I have been ill with the flu since Wednesday afternoon, which may explain why i’ve not been online lately … i could barely stay awake for more than a few hours at a time! I am on the mend now. Last night i woke up at about 11pm with my body about a trillion degrees, and i believe at that point the war was over. The virus died and now we’re in the mop up phase where my lovely white blood cells go round and repair all the damage done by the virus over the last few days.

My body is most definitely made of WIN! :D

I have just watched Death of a School Friend on the iPlayer. It’s a devastating and moving documentary about a teenage suicide and the impact of friends and family even 40 years later. I’m not ashamed to say that i cried throughout most of the programme.

I hope i might be able to go and see the Winchester Fireworks this evening. It’s always a stunning display, and having stayed indoors for 3 days i feel i’d like to get out. Provided it is not raining, and i don’t feel too tired, i will probably go. I am also hoping to get to church tomorrow morning. I missed it last week when i was away with my family.

I guess i won’t be doing NaBloPoMo then, haha! National Blog Posting Month, make a blog post every day for the whole of November. Presumably for those of us who can’t be arsed to write a novel! I did vaguely think about doing the blog posting, but here it’s the 4th of November before i get around to making my first post of this month! Never mind, hey!

I have been thinking in some detail about my spirituality and what i wish to gain from attending a church. I have come to the conclusion that, for an agnostic, i have a surprising number of beliefs and opinions about God, religion and spirituality. I have also decided that i have absolutely no need to share them with anyone. I don’t need to explain myself to anybody, nor try to convince anybody to believe the same things as i do. I can happily attend a church to enjoy the music and the fellowship. I can smile and nod when people are sharing their beliefs with me. So long as they are not hurting anybody, i shall have no need to contradict them or disagree with them. I think this is the best way to play this game. We can all get along and nobody need feel offended.

Songbird 1.0 (release candidate 1) is available for testing!!! (just thought i’d throw that in there!)

I shall not be staying up until stupid o’clock to find out the result of the election. I’m sure i will not be able to escape from hearing the result the moment i awake tomorrow morning. Let me just say that, whatever the outcome, i hope that it turns out to be the very best thing for America and indeed, the world. For now, i have taken my sleeping tablet so … nighty night! :)

Just a quick post to say, hello, and celebrate the fact that i’m on my netbook at my parents’ home! :)

Predictably, they didn’t know the password for the wireless internet. I thought it would be written down on a piece of paper somewhere, but no, it’s worse than that … only my uncle in Yorkshire knows the password! Happily i managed to poach a network cable and use that. It’s nice to have my own machine, with my email and calendar, and internet preferences and keyboard and everything just the way i like it! :)

This has been a tough week at work, and i was feeling rather overwhelmed yesterday, but several things all came together nicely today. It was a good day. I’m also very happy and relieved to say that my brother, who has been very ill for some time, is significantly better now.

I’m going to bed in a minute … i’ve been given some Nytol sleeping tablets which will hopefully help me to sleep better. I’ve had a lot of nightmares and sleepwalking lately. I can feel the tablets kick in as i type this (or maybe that’s just psychological?!) … i think this is going to be a nice relaxing weekend.

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Today was my third visit to the church. It’s a good place - i like it. The people are nice, and the music is great. They play quite modern tunes, lots i’ve never heard before, and also a few of the good old songs. They did the dreaded 4/4 version of Be Thou My Vision this morning - the version that sounded great the first time i heard it (in about 1998) and has been steadily annoying me ever since! You know what would be really awesome and innovative? Try playing Be Thou My Vision in a slow 3/4 as it was intended!

There was one song that i could not sing. I just could not agree with it in the slightest.

One way: Jesus
You’re the only one that I could live for

You are the Way the Truth and the Life
We live by faith and not by sight for You
We’re living all for You

Umm, no, sorry. I do believe that Jesus is one way, but not the way. Jesus is not the only way that people can know God. I am sure of this because i know plenty of people who have a wonderful, admirable relationship with God, without the need for Jesus. Ever had a chat with a Muslim during Ramadan?

You will never ever change
Yesterday today the same
Forever till forever meets no end

This idea that “God never changes” is dangerous, in my opinion. Change is good and healthy. If God never changed then we would still be stoning our daughters and women could still not be priests. Oh, wait …! Society changes and religion has to adapt or die. I think that’s pretty obvious.

There was one song that i really liked. It was about God, and mindfulness. It was quite mystical, like something from St Francis of Assisi.

God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping
God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything

That is such a nice song. No surprise, it is written by Tim Hughes, one of my very favourite Christian artists … and not just because Tim Hughes is exceptionally cute! ;)

I spoke to someone afterwards about this thing i have about Jesus not being the only way. The response was something along the lines of: “Ask Jesus to reveal himself to you. I’m praying for you. There’s nothing worse than not knowing.”

There’s nothing worse than not knowing.

I agreed with that. I’d love to have something to believe in. But the more i think about it, there is something that i believe in. I agree wholeheartedly with something that a dear friend told me a long time ago:

Christians have not got everything right, and non-Christians have not got everything wrong.

The one thing i cannot stand with Christianity is this superiority thing. It’s been three weeks and already i feel under pressure to go along with what they believe. There seems such an urgency to make up my mind that Jesus is the only way! I must conform, i must agree. I’m sure they think they’re trying to help, but this is the very thing that puts me off.

I once left a church because they prayed that Muslims would “find Jesus” during Ramadan. I once left a prayer group because the leader was actively praying against the Muslims being allowed their own prayer group. I am very intolerant of intolerance!

The more i think about it, the more i believe Neale Donald Walsch has it right:

We are all one. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.

I have always wanted to go to a multi-faith church. I think that would suit me perfectly. The trouble is, where’s a multi-faith church anywhere near Winchester?!

I like church. I think church is, on the whole, good for me. It’s nice to feel i belong somewhere. I enjoy collective worship. I enjoy getting to know people and making friends with people. I just hope that they can accept me as an agnostic, not expect me to immediately jump to their way of thinking, and not expect me to want to run out and convert everyone.

People will all follow their own path. There is plenty of good in this world, and there is evil. There will always be a balance. God is good. Jesus is one way to God, other ways are also available.

PS. Here’s a link to that wonderful song by Tim Hughes.
PPS To be fair, here is also a link to the One way: Jesus song.

I am waiting for some inspiration to occur to me about what to do for the rest of the afternoon. I know i have some chores to do (don’t i always?!) but not too many today. I might watch The Bill which my sweetie kindly recorded for me in the week. I might work on the MyChores API a little bit … or i might just continue lying in bed. Blogging from my bed is the best thing, haha!

I went to church again this morning. It was perfectly fine. I met a few more people, including many of the musicians. I keep dropping hints that i’d like to join their band, but i haven’t yet spoken to the people i would need to in order to join! I felt very content this week, and happy to be at the church. I love it that there are so many South Africans at the church. They are friendly and kind … and i love their accents! I’m probably going to pick up a bit of Afrikaans if i keep on going!

Work was good this week. I did a good job and i knew it. There’s no doubt that the work i’m doing now is the hardest i’ve ever had to do. I’m not used to finding my job difficult. But hey, it’s so rewarding to overcome a challenge and know i did it really well. I feel proud of myself. It’s tiring, though. I had a lovely relaxing day yesterday, but i still feel like i need a bit more time to relax before going into another busy week of hard work.

Yesterday afternoon was spent with nyecamden who came to Winchester to meet me. We had a good time together. Visited the library to have a go on their wifi with our netbooks! :) Went to my favourite cafe, The Sanctuary for a delicious hot chocolate. We walked down to the cathedral green to idly pass the time. On the way we found several messages written in chalk on the pavement of The Square. I don’t know who started it, but they were interesting to read. Many of them began with “This is …” and contained recollections of Winchester and happy memories.

I added to the messages, with “This is my favourite place to live”. It’s true, i love Winchester. Such a beautiful city, steeped in history and culture. I am very happy to live here.

Thank you Nye for the picture! :)

I must say, this is one of the best impulse buys i have ever made! I am at my aunt and uncle’s house, connected on their wifi. It is so nice to have my own computer, with all my settings, and my email and calendar, just ready to take around with me wherever i go. It picks up wireless networks effortlessly.

I had a nice evening with my cousins, playing with their gogos and reading stories. My plan for the rest of the evening is to write a few blog posts, watch Heroes on the iPlayer, and maybe read a bit of “The Pragmatic Programmer” which i’m intending to finish by the end of the month.

Church was quite fun on Sunday. There was over an hour of singing and worship at the beginning - wonderful for me! :D It felt good to be in an environment where i could contemplate God much more than i have done for a long time. I had a nice chat with a few people, and i was impressed by how many people there were of all ages - loads of kids, some young people, teenagers, young parents, middle aged and elderly people. There was also a nice diversity of nationalities represented there … though about half of them are South African! :)

I even went to a home group last night. It was convenient - just across the road from me. If nothing else, it feels good to be getting to know a few more people locally. They were friendly and tolerated my questions. They answered from their hearts, thinking about what was true for them, rather than giving me any standard drilled-in “Christian” answers. I admire that. I shall probably go again, both to the church and to the homegroup. It seems a good time in my life to be getting involved with a church again. Whether or not i will call myself a Christian remains to be seen. I might just be an agnostic who goes to church!

The thing that got me was this: okay so maybe there are many routes to God. Maybe every religion has something to offer. But that doesn’t mean i shouldn’t follow any religion. If i find one religion particularly beneficial, by all means i should follow it. I like many aspects of many religions, but after all, Christianity still feels the most comfortable to me, since it’s what i’m used to. Yes, i have my problems with a few of its followers - the ones with the more extreme beliefs - but in its essence, Christianity itself is not such a bad religion.

And then i thought - What if it’s all true? Obviously i can’t make myself believe something, but maybe if i hang around with these people for a while, if i go to church and take part in the worship and the customs … perhaps i’ll learn to lose some of my doubts, and let it sink in a bit. Maybe then it will become true for me personally, and maybe i’ll find my peace with God. We’ll see.

You know what - church was alright! :) The music was good, the people were friendly-but-not-too-pushy. Most of them seem to be from South Africa, heh! :) I might talk a little more about the church experience later … but for now …

My ‘reward’ for going to church, hahaha!

I love it!! I am sitting in the living room right now, connected to the wireless network, surfing the internet. It’s easy to type on, especially now i switched the keyboard layout to Dvorak. I’m glad i thought to buy a little mouse because i don’t get on too well with trackpads. I have enabled the XFCE advanced settings, downloaded Firefox 3, installed the Gimp … all is very, very good! :)

It is so cool how i can just take the SD card out of the camera, slot it into the Acer and it reads the pictures straight away, no fuss. Delightful! :)

It has a web cam, which may mean i can do Skype video calls. That would be cool! As a machine it works very nicely, makes a very faint hum, the screen is bright and clear, and the keyboard is perfectly responsive. The Linpus Linux it comes with is perfectly useable. I might be tempted to switch to Ubuntu, but i know this is designed to be fast and energy efficient, so i think i’ll stick with it for now. I managed to get rid of the XP-imitation title bar buttons, so i’m happy! :)

Two exciting things might happen today. One, i might go to church, if i don’t chicken out! I just feel like i want to. So i will! I can always leave if they start trying to pull any funny business on me.

Two, i might buy one of these little beauties:

Acer Aspire One A110. It’s a gorgeous, tiny little netbook, comes with a special lightweight, fast response, low power consumption version of Linux, plus Firefox, OpenOffice and a chat utility. It’s big strength (as far as i’m concerned) is the ability to find and use wireless networks. Useful for travelling! We have wireless at home now but i haven’t yet managed to make my computer recognise it.

I feel this would be a perfect solution to when i come home at night and just want to check emails and browse the Internet a little bit. It’s a waste of electricity to turn on the big computer and leave it on all evening. It would be great to have one of these that i can use from the living room, just turn it on briefly when i want it.

All reviews are very good - display is good, keyboard is a good size, it’s very quiet, style-wise it looks awesome! The only negative point anyone had to say was the battery life is only 3 hours. But that sounds sufficient for me. I had a go on one in town yesterday and i was impressed. I love the idea of taking it away with me, using it on the train, and at my parents house.

I was initally attracted to the Eee PC, which was great in its day - cheap, fast, light, portable. But competition is a wonderful thing. The Eee PC burst their own bubble by releasing a much better version but pricing it much higher. As soon as i saw the 900 series i no longer wanted a 700, but i didn’t feel the price justified the larger screen.

I have also been tempted by the Advent 4211, but after i had a go on it, i found that two of the keys were too close together. Plus it’s Windows by default. The most exciting thing about the Eee PC initally was that it came with Linux. So does the Acer Aspire! :)

At £199 i definitely think this is worth the money. Okay, i could get it on Amazon for £4 cheaper … but i think i might just spend that extra £4 and get it today! :) So long as they have the seashell white … then it satisfies my mac envy too! :D

In my mind, these events have become strongly linked. Go to church, then buy an Acer Aspire A110. Well - there’s motivation for me!