Category: Reflections

Deeper thoughts and musings

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Identity

It’s amazing how your identity gets spread thinly across the whole Internet! I’ve just be collating all the web sites that I belong to and all the chat clients that I’m connected to, and it can be a bit overwhelming to keep everything up to date. Does anyone know of some web service to notify all your different sites when you change your address, for example?

Is it possible to have a coherent web identity? In fact, I would probably like three or four different web identities – a public one, a work one and one for friends and family. I guess this is just the nature of the Internet. It is by definition decentralised, and there is no reason for each of your web services to know about the others, let alone communicate and consolidate together. It does seem, however, that interoperability is one of the current pushes in Internet services.

If you’re interested in how to connect with me online, check out the contact page.

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Entertainment

I hope you appreciate the variety of technology and the juxtaposition of new and old, cheap and expensive in my entertainment cabinet!

For gaming I have a SNES from the 80s and an Xbox 360. For watching and recording TV I have a VCR on top of a PC running experimental new social television software (I got rid of the DVD player to save space as the Xbox plays DVDs). And this brand new software is running on a 10-year-old cast-off HP PC…

Continue reading “Entertainment”

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The Eastons go East

this year we decided to send out a christmas letter to let our friends and family know about the exciting stuff that has happened this year. sadly we couldn’t send this to everyone we know because we didn’t have everyone’s addresses and because of the printing and postage costs! so here it is for your delectation!

Hello beautiful friends!

We hope this letter finds you well and we hope that you are looking forward to the Christmas break.

As most of you know, Serena, Farrah’s sister was healed of cancer in June. She had been diagnosed with terminal cancer almost two years ago and was told that there were no more options to help her. Continue reading “The Eastons go East”

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No more cancer

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

Prince Caspian – Chapter 10

Every day God seems a little bit bigger! We’ve been praying for this day for years now, but when it finally came yesterday, we struggled to believe it at first. But God is really big enough to cure cancer!

Continue reading “No more cancer”

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to shame or encourage?

“you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”

— obi-wan kenobi

a point of view is a powerful thing. i’m thinking in particular about the examples of famous missionaries who gave up everything for God. Continue reading “to shame or encourage?”

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listening to God

just had an awesome small group, thinking about listening to God.

i’m feeling really challenged to shift my paradigm of life, if such a thing is possible! would be great to be listening to God the whole time and hear what to do even in the little things! i’ve realised that my current attitude to activity is very selfish, hence not really bothering to listen to God in case he wants me to do something!

i realise that change is hard, but i do want to make an effort to listen every minute of the day, and hopefully this will biff the passivity out of the way, and the change will be self-sustaining!

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passivity journal strikes again!

so I was meant to be keeping a passivity journal. sadly I’ve been too passive..

so here it is. today I have read my bible and I’m going to help out at church with the computers and go into college for my viva, which is scary. then fairy and I are going rock climbing!

in general a good day. I do need to pray and maybe write in my prayer journal, then I’d have done all the things I’m meant to do in a day!

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a new year

so this is the start of a new year. i’m looking forward to it very much, hopefully getting stuck into my phd and hopefully church will keep moving forward and getting more and more exciting. this year is a year of HOPE across the country, which is a great mission, aiming to bring hope to many people who are in need.

God spoke to me on sunday about priorities. the passivity issue is effectively just an issue of having incorrect priorities. i dislike the whole “new year’s resolution” thing because it seems a little contrived, but the new year is at least as good a time as any to start something new. i’m going to keep a private prayer journal as well as a public blog, so i can look back over it and see how God has answered my prayers. i’ve done it before and was amazed by the experience, so i’m now going to make it a priority.

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friends

i met with mark, my friend from the good ol’ uni days! he’s studying in london too so we wandered around trafalgar square, which is incidentally a really nice place to be. it was great to see mark again, and it reminded me of all my uni friends and how generally rubbish i am at keeping in contact! so i now resolve to make more effort, to be less passive in dealing with old and new friends, and to call up friends and catch up and stuff. am looking forward to it!

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passivity

hi all! here beginneth my passivity journal!

we talked about passivity at our church small group this week, and i need to be active about not being passive! i’ve decided to keep a log of when i’ve been passive and when i’ve been active. the activity of keeping a log is the first step to not being passive, because i actually have to do something! fun!

today i was sitting in church and didn’t feel like going to talk to anyone. then i realised that was passive and i’d have to write it down, so i went and talked to someone, and it was actually ok! i still found it hard, but it was the right thing to do. as i keep going with this i’m hoping it’ll get easier.

i didn’t do everything on my to do list this weekend, but it did do more than i would usually do.