feverish

In preparation for heading away next year, Mrs H and I have both been going through the classic routine of getting all the rights vaccinations up to date. Mrs H got her few outstanding ones in one go; I, on the other hand (a) needed twice as many, and (b) am a big wuss around needles, and so have spaced mine out much more.

Anyway, was back at the GP on Monday for the penultimate round: in this case, a second dose of rabies in the right arm, and a diptheria, tetanus and pertussis jab in the left. Having never had much of a reaction to any jabs before, I was fairly surprised to come down with a heavy dose of something viral that evening. Cue sleepless nights, blown capillaries (a side effect of violently talking into the Great White Telephone throughout a sleepless night...) colossal aches, and sweating for Ireland. This was all a bit of a new experience, and so is pretty intriguing. Apart from the bit where I managed to vertically faceplant a wall yesterday - that was just weird.

48 hours on, it's mostly passed, bar the headaches (and the sweating - in what is at best a fairly cold office, and am down to T-shirt and still feel roasted) but I still find it weird not quite being able to process what people are saying to me...

get a grip

Just a quick plug/review of a short book I recently picked up - Get A Grip, published by the ongoing BibleFresh initiative, as a spin-off of a current speaking tour they have travelling Great Britain.

The book collects 17 short articles (500 words or so) from a few notable names in UK evangelicalism, which tackle passages of Christian scripture divided in to two categories: lesser-known ones which may give valuable insight, and all too well-known ones which tackle subjects we might wish weren't in scripture at all. I must admit it was the latter of these which drew me in.

I greatly 'enjoyed' the challenge of tackling genocide in Sunday school whilst still there at the start of the year, and will admit I probably learnt a lot more in preparing that session than the kids probably got from me burbling my way through it. I find an awful lot of good can be found in trying to meet these theological brain-melters head on, and I was intrigued to see how far respected thinkers might go on such matters.

Before purchasing, I asked Krish Kandiah whether he thought the short essays were able to tackle subjects like genocide and corporal punishment. 'Pithy but chunky,' came the reply. It might sound more like a good soup, but I reckon that's actually a pretty good assessment.

They're by no way exhaustive - a few of them come across as they only can, as introductions to a topic. But for the price of a cup of coffee, there's a great range of conversation starters. Plus, the whole thing is built around Bible translation and so £1 from every purchase goes straight to funding work in Burkina Faso.

If you're interested, you can pick up a copy direct from the website. Anyone else come across it yet?