An enjoyable month, but with not a lot going on apart from birthdays and a challenging blog.

BIRTHDAYS AND A BOAT

A month with just two birthdays,  our son Peter’s and my wife Linda’s twelve days later.  But because Linda went down to her Dad’s when he got Covid, birthday celebrations were almost continuous for twenty seven days.

We took Peter out the day before his birthday to a spectacular Mexican/Japanese fusion restaurant ‘Los Mochis’ and took part in the party with his friends at his home on the day itself.   

The next Monday we three travelled by train and bus to pick up a boat from leboat.com.  A week on the water was part of the celebrations for Peter’s 30th.  We cruised between Sonning and Oxford, with stop offs at places like Wallingford and Abingdon.  A really relaxing break – apart from going through locks and mooring up.  We saw the Euro semi-finals in Wallingford and the finals at Dorchester on Thames.  I thought I might do some reading and thinking, but all I did was watch the water rippling past us.

Because Linda had to go down to Plymouth to look after her dad with Covid.  I gave her my presents on 28th and took her and Peter out to her favourite Thai restaurant in Earls Court, all vegan, on the first day of August.  Summer is here!

A BLOG

On Thursday 4th I sent out my article on ‘A New Way of Reading John’ to Anglicanism.org, and it was well received.  I then had no excuse not to turn my attention to my next blog “Sex and Society’ – a big project.  I read a fascinating book ‘The Shortest History of Sex’ that I had picked up in Oxford, and then tackled the C of E’s magnum opus, ‘Living in Love and Faith’.  It is extremely interesting and easy to find one’s way around.  I recommend borrowing a copy if your vicar has one.  Or you can get a second hand copy at half price online.  

It took a week, on and off, to complete  the blog and send it out.   I wrote the first half quite quickly, but then got stuck.  The second half gradually took shape.  Linda read my first draft and said that there was not a real conclusion.  That is when I thought of the ending.   See it here at revandybooks.org.

WHAT ABOUT LOVE?

My friend David pointed out that I do not include ‘love’ which St Paul seemed to think quite important.  However, did Paul mean what we do?  After all, the Greeks had seven or eight words for the one English word.  Here they are, according to Cosmopolitan magazine (slightly amended):

1 Eros (sexual passion)

2 Philia (deep friendship)

3 Ludus  (playful love)

4 Agapē (universal love)

5 Pragma (longstanding love)

6 Philautia (self-care)

7 Storgē (family love)

8 Mania (obsessive love)

The word Paul uses mostly is ‘agapē’.which means love for everyone, including love for God.  In the King James Bible (1611) it is translated as ‘charity’, i.e. selfless love.  

Should I have included something like this?  What do you think? Perhaps there is another blog in this!

Have a great summer.  

Andy