I'm looking forward to July. I've said yes to a few preaching appointments in July and I'm getting just a little bit impatient waiting for them to arrive. The first sermon I will preach this coming Saturday at a football tournament. How cool is that! A bunch of friends are organising a little football thingy, we'll spend the Sabbath together and have a little trip to nature where I'll share the Word, and then a bonfire to end the Saturday. And then football all Sunday long. Sounds like an awesome weekend in the making.

And then toward the end of the month I've been invited to preach at our youth camp meeting and also at our senior members camp meeting. So within one week I'll have to preach to two completely different audiences. It's quite a challenge, but a good one. For some reason I'm especially looking forward to share the Word with the elderly people. I've got so much love and respect for these people who've seen joys and sorrows beyond my imagination, who've survived the hardship of our history and who, despite of everything, have still remained faithful to the Almighty. I already have a passage chosen for that sermon and I know I will get overtly emotional when preaching to them.

I sure seem to get the coolest preaching appointments around here. :)

I have a strong passion for preaching. Yesterday I listened to quite a few sermons by Dr Haddon Robinson who has taught homiletics in Fuller Theological Seminary for many decades. Listening to preachers like him or Fred Craddock (who's the best of the best in my modest opinion) makes me inspired and humbled at the same time. There is still SUCH a long way for me to go, and it's good to keep the bench mark high so that one wouldn't get settled and content with mediocrity. And on the other hand I'm always surprised when God can use me, my thoughts and experiences and my quiet voice to speak to people's hearts. It happens quite often that my mind brings back wonderful memories of the sermons I've preached in the past - the Zacchaeus or 6 word memoir ones from The Experience, the Peter's sword sermon from Newbold's contemporary service, the latest visit to Central London Church... Ah, good memories! It's such a beautiful thing, this preaching thing.

But enough of talking. It's time for sermon prep!

Every man's actions
belong to he
if prepared for thereafter
to each his destiny
some people believe
and some people know
some people deceive
and some people show

You must do the heaviest
so many shall do none
you have got to stand firm
so many shall run
some they rest their head at night
some get no sleep at all
if you listen close to what you see
you will hear the call 

Jah work
Jah work
Jah work is never done

[Ben Harper, Jah Work]

I talked to a Brazilian friend yesterday. P. has been on the streets lately as well, protesting against injustice and corruption. And there is a lot of hope and some confusion and clearly some fear in the air. Nobody really knows what these protests will lead to. I know there are all kinds of forces at work, and very different motives and intentions, but deep down I believe (and now I borrow some words from pastor Bell) that God is there, too, leading and calling and inviting and drawing and pulling these people (and all of mankind, for that matter) into greater love and joy and justice and equality and peace. Something big and beautiful is happening and God is right in the middle of it.

So in my heart I'm with them, with my Brazilian friends. May God spread out His mighty hands and protect and bless you all. Stand firm.

It's my last Tuesday's Tune from my cover series today. There are loads of great covers out there but I have to stay true to my own taste. So I've decided to share Stacey Kent's version of good ole What A Wonderful World. A good number of years back she was one of my favourite jazz singers. She's got this distinct and at times a bit awkward voice. But it's clear as crystal, goodness, it's clear.

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It looks like it's going to be a hot day here. So I'm off for a date with Dostoyevsky. Hopefully it will be the last one for now. I'm getting slightly tired of his company.

I take back my words about The Brothers Karamazov. I'm far from being done with the book because I realised that it has two volumes. I had only finished the first one. So I have another 700 pages to go. Sigh.

The chapter where brother Ivan tells the story about a medieval inquisitor who condemns Jesus to death because of His life and because of how it contradicts the teaching of the church blew me away. I mean, what an idea! I knew I could expect something really really deep from that famous chapter but it was way more than I could ask from it. If it was up to me, I'd make that chapter mandatory for all the church leaders out there to read. Everyone seriously involved in church should think of Jesus' desert temptations and how the church over its history has continually said yes to the temptations which Jesus rejected. The temptations of miracles, mysteries, and authority... And thus the church has every right to condemn Jesus for getting it all wrong. Oh my, brother Ivan sure is a genius.

But I have one problem with the book. It's this continuous drama and hysteria that makes me really tired. It's like, someone is constantly hysteric or pathetic, moods change in a blink of an eye. I went to see a Russian opera about two weeks ago. Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride. Beautiful music! But again, what a drama. Someone gets stabbed, someone gets poisoned, someone loses their mind... And I don't know if it's a Russian thing or 19th century thing. Or just a general human thing. But it makes me so tired in my head.

I hate drama.

I took a walk in my backyard. There's beauty everywhere. Everywhere.

It was a week ago or so when I happened to think of all the ways Newbold has influenced my life. I was eating chocolate that M.J. sent me, wrote another tract to B. (a 'bad ***' one, as he calls my long sentimental-emotional outbursts he has to endure every now and then), talked and prayed with S. over Skype, listened to illegal amounts of Ky-Mani and Stephen (I hold U. responsible for that). I don't even want to mention how I analyse and critique sermons now when I sit in the pew (I think J. has done a lot in this area by killing my own sermons - although we never agreed on the terminology, what I called 'killing' he called 'sharing thoughts'). And of course I ordered tea with milk the last time I went to a cafe. There's not a single area of life that Newbold and Newboldians haven't influenced.

So this Throwback Thursday is a tribute to my Newbold family.

K. & J. & H. & U.
S. & A. & M. & T.

That picture was taken on my birthday party in the end of my first Newbold year [click on the photo, it goes bigger]. It's a picture I don't come across with very often but each time I do, it makes me laugh. It's this happy kind of laughter as I think - just like any Newboldian is ought to - that I happened to be in Newbold at the right time and happened to meet all the right people there.

But enough of that. We wouldn't want to get too emosh now, would we.

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As to books, I'm finishing Dostoyevsky's monumental The Brothers Karamazov today. After the LOTR trilogy there's no book too fat for me. :) Then I'm on to Tchekhov's short stories. While reading I listen to Rachmaninoff's music. I'm going all Russian here.

Yes, yes, I haven't forgotten, I have to post my Tuesday's Tune! First two weeks I've had a cover so I thought I'd make it a cover month and post two more of them. Two more of my favourite ones, I mean. Today it's Eva Cassidy's version of Sting's Fields of Gold. I can't decide whether it's better than the original or not, but I sure listen to it way more than the original. So I guess my deeds show that I really vote for her version.

It was a strange and tough day today. I had to fight for my beliefs and principles. And I lost.

I'd be more than thankful for anyone who says a prayer for me.