I’ve been writing an essay, as you’ll know if you follow me in any social media sphere or have seen me in real life. I started a Graduate Diploma in Kingdom Theology with the Westminster Theological Centre in September. There has always been a lot of work, but the amount pretty much tripled after Christmas. They definitely eased us in. It is to be expected, I am aiming to do a degree, part time, mostly remotely, in two years. My last degree was gained in three years with full time study while I lived at the University and that nearly killed me! We’re actually studying three different modules at the moment as well. To say it is a challenge mentally and physically is an understatement. I’ve considered walking away more times than I can count in the last two months.

And so between that and some rather hefty work commitments I haven’t had as much time to put into my Lentan goals as I would have liked.  That said, the daily prompt from 40Acts.org.uk dropping into my inbox each day has been a welcome distraction! I haven’t done them all, and if I am honest I knew I never would. I also am reasonably glad that some of the challenges are already natural in my life. Others have been harder and are still waiting to be done.  Here are the results so far.

Day 1 Create a giving jar. This is easy. I’m trying to stop being a potty mouth. I have pretty much filled it already. Oops. The proceeds will go to the charity I volunteer for: One Can Trust.

Day 2 Cross a social divide.

Day 3 Share your skill. Prompted by a few friends’ examples, I listed my ‘skills’ on Facebook and waited for someone to ask me to do something for them.  A couple of cheeky friends started a debate over my ginger cake baking skills and were trying to determine how they could get me to bake them cakes rather than just sharing the recipe.  I secretly took them at their word and baked for them. The look on their faces when I handed over warm Ginger Cake was priceless!

Day 4 Grab a cuppa.

Day 5 Buy Fairtrade. I do this a lot. Not all the time and not every time I should. It doesn’t help that my husband is really picky about his coffee. But I found a nice brand I knew he would like and I’m weaning him on to it. This was also a timely challenge. I am a Tawny Owl, running a Brownie pack with 24 girls aged between 7 and 10. We have been working towards our World Issues badge looking at the rights of a child, water as a global issue, local charities and fairtrade goods. I organised a Fairtrade Scavenger Hunt at our local Asda and was thoroughly disappointed by the available range of fairtrade goods. The brownies are going to write a letter asking them to stock more!

Day 6 Nurture yourself. I had a long hot bath. And I just soaked. I rarely go anywhere without a book (and at the moment they are all texts for my course). I always have my laptop on when the TV is on (unless it is Sherlock.) One of my unhealthy beliefs systems about God is that I think I have to be making the most of every minute or somehow I am letting him down. For me, having a bath without a book is a big thing. And I loved it.

Day 7 Be spontaneous. In a way I am too spontaneous. I struggle to keep structure and discipline in my life which as a woman with a portfolio career (two part time volunteer jobs and studying part time) I really need to master. I happily bumble off to do things that weren’t on my to-do list all the time. However this task is less about changing lifestyle and more about doing something really random and unplanned in a generous way. Again, I think I am reasonably good at this already, I’m always buying family and friends silly gifts, but not for strangers so I will try that. 

Day 8 Donate your holiday. As a person of funemployment I have glorious freedom with how I manage holiday. That said I am regularly chastised by friends, family and mentors for not taking time out or slowing down. I am making sure this year I put in blocks of downtime for myself and because of the health and sanity pickle I have found myself in on a number of occasions because of my lack of resting and relaxing I’m not giving any more up. I think working voluntarily for two charities and doing Lighthouse as well as a bunch of other charitable events probably counts for this one.  I’m not saying that to sound like I’m great at giving my time away – I recognise I’m in a very privileged situation at the moment where I have a lot of freedom.

Day 9 Shop Locally. I do this a lot, the frustrated eco warrior/worrier that I am. I took mum to a local garden centre who stock loads of local produce as well as holding a Crop Swap.  We had a lovely lunch of local produce.

Day 10 Go screen free.  This is a constant challenge in our lives. Both my husband and I are gadget reliant so we are going to make a concerted effort on this one again! We’re aware of it, we get better for a while then the lurgy or tiredness hits and we find it so easy to fall into lying about on the sofa either in front of crap telly (Rob) or the laptop (me). We have had back to back colds and flus since our wedding in December and between moving house, working, Rob changing job, me studying, running a growing disciple group, being involved in Church in about 8 other ways, family and friend commitments, working out how to be married, you can see why we fall into bad habits regarding our downtime. We mostly manage Friday night date night, but even that has turned into take away on the sofa. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but we won’t fix the rest overnight. It is a big task – bear with us (and let us say no and don’t get grumpy if we don’t turn up to everything.)

Day 11 Leave your comfort zone.

Day 12 Pass it forward.

Day 13 Pray. The idea here isn’t that Christians don’t already pray, just making something a little more intentional today. I did that.

Day 14 Waste time with others. As per Day 6 I find this quite tough. Jesus did it though and therefore so shall I. Just kicked back with my mum for a while, doing crosswords and blankwords. Twas nice.

Day 15 Send a thank you note.  I haven’t done this one yet, but intend to. A lady at our church writes to me all the time in encouragement and I always say thank you but I know she appreciates tokens too. I’m going to get her a plant for Mothering Sunday as a thank you for being a wise female influence in my life.

Day 16 Organise a swap. Well, I’m helping with our Swish night at church in a few weeks, I’m counting that.

Day 17 Make an emergency kit.

Day 18 Share a joke. What’s brown and sticky? A stick.

Day 19 Love your bags. I get very mad at myself if I leave the house without my bags. I leave them in the car now!

I'm a day late on Sunday stuff this week! It was a busy old week including my birthday on Saturday so I’m sorry this is a bit sparse. I have also been working on my lent actions which I will be updating on this week. So in the meantime a few things that caught my fancy online. (I've officially given up trying to use the block quote code on blogger. It sucks.)

Father Stephen posts on the apparent side-lining of belief and religion on his blog on the topic The God who is No God

“In secularized culture, religion is not eliminated – it is placed at a remove. The remove in which religion is placed is anywhere that does not matter, anywhere that does not touch our daily lives. The secular genius of the modern world (including America) was its contention that religion and belief are the same thing. The acquiescence of believers to this arrangement was, in effect, an agreement to render their faith impotent.The fatal flaw in this agreement can be summed up simply: true religion is not a set of beliefs – it is a set of practices. We believe in prayer – but we do not pray. We believe in forgiveness – but we do not forgive. We believe in generosity – but we do not give. We believe in truth – but we lie.”   

Jonathan Owen and Emily Duggan for the Independent:  'Even outstanding women struggle to rise in the CofE'

“Female bishops are on the cards, but the rank and file believe they are excluded from the top jobs…Despite similar numbers of men and women being ordained each year, statistics compiled at Durham University show that male vicars are almost twice as likely to be given a paid post. The figures come as the church debates the issue of women bishops before a final vote in July.” 


Busted Halo – why do we give something up for Lent? 


I was really surprised when someone mentioned this week Lent was about penance. I'd never heard anyone link penance and Lent. I don’t think that is what Lent is about. Here is one look at what it is about.  

“Under the threat of Roman persecution, becoming a Christian was serious business, so their process of preparation was intensive! Then they went through a final period of “purification and enlightenment” for the 40 days before their baptism at Easter. The rest of the Church began to observe the season of Lent in solidarity with these newest Christians. It became an opportunity for all Christians to recall and renew the commitment of their baptism.”



Favourite Tweets of the week:

Digital Camera World: 'Mint Tea': http://bit.ly/w6CSs7  

 

This gets a mention because it is my photo J

Happy Lent

There are lots of folk out there who gripe about Lent, and having just been bored by those who gripe about Valentine's Day, I'm done with by that sort of negativity. "You should show your love for your significant other all year round, not on one day"....."You should give up stuff totally if it is bad for your health/mind, not just for 40 days." Yes, you're right. But that's not the point of either of those celebrations, commercialised and twisted or not.

For me, acknowledging Lent is a very personal positive thing. I could go into the reasons why Lent is a good thing to observe and remember from a Christian point of view but lots of other bloggers have done it a lot better than I could....

Rachel Held Evans: 40 ideas for Lent

Sarah Bessey: In which [it is lent] words need flesh

For years I have tried to take up positive actions as well as give things up. Last year I took labels off myself that I had put on myself, or had put on me. These things may have looked minor on the surface, but my self esteem improved as a result.

In that same vein, and following some ace teaching on my course last week, I am planning on looking at unhealthy belief systems that I live my life by, and that all things being equal, I shouldn't. I originally intended blogging my way through a list of 10 systems about myself, and 10 unhealthy beliefs I have about God. I have changed my mind. As much as I want to be open and honest in this blog, I think the next 40 days are going to be really hard as I try to strip back these systems. Plus I doubt very much I'll solve anything so I plan on just blogging a review at the end. I also doubt I'll get through 20!

So here are some examples of unhealthy beliefs I hold about myself:
I am afraid lots of people I love will drop dead, because it has happened before.
I am wrong to not want children
I shouldn't be proud of my education and wanting to pursue more learning


Unhealthy belief systems I have about God:
If I rest or take a day off, I am letting God down by not constantly making every moment count.
I will disappoint God if I don't do something 'worthwhile' with my life
God gives and takes away indisciminatorily and he might take even more people away from me
If I don't make room and time for God, he s further away from me

So things like that! Daft to some of you I'm sure - not to me. I plan on thinking and praying about these things, as well as taking steps towards rectifying them, or learning to embrace and love them!

What I do already know is that God loves me regardless of my belief systems.

As well as all this I'm trying to do 40 Acts which is encouraging people to observe Lent generously. Ace. The first day's action was to set up a Giving Jar ready to pop coins into whenever we fail at giving up something we've given up. The resulting spondoolies will go to the One Can Trust.

cheers for reading!

Sunday - erm - Saturday Stuff 11/02/2012

I'm pootling off for an intense study week so won't be surfing much over the next week. And as I have just had a bundle of homework put on my desk to do before Monday and the course I am procrastinating wildly. So this weekend's Sunday Stuff comes to you a day early. As for the random cat picture - see 'Fun Stuff' down the bottom!

Krish K respectfully Thanks God for John Piper, and reviews Piper’s ‘Masculine Christianity” from a particular viewpoint.

“Why should the Christian faith take on a particular gender? Should it also take on a particular cultural form? Say an Asian flavor? Should it take on a class too? Should it take on a middle class flavor? Should it have an accent? No. Surely it should contextualize and follow Paul’s desire to become all things to all people?”

See also In A Mirror Dimly’s similar, a somewhat more sarcastic take on the same subject: “The Kitchen has a Feminine feel about it.”

Natalie & Matthew Bowers continue their series on Fruits of the Spirit with Goodness:

“But in the Word of God, goodness is not just OK – the greek word used by Paul conveys something much stronger – it’s about integrity, honesty and compassion. It’s not about just being nice but about actively living for what’s right and true and Godly. Goodness is doing the right thing even when it does not feel like we should.”

I’m biased about this series because it is my sister and brother in law’s creation. But this installment is of particular use to me this week as I have struggled greatly with doing something good in the last couple of weeks, because I really didn’t want to do it. I do feel I have learned something about humility and can develop some habits in this area.

Rachel Held Evans writing for Relevant magazine: When Jesus meets TMZ

“When Christians look to pastors for wisdom on how to better love God and love one another, they become better disciples of Jesus and better lights of hope in a dark world…. When Christians look to pastors to tell them how to dress, what to eat, what hobbies to have, what systematic theologies to prefer, how to vote and what personality to adopt, they become creepy, unthinking clones of broken people—and big red warning flags to a culture that has grown increasingly suspicious of authority figures.”

I’ve been gearing myself up to write something on this topic, but Rachel nails what I feel about the whole Celebrity Christian Culture issue.

Favourite Tweets of the Week:

Bishop Wilson (and a zillion others) tweet from the General Synod’s debate on allowing women to serve as bishops…you can tell how I feel about it from my choice of tweets!

@alantwilson: How simply wrong to think that discriminatory views could never be sincerely and conscientiously held? They were in South Africa...

@AnnamDrew: So, speaker, you're a loyal anglican? Well, so am I and I'm sick of being a second class citizen in my own church #synod

@archaicdamsel: You should be making decision for the generations to come. Not protecting the minority of today. #synod

@womenbishops:  #synod Forcing women bishops to have specified male counterparts is like saying women can drive - but only accompanied by a man. Patronising

Fun Stuff:

This made my day: cat on pitch at Liverpool Tottenham game

It is my birthday soon. If anyone has a lot of money to spare I’d like a Nikon D700 as used by my fave photographer Lily Sawyer.

Sunday Stuff 5th Feb 12

More stuff from around the tinterwebs that I think is worth sharing:

Norman Ivinson at Missional | Musing – ‘Taking Your Time':

“As the Fresh Expressions team has talked to pioneers and heard their stories over the last six years or so it has become clear that a ‘worship first’ model of church forming only really works in a minority of cases. If you really do want to reach the 60% of the population which survey after survey describes as ‘unchurched’ then a different starting point is needed.”

I liked this blog about taking your time to figure out how to start a fresh expression of church because it challenged my notion that good, contemporary worship music will often bring people in.

Fred Clark of Slactivist on ‘Five Women who changed God’s Rules.’:

“Moses and God listened to the women’s argument, conceded that they had a fair point, and changed the rules. In the case of Mahlah et. al. vs. God, God turned out to be an activist judge who ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, changing the law and creating a new precedent. Thus saith the Lord.”

This one makes it on to my list, not only because it is a great view of some often overlooked women of the Bible, but because it shows God will change His plans because of His love for His people. Someone said to me this week that His plans could end up overruling anything I wanted for my life. I don’t believe that is always true. We should seek wise counsel about the course of our lives and pray for wisdom and for God to align our will with His, but we are allowed to speak the desires of our heart and God loves to hear them.  There are many of examples like this in the Bible where God is moved by his people’s cries and pleas and responds. Plus, this goes wider into the realms of saying you don’t agree with something in the Bible isn’t heresy. It is human and we’re allowed to do it.

Bex Lewis speaks to Fresh Expressions on Social Media as a place to practise relational evangelism: 

"I’m not interested in shouting at people to get them to come towards us, I’m interested in relational evangelism."

Fascinating 6 minute chat from Bex on why Social Media is a tool we should look at embracing. With 850million users on Facebook we have a massive pool of people we can reach. How we do that responsibly and relationally is another question on my mind!

Bishop Alan’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’:

'“But how can you be so sweeping?” some will ask. “There are sincerely held theological arguments and motives involved.” Indeed. There always are. There were for Apartheid.'

The Bishop of Oxford brings the old to the new ahead of more musings this week  on Women’s Bishops.

D.C.Cramer on John Piper’s ‘masculine Christianity’:

“In his recent speech honoring the ministry of J. C. Ryle, John Piper concludes by describing the "Eight Traits of Masculine Ministry." However, rather uncharacteristically for Piper, he fails to supply each trait with biblical references, choosing instead to reflect on how Ryle exemplifies each trait. For the benefit of the reader, then, I have supplied the missing Scripture passages that Piper was drawing on for each of his "masculine" traits. Please look these up to get a better sense of what Piper means by each of his "masculine" traits.”

This just speaks for itself - you must look up the references.

Tweets of the week:

@alantwilson (on Church):Start within ourselves, tell it like it is, don't threaten to leave — threaten to stay!

@changingworship :"Most people don't read the bible they read us." #eek

@nickygumbel: Conflict and confrontation are never easy, but they are a necessary part of courageous leadership.

Fun Stuff:

Tiger Bread becomes Giraffe Bread J

Books:

I’m not getting to as many books as I would usually like to because of studying. However, I just started Evolving in Monkey Town by Rachel Held Evans.  Reviews to follow.

Sunday Stuff

Every Sunday I’m going to post stuff I think is worth sharing. Most of it will be new stuff, some of it will be old stuff. Some I came across myself, some I have been recommended.  Whatever it is, I hope it is of interest to you.

Disclaimer: By including content here I am, not implying I agree with every word in each article, tweet, blog, post but I think there is food for thought, or something entertaining therein. The content remains that of their author.

I’m not going to report this disclaimer every week J

Aaron Armstrong on Blogging Theologically: Everyday Theology: God Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle

“Over and over again in the Bible, we see men and women who are given far more than they can handle. The prophet Jeremiah is a great example; he was charged with preaching repentance to the people of Israel, a calling that caused him to be beaten, plotted against and rejected by everyone, even his own family.”

I found this a while back but it has stuck with me and came back in force this week when I found myself overwhelmed by the amount I’d honourably taken on, but then found I could possibly fit in. I usually have to reach breaking point before I recognise I’ve bitten off more than I can chew and I had a proper breaking point this week.

My tendency is to feel guilty about letting people down, and showing myself up for not being strong enough to do everything that *needs* to be done. This is often made worse by me buying into the notion that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. This blog explains why, actually, he does frequently give us more than we can handle and what we should understand from that.

The Gospel Driven Church: Jesus was Religious

“And the really controversial point we ought to make is this: Jesus did not hate religion. He was in fact a religious person. We are used to using the words Pharisee or Pharisaical in the pejorative senses, as labels, but in Jesus' day, the most faithful, biblical religion going, for all its problems, was the religion of the Pharisees. Between Zealots on one side and Sadducees on the other, the Pharisees had carved out a decent niche as the "evangelicals" of the day.”

Following a talk at my church last week on how to engage with people different to ourselves, I was struck, not for the first time, about how we use the word religion/religious. The speaker talked briefly  about how Jesus didn’t "do religion". This was, on the surface, at odds with something I’d recently read when beginning a look at Jewish 1^st century practises and cultural context of the writing of Mark’s gospel.

Personally, I often feel at odds with the tendency to demonise words and phrases because they don’t quite fit our present context, especially when the world has decided they have negative connotations. This all means the church has to disassociate themselves from those words and sometiumes we lose sight of their real meaning. I don’t mind being called religious, if when the speaker says it in terms of how I *do* my faith. I do go to church every week, I pray and try to read my bible regularly, I follow rules – I am basically religious in at least one definition of the word. I don't want to be seen as doing religion for religions sake of course but religously doing my faith isn't a problem for me. 

I think Jesus was the same in many ways, He celebrated the festivals, went to temple, read, prayed, studied as the law told Him to. As we are told, He fulfilled the law, He didn't abolish it.

I'm not suggesting this is something I am going to tomp about, I don't intend on fighting to reclaim the word religious. I know the connotation of religion is desperately difficult for some, but I think the point in the article about Jesus actually going about his life 'religiously' has some important lessons for the modern Christian in how we approach our lives. I don't want to be ashamed of being diligent, methodical and structured. in how I do my faith. However I also recognise that is what works for my personality type. Many others are much more spontaneous with how they do their faith and so this whole point wouldn't make much sense to them - which is as it should be.

There has been a great video by Jefferson Bethke doing the rounds recently (included in the blog above) who describes why he hates religion but loves Jesus. This blog is a really interesting response to that video as well as elaborating further. 

As the blogger says, I think it is a shame people will miss thoughtful and fair critique of the video because it is popular and trendy.  Bethke has a lot of great things to say (and has actually responded to some of the criticism he has recieved, humbly and wisely, explaining he didn't quite get it right in some places.)  I think we have to be really careful of agreeing with everything about an opinion because it is couched in cool.

Libertarian Lou’s blog: Three faces of feminism: Louise Mensch, Laurie Penny, and Jodie Marsh

“Jodie Marsh, as it turns out, is pretty amazing. She was a straight A-student at school, and wanted to be a vet. She was smart enough, hard-working enough, certainly ambitious enough. Then she went to secondary school. And was bullied. For being “ugly."

Lou’s blog is a very interesting look at an unlikely feminist hero and certainly got me thinking. I was humbled to read Jodie Marsh’s story, as I was badly bullied at school, by teachers and pupils. It never got violent, but I vividly remember when one girl urinated in my lunch box. I reacted to it in a variety of ways, mainly inwardly, developing outward nervous habits that attracted more attention. But it never, thankfully, put me off learning or made me second guess my talents. This doesn’t happen to everyone though. There is a thoguht running my head about the feminist angle of this issue – which I will blog in more detail.

Sarah Moon:  What the “Effeminate Christianity” crisis says about women.

"What do we mean when we say that the church is too feminine? And, why do I care? I care because how the church defines feminization exposes how the church feels towards women in general."

This blog isn’t getting a long intro because it is a topic I’m really spending some time thinking about and will probably blog more coherantly in a while. Suffice to say the latest gender related crisis is something on my mind.

---

Victoria Coren writing for the Observer, re-blogged by the Guardian: Attacking the church is a cheap shot: Has everyone forgotten these are men of God? It's actually their job to stand up for the poor.

"[The Bishops] are talked about as rich men with no idea that £26,000 is a fortuner for some, or leftie men being typically obstructive, or naive men who don't realise the coffers are empty, but never as Christian men who are perhaps just trying to say what they think Jesus would have said."

An interesting dissection of Former Archbishop Carey’s response to the Bishops’ stance on the ‘benefit cap’.

Some of my fave tweets of the week:

@tmorizot: “Christian emphasis should always be on love, not passive attitudes of nonjudgmentalism”

@TheSteadyTable: “Not everything you write has to be publishable. Give yourself permission to write rubbish sometimes; it's good practice. #21tips #writing”

@simonparke: “Friday's Theology Corner! 'Blessed r the poor in spirit' means 'Happy r those not wilful for their own advantage or scheme'”

And other cool stuff:

Lego Man in Space - yes really! Using home-stitched parachute and equipment found on Craigslist, two 17-year-olds send Lego-naut 80,000ft into the air!

I came downstairs this morning to find anarchy in the kitchen. I was aware of some disturbances during the night; I was bolt upright and awake for no reason at about 4am which meant of course there actually was a reason. Said reason was revealed  3 hours later when I  found the large metal baking tray which had been residing on the hob, upside down and under the kitchen table.

The plastic threshold from the kitchen doorframe was far from its proper home. Dirt and fluff from underneath said piece of plastic was all across the room. Chair cushions were haphazardly strewn and worst of all there were various piles and pools of excrement and urine on the floor.

Mitch and Twink had some explaining to do.

I was stunned and shocked by the devastation. Although they are rescue cats and aren’t always very good at using their litter trays, that’s usually the worst I am faced with each day. It seems things went to  whole new level.

My first question was why? Why last night – I didn’t do anything to them yesterday out of the ordinary. They were fed on time, let in and out on schedule, given the usual freedoms considered appropriate for them.

Maybe it was pay back for Friday when I fed them early, let them out for only a short while then spent the rest of the day with my fiancé so they were locked in. I did feed them again at the usual time in the evening but perhaps they felt their liberties were curtailed by me going off and enjoying myself with little regard for their happiness.

Maybe they are finally showing their true colours. Mitch and Twink came to us after at least 2 foster homes, after being rejected from not one, but two homes. In their last abode, they were one of 10 animals, who all shared the same litter tray, had to fight for food and attention and no doubt were  starved of love.  They had been given to that home by their original owners who had decided they preferred the other pets they had and didn’t want the two cats anymore.

In fact, Blue Cross rescue centre were very pleased to have us take such two ill-treated cats from them. They also made a point of telling us that no one takes black cats because people consider them bad luck and write them off for nothing more than the colour of their fur. And certainly as 9 year olds they are considered too old to be cute, or changeable, or trainable and get overlooked for that reason too.

Maybe because of that, we’ve been too soft on them. I haven’t rubbed their noses in ‘it’ when they have messed on the floor before. I guess I haven’t set that particular boundary for them so they don’t know not to break it. Or should they just know pooing on the floor is not appreciated? I’m often torn between taking the softly softly approach with them most people would expect when working with cats who have been through what they’ve been through, or being tough when they have shown the smallest hint of naughtiness to make sure they know whats appropriate.

Maybe they enjoyed it – it must get pretty frustrating being locked in a kitchen every night in the dark with nothing to do but read a few cookery books.

Maybe they just realised I was in a deep sleep (I do not snore!) and thought they had the opportunity to have a bit of a laugh.

Or are they just dumb cats – no matter what I do, they are what they are, only arguably sentient, driven by instinct rather than logic.

So without a known motive, choosing my action was even harder. What was I to do?

My first task in any morning is to feed them and today could be no different. Sure, I could have kicked them out into the garden to find a juicy mouse but I have no evidence that Twink in particular is able to fend for herself.  

It seems we have a lack of wildlife around at the moment, there is a widely reported lack of birds and mice due to recent hard winters. The sustenance that is out there is hard to find, has to feed more mouths.

Plus Twink doesn’t seem to have much common sense. For instance she doesn’t seem to know that it is good to shelter when it rains and often returns to the house soaked. I don’t know why she hasn’t got this fundamental skill – perhaps she wasn’t shown by previous owners, or perhaps she was never let out to learn.  

So I fed them and set about putting the kitchen back together.

Then what? I had to think what to do to let them know this kind of behaviour isn’t acceptable. I have offered them a home, fed them, given them health care, exercise, toys and most of all cuddles, strokes, brushing which they equate with love. They’re right – I’m soppy for them. And this is how they repay me.

Should I withdraw some privileges other than food? I could keep them in all day – but the I’d have them running mad round the house because they were bored and cramped. I’d also be cleaning up more excrement. I’d have to feed them more and no doubt entertain them. It is also cruel to keep outdoor cats inside.

Should I separate them? Mitch often jumps Twink without warning and she, understandably, retaliates. But then they often wind each other up. Taking away the obvious  bad influences in their life – each other -  seems like taking away the only thing they actually know of old, rely on and find comfort in. They still curl up together like they did when we first rescued them.  

Should we kick them out altogether. This might be the start of a longer pattern of behaviour. It might be a sign of a deeply buried problem just surfacing. Do I take the risk? This time it was just a bit of skirting board, next time it could be something more expensive.

It is a tough one. But you know what, I think the only way these cats will realise they can’t act the way they did last night is for me to set them boundaries, but moreover to love them.  Rejecting them in any way will either push the problem on to someone else, or bring them to an even more  undesirable situation – rejected, hungry, homeless.

Mitch and Twink still aren’t allowed in my room though, I’m allergic to cats.

·         I do not mean to make light of what is of course a difficult and serious situation in the UK. I have however been flummoxed by many of the responses I have seen in social media from friends and strangers. I understand the bewilderment, shock, anger and despair and share all those sentiments. The above is a true story and as I reflected on the various strategies for change, retribution and how to mete out justice I drew parallels to highlight by metaphor what I consider to be ill thought out responses.  This is also the part where I should say I don’t have the answers – but I do. Jesus. He shows us by His example to not judge, to serve everyone in the world no matter what their status as defined by society as we are all the same in His eyes no matter what the world has thrown at, or not given us. This may seem naïve, but I believe loving people is the solution – and has been proven to work time and again.