URBANarmy

I've just returned from the welcome to the new Chief of the Staff for The Salvation Army, essentially the new second in charge! Which means Commissioners Clive and Marianne Adams must be on their way to take over the leadership of the UK. I'm hopeful that people will not hold anything against him due to some warped sporting allegiances, but will remember three ideals that he highlighted in his paper to the International Leaders' Conference last year. :: a commitment to serving the whole person, to helping the marginalised, to fighting for justice :: a call to a lifestyle that counters the societal pressures of consumerism :: Holiness teaching as a lifeline to a generation that has become disillusioned by societal and moral failures. "We must find the words to articulate that teaching ... and the language of our lives must be spoken particularly loudly" Welcome!

Enjoyed being introduced to Henri Lindegaard and his contrast art this week.

Stumbled into this artist this week Makoto Fujimura Some really beautiful images

... community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own (see Philippians 2:4). The question, therefore, is not "How can we make community?" but "How can we develop and nurture giving hearts?" Henri Nouwen

I seem to be reading less as I get older, or is it that I am reading slower. If I am reading slower I wonder if I am reading more! Anyway - while I loved the Book Thief, the book of the year for me..... Cain S (2012) Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking. with the revelation that you can be a non shy introvert!! Sweet, L. I. (2012). I am a follower: the way, truth, and life of following Jesus. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson. Wallace D.(2010) Awkward situations for men. Edbury Kuht ,S. (2011) Tom Wright for Everyone. SPCK Zusak, M. (2007) The Book Thief. Black Swan Grisham, J. (2011) Theodore Boone: The Abduction. Hodder Cain S (2012) Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking. Viking Nesbo, J. (2009)The redeemer. Johnson, S (1998) Who moved my cheese Metaxas, E. (2010)Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Thomas Nelson. Vardy, P. (2008). An introduction to Kierkegaard (Rev. and expanded ed.). Peabody, Mass...

I set myself the challenge of finding/ hearing ten appropriate messages over the next couple of months. Here's # 1 before I am supposed to start! From Jesuit Prayer App! Patient Trust Above all trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you: your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leadin...

Interesting thought from St. Ignatius who reminds us "that our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to the deepening of God's life in me."