Going against the grain

It was interesting to read about Shane Supple, who has decided to quit professional football at the age of 22, by the sounds of it because he was bored of it. My initial reaction, and I'm sure everyone else's, is to think "What?!?". Being paid a ridiculous amount of money (as he probably was if he was in the first-team squad for a Championship side) to do what a lot of people do for fun, with many opportunities ahead of him, seems like a dream come true. And I guess that's what people think looking in from the outside. However, as Shane himself said, "As you grow up you realise there are other things in life and to be honest, the game is not what I thought it was."

It seems that maybe life isn't just about football, but there's more to it than that. Maybe we should take a leaf out of Shane's book and, rather than just carry on doing what's expected of us, get on with finding out what it's actually all about, whatever that may cost. "People probably think I'm crazy but I'm not going to stay in the game for anyone else, I'm making this decision for myself."

Goodbye...

I found this today when clearing out some old computer games. I think I printed it out when I found it on the net, at a guess around 2001/2? Anyway, just to confirm, I didn't write it, although at the time I remember thinking I felt the same, but wasn't strong enough to take the same bold step. We did eventually make the split, and it was definitely for the best - life has certainly changed for the better. There will, though, always be a special place in my heart for it.

As you read this I will have already gone. I’m sorry, but I just don’t think we can carry on the way we are. This may come as a surprise to you, as I know we’ve been getting on well, but we have to stop this. Now. You’ve been a big part of my life for a long time, and you have no idea how long I’ve thought about this. It’s been playing on my mind for months and months. It’s hard to explain exactly why I feel the way I do. All I know is that we have to move on.

Oh we’ve had good times. Plenty of them. That time we won the Champions League with Gillingham, the 67th minute winner from Robbie Keane, I remember it vividly. Moore shoots! Frey parries it! It falls to Keane! Goal for Gillingham!!! Ah, the memories.. . but I mustn’t reminisce, they are only memories. Oh, but when I beat my mate Tom 2-0 in the FA Cup final. The look on his face! And when I spent a whole day with you, and we managed to complete the whole season (resulting in winning the domestic treble) in one day. And when you told me that the fans chanted my name after winning the UEFA Cup. And that magic comeback in the Second Division play-off final. And... and.. .oh I love you CM. Some of the most rewarding times of my life have been spent with you. I’m not denying that. It’s these good times that make it so hard for me to write what I’m going to. But it has to be done. It has to.

I mustn’t get caught up in the nostalgia. We’ve had some great times, sure. But we’ve had some bad times too. How about when we managed to get relegated from Division 1? How about when I was sacked after the first three games of the season, even though I had taken Gillingham from the Second Division to the Premiership? And how can we forget the crash of ‘98. I know you remember it too. Yes, corrupted save game file on the eve of the Champions League final. Leicester v. Lazio. We had just clinched the Premiership title, and had a full-strength side for the clash with the Italian giants. But it wasn’t to be. I didn’t see you for months after that! But eventually, as always, I came back. That’s another thing, why do you have to be so addictive? When we were seeing each other frequently, I almost entirely lost contact with my other friends. I’m sorry to bring them up, I know how you hate ‘others’, and that dreaded phrase: ‘social life’. Once upon a time, you had power over me; you began to persuade me to think like you do. I started to truly believe that going out was evil. Staying in with you was good. Looking back, maybe the crash of ‘98 was a good thing. If we hadn’t had that falling out, then who knows where I’d be? I could have no friends, no prospects, no life. You have to understand, you are not the only thing in life. I have other needs that you can’t fulfill. I need to eat, sleep, get exercise. Only now I realize that you used your charms to deprive me of my needs. You were bad for me, Champy, bad.

But why say this now? We’ve been together for over 5 years, why choose to bring all this up? Well, I’ll be brutally honest, I’m afraid that you just don’t satisfy me any more. Oh, it’s not your fault. But up to now I’ve been able to tolerate your flaws. Your possessiveness, your addictiveness, it’s been balanced out by the joy that we used to experience. But now it’s different. When I load you up I don’t feel the same sense of anticipation. When I score I don’t thrust my fist into the air. When I lose I don’t bury my head in my hands. I fear that we’ve been together for too long, and I’m getting, for want of a better word, bored. You’ve been the same for too long, and I need something new. I know how hard this must be for you. I know how hard you’ve tried to improve yourself. The player comparison, the attribute masking. You even went and got yourself a fancy DVD case. These revived us for a short time, but we both knew it was the same old you underneath. Everything around us was changing so rapidly. Ever heard of 3D graphics? Other games went and made themselves compatible with hardware. They took the leap into the unknown. You didn’t. You couldn’t. I can’t really complain, we used to be so happy. I asked myself, why fix something that wasn’t broke? Your inner beauty shone through the rough exterior, it blinded me. All I’m saying is that you were perfect at the time. 3D wouldn’t have suited you anyway. Text has always been your best format. And don’t say that you’ll change, you can’t. It pains me to say this, but you’ve been left behind, Champ. Surely you realize that we were only delaying the inevitable. The more time we spend together, the less excited I get. Everything is the same. Same interface, same engine, same system.

It’s not just this. The little things are starting to niggle at me now: the super-goalies, the last-minute goals, the absence of a decent manual, the lack of interaction. Before, I could tolerate it. I believed your excuses, “They don’t exist”, “They happen to Al managers as well”, “It isn’t needed”, “I’m not capable of doing that”. I just accepted them and played on, little did I know that you were fobbing me off every time. These little details just serve as a reminder to me that you’re just a game, and a flawed one at that. When you came into my life you blew me away. It was 1998, I was young. Your detail, your realism, your entertainment. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It put my previous love, CM2, to shame. But as the years have gone by I’ve moved on and so has technology. However you’ve remained the same old Champ. You’ve tried to keep up, but you can’t. I need more. I need to be able to really interact with my players, staff, and the media. I need to be able to see a visual representation of what my players are doing out there on the pitch. I need to be able to play with other people, on the Internet. Yes. People. Internet. Two words you hardly know the meaning of. You have to understand, this is what I need, and we both know that you can’t provide it any more. I need excitement. I need unpredictability.

Is there another game? No, of course not. You’ve always been the one for me, Champy. I’m not going to go off with the first game that flashes me a nice set of bump-mapped polygons. It’s what’s inside that counts. Up to now, you’ve proved this point. You’re so complex, so difficult to work out, and you’re the best there is. There is nothing out there that even gets near to you. You know this, I know this. After all these years, you are still the best, don’t ever forget that. I just need something new. There’s nothing around that can provide that at the moment, but I just have a feeling in my gut that there’s something around the corner. Something that can provide me with what I need. Something that can give me a brand new experience, something that can excite me the way you used back in the olden days. This game isn’t here yet, I don’t know when it will appear, but I know that at some point it will. And I know that it will satisfy me. I simply see no need in staying in relationship that has grown stale. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but we’ve been slowly growing further apart over the course of the last few years. I think it’s best if we can just cut our losses and move on.

I’ve been in limbo for a long time about this. You still provide the most enriching game experience in the world, and I love spending time with you. It’s just that this has been playing on my mind for so long. Having finally put it all down into words I feel almost cleansed. It’s as if the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel free. I’m so, so sorry to have to do this. But I feel that it’s the best for both of us. I’m hurting inside, and I’m sure you are too. However deep down, I know that you know I’m right. It’s just been the same old thing for much too long. To be honest, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to cope without you. I’m hoping for a clean break, but it’s never that simple, is it? I’ve met your family and get on with them well. Your Mum, SI. Your Dad, Eidos. We’re close, it’s going to be hard to cut them out from my life. I know I never really got on well with your little sister, CM Quiz, but she was special in her own little way. Such a simple child, yet still holds the trademark CM addictiveness. I’m sorry Champ, I feel so guilty. But it has to be a fresh start. A new era.

I hope with all my heart that we can remain friends. I’m sure that we’ll meet again in the future.

Stay strong,

Chris

xxx

I'd be intrigued as to whether 'Chris' returned to Champ once it got a 2D, and now 3D, engine, and also got hooked up with the internet. I guess we'll never know.

Why get baptised?

I'm getting baptised tomorrow and whilst it will be a great occasion, it's not something to be taken lightly. Through baptism I'm signalling that I have died to my old 'self' (a concept that was central to why I started this blog) and been reborn through the power of God to follow Christ and live my life as he would have me. I'll write in the next few days of my personal reasons for baptism, but this post, if a little long (it's worth it I promise...), should give some food for thought about the general role of baptism. I want it to be clear that I'm not doing this to be controversial in the Salvation Army (SA) (and indeed I believe a fair few people in the SA have been baptised), it is something I really feel I should do and want to do, but I do believe it raises important questions for the SA.

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The topic of baptism seems to raise so many dilemmas for different people and has caused a lot of division. In general, the Catholic and Anglican Churches seem to go for infant baptism (or Christening), whilst Baptists, Reformed and 'Free' Churches tend to go for adult ones. The logic for child baptism would seem to be that you wish to dedicate your child to God when they are young, and there could be arguably some backing for this in the Bible. Adult baptism seems more consistent and repeatedly implied throughout the New Testament (or more specifically those that are of an age to make their own conscious decision). The former also seem to go for drawing a cross on the forehead whilst the latter for full immersion (plunging the whole body into water).

The SA on the other hand don't do it at all (although are not, officially, against it). From what I have gleaned, the main reason for this seems to be that when the SA started (1865 in it's original form), it's membership drew from a variety of denominations, full of people who wanted to take the good news of Christ Jesus to those on the margins of society that had been forgotten by the wider Church. As there would have been disagreements amongst the members how baptism should be performed, this may have led to some friction, and so in 1883 William Booth wrote, suggesting: "is it not wise for us to postpone any settlement of the question, to leave it over to some future day, when we shall have more light, and see more clearly our way before us?" (see article mentioned in final paragraph). However, that day seems not to have arrived, or at least there seems to have been no point at which a serious, open discussion has occurred that has focused on Christ and put aside tradition and considered what is the best thing we can do as a movement, forgetting our pride and asking what is God's desire.

As you may well tell from how I write, and also given that I have made this decision, I feel baptism is right and is important. I feel glad to make this decision, and the fact I have come from this background has actually been extremely beneficial as I have been able to consider the special significance of baptism, rather than just seeing it as the natural 'next step'. I started seriously considering it maybe 18 months/2 years ago, challenged by how uni friends took it for granted and how I could really give no reason why I didn't, other than that it wasn't really the Salvation Army's thing. I couldn't really say the SA don't do symbolism, as they wear uniforms. Saying that we have 'Soldiership' which is equivalent almost seemed like I'd be saying "yeah I know Jesus made this suggestion but we've had a think and decided that William Booth's idea about the whole soldier thing just sounds a lot better". Again, it just seems like tradition getting in the way of the commands of God.

At the time of thinking this I was increasingly aware of the concept of Gnosticism which had invaded some parts of the early Church, where people thought the body was bad and the spirit good. This was rebuffed by early Christians who said that God made the whole human being good; spirit, soul AND body. I therefore figured that if God made us both spiritual and physical beings, then the things we relate with we look at in both a spiritual and physical context and meaning. Therefore it makes sense that we associate with some physical things in a spiritual way, sometimes in a bad way (idol worship, obsession around cars, money, etc.) but often in a good way (such as emotions experienced through photographs of people and places, or, for Christians, using the picture of the cross to help contemplate Christ). As God created us surely he knows we have these tendencies, and in fact wanted us to be like this, and so it seems logical that he would give us physical things to help us spiritually. He used the rainbow as a symbol of a promise, gave the Israelites the temple to symbolise the importance of God, and time and time again promise a sign to signify and confirm something spiritual. So it makes sense that when Christ wanted his followers to remember why he was to die he gave them the reminder of bread and wine, which was shown to be powerful in opening the followers eyes when they forgot that his death was planned. He also knew that people may judge Christians on their own works rather than what Christ has done, so by giving the sign of baptism they had something that was rooted in the death of Christ, rather than anything to do with human effort. Perhaps he knew that the SA would make uniforms for themselves and become soldiers, something that whilst obviously rooted in a decision to follow Christ, has so much more added to it and significance that is often more to do with the individual's actions than the work of God.

It was both a relief  (as it showed I wasn't crazy) but also a slight annoyance (that someone else had written something that I thought I was the first to think of) to read an article by Chick Yuill about this very topic and with similar explanation. A controversial figure in the SA, but someone who not only seems to have a solid grounding in the Bible but is also a very good speaker, Chick writes engagingly, and I encourage 'Salvationists' to read it through and seriously consider it (and have a look through the Rubicon website more generally), but others too should give it a read and maybe help them think afresh why it is that baptism is, and should be, held so dear.

Bradford and Leeds week - Caleb

Good Friday’s outing was to a cafe which runs every Friday and is for people at various stages of giving up drink and/or drugs. Throughout the week Caleb offers community rehabilitation to a group of people that are signed up, helping them through the trials they come across. Using the 12.5 steps project (like the 12 steps process used by AA but with a forgiving others section in it), they take step after step towards being free from addiction. Chatting to the guys there, it was refreshing to see just how normal so many of them are, how they were easy to chat to, friendly and not in my mind any kind of second class citizen. Quite a few of the volunteers there had been through the system themselves and were now wanting to give something back. The woman who showed me round said she’d been free of heroin and alcohol for quite a while now, but that coming along still and volunteering were really important as it is often the boredom and lack of anything to replace the previous routine that leads to lapses. It was just so good to see how many people really enjoyed coming along, and how many people want to help out those who’d been through the same as they had.

It was made even better by the fact I won a game of dominoes, plus a bit of Easter card making was great for me to give something to Caroline and Craig as part of a thank you for having me. It was also great to see guys who might often feel they don’t have much to give their kids and relatives something, being able to create something of their own in the hope of showing a bit of love to their dearest. Have a read through some of the testimonies - it'll make you day.

Bradford and Leeds week - St. Christopher's (Maundy Thursday)

Maundy Thursday evening there was a service at one of the churches on the estate, the Anglican church St Christopher’s. We started off with a meal, lamb stew (we were thinking about Passover so it was the obvious choice...), which allowed me to meet some of the locals, and a very pleasant bunch too. We heard a few Bible readings amongst this, and then were invited to take a piece of paper and write down a list of things we wanted to get rid of in our life. Going outside, we got into groups and constructed a cross out of two sticks and some nails, nailed our lists to the cross and put them on a bonfire in the Church garden. Moving inside we had a time of worship (which included half way through a song the room being filled with a piercingly high and loud noise, followed by the whole room in silence staring at the girl sitting near the sound desk and one woman just saying “which one did you press, which one?”).

This was a really great time just to sit and reflect on the things I want to get rid of in my life. However my list always seems to be the same, full of things I say I want to get rid of but clearly never really try. I say I want to be punctual, decisive, spending more time with God praying and studying the Bible, but I don’t actually do it. If I want to be a dying Christian and take up my cross, I’ve just got to get on with it. If I hold on to these things then Christ won’t take them away. I need to cling to Christ and the cross, not to my past.

Bradford and Leeds week - West Yorkshire Community Chaplaincy Project

After my interview on Thursday I was taken around Leeds to see a few possible placements. The West Yorkshire Community Chaplaincy Project (WYCCP) is a multi-faith charity that works with individuals leaving HMP Leeds (which accepts all adult male prisoners from West Yorkshire) in Armley, with the aim of reducing re-offending rates, and was our first port of call. They provide prison leavers with support and advice, for example with debt and finance (many leave with nothing), and are general helped to integrate back into society.

If you think about it, there are some guys that may have been in prison for years and years, and even those who’ve been in a couple of years may feel very out of touch and as though they’ve lost a lot of time. Helping them to fit back into society, encouraging them and enabling them to feel more confident about their prospects are all important things and so it was great to hear about this ministry and all it does.

A nice letter

A letter from a man who is turning his life around.

Something a little less ordinary

I see today that a 'heavy metal monk' has released his second album.

The story makes for an interesting read, and I've got to say that there are bits where I think "Really? How can you do that?". However, I really appreciated the last few lines.

The story concludes by saying:
"While Brother Cesare always wears his traditional brown robe and sandals as a reminder that he has chosen a life of devotion to God, he is keen to distinguish established religion from faith, and from proselytising."

I think a lot of people looking in from the outside really don't appreciate this, and this is often the Christian's fault. The hear about the rules and regulations of religion, but not the abundant life that comes from faith in and relationship with God.

My Facebook 'religious views' says "turn and live", and this is a paraphrase of the conclusion of Ezekiel 18 (the whole chapter is definitely worth a read). And whilst some 'evangelicals' will say that this sounds very liberal, it is the essence of the gospel. All we need to do is live out the fact that to have true life, fulfilling life, you can only do so if you are in relationship with God and have belief in the Christ, and all that comes as a result of that.

Or as Brother Metal puts it:
"I do it to convert people to life, to understand life, to grab hold of life, to savour it and enjoy it. Full stop."