the exciting adventures of life, God and annadod

ok, i have to admit this is down to googling myself...

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

I would be more embarresed about the fact I googled myself, but actually this is the third time I have done so & turned up somebody talking shit about me somewhere.

I can't believe I've ever said anything interesting enough that would prompt someone to write about me somewhere. But some people are born with bees in their bonnets.

I don't know if anyone reads this blog still, I haven't posted on it for a mighty long time. The season for nattering about 'church' is rather over for me, the season of just getting the heck on with it is much more exciting. Anyway- if anyone does read this hit up this page http://www.wayoflife.org/files/1fb992699670cc84739016d6e945a077-223.html and check it out.

The aforementioned 'googling' turned this page up, due to the fact that there is a wee paragraph about my 'rebellious' ways. I don't exactly have the ex-junkie testimony, but he's managed to make it sound that way!

It's terribly sad when someone gets so fixed in their ways about a point they want to make they have to distort the evidence so heavily to back it up. The main point he used that was so far from reality was:

As a result, she “went off to Ibiza, Spain (a magnet for clubbers from all over Europe) for a couple of weeks.”

No mention of the fact I went to Ibiza as part of a 24-7 prayer team, and spent two weeks praying for people and doing outright street based evangelism!

Well, it inspired me to bring this into the light. Dirty tricks come from weak arguments in my view.

I sent him a nice email anyway, to his email fbns@wayoflife.org There might be some other folks out there being misquoted that would like to do the same.

much love, peace out x

posted by Anna Dodridge
4:47 PM
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The end of the blog

Friday, February 01, 2008

I haven't been here for a long while.

It is because I don't really have anything more to say about the subject of 'God'.

Perhaps I will return to it one day, but for now, I have other things to think about.

Thanks for reading.

posted by Anna Dodridge
2:36 PM
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Don't just buy more 'green' stuff

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Go here and read what the wonderful George Monbiot has to say about the subject of ethical consumerism. Brilliantness.

posted by Anna Dodridge
12:46 PM
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Back from holiday...off again soon

Monday, June 04, 2007

i have just come back from a week of walking holiday in the Peak District. very beautiful of course. i will hopefully have some photos to share once the wonders of digital photography have been mastered by my mother who has many photos on her snazzy camera.

and i am off to sonar in a week or so. techno heaven awaits me.

i got some post this weekend...well, actually the former residents of my house got some post, which i opened, which i suppose is illegal, but i;m sure nooone concerned will mind.
anyway- it was a little press release from Tearfund, which i read on the bus this morning, and somehow my emotional side came out and i nearly cried. on the bus. being a tearfund thing i guess it's appropriate.

the press release is encouraging people to pray about poverty and injustice. it's something i find a bit hard to get my head around, wht with my uncertain thinking on the nature of God and prayer and all that. I do find it easier to pray about poverty and injustice than praying for good weather on my holiday however. that seems to make more sense, and is better for one's self refinement too.

there were some really good bits that people have said which i will quote, being as i can't say any of these things better. and also a kind of three month action/prayer diary affair, encouraing people to think, and take action.
if you're interested in finding out more head to: http://www.bepartofamiracle.org

it's a call for the church to return to it's roots- i like that. tearfund point out that justice for the poor was written into church history, as an integral part of who the church are- in levitical laws, through the leadership of judges and kings.
they quote the old amos passage:
"away with the noise of your songs!...but let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream"
something i can dig in the bible. i like that.

the quote i really liked is from some american clergyman called Phillips Brooks (so much plurals)

"Do not pray for easy lives, but pray to be stronger men (sic). Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but pray for power equal to your tasks. Then the accomplishing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle.'
pretty sound advice.

posted by Anna Dodridge
9:34 AM
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thomas merton and other things

Thursday, May 24, 2007

My WORD it's been a long time since I last wrote anything here.
life has been busy and fun. it's summer here in Bournemouth, the sun is out and people are playing again. so it's been parties and being outside.

also, my 'thinking deeply about things' has been lacking, i haven't had much to say. i've allowed the 'deconstructed' approach to church get into a deconstructed approach to just about anything. i've really got rid of all boundaries in terms of thinking, and trying not to have too much of a determined starting point. This means being defined as 'christian' is getting harder and harder, but i am being more honest. i'm allowing myself to explore lines of thought without any restrictions. sometimes it comes down to not thinking too deeply about anything and just enjoying myself. sometimes something pretty hardcore can hit home. my people are going through some weird stages in life, and relationships are making us all ask some big questions about who we are, how we deal with other people, and how we feel about things. that's essentially the essence of life.

i have found some quotes i like, from a guy called Thomas Merton.
Thomas Merton was a French man, living in America, and all over the place, in the 30s & 40s and was a Catholic Trappist monk, who wrote loads of important stuff. social activist, and unafraid of discussing life, God and everything in between with people like the dalai lama.

"The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another. "

"In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. "

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. "

so there you go.

posted by Anna Dodridge
8:37 AM
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walking and talking

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Last weekend I hopped onto a bus with my brother Matt. We went rambling on the Stour Valley Way. It's a gorgeous walk, along the river. Although we did get a bit stuck in between some mud and a puddle so big it was home to a moorhen. We walked from Moordown/Redhill, which is a fairly urban part of Bournemouth, and you wouldn't suspect there was a nature reserve and arboretum stuck in the middle of it all. We walked almost as far as the old flour mill at Throop, and came out through the housing estate at Muscliffe. The river was full, everything was really out in bloom, and we spent ages trying to identify a tree we think was probably a Rowan...brilliant!

No kingfishers though...booo. It reminded me why I don't bother going to church services. (Other than the fact I had been out until 4am the night before, watching Tom and James dance to Like A Virgin at 60million postcards...) I got to see the wonder of God expressed in His creativity, and realised not only my part, and my connectivity to it all, but also my responsibility. Plus hanging out with my brother, and I'm always totally humbled and thankful for my family.

as for the talking bit. Had the beginning of an interesting discussion with Shan about being 'unequally yolked' yesterday. It's one of those patches of the bible which has been given a determined meaning, but actually we're unsure that the meaning ties in with a holistic biblical view.

we talked about the difference between these two corinthine passages:

"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and
wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What
harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common
with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and
idols?"

and

"To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? "

Is marriage a 'yoke'? Does being yoked really simply mean to be in a relationship with someone? or is it more complicated than that? Being yoked is to be tied to someone else who is making the decisions on what direction we take. It is to be pulled around by someone.

How deep does our faith go if we are pulled around by people to that extent? and how deep can it be if we do not have an equal pull within our relationships?

A 'believer' can do more damage, and can be the 'unequal' part of a yoke to a non believer. a 'believer' (or a WITBOTL) can corrupt someone's thinking, destroy any confidence they have in spiritual searching, tie someone down in leglism, inflict religiosity on someone. a 'non believer' (or NYWITBOTL...haha) can challenge, question, demand, expect and encourage faith.

Shan & I also discussed the fact that it is so hard to judge who is and isn't in the club anyway.

I think about how often we use the 2 corinth verses to justify an opinion which breaks up relationships, or stops them before they have even started. how often have we missed out on potentially important relationships because of the use of these verses? and i wonder how often people stop to think about them, as a whole, on the whole life level. it seems like a pretty typical attitude of 'one size will damn well fit all' on the bible, and faith in general. perhaps in future i shall bring the 1 corinth passage up in reply to any bad advice on being unequally yoked.

it makes me think about all the things i am told bring me closer to God, or helps me to know them better. I struggle to see them in so many of those things. They must be in those things, because many other people find them there. Or perhaps people find what they want to view as God, and I find what I want to view as God. More often than not God turns up in the words of the people we don't expect to say anything worth listening to, in the places where we hold out no hope to know God. Perhaps God has purposefully hidden themselves from me, in order to make me have to think, explore and dig a bit deeper. My complacence has forced God into a game of hide and seek....

posted by Anna Dodridge
10:02 AM
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my generous journal

Thursday, March 22, 2007

I'm currently journaling (am I allowed to use that word? Is it real?) thanks to prompting from Year of Living Generously. I'm using the journal to look at what I can do to be more generous in all aspects of life. It's a useful process.
So just in case anyone's interested, here's the link:
My generous journal

posted by Anna Dodridge
10:35 AM
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