David Jeanneret

How about one of these: awesome bike!

Thanks to my friend, Benedict, for pointing it out to me!

Filed under: Funny on November 23rd, 2011 | No Comments »

We had the weekend on the South Coast. It had a thoroughly nice time sailing with Dad (see below) and we had a great time with Andrea and the oldest two kids on the boat for Bacon Butties and a sail round the harbour. Fantastic!

Filed under: Home and Family on May 11th, 2011 | No Comments »

I noticed this recently and thought it was rather lovely. It comes from an post by Damian Thompson on the Telegraph website:

There’s a charming article in today’s Times by Alex Renton, a non-believer who sends his six-year-old daughter Lulu to a Scottish church primary school. Her teachers asked her to write the following letter: “To God, How did you get invented?” The Rentons were taken aback: “We had no idea that a state primary affiliated with a church would do quite so much God,” says her father. He could have told Lulu that, in his opinion, there was no God; or he could have pretended that he was a believer. He chose to do neither, instead emailing her letter to the Scottish Episcopal Church (no reply), the Presbyterians (ditto) and the Scottish Catholics (a nice but theologically complex answer). For good measure, he also sent it to “the head of theology of the Anglican Communion, based at Lambeth Palace” – and this was the response:

Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lors of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan

I think this letter reveals a lot about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sort of theology – more, indeed, than many of his lectures or agonised Synod addresses. I’d be interested to know whether readers of this blog think he did a good job of answering Lulu’s question.

But what the letter also tells us is that the Archbishop took the trouble to write a really thoughtful message – unmistakably his work and not that of a secretary – to a little girl. “Well done, Rowan!” was the reaction of Alex Renton’s mother, and I agree.

Filed under: Funny, Theology on May 5th, 2011 | No Comments »

I found these instructions to make a LAN (ethernet) cable tester.

Thought they might be worth remembering!

Filed under: General on May 5th, 2011 | No Comments »

I’ve just been part of the wonderful 10th year of The Noise weekend! 618 Volunteers signed up, 33+ Churches involved, 85 Community Projects completed, 7 Fun Afternoons, 4 Football Tournaments, 3 Community BBQ’s, 3 Senior Citizen Banquets. It was brilliant to see God’s love and compassion out on the streets.

I played the relativley minor part of Co-ordinating the assesment and completition of 8 of the Community Transformation Projects in Lawrence Weston.

You can see some of those projects at the following times on this video: 0:40, 1:17, 1:39, 1:42

Filed under: Save the World on May 5th, 2011 | No Comments »