we would love your comments. If you aren’t part of our church, any comments that can help us would be appreciated too!

Note - These posts have been written by me and edited by Brian Donaldson and the team … comments are turned off, but please comment on Rupert's blog where they are published "officially".

Jon Birch has a gift for seeing the church as others see us. His cartoons at asbojesus are witty, and probably sometimes upsetting to many in different parts of the church. But have you walked around Edinburgh looking at church noticeboards and wondering whether to go there on a Sunday? Most of them do not impress! The doors are shut, and when they are open on a Sunday, the lobby area is designed like a public toilet … so that you can’t see in from outside.

How do we present ourselves to others? Our usual answer is to say that we are the church, and we present it to out friends and community. So then we can make excuses about the other things, that they really don’t matter so much. Like:

Our advertising … I was looking for cinema times and saw the Google Ad for one of our other city churches. Full marks to them.

Our website … is it clear, informative and appealing?

The outside of the building. What will go through the mind of the passenger on the bus stuck in the traffic outside? OK, we don’t have those inane Wayside Pulpit messages. Neither, although we are big on the bible, do we have a big bible text, probably looking rather condemning when taken out of context. But what do we have? Not a lot.

In other words, the whole issue of external communications fits here. Just because what is inside is what matters, do we ignore the outer face?

What would you like to see us (or your own faith community) do? And can you help us do it?

Comment here.

Upgrading the piggy bank

2008-10-01T18:24:00.005+01:00

Maybe I'm taxed by the thought of starting a whole new series of life challenges ... birthday presents for grandchildren (Daniel is one this month). I'm not sure if I would pay £20 for a piggy bank, but these ones sound fun. As the website says:

Rendering ungrateful piggy banks obsolete, Gobble and MeMe Money Monsters are destined to become the comedy cash receptacles of choice for fun loving savers everywhere. Banks might be more professional but you'd struggle to find a cashier who sings 'Money, money, money, in my tummy' to the tune of an Abba song every time you deposit a quid. And if that's not a great reason to get your mitts on our Money Monsters, we don't know what is. Uurp!

Maybe, as Daniel started walking this week, I could get him a pair of walking boots. Indoctrination starts young - why not even on his first birthday? I'm probably up against a My First Cricket Set.

When does he get to Size 10?

Slaves Lament

2008-09-26T23:47:00.003+01:00

Sangstream started a new Burns song last night, and we are not handing out words as we try to learn aurally. But, in line with my recent post about the virtual supporting the physical, I noticed that someone has posted Christine Kydd's version on Youtube. So now we can learn by ear from Christine, our first musical director. And then polish it up with Mairi, our current director.

Anyway, the bard himself has a website where he posted all the words.

Sangstream abroad

2008-09-25T00:09:00.001+01:00

Here's Hamish Moore's opening of the Scots music concert in Barga, which I missed. I think it's our first international tour, if you exclude Exeter.

And here is the end, with Sangstream singing our now famous trademark close:

Welcoming 1 - Mystery shopper, mystery worshipper

2008-09-24T16:13:00.010+01:00

This starts a series on welcoming people into our church community. We are exploring what is working well, and what we can do to improve what we are doing. If you are part of our community, we would love your comments. If you aren’t part of our church, any comments that can help us would be appreciated too!

Note - These posts have been written by me and edited by Brian Donaldson and the team … comments are turned off, but please comment on Rupert's blog where they are published "officially".

We have a small team in our church which has been looking at welcome and hospitality. The team’s role is to inspire all of the body parts to think welcome and hospitality, not to leave it to a number of people on a rota. This series of posts will highlight the different stages we go through as we approach any church community, and raise issues for discussion.

Do we need to look at how we appear and how we integrate new members? If you doubt this, then ask a couple of unchurched people to come along and check out our meeting, and tell you honestly what they think.

One person who did this was Jim Henderson, who hired a thinking atheist (Matt Casper) to join him to visit a number of very varied American churches – from the megachurch down to a house church, and across a spectrum from traditional to contemporary.

Sometimes, Matt is genuinely impressed by what he sees, but sometimes he ends up saying to Jim that he cannot square what he sees with what he understands of Christ’s teaching … especially in the connection between the words he hears and what he sees working out in the life of the church.

Another survey, closer home, was blogged by Simon Varwell in Glasgow in 2006. The end-of-round-one post makes interesting reading. Some of the churches visited were, once perhaps they had got over their chagrin at being labelled unwelcoming, able to look at themselves constructively through Simon’s posts and able to become more welcoming as a result. That’s what we hope these posts will do too.

If you are part of our community: Do you think we are welcoming? Or does it depend on already knowing someone who will help you to find your way in?

If not: What is your community like in welcoming new people?

Comment here.

Dropping a hint

2008-09-22T01:09:00.002+01:00

Seen on my dad's noticeboard at Dunkeld. Will the twelve potential sponsors please take note. Level One sponsorship appears to be a box of 12 cans of McEwans Export. Level Two sponsorship is a return first class train ticket to the south of England.

Bookends

2008-09-21T00:13:00.005+01:00

Someone asked me last week what I did on the evenings when I visited my dad in Dunkeld. Well, I sit at one side of the room and read a book. He sits at the other side, behind his library novel. Both of us may, at different points, nod off, and the silence is punctuated by the sound of books slipping from our hands.

Not really Stadtler and Waldorf from the Muppet show, they were altogether more youthful and upbeat. It reminded me a bit of an old Magna Carta song ...

Two old friends of mine
I saw them only yesterday
They where there
But I got the feeling
They had gone away
And I was alone
Killing time
A stranger in the silence of their company

Or perhaps Paul Simon's one ...

Old friends, old friends sat on their parkbench like bookends

So, determined to do something about it, I chose a 1000 piece jigsaw of Waterloo Station which he has done once and really liked. No sooner had I opened up the box than he weighed in to turn pieces over. "What are you collecting?" he asked, and started handing me various pieces. Before I knew it, he had completed the edge. And from time to time over the next couple of days, he would admit to having "put in a few pieces."

Not so much like bookends as usual.

Autumn

2008-09-20T00:53:00.004+01:00

Autumn, and a damp start to the day. Mist rises over the field behind the house.

Dew shows up our tracks across the grass.

Spiders have been busy in the apple trees ...

... and on the fence they have created a web of silk overlaying the web of steel.

Red berries, a sign to the leaves that it is soon time to show off their colours too.

Perthshire alpine stage

2008-09-19T23:39:00.003+01:00

Going up to visit my father, I started a new habit by cycling from "somewhere" to Dunkeld. This time, it was from Bridge of Allan, the next stop after Stirling on the train, from where it was a mere 55 miles (88km) ... the yellow line on the map, zigging east of Crieff and west of Perth. But I forgot to have a look at the profile of the route. After a pleasant exit from Bridge of Allan, at a mere 25m above sealevel, it climbs 290m over the battlefield of Sherriffmuir before swooping down to Greenloaning on the A9. After passing the Roman camp at Braco, it followed a Roman road ... yes, straight but hilly, rising another 100m. After dropping to Kinkell Bridge, I then went up another 220m very steeply, although there was the redeeming feature of a gradual loss of that height as I headed for Methven. By the time I had covered 53 miles and was again pulling up 50m to the pass of Dunkeld, I was very glad there was only two miles to go!

Cycling round the Netherlands just doesn't prepare you for those hills ...

And the answer is Paradise Cake

2008-09-18T00:10:00.006+01:00

I was amazed by the way that yesterday's question was answered. It was:

How do we ensure that, at both [corporate and individual] levels, the virtual supports, rather than supplants, the physical?

This afternoon, I was baking, as I had friends round this evening. I set my Facebook status to:

Neil is trying a different Paradise Cake recipe. Knowing that Edinburgh folk don't "drop in", it's probably safe to advertise the fact.

No one here drops in. Not ever. Well, hardly ever. Not that long after, I was amazed to be dropped in on. But, actually, I was proved accurate. They were not from Edinburgh, but from Skye!

A case, indeed, of the virtual supporting the physical.

Hubs in the virtual world

2008-09-16T11:27:00.006+01:00

I was struck by a comment on a photo posted on Flickr by Graeme Nicol, a Scots photographer in China. Don't worry about the photo, although it's good, and you will find it here.

Anyway, Graeme's comment is (my emphasis of last sentence):

"Of course the best coffee in Dalian is made by myself, at home, but Echo is probably the coolest place in town to chill out and drink other people's coffee ... it's also becoming a key cultural hub for Dalian's small creative community. There are plenty other cafes which aspire to the same, but they rely on personal networks and a transient foreign community. Echo is the only one run by local Chinese in their twenties, who are right in with the Web 2.0 generation. Echo now has its own group on Flickr, and more importantly on Douban.com, the Chinese social networking site for books, films, music etc. They've realised that to be a hub in the physical world these days, you need to be one in the virtual world too."

I struggle with that comment. But I accept that it is increasingly true. So in what ways are we already building our virtual world? I initially though of this from a corporate viewpoint - church, small business, folk choir. But it is also possible to ask the question of yourself as an individual - for it is also increasingly true that, to be a person in the physical world, you need to be one in the virtual world too.

How do we ensure that, at both levels, the virtual supports, rather than supplants, the physical?

Blue like Jazz 5 - Love

2008-09-07T00:34:00.002+01:00

OK, so I found Chapter 18 challenging. Especially, when I have done over 60 Citizens Advice interviews. People come, people go, I manage to untangle some problems, and sometimes feel I can do little for someone. But after a while my inner attitude can become quite different to the outward expression.

Donald Miller writes:

Here is something very simple about relationships ... : Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.

If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them. If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say ...

I loved the fact that it wasn't my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God's, that my part was just to communicate love and approval.

When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I am talking to or I don't. God wants both conversations to be true. That is, we are supposed to speak truth in love ... if you talk to somebody with your mouth, and your heart does not love them, you are like a person standing there smashing two cymbals together. You are only annoying everybody around you ...

Now ... when I go to meet somebody, I pray that God will help me feel His love for them. I ask God to make it so both conversations, the one from the mouth and the one from the heart, are true.

Which, on one level, seems to tie back to the stuff about welcoming and integrating into community which I am being asked to work on just now. But it also is much more challenging at another level as I recognise how often I am happy to concentrate only on the surface conversation.

What's your street's credit rating?

2008-09-04T00:21:00.001+01:00

Dan sent me a link today which showed you the average credit rating of your postcode. Playing around with this and my address book, my friends and family league table is:

939 Margy
919 Ally
911 Me (so, the three UK siblings come in top place)
897 Ali B
861 Chris and Jane
861 Mandy
860 Richard
860 Norman
858 Dad
842 Allie
836 Helen (it's that neighbour of yours!)
793 Dan
793 Catweasel

The interesting thing is, the national average is 750, which shows how unequally debt is distributed across our society. I don't seem to know even people in average places.

How does your postcode fare?

Blue like Jazz 4 - Love

2008-08-30T23:22:00.008+01:00

Tertullian noted in the third century “See how they love one another” (Apology [39.6]), as spoken by some of the pagans of the time regarding Christian communities.

Some Christians seem to feel that the depth of their community is greater than anything the world outside can experience. I have, over the last ten years, been privileged to be part of community outside of the church which rivals anything which the church can offer - and more. Today, Gill and Jimmy's barbeque was no exception. They provided the whole thing themselves as a fundraiser for the Sangstream trip to Barga, no mere pot luck affair. Over thirty current and past members and friends enjoyed a great time, and sang and played into the night around a bonfire in the woods behind their house.

Donald Miller writes in chapter 18:

When my friend Paul and I lived in the woods, we lived with hippies. Well, sort of hippies. They certainly smoked a lot of pot. They drank a lot of beer. And man did they love each other, soemtimes too much, perhaps, too physically, you know, but nonetheless they loved; they accepted and cherished everybody, even the ones who judged them because they were hippies. it was odd living with the hippies at first, but I enjoyed it after a while ...

I have never experienced a group of people who loved each other more than my hippies n the woods. All of them are tucked so neatly in my memory now, and I recall our evenings at camp or in the meadow or in the caves in my mind like a favourite film. I pull them out when I need to be reminded about goodness, about purity and kindness ...

So much of what I know about getting along with people I learned from the hippies. They were magical in community. People were drawn to them. They asked what I loved, what I hated, how I felt about this and that, what sort of music made me angry, what sort of music made me sad. They asked me what I daydreamed about, what I wrote about ... I did not feel fat or stupid or sloppily dressed. I did not feel like I did not know the Bible well enough, and I was never conscious what my hands were doing or whether or not I sounded immature when I talked. I had always been so conscious of those things, but living with the hippies I forgot about myself. And when I lost this self-consciousness I gained so much more. I gained an interest in people outside my own skin ...

Because I grew up in the safe cocoon of big-Christianity, I came to believe that anything outside the church was filled with darkness and unlove ... Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined there were, outside the church, people so purely lovely as the ones I met in the woods. And yet my hippie friends were not at all close to believing that Christ was the Son of God.

This did not confuse me so much as it surprised me. Until this point, the majority of my friends had been Christians ... I was amazed to find, outside the church, genuine affection being shared, affection that seemed, well, authentic in comparison to the sort of love I had known within the church. I was even more amazed when I realised I preferred, in fact, the company of the hippies to the company of Christians ... I only felt I could be myself around them, and I could not be myself with my Christian friends.

Now, that is Miller's experience, and I do feel that I can be myself with my Christian friends, but I will also defend my other communities - that they are every bit as accepting as the Christian community.

Which is not altogether surprising, if I go back to Michael Frost's theme of Imago Dei - that every person bears the image of God ... broken, in some cases very broken. But every single point of contact leaves a trace, and He has left a trace, fingerprints on their soul. In some way, every person I meet has that trace, and it is my job to tease it out, so that they, recognising that connection, want to meet His Son.

Blue like Jazz 3 - Community

2008-08-26T22:34:00.007+01:00

I'm probably losing my Senior Lodger next February. She will have been with me three and a half years, although I have been away half of that time. More than just a way of filling a space, or augmenting a budget, she and the assorted Junior Lodgers she has acquired have each provided a sense of the community which Miller wrote about in Chapter 13. To come back from China and find the Christmas tree up, albeit with a slight list to port, the turkey in the freezer and a guest list which only just squidged into the flat arranged for Christmas Day lunch, it would be difficult to plan a better re-entry to the UK. A replacement will definitely have to be found!

Donald Miller writes in Chapter 15:

When you live on your own for years, you begin to think all space is your space and all time is your time ...

The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me ...

God brought me to [community] to rid me of this deception, to scrub it out of the gray matter of my mind. It was a frustrating and painful experience ...

I'm also becoming involved in a group which is looking at our church community, and at the process of welcoming and integration into that community. We're looking at the process of moving new people inwards, but inevitably have to look at the strength of the heart of the community too. The biggest difference we can make is to move from looking at church as "a place that suits me" to "a community where I can serve." Again, moving away from the most difficult lie.

Upgrade to Group W

2008-08-24T22:16:00.000+01:00

Pity ... I had to take the tank back today. We had hired a Group B car for the weekend to get to the wedding, as Jim is a policeman and was working a shift. Group B is basically the cheapest car with 4 doors, so we can put Daniel and his seat into the back easily.

However, they upgraded me from Group B to Group W ... and there are a lot of letters in between B and W! So we had a £19,000 Nissan X-Trail 4WD Aventura for the weekend. I didn't try anything fancy like the cruise control, and just took comfort in the fact that we were probably better protected than usual if anything hit us.

Andrew and Ellie's wedding

2008-08-23T21:51:00.004+01:00

The day after arriving back from the Netherlands, I was off again, by train to Southampton, for the second half of my holiday, and taking in the next of the cousin weddings.

There's a set of photos from the wedding on Flickr.

Daniel was in good form, but preferred Jaffa Cakes to photos. He's just about walking, and can go up stairs ... but not down.

Blue like Jazz 2 - Alone

2008-08-22T19:00:00.005+01:00

Don Miller writes in Chapter 13:

I was in love once. I think love is a bit of heaven ...

I no longer think being in love is the polar opposite of being alone, however. I say that because I used to want to be in love again as I assumed this was the opposite of loneliness. I think being in love is an opposite of loneliness, but not the opposite. There are other things I now crave when I am lonely, like community, like friendship, like family. I think our society puts too much pressure on romantic love, and that is why so many romances fail. Romance can't possibly carry all that we want it to.

Tony the Beat Poet says the words alone, lonely and loneliness are three of the most powerful words in the English language. I agree with Tony. Those words say that we are human; they are like the words hunger and thirst. But they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul.

The bike bug

2008-08-20T18:22:00.002+01:00

I'm back today from the Netherlands after a six day cycle tour around the country with Anke, a friend from All Nations who has also worked with Medair.

I suppose I had a stereotyped image of the landscape, but there was a real variety around the country - dykes and canals, open farmland, woodland and heath. There were a lot of modern wind turbines, but it was only on the last day that we saw one working traditional windmill.

Route planning is quite different to the UK, because there is such a good and cross-linked cycle network. Thus, instead of having route numbers to follow, they label the junctions (knooppunt). So you can choose your route on the map and follow a long string of random numbers.

We were very lucky with the weather, only having an hour or two of rain on a couple of the days. We stayed one night in a b&b which belongs to a "Friends of Cyclists" scheme, and the other nights with Anke's friends including Agnithe, another friend I met at All Nations.

All in all, a very relaxing holiday, and one which makes me wonder how well it could work here, despite our much poorer provision of cycle routes ... and hills!

Wink

2008-08-18T18:11:00.003+01:00

I don't usually have vivid dreams, especially ones which I remember clearly when I wake up. But last night, I had a close shave. I was one of the team of goodies in some sort of running fight in an airport. But we were overwhelmed by the baddies, who rounded up all the staff and passengers, with us mixed in. Then they started scanning us all, using a hand held facial recognition scanner. I guess they must have had my details, so were going to catch me. As each civilian was scanned, it gave a negative bleep. It was my turn, and I winked to a small child next to me. As I heard the negative bleep, I realised that the wink had confused the software. I had a chance of survival.

Where on earth did that idea come from?

Blue like Jazz 1 - Watching

2008-08-15T17:55:00.004+01:00

My holiday reading has been Donald Miller's popular collection of essays on post-modern spirituality, Blue like Jazz. He's a very accessible writer, addressing some very deep issues. I like the way the introductory note encapsulates the book:

I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened.

Sabbath mode

2008-08-13T17:21:00.010+01:00

Yippee! Today I get to escape from the UK for the first time since I arrived back from China on 9 November. Seems like a lot more than nine months.

What am I looking forward to most? Breaking the routine of being in constant touch via email in particular. A while back, I wrote about the possible individual interpretation of Sabbath as being whatever you need to break from most, and in my case that might just be 24 hours of not receiving emails. Needless to say, I didn't manage to keep to it, and you've all been to polite too ask how it went. or perhaps you are too busy excavating your inboxes too.

Meanwhile, I am wondering what sort of thinking requires someone to get a fridge with a "Sabbath mode". The webpage lists the product highlights as:

Designed for use on the Jewish Sabbath and Holidays, refrigerators with this kit installed will operate normally, but will not respond to actions by the consumer, making it possible to refrigerate and freeze food during the Sabbath or holiday. While in Sabbath mode:
* The defrost heater is activated on a fixed timer
* Ice and water cannot be retrieved from the dispenser
* The main temperature control and Quick Chill / Express Chill displays will not illuminate
* Quick Chill and temperature settings will remain at temperatures set before Sabbath Mode
* Touchpad sensors will not tone
* Door alarms will not operate
* The icemaker is automatically disabled (bottom-freezer models only; icemakers in side-by-side models will continue to operate unless the icemaker power switch is set to off)
* Interior lights and dispenser light will not operate
In other words, it doesn't work properly. But - hey, that's not a fridge, it's industrial scale coldstore!

Team structure

2008-08-11T17:07:00.001+01:00

Today we had the second real Money Clinic team meeting ... I have been slow to start these. This one was crucial because different people have now picked up their own roles and actions. For example, looking at how we support the young people, students with grants and loans, graduates moving into work, couples and marriage preparation, parents with kids to train up, and older people. These groups have issues which are all quite different, and we are each working on specific areas. We're also splitting to a certain extent between those who are working with the money awareness courses for groups, and those who prefer to develop the one-to-one support.

My Olympics post

2008-08-10T16:48:00.004+01:00

But I've got no TV ... how did I see not only the opening ceremony in Beijing, but catch up by seeing highlights of past ceremonies? Because I travelled up to Aberdeen on Friday to support a missions conference, and was parked in front of my host's wide screen TV for the duration of the ceremony. I did find that I reflected back on my time in China, and saw some of the links between the whole Olympics event and today's Chinese culture and politics. Which, of course, is no more and no less than most of you will be able to do in four years' time when reflecting on the opening ceremony in London in the context of British culture and politics.

The conference I was supporting was run twice - in Glasgow a week ago, and in Kemnay yesterday. I found it quite difficult to work out my focus - I couldn't really talk about China as it was a while ago and especially because it was only one of many stages in the relay race of life. However, I was able to talk about being in a technical support role in mission, about being a serial short-termer in a sector where beign a long-termer is seen as better, and also managed to get my Money Clinic focus in there too (of course).

Time travellers

2008-08-08T16:13:00.001+01:00

OK, first let me own up. All posts written from now to 12 September were actually written at once as a catch-up exercise. I promise to be more punctual from now on. And manage my diary better?

This week has been the Time Travellers holiday club, held jointly between our church and the one round the corner. I was looking after the sound and lighting, which was not a full time job. Letting me in was a strategic mistake by the PA team, because the sound desk was an absolute tip ... and I had been at Sandyford Henderson the previous Saturday, which had a brilliantly tidy desk. So by Tuesday, I had given in and decided to interfere and clear it out. I knew I was getting somewhere when I worked my way back as far as the "best before Sep 1994" carrot cake wrapper.

Lewis Carroll is alive and kicking within the Scottish Executive

2008-07-23T21:13:00.007+01:00

I was reading what to do in the case of a death in Scotland today. Not that anyone I know is dying, but it's a very useful publication to be aware of in a Citizens Advice context. All 73 pages of it. I had just got my head round the two types of executor in Scotland - you can be my executor nominate, because I have a will, whereas if I die intestate you would be an executor dative. And then I discovered The Office of Queen's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer.

This amazingly named office would be given the job of finding relatives if I die without anyone laying claim to my estate, before it reverts to the Crown. But the Wonderland name made me look further.

The post of QLTR was created in 1837 by the amalgamation of two existing posts created in 1707 - the King's/Queen's Remembrancer and the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer. At one time the Sovereign's, and later the UK Government's, finances were administered by the Treasury. The Treasury's Scottish agent was the QLTR, and therefore he came under the direct control of the Treasury Commissioners. The Treasury established the Exchequer Office for Scotland in Edinburgh, essentially as a revenue collecting office, and the QLTR was at its head.

However, times have changed and the Exchequer Office was closed in 1981 - but the post of QLTR was retained for the specific purpose of dealing, on behalf of the Crown, with matters of bona vacantia, ultimus haeres and Treasure Trove, all three of which are based on the common law principle relating to ownerless goods - Quod nullius est fit domini regis - which means - That which belongs to no one becomes the King's.

In 1981, the Treasury Commissioners decided that the post of QLTR should in future be held by whoever held the position in Scotland of Crown Agent. This dual appointment still operates, although since devolution the QLTR has been under the direction of Scottish Ministers. In terms of the Scotland Act 1998, the Crown's property rights in ownerless goods and the revenues raised from them were transferred to Scottish Ministers. So now all the money from the QLTR is paid into the Scottish Consolidated Fund, rather than being transferred to the Treasury in London as used to be the case. In other words, devolution may not have won "Scotland's Oil" for us, but treasure trove on the beach is "Scotland's Gold".

The current holder is Norman McFadyen, by virtue of his being the Crown Agent. And the role of the Crown Agent? I though they supplied postage stamps to the British colonies, but that's another story ...

A path long lost

2008-07-15T15:47:00.002+01:00

On the work list for this two day visit to see my father was "rockery path". I'm not sure what was on his mind, but wonder if it was the idea that Daniel would soon be the first of the next generation to explore the rockery. So, I cleared the first few stones, but then sought guidance. The line of the path could no longer be seen, and I poked around in the soil. Both rabbits and washout from the field drains on the hillside had done a good job of burying the rocks, and we almost gave up. However, half a day spent removing up to a couple of feet of sand revealed a motorway. He said it was 4-5 years since it had been clear. Like, since Daniel's mum was a toddler, I guessed. Time flies, eh?

Murals and coffee

2008-07-13T15:20:00.002+01:00

A group from the choir went for a Sunday afternoon jaunt to see the murals at the Mansfield Traquair Centre - a former Catholic Apostolic church on the edge of the New Town. The building was complete in 1885, and the most outstanding feature is the vast scheme of mural decoration painted by Scotland's leading Arts and Crafts artist Phoebe Anna Traquair in the 1890s. The church suffered badly in the years after it ceased to be a place of worship, but it was rescued in the nick of time. Interestingly, we gave one of the very first choir performances there during the Cafe Graffiti years. A trust was set up in 1993 to preserve the building and murals, and a £6m renovation and restoration was completed in 2005. See more of the murals at the Mansfield Traquair Trust website

Followed by a coffee at the quirky Artisan Roast in Broughton Street, with their lamps made from old cups and mugs.

Organic Community

2008-07-09T18:56:00.005+01:00

I read this immediately after Shane Claiborne’s book, but whereas that was unsettling, this book was encouraging because it helped me to understand much which was already “in my experience” but not yet “learned and understood”.

The crossover word between the books is community. This book is subtitled Creating a place where people naturally connect, and it is an excellent guide to leadership in community. Before you switch off, the term “leadership” includes all of us as we create community in church, or a work team, or a family, or indeed any social group.

Andy Stanley’s Visioneering was the book which helped me most in the first six months of putting together the Money Clinic, and this is probably the book which will help me most in the second six months. I will be making it recommended reading within the Money Clinic team, as if you’ve read it we could use Myers’ tools together to guide the project environment.

The tools are not new, but very clearly set out into two alternative sets – for example having descriptive rather than prescriptive patterns. The first set supports a Master Plan – community based on programming. The second set supports what Myers calls Organic Order – community based on environment. My personality starts off close to the first set, so the book helps me with a conscious shift towards practising the second set.

My church is already well across towards the organic end of the programmed – organic spectrum, but the book would help us to understand how we do work.

We do need a way for things to work together smoothly, but we could be less concerned with limiting chaos and more interested in achieving a sense of synchronicity.

Warning: if you have a very difficult boss in a programmed work situation, beware. You might just want to hit them over the head with this book in the hope that something more organic might penetrate!

Review - The Irresistible Revolution

2008-07-08T18:41:00.005+01:00

Help needed! I feel that I have read this book every ten years during my adult life. Each time, a similar message challenges me and leaves me uncomfortable. Each time, I get over it.

In 1973, there was “A New Way of Living” - a book by Michael Harper about a church in Houston which tried to live out its faith as a community. Perhaps the 1980s book was Jim Wallis’s The Call to Conversion, where he applies the idea of conversion to the external areas of social and political life, but always rooted in community.

“Conversion is ultimately dying to self and becoming part of something that is larger than any of us. Community is the environment which can enable that conversion, and community is the fruit of that conversion.”

In the 1990s the discomfort was perhaps continued through Richard Foster's Freedom of Simplicity. Shane Claiborne’s new book is subtitled “Living as an ordinary radical” and the forward by Jim Wallis is headed “A Manifesto for a New Generation” …

“a new generation of Christians who want to live their faith in this world, and not just in the next”.

That uncomfortableness is back. I think it is God-given, perhaps in the sense that the rich young ruler was uncomfortable as he walked away from Jesus. Shane quotes the saying

“God comforts the disturbed, and disturbs the comfortable”.

He writes:
“the more I read the bible, the more I felt my comfortable life interrupted … the beautiful thing was my discomfort arose not from a cynical judgementalism but from a longing for something more.”
Shane writes from an American cultural position, but stick with it. I challenge you to read this book and feel uncomfortable too. I think God has built us into a position from which it is his intention that we move forward. But if our comfort is not disturbed we may miss it. Then share your discomfort with others within your community. Please share it with me too. Otherwise I might just get over it again.

Comrie by bike

2008-07-06T18:18:00.004+01:00

I'm just back from a relaxing two days cycling around central Scotland, with four friends. We took the train to Dunblane - the rules say "Two cycles per train only", but you can get away with 4-5. From Dunblane, we took a route east towards Perth before doubling back to Crieff and Comrie. Comrie is on the Highland Border Fault and is known as the Shakey Toon, as in the 1800s it felt a number of tremors - we visited a small historical seismic monitoring station. On the second day, we went south of Loch Earn, before stopping at the Library Tearoom in Balquhidder for the largest piece of carrot cake I have ever seen in a commercial establishment. We covered around 50 miles each day, in a fairly leisurely manner.

Being a geek, I logged the route on my GPS and overlaid it on GoogleEarth - see above for the Day 2 route.

I was very impressed with the new build sections of the National Cycle Network, and have begun to think about covering more of the routes as a way of seeing new areas of Scotland. The ache in one or two muscles around my knees also suggests it is prudent preparation for a week's cycling in the Netherlands in August!

A gap to be filled

2008-06-23T17:59:00.002+01:00

Martin Lewis recently posed the question in his weekly newsletter:

"One of the functions of The MSE Charity is to provide grants for people to do accredited courses to help them improve their consumer/debt/financial knowledge (in a non-professional sense).We're talking financial literacy type courses or debt education. Sadly there's no centralised database... so our aim is to try and compile a list to help those who are looking for help.If you know of a course in your area.. .if you could list it here with details (and if possible a web link) that'd be very helpful so we can tell people what courses are around..."

This email newsletter goes out to a million or so subscribers each week, but the thread of responses to the question numbered only seventeen, including three which highlighted Stewardship and CAP resources. It certainly suggests that there is not a lot out there yet!

What we're about ...

2008-06-18T17:53:00.003+01:00

Mark Neal put it succinctly tonight, at the end of one of the CAP Money groups we have been running:

Accounts for people who don't do accounts

That's what the Money Clinic is about ... helping people to be in control of their finances, but in a way which suits them and their God-given personalities. At the same time, it will both set boundaries, and create more freedom for spontenaity and generosity.

Touching on other blogs

2008-06-17T17:22:00.004+01:00

Just some musings of others which touched on my thinking his week.

"I get a feeling that for many people a time of decision is coming. There's got to be a point where talk becomes action. Where dreams start to be fulfilled by people who are willing to walk into them a step at a time. The thoughts and feelings that have been bouncing around at the back of our minds are moving to the fore. We need to find ways to physically articulate our dreams and desires."
Brian Heasley - Ride the Current - 11 June

"I think those of us who have been entrusted with followers of Christ must not simply cast vision and call people to it; We must create visional environments where dreams and visions of those who work with us and serve under at times, have their dreams and visions set free and ignited."

Erwin McManus, quoted on Anne Jackson - Carbon copy churches produce cookie cutter Christians - 11 June

"My spiritual life has grown leaps and bounds since being in this church. The church family has embraced us and helped us get connected and grow. It’s not their agenda being produced in my life. It’s God’s. Beautiful."

Heidi Reed commenting on the last post - 11 June

"Comfort - I keep getting pushed out of my comfort zone. I feel like I’m on a carnival ride and occasionally I see my comfort zone on the sidelines waving at me. Things are changing quickly and I think I’m growing quickly. However, that means that I’m often a bit uncomfortable and trying to figure out how I manage the new normal.
Confidence - Sometimes I just need to have the confidence to do what I need to do, no matter what the rest of the gang is doing. If I need a little space or air, then I should go get it and not think about what anyone else is doing. It’s okay not to be just like everyone else. Revolutionary, I know!
Wisdom - It’s important to discern when you’re just being stretched out of your comfort zone by God and when you’re being pushed out of your comfort zone by people. The first is worth moving for. The latter takes some confidence to say no."

Living with Joy - 9 June

Wordling

2008-06-16T15:29:00.004+01:00

I discovered Wordle today ... thanks for the tip, Colin. Here are the key words in my blog since 22 May, just to save you the trouble of digesting them:

And here is the Stewardship training on Managing Money God's Way from last month:

You'll get a bigger version if you click on the thumbnail.

Breaking camp

2008-06-15T11:03:00.001+01:00

We had Jamie Davis from Bishopbriggs speaking to us this morning. Broadly, he was revisiting Rupert's "missional church" series from Spring 2007. Key verses from Isaiah 58 popped up again, but he focused on verses right at the beginning of Deuteronomy, where Moses, right at the end of the 40 years of wandering, retells the story and restates the law. I suppose Moses also felt that he was at the end of the beginning, as I wrote yesterday.

On Day 1 of Month 11 of Year 40, Moses began his retelling by saying:

The LORD our God said to us at Horeb [Mount Sinai], "You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance into the [land I have given you]. Go in and take possession of the land that the LORD swore he would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—and to their descendants after them."

"This mountain" is symbolism for a holy place, but a "call to go" usually follows a mountain top experience, whether it is an Old Testament burning bush (Moses is called to go back to Egypt), a New Testament transfiguration (Peter wanted to build tents and hold on to the moment), or a modern day revival or outbreak of God's spirit in a new and different way (the generic call for "more" of the same). Bringing it down to our immediate level, it is making our experience of church an end in itself. If we try to hold on to the experience, we miss the call.

The whole series of talks in our church last Apr-May was about impacting the community around us. Jamie was posing the question ... just over a year on, how is the breaking camp going? To "break camp and advance" is a together thing. It's not a scattering. He raised the subtle difference between us going individually into the community and "being church" there. Or the difference between people volunteering in community projects and developing shared projects with the community.

He had a great picture of our job as "the church" - to dance and bang our feet so that the people hear from where they are and want to join the dance. We're all tagging into God's ceilidh, perhaps a big, messy Orcadian Strip the Willow?

Not sure how well I picked Jamie up (the talk will be here in a couple of days), but it struck a chord with me. The Money Clinic is part of that breaking camp, part of the shared community projects, part of the foot stamping. It doesn't help me with the details, but I was encouraged nevertheless.

The end of the beginning

2008-06-14T10:36:00.002+01:00

It was from Stewardship that we picked up the already thought out role of the Personal Budget Coach as we developed the Money Clinic proposal last autumn. Today, we had their Personal Budget Coach training aimed at giving practical experience in advising someone else in setting and balancing a budget. A major part of it involved role plays, learning what it feels like to be in each of those sets of shoes. How do I get the detail without being obtrusive? Are those numbers realistic? So how could you earn more? Spend less?

It has really dovetailed well with the CAP Money training, which focuses more on living by a budget once you have set it up. We're the only user I know of who have taken both paths, but I would recommend it to others.

Meanwhile, that leaves us at the end of my charted territory. Where do we go from here? The next step is to understand why we have been prepared and positioned as we are. I hope to work with the team on this over the next 4-6 weeks, as personally I would like to have a clearer idea by the end of July. I think that this stage will also be important in gelling the team, as well as working out the next steps.

Not a Sangstream song

2008-06-12T23:42:00.007+01:00

I've just been suggesting possible songs for the amazing Sangstream choir to sing next year, but first of all I have two weeks to learn one for Daniel. Apparently, at 8 months, he is already at his first music class, Monkey Music, having fun learning the songs and banging on drums.

But he is also into Razzledazzle on CBBC, and I'm told that visitors will get extra brownie points (and possibly extra brownies) for learning the Not So Long Song in advance. So I'm working on a harmony version.

Doo wap a doo wap a dingalinga ding dong ...

Somehow, I don't see Sangstream singing it ...

Pavement art

2008-06-10T16:40:00.003+01:00

Some theology from the younger members of our church, as seen on the pavement outside the King's Hall.

Starbucks and worms

2008-05-31T22:03:00.009+01:00

I just have to link you to a post of someone who even analysed her Starbucks expenditure down to the day of the week. Although Anne is very different from me in other ways, that chart could be me. Or my dad - see the daffodil counting chart! But the title is there to make you look at yesterday's post. I've linked to Anne before, but beware. Recently she and a group of bloggers went on a Uganda trip organised by Compassion. Since then, she has been on a roll, and as a result there are over 30 children who have been sponsored from the Compassion US site. The Compassion UK site is definitely a softer sell - it doesn't try the "this child has been waiting six months" line, but go there anyway. Making a difference this way costs £18 a month, but if your expenditure in the last month doesn't have that spare, that's OK. Assuming, that is, you can produce a multicoloured pie chart to prove it!

Three Harbours Festival

2008-05-30T22:42:00.005+01:00

Our first gig afloat, I believe. Sangstream had been at the Prestongrange museum earlier on, singing songs on a local and fishing theme, but then a quick switch to Port Seton harbour to sing with other choirs on the Reaper, a 70ft sailing drifter built in 1901.

Followed by the discovery of a linguistic conundrum which will only make sense (or not, perhaps) to the Scots amongst you: what is a chip supper?

(Photo courtesy of Scottish Fisheries Museum)

The Sex and the City Choir

2008-05-29T17:10:00.002+01:00

Here is the track by Dave Francis and Mairi Campbell, aka The Cast, from the new film version of Sex and the City, which is released this week.

Mairi is our brilliant musical director, so I suppose that makes Sangstream the Sex and the City Choir. Ten years ago, we agonised over the choir's name for months, but no one suggested that one.

Counting the daffodils

2008-05-28T16:39:00.005+01:00

In our weekly CAP Money group, we have been looking a lot at where our ideas come from, through the technique of writing a money autobiography. I think the idea was developed by Dan R Dick in the US, and is explained here. A lot of our thinking comes from our younger days and our parents' attitudes to money, and working out your own money story goes a certain way towards explaining how we handle money. For example, I am much freer in the way I spend money on a "thing" like books and CDs, but much tighter in the way I spend on a "service" like a meal out, a train ticket or a holiday. I think that comes from my upbringing, and once this is recognised I can begin to rebalance my spending according to the value I get out of it.

My analytical tendencies were probably developed at the same stage. For example, people are surprised that my parents counted the daffodils as they removed the dead heads each year - but here is the evidence, spotted on the calendar today. My father managed to cull 10,278 daffs this month - not including the ones I picked and took back to Edinburgh to stick in vases.

So now you will perhaps understand why I tend towards recording data or listing so much!

Observing China and Scotland

2008-05-23T17:54:00.008+01:00

I'm finding interacting with my own culture photographically very different to the "away years" in Africa and Asia. But the process of trying to use a camera for this interaction does force one's observation skills and helps to bring understanding, rather like reading Kate Fox's book "Watching the English".

Today I was looking at one of two very different expat photographers who I followed while in China, for new windows into the Chinese culture. Both MaggiesWorld and GraemeNicol are on Flickr, and both make me want to use my camera more, and in new ways. But Graeme Nicol has been back in Scotland for a break - he's originally from Kirkcaldy - and this set is from that early 2008 trip. He writes about the difference in urban photography between the two cultures:

"I'm finding the nature of street photography in Scotland, and probably the UK as a whole, to be a very different prospect to in China. Though there is the change in photographer-subject dynamic due to being a native among my own culture, not having the "foreigner" role - look how many of American Photography's "greats" have been foreigners or immigrants - to distract from my "man with camera" role, much of the difference in exeprience results simply from the nature of the streets themselves being different. We might call the streets public space, but that implies the public feel a sense of ownership and belonging on them. In China, the streets are an extension of the living room, people live there, they put down newspapers and fall asleep, they set up market stalls, they sit and chat or take part in illegal gambling. In Scotland people rarely linger. Instead they scurry home from work with shopping bags and wait for buses and don't allow themselves to relax until they are safely indoors again ..."

You can find his full comments here. His photos from the last couple of weeks, now back in China, illustrate this difference very well.

(photo - flyagonals - Graeme Nicol)

CAP Money Part One

2008-05-22T22:32:00.008+01:00

On Tuesday and Wednesday, two of our CAP Money groups started off ... the third fell foul of a certain sporting event in Moscow and will run a week behind. How did I find the experience? To be honest, an anticlimax. The key message in the first part is about being in control of your money, not letting it control you. But the people in my group are such a controlled bunch, in a good way, that they are not going to find much new in the course. Perhaps that's not a bad thing, as six of the nine of us plan to do the personal budget coach training. They've already got it, and are just learning new techniques and how to teach it to others.

However, I seem to be finding a different picture at the Citizens Advice Bureau. Three of my five clients since I have been doing interviews solo have had debt as the main issue, and all three would definitely benefit from something like the CAP Money group. To have a good grounding in the importance of being in control, to learn practically how to do it, and to have the company of others to work through the experience, would be invaluable. So we plough on with the hope of bringing these streams together.

I'm also exploring a specific possibility of developing the CAP Money course, crossed with Martin Lewis's fifth year material, for a church-based teenage group. I wouldn't get to present it ... they won't even let someone as old as me near the place as a door steward for their cafe evening! But I have others who would be great for this.

Stuff Anonymous

2008-05-21T00:25:00.004+01:00

OK, so you've got everything you could possibly need. What next? The good old-fashioned mystery tour.

Try this - SomethingStore.com Send them $10, and you get One Something.

SomethingStore is a fun new website that operates simply: We will send you something, an item selected randomly among many things from our inventory, for $10 (free shipping) and you will find out what your something is when you receive it. What will yours be?
It may be something you need, something you want or something you desire. Yours may be a cool gadget, rare book, table game, handmade necklace, reverse clock, box of gourmet chocolates, set of shiny shower curtains, popular video game, big-box retailer gift card, the latest version of a software, a set of kitchen knives, a pair of designer jeans, garden tool, kitchen appliance, unique home decor item, electronic equipment, magazine subscription, office supply item, or ...

... or it may not be anything I need, want or desire!

I'm going to undercut them. Send me £4 and I will send you One Something. That's more than I'm getting for them on eBay.

(Thanks again to Jon Sampson for the lead to this crazy site. And I've just noticed he also plugged Kiva as a worthy alternative. Must be Kiva week.)

Informal social lending

2008-05-20T23:28:00.010+01:00

When I was just married, interest rates were far higher than today and our capital was very limited. So I really appreciated benefiting from inter-family loans from my father at the bargain rate of 3%.

Recently, I have been looking at Zopa and the pattern of social lending which it facilitates. It's a bit of an eBay site for loans, with the same flurry of activity on an offer to borrow just before the closing time. You put up your business case - whether is for a business opportunity or for refinancing your debt, and people bid to lend you the money at as high a rate as possible. But if you are too greedy, others will undercut you. You can also spread the risk - lend a small amount to a large number of lenders.

There's a clip of a report about Zopa on the BBC1 Six O'Clock News in late 2006 here.

Then there's Kiva, which is the same idea, but in the development context. Here, you are lending to a tailor in Thailand rather than Eddie in Essex. Their strap line is "Loans that save lives", and the marketing pitch is "Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty".

There's a Kiva promo on YouTube here .

Of course, any investment needs to be researched. In the Zopa scheme, the borrower pays a fee and is credit checked. In the Kiva scheme, only 31 of their 98 local partner organisations score 5 stars for being low risk. A few of the local partners have had problems, with default rates of 30-50%.

But can you make the scheme more local? In our church, which has the word "community" in its name, you could be sitting between someone struggling to pay off a 20+% credit card debt, and someone who has money in the bank at just a few per cent interest. Ummm ... is that community? Could we do a mini-Zopa? I may never find out, because in our culture we are so reluctant to disclose money issues.

The great £20 giveaway

2008-05-19T11:00:00.003+01:00

Last September, we gave away £2,000 in the church meeting. No strings attached, no names recorded. Rupert simply had 100 crisp new £20 notes, and gave them away. The context was that we had been looking at a number of parables, and finished with the parable of the talents. Now, if the guys in that story were given 1, 2 and 5 talents, and a talent is 6,000 denarii, and a denarius is a days wage, and today's minimum wage is £5.52, then I make that £250k, £500k and £2.5m in real money. Probably a lot, lot more as you don't leave that sort of money with minimum wage rate staff. Rupert wrote in his blog:

"In February, we want to hear stories of what we have done, and what changes and opportunities have emerged because of this small £20. We want to see a community than learns more to take risks, to trust God, to be present, to show up … We aren’t looking for tangible results (although getting some of the money back would be nice!), but the stories of what God does in us as we engage with him and our fears …"

Yesterday, we got round to the feedback, and heard some of those stories.

one of the younger people had made soup and turned her £20 into £50.
her dad invested £1.29 and tried selling photographs, without success. Then he gave a lecture on the identification of fungi and was offered payment by cheque, which he asked to be made payable to the church. How much? £129. Who would pay you £129 for a lecture, not £125 or perhaps round it up to £130? But remember the bit in the parable of the sower about the seed in the good ground giving as much as 30, 60 or even 100 times the investment? So 100 times is symbolically "top rate", and says something about God's plans being better than ours!
someone got round to publishing a book or her poems, and although the investment has multiplied to £45 so far, the main point is that the idea, the imagination was taken up. The gifting of the poems themselves has been spread.
a meal for The Africa Fund started with the thought about how to use the £20, and raised over £1,000. Another member gave invitations to two meals in his home, which both developed new contacts and raised money for the building fund.
a team which was serving another church by running their Sunday meetings for two weeks put the money into their offering ... only to receive it back three times over as a thank you for their serving.
a painter used the money for a new easel, and gave the sale of the first painting to be painted on it back to God.
one member has been encouraged to use her massage skills as a business.
on the £20 giveaway Sunday, two of the teenagers were doing a fundraising lunch for their Glow Cafe project to reach out to their peer group. Guessing from the cashbox afterwards, a number of members jettisoned their £20 into that project. The money raised that day bought equipment which has helped a very successful monthly cafe project to get started, which regularly brings 70-80 young people into the building. Although the point of the investment was to reach out, so far they have paid back £100 into the church funds and plan further monthly payments. Where else have you heard of a youth outreach project which pays a dividend back to the church?

God's investment world doesn't work on the same arithmetic as the rest of us, and it's also not limited by our imagination or vision.

And if the CAP Money course, by putting people in better control of their finances, frees up some more £20 notes in people's finances, let's see what that can multiply into. Just one idea ... if you can free up an extra £18 a month, go here to make a big difference for someone.

Bananas and other cultural baggage

2008-05-18T19:24:00.001+01:00

I thought I came across a new example of the extent to which we are culturally conditioned, thanks to Colin H yesterday, however a quick bit of googling shows up a number of other people who have already explored the issue. So I'm just going to quote one of them below. Let me first ask you three fundamental questions:

1. Which end do you start your banana at?

2. Why?

3. What percentage of your behaviour do you think is thought through rather than acquired?

Here is Steven E. Landsburg's answer on the banana issue.

The Great Banana Revolution - Should you peel bananas from the bottom up?

My friend Petal peels her bananas from the bottom. Well, it's the top, actually, since bananas grow upside down. Come to think of it, that's not quite right either—bananas grow the way they grow, which should be right-side up by definition, even if we think of them as upside down. So let me start over. Petal peels her bananas from the end without the stem.

I mentioned as much at the lunch table last week and triggered a firestorm of debate that has put several research careers on hold and seriously jeopardized the marriage of at least one colleague who, in his single-minded pursuit of truth, has refused for over a week to talk about anything other than the pros and cons of alternative peeling methods. As of this writing, he and his wife have reached an uneasy truce that prohibits him from ever again mentioning the word "banana" in the marital household.

Petal's method is counterintuitive and thus instantly appealing to economists, who love nothing more than to overturn conventional wisdom. Multiple experiments (well, two experiments, actually, since we only had two bananas) quickly convinced a majority of the department that Petal's way is—surprisingly—easier than the traditional method, though the econometricians thought you'd need to test at least 30 bananas to report that result with confidence. The labor economists immediately resolved to apply for a grant.

My current application of this train of thought is ... no one has a vested interest (I assume) in how we eat our bananas, yet we learn to conform and start at the "right" end. But the whole of the business world is targeting us with behaviour-forming marketing on how we spend our money ... so what chance do we have of making rational decisions?

The three small groups at church which this week start the CAP Money personal budgeting course are part of the fight back. The course is mainly about being in financial control. But it is also pushes us to re-evaluate our deep relationship with our money and possessions, and this evaluation must be open to the possibility that we have got it just as wrong as those Israelites we were looking at yesterday.

Managing Money God's Way

2008-05-17T20:14:00.006+01:00

We had Steve Pierce from Stewardship Money with us today, to open the series of trainings on dealing with our finances over the next four weeks. This is a key part of the development of the CCE Money Clinic, as we work out how to impact our community.

Steve took the idea of the land in the Old Testament story, where it is a blessing but can also be a temptation. In the desert, no one could accumulate; they only needed to gather up the muesli-like food which God provided on a daily basis. But, once they entered the promised land, there was much more scope for wealth to become a barrier between the people and their God, and between rich and poor. Hence much of the focus of the law is on how to live in the land. Moses warned them:

"After you eat and are full, give praise to the LORD your God for the good land he gave you. Make sure that you never forget the LORD or disobey his laws and teachings that I am giving you today. If you always obey them, you will have plenty to eat, and you will build good houses to live in. You will get more and more cattle, sheep, silver, gold, and other possessions. But when all this happens, don't be proud! Don't forget that you were once slaves in Egypt and that it was the LORD who set you free. Remember how he led you in that huge and frightening desert where poisonous snakes and scorpions live. There was no water, but the LORD split open a rock, and water poured out so you could drink. He also gave you manna, a kind of food your ancestors had never even heard about. The LORD was testing you to make you trust him, so that later on he could be good to you. When you become successful, don't say, " I'm rich, and I've earned it all myself." Instead, remember that the LORD your God gives you the strength to make a living. That's how he keeps the promise he made to your ancestors. But I'm warning you--if you forget the LORD your God and worship other gods, the LORD will destroy you, just as he destroyed the nations you fought."

I think history proved that Moses was not over the top with his warnings.

Flying solo

2008-05-15T00:17:00.007+01:00

Yesterday at the Citizens Advice Bureau, I had my assessment by one of the managers. Now that I have done the required ten accompanied interviews with a mentor sitting in the corner, the assessment gives me the licence I need to fly solo. So, from today I am working on my own, answering any question you care to bring and solving all your problems. Of course, I am not on my own at all; we are encouraged to use the web-based information system for most cases, and there are always more experienced colleagues around to help out.

The assessment also gave the opportunity to discuss the future referral of Citizens Advice clients who need support with working to a budget to a CAP Money course, and it is encouraging that this does seem to be a very realistic possibility for the autumn.

Letting Go

2008-05-14T00:08:00.003+01:00

I've been trading quotes with a friend at church recently. This can be dangerous, because you fire off one which you think they might appreciate, but then they reply with one which makes you really stop and think. This was the pearl of wisdom I received today:

Question of the day: What must I let go of to receive God's love?
The nothingness we fear so much is, in fact, the treasure that we long for. We long for the space where there is nothing to prove and nothing to protect; where I am who I am, and it's enough.

(from Letting go: A Spirituality of Subtraction - Richard Rohr)

Open Glass Doors

2008-05-07T12:19:00.004+01:00

I've been tied up this week with doing draft leaflets and posters, and then putting up information about the Money Clinic at our arts event, called Open Glass Doors

Having done some photos for a ceilidh last Saturday, I ended up taking some for the setup and preview today. There's a set on Flickr.

Blog addictions

2008-05-03T22:45:00.003+01:00

I've added a few extra blogs recently to the list I browse, and this one is especially worth checking out - I just love the cartoons on Jon Birch's blog "The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus"