- Work - I have an interview lined up for next week; same client, same business park, but different department, different skill, different building. This is the kind of thing I was hoping for. I would be doing dynamic modelling of sewer networks, rather than steady state modelling of treatment works. In particular, this kind of work is aimed at reducing cases of sewage flooding people's houses, so it gives you more of a buzz.
- Internet - truth, peace, and reconciliation all round! A huge relief. 1000 'thank you's!
Wednesday, January 28
Today is a much better day
Yesterday was a bad day.
- At work, given my 4 week notice of contract termination owing to downturn in workload.
- On the internet, I am wrongly accused of posting anonymous sexually explicit comments on the blog of a woman the other side of the Atlantic – which I have not even thought of doing!
Tuesday, January 27
I need a new client III (beginning to panic, now)
This is nothing to do with my previous post - it's just the quiet year in the water industry cycle.
My current client and I currently have different ideas about what my notice period is - they think its a week, whereas I ams ure it's a month. The difficulty i forsee is that their contract with my agent says something different form my contract with my agent. In which case, I can argue till the cows come home but they wont let me in the building after my 1 week is up. (They have not given formal notice yet - so it still looks like mid February).
In any case, I need a new client, and fast!
I will have to re-write my CV with less emphasis on my hydraulci modelling specialisation, and try to get a more general civil engineering job. Otherwise I will have to travel to the other end of the country, which would not be good.
Do you know anyone who needs a spare civil engineer for a couple of months?
My current client and I currently have different ideas about what my notice period is - they think its a week, whereas I ams ure it's a month. The difficulty i forsee is that their contract with my agent says something different form my contract with my agent. In which case, I can argue till the cows come home but they wont let me in the building after my 1 week is up. (They have not given formal notice yet - so it still looks like mid February).
In any case, I need a new client, and fast!
I will have to re-write my CV with less emphasis on my hydraulci modelling specialisation, and try to get a more general civil engineering job. Otherwise I will have to travel to the other end of the country, which would not be good.
Do you know anyone who needs a spare civil engineer for a couple of months?
Self discipline at work
Yet another day is passing with me doing a minimal amount of work. I drive to the office praying that I will have a productive day. Then I sit at my desk and:
- check my private emails
- check the BBC news website
- check some blogs
- have a drink
- go to the loo
- eat something
- look at the papers for my work, but decide to have a drink before starting
- go to the loo
- eat
- check private emails
- check bbc news
- go to the loo, get a drink on the way back
- look at the work papers, but a private email might have come in so i check.
- now i need the loo agian.
- chocolate break
- tea break
- toilet break
- write a blog post
- comment on someone's blog
- check with recruitment agencies; has anything come up?
- pick up my work, start to think about it, need a cup of tea to lubricate the brain.
- print something.
- fetch it from the printer, after a trip to the loo.
- Oh, check private emails again
- remember i should be sorting out my tax affairs
- remember i should be moving money around my accounts to fend off the debt collectors
- Can' be bothered with those and I need a cup of tea.
- toilet
- What is my profession? I've forgotten.
- Now, where's that paper I printed - need to discuss with boss. I'll have a drink first.
- toilet
- fruit
- chocolate
- drink
- toilet
- fill in time sheet. According to this I have worked 8 hours.
This can't go on!
I am supposed to go to the gym to help me focus, but have not been for six months owing to lost shorts. Have bought some new ones, but keep forgetting to bring them. I really must make my timesheet match reality, and also feed my family, whcih measn I must learn how to make myself focus on the work I am supposed to be doing.
Please pray!
Thursday, January 22
What if it was one of my children?
I was asking one of my work colleagues – a Bulgarian member of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church -about reports I have heard that between 500Ad and 1300AD the Orthodox Church developed liturgies for what amount to gay weddings. (Boswell J, (1994) The Marriage of Likeness: Same Sex Unions in Early Europe, London, Harper Collins) And as part of this conversation I explained my new position to him.
He did not agree with me at all!
Amongst his comments were:
1) The Orthodox Church has never changed its liturgies
2) Even if they did do this, it doesn’t make it right. Sooner or later some Bishop will decide that it’s OK to marry your dog!
3) Common sense tells us it is wrong
4) How would you feel if it was one of your children?
My responses:
1) Either my colleague or Boswell is wrong. Do you choose the academic who's done research, or the church member? [I have not read Boswell - just seen quotes from him in an internal church document]
2) Good point
3) Different people have different ideas of common sense. Conservatives' common sense is that we are made for heterosexuality. Gay people’s common sense tells them it’s their God-given nature. And in the past, common sense told us that women are subordinate and slavery is OK.
4) If it was one of my children? Well his is what this post is really about. There was a time when if one of my children told me they were gay, I would have been fairly distraught. I would have told them they could never fulfil their urges, even in a gay marriage. I would have advised them not to tell people. I would have imposed great burdens on them. They would be left in a position where they felt I was ashamed of them. I don’t want to be ashamed of my children! So now, if my child tells me he/she is gay, I can affirm them for what they are, and help them to live a happy and fulfilled life in partnership with God, not resenting him. So I’m not sure my friend’s question had the effect he intended! [PS none of my children is gay – as far as I know]
He did not agree with me at all!
Amongst his comments were:
1) The Orthodox Church has never changed its liturgies
2) Even if they did do this, it doesn’t make it right. Sooner or later some Bishop will decide that it’s OK to marry your dog!
3) Common sense tells us it is wrong
4) How would you feel if it was one of your children?
My responses:
1) Either my colleague or Boswell is wrong. Do you choose the academic who's done research, or the church member? [I have not read Boswell - just seen quotes from him in an internal church document]
2) Good point
3) Different people have different ideas of common sense. Conservatives' common sense is that we are made for heterosexuality. Gay people’s common sense tells them it’s their God-given nature. And in the past, common sense told us that women are subordinate and slavery is OK.
4) If it was one of my children? Well his is what this post is really about. There was a time when if one of my children told me they were gay, I would have been fairly distraught. I would have told them they could never fulfil their urges, even in a gay marriage. I would have advised them not to tell people. I would have imposed great burdens on them. They would be left in a position where they felt I was ashamed of them. I don’t want to be ashamed of my children! So now, if my child tells me he/she is gay, I can affirm them for what they are, and help them to live a happy and fulfilled life in partnership with God, not resenting him. So I’m not sure my friend’s question had the effect he intended! [PS none of my children is gay – as far as I know]
Where did they go?
You may have noticed that some of my posts on the topic of homosexuality have been deleted. I had made the mistake of naming someone in them, and when read in the cold light of day they were offensive to the person concerned and it was not right for them to remain. My apologies have been given, and seem to have been accepted.
In one of those posts I promised some feedback from my discussions with that person on the application of ‘One Flesh’ to homosexual relationships.
My correspondent’s conviction was that her relationship was a living example of ‘one flesh’, and that the principle does indeed apply to homosexual relationships. She was ‘married’ [she used those inverted commas – I think because of local legal reasons?] by her Christian Pastor, and she describes her partner as her wife.
She claimed to not be a theologian and for that reason did not attempt to back it up with chapter and verse. Which is OK – in my own experience the inner conviction sometimes comes first and the academic theology has to catch up later. And I suppose that my own conviction has also been for some time that gay marriage is OK, and my posts wrestling with the theology have been part of that catch up. And there are still some points to clear up. I am still looking for the academic theology to support my 'one flesh' conviction. No doubt some conservatives will argue that the experience of one woman is not a sufficient basis for a doctrine, and you have a point, but I'm working on it.
But I suppose, overall, I am a convert!
And if a raving homophobe like me can radically change my views, and over a two year period move from writing angry letters to parliament against the Sexual Orinetation egulations and come to a point where I endorse the idea of gay weddings in church, then I lay down the challenge to other readers of my blog.
In one of those posts I promised some feedback from my discussions with that person on the application of ‘One Flesh’ to homosexual relationships.
My correspondent’s conviction was that her relationship was a living example of ‘one flesh’, and that the principle does indeed apply to homosexual relationships. She was ‘married’ [she used those inverted commas – I think because of local legal reasons?] by her Christian Pastor, and she describes her partner as her wife.
She claimed to not be a theologian and for that reason did not attempt to back it up with chapter and verse. Which is OK – in my own experience the inner conviction sometimes comes first and the academic theology has to catch up later. And I suppose that my own conviction has also been for some time that gay marriage is OK, and my posts wrestling with the theology have been part of that catch up. And there are still some points to clear up. I am still looking for the academic theology to support my 'one flesh' conviction. No doubt some conservatives will argue that the experience of one woman is not a sufficient basis for a doctrine, and you have a point, but I'm working on it.
But I suppose, overall, I am a convert!
And if a raving homophobe like me can radically change my views, and over a two year period move from writing angry letters to parliament against the Sexual Orinetation egulations and come to a point where I endorse the idea of gay weddings in church, then I lay down the challenge to other readers of my blog.
Monday, January 19
I need a new client
It is now over two years since I took the plunge and became a freelance engineer. It has been successful so far, with my only real worry being that I have been with the same client all this time, which could cause the tax man to doubt my independent status. So I have been looking for other work, and apart from a bit of part time work for a local council in summer, nothing has come up. My search has been getting more intense and frantic as time passes.
Things have now come to a head since my client has informally let me know that they can’t see work for me beyond February, and that while they are not giving me the formal notice required by the contract YET, I should be aware of the situation. (This is not credit-crunch related – it’s to do with the five-year cycle of the English water industry funding mechanism.)
So I have been contacting all my old colleagues etc, and it’s not looking good – all have politely said ‘no’. Agencies have suggested two posts, each at least 4 hours drive away, OK for an occasional trip but too far to commute every day and with my family commitments I can’t stay away from home.
So while I remain ‘in faith’ that God will bail me out at the last minute, as he always does, there is still a rising sense of panic.
Things have now come to a head since my client has informally let me know that they can’t see work for me beyond February, and that while they are not giving me the formal notice required by the contract YET, I should be aware of the situation. (This is not credit-crunch related – it’s to do with the five-year cycle of the English water industry funding mechanism.)
So I have been contacting all my old colleagues etc, and it’s not looking good – all have politely said ‘no’. Agencies have suggested two posts, each at least 4 hours drive away, OK for an occasional trip but too far to commute every day and with my family commitments I can’t stay away from home.
So while I remain ‘in faith’ that God will bail me out at the last minute, as he always does, there is still a rising sense of panic.
Thursday, January 15
Normal Life Adventure, with homosexuality and arthritis, kids and money, and preaching.
This blog is full of posts tracing my exploration of the theology of homosexuality – which no one reads – and it also contains a few small posts about my wife’s rheumatoid arthritis, which get lots of readers.
What links these two topics? Nothing at face value.
But my blog is about how a normal life, if lived with God, becomes an adventure. So as well as all the mundane stuff, I have these ongoing adventures – things I would never have imagined:
And nice to think that even if I am toying with what might be heresy, He still cares.
What links these two topics? Nothing at face value.
But my blog is about how a normal life, if lived with God, becomes an adventure. So as well as all the mundane stuff, I have these ongoing adventures – things I would never have imagined:
- Radical changes of theology
- Living with disability
- Having 7 kids (so far)
- Stepping out of the boat in faith financially to buy a large house
- Becoming self-employed
- Becoming a Licensed Reader in the Church of England
Which reminds me: On Sunday I preached that Faith and Action work together, and as an example I said that if you pray for money, usually the answer involves you going out and getting a job and working for it. Now, my finances have been deteriorating for some time as one the one hand my income decreases (I keep finding mistakes in my company accounts that I have to make up for by reducing dividends) while at the same time costs have been getting larger (for example, a letter from my energy supplier telling me they will increase my monthly payment by £50). So, having told the congregation that financial miracles whereby someone knocks on your door offering money are very rare, a man knocked on my door and, cutting a long story short, I have signed up to change my energy supplier, saving me about 20%.
Now it might have happened anyway, but when the timing of things, the coincidence, is unusual, it smells of miracle (or God-incidence) to me.
And nice to think that even if I am toying with what might be heresy, He still cares.
Triffids
The office in which I am working is rapidly becoming overgrown by pot plants. There seem to be more each day. I expect someone in management has read that they improve productivity or something. Alternatively, it’s ‘Day of the Triffids II”
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