We fall down

It is the 10th of April. And the significance of that, you ask?

Besides it being the 100th day of the year, Nestorius became Patriarch of Constantinople in 428, 1710 saw the Statute of Anne (the first copyright law in the UK), Mt Tambora volcano in Indonesia began a 2 month eruption cycle in 1815 that killed 71,000 people, Titanic leaves her port in Southampton in 1912, The Great Gatsby is published in 1925, the Wahine sinks in Wellington Harbour in 1968, the Good Friday peace deal is reached in Northern Ireland in 1998, and it is the feast of William of Ockham. And it's 3 days since I last posted on my blog.

Tragedy, you might say. What's the problem? Way back in March, you may remember that I said I would be trying to blog every day of Lent as part of my Lenten discipline. And here I am, missing three days in a row. I could say that I've been away on another work trip, and have also had a stinking head cold for most of this week as well, and all that would be true. I could also say that the number of spoons I've worked with this week was reduced due to head cold, change of daylight saving, and trip, and that would be true too. I could also say that the internet was a bit iffy when I was away.

But in reality, I haven't blogged because I didn't make time to blog, even to write the text and upload it when I had a secure connection when I got back. I got slack.

There's a very funny, slightly dodgy song (Tubthumping) that occasionally comes on the radio that I quite like. The chorus goes, "I get knocked down, I get up again, you're never going to keep me down," and some days it's just a bit like that. We get knocked down, so we get up again. I fall over with Lenten discipline, I get up and have another crack. What Eugene Peterson described beautifully in the title of one of his books as A Long Obedience in the Same Direction - we keep at it, even if we mess it up a bit some days. Thank goodness for grace that gives the courage to get up and have another go.