Andrew Jones

I have been working away at my Sunday evening sermon, which will be based in part on my notes (here).  Andrew Jones has a post about the book in the bible I have been studying and their is no doubt that his thoughts have influenced one aspect of my interpretation.  Thank you Andrew.

Bible versions, the book of Ruth and visitors to the West End of Morecambe.

One of the big themes in my life is that the bible should be available and easy for people to understand. I spend hours crafting the talks that I give. I hope that my thinking carefully about the way people hear what is said, they will find the bible interesting and relevant.

We have been reading the book of Ruth, from the bible in the evening service. We meet on Stanley Road in the West End of Morecambe. I have put quite allot of effort into retelling the account of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz.

On Sunday there was a chap in church who was visiting Morecambe with the specific intention of helping people in its West End find out about and follow Jesus. I could see that he was less than happy as I re-told the passage from Ruth Chapter 3. As he left the church his comment was "You can’t beat the AV" (The AV being the Authorised Version of the bible).There were two things that struck me. Firstly he wasn’t speaking in AV language. If he had said. "Thou used not the version of the holy word thus Authorised by King James in the year of our Lord 1611". I might have felt that his comment was valid.

The bible is one of the most exciting books in the entire universe, it knocks spots off Harry Potter. However if you read it in the dry and dusty language of the past, people will think it belongs to the past.

I understand why people like the older versions of the bible, they may have grown up with it, they may love the poetry. Personally I find it the most difficult version to read out loud or to understand, the use of the AV drives me away from God not closer to him. I think that you can beat the AV, and God willing we will. If you want people in the West End of Morecambe (or anywhere else) to understand the relevance of the message you have to speak in language that they will understand. Surely that is exactly what Jesus did.

Surely this is not rocket science.

[UPDATE: A few people have asked if I have posted my comments and retelling of the Book of Ruth.  You can find it at: http://bible.graham.doel.org.  They are a bit rough in places and are not a complete edit.  I post them as I write them and edit them later. ]

My alternative uses for the Frontierland site, Morecambe.

One of the biggest eyesores in Morecambe is the "Frontierland" site. Once the site housed Morecambe’s fun fair. Now it lies a derelict disgrace, letting down the resort.  If you are feeling nostalgic there are some great photo’s here.

We have lived in Morecambe for two years and during that time there have been different proposals for the site. At the moment the current plan is to put a hotel, luxury flats and a DIY store on it. I have written to the council expressing my concern that this would be a wasted opportunity for the resort. I believe that what Morecambe needs are attractions that will strengthen the resort and make it an attractive place to visit. Our MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, Geraldine Smith, has voiced her opposition to the imposition of a DIY store on the front. "As for a DIY store, that would be entirely inappropriate. If one is to be built, then it should go on White Lund."

Here are my 4 suggestions for how the site could be used to strengthen the resorts profile:

1. An Interactive Centre
   "Explore the 192 square miles of Morecambe Bay: Fly with the migrating birds in our state of the art flight simulator, Travel through time experiencing the sounds and smells of life in Morecambe bay through the ages, Plumb the depth of the Irish sea in our sea tunnel. Morecambe Bay as you have never seen it before!"
2. Leisure and Fitness Centre
   "Whether you are relaxing in our spa, enjoying the fun of the longest flume in Europe, keeping fit in our multi-purpose fitness centre or just chilling out in our Internet cafe. You will love the amazing panoramic views over Morecambe Bay from within our temperature controlled centre.
3. Adventure Centre
   "Morecambe is host to the countries leading extreme sports centre: Enjoy Safari on the bay, Take the cross bay challenge, Climb our extreme sports wall, Race one of the most dangerous tides in the world in our virtual centre, Fling yourself into the sky in our Bungiee centre.
4. Alternative Energy Centre
   "Prepare for the most amazing experience of your life! Our interactive centrer will intrigue, inspire and amaze you. Experience invention and innovation first hand. Enjoy, Explore and Envelope the world of alternative energy.

Any more suggestions…

Drupal, PDFView and FPDF

I have been experimenting with Drupal as a content management system (this is my way of playing, some people play golf, I play with computers).

There are a few things I like about Drupal

• It is open source so it is developed by the web community.
• It has countless modules, which are easy to use and means you can get it to do what ever you like.
• It has themes so changing the look and feel of the site is very easy.

One of the modules I have tried is pdfview which allows people to generate a PDF of what they are reading.

It generates the PDF file from the content that the user is reading at that moment, by generating the file from the database (Buzzword: on the fly). It uses the freely available FPDF files to achieve it.

The problem I found is that it is not particularly easy for a non programmer like me to modify the output of the PDF file. The set of files that comes with it doesn’t generate a line break between the paragraphs.

Matt was round for his lunch and I picked his brain about it and he explained that there was a line missing in the module.pdfview file.

If you add

      $pdf->Ln(5);

After line 89 it works fine. Which I thought was good news. So if you are struggling with line breaks in PDFView that is all you need to do. Alternatively you can just download my hacked copy!

Learning to play chess.

I have been teaching Isaac how to play chess (Mum started it). It’s a bit like playing yourself. Playing yourself is not the most interesting of games because you always know what your next move is!

It is interesting that without realising I am teaching Isaac my standard chess strategy. It will be odd when he starts to think for himself and takes me by surprise.

The only disappointing thing about playing chess with a five year old is that you start to long for proper game. I asked Louise to play me, but she said what I feared she would say…

"No, I’ll only end up deliberately loosing to end the game quickly".

 

I ask you how can you dislike chess?

Tags:

More on Debt and Credit.

August 8, 2005 by Graham Doel  
Filed under Money Things, Thoughts on life

Leave a Comment

I was thinking about debt the other day here: http://graham.doel.org/index.php/2005/08/05/debt-and-credit/

When you are in unmanageable debt the shame and the feeling of helplessness that it creates often leads to denial. You think that you can manage the debt, and some people do manage to swing from consolidation loan to consolidation loan, using their assets as security. Emmerdale captured the sense of helplessness well when Lesley couldn’t bring herself to tell her son Simon how bad it was until it was to late. Simon in turn got hooked into the feeling of shame and couldn’t bring himself to tell his finance (Nicola). When I was in debt I learned that to get out of the trap there were several things I had to do:

• Admit to myself I was in trouble.
• Admit to the people I owed money I was in trouble.
• Negotiate with my creditors a solution.
• Work hard.

Things I remember:

• I remember the depressing feeling of never being able to get my balance in the black.
• I remember the joy the first time my wages paid off my overdraft.
• I remember the feeling of hope that came as I saw my overdraft get smaller and smaller.
• I remember the elation of being in the black month by month.

When I was consistently in the black the feeling of liberation and control over my own life was fantastic.

Tags:

Nuts about 4 am!

August 6, 2005 by Graham Doel  
Filed under Family, blog

Leave a Comment

It’s 4:30 am and I am up and playing again. It’s not that I go out of my way to be up at this unearthly hour, it’s just that something wakes me up and my brain is saying "Let’s go!"

There are some special things about my early morning time.

1. I get more done.
2. It is quiet (rare in our house).
3. It is like my own time. I get 3 hours when I can do whatever I want, there are no pressures.

What do I do.

• Sometimes I work.
• Sometimes I cook up a hair-brained scheme.
• I drink coffee (lots of it)
• I often have an early breakfast.
• Sometimes I watch the news (Courtesy of news.bbc.co.uk).
• Sometimes I blog.
• Sometimes I play with my websites.
• Sometimes I play.
• Sometimes I bargain hunt.
• Sometimes I sit and enjoy the silence.
• Sometimes I put my headphones on and play loud music. (ELO this morning, probably followed by Gypsy Kings.

Early mornings…. I love them.

Tags:

Debt and Credit.

August 5, 2005 by Graham Doel  
Filed under Money Things, Thoughts on life

Leave a Comment

I had Emmerdale on in the background yesterday evening as I replied to some of my e-mails. It seems that Simon’s mother (Lesley) has got their business into a right mess and they are on the verge of financial ruin. It got me thinking about the lure of debt and how it traps people in a downward cycle. I have experienced the power of debt and the feelings of hopelessness that it causes. When I worked for a fast food company I contracted salmonella (from an undercooked piece of chicken I ate in a new store in Birmingham while helping them out with their opening). That led to months of sick and living on SSP. Even though I was prudent during that time I ended up with an overdraft in excess of one months income. These are some of the things I noticed about debt:

• It creates a feeling of helplessness.
  You can’t see a resolution to your problem and so you lack motivation to get out.
• It serves its self.
  Once you are in the trap it becomes increasingly difficult to get out because the charges mount and left on it’s own it increases, getting bigger and bigger until you can’t manage it.
• It creates promise.
  Debt sustains its self by promising you that it is manageable. It tells you that you can have what you want now instead of waiting for it. The promise is to provide you with what you want but the reality is that the debt creates a profit, not for you, but for someone else.

Aside: If you are reading this because you are in debt there are ways out. Credit Action exists to help people get out of debt. They have really helpful advice on their website: www.creditaction.org.uk

Tags:

Google Page Rank for “Morecambe”

August 3, 2005 by Graham Doel  
Filed under Google Page Rank Experiment

Leave a Comment

Inspired by the rather odd American, Neville Medhora, and his Google page rank experiment I looked up where my blog came on a Google search for "Morecambe". The Boys Brigade website came at the bottom of page 2 (well done Matt). The church web site made it in on page 17. By the time I reached page 24 I gave up on the vanity search.

As a result I have decided to see if I can improve my page rank under the search term "Morecambe" and get to the first page. My intention is not to dupe Google or people searching for legitimate content. It is not a vanity experiment, but an attempt to see how easy it is to improve your search ranking. My strategy is to post legitimate information about Morecambe under a new category… no prises for guessing what the category will be called! I will post once or twice a week and irregularly check to see how I am progressing.

Tags:

Blog depression

August 1, 2005 by Graham Doel  
Filed under General

Leave a Comment

Are you suffering from blog depression.  I think Matt and Chris are!

Thanks to Storyteller for the link. 

Tags:

Next Page »