Phill Sacre

Category: Personal

Miscellaneous ramblings about my personal life. Unfortunately, the most common entry on this blog. Also the most boring / useless. But hey, you never know…

  • Notting Hill Carnival

    Yesterday, Mrs Phil and I headed down to Notting Hill where we met up with Foz (a uni friend) for the Notting Hill Carnival. I’d never been before, so I was really looking forward to it. The day itself didn’t disappoint: we arrived at about 1PM, and made our way down to watch the main procession for a while.

    I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much noise in one place! All the lorries were kitted out with generators and massive sound systems. Some of them were so loud that you felt the sound much more than actually hearing it. They had seemed to discover a volume level a few steps up from “ear-bleedingly loud!” I have to confess, we didn’t stick around the ultra-loud sound systems longer than we had to! Foz had brought earplugs with him, sadly I don’t own any so didn’t have that luxury.

    After watching the procession for a bit, we wandered down to the Pineapple Tribe soundsystem (warning: site has auto-playing music) and danced around to some dubstep and drum & bass. It was a bit difficult to do too much dancing around given the crowds, but we had fun. After that we wandered round, looking at a few more sound systems, and generally trying to soak up the atmosphere. About 4PM we were getting hungry so stopped off for some food. We had some curried mutton, which … well, it was alright, but I’m not bothered about having any again.

    At this point the crowds were really starting to build up, and it took ages to get anywhere. I’m not really a fan of big crowds, so we tried to stay away from the most crowded areas and headed back in the direction of the Pineapple Tribe soundsystem again. We spent the rest of the time there dancing around to breakbeat this time (it was definitely our favourite soundsystem). At about 5:45 we decided it was about time to head home – we were hoping to beat some of the crowds.

    Unfortunately, the route back to the tube took us down the main procession route, and it took ages to get through it (until we could find a back way anyway). It was a bit scary at times being surrounded by that many people and utterly unable to move. At one point, Phil got caught up in a crowd and was forced to go in a direction she didn’t want to go. It was the one drawback of the day: maybe some people thrive in crowded environments, but I’m not one of them!

    All in all, though, it was a great day. Good music, good weather, and a great atmosphere! But if I do go again – I will have earplugs…

  • Holiday Bible Club and Birthdayness

    It’s been a busy week for me! Just over a week ago, on the Sunday morning Phil and I headed down to St Simon Zelotes to see Mike Neville (former rector of our old church in Colchester), and then have lunch with the Nevilles and a couple of other people afterwards. It was a really nice morning, great to see Mike again and hear how they’re getting on. After that, we headed home and I jumped straight into the car to head up to Fordham (the aforementioned church in Colchester).

    I played guitar at Sunday@6 that evening, and then stayed around to help set up for Holiday Club: the reason I was in Colchester for the week! The Holiday Club ran from Monday to Thursday in the mornings. My role was basically to help out with ‘door security’ (i.e. making sure kids didn’t run out without parents), taking photos, and generally helping out with anything that was required. It was good fun, tiring but enjoyable! There were lots of smiling faces throughout the whole week – I think everyone had a good time.

    On the Monday afternoon, my stitches came out – it felt so much better to have them removed! The skin no longer felt tight, and it looked a lot more ‘normal’. (Now the black eye has basically gone and the wound looks like it’s healing nicely. Thanks for asking.)

    On Thursday evening, I drove down to Phil’s parents. Phil had spent a couple of days up in Preston with a friend, so it was good to see her again! On the Friday – my birthday – we headed into London to visit the Heatherwick Exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. In case you didn’t know (I didn’t), Heatherwick is the company who created the Olympic Cauldron, as well as some other memorable designs including a new London bus. It was a fascinating exhibition actually, well worth going to see if you’ve got a spare couple of hours.

    Afterwards, we wandered down to Hyde Park and slowly walked back towards Waterloo through the various parks in London. It was a beautiful day, and great to be out!

    On the Saturday, Roz and Matt joined us and we went to play crazy golf in the morning (a new crazy golf course had opened locally), and then we basically tried to stay cool the rest of the day – mainly by not going out very much! Well, I didn’t go out very much anyway.

    Then, on Sunday morning we drove back to Colchester where I was leading the ‘all-age’ Holiday Club service. That seemed to go well – a few people said the enjoyed it afterwards. Then we headed over to Higham for the Fordham Church Family Picnic, and then back to church for Sunday@6. Then we came home to London.

    *phew* … it’s been a busy week! Today I am mainly suffering Olympic withdrawal symptoms (because it’s been such a busy week, I haven’t had time to have any withdrawal symptoms), watching re-runs of Top Gear on Dave (not yet but I will be…) and generally recovering a bit.

  • Out, Damned Spot!

    A few weeks ago, I blogged about my mole. Well, I finally had the procedure on Monday. I went into the hospital, lay down on the bed, and the doctor cut into me and removed the mole – under a local anaesthetic. It was technically a ‘skin excision biopsy’, the biopsy part being because they’re going to test what it actually was and let me know the results (hopefully it’s nothing to worry about, although I see no reason why it would be).

    One of the bizarre moments of my life was when I was lying on the table: we chatted a bit, and when the doctor found out that I was a theology student he asked me what I thought about gay marriage! So we got into a bit of a discussion about gay marriage while he was still putting in stitches. Still, they were friendly and he did a good job, so I’m not complaining!

    For the first 48 hours afterwards I had to walk around with a great big bandage path on the top right hand side of my head, which was somewhat annoying. I got some strange looks trying to buy a pint of milk down at the local with that on… I took to wearing a hat which disguised it somewhat. (You could say I went through a brief hat phase).

    This morning the bandage came off, which leaves the stitches exposed. I’m not sure which is worse actually, having stitches exposed or a great big bandage. I’ve had some strange looks either way, not that I’ve been out much but still!

    At least the pain has subsided now – now it just feels irritating rather than painful. The skin feels tight, which I guess is natural given that they have actually removed some. Hopefully that will fade soon. The stitches come out on Monday, which will probably help.

    So, there you have it. I like to keep my loyal blog readers informed of my health, just because… well, just because!

  • Still Alive…

    Sadly, I’m not doing science. But I am still alive.

    It’s been a good couple of weeks! As I mentioned before, we went on holiday to Wales with some friends from college. We were staying in a holiday home in Borth-y-gest, not far from Porthmadog. We had a lovely time – with the exception of my camera being stolen (it looks like it was stolen on the way up, I didn’t manage to get any holiday photos.) But we visited various places, including Portmeirion (where they filmed the TV series ‘The Prisoner’ back in the 60s), a couple of National Trust houses, Anglesey (including the place with the longest name in the country), and generally had a relaxing time of it.

    We also had a fantastic week as far as weather goes, better weather than there was in London! Can’t be too often you say that about a holiday in Wales…

    Anyway, we got back home safely from that last week. Last week I mostly spent doing sermon preparation – I was preaching last night at the evening service at Christ Church Cockfosters. I think it went fairly well, and if I’m able to get hold of an audio copy I will post it up (otherwise I will post up the text).

    This week I’m doing a communication workshop – learning how to do sermons better, essentially. A lot of people have recommended it, so I’m looking forward to that. If they say anything interesting I might do a blog post about it next week 😉

  • Placements and Holiday

    I’ve been a bit lax about updating over the past few weeks! This is just a quick update to let you know what’s been going on:

    • Two-week parish placement in Colchester (at St Andrew’s Greenstead). Very much enjoyed it, and I will hopefully write some more detailed reflections about that at some point. During the time it was good to catch up with a few people in Colchester – we were able to go to Fordham a couple of times, and meet up with people on a couple of evenings. Colchester it a strange place for us at the moment – it still feels quite home-like, although in a strange kind of way: it’s so familiar and yet it’s not quite home, because we don’t live there any more! That placement finished on 24th June – coincidentally, our 6th wedding anniversary.
    • One-week chaplaincy placement at King’s College London. That was good fun as well – although there wasn’t so much going on (given that it’s now out of term-time for them), it was great to be able to join in with a few events and chat to the staff, ask them a few questions about chaplaincy.
    • One-week holiday in Wales, which we’re in the middle of at the moment. Unfortunately I seem to have forgotten my camera which is not good 🙁 Ah well, that’s life. I’m actually finding once in a while it’s nice to be on holiday away from the camera – when I have the camera I feel like I only appreciate things inasmuch as they make a good photo! It’s good to actually take some time out just to appreciate things without having to take photos. Still frustrating at times, though.

    Right, so that’s what I’ve been up to. I don’t know how regular updates will be over the summer (hmmm, real sense of deja-vu there) – term starts up again in September, and I’m pretty sure there will at least be a few updates before then!

  • Reflections on a year of theological college

    Well, I’ve done it. I’ve completed a year of tuition at Oak Hill. Unless I have to do any retakes, academically this year is over for me. “For me, ze year is over…”

    It’s gone scarily quickly, and I can’t quite believe we’ve reached this point. It feels like hardly any time is past since we packed our bags, waved goodbye to our friends in Colchester and came to the Big Smoke. Anyway, I’d just like to post up a few reflections about how I think I’ve changed since being at college for a year.

    Firstly, the thing which I feel has really changed is my confidence in the Bible and the Christian faith (and, of course, the God behind both of those things). At Oak Hill in particular, it feels like everything is based around the study of the word. It’s been great to look at some of the reasons why we can have confidence in the Bible, all the way from apologetics to church history to archaeology to Biblical theology. All in all, it has given me a real confidence in the way that the Bible comes together as a coherent whole. Although I feel like I’ve changed in other ways, I think this confidence underlies pretty much everything else – it’s the base point from which to judge everything else.

    There are a couple of specific things which I feel have spoken to me particularly:

    • It was fantastic to study the Old Testament and get to grips with how it hangs together. Particular highlights for me were studying the Pentateuch in term 2, and Isaiah in term 3. Our Old Testament lecturer is so enthusiastic about the Old Testament, it’s infectious! And it’s been incredible to go a bit deeper into books which, to many, are perhaps somewhat obscure and impenetrable. I feel now like I’d be much more comfortable to preach from the Old Testament, having a more solid picture of how it fits together.
    • I’ve really enjoyed studying church history and doctrine (at Oak Hill they are taught as one course – historical theology). I think having an overview of how, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity came into being has opened my eyes to systematic theology and how the different doctrines of the church came about. One particular highlight for me was studying the doctrine of God – asking questions like “how do we know God is trinity?” and “what does it mean for God to be love?” Beforehand, I think I’d had a view of systematic theology as something fairly dry and academic – things which people do in ivory towers (I paint a picture blacker than it actually was, but it wasn’t far away from that). What I’ve discovered is that actually learning more about God intellectually has helped me in my own faith. Learning more about God has just elevated him in my mind, to something far greater than He was before.

    All in all, I think it’s been a good year! I still feel woefully inadequate to serve as an under-shepherd of God’s people, but slightly less woefully inadequate than I did last year. Now there’s a testimonial for you!

  • I’ve got this mole, you know…

    … it’s making a hell of a mess of my garden!* So starts Jasper Carrott’s “The Mole” routine – to my mind one of the best starts to any comedy routine ever.

    Well, I actually do have a mole, but not the kind that digs in your garden: it’s the skin kind. It’s on my right temple, and a few people have commented over the past couple of months that it seems to have grown. So, I trotted off to the GP a few weeks ago, and they referred me to the dermatologist at hospital.

    I saw the dermatologist about three weeks ago, and he said it needed to be removed, and I could go in for a minor operation for it. I went in for the minor operation today – through the pouring rain, I’ll have you know – only to find it couldn’t be done: because of my age and the size of the mole, the doctor was a bit worried about scarring. She said I needed to see someone who was better qualified to perform the op, so I don’t spend the rest of my life with the nickname “scarface”. (She didn’t actually say that, but that was what I inferred.)

    So, I will be heading back to the hospital for a third time sometime soon for them to cut my face open and remove the mole. Let’s hope they don’t use a twelve bore.

    * Another contender for the title was “Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!”, but I decided against it.

  • 1 Timothy 2: An alternative reading?

    In my previous post on 1 Timothy 2 and the created order, I questioned the view that Paul’s prohibition of women exercising authority in church is grounded in the created order. In this post, I’d like to examine an alternative view, one which I think makes more sense to me. I don’t pretend that this is an easy issue, and certainly I’m not claiming to have the “right” view. As William Mounce says in his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, “If one position were truly clear or obvious, then there would not be significantly divergent positions held by respectable scholars.” Speaking of other literature, I at the end of this post I will provide a ‘recommended further reading’ section.

    So, let’s get cracking. What was going on at Ephesus to provoke Paul to write what he did? (See the passage in question here).

    (more…)

  • That’s a wrap, people.

    That’s right, a whole year has now been and gone. An academic year, that is – this time last year I still had an actual proper job (which just highlights the amount of difference 12 months can make!) We moved down here last August, so by my reckoning we’ve been here about ten months. Not even one calendar year, and already the academic side of it is over.

    I had my last exam on Friday morning, and now I feel somewhat bereft: for the last few weeks I’ve had deadlines and exams to work towards, now that’s all finished I don’t know what to do with myself! Still, I felt that the exams went relatively well – it’s always difficult to tell because I’ve had exams that went “well” before which didn’t, but hopefully no re-takes will be needed.

    It’s crazy to think how much life has changed recently, and at some point over the next few weeks I will post up some reflections on the year. But, for now, I just wanted to update to say that I’m still alive, I’ve survived exams, and I will post up here again soon!

  • Status Update

    Things have been getting a bit heavy once again on this blog recently (sorry!), so I decided to write a quick update about how things are going with me. Funny how things have changed since this time last year – last year I was basically only writing personal updates. Now it’s the other way round, in so many ways…

    It’s strange thinking back to last April. Although by that stage we knew we were coming to London, we didn’t know where we were going to be living. Also we both still had regular jobs, we were both involved with our church in Colchester including helping out with a youth club every week. Now, here we are – 12 months later, and only a few weeks away from finishing the year!

    I still get days when I wake up and think, “What are you doing?!” Not so much now, but it seems strange to have given up our old lives, relatively secure, for lives which are a lot less certain. That said, I wouldn’t change it for anything – I feel much happier now. I’m loving studying the Bible, I’ve loved having the opportunity to preach a few times recently and just generally get involved in some ministry and learning about ministry. I definitely feel like this is where God wants us for the time being.

    So, all that said, here are a few details about the rest of our Easter break. As I think I mentioned, I was on a mission for the first week. Then I spent the week generally chilling out a bit – before the holidays I was somewhat frazzled and stressed out with work, so I needed a bit of time! Then, for Easter weekend we went up to Colchester. On Easter Sunday we saw my parents, in between going to the morning and evening services at Fordham. Then, on the Monday we went round to AJ and Jen’s house and had a lovely day with them.

    Then we came back home, Phil was back to work on the Tuesday, and I spent most of the week doing a bit of college work. So, there you have it, that’s how things are going for us in a nutshell!

    Just over five more weeks of term left, then one week of exams, and then – academically speaking, it’s over for me until next year. This year has flown by so quickly, it’s scary. Anyway, that’s all from me. Normal service will resume shortly.