Distorted Reality – Dream the new beginning.

Delirious? were incredible yesterday. It was a really superb gig – probably the best I’ve seen anybody play because of the huge amount of passion involved. They played Investigate (one of my favourites) with Stew Smith (former drummer) and Paul Evans (the new one) in perfect sync and with the most superb lead solo that saw Stu G tear at his guitar to end. It seemed to reflect the passion involved brilliantly. I was powerfully moved by the whole thing (didn’t shed a tear though – callus, hey?), as were the band, with very good reason. It reminded me of the way they’ve always pointed so clearly to Jesus, not simply a ‘religious experience’.

I said yesterday when I posted that I wanted to write about something more serious. This was to do with something I’d been thinking about earlier in the day. A friend of mine gave a notice at the start of our church service yesterday morning about the support that our community tries to offer a family centre and homeless people in our local area. She reminded me of the devastating social situations that I know exist close to home. Then a longer description was given of a community for children orphaned by Aids in KwaZulu-Natal. These reminders of the situations that many of the world live with made me think that I should get myself thinking on a healthy track about people living on the edge of our society before I dive into the inevitable business of self indulgence at Christmas.

So I’ve made a decision. Advent is traditionally a time of ‘getting ready’. So for these next four weeks, I want to get ready by focussing on issues that are effecting real people in real situations of oppression or injustice. I’ll look at one issue a week. This week I want to think about the Leaving Care system in England – what happens to children who grow up in care and then get too old?

I also want to read the four gospels by the new year. After the gig last night, I felt a real desire to spend some time looking at Jesus. I’ve been reading around the prophetic books in the Bible for ages and I’m wondering if I could do with looking at things with the fresh vision that comes from Jesus.

So there’s the plan. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while (as in, since before I lost all my old posts to the evil computer monsters), you’ll know that I’m not the best at keeping to plans. I do tend to rebel against them. We’ll see if there are more tangible results this time!