So we need a solution.

We live in a valley surrounded by quite big hills so getting a TV signal is quite an issue, currently we cannot get BBC1 or 2 on digital, was can get a poor analogue signal but,
Virgin doesn’t cover our area,
BT Vision relies on a minimum broad band connection speed, (which we cannot vouch for),

there appears to be three main solutions
1 – we buy/rent the field next to us off the rich man and site a satellite dish there.
2 – we replace the entire existing Ariel system for the house
3 – we do away with broadcast media and rely solely on technology such as 4OD, BBC iplayer, STVplayer & OnDemand five.
ideally though any new system/solution would allow for accessibility cross a wireless network to varied different devices.

but we are open to hearing people’s experiences/thoughts?

any ideas? seriously answers on the back of an envelope!

solas2010 was class
you should have been there.

great music, speakers, weather, activities, and fun for all the family.
it was great to be a part of something like this.
where sourcing affordable, local produce, sold at affordable prices, (£2 for an organic venison burger. nice!) was as important as getting the right band. Where giving the festival the right feel & vibe was more important than having a pub.

It was a delight and joy. I still can’t quite believe how well everything went. Someone gave me feedback based on turning Solas from a 4star festival into a 5star. Trust me, a 4star rating is deserved and accurate. It really was good. You should have been there.

thanks to lots of people I worked directly with including,
Dominic,
Hoggy & Gordon @GBR,
Ben & E&MS crew,
Bill,
Sam,
Martin & Dave,
Jonny @Wiston
and the solas directors.

Here’s to many more.

PS Becoming a Solas Saint would be very helpful. please consider helping Solas to grow and develop the conversation between Arts, Justice & Faith, http://www.solasfestival.co.uk/give.php

Like A Radio by Over The Rhine

confused
ever since i spied you in the rooms of my mind
now i can’t deny you

bleeding and bruised
like a vagabond in rags i’ve walked the streets to you door
to find just what’s in store

i see you
you and many others in your clean well-lighted place
where i would find disgrace

but i do
know i’d find contentment just to be your furniture
i need nothing more

in the thick of the night take me out of the cold
let me sing inside
like a radio
in the thick of the night before we grow too old
let me sing inside
like a radio

shivering and cold this night’s conducive to a
flight into my soul but i stand here
though my heart grows bold
once on the inside i can quietly persist
and hold my tears

and so still i wait
though i grow much weaker
i will not faint
i’ll stay true

believe me when i say
i’d climb to heaven
crawl beneath the lowest hell
to stay near you

Like A Radio by Over the Rhine,
lyrics and melody: Detweiler
music: Detweiler and Hordinski

recently i was asked this question. Please write a few words of your personal story describing something of your own spiritual journey.

recently I have been reflecting on my attitude to work and how this has been influenced and shaped.

“One of the best reasons for being a Christian, as with a socialist, is that you don’t like to do any work.”(Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith & revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. Yale, 2009)

Yet the understanding of work has been changed and taken beyond the way Jesus lived to become more in the image of Paul. I have respect for Paul he was a great organiser, preacher and worker. Yet I find I cannot square the accusations leveled against Jesus of being a glutton & being an layabout, and fraternising with low in society with a work ethic which seems to encourage a drive towards self improvement and a burgeoning middle class aspirationaism.

I believe there is nothing wrong with being middle class.
I believe there is nothing wrong with self improvement.
I believe there is nothing wrong with work.

However there does seem to be a disconnect between an example of the word becoming flesh, which took time to travel with people, and spent time with the people no one else would, and faith community which implicitly, and sometimes explicitly esteems high paid jobs, professionalism, and a ‘protestant’ work ethic.

I see the faith and beliefs I hold as something integral to me and as I reflect and think about who I am, and what that means for myself and how I act, I find more incongruence. As such I have decided to make a change, to live life differently to follow Christ and his example in a different way. And see how that goes.

So I have quit my job.

And work/ faith/life may never be the same again.

(NB On the notion of spiritual Journey, I find it unhelpful. I think that it can lead to a sort of spiritual tourism. I think our theology (belief/understanding of God) is very influenced by our place. Where we are, how we engage with the world and conversely how the world engages with us. Unhelpfully spiritual journey seems to transcend reality and condemn our life experience as a moot point, unless it can be spiritualised.)

Of course I could be wrong on this and reserve the right to be wrong!

MY life is changing for the better, of this I am sure. Yet i find it hard to adequately explain whats happening.

the headlines.
I have stopped working for The Salvation Army In Easterhouse.
I have accepted a part time position at Greyfriars Church in Lanark.
I am going to become a stay at home dad for my children.

Who?
me, scott paget I wrote a letter of resignation to The Salvation Army, Easterhouse.

What?
I am stopping work for the Salvation Army. This is good, and hopefully a good thing which will have a knock on effect to the work i can and will do, moving forward the future i hope i will have.

why?
Cause it will be fun.
Over the last few years, in discussions with my wife, I had said it would make sense for me to be the one who stayed at home. Money wise that made sense. But working worked for me. it forced me to interact. It gave me a sense of joy, something to do and do well. I wasn’t able to opt out of life. I have to be careful about who and what I am.

So when this wee job came up, i went for it. I got it and start soon.

When?
In about a weeks time.
About 4 months ago i discovered my boss, who had been joking about moving was actually moving. (we had suspected!)
Then 2 months ago I spoke at Third Sunday, the plan was to have a pretty straight church style service, but it was on one of the 10 commandments, “do not lie”. Sounds pretty straight forward right, do not lie. I couldn’t do it straight forward, How could I stand in front of a group of people I cared about and tell them not to lie when I do lie. As I thought about it I felt honesty would be best.
So I took it as a confessional/analysis talk, where i discussed and looked at why i and others lie. How we can change and the place of grace/Holy Living. It went well, I felt, it provoked questions in those that were there. Some people were complimentary and some wanted to chat further.

As a planning group we met to discuss what had happened and how people had felt about it. By the end of the meeting I was left doubting my approach, where I was and what I was doing even attempting to talk to others about this stuff.

It was clear I needed to review what I believed, why I believed it and what that meant for me as a worker. As a reflective practitioner i took this opportunity gratefully and used it as something helpful and useful. I went through that process I realised that working was a not something I wanted to continue. That changing my life would be beneficial for me, my family and for those I worked with.

How?
Stopping work will be hard, but will give me more time, and space to be, within the family, and myself.

As i write, I wish I had more answers, but I am in a place of reflection and change.
“Isn’t this the place we’re practicing belief
Seems we’re always looking at the door In hopes for so much more
And the stories in my pockets are the best I’ve ever lived”

so I am almost home,
I am excited about the possibilities it can hold.
I am excited about eh new job.
I am sad to leave somewhere i did a good job.
I am sad to leave something i had committed to.
I am hopeful & unsettled.

If you are passing, knock the door, or ring the bell.
It would be good to see you.

Loved the full extract from “Marilynne Robinson: Can science solve life’s mysteries?” in saturdays Guardian. I love stuff like this.

(small quote)
It will be a great day in the history of science if we sometime discover a damp shadow elsewhere in the universe where a fungus has sprouted. The mere fossil trace of life in its simplest form would be the crowning achievement of generations of brilliant and diligent labour. And here we are, a gaudy efflorescence of consciousness, staggeringly improbable in light of everything we know about the reality that contains us. There are physicists and philosophers who would correct me. They would say, if there are an infinite number of universes, as in theory there could be, then creatures like us would be very likely to emerge at some time in one of them. But to say this is only to state the fact of our improbability in other terms.

::[[read the rest of it here]]::

the fact they are from Yale University’s Terry Lectures is even more exciting.
The Terry lectures are given by a world leading thinker into the topics of science and theology. You can find 2008′s terry lectures in itunesU from Terry Eagleton. and they are well worth finding and downloading as he speaks immense sense theologically.

Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self (Terry Lectures) by M Robinson, 176pp, Yale,

I do have to say though, it is lighter, faster, somehow it looks more compact than the previous one.

A big thank you to my wife for such a wonderful surprise. it really was quite amazing.
It is quite wonderful.

all i have to do is save up for a new laptop bag for it to fit in,
one of these would be nice…

Changes.
They come in some unexpected places.

You came to take us
All things go, all things go
To recreate us
All things grow, all things grow
We had our mindset
(I made a lot of mistakes)
All things know, all things know
(I made a lot of mistakes)
You had to find it
(I made a lot of mistakes)
All things go, all things go
(I made a lot of mistakes)

Tropical Storm Agatha blows a hole in Guatemala City
Hundreds dead as torrential rain sweeps Central America. Sinkhole in Guatemala swallows three-storey building

(picture and quote from the guardian website.)

Am I the only one who appears to have missed this on the news?
the pictures are stunningly, terribly, unreal.

row one

Notes – probably the simplest notes taking system, interfaces well with the e-mail programme.
Oblique Strategies – Oblique strategies is a pack of cards which provide alternative ways forward. Developed in 1975, Peter Schmidt and Brian Eno created the original pack of Oblique Strategies cards, through thinking about approaches to their own work as artist and musician. This app has all 5 editions of the cards contained and if a fun way to consider ways forward, especially in uncreative meetings!

The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation – particularly in studios – tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach. If you’re in a panic, you tend to take the head-on approach because it seems to be the one that’s going to yield the best results Of course, that often isn’t the case – it’s just the most obvious and – apparently – reliable method. The function of the Oblique Strategies was, initially, to serve as a series of prompts which said, “Don’t forget that you could adopt *this* attitude,” or “Don’t forget you could adopt *that* attitude.”

Bryan Eno interview extract here.

Calculator – It is good. Make sure you turn landscape though to get the full scientific calculator.
FiRe Field Recorder – brilliant tool. it turns the iPhone into a quality portable recording unit. from Audiofile engineering. it is a great tool. it gives you a live audio waveform as it records and the in build soundcloud support makes getting recordings onto the net extremely easy. (can you tell i am a fan?)

row two

Cooliris – a solid single function app. It searches for a term or a name on the internet, and displays all the photo’s/images it can find in a big wall style.
Opera Mini – a great browser for the internet, although it handles some things strangely, but a quick browser. works very well with my webmail for work.
WiFiFoFum – wanna find the details of the wifi available in your area? this hdoes it give you in depth details, and has a kinda radar finder screen which is v.cool
Pachube Datalogger – easy app to use. but very important. The datalogger loggs any data you give it in any categories you set up, cups of coffee, miles travelled, expenses spent. simple interface and also integrates effortlessly with the pachube website where you can gather and display the data in various interesting ways!

row three

Air Sharing – Brilliant little app from avatron. It turns you phone into a wireless hard disk, allowing you to drag any file to your iphone, and read it, on the move. It doesn’t offer version monitoring like drop box. But unlike dropbox has no size limits, also unlike dropbox, it puts the actual file on the phones memory. This small app allows you to take any document and put it on your phone from any computer. Brilliant and very handy Indeed.
Dropbox – Brilliant wee app similar to the one above with with one difference. The Dropbox system updates version in all your dropbox’s. First download the dropbox program to your desktop at home, your work computer, wherever you use a computer and need access to one file. Dropbox takes the file you drop into it, loads it to an internet server, from there it distributes the file into all your dropboxes. ensuring you always have the current version in every location. Brilliant!
Insurrection – Pete Rollins app, contains some of his parables. Constantly challenges and gets me thinking.
PS Mobile – The App version of Photoshop. I haven’t played with it enough to work out if I will keep it in the work section or not.