Lent Reflections - First Sunday in Lent

During fasting you are probably more open and prone to temptation than normal. "Go on, you're hungry, you need to eat", "you can have that smoke now, go on, you're doing such a good job you deserve a treat", "just this last time". Fasting can be the most difficult thing because the devil wants yo
u to fail. If you succeed he fails, if you fail he succeeds. The devil was always trying to make Jesus fail too. This is highlighted in today's Gospel according to Matthew.

"Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting

Radical Make Over

As you can see I've had a radical makeover. This is due to a number of things. First the original design was done in the rush to get the blog up and running. So rather than scratch everything out and rebuild as I've now done I lived with it for the past while, making a few tweaks along the way. Some of you may have noticed a few different designs appearing over the past few days as I experimented with different layouts and colours. But all this time I was still messing with the #FFF, #FF8000 and #BDBDBD (White, Orange and Grey in HTML/CSS Code). None of these designs made me happy.

Today I got a burst of inspiration. Destroy everything and rebuild from scratch. So this is what I did. After a little research on line and in the local magazine story I thought what's needed is minimal - so black and white, colour is over-rated any how :-) and honest (going back to the Ordinary Man) - so pencils and permanent markers. Hence you see what you now see.

There may be a few more tweaks over the coming days so please bear with me. But the core of John's Ramblings as it is now will remain the same. I hope you like it, please let me know what you think - ideas, comments, suggestions, questions are always welcome.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. - Romans 15:13

Lent Reflections - First Saturday

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, "Follow me." And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."
(Luk 5:27-32 ESV)