Monday I had a migraine again. In all fairness I had had inklings of it all weekend and taken Sunday off due to feeling slightly migrainous but Monday was not good. I was glad when it was gone on Tuesday.
Tuesday I was into work. They are running out of space for all they want to do in the building where I am working. The result is they want to shorten my workspace by about 2 ft. Nothing much to worry about really except I have to make sure I have a place for a chair and then I need to chuck some old boxes. Then shopping in the evening for food and such.
Wednesday was totally undramatic except we tried at work my ginger cake which was too dry. My mistake for missing out the oil, but this led me to ask further how to make it more moist and not only was the absense of oil spotted but the suggestion of putting in sweet potato. I redid it on Friday night so that Mum could try it on Saturday and the new recipe works really well. I need to cook it for longer, I think 45 minutes at 200C in my oven, as it flopped slightly while cooling. Once I have confirmed that was the only error I will release the recipe and let others try it. It is very gingery but that is what you should expect from a ginger cake.
Thursday was my day for visiting Birmingham for supervision. I originally planned to walk out from the city centre but the weather forecast was for poor weather so I decided to train in instead. In Birmingham the train runs right onto the Edgebaston Campus and within half a mile of the Selly Oak one. Actually a small break through on how to keep my self from hitting a crisis point when I arrive back at Sheffield. The solution is soup from the buffet at Birmingham New Street Station. I turn up for the train ahead of the one I am booked on and I buy myself a bowl of soup and eat it before I catch the train. It has enough energy stuff in it to keep me going until I get home and can cook myself tea. I found a couple of papers that were relevant to my PhD and then saw my supervisor.
Friday, was quiet as a whole although I ended up making the ginger cake on the evening and that meant going shopping but as I needed to shop for lunch the next day anyway it really was only the cake that was extra. So I also got out my acrylic paints and had a go at just painting, nothing really specific just messing around with the colours to see what sort of effects I could get. The main problem was that the set lacked black, and there really is no way you can mix black. Other than that I am going to have to sort out what I use as a palette and then get some ideas about what I want to paint when I do this sort of painting. I am not sure at all at present.
Saturday my parents came over. I asked them to come later than usual as I awoke fairly tired. So they came about lunch time, I kept putting the meal on too late but we were eating 1:10 p.m.. The main course was a ready made pie, green veg and sweet potato and butternut squash mash. The pie and the green veg were ready prepared and the mash just pre prepared into cubes which needed boiling and then mashing so very very simple. The pudding was the ginger cake with soya "cream" which was good enough to require second slices of for all of us. The fact that it was low sugar, had oats and sweet potato in made it very easy to justify. We then went into town to find Easter presents for Hannah and Sam. Mothercare provided Hannah's before we got down town but Sam's was just not turning up. In the end we gave up and came back home as Mum said Dad was getting tired and he was certainly not finding it easy going. We then had ginger and lemon tea with Apple hot cross buns before Mum and Dad went home.
Today I was over to Chesterfield, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. The service was fine, except David's sermon did not pass basic biblical muster, too simple a solution to the problem of why do we have the Old Testament. My answer is simply because without it we would have a very sparse view of God's relationship to humanity. The gospel and the church do not come out of nowhere but out of a tradition that spans millenia. David's seemed to think it was something to do with the evidence of failure of our law keeping. Now the only problem is that covenant pre-dates law, by a couple of centuries and covenants that matter are always made solely by God. It is because they are the chosen people of the covenant the Jew's recieve the law. The initiative is solely God's. Anyway things look as if they will be fairly quiet over this week with just house group to go to. Holy week I have Maundy Thursday service and then there may be a Good Friday but as I need to write that weekend and it is my fathers 80th Birthday I am wary.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Busy with PhD
Lets see what the last fortnight has brought. A week ago on Tuesday I got to doing another interview for my PhD. For this one the recording lasted over two hours which means it is going to be a difficult on to transcribe however a lot of it was interesting. This couple naturally talked at a more theoretical level than most people. He was a former church secretary and it was clear that he had thought about what was going on in the church. One of his objections was the diminition of the role of elder within the church and how elders should be far more the leadership within the congregation. I still have to copy the recording onto my computer and the file will be large. Maybe I let my computer do it while I am at writers group tomorrow
I have been to two housegroups as well. One last Wednesday and one this. They are at present studying Romans and people seem to be happier to talk about what is going on in Romans rather than on James which they had earlier. I wondered partly if the non-talking earlier was due to me being there but the leader of the group complained to me about it as if it was always there. I think he now expects people to phone him with queries, but I suspect they won't although they may talk with David Legge. There is still the old mentality of the minister being the authority on such matters, much as David may not like it. Actually I think there is something more going on. I would guess probably in the 1970s but maybe either earlier or later the church was faced with a generation of young people who took a quizzical look at the faith rather than accepting it authoritatively from their elders. I know many people always did, but there was a change in society with respect to how open one could be. What concerns me is not directly what happened to the young people themselves but what I noticed happened to the middle aged. They did not start doubting their faith, but they lossed confidence in themselves to talk and express it. Therefore they withdrew from situations where these questions were asked. I don't believe it has caused a whole sale collapse of the church but it has caused a change in the character of the church. The church today is far more conservatives than it was. People seem to be looking for people who are coping with the questioning and on the surface the conservatives seem to do this. This is showing itself in a number of ways in my thesis (more later).
The weekend St Andrew's Chesterfield was having one of its busy weekends. It had a gift day on the Saturday, which was held in the Michael room. For those who want some idea of size the Michael Room is a long thin room and must have about the same area as my lounge, perhaps my lounge is bigger. The gift day is solely within the congregation. There were two small tables that seat six max up for coffee. and a tray with the coffee on plus a smaller table for the treasurer. The room was thus full. They previously had dropped in individually to see the minister in his study, this year no one bothered about dropping in so David came out to chat. On the evening they had a quiz. It was organised by Rosemary and Ian who are not the usual suspects. What was not obvious was that the quiz night was openned to all Chesterfield churches and there was a good turn out from Rosehill Group as well as Holymoorside. It was not the sort of quiz I am good at, the wrong questions all the way through but we did not come last. Teams were created on the night. David and I tried to set up a microphone in the hall but it just played to the echo and therefore people were less audible.
Sunday they had two services but as I was writing I only went to the evening one. It was a Just Desserts and at the start of these David normally has a colouring activity for the children and discussion questions for the adults. Well he had both ready this time. The first question on the adult discussion paper was on whether Jesus knew he was going to be crucified. That was talked about. The next line mentioned the children's colouring activity and that is normally skipped adults don't colour things because Children do. Well almost every single adult did the colouring activity this week. I can suppose a variety of reasons such as: joint table (normally separate)= shared space, type of activity (decorate a cross with what is important in your lives), a method of avoiding the questions on the paper. It was intriguing behaviour. If I had done it or one or two had done it, it wouldn't have counted but everyone but one did it and there were about eight to ten adults all told.
The weather has taken a turn for the better a couple of days recently I have gone out in only a thick jumper. I would not do this if it was for a whole day but if just for about an hour then it can be pleasant and there is really not much risk of rain. On Wednesday at prayer group we sat out in the garden. Rosie who normally tries to get us out whatever the weather was sceptical but St Andrews Sheffield garden is so sheltered that, although it would have been difficult to sit out anywhere else in Sheffield, there it was very pleasant.
I have only had a half day off with migraine this last fortnight. The rest of stuff has been much more slight although I did miss church today. Telling a lie actually I decided as I was feeling over pressurised last night that I had better not go this morning and just catch up on what I had not done which was partly write other visits up. However as is typical of such situations I then threw a mild migraine this morning which was over by 11:00 a.m. but that was too late to go to church. The dispiriting thing is finding new things to try to see if the migraine will diminish. I have found that lavender, geranium and majoram essential oils put on an evaporator seem to help and I went to a cranial osteopath on Friday to see if they could do anything. He commented that my back was very tense (tell me something I did not know) but also at one time asked if I had had any other head injuries, none that I can recall. It was Cathy who seemed to be good at hitting her head when we were children.
This last weekend has been a cooking and baking one. I have made dhal and cooked rice. Also made a ginger cake which is an experiment as it has very little sugar in it and I replaced half the flour with buckwheat flour. I wanted to use oatmeal but Tescos did not seem to sell that. I thought I had got it with micro oats but that turned out to be oats for making porridge in the microwave. So Mum and Dad as you eat porridge I will send that back with you if you do not mind.
Oh Gell St Park has lots of wild daffodils all flowering at the moment.
This week I am off to Birmingham to see my supervisor. Otherwise just a normal week.
I have been to two housegroups as well. One last Wednesday and one this. They are at present studying Romans and people seem to be happier to talk about what is going on in Romans rather than on James which they had earlier. I wondered partly if the non-talking earlier was due to me being there but the leader of the group complained to me about it as if it was always there. I think he now expects people to phone him with queries, but I suspect they won't although they may talk with David Legge. There is still the old mentality of the minister being the authority on such matters, much as David may not like it. Actually I think there is something more going on. I would guess probably in the 1970s but maybe either earlier or later the church was faced with a generation of young people who took a quizzical look at the faith rather than accepting it authoritatively from their elders. I know many people always did, but there was a change in society with respect to how open one could be. What concerns me is not directly what happened to the young people themselves but what I noticed happened to the middle aged. They did not start doubting their faith, but they lossed confidence in themselves to talk and express it. Therefore they withdrew from situations where these questions were asked. I don't believe it has caused a whole sale collapse of the church but it has caused a change in the character of the church. The church today is far more conservatives than it was. People seem to be looking for people who are coping with the questioning and on the surface the conservatives seem to do this. This is showing itself in a number of ways in my thesis (more later).
The weekend St Andrew's Chesterfield was having one of its busy weekends. It had a gift day on the Saturday, which was held in the Michael room. For those who want some idea of size the Michael Room is a long thin room and must have about the same area as my lounge, perhaps my lounge is bigger. The gift day is solely within the congregation. There were two small tables that seat six max up for coffee. and a tray with the coffee on plus a smaller table for the treasurer. The room was thus full. They previously had dropped in individually to see the minister in his study, this year no one bothered about dropping in so David came out to chat. On the evening they had a quiz. It was organised by Rosemary and Ian who are not the usual suspects. What was not obvious was that the quiz night was openned to all Chesterfield churches and there was a good turn out from Rosehill Group as well as Holymoorside. It was not the sort of quiz I am good at, the wrong questions all the way through but we did not come last. Teams were created on the night. David and I tried to set up a microphone in the hall but it just played to the echo and therefore people were less audible.
Sunday they had two services but as I was writing I only went to the evening one. It was a Just Desserts and at the start of these David normally has a colouring activity for the children and discussion questions for the adults. Well he had both ready this time. The first question on the adult discussion paper was on whether Jesus knew he was going to be crucified. That was talked about. The next line mentioned the children's colouring activity and that is normally skipped adults don't colour things because Children do. Well almost every single adult did the colouring activity this week. I can suppose a variety of reasons such as: joint table (normally separate)= shared space, type of activity (decorate a cross with what is important in your lives), a method of avoiding the questions on the paper. It was intriguing behaviour. If I had done it or one or two had done it, it wouldn't have counted but everyone but one did it and there were about eight to ten adults all told.
The weather has taken a turn for the better a couple of days recently I have gone out in only a thick jumper. I would not do this if it was for a whole day but if just for about an hour then it can be pleasant and there is really not much risk of rain. On Wednesday at prayer group we sat out in the garden. Rosie who normally tries to get us out whatever the weather was sceptical but St Andrews Sheffield garden is so sheltered that, although it would have been difficult to sit out anywhere else in Sheffield, there it was very pleasant.
I have only had a half day off with migraine this last fortnight. The rest of stuff has been much more slight although I did miss church today. Telling a lie actually I decided as I was feeling over pressurised last night that I had better not go this morning and just catch up on what I had not done which was partly write other visits up. However as is typical of such situations I then threw a mild migraine this morning which was over by 11:00 a.m. but that was too late to go to church. The dispiriting thing is finding new things to try to see if the migraine will diminish. I have found that lavender, geranium and majoram essential oils put on an evaporator seem to help and I went to a cranial osteopath on Friday to see if they could do anything. He commented that my back was very tense (tell me something I did not know) but also at one time asked if I had had any other head injuries, none that I can recall. It was Cathy who seemed to be good at hitting her head when we were children.
This last weekend has been a cooking and baking one. I have made dhal and cooked rice. Also made a ginger cake which is an experiment as it has very little sugar in it and I replaced half the flour with buckwheat flour. I wanted to use oatmeal but Tescos did not seem to sell that. I thought I had got it with micro oats but that turned out to be oats for making porridge in the microwave. So Mum and Dad as you eat porridge I will send that back with you if you do not mind.
Oh Gell St Park has lots of wild daffodils all flowering at the moment.
This week I am off to Birmingham to see my supervisor. Otherwise just a normal week.
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