Par-tay!!!

So last night we had our first Grapevine 2.0 party at Cobbles and Clay Cafe on Haworth Main Street. It was a really relaxed night, chance for a few of us to meet each other for the first time, face to face, like they did in the olden days. I really enjoyed myself and had lovely chats with pretty much everyone who was there. I hope you all enjoyed it too....humour me if you didn't, i'm a sensitive soul and can't handle rejection (did i mention that i only really welcome positive comments).

I used to work as a manager at Marks and Spencer and we had to have regular reviews with our staff and our bosses and give out 'REDS' and 'GREENS'....it was hideous. I hate that kind of thing. I'd go first.......ahem..."Well Marjorie, I'd say a 'GREEN' for you is, (NB you should always give 'greens' first- build the poor beggers up before you really let rip with the insults), you always get to work on time, well done that's really great! However a 'RED' for you is that you always go home as well and really i'd prefer it if you just stayed cos your such a great person." I'd be feeling quietly pleased with myself for having managed to dodge the 'RED' bullet....i hate giving 'reds'....i had, i felt, successfully managed to disguise a green as a red and therefore done my job as outlined by my superiors without spoiling poor Marjorie's day. It's a bit like when you go for an interview and they start with the trick questions...."so what would you say are your biggest weaknesses??" To which we all reply, "well i hate to admit it but i'm afraid my biggest weakness is that i am a workaholic....if you give me this job i won't be able to help but slog my guts out and do free overtime it's a weakness i know but what can i say i'm flawed". (you know you've done it!!!)

Then of course it would be my turn to be 'GREENED' and 'REDDED' and my boss would start "Well Sam, I'd say a 'GREEN' for you (my heart is swelling with hope) is that you always come to work on time, well done that's really great!" Aw shucks, i'm glowing with pride, i can't believe she noticed...it was definitely worth all those speeding fines. "However a 'RED' for you is that your not actually any good at what your supposed to be doing when your here." Booyah!! The killer shot....my boss was never afraid to fire the 'RED' bullet!!! Floods of tears and months of self doubt ensued.

I guess you could say my experiences of 'feedback reviews' from both sides were RED. Marjorie (whose name has been changed for legal reasons) didn't learn anything useful about how she could do better at her job. And i, had my heart ripped out and my confidence shattered. (NB for those of you currently shedding tears on my behalf i'd like to point out out that i later got the opportunity to work in a new store with a new boss whose management technique was more suited to my sensitive self and i did very well there and all was forgotten....until now lol)

I'm not sure quite why i started telling this story but i'm not deleting it now so here's the lesson....always be nice to Sam or she'll cry.

That and, use your words wisely. It's amazing what we can do with our words.....we can push someone on to greatness or we can undermine their very foundations. Everyday we talk all day long and everyday we have the opportunity to help or to hurt people with our words.

After years of trying desperately to be liked i've gotten pretty good at not saying nasty things (except by accident.....i fear i may often offend people without realising what i'm saying....sorry if i've done that to you recently). However i am, quite rubbish, at saying encouraging nice things! I often think them, but have you ever noticed how embarrassing it can be to be nice. It always makes me feel like a school kid trying to butter up the teacher while all the other kids moan and roll their eyes! Still, when people say genuinely nice encouraging things to me- it makes me feel amazing so i'm gonna try...i'm gonna be brave....i'm prepared to be a bit of a dork.....i think tomorrow........i'm gonna inspire someone to greatness! (I'll let you know how i get on)

Nettles

The other day i was walking my dog down one of the many narrow lanes that are a speciality of Haworth, when i found myself stuck in traffic. Today's tourist traffic was a group of young American girls who were stopping to take photo's of themselves stood next to a horse. Whilst negotiating the group with expert manoeuvres, performed by both myself and Blue (the dog), i couldn't help but overhear one of the girls complaining about a mysterious collection of itchy lumps that had appeared on the front of her foot. Meanwhile, in her attempt to give her friends the best view of said itchy lumps, she was hopping around on her other foot into the middle of a big bunch of nettles- no doubt acquiring a matching set of annoying itchy lumps.

Now, for reasons that remain incomprehensible to me i had, at this point, mistaken the true identity of these 'cute' American girls. In my head their American accents were clearly the sound of French girls attempting to speak English. Unperturbed by the apparent language barrier i decided i must help these poor ignorant foreigners with my local knowledge, and so in true English style i adopted the slow pigeon version of English that we always assume everyone the world over speaks fluently. Complete with pointing, actions, and wide mouth syllables i embarked on an explanation...... plant...evil....stingy......ow! They were all very pleased with this important piece of local knowledge and responded with many pleasing "ah's" and "thankyou's", but i had more. Surely even more exciting than the discovery of the existence of nettles is the discovery of the existence of doc leaves.

I could not wait to tell them of the healing power of this magical 'good' leaf that always grows alongside the nasty 'bad' leaf. However, by this time it had become obvious that these girls were in fact native English speakers and after my embarrassing performance earlier i was unsure how to proceed......i decided to stick with the pigeon English and embrace the legend i would become. While walking down a narrow lane in a remote English village these girls had encountered one of the few remaining true Yorkshire folk who don't speak very well but have mystical bush-tucker survival knowledge about poisonous plants and healing leaves!

It's amazing how something we English people know so well, like the fact that nettles sting, can be so baffling to a foreigner......it was truly tragic watching this poor girl bemoaning the unpleasant rash while vigorously acquiring another. It really made me think how much we all need each other with our different perspectives and different experiences to help each other out. All societies work by distributing skills and knowledge among different people and then working together to meet everybody's needs. We have some doctors, some teachers, some drivers, some farmers etc and only that way can we function. Imagine if you had to produce all your own food, work, build, cook, organise your taxes and then perform open heart surgery on yourself. Even in small tribes and villages different people take on different roles; trackers, hunters, farmer's, cooks.

This kind of helpful living was God's grand plan for the church. Some people think of the church as a School master, telling them what to do and making them feel bad. Some people think of the church as a building; impressive....but always flippin freezing! Some people think of church as a service that they attend once a week to keep God happy. But the Bible talks about church differently. The Bible talks about church as a body, a body with many parts, each with different skills and strengths and knowledge, but each part working together and helping each other to make the whole run smoothly. We're not supposed to live this life alone, struggling though trying to manage everything ourselves..... we need to rely on each other, we need to help one another. We need to point out the nettles and hand out the doc leaves (even if we have to do it in pigeon English) :-)

Hey....just wanted to invite my MANY many followers to a party.......now now don't all talk at once!!! YES a party! Monday 28th june (that's less than a week away) at Cobbles and Clay, the funkiest cafe on Haworth Main Street. (It's number sixty....about half way up on the right if your panting up the hill, and about halfway down on the left if your cruising down it). The party starts at 7.30pm and it's for anyone whose interested in being a part of Grapevine 2.0 a new christian social network we are starting. It's just a social event so don't feel intimidated.....come along and hang out with us. (I put 'hang out' cos i thought it might sound cool....but then i decided i sounded more like a mum trying to sound cool in front of her kids mates so i was gonna change it but then i couldn't think of anything better....'chill out'; 'party'; 'make some new friends'; 'socialise' .......hmmm suggestions welcome!!!) Anyways....just come alright!!!

I just read an amazing quote in the Bible (Luke 7:35). It's Jesus speaking and he said, hehem "Wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it". It just struck me that wise sayings and clever truth's are just words unless we prove them to be right through actions. It's so true, you can't argue wisdom, you can only demonstrate it. I could present you with a million reasons why it's important to exercise (and believe me i could, i'm always trying to convince people who come to my aerobics classes that losing weight is not the only reason to exercise) but it's not until this conventional wisdom has been proven to be true in the lives of others that we accept it as wisdom.

Advertiser's know this....that's why all adverts today come backed up with some clinical study or staggering percentage of agreement that what they are saying to you is true! Didn't you know that 96.5% of women agree that moisturising cream feels nice? How can you deny such wisdom when it has been proven to be true in 96.5% of women's lives!!! You MUST go to town and buy some immediately!

Interesting though, how more effecting this proof of wisdom is when it is demonstrated in the lives of people we know (or think we know). Every advertiser knows that their advert will be EVEN more effective if they can get a celebrity to say the product worked for them.....we take one look at their airbrushed faces and we just have to have it. But how much more convinced are we when someone we actually know uses a product and they can tell us, and indeed we can see for ourselves, the difference it has made.

How much more then do our lives need to demonstrate and prove the wisdom we believe. We tell our children that it is better to share, that they should accept apologies, that they shouldn't eat too many sweeties. We insist that they be kind to one another and not exclude other children. We encourage them to be grateful for what they have and to obey the rules which make life run smoothly and fairly for everyone. And yet so often our days are spent selfishly focused on making our way in the world DESPITE everyone else instead of alongside everyone else.

Jesus said a lot of wise things when he was on the earth but unfortunately the Christian church in it's many forms has not always demonstrated this wisdom in it's actions. There are a few people on this earth who prove the wisdom of God to be right because they follow it in their lives......i hope i can be one of them.

Today is Thursdy 17th June 2010. Is today a good day to start a blog?

What would I know, this is my first venture into the slightly daunting world of blogging. It doesn't seem like a particularly good day to start seen as the most exciting thing to happen to me today so far was the discovery that, yes there was enough cheese in the fridge for me to have a panini for lunch, despite my deep concerns to the contrary. Still, i guess that's the nature of blogging. What would be a good day to start? Maybe I should wait till I do something amazing like climb Everest or get knighted (do you get knighted when your a girl?) but then, to be fair, i'm not sure I'd have time to post a blog on either of those days what with the icy storms and/or waiting around for the Queen to get to grips with that heavy looking sword.

So, after much deliberation today's the day- carpe diem and all that. Today is, after all, the first day of the rest of my life. Cliché's anyone??? I'm not really a lover of sentences that come with the introduction "well you know what they say....." however I have to admit that there's usually an amount of truth embedded in them. Why else would circumstances to which these sayings seem relevant occur so often. I think it could get pretty stressful if we all actually 'lived each day like it was our last', it'd get kinda exhausting 'living life to the full' twenty four seven. Would there be time to sleep if we truly lived with this attitude? Personally I think I would set some time aside for sleep during my last 24 hours, maybe a nice siesta, you can't beat a well deserved nap. Seriously though, sometimes you've just got to do stuff. Sometimes you just have to make decisions and follow them through. Sometimes you have to have faith.

With this in mind my Husband, Lindon, and I are setting about establishing a Christian community via Facebook (Search Grapevine 2.0). A community where people can ask questions and discover God. A community where people can support each other in their daily lives. A community that put's it's faith into action and makes an impact in the world around it.

And I, am setting about establishing a blog. A blog which will, hopefully, encourage people to consider God, and the teachings and doings of Jesus, in everyday things. I hope some people will come on a journey with me.......a journey I'm definitely starting today.