The Contents of My Desk - Comfort for the Organisationally Challenged.
My new year inspiration comes from a post on Jason’s blog . Jason points to an article in the NY Times on the subject of what we might call creative messiness. As I read I was moved to photograph my own desk and then do an audit of its contents. I didn’t rearrange anything before the photo and the audit is real, if a bit hard to believe. Perhaps you will find it spurs you on to your own creative messiness. (BTW, even I have to admit it isn’t usually this bad, but hey we’ve just had Christmas and I’m clergy!) Remember, ‘Cleanliness is next to impossible’. 
Audit of the Contents of my desktop on 2nd January 2007
(V) means you might spot it visible on the picture!
Teaching Bible to Adults and Youth - Dick Murray (V)
The First Christmas (Children’s nativity book)
The Dramatised Bible (2 copies) (V)
Holy Bible New Living Translation (2 copies) (V)
Hymns and Psalms
My diary
12 unused A5 envelopes
CD - Robinson College Cambridge Carols
2 tubs of green hand exercise putty
2 tissues (1 used!) (V)
a 2GB memory stick
A purple feather biro quill pen
Bible study notes on The Covenants (V)
2 cordless telephones (V)
A h/b copy of Tintin ‘Flight 714‘ (V - look hard for this one!)
Tube of T-Cut scratch remover
1 copy of The Methodist Worship Book
An order of service for a carol service (V?)
digital camera (OK, this wasn’t visible when I took the photo, cleverclogs
)
Varn Harn Lectionary Commentary Vol.2
A small pill box containing memory verses
a Stanley trimming knife (V)
An A4 pad
endless minutes of meetings and other paperwork (V)
a homemade paper king’s crown (V)
a cutout paper reindeer face (V)
A Fitzwilliam College Cambridge drinks coaster
A scent burner
1 tub of white acrylic artist’s paint
a small prestretched canvas
5 assorted Windsor and Newton paintbrushes (V just)
2 pencils
1 3.5mm stereo jack patch lead
Thinking Things through Series - The Sacraments by Michael J Townsend
a stapler
1 copy of Mission Praise (words edition)
1 2007 pocket diary
1 Woodingdean Songbook
a Brighton and Hove A-Z streetmap
Holy Bible RSV pocket edition
a tie pin
a box of unused Christmas cards (I did use some from the box!)
a fountain pen
2 undelivered Christmas cards (I did post the others, honest!)
1 CD of breakbeat music
1 CD Sin Disease by Scaterd-Few
1 bible reading calander
1 Christmas Quiz sent by my brother
1 Chambers English Dictionary
1 packet of Methodist Church membership cards
a reporter’s spiral notepad
a bunch of visiting cards
a fuse bulb from a set of Christmas lights
1 transparency for an Advent song
Computer keyboard, mouse and TFT (V)
some forms
a pilot edition of a church newsletter (V)
a chrome toothbrush stand being used as a penholder but only containing a palm cross and a straw decorated with a butterfly saying “God loves you” (I know he does
)
an empty packet of ‘Woodland Blend’ model railway fake grass
a fountain pen
Holy Bible NRSV with apocrypha (Anglicised edition)
ADSL modem
Answerphone
the cut off toe from an old sock (it was for a children’s illustration before Christmas)
several biro pens
Ephesians - Building a Community in Christ - John Stott
In tray containing: a compartment organiser (unopened Christmas present), a pair of sunglasses, a child’s comb, more orders of service, notes, 3 mini clipboard clips and a plastic peg
and finally…
1 rinsed out Lyle’s Golden Syrup tin.
This morning I listened to a podcast where the speaker talked about his life as “Seeking clarity through obscurity”. I know what he means
January 3rd, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Are you bored or do you just need to get a life? That said looking at my own desk I could give you a run for your money with five books relating to the Reformation (for an essay I’m wrtiing) two fountain pens, A5 filofax, Iona Community Wee Worship Book etc etc etc.
PS Rather appropriately for this Welshman, the Codeword to enable me to comment was BOYO!
January 3rd, 2007 at 4:51 pm
that’s pretty impressive.
Mine would have gave you a run for your money but it’s a bit larger than yours in the photo.
January 3rd, 2007 at 6:56 pm
looks like my husband’s desk….the thing is…I can’t touch anything on his desk because he knows where EVERYTHING is!
January 3rd, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Benny - asking me if I am bored, and you have 5 books on the Reformation on your desk? At least I read Tintin
Jason, actually my desk needs to be large to accommodate the things I pile on it. It is roughly 5ft by 3ft and has legs bolted on because when I went to theological college (seminary) I had to saw the legs off to get it through the door of my rooms.
Obahsomah - Your husband is a better man than I if he knows where everything is. I was on a voyage of discovery with this. It felt like a visual diary of the past 3 weeks of work, a bit like digging up layers of prehistoric sediment. No dinosaurs found, sadly, only a hymn book full of hymns last relevant to cave men.
January 4th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
At least you have a pen on your desk! I’m lucky if I can find one anywhere in the house!
I blame it on the fairies!
January 5th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Amazing, I am off to blog mine now, but I have to know what is the golden syrup tin for? You must have really wanted it as they are so sticky to clean up!!
January 7th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
I too have an empty golden syrup tin somewhere. I heard a really good children’s address once about the Tate & Lyle motto you find on the tin. SOmething about Sweetness and Strenght. Biblical apparently. So I kept a wash out tin and was going to write to Tate & Lyle and…. Still it’s a nice tin!
January 13th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Can’t believe it! Well, perhaps I can! Your blog inspired me to have a clean-up. Now there’s only my diary and a pen and - Oh yes, the computer gear and all the CD’s/DVD’s etc. The rest is someone else’s stuff!
All the best for tomorrow!
January 30th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
‘Out of the strong came something sweet,
Out of the eater came something to eat’
But what’s the reference?
January 31st, 2007 at 9:39 am
It is a corruption/version of Samuel’s riddle in Judges 14:14, “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.”