Gilets and Jesus.

So, last week felt like an incredibly momentous one for me. Having put it off for an incredibly long time, what with saving money for Christmas presents, and generally just not being particularly extravagant with my money, I finally went for the investment and bought myself this,  FatFace's infamous Georgina Gilet. In Grey. A Grey Georgina Gilet. My heart literally melts. A wonderful friend of mine, Helen, had come down for the evening, and was taking me on a 'hot date' after work, allowing me to choose what we did, and I chose to shop. And shop I did.


If I'm honest, there's more to this than having just bought a new piece of clothing - it was more like taking a new step: a step of newness out of an old situation that needed leaving behind. A step of newness into an independence where I can decide where my 'treat' money goes. A step of newness out of that limiting thinking that to be warm you need to have sleeves. (And oh! How very wrong that thinking is!) It was like not only was I purchasing an item of clothing that would put me up there in trendiness with the Helen Jenkins, Debbie Gliddons, Charlotte Martins and Katie McCraws of this world (some stylish high-flyers there), but it was like the start of a new season of me. 


'Me and my Gilet (and yes, in a way it does require the capitalising...) can take on the world!', I was thinking to myself - in the way I always think about my bike when it's got new brake pads, or my hair when it's been properly straightened. It was glorious, and along with Tina (my new little car), it felt there was nothing I couldn't acheive, if only I could decide what it was I wanted to do. This may be a little exaggeration, but you see my point. Gilet idolatry. Gilet symbollism. Gilet significance. 


Then on Sunday (don't worry, if you can feel a twist to this tale, you would be right, but be assured that NO HARM has come to the Gilet. In fact, I am wearing it right now because my attic bedroom is an *ice-box*), at church, good old Stevey-J spoke about being Rooted in the Cross (which once I've uploaded onto the website tomorrow, will be on this link here. Listen, it's strong stuff.). He spoke about the significance of what Jesus did on the cross. He spoke about how his death and resurrection reconciled us with God, made us 'at one' with Him, having paid off the moral debt our backlog of, and our future, wrong-doings creates that keeps us separate from Him. He spoke about how it makes us Righteous in God's sight - as if we'd never sinned, accepted into relationship with God, and continually transformed to be like Him. Yeah - me, righteous? I know...but you too. He spoke about just how much God loves us, that the ransom he would pay to give us freedom from our sins was for him to humble himself from Heaven and be like us, and to die a humilating death so that we don't have to offer sacrifices every time we mess up - and never be able to get on with living. He spoke about how this shows that God is both completely just, because sin has been punished, just as he said it must be; but completely merciful, because He covered all that cost himself. And how there is nothing that we can do that will make God love us any more, or any less, than he infinitely already does - regardless of what our self-worth or our pride might tell us. Noooothing. It is fixed in complete, loyal, rock-steady unconditionality. 


And having considered all that, and gone back to the basics of what the cross is about, and what salvation is - the transforming power of The Gilet pales into insignificance when I consider what the cross changes and marks. It allows that every day is a new start, free from the things that have held me back. It allows that I know that I am fully, 100% loved and accepted, despite in all other respects being fully, 100% single. And it allows that I can have a daily relationship with the most perfect and mighty being in all of time and space -because I'm made righteous by an action I never deserved.

So, my dearest darling Gilet, I love you with passion that few other items of clothing will ever receive - however, when it comes to taking on the world with a new attitude, it's my Jesus that's going to be coming with me. I mean, you can totally come too, obviously, I've gotta stay warm, but Jesus will be doing the butt-kicking, not you. I hope that's ok. 

To finish, I leave you with a video that's been doing the rounds this week that is just so great - a guy poeming about the difference between religion and relationship. I love this way of putting it across, it's a winner for me. 

Until next time, ciao :)

Sign it with a Kiss (or some cake)

I would begin by apologising for a week between blog posts, but in reality who with a life can manage to blog more than once a week?! So no apologies ;)- but what a week! The highlight was, without-a-doubt, the beautiful wedding of Jack and Claire on Saturday: a beautiful service, a fantastic time of catching up with old and dearly loved and missed friends, and lots of fun playing and dancing at the reception. For me it was a particular joy, as I'd been asked to play in the ceilidh band in the evening, playing medleys of old jigs and reels. It was the first time I'd ever done it, and a previously-undiscovered wonderment! There's something brilliant about getting a tune right under your fingers, and feeling the tune getting faster and faster as you send the dancers into frenzied swirls around the dancefloor beneath you that mimic the frenzy of your own fingers. Anyway, as I said in the first blog that I would mention 'things that make me tick' there is your mention. I love playing ceilidh music. My added bonus is that I get to go back to college on Friday and join in with a ceilidh there, and get to dance it this time. Bounteous joy, I am lavished with it :) ...Have just been distracted for many minutes by a youtube guy who's posted a fiddle-tune a day for a year. What a legend.

Anyway.

Today's joy is that I've started back at British Sign Language classes again for the new year, and new module! Wahey! Didn't know I go to BSL classes? Well, I go to BSL classes! (Glad we've cleared that one up...).Our teacher, Jill, is an absolute delight, she's so funny, and is also profoundly deaf,  so we have no choice but to sign with her; it can make communicating tasks in the lessons hard but ultimately makes us using our signing much more, and get better at. She likes to tease us for both our under- and over-emphasis of how we sign...today we were learning about how facial expressions make a difference to the same signs, in the way tone of voice normally would for us, and how to sign emotions. This lead to some beautifully mockable overexaggerations of a love of cake. This may or may not have been me...

In other news, I have just indulged in a delicious slice of fruitcake with creme fraiche, home-made by Bry's Dad. Yeah, ok, the cake lover was me.

Right-o, today we're going to comedic Emily-basics today. Many of you may have seen my facebook status earlier that said: "LOVE IT. Lady on the phone just asked me genuinely to 'bare with'. If only she knew...". Sadly to me a certain colleague in the office (who I shan't name, but my disappointment in his comedic knowledge is enough to give it away) admitted he'd never seen Miranda before. So, to put this status in context, I give you sadly not a 'bear with!' quote, as I can't for the life of me find one, but a most excellent clip nonetheless...may it begin your Miranda-related trawling of the internets in search of lols :)

Enjoy!

An evening of Monopolising, and Youtube Joy

Good evening!

Well, today was a great way to mark being back in Oxford, with a nice 'games and cake' (and then quiche, because we're Christians - but home-made because Ruth is a domesticated Christian) afternoon/evening at my friend Ruth's house. She makes amazing cake. Uh. May. Zing. Serious brownie food-gasms going on there. Anyway, after a long and protracted game of Monopoly (I honestly had no idea it could go on for so long - I've never seen a game to its conclusion before, it's some serious stuff!) we settled down to an entertaining session of exchanging our favourite videos. You know how it goes, one person mentions one thing, you watch it, then someone suggests another, and before you know it four hours has gone by and you've watched almost all of Youtube? Well, it wasn't quite that extreme but you get my drift.

I'm actually not going to share with you any of the videos we watched right now, though we did cover some excellent classisc, through Monty Python, Two Ronnies, Eddie Izzard and Morecambe and Wise (some of which I'm sure I'll get to at a later date)... But we did get talking about Northern comedians, which took me immediately in my mind to this. This is probably her most iconic and my most favourite of her songs. For the fact that I'm not a middle-aged woman, she still has me in stitches - it's cheeky, a bit saucy, and if you pay close attention you'll see Miranda's mother, Penny, in the audience looking considerably younger...

Ladies and Gentlemen. may I present Victoria Wood, and 'Let's Do It (The Ballad of Freda and Barry)':

 

New Year, New Blog, and Cake.

Helloo friend :)

You join me having just returned back to Oxford after a lovely break at 'home-home' in Northampton (it now has to be distinguished from normal 'home'), relaxing once-again in the single-seat, listening to a nice bit of Katie Sky with a Bailey's hot-chocolate. I've also been indulging in a few episodes of the Flight of the Conchords, and some fish-fingers and chips, so a very Happy New Year indeed...! I'm pretty sure that resolution along the lines of 'lose weight for Mica's wedding in May' doesn't exclusively rule out the opportunity to eat fish-fingers and chips, right...?

Anyway, starting a new blog: another new years resolution? Well, actually, of the twenty-odd 'Things to do in 2012' ('they're *not* resolutions, honest!', she's telling herself), starting a new blog isn't one of them; but 'do something with some of your photographs', 'keep watching comedy because you're better when you've laughed' and 'decide what you want to do with yourself' are. Along with several others. So this is a bit of a culmination of those things. Love it, Laugh at it, Photograph it.

My intention with this blog is largely just to post things that make me tick, and things that I've done that are uber-cool and I want to be able to archive. I realised a few weeks ago that almost everyone I know has now realised that if I'm even a little bit funny it's because I quote the things that make me laugh ad nausium, and don't really have any original funnies in my brain. So for all of you who *don't quite get* all the Miranda, Eddie Izzard, IT Crowd, Friends, Michael McIntyre, Flight of the Conchords, Big Bang Theory and Mock the Week -isms that I come out with on a regular basis, I hope to post them as I'm reminded of them, and anything new and brilliant I come across.

Equally, I am a particular fan of being behind a camera, especially when there's biological things in front of it. The dream is not to let the massive LOVE of Biology die, and to let the love of photographing grow. So. If I take something particularly cool, I'll just throw it at you for your approval.

And another 'equally', when I was at uni I OCCASIONALLY wrote a blog called God loves Darwin too, (it was incredibly occasional!) which was a place where I waffled about the links I found between what I was studying on my course and learning at church - the link between science and religion. It's still an area that really interests and inspires me, so if any other bloggable thoughts return to my head (though goodness knows my head seems to work in a completely different way to how it did at university now. I just store email addresses now. Yes, if you're at OCC I probably do know your email address off-by-heart. And yes, I am aware how inadvertently freaky that is.) I shall write them here too.

Anyways, I shall bid you adieu for now, and leave you with my first, and probably one of the most classic clips I could - the continual refrain of the Sturgess household since Christmas day...'Cake?'. Thankfully the alternative was never 'death'...