Too easy to become a fan

There's a bunch of other blogs I read to help me think more... Some of them are listed on the panel of this page and I usually read them in bed just before I nod off - thank you iPhone ;)

One I highly recommend is from my favourite Kiwi since my year 7 PE teacher Mr Kay - Al Ronberg. Check out his blog here. His many talents include photography so at the very least you get a nice photo every day... but he brought up the point in his blog today about how Facebook has now got a tad swamped with sooo much junk - it's less about micro blogging and sharing and networking and more like top 5's and what kind of carrier bag you are most likely to marry. At least when I got 50 zombie requests per day they were kept hidden in a notifications panel somewhere! Facebook even listed that a highlight of today was that 15 of my friends have become fans of hot chocolate. Which prompted this thought...

How can you be such a fan of hot chocolate that you'd want to tell the world? If you're one of those 15 people, do you wear I 'heart' Hot Choc shirts? Do you regularly contribute to the hot chocolate Wikipedia page? Are you searching eBay for overpriced tickets to a mug of hot chocolate's sold out stadium tour? Or do you just like the occasional mug on a winter's evening and does that really make you a fan?

It's way too easy to become a fan of something. I want to be a fan of things I am genuinely passionate about, things that contribute towards enriching or taking care of my life. Everything else, well, I enjoy loads of things (including the odd hot chocolate) but you just wouldn't catch me traveling to an away match.

Thanks, Al for prompting this thought.

I think Easter is real

I almost feel guilty saying this, but I'm not sure I really GOT Easter until this year. Hold your gasp for just one second while I try and figure out why... I think it's because of the whole routine of it all - there is such little variety in it every year it's like it's become a holy box ticking exercise where we go "Good Friday bank holiday half day - check" "Saturday just like any other - check" "Church on Sunday followed Easter eggs - check!"

It doesn't carry the same weight commercially as Christmas, and as a result I might be a Christian that's forgotten how to celebrate Easter. But we did something different this year which was just what we needed to snap out of another year of stale tradition.

This picture is a poor res image of our communion table before our church service on Good Friday. When we take communion we use it as a tool to remember Jesus' death and it's an imitation of the 'Last Supper' where Jesus spent some time with his friends over a meal. That's a meal. Not a 1cm squared piece of bread and a thimble of juice. So at our church on Friday we ordered 55 loaves of bread and had jugs of juice... I ate so much bread I sat sooo bloated through the sermon. The message that day said there's room for everyone to eat at this table (there was loads left over!), no matter who you are, what you've done or where you've been, Jesus died so there would always be room at his table.

I get it now.

This Week's Greatest Achievement!

From my office window I watched someone come and put this new bench in the park by our church. There's nothing special about it... It's just a bench. But this bench created an opportunity of a lifetime for me.

There's a cliche that says "When was the last time you did something for the first time?" Well for me it was today! This afternoon I became the first person ever to sit on that bench. Nobody will ever take that title away and maybe in twenty years the bench will still be there and a single glance at it would cast my mind back to a sunny April lunch break with a cup of tea and a honey mustard chicken pasta.

Have I done more significant things in my life? Probably.

Will I do more significant things in the future? Hopefully.

Will I always be the first person ever to sit on the bench? Absolutely.