20 Things I Have Learnt About God

1. You can jump up & down, get angry or even ignore God.
2. But God doesn't go away.
3. God doesn't live in a church.
4. God doesn't live in your house.
   
5. The Bible is a bad idea of God's personality.
6. God can seem nearer when you are drunk.
   
7. This is not true. You are just leaning on God more.
   
8. Accepting God completely gives you one of the most breath taking viewpoints of life.
   
9. God is bigger, smaller more elaborate & simple than you can imagine.
   
10. You put up the barriers between you and God.
    
11. You make the distance between you and God.
    
12. God created huMANkind not huBABYkind.
    
13. Responsibility isn't that daunting once you look it in the eye.
    
14. God is not clichéd.
    
15. God's charge to us is the most difficult thing we can ever do. Without his help.
    
16. God is waiting for you to get over yourself. Hurry up about it.
    
17. God does not permit suffering. We do.
    
18. Omnipotence? Why baby your creation. They will never learn!
    
19. 6 Billion years of careful evolution & we forget to thank God more often than not.
20. God Loves you. No matter what.

20 Things I Have Learned Since Starting My Ordination Journey

This is probably going to be part. 1. Of several.

I think.

Anyway. Here we go.

WARNING: Naughty words ahead.

1. God chooses you. If you choose God then the whole thing gets better.
   
2. Don't run away. God's call is a bit like a zombie horde. It will catch up and consume you in the end.
   
3. Theology is not formed in text books. It is formed in experience and understanding.
   
4. Insights can be gleaned from anywhere. So keep your eyes sharp.
   
5. God likes sending messengers in unlikely disguises. Mine tend to be geeky guys.
   
6. Toss out the Old Testament. It's only there for the blockbuster moments.
   
7. Toss out most of the New Testament. It's out of context anyway.
8. Stick to the two commandments Jesus gave. If what you do doesn't follow either of them then don't do it.
   
9. If I believed the Bible was the exact and literal word of God; then God would be genocidal, petty, bigoted, jealous child.
   
10. God is none of these things.
    
11. God doesn't like you putting him in a box. God escapes out the corners.
    
12. We have put our own projections on God. Let's get rid of that nasty habit eh?
    
13. Rowan Williams should grow a pair and get the fence post out his arse.
    
14. God spent 6 Billion years getting us to where we are today. Consider that thought for a moment.
    
15. Consecrating a Bishop should be an issue of suitability not sexuality.
    
16. Priest is a dirty word. Let's give it a srping clean.
    
17. The Scottish Episcopal Church needs to stop lying down & taking a good kicking. Let's kick back and show them what we are made of.
    
18. Humour scares people. Especially when it makes them face up to their bigotry.
    
19. There's place for the Church & the Gospel Message in today's society. The Church needs to find it again.
    
20. Forward in Faith = People without enough balls to admit they don't want to be Roman Catholic because they like being married too much.

I don't mean to sound cruel, uncaring and intolerant of bigots, but I am so that's how it comes out.

We are creatures evolved under Gods watchful eye to be loving. We were left a commandment to love by Jesus. How difficult is it not to be consumed by bigotry & predujice?

20 Things I Have Learned Growing Up In Churches

1. Brasso, Brasso, Brasso.
2. Spring loaded candle holders belong in slapstick comedy not on the altar.
3. The Blood of Christ is actually Tesco Port.
4. There's a sense of a well loved altar cloth if is it is splattered with wax.
5. The best sacristies have the best swear words.
6. Wine in boxes and not bottles.
7. Church halls are the only truly ecumenical things. They all smell the same.
8. For Gods sake swish that cope!
9. Never get the pyromaniacs to carry candles.
10. Coughing as soon as the incense billows out the thurible is an insult to the thrurifer. And psychosomatic.
11. It's both content and presentation on the sermon.
12. Let the kids play with the lectern bible. God won't mind.
13. Old ladies make "edgy" comedians seem tame. Incredibly tame.
14. A job well done is a thurible well swung.
15. "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" on Remembrance Sunday. A single singer and a guitar. Will bring the house down.
16. Pull out all the stops. Especially on Easter. It won't kill you.
17. God dislikes twin cities ceremonies.
18. Eucharist in the Third Act. Simple.
19. Diluting Orange Juice, Diluting Orange Juice, Diluting Orange Juice. In every bloody church!
20. Someone put Song Of Songs Chapter 7 Verse 7 in the Liturgy. For the giggles.