Sunday prayer

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home, lead thou me on!

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Sunday Prayer

Psalm 8
A psalm of David.


O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honour.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Modern day pentathlon

Interesting blog here about the modern pentathlon. Apart from the fact that it seems like a lot of hard work, I've nothing to add. I wondered however how the event should be truly updated to make it modern. I thought that perhaps this would be the event order:
1. Internet event: Facebook checking, includes updating your status and reading messages, checking emails on hotmail account (or equivalent), writing a reply email and deleting spam messages and finally writing a blog entry.
2. Gym: burning as many calories as possible in a 45 minute period using as many machines as possible in the gym.
3. Shopping: visiting and purchasing an item from as many high street stores as possible in a one hour period. Extra points added for a bargain snaffled.
4. Texting: ten messages to be sent and obviously all that matters is speed
5. Pub crawl: points accrued from the events above give you time advantage in this event which requires competitors to run from pub to pub, purchase an alcoholic drink and down in one before heading off to another pub. The gold medal would be awarded to the person who had got the furthest and drank the most.
That's probably a more accurate depiction of life these days!

Olympic Success

It's been an interesting time of learning for me as I have been watching (and enjoying!) a variety of sports in the Beijing Olympics. Most fascinating must surely have been The Madison race comprising 200 laps of the velodrome with sprints at intervals. Completely mad and almost unfathomable but hugely entertaining!
I think most people seem to be in polite shock that Team GB are doing so well. It makes a nice change from the normal cynicism and pessimism. It is really inspiring and makes you think "What could I have excelled in had I only got into it?" So that's the question for you- what appeals? The BBC site will give you an idea of what's on offer) I think that handball might be an area for growth as it's relatively unknown and could be due for expansion. Don't think they do weightlifting for women so I think I might go for javelin or hammer. Dream on!