Unwritten and Unthunk

• Eaten: Deep Fried Mars Bar.

My taste buds loved it. My arteries still hate me for it. Ow.

I'm giving up writing for a while.

Oh, I don't mean blogging. I'm sure I'll still blog, because blogging is thinking for me, and I like thinking.

But any pretence I make to writing as art-form, writing as creativity, writing as elegant expression and the savoir-faire of word-selection...
(strange to say, because I'm still doing it, even now...)

I shall be taking a hiatus.

In truth, I haven't been a proper writer for a long while. I've been juggling too many things, and fitting too many things in my spare time, and then video games came and ate a lot more of my spare time. (Can you believe, there was a time when I gave up video games? I did! I had several blissful years where I gave up video games, computer games and the like, only to be foolishly sucked back in by Baldur's Gate when I lived with my brother.)

And I kept going along to writers meetings to keep a certain part of my mind ticking over; but at the end of the day, I have never really been an artistic writer anyway, but really, a pragmatic writer. I write because it is needed, and occasionally it is well-written. I rarely write for the joy of it—almost never these days—and the joy of blogging is I get to write as me in my style in my head in my words in my phraseology (bugger the theory of short sentences... and hooray for em-dashes and brackets and sentences that go on forever because) and it doesn't have to be readable, it just has to be writable...

Anyhoo. I'm giving up writing.

It's a bit sad, actually. It is necessary, I know, and something that needs to be done. But I read beautifully-written words like these, or as pointed out, basically everything Karen writes, and I feel an odd pang.

Because even though the action preceded the announcement, saying it out loud makes it realer; and I wonder if smokers grieve when they give up smoking.

I imagine they do! If your life has been based around cigarettes; around afternoons and cigarettes and coffee-spoons, if your romantic life is shared cigarettes and interesting encounters with borrowed lighters (and I have been asked for lighters by many interesting people), and smoky cigar-filled rooms and late nights and a certain sort of lifestyle, then the loss of it once again is grief.

And, so what am I doing with my words instead of writing, you may ask?

Pragmatically, my writing has generally been in God's service (apart from, say, blogs like these, which are entirely self-serving). So I shall be working on something else which I generally don't do for pleasure; which is writing code. Programming. Oh joy. But it is necessary.

For future thought: ponder the confluence of perfectionism and pragmatism.

What do you think Jesus was like as a person?

I mean, sure, he was kind and gentle and generous and as godly as humanly possible¹. And he amazed people with miracles, and taught with authority. And befuddled people (albeit entertainingly) with well-told stories.

But imagine him in the roles we're more commonly familiar with. What sort of "trainer" would he be like? Would he slowly exposit the Old Testament to his disciples? (Like he may have done at Luke 24:27) Would he be structured and systematic? Did he, as Tony writes, plot out his strategy and his 10-point-plan for evangelism? Or was he erratic and enigmatic? (We know he surprised his disciples often, and wrong-footed them... escaping to pray, and moving on in an itinerant way, rather than staying and establishing ministries at one location.) Did he always seem divinely inspired, or did he just seem to be "dancing to the beat of his own drum", in a likably eccentric way?

When he met women like Mary Magdalene, would he have ever met her alone? Being alone with an attractive woman (or so one imagines, given her former profession²) is a dangerous thing... Would he have kept himself accountable by always taking along a disciple or two, so he could be above reproach?

Was he cavalier with his godliness? Did he walk into situations of temptation knowing he wouldn't fall? Or was he circumspect and careful? I guess he spoke out or prayed when temptation stared him in the face (Mark 8:33, 14:36).

We know he drank wine... would he ever have been tempted to go one round too many? Was every movement intentional, or did he celebrate and rejoice and have fun with his disciples? It certainly seems Jesus has a strong sense of humour...

I saw a John Chapman video the other day; talking about the sheep (John 10:1-6), and alluding to the sheep and the goats (Mt 25:31ff). And the idea that stuck with me was this: that on Judgement Day, there are two fates waiting. To one set of people he will say, "welcome old friend! Good to see you!", but to the others, he will say, "sorry... do I know you? I don't think I do... I never knew you."

The fear of the latter cuts me to the heart; and I wonder about the former. God knows me, I know; he knows me inside out and back-to-front. But if he is my friend; and I am supposed to treat him like one...do I? Do I spend my time walking with God and getting to know him better? Perhaps I've spent too much time with too many charismatics and I'm nervous I've never "heard God speak to me" (in so many words), or had my stroke of divine revelation... but even as an evangelical, the Word is how I know God. Through my Lord Jesus, I learn about God; through the Bible I learn about them both.

The chore of ministry can take the joy out of reading the Bible; in fact I almost feel there is a spiritual struggle to do so; it is harder to read the Bible, or even Christian books, then to pick up a novel and read. I could happily and easily read several novels back-to-back, but I struggle to finish Christian books... there are possibly more unread Christian books than Christian books on my bookshelf.

This blog has no neat ending.

Meet the newest member of our household:
<%image(barry1.jpg|354|400|Mr Cappuccino)%>
As the story goes, Sarah wanted to buy me a nice shiny coffee machine for my birthday, but Sarah couldn't hold on until July, so she bought if for me at the half-yearly sale, and, not able to hide it in any corner of the house, I have my birthday present a month early.

I am thinking of calling him Barry, the Barista. But there are times when I think he needs an italian name, which is when I refer to him as Frederico.

As you can see, Barry is learning to play with all the other shiny members of our kitchen family:
<%image(barry2.jpg|400|300|Barry and friends)%>

[Our bread-bin is noticably absent, because he ran off to hide in the cupboard and sulk.]