cazlentblog22

 My Dad died last year and left his worldly belongings to his wife Marion.  Marion is not my Mum.  In fact she is not even my step mother.  She is my second step mother.  My Dad was married to my Mum and divorced from her when I was very young, then married to Barbara who was ten years older than him and died 25 years ago and then he married Marion and lived very happily with her for 21 years before his death.   So as you can see my family is a bit complicated.  If you add into the mix the fact that my Mum has also been married three times ( divorced from Dad then widowed twice) you start to understand that in my family the whole issue of inheritance is...... well...... not straightforward.  It came into focus when I got a large box of photos from Dad's house after he died.  They were all photographs of him and his family when he was young ( lots of black and white pictures of him as a teenager with his friends etc) and then lots of Jame...

 Im not sure if Ive written about this before but its been on my mind all day so I suppose its what Im supposed to be thinking about for the blog.   Goodness.  God is good.  Every good and perfect gift He gives comes from the goodness of His nature.  He looked at everything He had made and said it was good. Goodness is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  Goodness runs through the scriptures from beginning to end and is an integral part of who God is.  Quite often when Im praying with people I find myself just saying over and over ' You are so good Lord' because that's all that seems important - to declare that everything about Him is kind and fair and just and true and, well...good.     There is something mysteriously powerful about goodness.  Im not sure if I can really put it into words but I hope you know what I mean.  Goodness is pure . It is sweet and hopeful and bright.  We all know when we encounter it and when w...

 Im still trying to work out what I think about Will Smith and his violent outburst at the Oscars.  Somewhere underneath all of the outrage and the apologies and the rest, is a woman who has lost her hair and is bravely putting herself out in the public eye as a role model for others.  And yes, I know it was a red carpet and she is hugely privileged and courts publicity.  But still.  She is brave. I didnt watch the Oscars, I just saw the endless repetition of the slap on the new channels all day.  I also only watched the news footage of the Queen at Prince Philip's memorial.  But there was another woman dressed in green being incredibly brave. Im sure she must have been in alot of pain walking into the Abbey and sitting for 45 minutes through the service.  She certainly looked rather exhausted and sad.  Bless her.  She is such a trooper. How hard must it be to have to sit through a memorial service knowing that millions of people around ...

 A quick post today.  Just to show you two things that caught my eye recently.  One was a postcard which dropped through my door a few weeks ago, just after the start of the war.  From a complete stranger - I am assuming an older lady And the other is what my neighbour wrote on the wall of her house this week Both of these made me smile.  Because in 35 odd years of being a Christian I hadnt thought of either of these ways of getting the message out there.   And I love to think of a little old lady in Bangor buying and writing postcards to random strangers to tell them the truth.  I am filing that idea away for a time when I might not be able to get to church or see anyone or be sat in an old folks home with nothing to do.  😊  Im sure her postcards have brought more than smiles to some people.  And Im praying that our postman and the delivery drivers and the neighbours in our wee road read Sonya and Lukes wall and just take ten seco...

 The word disappointment comes from the medieval French and means literally to dis- appoint, or to remove someone from their appointed position.  To sack them, in other words.   The P&O ferry workers have been disappointed this past week..  In every sense of the word.  Its interesting ( well I find it interesting) that a word which originally signified a world shattering event like losing ones job in an era when if you didn't work you didn't eat, can now be used to describe a slightly underwhelming pizza or an ill fitting shoe.   But actually, pizzas aside, disappointment can be crushing.  I think that when I have experienced it in my life sometimes it has been because my initial expectations have been unrealistic.  It has taken me a while to realise that I have quite high expectations of myself and I transfer those onto other people.  I expect good manners, absolute honesty, consideration of others and all sorts of other high s...

 Here in Northern Ireland we have had a week of really warm gorgeously sunny weather.  The skies have been blue, there has been no wind to chill the air and everyone has been out and about without their coats and even wearing sunglasses!  It has to be some kind of record for March.  And it has been lovely.  Yesterday I was sitting outside on a sun lounger in the afternoon, with a cup of coffee, doing absolutely nothing.  Im not very good at doing nothing.  But somehow the sunshine makes it easier for me to just stop and sit and relax.   I was thinking about how good the sunshine feels and it led me down a little ponder about light.  I wondered what happens to people if they are completely deprived of light - as a form of torture for example.  So I turned to Mr Google for help and got completely fascinated by the properties of light and how we respond to it. Light is critical for our mental and physical wellbeing.  It regulates ...

 Back in January Sam was driving home from a party in the middle of the night on an unlit road when he hit a pothole.  It shredded his tyre and dented the rim and left him having to change a tyre in the pitch black on a country road in the rain.  He was not a happy camper.  ( We discovered that its possible to claim the associated expenses back from the roads department so we have filed the paperwork and are waiting to see what happens)   Ever since then Ive been super aware of all the holes in the roads.  And there are loads of them.  They are bad enough if you are in a car but if you're on a motorbike or you are a cyclist then it must be even worse. A pothole starts with a crack.  Barely noticeable. But the water gets into it, then it freezes and expands and disrupts the layer underneath the tarmac. Before long the traffic going over the weakened spot causes the surface to sink - and lo and behold a crater appears.  And what was once a...

 As I have absolutely nothing to say for myself today, here's a slightly tweaked post from 2016 which I thought could stand another showing .😊 I think I might be a pyromaniac.   I absolutely adore messing about with my fire.  Not just poking at it and occasionally throwing on another stick. But seriously spending hours setting and fiddling and stoking and fanning and blowing and drawing and getting a right royal roar.  I love the smell of smoke, the charcoal fingers, the heat of embers and the satisfaction of getting some particularly stubborn log to finally blaze.  Im addicted.   It's probably terminal  The BEST PRESENT EVER was given to me by Emma a couple of years ago.  Its a collapsible metal tube called a pocket bellows.  You blow down it and it directs a very specific blast of breath onto the embers to get the fire going.  Its brilliant.  I know I need help!   Last night as I was trying ( in vain as it happens) to g...

 This past few days Ive met a lot of people who are really struggling with stuff .   My boss has been really unwell.  The guy who leads up our church recovered from Covid and is now down with some other bug along with his kids.  Yesterday I met a friend who is going through a marriage breakdown and is devastated.  Someone else I know was knocked off their bike on Monday and has just had several hours of surgery on her face to repair her eye socket and jaw.  The care company that provide carers three times a day to a friends elderly parents suddenly went bust and left them high and dry.   All of a sudden wherever I look there are people having a bad day. In our housegroup this week we were talking about the dreaded word ' mission'.  We've been looking at a series of topics around the question of how to be and make resilient disciples.  And this week it was all about taking the message out and about.  Being salt and light.  ...

I was listening to a worship song in the car yesterday.  It was being sung by Jen Johnson about whom I know nothing at all.  Except that she is a wholehearted worshipper.   And the reason I know this is twofold.  1) I can hear it in her singing and 2) when I watch her on Youtube I can see it in her singing.    Ive spoken in these blogs before about being wholehearted - giving absolutely everything to whatever you are doing, with focus and joy and abandonment.  I know God loves wholeheartedness in His people - not just that we are wholehearted towards Him but that we approach our entire lives from a position of having healed, restored and complete hearts.   Whole hearts are passionate hearts.  They dont respond out of hurt or disappointment.  They dont contain any trace of bitterness or resentment.  Whole hearts dont leak.  They are full and sound and good.   And then theres the opposite.  Half heartedne...

 For the second day in a row I got my washing out on the line.  Im pretty sure that some of you will join me in feeling a bit happy and a bit satisfied and a bit optimistic when the washing starts to go outside in the spring.  For a start it means that the sun is probably shining ( or at least it means its not likely to rain for a few hours)  It also means that the washing can dry in the breeze with that fresh, quick, less-to-iron, way.  And whilst I really do despise housework in all its forms, I have to confess that there is something quite satisfying about pegging things out on the line.  ( Dont get me started on the way Keith does it  LOL !!)    As I stood looking at the washing yesterday it occurred to me that hanging out washing is one of the most ancient and longstanding tasks we do.  People have been draping washing over hedges and hanging things over lines for thousands of years.  Pegs were invented in about 1800 and havent...

Last night the kids and young adults of our church organised a fundraiser for Ukraine.  It was an evening of music and buns ( cant get better than that can you?) and was due to kick off  at 7pm.   But at about 2pm the musician cancelled cos he wasn't well.   Which was a bit of a disaster to say the least. After many phonecalls at about half past five someone was found who agreed to come and play guitar and sing.  In the meantime I had said that Id stand in if needs be - despite being exceedingly rusty on the old busking routines.  So I turned up with my keyboard and a guy called Rodger from another church turned up with his guitar.  He had a list of popular songs and some chords.  The room started to fill up with people who sat round tables with their tea and buns and chatted away.  Rodger and I decided to wing it.  We had never met, we had never played or sung together, we had no rehearsal at all.  I ditched the piano and...

 Over lockdown I started making farms.      I saw someone who had made something similar on some website or newsfeed and thought ' I could probably do that'.   And then Sam came home from Uni with a large square of fake grass he had acquired somehow and I decided to give it a go.  Whilst it all looked as though it should be pretty straightforward it has actually taken me a long time to work out exactly how to make them well.  Trial and error - that's how we learn how to do things better isnt it?  For the most part.  Creativity starts with an idea.  I find ideas the most difficult thing.  Im really not very good at being original and I always marvel at people who are ( although Ecclesiastes would tell us that there is nothing new under the sun)  Then we need the wherewithall to get the project up and running.  We need materials and time and a suitable space.  We might need other people, collaborators.  We mig...

 I loved Jesus.  I loved him from the minute I set eyes on him.  He wasnt handsome in the conventional sense, but his eyes always had a twinkle, he had a great laugh, he was so kind and he noticed things that other people didnt notice.   He never walked past someone in the street who really needed a touch or a word.  He treated women so very differently from most men I knew - with respect and honour.  His teaching of the scriptures was amazing.  I just loved everything about him. I first met him the day he came to our house.   I had been living in Bethany with my brother and sister for most of my life.  Our parents had died several years before leaving us the house and the farm.  Lazarus was very good with the livestock and really enjoyed the outdoor life.  Mary was a brilliant seamstress and made all of our clothes as well as mending and making for the village.  And I kept house and also cared for an elderly nieghbou...

 You will all know by now that I like painting stones.  Mostly baby Jesus ones for Christmas, but Ive painted and decoupaged others too.  I find it therapeutic.  So when we re-joined Moneyreagh Community Church at the start of the year and the kids workers were looking for craft ideas I suggested stone painting.  On January 24th I sent a message to the Kids team leader suggesting that perhaps the children might do some stone painting for Easter and attached a photograph of a suitable design.   I had gone on Google images and trawled through hundreds of pictures of Easter stones and landed on this one. The essence of doing crafts with kids is to keep it very simple and make sure that they can produce something which looks really good within the time frame allowed.   So this stone fit the bill on all counts.   But because the idea will be to hide lots and lots of stones around the village in the lead up to Easter I decided Id prepare ...

 Today is St Patricks Day.   Its also the day that Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe gets home after 6 years as a prisoner in Iran.   It's interesting, because Patrick too spent 6 years as a prisoner having been kidnapped by pirates and taken from his well-to-do Roman villa somewhere in Wales ( or possibly England) to Ireland.  There he was kept imprisoned and made to look after animals.  He was only a boy and it must have been terrifying for him.  Nazanin was a mother of a young child who had gone to visit relatives in Iran.  She didnt expect to be in chains for 6 years being used as a political football in a sinister argument over unpaid debts.  Fifteen centuries separate their stories.  But not much separates their experiences.  As Ecclesiastes tells us, there is nothing new under the sun.   I remember reading ' An Evil Cradling' by Brian Keenan, taken captive by Islamic jihadists in 1985 and held in appalling conditions f...