Yesterday was 'National Get in touch with Phil Day'.  Thanks to all those who participated, I didn't even know the day existed to be honest but there we are.  It was just odd having so many people who don't often call all do so on the same day.

 

I also had to do some banking.  A simple transfer of funds from me to a friend, took well over an hour to do in branch(es).  The phone banking experience was pretty heated too and I think if the girl I was speaking to had a soul I probably would have broken it, but luckily they stopped hiring mere mortals for such positions now and have only undead constructs of incompetance and hate working the lines.  Speaking of undead banking, I did find the whole process much like questing in WoW.  For those who don't know (and don't care but I'm going to tell you anyway), in the World, we adventurers are given quests by computer controlled characters.  They're mostly if not all optional - but needing to pay our bills and such, questing provides a much needed source of income (yes, that's right... we have virtual jobs in our virtual lives... best not ask too much about why we do it).  The quests sometimes follow story lines and often interlink at various points, building up to the need for you to band together and tackle a dungeon of epic danger and evil threats, but then sometimes... a quest giver simply wants you to go collect 20 dire wolf tails because he wants to make a bad ass looking cloak for himself, and is willing to pay you a gold or so to get the things for him (because he isn't really bad ass at all).

 

These quests are often annoyingly structured, telling you to first go kill 20 Ogres for the protection of this humble farming village, then, on completing this task, the same guy asks you if you could go and gather 10 arcane bitter-leaf gem snow chimp stones, so he, who turns out to be a mighty wizard, can cast a spell that will bring lasting protection to this village.  This makes you wonder what a mighty Mage is doing here, if level 52 is really all that mighty, and if he's so mighty, why does he need you to do it... but he's offering you 5 healing potions and packet of cigs so you figure you may aswell, only he really should have mentioned this before, because those items happen to be spread out evenly across the ogre base in which you just killed 20 of their finest, and will now need to probably engage with 20 more in order to get enough of the damn items.  On return to the quest giver, he will take the reagents off you, and then casually mention he needs 15 of the 'Things that sit next to each of these things in the ogre base' stones as well.  This is about the time you wonder why you shoudln't just kill the quest giver instead and take the stuff he was going to reward you with... but then... I'm one of the nice guys, and being the village is Alliance controlled, I suppose I'm obligated to help it anyway.

 

 

So you didn't really need to know all that.  Just to say, bank people only ever tell you one item or thing you need to do at once, and only when you return to them with the proof that it's done, do they tell you there's more yet to do... often things you could have done while you were doing the last thing if only you'd known to do it.  At which point you wonder why you shouldn't just kill the bank cashier instead and do what you need to do on her computer terminal yourself.. but then... there's plexiglass in the way... and it's police protected so I guess I have some obligation to 'not get myself arrested' anyway.

 

Just consider yourself warned all you undead farming mage bank workers.  Warned I say.

 

Today I'm venturing back to the North for my next dose of re-integration therapy.  I'll hopefully blog a bit while I'm there, or at least work on a blog post that's been brewing for a while (oh yeah you better be scared), as well as having some maybe interviews, work on a website I've been asked to do, and a bit of fun hanging with some old and some new friends, and one guy in particular who doens't like me blogging so I wont say anything more about that.  Should be gone for about a week so you London folks, be good!

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Phil

So I've been getting more than my regular dose of the church lately.  Over the last few months I've been going to the Boiler Room in central London, who have become a staple Christian community in my life if you're keen to see things that way.  It's mainly about prayer with these guys.  We don't come together to get a preach or follow a pattern and sing songs, not that I mind any of that - but boiler rooms are geared more for just coming together, praying, and being part of your every day community.  See me trying to define what it is now is proving a little hard cos it doens't fit into my words very well.  But there are people there from across the spectrum on theological beliefs and traditions, and it toally doesn't matter, because we all come together to pray, and at the risk of sounding soppy, to love each other.

I mentioned the Philosophy conference a little while back.  Not Christian in allignment or anything, but it enevitably questions some of the same things, and has a certain culture of practice that I guess stays in my head as a contrast to the church culture - something it very much did to the boiler room the following week when we decided to have a little study of the bible and debate for the first time in that setting.

 

In addition to the Boiler Room, Event Season has begun.  Not working for e8 anymore, I wont bare a brunt of this period but I wont miss it completely.  Youth Rally kicked it off a few weeks back, and I slotted in a Youth Councils last weekend to keep it going.  I was only at the Youth Councils to help my freind Paul Brearley, who was responsible for bringing the tech together on the day and did a brilliant job might I add.  I just tried to take a few of the time consumers out of the equation on set up and pack down, and took care of addition jobs during the event.  It mostly allowed me to take a step back and enjoy the day a bit more than I would have done working on it proffessionally (first person to mention Sam, Tom, or any like them get's a smack).  Anyway, it was interesting to see that bit of Church life happening and speak the Christian language for a few hours straight as a stranger to the group.  My friend Carl's brother also made for suitable play when I got bored, so thanks for that Craig.

 

This weekend I was of course in Hedge End with Suz and the good people at her church, the Gap.  There were a good range of people there to, and Suz and I managed to get some Rob Bell in, which was a good little experience to round off an several hour discussion about faith that went on till 4am.

 

Last night we had more debate at the boiler room and it got a lot more meaty than last time.

 

The effects of all this has been a lot of thinking about faith and God and Chruch and stuff.  Through it all I've met new people and they've asked me some questions I've not been asked for a while - like, 'Are you a Christian?' and 'You a bible basher?' that... I don't really know what to say to.  I mean I know what to say... to the first man, 'Yes', and the second, 'No'.  But the first wasn't really asking if I was a Christian and I knew that.  He was asking if I was his kind of Christian and the answer was 'No'.  The second wasn't asking if I was an evangelical nut job, he was just asking if I had faith in God, and the answer to that was yes, but needs a bit more opening up.  Then people have asked 'What church do you go to?', and I can say, 'London Boiler Room' if I want to just appease them, but I don't think of it as 'a church' and it's not what they mean.  The truthful answer is, 'There is only one Church', but then that's seen as being awkward I guess, so then my answer could as easily be 'None', which will trigger them to worry and pray for my soul (good luck to 'em).  I guess with regards to church what I've realised is that I'm now an outsider of sorts.  I can speak their language, but I don't think in it anymore.  I'm not sure what I'm meant to do with a church service.  I mean... I do - I know *exactly* what you're meant to do with a church service, better than most people who regularly attend them in some ways, but I just don't have much of a desire to access that, or do anything with the experience.  I also know some people who might read this are thinknig 'See he's got all his understanding in his head - all that logic and knowledge but he doesn't have God in His heart and that's why he feels nothing in church' but seriously, guys, take it from me just this once - I got it, I do.  I'm not talking about that.

 

At the same time as being outside the church culture, I'm still valued inside it.  And with my outsider vision goggles perhaps valued even more by some now.  And I continue to have a strong faith, and an expanding knowledge of it that speaks more than any membership can do.

 

I don't have a point by the way - I'm just thinking out loud.  I usually try to construct my blogs with some points in mind but hey, I guess I might not publish this one.

 

More questions I'm asked - Do you beleive the bible?  What do you do?  Is the Salvation Army ok with you being gay?

 

The middle one's not so much about Church but it is about identity and this all mixes in.

 

 

The last two aren't so much questions as much assumptions - this is about people telling me their perception of my identity I guess.

 

Ok now I'm just rambling.  I guess to bring this to some point is that I'm not in much of a hurry to box myself, and a lot of people seem keen to box me right now.  Which makes me think maybe I box others too and shouldn't be so sure.  Maybe I too box myself sometimes when I shouldn't even be so sure of that.

 

I'm Phil.  All the faith, power, failings, knowledge, skills, opinions, and weaknesses that are ever changing, and ever strong, is unique to me.  I'm nothing but myself.  That's how I'm feeling right now anyways.

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Phil

Many of you will know that my friend Suz has been with me a lot over the last month or so.  It all seems a bit blurry in hindsight and I'm not sure what to talk about, but because she's made it quite clear she wants this known, I'll start by saying the blog about me being on the Bridge in London should be altered, because I was not in fact alone on that night - Suz was with me as well.  Hasn't that changed everything for you?  Ok ok, being less cheeky now, in all seriousness it's been really good to have all this time together - it's not often you get spend so much time with a close friend like this and we've had late chats into the night, laughter, tears, rants, and Jon and Suz have had more than one musical number.

 

Last weekend I went to Hedge End where Suz lives right now and met all her friends there, who are all largely crazy, but all the right kinds of crazy :)

 

I really don't know what things to pick out and talk about from the last few weeks or even the weekend... I'm just going to say that I'm glad I was here at the right time and Suz, I love you loads - I'm very glad you never let me go.

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Phil