Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Italians, Tortilla and being One

It does rather annoy me when I go to a conference and then it take ages to put the media up or, even worse, they charge you to have it or simply forget. The reason this annoys me is that I am, as you may have gathered, a resource investigator and love passing stuff on to others. A 'Resource investigator' is a Belbin descriptor that is something like this:

'Resource Investigators are innovative and curious. They explore available options, develop contacts, and negotiate for resources on behalf of the team. They are enthusiastic team members, who identify and work with external stakeholders to help the team accomplish its objective. They are outgoing and are often extroverted, meaning that others are often receptive to them and their ideas.
On the downside, they may lose enthusiasm quickly, and are often overly optimistic'
I am wondering if I am both an enthusiasm vacuum and/ or 'often overly optimistic'? Probably guilty as charged, but others will tell you better than I :)

The theme of LC15 was unity and ever since I have been wondering what unity is supposed to look like (at this point I would have linked to Nicky's excellent talk and will do when it's up). I was asking the lovely bunch of pastors I pray with every Wednesday this question only this morning. 
A good example of some thing we Christians are apt to get in 'two and eight' about is women preaching/leading/being Bishops. Andrew Wilson has responded to Tom Schreiner on this subject which makes for an interesting and detailed debate between some very clever theology wonks. 

With the timely help of 'Chasing Francis' I have also been exploring more what Catholics believe. Just as I am reflecting on Vincent Nichols and Justin Welby having their mutual appreciation moment in the Albert Hall along comes a book that challenges, pokes, softens and awakens me to lots of my own prejudices and questions about Roman Catholicism. It's a great read.
When I've not been reading this I've been reading Giorgio Locatelli's wonderful cookbook called Made in Italy:Food and Stories. For lunch, I cooked a Pea and Mint tortilla from here which, whilst not in Locatelli, was inspired by the delicious looking tortilla in our local Italian deli which I sat working in this morning.

Talking of getting talks up pronto, my Vicar pal Matt has got the excellent Holy Spirit and the Local church talk Mike P gave on Monday up that I took a few folk to. It's well worth a listen-especially what Mike says right at the start about the local church. It's all very encouraging.
St Alban's Fulham is such a wonderful local church and you should recommend it to friends who are not yet Christians and live in that neck of the woods so they can check it out. 

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Saturday blog-sweep

 Some interesting books for pastors The State we're in Attack at dawn Joseph Scriven Joy comes with the morning When small is beautiful