Birds, Flowers and Finals

First day of Finals tomorrow. It's Rupert's birthday today (poor boy) - happy birthday Rupert!

Also, good luck and God Bless to all my fellow Finalists!

Oxford tradition dictates that you pin a carnation on your gown (which you have to wear when you sit exams, along with a white shirt and a black skirt/ trousers, as well as a black ribbon round your collar, and you must also carry your mortarboard, carry, not wear - don't ask me why, it's tradition). White carnation for the first paper, pink for everything in between, and red for the last paper.

It's not compulsory, and I almost did not want to bother with it. But Rupert asked if we could swop carnations and so I said yes. The carnations are sitting in a cup in my bathroom.

Looking at them the other day, instead of thinking "oh no one more thing to worry about before I take my exam", I thought of something that Jesus had said.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ...But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself." - Matthew 6:25-34

So tomorrow, when I pin the carnation on my gown and walk down to exam schools passing the pigeons that seem to be all over Oxford, and all the tomorrows after that, I will know that if the birds and the flowers survive, I'll make it ok.

Thank you all for all the love.

[Jesus said] A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. - John 13:34

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. - 1 John 4:10-12