Day Off Week 3 2020

I thought I would try and keep some sort of record of days off once again. I am doing this because I would guess a lot of ministers are not very good at this (I wasn't myself at one time). These days off are not ideal by any means but I find it a great help simply to try. This week was especially so as I had had a bad Monday, a minister's Monday. (Weeks one or two were holiday and conference weeks).

Having read the book of reading mentioned recently (by Andy Miller) I have written a list of novels I feel I should have read by now. So I have now finished J D Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and started on Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, which I have attempted before. So I know now why Salinger used the title he did and I can see why the book is given to young people. Personally, I am happier to have read it later in life. One passage stands out in the book, where the narrator says

I can't always pray when I feel like it. In the first place, I'm sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they did was keep letting Him down. I like almost anybody in the Bible better than the Disciples. If you want to know the truth, the guy I like best in the Bible, next to Jesus, was that lunatic and all, that lived in the tombs and kept cutting himself with stones. I like him ten times as much as the Disciples, ....(p. 130)

I was also reading the book we are due to discuss next Monday at the Pastor's Academy Interpreting Scripture by Craig Carter which is proving to be both interesting and fairly easy to read, despite the sometimes arcane subject matter. I did most of my reading on the tube. As I now have free travel I thought I might just head west on the Metropolitan line. I left it a bit late and got only as far as Northwood (LST is just outside there). It was rather wet and boring. Back here in the evening we watched the documentary on Peter Kay shown over Christmas adn the news.