Mike's musings

Catch-up

In London for some of the day today, which was odd, as I'd not been in for ages. It rained hard, and I got bored of "spot the terrorist" games, particularly as, on the way in, I was carrying quite a large box on the tube (filled with shirts, as it happened), so decided that eyeing people suspiciously was more likely to get me in trouble than them, as I probably looked quite shifty. It was the first time I'd been into London since the July bombings, but it didn't feel particularly different to me: I suspect that people have had time to settle down a bit. And lots of people were looking a bit miserable because of the rain, and I think that, rather than suspicion and fear, was the main motivating emotion in our nation's capital today (why does that phrase sound so (US) American?).

So, why "catch-up" as a title? Just because I've not done much blogging recently, mainly because I've been very tired on getting back from work, and not grabbed a few minutes over lunch, for instance, to do anything at work. I thought I'd try to write something a bit longer than usual, and even to do some theology. Or, at least, to do some theological reflection.

The obvious thing to reflect on would be Suzy's death and, of course, the birth of Jenny's baby. Let's start with Suzy's death. From a personal point of view, although there is sadness, the major feeling is of settled-ness. We had some fantastic times with her, she helped keep me sane when I was unemployed, she was there for cuddles and walks when Moo was having problems getting pregnant with Jo, and generally being there for all the time we had her. And we took her on after she'd already been rehomed once and they'd rejected her: before that, she'd been thrown out of a car in Chelmsford. So our job was to give her a happy home, and I think we did that. No - I'm sure we did that: she loved going for walks, seeing us when we came home, and just sitting with us and the baby. That's not very theological though: what is there to mull over on this score? For me, not much. There's the old chestnut of whether dogs go to heaven, but that's a no-brainer. Quite what my views are on a "literal" heaven are, I'm sure I'll get to on another occasion, but if:

1. heaven is the fulfilment of all that we love, then there will be dogs in my heaven, and as I don't believe that any true, loving relationship can be towards a "foil" - a shell which represents something which isn't really there - then dogs will be there, too. I'm not into solipsism.
2. we on earth strive towards the Kingdom of God, and our earthly environment is a poor reflection of what the Kingdom of Heaven can be, then all that which is good on this earth is a (pale) reflection of that Kingdom. Does this mean that heaven contains things which some feel are bad, things which harm people - even people who harm others? Well, without getting too literal, yes, it does. Wasps are in heaven. People I fear are in heaven. And people within whom I cannot begin to see the good are there, too.

That got rather deeper than I'd thought it might, but that's good.

What about the birth of Jenny's child? She's a godsend, particularly as for a long time it looked like Jenny and Jake wouldn't have one child, let alone two. I don't tie her birth to Suzy's death, other than God sending us some joy when we were sad. I'm not into the transmigration of souls at the best of times (!): reincarnation is not a Christian concept, let alone from animals to humans.

So, I've managed to do some catching-up. What's still around to do? Here are a few things I need to sort:

• tax return stuff
• sort out the endowment policy chaos-nightmare
• tidy my office
• add a theological section to the main p2ptrust site, and generally overhaul it