The Hunters

I’m loving Spotify at the moment.  If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a music streaming application which allows you to listen to music for free on your PC.  I’m loving it because it allows me to listen to all kinds of music from lots of genres (which I can match to my ever fluctuating moods!) and find all sorts of weird and wonderful blasts from the past without having to actually own the CDs.  (An additional bonus is the comedy tracks that it keeps recommending for James based on the playlists he’s been creating…)   In a similar vein to all the things Facebook, where you to write 20 random things about yourself, or describe your life in 30 books you’ve read – all of which I sadly admit I love – I’ve decided to create a playlist called ‘My Story in Songs’ on which I’m putting songs which remind me of specific memories, people or times in my life, both good and not so good (both the memories and the music!) I’m loving it – obviously, it’s a list based exercise!!  Music is such a key part of my life, and the emotions it stirs in me are so powerful and varied, it is proving a really enjoyable and cathartic experience.  It has also involved much laughter and reminded me of so many important times in my life.  It’s going to take a while to complete, but there’s no rush. One of my more valuable wacky list-based ideas, I think!

Happy Easter, everyone! I love Easter and everything about it.  Our church service always has a real party feel to it,  the signs of spring are all around in nature, and obviously, Creme Eggs play a vital part in day to day life! Besides being a celebration of the greatest day in history, it always feels like there’s a real sense of new life and freshness about everything at Easter, and I often feel more like making resolutions now than I do in January when tradition tells me that I should.  I read about a mission that my friend, Bek, is involved in at the moment, in which she takes hot drinks to people selling The Big Issue in town on a Saturday morning, and on her blog, she talks about the way in which it is often through small acts that big things begin to happen.  It reminded me of the way in which there was a sudden surge of publicity about ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ a while ago, where people performed small acts of ’unexpected’ kindness, often for strangers, just to share love and positivity. One of my favourites was people at toll bridges paying for the people in the car behind even though they were strangers.  Imagine their surprise when they got to the booth, and were told they had already been paid for!  The idea was not to get a major reaction, but simply to share kindness.  Not enough of this goes on in the world today.  In our cell group, we also talked about how it is often in the smaller, practical acts you do for people, that the greatest love is often shown.  And so, putting all this together, I have decided that this year, I am going to ignore the January resolution trend (which is a good job, because this year it involved getting fit, and I abandonded it before January was out!) and go with my heart, which feels that Easter is all about new life and fresh starts.  My resolution is to do something kind (and random, which for a planning freak like me is the harder part) every day. I think I will start with small things within my comfort zone, but hope that as the days go on, I will feel brave enough to step out either in the task, or in the person that I choose to be on the receiving end.  Why don’t you all join me?  Who knows what we can achieve!