Please..

Please make your way over in an ordaly fashion to yet another blog that i wont get around to writing in. This one attempted theology briefly and i think that was the problem. My new one will be talking about the process of me converting and the struggles with it etc but wont be concentrating on theology if that makes sence? anyway would be lovely to see you over at http://hagerbetavram.blogspot.com

Maybe I am back

I might be back here. My life has been very dull for a while - or busy - or something. Anyway i have had no desire to write but i am working through lots of thigns right now so thought i would give an update:

The Whirlwind (small child now age 2 and some months) Saying lots of names (but not her aunts which is a source of some ammusment for me - distress for the aunt). I love her to bits but am seriously tempted to heavily drug her so she just calms down a bit - its constant and its driving me nuts. I am working very hard on my calm voice, but the whinning which we now get is really driving me crazy.

The long suffering wife - Full time looking after the whirlwind seems happy enough!

Me - working 4 days a weeks for my brothers and enjoying it but only just scraping by financially.

RELIGON!
This is always a big topic with me - DRUM ROLL PLEASE: We are in the process of converting to Judaism! Specifically reform Judaism. This process will take us a year or 18 mnths, or something like that and an operation which the very thought of makes we want to run away. but there you have have it.

Well thats the background stuff - all the rest will come in good time. maybe

Damaged Goods

I wont apologies for not writing – it gets dull starting every blog with the same apology but thank you to those who nudged me and asked me to post.

Let me start with updates:

Daughter _ The whirlwind is now 16 mnths old? 18mnths? In honesty I am really not good at keeping track of these things. It seems to be a question I am asked at least twice a week – how old is your little girl? I still am never really sure – it seems to change on a daily basis. There is however a reason for all these questions about age. It allows for what I have discovered is the widest running competition in the world – who’s child is better. When a parent asks you how old your child is what they are actually saying is:
a) wow your child is really slow, my child is brilliant and was doing that ages before your child.
b) Wow your child is well ahead of mine; I hate you and hope you get hit by a bus.

Clearly I am beyond this kind of compettive parenting, I am happy for the whirlwind to develop at her own pace and really don’t give two hoots about how she is doing on some scale which measures every detail of her behavior and skills against an imagined list of goal posts that she must rush through in a race against other children. Of course if it was a race she would be winning – if I was comparing she would be ahead…but im not…not me…not for a minute…

Work I wont go into to much detail, enough to say that I am doing two days a week work in a business that I disagree with on almost every level. It hurts me even to think about it right now.

Mostly: Mostly its really okay I am just getting through one day follows another and the world slides around and I just watch it turn – today even as I write this I am overwhelmed by a sense of loss of all the might have beens and could have beens. It seems right now that writing about it – looking my life in the face is all to much for me so I will sign of as quickly as I signed on and vanish again for a while.

Stonned

My daughter the whirlwind has for some time had a fascinating with bags, she loves nothing better than finding things to put in and out of bags. This had led to me discovering half eaten bananas, socks, the remote control and various other things I my bag. About three weeks ago her Aunt gave her an old handbag and she has since then faithfully carried it around with her, putting it around her neck when walking. This accessibility of storage space has led her to pursue her new hobby, stone collecting.

The whirlwind is indiscriminate in her choice of stones, which ever is closest to her on a path, or on the drive of someone’s house we are passing will do. She will stop. Pick up the stone. Remove her handbag. Unzip the bag (often with a little help). Place the stone in the bag. Put the stone in her bag. Put the bag around her neck. We are then ready to walk five or six more steps before we repeat the process.

While I guess its nice that she has hobby…

A Tantrum

The hurricane that is my daughter wants to play with the telephone. I take the telephone from her and she wails. The question is what do I do next, and what if any effect will this have on the rest of her life? If I give her the phone to play with will it teach her from this early age that she can get whatever she wants as long as she complains loudly enough, and is that a good or a bad lesson? Will it make her ‘spoilt’?

The telephone is not a suitable thing for her to play with – I don’t want to find she has hit 999 and the idea of giving in seems some how wrong – although I cant articulate a sensible reason why it would be a problem.. I suspect there is something in learning that you cant always get what you want, but then I am not sure that’s a good lesson. The people who never accept no for an answer are often the most successful people. They find ways around situations where others give up and go home.

I have seen some parents tell of children for there tantrums, but when I am upset or annoyed, reasonably or unreasonably I don’t think someone telling me I am being silly, or to calm down will help. It is instead the fastest way to make me blow my top all together. So instead I give her cuddle, I try to distract her, I offer her a story, and pretty soon she is sat by my side listening happily to “Clovis the Tiger’ – who in case you don’t know is the roarist tiger in the whole jungle.

Sometimes I allow myself to believe that the way I handle these things will make a huge difference to the person that my daughter becomes, but as i talk to my friends I realize that  everyones parents got it wrong – the world is made up of people who had bad parents and yet we all survived. Im not saying my parents where terrible here – just that they where human and made mistakes. I survived those mistakes, and I am sure my daughter will survive through my mistakes. 

For now the crisis has come and gone, the tantrum was very brief, and with my daughter cuddled up with me giggling as I roar all seems okay in the world

110% Sure

Someone - and I am not telling you where, put up a post where they said they always give 110% effort. I tried not to leave a comment, really i did. I tried to not be the ranty shouty man, but I am afraid it got the better of me. I tried to explain it nicely, but in honesty i am really not a very nice person.  Anyway in honour of this I thought i would share with you all a link to the classic spinal tap - these go to 11 moment..enjoy.

My wrestling with theology grows no easier with time. i am hoping that my faith is in one of the boxes that i have yet to unpack from seminary, however i suspect that it was lost in the move.

So what now? I have a hope, that somehow my doubts will crush me, compound me, that what will be left is a lack of logic or a crystal of truth. I long for that moment when all questions fall away and all doubts evaporated under a sun that radiates life giving energy.

I am currently living between metaphors. I want to scream as did the writter of eclesatics, it is all meaningless! Its all blowing in the wind! None of it matters. Yet i need work - and time. I would like to sleep a while.

I am back involved with a church - i have always found God most in people and a well turned phrase, the curate has a spark, i am tempted to try and use it to light the fire that has gone out in me, but i am not sure how easy it will be to fan flames.