A weekful of firsts

I've just been reflecting on my lovely commute to work that this week, there's been a very cool theme going on. So it's still spring and it's still a wee bit cold, but this week, in recognition of the consequtive days that the sun has had his hat on, I've worn my flip flops for the first time. On Saturday I went for a bike & run around Richmond park (first time for combined training). And Sunday was the first time I visited my friend, Miss Green-fingers' allotment. Which doesn't look like an allotment at all. It actually looks like Charlie Dimmock's very tidy back garden.
Lush.






...A while back, another friend, Miss Scandinavia and myself were having a good oul natter about life and music and things we love and justice and the world and shoes... probably. And out of this we both realised that we wanted somewhere to be able to share our thoughts, to develop them and hopefully come to a place of deeper understanding of how faith and life inter-connect . And so there've been many more conversations since that day, research and soul-seeking and general musings... all the while a little flicker of a light bulb burning in the recesses of our minds. And so, one day, when lunching with some lovely friends and one experienced blogger, my comfort blanket of proscrastination was whipped from me and the Reverential Cooke started this blog for me. Sometimes a little gentle persuasion is all we need...

And so...

Ladies & gentille men, I'm pleased to introduce Maid Marian of Sweden & Denmark. This is her fine blog. http://www.firstwomanstanding.blogspot.com/

She's got it going on.

I think it's a great thing when you get to be part of seeing something happen for the first time. It starts off as an idea. You share that idea with a few people, preferably your chicken soup friends, the ones who are gonna help you dream BIG. And then finally the idea is refined, tried out, tested and improved. I was hanging out with my good friend this week. And her husband has been starting to write some worship songs. Now, I'm not the most musical person but I do know what I like. And this I liked. And it's so exciting to see something in progress, at this tender stage.

It's at this point that we need to encourage. We need to feed into the process, to enhance what's good, to take what works and make it better. And gently decide what to leave to one side. In the musical world, there is a word for this. You may not be familiar with this term. I wasn't. But my friend was able to pinpoint the exact thing that this worship song needed.


'It needs some hinkydink'.


She's so right. Sometimes we all need a bit of hinkydink. And there's enough hinkydink to go around for everyone. I'm really looking forward to singing that song someday, the fully hyped hinkydinked version. It's gonna be good.

My last and final first of this week, is also an exciting one. A new Christian alliance has been launched to highlight the need to end violence against women. Gender based violence, which is often used as a weapon of war around the world is an outrage. This also incorporates abuse that is verbal, emotional, and physical. In the UK, 2 women a week die due to violence caused by their partner or ex-partner. In Russia, that statistic is 1 woman per day. Go to the Ukraine, and it's one woman every 35 minutes.

There are some non-church based organisations already out there doing brilliant stuff to raise awareness of the issue. But it's something we need to start talking about in churches. We need to pray into this, we need to make sure we're doing something about it. And this is a call for both men and women to take a stand and to speak out for and end to these horrendous acts.

The new alliance is beautifully named Restored. That's a theme of the bible. Restoration.

The website isn't quite ready for all 3 of you, so I'll post the link when it's ready to go.
In the meantime you might want to think about how how you could get involved with changing attitudes toward violence against women. Or have a look at this little video.

Take action join the UN campaign action to say no to violence against women.

Thanks for reading today. Bless you.