Day Twenty-Eight - The Letters

THUD!

That's the sound of a letter from Paul landing on a first century Corinthian doormat.  Never let it be said that he was a man of few words.

Tomorrow, more of the letters.

Day Twenty-Seven - Acts

Acts 2:15 "These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!"

Nine in the morning?

Long long ago in a holiday camp far far away, nine in the morning was just a state of mind, and the sun was always over the yard-arm somewhere. Peter, I've been employed there, done that, and in 1994 I even got the T shirt to prove it.

There's many a tale to tell...

Tomorrow, we find out what the Romans ever did for us...

Day Twenty-Five - Mark and Luke

Following along to someone elses reading plan meant that Jesus died yesterday.  He died today.  He will also die twice tomorrow.

But he rose from the dead yesterday.  He rose again today.  And I'm pretty sure he will rise again twice tomorrow.  That's pretty good.

Knowing he's risen.  Priceless.

Some things in life money can't buy.

Thanks.

I've had just over a thousand hits on this site since I re-started it.  Thanks for dropping by and I hope I've not offended too many people.

Day Twenty-Four ...And in With The New.

So today it was all of Matthew and a wee bit of Mark. 

When you do the whole bible in chunks, you realise that the whole of Jesus' ministry, or at least a gospel worth, can be read in a couple of hours.  Compared to some of the early prophets that went on for a couple of days, Jesus really wasn't with us for that long.  In fact, his disciples use up more words than he does.  Well it's not the quantity, it's the quality.

But today took me past Matthew 7:24-27 about the wise and foolish builders.  This reading was used for the Young Church last weekend.  By way of demonstration, the house had shoogly foundations until the words of Jesus were used as underpinnings.

Perhaps not the best illustration, but you had to be there...

 Tomorrow it's on to Luke 15 via the rest of Mark.

Day Twenty-Three. Out with the Old...

So this is the end of the Old Testament.  Through the last of the prophets.  Realising that an atheists bible would be so much shorter, as atheism is a non-prophet organisation...

So I went through Jonah.  He was regurgitated on the shores near to Nineveh, where he went and proclaimed the Lord's message.  The Ninevans (Ninevehans?) immediately agreed to dress in sackcloth, sit on ashes and repent from their wicked ways.

It was a pretty prompt result, but if you're presented with a man standing there, dripping in whale puke, you'll agree to pretty much anything he says, as long as the scary man goes and stands downwind...

Tomorrow it's the New Testament, The Gospel according to Mark, and, alas, more begatting.

Day Twenty-Two

Up to the end of Amos via the furnace and the lions den.  A risky day for all concerned.

Apparently only people without beards can survive the lions den, because in tests, 8 out of 10 cats prefered whiskers.

Let's have a blast from the past (about 3,000 years ago), pop pickers, with some Boney M. (because I forgot to put this in when I did the psalms)

Day Twenty-one

So now we're up to Ezekiel 47.

This takes us past Ezekiel 37 verses 1-14 where the prophet saw the valley of "Dem Bones"

Now hear the word of the Lord!

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Ray Harryhausen,  I've been a fan of stop motion animation for years, and Ray is the inspiration for many a modern animator, so much so that the bar in Monsters Inc is named after him.

So once you've seen Jason and the Argonauts, the only thing that can possibly enter my head when I hear about the valley of the dry bones, is the scene where the teeth of the Hydra are sown and the skeletal army rises from the ground.  If you've not seen it (where have you been?), please enjoy the following from the film.

Long Term Car Hire (or Italy and back in a banger)

Over at The Year of Living Frugally, Fran is in two minds about keeping a car.  They are expensive tings to keep, even if they don't turn a wheel.

A few years ago, Mrs Gerbil and I were having a discussion that centred around hiring a car for the summer.  We were in the process of arranging car hire for a trip to New Zealand, and some of the prices from the main companies were eye watering.  We worked out that it would be possible to buy a car, tax it, insure it and run it for a whole summer before selling it when you wanter rid of it for a whole lot less than hiring a car for a week.  Following on from this, one of us suggested that it would be fun to take an old banger for a final hurl round Europe.  And Mrs G thought this would be a great idea.  I was surprised she went along with the idea.

So when you're doing something like this, you just have to get it sponsored.

And so began what became known as Bob's Big Adventure, named after "Bob the Bible" thechurch mascot that was accompanying us on the trip.

The car was a pretty basic Citroen AX diesel that had 125,000 miles on the clock when we departed on our trip.  I paid £500 and the mechanic I bought it from gave it a very thorough service before we left.  The challenge was to leave immediately after the morning service, take the car through 10 countries and arrive back in time for the same service two weeks later.

Well we thrashed the bum off that car.  Over the Forth Bridge then down through England, into France, while blagging our way onto the bridge of the ferry, then through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, back into France, for the night.  Next day it was an adventure through Switzerland, passing the army knife factory, before stopping at the foot of the Splugen pass.

Well this was the point that the car started misbehaving. It was tuned for sea level, and here we were, 1475m (4839)  above sea level telling it to climb another 700 or so metres to 2113m, just so we could set a wheel in Italy.  20% less oxygen at the top of the pass meant that the can was pouring out white smoke and misfiring all the way up.  But we did it.  Italy ticked off the list.

Now all we had to do was come back down - a 700 metre descent.

Brakes slow your car down by converting motion into heat.

Brake fluid can boil if you brake too much

Brake fluid doesn't work if it's boiling.

brake discs can shatter if excessively heated.

Adrenaline is brown.

Remember the Italian Job.  Whistling the theme tune does very little to reassure your passengers as you career from one hairpin to the next, and all the while this mad German was flashing his lights at us, pulling allongside to tell us "you haf duzt coming from your auto.  you vill break down soon!"  Thanks for the warning, but this car is made of tougher stuff - it is one of the best bits of engineering to ever leave France.  Which is a shame, because they hang on to the best engineering for themselves, leaving us in this upholstered rollerskate.

But survive it did, and it even allowed Mrs G to discover that a three figure speed on the autobahn is possible, even if the car feels like it will shake apart around you.  So all that was left was a mad dash accross Austria, Germany and into the Netherlands.  We stopped to visit the CofS minister in Amsterdam, before re-entering England, through Wales and back To Scotland.  We even had a bit of time to kill so we visited INdia, or at least set foot on Indian diplomatic teritory by going to their embassy, and managed a photo call with the First Minister of the time, Jack McConnell.


We raised around £2,000 for a leprosy centre we were helping, and had an amazing holiday at the same time.  3000 miles in a car that should have been scrapped.  I hang on to the car to the end of the summer, and used it as our little runaround.  It was still giving around 60 to the gallon.

But all good things have to come to an end, so the AX was sold on Ebay after 4 months for £420.  While I was sorry to see it go, it was surplus to requirements.  The car had tax, so I needed to insure it which cost around £120ish.  So 4 months car hire for £200 less fuel.  By way of comparison, 1 months car hire for a similar sized car from a major company is £800.

Would I do it again?  Well it's not that far from Africa to the Arctic Circle...

Edit.  Mrs G mentioned that we MOT'd the car before selling it.  So add £50 or so.  £250 for some great motoring.  

Day Nineteen

ne ne ne ne ne ne nineteen

A shedload of Isaiah and 37 chapters of Jeremiah got me back up to date.  My head is now buzzing with warnings of false gods and false idols.

But there was mention of a new covenant and someone who is still to come.  Who could that be?

But of course, tonight Mrs Gerbil started talking about some of the things in Revelations. Typical.  You start reading an interesting book and some sod has to give away the ending!