I heard about this study ages ago: the Stanford psychology professor who tested the self control of 4 year olds by leaving them alone in a room with a marshmallow. He told them that if they could wait 15 minutes before eating it, he’d give them a second marshmallow. What I didn’t realize was that this psychologist followed up his research at different stages of these children’s lives and noticed that those who lacked self control in early life, tended towards it in later life:

Thirteen years later Mischel did follow-up research that found dramatic differences between the two groups (the gobblers and the resisters). The gobblers, now high school students, were more likely to have behavioral problems and low attention spans, and they found it difficult to maintain friendships.

Read the full summary at Adbusters.org

Self control is not something we praise in our culture, unless it comes to sports personalities or the extremely wealthy, and I think we’re poorer for it. Our media continuously overloads us with the message that: if we don’t respond to our every urge, there’s something wrong – we’re boring, frigid, or “restrained” (with a negative intonation of the voice).

This is incredibly ironic, considering that self control could play a major role in combatting the ills that plague our various societies: environmental degeneration, slavery, obesity, violence against women, to name just a few.

(image source: Adbusters.org)

This post mainly relates to a UK citizen marrying a Swedish citizen, though could be useful to people from other EU countries…

Sofia and I are getting married in just under two months. The wedding will be in Småland, Sweden and we’re really excited about our friends and family who are coming! As we’ve been preparing I’ve been able to learn a bit more about the legal side of marriage over here. I’m a UK citizen (and resident) and Sofia is a Swedish citizen (and resident). Here’s the process we have gone through so far…

1. Certificate of No Impediment: I visited a registry office in the UK and notified them of my intention to marry Sofia.  I had to show them various forms of identification and provide them with her details, as well as the details of where we will be getting married.  These are placed on a notice board for 6 weeks to give members of the general public an opportunity to notify them if I have been married before.  Once the 6 weeks are up, the Certificate of No Impediment is issued.  According to Swedish law, the certificate is valid for 3 months from the date of issue.
2. Marriage Licence: Next we visited Skatteverket (the Swedish Tax Office), filled in forms and provided them with our IDs (Passport for me, ID card for Sofia) and the Certificate of No Impediment.  They took photocopies of our IDs and the Certificate and will mail us the Licence within 2 weeks. This license will be valid for 4 months, so it was important that we visited Skatteverket at the right time: too early and we would have a license that expired before our wedding, too late and our Certificate of No Impediment would expire.
3. The Wedding: This can be officiated either by a state official (at a District Court, or City Hall), or a Vicar (in this case it’s the person, not the venue, that counts).

Here are a few resources you might find useful if you’re going through this process:

• Embassy of Sweden, London: Getting Married in Sweden
• About.com: Swedish Marriage License Information

(photo: Sharaff)

The idea of exploiting others to enjoy the most special moment of your life seems entirely alien to me. An ethically sound wedding was the only option. Fairtrade was the name of the game – our roses, wine and wedding rings were all sourced with ethics in mind.

(read more here)

To be born in Wales,
Not with a silver spoon in your mouth,
But, with music in your blood
And with poetry in your soul,
Is a privilege indeed.

~ Read the whole thing here

On Saturday I went to see my Grandpa. He told me that he’d been thinking about the fact that the word Christian seems to have so little meaning in today’s world, it’s a word used when you don’t know what else to say you are (for some people). He was telling me how being a “disciple” or “follower of Jesus” is a far better term. I could only agree. I can’t remember having chatted about that with him before but what he said to me sounded like what I could have said to him. Weird (and cool).

I can’t help but think that it has only been since he retired as a minister of an Elim Church that he has started to get back to basics. It’s like he’s gradually letting go of all the religious legalism that he was brought up with.

{Lord I ask that you’ll protect Zoe as she’s in Thailand, that you give her good health and safe travel}