Richard Huss’s Weblog

There is a higher throne
than all this world has known,
where faithful ones from ev’ry tongue
will one day come.
More…

What is it that appeals about this song? Certainly, the tune is lovely, but I think what it comes down to is the way it focuses so exclusively on heaven, on God’s throne, and on the joy and gladness and ceaseless praise that will be our lot in eternity. Is Christianity, as some like to dismiss it, just “pie in the sky when you die”? By no means – and yet we recognise that 99% of the blessings of knowing Christ are still to come.

There is a good article here exploring the biblical imagery of the song.

All glory, wisdom, pow’r,
strength, thanks, and honour are
to God our King, who reigns on high
for evermore.

Words and Music by Keith & Kristyn Getty
Copyright © 2003 Thankyou Music

Gosh, we now live within a Temporary Control Zone under the Foot-and-Mouth Disease (England) Order 2006.

[Updated 22:31 - tests are negative, thankfully.]

Dave Walker has been working on a nice WordPress-based site at The Parish of Langdon Hills. I do like the Weddings and Baptisms pages – need something along those lines on our site. And while I’m still quite fond of the See You at the Beach theme we’re using, the drop-down menus on the Langdon Hills site do a better job of revealing the site content. I wonder how hard it will be to retro-fit some drop-down menus?

For some reason our site is currently unable to retrieve the Google calendar feed that its event listing uses. Fortunately it’s cached, and I’ve adjusted things to keep it in the cache for 7 days to give me time to look into the problem. Not especially impressed with the stability of our current web host right now.

Work on processing the results of the parish survey is nearing completion. PCC members the length and breadth of Elmdon (which is not very far) are full of excitement.

One handy hint for anyone who might be filling in such a survey about their own church, and might be considering making “helpful” comments on the preaching style of one or more of their clergy, readers, etc. My hint is that, whilst I can understand why you may wish to remain anonymous, and that you might think it helpful to refrain from naming the person whose sermons you dislike, this actually makes life quite tricky for the person who gets to process the survey results.

If we don’t know and can’t work out who you’re talking about, and we also don’t know who you are (understandably!), then there isn’t actually anything useful we can do with your remark.

Gosh, names from the (Aberystwyth) past: Alan Vance and Ricky Carvel. I’m sure Alan used to have more hair than that, though. Happy memories of sharing the peace during communion at St. Mike’s, and of the look on David the organist’s face as he turned round and found himself being grinned at by those mad Irishmen in the choir. Again.

Great Britain is the name of an island – an island which is comprised of most of England, most of Wales, and most of Scotland.

I live on Great Britain, though I was born and raised on a neighbouring island which is named Ireland. Specifically, I was born in that part of Ireland known as Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland, Great Britain, and their many and various offshore islands make up the state in which I have always lived, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

There is no state called Great Britain.

I trust this is entirely clear (!).

See British Isles (terminology) at Wikipedia.

Well, I survived Sunday morning at Valley. Not that the people there are anything other than lovely, but I succumbed to a reasonably nasty cold on Friday. Pretty much everybody else was on holiday other than Roger (who was taking the 10.30 at St. Nicholas), but in the event I did have some voice left on Sunday morning.

The next task (ha!) is analysis of our parish survey, “commissioned” by the PCC to seek parishioner’s views of how things are going and how they might need to change. As expected, the useful data is in the written-in comments rather than the tick-the-box questions. There is going to be quite a bit of work in figuring out how to present the comments in a useful and fair way.

Also spotted during my earlier searches, this shot of GNR(I) No. 171 “Slieve Gullion” at Lisburn. The loco is now stored at Whitehead. Oh to see a GNR(I) loco in steam again!

Whilst browsing through Photoshop Album looking for something half-respectable to use as an avatar, I found all manner of interesting stuff. Most poignant perhaps was this one; Shane’s Castle Railway No. 3 “Shane” at Shane’s Castle. I had my very first footplate ride along the run-round loop there at around the age No. 1 child is now (on No. 1 “Tyrone”). The railway is now gone; only happy childhood memories remain. (The locos are now at the Giant’s Causeway & Bushmills Railway.)

Poor old Lesley is having problems with her teeth. Not very nice; at least another two visits to the dentist required.

No. 1 child has a short visit tomorrow to his new nursery class.

After a number of false starts, I seem to be getting somewhere with this sermon for Sunday.

Dear old MRFS has sent me a quite delightful and surprising item in the post, the nature of which I cannot reveal publicly. He is a decent chap.

Royal Mail attempted to deliver an item yesterday, while we were out, and indicated that we might be able to find it at the sorting office today. Alas, no.