Computer Scientists.  You either get them, or you don’t.  If they are the typical kind who spend over 24 hours a day sat at a computer (don’t ask them how) and can speak Java, C#, Klingon, and a dozen other languages you don’t understand, likelihood is you’re not gonna want them explaining anything at you, no matter how urgently you’d like you computer back up and running.

So, with that in mind, I’ve been thinking about explaining the Gospel to those sorts of people, using language and terms they might understand.  It’s not a perfect analogy (no analogy is perfect), but I reckon it’s pretty good, and gives an interesting perspective on the message of the Bible in a computer-type context.  It’s now written up on FocusOnFaith, so give it a read if you have a moment.  If you don’t understand it, pass it on to anyone you know with more than three e-mail addresses and a server under their bed.

This past week has brought some worry and some excitement, mostly in the monetary department.  Running my own business means taking responsibility for dealing with the numbers, and satisfying Mr Tax Man that I’m a good little boy.  It came as something of a surprise, then, when I checked the HMRC web site on Boxing Day to discover that in fact my Self Assessment Tax Return had to be done and dusted by the end of this month.  Clearly I had got confused, since I thought that was due later on, but never mind.  I therefore set about downloading a year’s worth of bank statements, categorising all my incomings and outgoings and tallying that against my business records, before finally being able to plug the right figures into the online system to tell me how much tax the government was going to demand of me.

As it happens, the whole process was far less complicated and stressful than I thought it was going to be.  The online Self Assessment system is easy to use and doesn’t use too much jargon, which is good for people like me who have trouble adding two numbers together, let alone knowing the difference between net and gross.  I always thought a net was something for catching fish.  Anyway, in the end I managed to give it all the information it wanted, and told me that I had paid about £1100 more tax than I should have done in 2006-07.  Thanks.

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This weekend saw my friend Anne-Marie‘s Christmas play ‘While You Were Sleeping’ performed at her home church in Bexleyheath.  This has been a regular gig for several years, and I’ve helped out the past few years with graphics and posters and suchlike.  This year I was asked to design posters, put the programmes together, and design some newspapers.  Yes, that’s right, newspapers.

The play’s theme revolved around a late night news team in Bethlehem, looking in vain for some hot story to cover, and in their efforts completely missed the birth of Christ because it was too ‘ordinary’ and ‘unspectacular’.  The title ‘While You Were Sleeping’ is actually taken from a song by Casting Crowns by the same name, which is a very poignant song about missing the truth of Christmas in all the hype and busyness of the season.  It was a fantastic play, with some hilarious scenes and in-jokes that only a few of us really got.

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This week saw Pope Benedict announce that to celebrate 150 years since the Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant girl in Lourdes pilgrims traveling to the town could claim time off from Purgatory.  This has caused widespread confusion and opposition amongst Protestants, who both denounce the authority of the Pope and don’t generally believe in Purgatory either.  This is a can of worms unlike any that’s been seen in recent years, and may take a while to settle.

Now, I’m no Biblical scholar, but I do have some thoughts I would like to share on this topic, exploring the nature of forgiveness, sin, Purgatory, judgement, hell and heaven.  Not necessarily in that order.

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You know what it’s like.  You’ve got yourself settled, in a regular pattern, and you’re happy.  Everything is fine.  You know where you stand.  You don’t know everything, but you are content with what you do know and not bothered by what you don’t know.  You and the world are getting along fine.

Then something changes, and it all goes to pot.

If you’re reading this and thinking “hey, nothing’s changed in my life recently, I don’t know what you mean”, I apologise.  In that light, allow me to give a couple of examples from today.

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