Blob Thing Learns The Wisdom Of The Worms In Manchester

Blob Thing speaks:

I'm going to speak less today.  My person says so.  She says that her fingers were aching after my last two posts because I talked so much and about so many different things.  So today she's only allowing me to talk about a little bit of my adventure walking along the river Irwell.  My person wrote a blog post about the Irwell too last night, about the time she walked along a small section of it in the middle of Manchester and Salford.  Or rather, on the edges of Manchester and Salford because the river is the border between them at that point.  I didn't feature in my person's blog even though I was with her.

Yesterday I told you about a scary experience I had when I was nearly eaten by a wolf.  It was a narrow escape but I was basically unharmed.  We continued our walk along the river and I met some more creatures.

These were worms.

I didn't know what a worm was and my person has had to explain for me.  It was a little confusing for me because one evening I had been sitting with my person and she had been channel hopping on the television rather than doing something even a tiny bit useful.  She came to a programme and the people on it were talking about a wormhole.  Apparently that's like a big tunnel in the universe and they would go into the wormhole in one place and leave it in a place a very long way away.  I'm not at all sure that's possible but if it was I would quite like to have a wormhole so I could go to places a very long way away.  I would go and see my creator.  I would go to the seaside.  I would go to the top of a mountain without climbing it.  But I haven't got a wormhole.

The creatures I met were worms and they didn't have anything to do with wormholes.

The worms were very friendly and they slid along the ground into different positions and as they did so they invited me to join in with their sliding.  They talked to me too and what surprised me the most was the way worms talk.  When a worm talks to a small pink soft toy its words somehow appear on the ground.  That's handy.  My person couldn't hear the worms.  But she could see the words and they were seen too by the lens on her camera.

I don't want to say much.  These photos are the words of the worms.  I am with them because they were kind enough to invite me to join in with their games.

My person says that this post is more like she was expecting all the posts on my blog to be:

Short.

I could say a lot more.  My person thinks she should take the words of the worms literally.  That she should actually lie very straight or squirm or do wiggly tricks.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  It's a lot of fun to do these things.  Once I had sorted my photos for this post I tried to get Winefride to do them.  She enjoyed herself doing all that squirming and wiggling.  She wasn't so happy to just lie very straight and wanted to skip straight on to the "Do it all again!" section and start squirming and wiggling again.  She laughed lots and lots and is still bouncing around from the fun of it all.

It's not the end of it though is it?  There's a much deeper message to the words of the worms.  They weren't just teaching me a little game.  They were teaching me, in wormly mystical terms, of the spirituality and philosophical basis of their worm society.  It's just their worm society.  There are lots of different worm societies in the world, even more than there are different kinds of worms.  You couldn't expect full conformity between earthworms, tapeworms and the Lambton Worm could you?

The words spoken were a game in which was hidden the deepest of worm truths, shared with me.  It was a large privilege to have it all shared with me.  The profundity underlying advice such as "Lie very straight" is mind boggling.  It's one of the two statements of ideal behaviour and practice in their society.  The other is of course "Do it all again!"  The first things they said show the theoretical and mystical basis for the practical tenets.

I would love to be able to tell you all about this.  I think, five months later, I have managed to grasp at least some of the meaning of the words.  I'd love to explain it all to you as clearly as I can and help you understand the richness of the worms.

But I can't.

Because my person says that I have to keep my post very short.

She says I have to stop now because it's already longer than she wanted it to be and her fingers are already aching.

So you'll probably never learn worm spirituality and ethics.

You can blame my person for that.

Blob Thing Goes Hospital Visiting In A Week That Was Not As Planned

Blob Thing says:

This is my one hundredth blog post.  Isn't that amazing?  My one hundredth blog post was meant to be a big celebration.  A massive party in honour of me!  And of Winefride too.  It's important to honour her because my sister is amazing.

But life doesn't always work out as planned.  My person was going to help me with this post at the weekend and now it's the end of the week.  So this is my post and it's not a joyful celebration of me.  Because things happened and my person didn't manage to find the time or the energy for my blog.

On Saturday my life was being very good.  I went out with Winefride and my person to meet up with a friend we all knew from Autscape.  We went to the Literary and Philosophical Library and I tried not to have flashbacks of my last visit there - the one in which a dragon dressed up as a giraffe stole my Autistic badge when I fell asleep.  My person helped me write a blog post about that.  We went to a very good photographic gallery.  And we sat in Super Natural cafe for ages.  During the day this photograph was taken.  It was an accidental screenshot.  Sometimes very exciting photos happen when accidental screenshots happen on the phone.  Sometimes very boring ones happen too.  This is one of the best.  Don't worry.  The vampire bunny didn't manage to bite me.  I have not become a blood sucking small pink soft toy.

Everything was very happy.  But that changed.

On our way home we learned that my person's wife had suffered an accident.  She was at the hospital being checked out.  That was on Saturday.  It's now Friday and she is still there.  She fractured her spine.  So my life this week hasn't included writing happy blog posts.  My person might have been able to find the time for them but she didn't have the mental energy to help me.

Today she's agreed to help me and I'm going to share some photos from my week.  It hasn't all been bad.  I've had some fun too.  And my person's wife is going to be okay which is a big relief to everyone.  Winefride and I have been hospital visiting every day too.  Here we are in one of the wards of the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle - a place where the staff are all doing a wonderful job looking after my person's wife.

My person has taken quite a few photos of the prettier part of the hospital.  On one day we had some food in the cafe.  We might have some more later today.  The cafe is in the prettier part, which also houses the Great Northern Children's Hospital.

Here I am sitting on a ledge by our table.

And here's a view from a walkway we use on our way to the ward.

It's a very nice place even though it's a hospital.  But from there we have to walk through a very long corridor to get to the ward.  Maybe this afternoon, if the weather is fine, my person can go to the hospital a different way and avoid the corridor.  Maybe we can also go and see some ducks in a nearby park too.  I'd like that.  I like ducks.  I had an adventure with some geese once and I'll tell you about that one day.  They didn't think our pea snacks were tasty but we didn't have any proper goose food and they were all very insistent about being fed.  There were dozens of them gathered around us.  I have to admit that I didn't like the pea snacks either.  I don't think my person was that keen either because she didn't eat all of them.

It's not all been hospitals this week.  Not for me.  It's all been hospitals for my person's wife though.  She hasn't left the hospital yet.  She hasn't even been able to visit the pretty part of the hospital.  And she has had a lot of pain.  It's all been very worrying.

My person has also been able to give me a few adventures.  Little ones, but for me a little adventure is better than no adventure.  Here I am with Winefride.  This amazing creature is on a wall in central Newcastle.  It was very friendly and told us a very interesting story about its place in the history of the city and about how it came to have such a fabulous tale.  Gosh, it was a brilliant story teller.

Here we are again.  We're back at Super Natural cafe.  I thought the books were quite interesting.  Mr. Hitchens made some very good points in his book but sometimes spoiled them by using some very mean insults that I don't think were called for.  We've only just started Mr. Holloway's book.  He seems a lot more calm about the whole thing than Mr. Hitchens.  We've been enjoying Mr. Hitchens though.  Well I have.  Winefride hasn't.  She doesn't want to sit there and have our person read big books to her.  Why would she?  Sometimes I think that she's far more sensible than both of us and that her priorities are far more what life should be about.  She's amazing and so full of joy and love and excitement.  I love my sister.  But my person is still a little obsessive in her thinking about God things and I've picked up some of that too.  I spend quite a bit of time in rooms that contain a lot of God books and I read some of them.  But Winefride can't read.  She can't talk either.  Or she doesn't talk.  It's hard to know which.  But she can laugh and smile and let out big whoops when she's excited.  She's amazing.

Here I am a few days ago.  We went to Whitley Bay.  My person knew that the Amazon delivery person was somewhere in the street just now and she was right.  She couldn't see him but could hear the bass of the music coming from his car.  That Amazon delivery person has a particular tone of bass noise coming from his car.  Sorry for that sidetrack.  The Amazon person has gone now.  Yes, we went to Whitley Bay.  Just a quick visit to help my person stay calm by doing something other than being at home or at hospital.  We visited the charity shops.  All we bought was that book by Mr. Holloway and a book containing the Dhammapada with a commentary on all the words and their meanings and how they all fit in with Buddhist philosophy and practice.  I did say my person was still a bit obsessed with God type things.  She probably always will be, no matter what she decides to believe in ten years time.  I am going to enjoy watching her continuing to grow in the ability to be lost in wonder at the things around her.

So that's my one hundredth blog post.  It's not what I wanted it to be.  But that's okay.  I can have a big celebration of the wonders of my life at another time.  When my person started this blog she was just going to share a photo of me and say where I was when it was taken.  She didn't expect that I would find my own voice.  I am very happy with the way it turned out.




[1246 words]

Blob Thing Meets Rumi And Fails To See The Stars At Greenbelt

Blob Thing didn't manage to post anything yesterday.  He and Winefride had a very long day which got longer than they had hoped.  They had to accompany Blob's person to Sussex.  She is visiting her parents' house which needs to be cleared and sold and she is very anxious and stressed about the whole thing.  She was much too tired to help Blob with anything last night so he couldn't write his blog.  So he missed a day.  Blob wants to apologise but he stresses that it was entirely a circumstance not of his creating or his control.  He hopes that he will be able to blog every day while he is away from home but he doesn't make a promise.

Blob's first day at Greenbelt had been very exciting.  He had done lots of fun things and met lots of people who he would probably never see again.  And he had survived a storm.  Now it was time for Blob and his person to be reunited with his sister and his creator.  They had half planned some more activities to do once they had eaten food.

Before food Blob's person and creator met up in the Playhouse.  His creator had been watching a performance called Smash It Up.  Blob's person might have seen it all had she not been sheltering from the storm at the other end of the festival site.  As it was she only saw the end of it which wasn't enough to understand it.  But that was okay.  She was glad to have been able to find Blob's creator again in time for dinner and the planned evening events.

The first of these was in a place called Canvas, an open air area with a canvas roof.  They were going to a Sufi / Rumi session.  Someone was very kind and gave Blob's person and creator seats to sit on.  Both of them like Rumi and Blob's person has quite a few books of Rumi's poetry.  Blob wants to point out at this point that his person hasn't actually read the books yet, just browsed some of them and that she should stop buying books and read what she has.  Blob knows that the chances of that happening are nearly zero but he feels it would be a good idea.  Blob's person wishes that he would stop pointing out the silly things she does.  But she knows that the chances of that happening are also nearly zero.

The first part of the session was very interesting as the two people leading talked about Rumi and about Sufi beliefs and practices.  But then the session got a lot more practical.  Everyone was to chant one of the 99 Beautiful Names of God for a while.  And then another of them.  99 times.  Blob's person and creator weren't up to that.  Blob's person likes the names and Blob likes the few he has heard.  If he was using them of course he would have to change them because they are 99 names of a sky God and Blob doesn't believe in a sky God.  So where the names would say something like "God (Allah) the merciful"  Blob would have to say "God who is mercy."  That allows people to still be theists but also allows someone like Blob to move away from theism into nontheism, theopraxy, or even atheism.  Blob's person is quite into the theopraxy idea but may be stretching it even further to a statement of "whenever you are merciful you both express and create that which is God."  God thus ceases to be a being, and instead becomes Being, a way of being.

It's not a radical idea.  There would have been quite a few people at Greenbelt who said - or at least privately believed - quite similar things. Blob's person talked for a while the next day with an Anglican nun who said that she had given up believing in the sky God years ago.  Talk about radical!  The late David Jenkins said some things while he was Bishop of Durham that had conservative Christians up in metaphorical arms.  Blob's person didn't like those things at all and thought it terrible that such a man with such beliefs should be raised up to be a bishop.  Blob's person has changed a lot since then.  Blob is glad.  He would find it very difficult if she was to keep preaching to him about the need for conversion or about how Jesus died for his sins and only the blood and intercession of Jesus could ever keep him out of going to Hell.  Blob Thing may have been influenced by his person in this but he firmly believes that the whole idea of an eternal hell to punish people for real and imagined offenses and offensiveness in a single lifetime to be one of the most horrendously disgusting religious ideas ever.  Thankfully a lot of Christians don't believe in that idea any more or in the idea that every single person is inherently sinful.

Blob didn't want to sit and chant the names either.  And Winefride was obviously very impatient to leave.  So the four companions just got up and left.  No guilt.  Nobody should ever feel guilt about leaving a religious thing.  And that's another topic Blob could talk about and which his person could express from her own experiences.  Not today.  They left Canvas and didn't know what they were going to do to fill the next bit of time.

But then they passed Grove, where Blob had learned about the Jesus Fellowship earlier in the day.  A dance workshop had started and it looked.  The man who was leading it, Andy Raine, lives on Lindisfarne and helped found The Northumbria Community.  So he's connected with two of the nice bits of British Christianity.  The dances were simple and friendly and they were very fun.  This was far more Blob's kind of thing than chanting the 99 Beautiful Names.  Blob's person enjoyed it too and decided that she needed to do more dancing in Newcastle.  There's a wonderful dance event happening there in a few days but unfortunately she won't be there and will have to wait for another.  Newcastle has quite a few wonderful dance events for people who have no flexibility, no stamina and who have no clue about dancing.

Everyone enjoyed the dancing in Grove.  They didn't mind that the ground was a bit muddy from the storm.  Everyone smiled except when they were meant to be expressing pain and brokenness and dancing to one of the more depressing songs of Leonard Cohen.  That was the first time that Blob's person has ever danced to a Leonard Cohen song.  She has listened often.  She has sung often.  But never danced.

After the dancing Blob's person and creator had a definite event booked in their diary.  On the way Blob spotted a forest sculpture.  Some people make pictures and art from found materials when they're out and at Greenbelt there were some interesting pictures and patterns in some places.  Blob thinks that most of them were done by people involved in Forest Church or by people who went to workshops led by Forest Church.  He really liked the one he found and asked for his picture to be taken.

They left Grove in a hurry because they wanted to join the queue to go back to Playhouse.  There was going to be a play called Grandad and The Machine.  The was billed as a "brand new steampunk fairytale for adults."  It was very enjoyable and Britain was not destroyed.  There was music and chases and Zeppelins and all kinds of good things.  Blob and Winefride enjoyed themselves a lot.  Winefride hasn't been to proper theatres before.  Blob has been several times and likes it.  He saw The 39 Steps which was very funny and he saw The Night Watch which wasn't very funny at all.

After the play Blob's creator was tired and wanted to go and rest.  Blob's person refused to rest.  She had bought a festival ticket and was determined to use it as fully as possible.  After sharing a cup of tea, Blob's creator went off to bed and took Winefride with her.  Winefride had enjoyed the day a lot but she needed to rest too because at times it had been quite overwhelming.

Blob wandered off and took some photos, continuing to explore the site.  A brass band were playing some great music in the Big Top but Blob's person knew that she would never be able to get in there and enjoy such loud music or dance to it.  Oh no, she would never be able to do that.  Her head told her that she wouldn't.  Blob doesn't necessarily believe in believing the things people's heads tell them.  Blob is wise!

Around the site there were lots of pretty dangly things and Blob wanted to experience them all that night just in case he didn't have a chance to experience them later.

Blob's person walked back to Grove.  A man from the Forest Church movement was going to lead a session about the stars.  The description said "put on the dark and see the stars."  That sounded amazing.  But it was still completely cloudy after the storm so nobody saw a star.  Instead the man led a talk which included quite a lot of science.  Blob's person didn't stay for the whole talk even though it was quite interesting and she learned that Ursa Major is not a constellation.

So Blob and his person wandered again until they came to canopy.  They listened to the last part of a comedy night and during that time they spotted an old friend of Blob's person.  He was easy to spot because he was the only person still standing after a set of questions the first one of which was "Are you female?"  Blob's person doesn't think her old friend is female and doesn't quite know why he was still standing up.  But it made him easy to spot and it made people laugh.

Together they walked and talked and headed to a communion service.  Blob's person left the church this year and so wouldn't normally go to a communion service.  She wasn't going to participate in this one except by singing the hymns quite loudly.  She sang the last one loudly in Welsh because the service sheet said she could but didn't hear anyone else singing the original Welsh words.  It was a special communion.  The Outerspace Eucharist.  It was aimed at LGBTQ people.  Apparently they could come there with "no need to hide from God."  It's very sad that such a thing has to be said even at Greenbelt.  There is truly no need to hide from any God on the basis of sexuality or gender unless your God is a ****.  [Blob, don't swear like that!]

At the service Blob's person met some people from the church she used to attend and afterwards they went off together to the all night cafe.  Blob's person needed to eat something because she was quite hungry and she needed to sit somewhere for a while before attempting sleep.  It was then that she discovered the carrot cake in the cafe.  She would discover it again several times over the course of the weekend.

And so to bed.  Blob got an excellent night of sleep.  Blob's person did not.  Another day was coming and Blob wondered whether it could be as exciting as his Saturday had been.



[1927 words]

Blob Thing Journeys To Greenbelt And Rides On An Elephant During The Trip

Blob says that he wants to take a break from telling you about things that happened a long time ago.  He says that he enjoyed the last week so much that he wants to tell you all about it.  Now.  Immediately.  Everything needs to be told and it's very urgent.  Blob's person has reminded him that he said the same thing not so long ago about Autscape and that he hasn't shared any of those adventures yet either.  Remember Blob, how you spent all that time with lots of autistic adults and how you did surprising things too like riding on a Dalek.

But Blob Thing is adamant.  The recent adventures must be told.  Now.  NOW.  NOW!  He also says that his person should write about them too because sometimes she writes different things and somehow seems to have had an entirely different adventure even though they were together.  Like the person said - there are seven billion realities from seven billion people and each one is slightly different yet all are true.  Blob's person is surprised at how different her reality is from that of Blob but maybe both are true.

Blob Thing had an exciting week.  He's been to Greenbelt.  It's a festival.  Blob has never been to a festival before.  He went there with Winefride, his sister.  Blob says to say that he loves his sister.  He always says that about her.  He likes saying it.  He does love his sister.  She hadn't ever been to a festival either.  The two of them were taken to the festival by Blob's person.  She hadn't ever been to a festival either.  And that really surprised a man who Blob knows as Mister Chris.  He was very surprised indeed because he thought that Blob's person seemed like the festival type.  Maybe she is and just never knew it.  The Blob, his sister and his person would never have gone to Greenbelt had it not been for his creator.  It was her idea.  It was her instigation.  Without her, Blob's person would not have attended and so Blob and his sister wouldn't have been able to go either.  They're all very grateful for Blob's person.  She has been to a festival before.  It was also called Greenbelt.

So what is Greenbelt?  It's a festival.  It has changed its description over the years.  It was once a Christian festival.  Then it became a Christian arts festival.  The website now says that "Greenbelt is an arts, faith and justice festival with a long and rich history."

Arts.  Faith.  And Justice.  Blob likes those things.

It's true that most of the faith content of Greenbelt is Christian.  But it's not all Christian.  And it's not the kind of Christianity that condemns anyone for not being the right kind of Christian or for not being a Christian at all.  It's the kind of Christianity practised by nice Christians.  They're the kind of Christians an atheist can happily and safely drink tea with.

Simply.  They are the kind who Blob's person and creator can safely be with.  Blob's person says that the whole event was a special time because it was a few days in which she and Blob's creator were not stared at by people.  It was a time in which they fitted in because everyone fitted in and everyone accepted everyone else.  They both get stared at a lot.  Blob's person can cause people to stop dead in their tracks.  She hopes that those people won't ever stop dead in the road and get mown down by a large juggernaut.  At Greenbelt people didn't stare.  At Greenbelt things were fine.  Straight people.  Queer people.  Hippies.  Goths.  Steampunk lovers.   Theists.  Nontheists.  Atheists.

It's safe to say that Blob's person enjoyed herself.  Blob and Winefride loved it too and had plenty of adventures.  Only some of them were photographed because everyone was too busy for photos.

Today Blob wants to talk about the journey to Greenbelt.  Because even on the journey there was cause for adventure and surprise.

It was a very long journey.  So long that it began the day before.  Next year - because Blob wants to go back to Greenbelt - the journey might be a lot quicker because Mister Chris said that he should travel down with a group he comes with each year from Sunderland.  Blob would like that.

The journey began by travelling to Manchester to stay with Blob's creator overnight.  Then everyone had to get up very, very early.  Blob didn't want to get up and he was quite worried that Winefride might have a meltdown because she's not used to the early mornings.  Thankfully she took it all in her stride and was ready to leave for the festival before anyone else had a chance to put their shoes on.  It wasn't just because she hadn't got shoes to put on.  She was just there waiting and humming to herself.  Winefride likes humming at the moment.  Blob thinks that she should be exposed to all kinds of music so she can find what styles she likes the most.  And he likes it when she hums.  It's sometimes a bit of a drone but sometimes it's quite melodious.  Maybe she should be shown some simple musical instruments to play.  A bit of percussion or something she can hit and make notes.  Yes.  Blob says that would be a very good idea and is asking his person to arrange it.

Winefride was very calm as the four friends got on the bus to the city centre.  She had her photo taken on the bus and you can see just how calm and happy she is.  It was a beautifully sunny morning and it was impossible to be miserable on that bus ride.  Even Blob's person was happy and reasonably calm and she had hardly slept and was pretty scared at the idea of (a) going to a festival, and (b) going to a festival at which people talked about God.  Blob Thing told her it would be okay.  Blob's person told her too and together they did their best to calm her more and recommended following the example that Winefride was setting.

The journey was a very exciting one.  They had to travel on three different trains.  Fancy that!  Three trains.  Not just one or two.  And then at one of the stations there was a surprise adventure.  A complete surprise.  Winefride and Blob Thing met a real life elephant.  They had met sheep before - an adventure Blob told you about a month ago.  He hasn't written about his adventures with his sister since then.  They've had quite a lot of them and he wants to tell you about them all one day.

Yes.  It was an elephant.  Blob was surprised to see such a creature roaming wild in Yorkshire.  He has since learned that this is The Warrior elephant, part of a large herd of elephants that has currently descended upon a city called Sheffield.  Blob and Winefride were allowed to ride on the elephant.  He would quite like to go back and find more elephants to ride on but doubts he could find all 58 of them in a day even if he could go back to Sheffield and visit more of it than a railway station.

Just look at the two of them, riding proud on an elephant.  It was quite dangerous.  At one point Blob Thing fell off, all the way to the ground.  It was lucky that the ground wasn't covered in poisonous plants and that it wasn't the crater of an active volcano.  Very lucky indeed.  Blob wasn't even bruised by the fall and was able to climb back on the elephant.

It was soon time to leave the elephant behind.  He had been friendly and Winefride had kept laughing at his impressive trunk protector.  She laughs even more than Blob Thing does.  She would have liked to have stayed longer and hugged the elephant tightly before saying goodbye in the special way she has of saying goodbye to someone she likes.  She can't speak, but at least some of the time it's easy to know what she means.

Blob and Winefride caught the train from Sheffield just in time and the rest of the journey passed happily as the scenery flashed by.  And then they were nearing the end of the journey.  Kettering

From there it only remained to catch the special Greenbelt shuttle bus to the festival.  Blob's person kept singing "I wish to go to the Festival."  She KEPT saying it.  For days beforehand.  And pretty soon she would have her wish.  The bus went a very funny way to the festival through streets that were never designed with a double decker bus in mind.  But it got them to Greenbelt eventually.

The journey was over.  All that remained was to set up the tent - thankfully in the disabled camping area which was very close to the entrance.  Blob and Winefride didn't help at all with that.  They just sat back and watched as Blob's person and his creator attempted to erect a tent which they had never seen before.  Blob thinks it unlikely that he would be able to put up a tent on his own.  On the other hand he wouldn't need a big tent so might manage it and he wouldn't have to store lots of things in it because he only has one set of clothes and is happy to sleep anywhere.

The job was done.  The tent stood proud.  Proud and only slightly wonky.

And so the four companions turned from it and headed through the festival gates.

The joys and struggles and wonders of Greenbelt awaited them.

Something completely unknown to three of them would become known.  The next few days would be wonderful.

Assuming they could all manage to survive the large storm heading their way.


[1654 words]

Blob Thing Encounters An Evangelical Phone Box But Is Not Converted

Blob Thing's person is far too exhausted this evening to type a blog post for him.  She felt rough this morning but still went out and socialised with people.  She's glad she did it but is now shattered inside through making such an effort.  Visiting a graveyard on the way home helped her and she took some pretty pictures there.  But it wasn't enough to overcome the drain caused by the social.

Blob wants to share something today that's already been shared by his person on Facebook.  He says that his person should be able to cope with a post that just includes what's already been shared because she has already typed it.  Blob says that he hopes to be able to write a proper post of his own tomorrow.  He might not post about the Literary and Philosophical Library though unless he can remember the exact details of his adventure there.  He knows it involved a chasing game with a dragon and a puffin.  And he knows that the chief librarian told them all off and threatened to throw Blob Thing out of the library and forced the dragon and the puffin to get back onto the covers of the children's books they had escaped from.  But Blob is a bit hazy on the details right now so he might write about something else - another adventure involving a chase, and one which he had with Winefride.  That was a very exciting time.  But it was just a little bit more than scary for a while because Winefride was worried that they would be sent to prison!

Today Blob thing says that he wants to reproduce this:

This is the evangelical phone box of Settle.

Blob's person photographed while at ‪Autscape‬.  On that day she had gone walking with Blob's creator and they had taken Blob and Winefride along with them.  On that day they all ate ice cream, played by the river, and went to a play area.  It was lovely.  On the walk back from Settle to Giggleswick they saw the evangelical phone box and because Blob's person is still a bit obsessive about the God she doesn't believe in any more and the faith she no longer practices they all had to go and look at it.

Yes.  An evangelical phone box.

Inside the box were some leaflets about God and Jesus and church things, and a walking guide to the area in which you stopped off at various important spots and at every single church.  At every stop there was a little prayer.

Also inside the box was a quotation.  A direct quotation.  From God.

'Life is short, eternity is not.' - God


You may wonder about the veracity of that quote because it isn't in the Bible or in any other of the main books that God is alleged to have written.

But Blob's person - with a bit of help from Blob - has been looking carefully into events and can report that it is not invented.

The evangelical phone box got the direct quote from God after he won an amazing treble, scooping the 50p first prize at each of fudge making, the large vegetable competition, and the adult sack race. That was at a local festival in 2011.

Afterwards God said to the phone box in an interview for the BBC (filmed but never broadcast) that he was very proud of his achievement and would treasure his winner's cards for "a very long time because although life is short, eternity is not."

The interview was later printed in a local paper and God is pictured with his cards. Next to him is a local dignitary who is holding up God's enormous cucumber above his head.

God has since sold his house in ‪#‎Settle‬ and moved north to Dentdale. He wanted to downsize and live somewhere quieter. He hasn't bothered pinning up his cards in the new house. They're in a box up in his attic. Forgotten.

So God didn't keep his promise. But the evangelical telephone box carries on quoting him. And the quote was out of context to begun with. Evangelical telephone boxes will do anything to sell a message.

It is good to know the truth about these things. Otherwise people might continue to doubt that God ever said these words in Settle.

There's that phone box again - an inside view.  In the corner of the picture you can see a little piece of Blob's creator.  He hastens to say that all the other pieces of his creator were safely attached to that piece.  The evangelical phone box had not cut her into pieces.  So don't worry!

Blob quite likes the message that "God heart you."  He doesn't believe it though because he doesn't believe in a sky God being who actively loves.  Blob does believe in love though.  He agrees with the Bible that God is love.  He just doesn't believe in a theistic interpretation of what God is.

Blob Thing would say that wherever love is to be found, that which we may call god is to be found.

Blob would say that whenever we express true love, we express that which we may call god.

And thus the god of love, love itself, is found within and without, in the depths of our beautiful hearts and in the awesome wonder of the world around us.

Blob would say that god is love.  He would also say that god is not just love.  In the grandeur of the mountain there is no love expressed.  And yet god is there too.  God meets god when we express love and adoration for that grandeur.

That's what Blob says.  And because he says all that, it's possible that he doesn't quite believe all that he and his person wrote on Facebook about that direct quotation in the evangelical phone box - any more than they believed the can of Irn-Bru they saw today that claims it's "been bru'd to a secret recipe since 1901" and yet contains such wonderments as Ponceau 4R, a synthetic colouring that is banned in the USA, and Sunset Yellow.  [Also note that it says bru'd.  The drink was once called Iron Brew.  But they had to stop calling it Brew because it's not brewed.

The Food Standards Agency asked food manufacturers in 2008 to voluntarily remove additives such as these from foods.  But they're still in Irn-Bru.  The manufacturer agreed to remove them.  But that was in January 2010 and they haven't done it.  Naughty manufacturer.  This does not stop Blob's person from drinking the stuff every now and again.  It may have all kinds of crap in it.  It may contain 32 flavouring agents and Blob would suspect that not all of them were in the 1901 recipe. 

But it's tasty!

Blob's person has learned while reading about the 32 flavouring agents about the transphobic advertising campaign that ran for Irn-Bru.  Maybe it's time to stop drinking such utter crud.  Blob is instructing his person:  Never drink Irn-Bru again.  Blob thing points out too that the only iron in irn-bru (which was advertised as "made from girders") is in the form of a 0.002% addition of ammonium ferric citrate which isn't usually what girders are made from.  Blob is doing his very best to convince his person not to drink the stuff again.  She's complaining because it is tasty and she likes it.  But Blob is adamant.  Adamant.  This argument will run well past a blog post.

Blob wishes to apologise that his deep thinking about spirituality suddenly turned to talking about a soft drink.  Blob Thing has never drunk Irn-Bru.  He never will.  He doesn't like the colour.  Tea has good colours.  Hot chocolate has wonderful colours.  But he doesn't like the way Irn-Bru doesn't just look like rusty iron, it looks like luminous rusty iron.

Blob doesn't think the saying "God is luminous rusty iron" is quite as catchy as "God is love."

He's going to stick with "God is love."


[1343 words]

Blob Thing Rides On The Psychedelic Sheep in Wrecsam

Blob Thing's person is suitably chastised.  Today she is going to stay quiet.  Unless Blob starts talking about her again.  He and Winefride were treated to a fantastic day yesterday and he's quite forgiven his person for talking so much about religion and for using long words like substantially and sacramentally.  It's true that they were dragged into not one but two churches on their excellent day out and that they would have been dragged into a third had it not been locked.  But on a day with such a fun play area, a river, woods to play in, and lots of surprises Blob didn't mind.  Even though one of the churches wasn't even a church anymore, just a few ruined stones covered in moss.  He did complain a little about that one but not too much because he liked the feel of the moss and Winefride pressed herself against it and laughed a lot.

She was so brave yesterday.  She did all kinds of things and you would think she had been exploring the world for years.  She wasn't even that worried when she was clambering on a high branch and fell from it.  Eight feet.  Blob's Person would have complained a lot if she had fallen eight feet from a high branch.  Winefride just lay there a bit dazed for a moment and then pointed upwards as best a person with no arms can and smiled.  Blob thinks it's because she was watching the way the light was playing through the leaves of the trees.

This post isn't about yesterday's adventures though.  Lots of pictures were taken and Blob will share them on other days.  They also took a video on the big slide in the deserted playground.  Winefride did the sliding properly.  Blob decided that rolling would be a better option but half way down decided that was just a bit too scary so he slid the rest of the way.  Blob's person slid too but much more slowly and got a bit stuck near the bottom because slides are not usually created for people with such wide bottoms.  Everyone had a lot of fun and Winefride especially enjoyed being taken on a swing.  She seems to like swings but has to ride with Blob's person or she would fall off.

This post is about an adventure from part way through yesterday.  Blob Thing was trying to tell you about it in the last post but then his person got in the way.  This is his Blob.  He's happy to talk about God and spirituality and all kinds of things.  He's less happy when his person takes over and talks about them.  But seriously?  She really believed all those things and didn't even doubt them?  That, with no practical evidence whatsoever, a wafer or a sip of wine was actually Jesus?  Just on the say so of a big organisation?  Blob doesn't want to attack anyone's beliefs but he finds it all quite amazing.  If he believed something of that kind and there wasn't some big organisation backing him up and teaching a version of an interpretation of an old book people wrote about God then everyone would think him crazy.  Maybe that wafer, locked away in a metal box behind a curtain, is Jesus.  Maybe the wafer is transformed in a ceremony.  Maybe.  Blob doesn't believe it though.  He does quite like the story.  Blob likes stories.

Blob is going to shut up now about it.  He told his person to shut up about it yesterday.  And then he starts talking about it.  Blob isn't a Catholic.  And even if he was that would be quite difficult.  He would never be allowed to receive Jesus.  Never.  The Catholics wouldn't baptise him.  They only baptise humans, not small pink soft toys.  And they definitely wouldn't confirm him.  He could attend services but he would never be counted as part of the church.  No salvation for Blob Thing or Winefride.  He supposes that's okay because they don't need saving.  They and God - or Spirit, or the universe, or Being, or Life, or Love, or whatever name you give that which is nameless get on well anyway.  They don't need saving from Hell.  They don't need saving from the wrath and judgment of some crazy God who can only forgive through some kind of blood cult and through killing.  They can certainly stay away from the Catholic Mass without risking not going to some heaven on day.  It's a nice story.  Millions and millions and millions of people believe it's the truth.  Literally.  They get a great deal from it and find the meaning of life within it.  Blob's person used to but Blob Thing is very, very glad that she doesn't anymore.

Blob Thing didn't shut up.  He got carried away.  That's okay.  As a book he was browsing last night would say, "When you get carried away with a special interest you deserve more love, not less."  The book says that quite a lot in one section.  "You deserve more love, not less."  Blob likes that book he thinks.  Bits of it are a bit weird and he doesn't believe it all.  But he fervently believes in the mantra.  For all of us.  "You deserve more love, not less."

This post is about an adventure a week ago.  In Wrecsam.  Or in Wrexham.  Or both.  Blob's person says that he really ought to get on and talk about it or it'll be his fault that his blog has gone off the rails today and not hers.  Pain the Bear is looking at us and is saying that the sheep adventure would be a much better subject than Blob's lack of relationship with the Catholic Church or with any other church or religious organisation.  Blob's going to a not Church today for the first time.  It's the Sunday Assembly.  He's looking forward to that a lot.  It's a bit like church.  But without all the talking to a sky God parts or having to talk about not believing in a sky God but having to talk in sky God language.  The Sunday Assembly will not be using talking to a sky God language.  It's going to be great.  He's a bit worried that Winefride will be overwhelmed.  She's going to the Sunday Assembly too.

In Wrecsam, Blob and Winefride met a couple of sheep.  Yes.  That's the adventure.  They met a couple of sheep.  They weren't normal sheep though.  For a start, they weren't living in a field out in the countryside.  On of them was living in the ticket office of the railway station which is not a normal place to find a sheep.  The other was living in a churchyard.

They were amazing sheep.  Most sheep are white or black or some simple pattern of simple colours.  The two sheep in Wrecsam were the most amazingly coloured sheep that Blob Thing had ever seen.  They weren't anything like the ones he had seen in fields when out walking or when looking out of bus windows.  These were brilliantly coloured and must have been the most exciting sheep in the world.

And they were both very very friendly too.  They didn't run away.  They didn't shout or scream when Blob and Winefride approached.  They just stood there and smiled at the two toys.  And then they did something very special indeed.  They allowed Blob and Winefride to ride on their backs.  That was an amazing feeling.  Blob shouted out that his person should take lots and lots of pictures because it was such a stunning experience.  Of course she was glad to oblige.

To begin, three pictures of Blob and Winefride on the station sheep.  Just look how happy they were.  Especially Winefride.  She was even happier than Blob.  Blob thinks that if Winefride had a book filled with that many colours then it would become maybe her favourite thing in the world and she would just look at it, get really really close to it and trace all the colours with her bow.  Blob Thing loves his sister.

Blob and Winefride had enjoyed the sheep immensely so when they saw a second sheep in a big churchyard they couldn't believe their luck.  And when they were allowed to ride on that sheep too and the sheep promised not to run away with them still on its back they couldn't have been happier.  Blob's person took a lot of photos of them.  A lot.

Winefride liked the colours on this church sheep.  But not as much as all the colours on the first sheep.  Blob thinks that maybe she should be introduced to art and encouraged to play around with colours for herself.  Blob thinks that she would have a lot of fun and wouldn't worry about putting down the wrong colour because all colours are beautiful.  Most of them anyway.  Blob says that he would probably enjoy doing some art sometime.  He doesn't quite know how they would manage it but there has to be a way, even for people with the physical attributes they share.

Here are the photos of the siblings on the church sheep.  Ending with a close up that Blob likes a lot.  The way he has nestled himself into Winefride and the way she looks so happy about it makes him feel very happy every time he looks at the picture.

So that in essence was Blob's adventure.  He and his sister sat on a couple of sheep.  In Wrecsam.  As adventures go it was something small.  They're not going to make a big Hollywood blockbuster action movie out of this adventure.  But it was an adventure for Blob and Winefride.  And they enjoyed themselves.  There can't be many other small pink or small stripy blob toys who had ridden on fantastically colourful sheep.

Tomorrow Blob wants to tell you about one of his solo adventures.  It amazed him at the time.  He wants to tell you about the time he rode on some sheep.  And then there's more to tell you about Wrecsam too.  Something quite brilliant happened there and a photograph was taken that will make Blob smile for as long as he lives and it will probably make his person smile for that long too.




[1718 words today.  41777 words in July.  Good grief.]

Blob Thing And Winefride Go Riding On Some Welsh Sheep

We're not going to write much today.  We know we say that almost every day.  But this day it's true.  At least, we think it's true.  We're very tired and we want to go out so we neither have the brain power nor the time to write as much as Blob Thing usually seems to write or say.

Today Blob Thing wants to think back to Winefride's first day out.  It was only a week ago.  We're writing this in the morning so can say that a week ago Winefride had never been outside.  She was looking forward to it we think, although she didn't know quite what "outside" meant and can't have had any idea of the varieties of things out there.  Winefride has been doing marvellously in the last week.  She's been out again - enjoying the view from a coach, dancing in a cafe, eating apple pie and custard in another, and she and Blob had a good time by the seaside too.

But this was Winefride's very first trip outside.  And it was a big one.  She was going to go to a different country.  A place where the words are all different.  A place where even Blob doesn't understand the road signs.

The trip was to Wales.

Blob Thing was extremely excited.  He had never visited another country either.  And this was his first time being out with his sister and that couldn't have been a more special feeling.  What would they see?

During the day they visited two places.  Rhiwabon and Wrecsam.  Those places are also known as Ruabon and Wrexham.  Rhiwabon was very small.  Blob had wanted to eat lunch there in a cafe but there was only one cafe in the entire town and that had shut at noon.  Obviously there isn't a lot of demand for lunch in Rhiwabon.  Perhaps it's a missing meal and everyone just jumps from breakfast to dinner.  Why else would the only cafe in a town shut before lunchtime?  Fortunately everyone was able to buy a little bit of food otherwise they would have felt very hungry.

The most exciting thing in Rhiwabon was that Blob's creator found a little footpath and at the end of that footpath was a play area.  It had swings and lots of other play equipment.  And it was deserted.  Nobody there at all.  The very first picture of Winefride enjoying the world was taken there.  Blob shared it with you a few days ago.  But he likes it so much that he wants to share it again.

She's so amazing.  Her first day out and he just got on and did everything and smiled at it all and managed not to get too overwhelmed at the sudden rush of experiences.

Blob's creator and his person liked the play area too.  Blob's person had ten goes on the zip wire, having been a little afraid of it to begin with.  And they both really enjoyed lying down in a little bucket roundabout and being pushed round and round and round.  It was a wonderful feeling.  Everyone enjoyed the swings of course.  And they went on nearly everything.

After visiting Rhiwabon, Blob said that they should go to Wrecsam and have a look round.  On the way, his person was distracted by the local church and dragged everyone in and she was suitably impressed by all the stained glass and statues.  She would have preferred just to be able to look at things rather than having someone there try to tell her all about the history of everything.  She's sure that all of that is very interesting but she doesn't cope well with enthusiastic people telling her about everything in a church building.  They give her a maze of names and dates and so on and she tries for a while but nothing gets retained and in the end they might just as well be telling her a list of random words for all the difference it makes.  She was told about statues and windows and tombs and carvings and the font but all she can tell you about them now is that they were statues and windows and tombs and carvings and a font.  Some were old.  Some were pretty.  And some were connected with some rich family or other.  Blob's person isn't good at taking in verbal information.

So the four travellers went to Wrecsam.  Blob's person dragged everyone into another church.  Blob wants to know why she keeps insisting on going into churches.  Sometimes it can be fun.  He's visited several churches in Newcastle.  He made some friends in Jesmond and some more in the cathedral and he's done some bell ringing too.  But sometimes he confesses he finds it a bit boring.  What's he meant to do in a church?  It's not as if any kind of god exists in a church more than they would outside of it.  Blob is very tempted at this moment to start talking about god and God and all his theories about it.  People go to a church building to pray to some God or other.  But even in the teachings of those religions that God is everywhere and isn't any closer in a special building.  So why not pray wherever the person is?

Blob's person tells him now that for some religions, even though they teach that God is everywhere, God is somehow closer in a special building.  For a Sikh, the special building is the Guru's house.  So it's special.  For a Catholic, the special building is where Jesus lives, locked away in a metal box and hidden behind a curtain most of the time.  Because obviously that's how Jesus would want to live.  Catholics are funny about their quest to protect Jesus - who they believe exists in a form where he looks, smells and tastes like some wheat wafers but is actually fully Jesus and alive.  For a Catholic, the risen Jesus is closest to them when he's being a wafer and that wafer is the most special thing on earth and needs to be kept away from anyone who isn't a Catholic.  They have lots of rules and beliefs about that and Blob's person used to believe them all very strongly and that wafer was extremely important to her.  To Blob's person that wafer was Jesus, his body, blood, soul and divinity.  Substantially present.  Sacramentally present under the form of bread.  Blob's person used to believe all that.  Now she doesn't.

Blob says that his person should shut up about Catholicism now and about her past when she was so devout and when every line of liturgy gave her something.  Blob wants to move on to talk about what he wanted to talk about today.  Himself, Winefride, and sheep.  Yes, that church in Wrecsam might have been important once to Blob's person.  But that was a long time ago and the sheep experience was only last week.  Blob's person's faith is gone.  It's a very different faith now.  But the sheep experience was only a week ago.  And Blob is here.  Now.  And Winefride is here now.  And so Blob's person should type about them not about herself.  If she wants to type about her religious history she's got a blog of her own for that or she could just write a book.  People say that a book about her life would be very interesting but she always says that she doesn't agree and that it would be pretty dull.

Oh dear.  Blob's person says that it's time to stop writing.  They need to get ready to go out for the day.  Because she's talked so much about her own life, Blob hasn't got time to talk about his own.

Blob isn't happy!  This is his blog.  It's not fair.  It's not fair at all.

Please don't sulk Blob Thing.  You've got a day out to look forward to.  And I'm very sorry about it but you seemed to be enjoying the discussion we were having about the churches.  And visiting that church in Wrecsam was really very weird for me.  I promise that tomorrow we can just talk about Winefride and you and the sheep.  I promise.  At least, we'll try to stick to topic.

To close.  Just one of the six photos that Blob had planned to share.  Here he is with Winefride and a sheep outside a church in Wrecsam.  It's not the best of the six photos.  There are better.  And Blob will share them tomorrow.  Just look at Winefride.  She's ever so brave to do so much on her first day out.  Blob Thing is very proud of her.

Blob Thing Gets Creative With A Simple Quaker Lunch

Blob Thing says:

Oh yes, I was having a very good time at the Quaker place.  Much as I like a good sing and even a dance sometimes I do like the quiet and the worship there had certainly been quiet.  I was glad that my person had given me something to read so I would have a better idea what was going on and that the whole thing wasn't just a bunch of people in a room having a nap or thinking about what to have for lunch or whether they should give Henrietta some flowers or some chocolates for her birthday.  Knowing that something meaningful might be happening within each of the people there was excellent.  And perhaps too there was something happening between them, even though it was so quiet.

Only three people spoke.  The first one got it wrong.  She started off by saying that she was sure that at that time everyone was thinking about a particular subject.  Well I wasn't thinking about it at that time.  I was thinking about what I was reading and then I'd looked at people's faces and then I'd started wondering why the worship room contained a piano when the worship didn't include any music.  My person told me later that she hadn't been thinking about that particular subject at that time either.  Maybe lots of people hadn't been.  At that moment she was still thinking about the two words she had spotted in the book I was reading.

It's true that the subject was worth thinking about.  A few days previously a Member of Parliament had been murdered and that had touched people.  I wonder how much it still touches people.  It seems to me that humans are quick to forget and any promises they make to change things are soon left behind when the next event happens.  Each tragedy becomes an excuse to not do anything as a result of the previous tragedy.  And then very little changes most of the time.  And some of those people in parliament even use a tragedy for their own purposes.  When everyone is distracted they quietly make a law that would cause an outcry if anyone noticed.

Now, I am autistic but I am quite happy to sit quite still for an hour.  I just can.  But I know autistic people for whom it would be very difficult.  I think my sister Winefride might have a lot of difficulty with it.  She would want to get up and enjoy the flowers and the light and the way the pieces of dust play in that light which is something I find intricately beautiful too.  Winefride can spend ages watching the light and I know she enjoys it so much.  She tells me so in her face and in the manner even though she can't tell me in spoken words.  I love my sister.  My person says she knows autistic people who say that they wouldn't be able to sit still for the hour, at least not without it becoming majorly painful in their head.  They would have to get up and pace around or get really flappy.  Or just not be there.  And I wonder whether the inclusiveness of Quaker worship could cope with someone pacing and flapping and being gloriously who they are.

Anyway, worship was over and someone said there would be lunch downstairs.  We were nearly last to get down to the lunch because my person wanted to take some pictures first.  I wanted to go and look at the art work too.  I like art work.  I like it that there was art scattered around the building.  Not just that colour wheel, but tapestries, paintings and lots more.  There were even some poems someone had written.  They were all sitting on a table as if that person had written their verses and made one copy of each to be picked up by whoever saw them.

I like that Quakers like creativity.  The book I was reading was just the first chapter of a big book called Quaker Faith and Practice.  It's a good book.  Some of it is a bit boring I think, just dull information on how the different meetings happen and how the organisation functions.  I don't need to know any of that but I guess it's all very useful and interesting if you are a Quaker - or a Friend as they are really called.  The book has an entire section called Creativity.  It contains lots of good writing from different people.

I am happy to learn that the Quakers have been able to change.  One of the writers tells how the Quaker founder was against all kinds of music because it "burdened the pure life, and stirred people's minds to vanity."  Now they see music as important and that for some people it is an essential part of their spiritual lives.  I am glad.  Another writer in the book says he believes in the "absolute necessity of the arts."  If anyone has the book, he's writing in paragraph 21.36.  It's pretty glorious.  He says the arts "make possible the impossible and reconcile the irreconcilable."  Isn't that special?

Gosh I do like this book.  It's so much more full of life than other church things I've read.  In comparison, Calvin comes across as the dead man he is, the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England seem devoid of the life of God, and even the Catechism of The Catholic Church feels very bland, no matter how well written it is and how well it explains Catholic belief.

Enough about the book.  It was time for lunch.  Lunch.  I like lunch.  As we walked down the stairs my person explained that lunch would be simple.  Quakers believe in simplicity - at least in their lunches.  We would be having bread and soup and cheese and fruit.  I liked the sound of that.  It was great.  We had three different soups to choose from, all of them home made.  I chose this one and it was very, very tasty.

And after my bowl of soup and some bread and some cheese I was satisfied.  But there was soup to spare and I decided that a second bowl would be very nice indeed and I'd try one of the others.  And it was very, very tasty too.

We were sitting with some interesting people.  Creative people.  One of them did a lot of music performing and some writing.  One of the others said that she runs a theatre company for young people and is involved in other theatre things too.  My person says that there are quite a few creative people who go to worship in that place.  I think everyone is creative.  Everyone has the spirit of creation within them and can meet with it, harness it and become creation in the world.  It might not necessarily be writing or dancing or painting or music.  It might be the creativity of science or the creativity of relationship building or the creativity of running a beautiful social project.  But everyone is creative.  Everyone.  You.  Yes, you.

And so I sat with the people around me and I joined my person in chatting with them.  It was very nice.  I liked it that the silent people upstairs were not silent people downstairs.

After lunch, when it was time to go, I had a little walk round the building.  There were lots of pretty things to look and, and a library of interesting books too.  There was also a visitor book.  I must try to remember to get my person to sign it for me if we go again.  The Quakers have a regular magazine.  Here it is.  the Friend.

I think the advice in this picture is advice that we could all do with hearing, listening to and heeding.

Make time for the friend.  Or at least make time for a friend.  Friendship is very important.  I don't know what I would do without my friends.  It would be very lonely.  I know that some people haven't got friends and there might be lots of different reasons for that.  It makes me sad.  So make time for a friend.  Maybe make time for someone who is without friends.

One last picture.  My person has got lots of pictures to share too but she's a bit lazy and has hardly written anything for her blog in ages so I don't know when or even if she will manage to share her pictures of the meeting house.  Outside the back of the house is a little garden.  The flowers were so pretty.  Once a month they have something called Meeting for Worship for Gardening.  Gardening is worship.  Meeting is worship.  I like that.  I like it a lot.

I was really glad that my person had taken me to the Friends' Meeting House.  It had been a super, super experience.  I don't know that I'd want to go there every week or even join them.  But I'd like to visit again sometimes and be among these good people and their religious service that doesn't have sermons.  Yes, I'd like to go again.

And at that point Blob stopped talking and fell into silence.




[1544 words]

Blob Thing Visits The Quakers of Newcastle

Blob Thing has more to tell you about his sister.  He is looking forward to going on some adventures with her soon too and they can have fun together exploring and experiencing all the good things that they can find.

But today and tomorrow he wants to tell you about somewhere he visited last month with his person.  He must have quite liked it - he's been back again,

It was a Sunday morning.  Blob's person used to go to church every Sunday.  Sometimes she would go several times, to several different churches.  She was quite enthusiastic about it all.  When she moved to Newcastle she had been a faithful Catholic and would go to Mass every Sunday morning - and sometimes on a Saturday evening too though that wasn't compulsory.  She would never miss that Sunday Mass without good reason.  Oh yes, she knew the rules too well.  She knew that the threat of Hell hung over her if she missed that Mass.  What if she were to die between missing Mass and receiving sacramental absolution through the Sacrament of Confession?  What then?  She would be doomed.  The rules of the Roman Catholic Church said so even though some Catholics tried to pretend otherwise.  Blob's person hadn't minded because, for a time, she had loved being at Mass.  She even went to Mass during the week.  Sometimes every single day.  And at home she would pray and pray and pray and read Catholic books and the Catholic faith was her safe space.

But that all changed and much to her surprise she left the Catholic Church.  And joined another church.  Half an hour later.  She was liked there and it wasn't long before she was given responsibilities.  To lead liturgy.  To preach sermons.  But that came to an end too when she told the world about her being transgender.  An ordained minister of the Church of England told her this:  "I'm sure you will agree that it would be inappropriate for you to continue to preach or lead anything in case anyone is ever worried."  Those were the exact words.  It made Blob's person very sad indeed.  Sad enough to leave the church.  They were happy to have her preach when she was still pretending to be a man.  They loved her sermons and she had been told quite a few times by people that they thought she was the best preacher in the place.  But now she was living honestly, they didn't want her.  Oh yes, she could sit in a pew and be told she was loved.  But love and rejection don't go together too well.

Blob's person had explored other churches.  She had been visiting them even when she was preaching and now she visited lots.  She settled in one of them too.  It was a place of love and acceptance.  The kind of love that is actually love.  That became her spiritual home for a while until she took the step of leaving it at the beginning of Lent this year.  Blob was proud of her for that.  It was a big step towards freedom and towards becoming fully herself.  He knows it was hard for her to leave because church and God and Christianity were the core of her life for twenty-five years.  They were her main reason for getting up in the morning.  They were the source of her hope and the meaning she gave to everything.  Quitting meant all of that was gone.  The core was removed.  And as Blob knows, without the core the warp engines won't go.

On this Sunday, Blob's person had decided to go back and visit one of the places she had explored already.  She invited Blob Thing to come with her and see the place.  She told him that he would be fine.  Where they were going was also a place of love and acceptance.  It was a place filled with people who like to seek peace, social justice, inclusion and who can usually disagree about the details of a spiritual journey.  Blob agreed to attend after he was reassured that nobody would be trying to convert him and nobody there would ever warn him about the dangers of Hell if he didn't go.  Nobody would say that their way was the only way and that anyone who didn't follow it was doomed.  They wouldn't even say that their way was the best way, that they were closer to some form of sky god than the outsiders.

There would be people there who had a strong, quite conservative Christian faith.  And there would be others who didn't believe in the sky god at all.  There might be a Buddhist, a Sufi, and there would be people who meditate in different ways.  Lots of variety.  Blob decided that it might be safe to be among such people.  He quite liked the sound of them.

So Blob and his person set out and walked to the place where the people met.  Here it is.

Blob spent a moment reading the sign.  Quakers.  Blob wasn't sure he wanted to do any Quaking.  He thought it a very strange name.  Blob's person told him that the word came about when the King of England insulted someone in the early days of the movement.  She also said that around the world there were lots of different kinds of Quaker.  Most of them have services that include singing and a kind of sermon based on the Bible.  But the ones here wouldn't be doing anything like that.  He would just have to see for himself what would happen.

Blob and his person were greeted at the door.  Everyone was smiling and very welcoming.  Perhaps the sign was true when it said "All welcome."  Perhaps everyone would be welcomed there and seen as equally wonderful too.  Lots of churches had signs up claiming that everyone was welcome there but in many of them Blob knew that you weren't really encouraged to be yourself.  You were encouraged only to conform and to be a sheep - and not a sheep living free in the fields either, cared for and encouraged to be the best sheep possible, but a sheep in a tiny pen in a dark barn, constrained in the way you were told to live.

Blob's person took him upstairs to where the main meeting room is.  It felt peaceful and all the chairs were arranged in a circle round a central table.  Blob Thing sat himself on the table for a while before deciding where he wanted to sit for the service.  Blob's Person told him that she had a copy of the book on the table and that there was much in it that he would enjoy reading.  She had picked up a little book at the bottom of the stairs.  It was called "Advices and Queries" and contained chapter one of the book on the table.

Blob sat down and waited for the service to start.  People kept coming into the room and sitting down and nobody was talking.  And then someone came in and shut the door.  But still nobody spoke.  Nobody introduced a service.  Nobody started to sing or said a prayer or did anything else.  They just sat in quiet.

Blob didn't quite know what to do.  What was happening?  Were people enjoying this and what were they all thinking about?  He hadn't realised that anything with the word "religious" in the name might have a meeting like this.  His person made signs and opened up Advices and Queries for him and that told him what he wanted to know about what was going on.  He stopped reading and settled into Quaker worship.  Blob likes it that everyone there is called to expectant waiting and that there is a belief that Spirit will speak in the heart of each person.  He likes that anyone can stand up and speak.  Certainly the "gathered stillness" he had just been reading about seemed to be evident.  During the whole meeting only three people spoke at all.  And none of them spoke for more than a minute.

Blob's person told him that when he had been reading her eyes fell on two words and they stayed with her through that meeting and - as we're typing this - she's told him that the words stay with her still and she wants to write about them one day.  Blob Thing says that she shouldn't say what the words were here.  It's his blog and he's already allowed too much talk about his person for one day.  He didn't mind including it.  Blob and his person have talked about faith quite a lot and her story interests him.  It's the story that led up to today.  It's the story that led up to her life including Blob in such a meaningful manner.

After the meeting there were some announcements and then a piece of art was unveiled.  Blob Thing thought it was beautiful.  Everyone in the meeting some months before had been asked to write words to describe their experiences of Quaker worship and of being a Quaker - a Friend - or someone who spends time with them.  The words were all printed onto crayons and made into this wonderful colour wheel.

It's lovely.  Blob wanted his person to take lots of pictures.  And when they went back a month later he wanted her to take lots more pictures.  She will blog about them one day, just as she blogged about her very first visit to the Quakers.  Blob Thing thinks it's funny.  He's blogging about his first visit.  And she did too.  He wonders how many other people have written about their first visits.

Blob Thing sat himself down on the table again.  It had been a marvellous meeting.  He had enjoyed it and he hadn't been forced to listen to a sermon either.  Nobody had told him what to believe or how his spiritual life should develop.  He was happy that he had worshiped with Quakers that morning.

It wasn't over either.  During the announcements someone had said that downstairs there would be a lunch available.  Blob decided he wanted to stay for lunch.  To spend a little more time with these people.  It had been nice to sit in silence with them.  Now he would get the chance to meet them properly.  He was looking forward to it and wants to tell you about what happened.  Tomorrow.  Not today.

[1750 words]