Dig for victory

The provocative mantra of the second world war rang in my ears today, as Ste and myself sheared, mowed and dug for victory in my little slice of urban paradise. Tanked up on bottles of coke, chocolate and a cream cake at the end from my wonderful neighbour, we fought back the weeds in the battle for my back garden. At the risk of this becoming A Friday night on BBC2, I wanted to share some interesting observations from both myself and others, as we grafted away against bind weed.

Bind weed strangles things... it's really nasty stuff that was growing through from next door's heap of dug up turf. This menace was strangling my attempts to plant a hedge at the back, and soften the concrete wall which rises in front of the scrub land at the back of my house, soon to become a health and community centre.

Today I planted my first new item in the garden: some grass seed. Granted, it was wierd buying something God had created in a smart price branded box from ASDA, but it was the cheapest I could find. I was determined to plant it before the rains came. In a way, I felt a little bit like Elijah, waiting for rain to come and renew this bare and patchy corner of my garden, previously occupied by unwanted settlers (brambles and dock leaves!)

I'm really excited about my Garden. It has potential to be a beautiful space where people can be entertained, community can be fostered, and new life brought into being. There is opportunity for it be a place of family, community, laughter and friendship... exciting hey?! As unglamourous as it is, redemption is flipping hard work - now I'm going to collapse in bed.

Rediscovering Eden's Garden

My parents came up this weekend and we set to work on my ex council house garden. We've spent the time weeding the borders, ripping up brambles and cutting back bushes. We've cut the grass and I even cleaned out one of the drains!

The grass was getting pretty long, and although it was cut about a month after we moved in, it was great to really get our teeth into it (not literally, I used gloves and tools like other normal humans...) My Mum and Dad heroically pulled up a bramble bush and cut up everything small enough so we could take it to the tip. It was fantastic to know that we had removed the weeds, and I even rediscovered some shape and some beauty. It was quite amazing.

There was something redemptive about the whole thing. By this I mean that I felt involved in the act of changing something, being involved in the growth of other things, helping and nurturing something back into its fullness of life and helping it to find its potential. I might sound like a hippie, but I don't care: my garden is a place of life and somewhere with a fresh start now. I hope I can contribute similiarly to the people we work with.

God loves prostitutes

After watching the news last night, this was my realisation, as I sat, hearing about a man convicted of killing 5 working girls in Ipswich. Switching off channel4, I felt a profound sense of sadness for those women. 5 lives all with massive potential, women in need of help... wasted.

I have no doubt that Jesus was the most subversive man who ever lived. As Jesus sits and eats in the house of Simon (a Pharisee), a very brave woman, who The Message Translation brands "the town harlot" comes to him, weeps on Jesus' feet, wipes them with her hair and pours perfume on them.

The Disciples are outraged, The Pharisees are incensed and Jesus is anointed with a Jar of perfume that a prostitute would have used in her trade to lure men. It's shocking isn't it?! God loves prostitutes.