Bright autumn happenings

The Botanical Gardens in Göttingen, before all the stunning colours disappeared into a mushy, wet greyness.

My AMAZING 21st Birthday cake! It had yummy chocolate mousse in the middle

and fresh cream on the top...was jus perfik.


There's always a disapproving look on my Mum's face whenever she looks at photos of me and her together as she thinks I don't even look remotely like her daughter. Well... I suppose, she's, er, right. But I like this picture anyway :) It was taken on the top of the Plesse Burg, a nearby big hill with a Rapunzel-like tower and has a fantastic view of the valley.


View from the top of the tower.

One of those Brothers Grimm sort of forests.

Herbstferien Antics 2. Leipzig

I have been completely useless at updating people on what I got up to over the autumn holidays! Here's a few more tasty morcels...hopefully.

Here is the Thomas Kirche where Bach composed many of his cantatas and had his works first performed here. There isn't much to it on the inside in that it isn't ornately decorated, but there is a memorial to Bach and flowers are laid on it daily.




And here's the man himself... looking very dour.

I have to say that I found Leipzig to be a really interesting place to visit. It was quite fascinating (in a geeky way) to see where Goethe stopped for a few pints and where he is supposed to have come up with a few ideas for Faust.
Oh and did you know that Bach wrote a song about coffee? I kid not. I have it from the coffee museum in Leizig (which was also very very cool because it was also still a cafe and all the way around the museum I could smell cake and coffee, yum) that in order to discourage his students from drinking too much coffee he thought he'd write a song about it! And you thought all these stuffy old composers where out of touch eh? Still, he probably had a point...



So, you've probably realised by now that I quite like looking at interesting buildings. I admit I am a bit geeky in that way. There's just so many cool things to look at in Germany. Nearly every little town has its own Town Hall, which generally tend to be really really old and often with lots of brightly coloured stripes, pictures of ancient knights, even gargoyles sometimes. Quite imaginative and sometimes a bit fairy-tale-ish (Volksmärchen is just a much better word, sorry) I've seen loads of dancing men -not literally of course, that practise was banned in 1982- on the tops of rooves and quirky ornamentations, not to mention that there seems to be a turret-frenzy. It's quite weird seeing the very modern against the incredibly old, especially all in one house!

Anyway, here's the Rathaus in Leipzig. Not the best picture I think but it'll have to do folks. It was so massive and there was so much construction work going on that I couldn't really get a shot of it from farther away.

Here's the main high street. Cold, wet, not ideal weather for city touring but it made for a good excuse to sit in a cafe with my friend Vicky for an hour or two and sup coffee whilst savouring the delights of a humungous slice of german cake.









This was painted all the way across a massive wall next to a car park. This one depicts the fall of the Berlin Wall. The rest of the painting depicted Martin Luther and the march on Washington during the Civil Rights Movement and also something random with a hot-air balloon which I think was meant to stand for unity. My memory fails me now, that's what happens when you post things weeks after the event!

Finally, the river in Autumn.

Piper on singleness.

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/single-in-christ-a-name-better-than-sons-and-daughters

This has got to be the best and the sweetest sermon I have ever heard on singleness for the kingdom of God. It is not in the least patronising as many other talks on this issue have seemed to me to be, but rather it's just bursting with Bible truth, which is why it's so hearty. Unfortunately, I was unable to download the video or audio and couldn't even share it to blogger for some strange reason -ah technology- but the link should do it. I highly recommend it.

Randy Alcorn on hell

I read this recently, amongst the stacks of other books I'm slowing getting through, and have been meaning to post it for a while. I was speechless after reading the chapter on hell. After all, how can you read a book on heaven and the new heavens and new earth without talking about hell? God moved me through reading it to pray more fervently for those I love who are without salvation in Christ.


God and Satan are not equal opposites. Likewise, Hell is not Heaven's equal opposite. Just as God has no equal as a person, Heaven has no equal as a place.

Hell will be agonisingly dull, small, and insignificant, without company, purpose, or accomplishment. It will not have its own stories; it will merely be a footnote in history, a crack in the pavement. As the new universe moves gloriously onward, Hell and its occupants will exist in utter inactivity and insignificance, an eternal non-life of regret and-perhaps-diminishing personhood.

Scripture says of those who die without Jesus, "They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of His power" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Because God is the source of all good, and Hell is the absence of God, Hell must also be the absence of all good. Likewise, community, fellowship, and friendship are good, rooted in the triune God himself. But in the absence of God, Hell will have no community, no camaraderie, no friendship. I don't believe Hell is a place where demons take delight in punishing people and where people commiserate over their fate. More likely, each person is in solitary confinement, just as the rich man is portrayed alone in Hell (Luke 16:22-23). Misery loves company, but there will be nothing to love in Hell.

Earth is an in-between world touched by both Heaven and Hell. Earth leads directly into Heaven or directly into Hell, affording a choice between the two. The best of life on Earth is a glimpse of Heaven; the worst of life is a glimpse of Hell. For Christians, this life is the closest they will come to Hell. For unbelievers, it is the closest they will come to Heaven.

The reality of the choice that lies before us in this life is both wonderful and awful. Given the reality of our two possible destinations, shouldn't we be willing to pay any price to avoid Hell and go to Heaven? And yet, the price has already been paid. "You were bought at a price" (1 Corinthians 6:20). The price paid was exorbitant-the shed blood of God's Son, Jesus Christ.

Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Tyndale House Publishers Inc, 2004) pp. 27-8

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/environment-news/nsf-oil-plumes-joye-vin.html

Something educational...

CU and the Parsons come to town.

I sadly haven't had much to time to blog or add any more pictures at the moment, due to lesson prep and the fact that my parents are coming to visit this weekend! I finally feel like I am earning the right to go to bed now. Before it just felt like a bit of an extended holiday. But amongst lesson preparation and arranging after-school help it was really refreshing to go along to the CU (SMD) on Wednesday again. It thrilled me to chat about theology in german... the topic for this term is 'Was glaubst du denn wirklich?' 'What do you really believe?', note the stress being on the 'really'! We looked at the Apostles' Creed, the Nicean Creed and the Bramer Erklärung (??), which was knocking around during the time of national socialism. We ended up working in smaller groups, discussing how we would make up a creed or relevant 'statement of faith' that would be particularly good in addressing a multi-cultural/religious society. So, obviously things like stating that Jesus is the only Way to the Father got in there -though how you could leave that out during any epoch I have no idea!

What sort of annoyed me a bit though was that throughout the entire evening no one reached for a Bible. I was a bit astounded that everyone was saying things like 'oh yeah, we need to say that we believe the Bible is the Word of God' and yet no one actually looked inside one for evidence of why we believe what we do! (Don't worry, a sufficient number of fingers were pointing back at me too.)

Interestingly though, the issue of the resurrection came up in our little group. Thus ensued a lengthy discussion as to whether or not it ought to be included in our self-made (and note, key-word only, ok so very hard to do) creed. Erm, yeah. So, there was a bit of talk about whether it was so important that Jesus was raised bodily or not and whether or not we can be sure of that... by not being raised bodily I am guessing they mean figuratively but how on earth you could actually grab that from the gospels beats me. But maybe I am just intellectually thwarted, such is life!

Then came the 'well, do you need to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead in order to be a christian?'. Flicking to Romans 10:9 seemed to clear up, at least, that believing that God raised Christ from the dead is just as much an essential part of the gospel as trusting that Jesus' death was to pay for our sins. Again, because my mind wasn't actually functioning at 100 percent efficiency (that's what having to teach at 7.50am does to you!) I stupidly didn't have any other passages in mind until suddenly on Thursday morning passages like John 11:17-46 came to me; when Jesus raises Lazarus and also claims to be the resurrection and the life. Or, 1 Corinthians 15... such an amazing chapter! Basically, that without Jesus being physically resurrected we have no evidence and certainly no assurance to say that our sins are forgiven, because where is the proof that the price is paid, or even that we have an eternal Mediator between us and God the Father? Plus, we make God out to be a liar and His Word too (note just how many times Paul says 'according to the Scriptures'). We have no reason to believe that we will receive a wonderfully new and stain-free-from-sin body at the judgement day- if of course there even is a judgement day if God the Father, His Word, and His Son too are all liars. And to top it all off, it would make all christians the most pitied people, or at least the people who ought to be pitied the most!

Praise God that Christ is risen then and that it is an essential part of the gospel! Without the resurrection we are completely and utterly lost.

Moving on, my parents are coming to visit this weekend! I can't wait to see them, just to catch up, show them what I've been getting up to and then laugh at how ridiculous communication is going to be between my parents and my flatmate... My Mum can speak a tiny bit of german, Dad can't at all (though he did try learning french) and my flatmate can speak a tiny bit of english. Guess who'll have their work cut out! Sunday at church should be interesting.
Although I turn the (apparently) big 2-1 on Sunday, I keep forgetting that it's going to be my birthday, I think just because I'm not at home or with my usual friends and I've just so been looking forward to seeing my parents. Peter Pan had the right idea I think.

On that note, it's now far too late. I'm not the 'early to bed and early to rise' type, so that probably doesn't make me very wise...

God's Grandeur

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.