You're a Philosopher, Charlie Brown

I've always had a soft spot for Peanuts' Charlie Brown. I loved the comic strips when he and his best friend Linus would sit under a tree and discuss the mysteries of life.

Most comic strips are, of course, about superheroes but Charlie Brown is one of life's losers, perpetually insecure and always having to pick himself up from the latest disappointment that life has served up for him.

I recently stumbled on this article about the philosophy of Charlie Brown. It's an interesting read although I don't agree with it's opinion that Peanuts was about coping with the meaninglessness of life. I think Charlie's Wikipedia entry puts it better:

"It could be considered a metaphor about God; The other characters have given up on the idea of his actual existence (and Snoopy has stopped caring altogether, indulging in pilot fantasies), but Linus and Charlie Brown haven't stopped hoping that he is out there. When Charlie Brown insanely continues to play ball on a rainy day, he is essentially declaring his hope for God, and a determination to find God"

Wheel Changes and Wedding Bells

We drove down to Chichester in West Sussex yesterday for the wedding of our friends Colin and Victoria. We almost didn't make it...

We had just started to get some speed up along the A3 out of London when we heard a a strange flapping noise coming from the back of the car. We were driving to a wedding, Dave was to deliver one of the readings in the sevice, so of course it had to be a flat tyre. Fortunately we were able to get off the road quickly and call out the breakdown service. We feared we'd miss the wedding and called Colin to advise he put someone on standby to do the reading but amazingly, the breakdown truck got to us in only 15 minutes and 10 minutes later we were on our way again!

Thanks to some brilliant map-reading by Sara we got to the church with 15 minutes to spare. The church, by the way, was very old - part of it dates back to 800AD!

It was a gloriously sunny day and the reception was held at a stunning hotel in the country. We seriously thought of selling up our London flat there and then and moving out to Sussex!


Sara pretended she was in a Jane Austen novel...


Congratulations guys!

Celebrating Nigel Williams

We were very sad to hear of the death of Nigel Williams last week. Nigel used to be a member of All Saints church before moving to Northern Ireland and although we only knew him for a short time we were really struck by his friendly nature and wisdom. A website to celebrate his life has been set up and even if you did not know Nigel, it is well worth looking at it to see the astonishing impact this humble man of God had on so many lives.