tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71694076570268698082024-03-08T06:21:06.024+00:00Thinking OutloudSometimes you have thoughts and ideas that can't stay inside you but you don't have any where to speak them out. I'm using this space to share my thoughts sometimes hoping that I will get a comment, but not really minding if I don't.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-48721364785159685082014-06-23T17:01:00.000+01:002014-06-23T17:02:20.561+01:00<h2>
<span lang="EN-US">Kindness</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">My own heart let me have more pity on; let<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Charitable; not live this tormented mind<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">With this tormented mind tormenting yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I cast for comfort I can no more get<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">By groping round my comfortless, than blind<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can
find<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do
advise<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts
awhile<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy
size<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">At God knows when to God knows what; whose
smile<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">'s not wrung, see you; unforeseen times
rather--as skies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Between pie mountains--lights a lovely
mile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I love this poem by Gerhard Manley Hopkins,
I misquote it wildly, but faithfully I think to his purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being kind is so important, to others of
course, and I wonder sometimes why we are so very unkind to each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why I’m so very unkind on occasion? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it also matters to be kind to
yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This isn’t the same thing as
being self indulgent, but rather encouraging and disciplining, reflecting and
repenting, choosing and struggling with kindness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is a kindness of judgment about what you
have done, offering yourself understanding that you have made mistakes but
these happened in the context of then and choices were hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a parent you have to be kind to the young
man you were when you brought up your children, ‘I did the best I could then,
knowing what I knew, with the way I was’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Of course you made mistakes, of course you could have been a better
person, of course you weren’t always all you should or could have been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s too late now!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Being kind to that younger you will make it easier to be a better parent now. If you are filled with shame and guilt about then it will be all the harder to be anything much now.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is also kindness in encouraging yourself
to work, or behave, or change direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is too easy to fall into violence against self, echoing the words of
harsh teachers, or angry parents, who heaped their frustrations and dislikes
upon you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be ‘hereafter kind’ is to
choose to use kinder language of persuasion and encouragement, filled with a
sense that you can get it right, you can do OK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">A failure to be kind, especially when you
are in the main, ‘coping’ with stuff, stores up difficulties for later when you
won’t be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone’s moods swing, and
when you are overwhelmed with feelings, how you treated yourself when you weren’t, shows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You develop resilience to such
moments if you build up a core inner strength of who you are, that has been
nurtured by kindness not beaten up by old words of disapproval and anger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Which reminds me of an old Fanny Crosby
hymn - <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the
fallen,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Refrain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Though they are slighting Him, still He is
waiting,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Waiting the penitent child to receive;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Plead with them earnestly, plead with them
gently;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">He will forgive if they only believe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Refrain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Down in the human heart, crushed by the
tempter,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Touched by a loving heart, wakened by
kindness,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Chords that were broken will vibrate once
more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Refrain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Rescue the perishing, duty demands it;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Strength for thy labor the Lord will
provide;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Back to the narrow way patiently win them;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Tell the poor wand’rer a Savior has died.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Refrain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-36373159349061283232014-06-20T08:32:00.000+01:002014-06-20T08:34:19.662+01:00<h2>
<span lang="EN-US">Ich Habe Genug</span></h2>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The music chosen for the ‘Pray as You Go’
daily prayer this morning was Bach’s BWV Cantata 82, ‘Ich habe genug’. It is a
lovely piece that is a very famous, although I don't think I'd heard it before.
It means, ‘I have enough’. I was thinking during the payer that a good deal of
my unhappiness in life is due to inappropriate or improbable expectations. I
would like to be unreasonably happy, un-fairly successful, immensly
popular, or simply trouble free in a way that will never happen. This longing
for what will not be, not only sours what I have; I don't notice the happiness,
I fail to notice the success I have, appreciate the people who like me or care about
me,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>or realise how smooth and simple my
life actually is, but it also fills me with an anxious and guilty longing, ‘I ought
to be happier’ which frankly makes me miserable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I would like to live my life, with the
phrase, ‘ich habe genug’ in my brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Part of the story of this song is the moment in the temple when Simeon
sees the infant Jesus and believes his waiting is over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘I have enough - now I can go in peace’
however, I don’t think to say, ‘I have enough’, is only about the end of life -
an old man’s peaceful acceptance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
is is more to the phrase than being sanguine about death. It is instead more in
the line of ‘God loves you as you are, but too much to leave you that
way’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or perhaps Paul saying, ‘I have
learnt in all things to be content.’ (Philippians 4:11). By learning to notice
that, ‘I have enough’, I may hope to be both reasonably happy now, and wholly
grateful for what else might be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Here is a link to Emma Kirkby singing
Bach’s Cantata<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BWV 82
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zh5Rtr-RzY<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-27954445079076999862014-06-17T08:14:00.000+01:002014-06-17T08:15:33.621+01:00<h2>
Jehovah's Witnesses</h2>
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The door knock of the Jehovah's Witness is the shared groan of many Christians, but why so? I have to admit that over my thirty years of being a Methodist Minister, I've enjoyed my conversations and felt challenged and blessed by them; some one has the courage and heart to want to share something important with me - what's not to welcome? <br />
I remember with great warmth the letter that came from a Kingdom Hall in Lincoln wishing me well on my journey as I moved to Manchester. How kind they were and how encouraging. It is true that some elements of our conversation can be trying, and no doubt I'm trying in my turn. I've often found that my visitors have quite a strict script to adhere to. They offer a series of statements about the bible and either assume you will agree with what they say, or that you will understand things the way they do, and then move to a conclusion that may well be further away from your views than the initial statement; but this argumentative style is hardly unique to a Jehovah's Witness. They may believe, in my view any way, some remarkably odd things, but who doesn't? They are certainly not orthodox Christians, but again, I meet very few who are, and I'm sure I'm not in many ways. But I enjoy people who have conviction, who mean me no harm, and possibly want only good for me. I enjoy their visits especially when our conversation leaves the script and I can hear and share some of the reality of faith journeys. I admire the courage and effort that gets people off their sofas to knock on doors. I have tried to do this and it is hard work. I admire their patience as they keep trying to bring back a conversation that veered into the dangerous grounds I enjoy to the script they have planned. I am challenged by their willingness to be ridiculed and despised by absolutely everyone, including the Christian Church.<br />
Many years ago, and thank you Professor Douglas Davies now at Durham, for my lectures in Phenomenology at Nottingham University. Professor Davies gave me some insights and a life long interest in people whose views I had previously decided were ridiculous and wrong. Because of him I have enjoyed being ecumenical within the Church and within the wider vaguely Christian family, and with people of other Faith Communities, and indeed with the modern faith of fierce Atheism. I aspire to be 'Generously Orthodox' and continue to be utterly amazing and moved by the Christian story. I keep coming back to the mysteries of Faith, of the Trinity, of the divinity of the Christ, of the Eucharist, of the Church itself with renewed belief and hope. My roots in more liberal theology have been watered by the kindness and grace of more conservative Christians. I'm reasonably comfortable being what I am - but I am also constantly encouraged and blessed by people who probably think I'm wrong. <br />
So thank you my lovely visitors on Thursday who visited me from Kingdom Hall. I hear the challenge that I might be bolder in sharing my faith. I admire your courage and patience. I pray for you, and look forward to another visit when I hope you can share again how amazing you have found God to be, how wonderful the love of Jesus, and how much you care about my spiritual well being.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-7854439330033600062011-10-16T20:19:00.002+01:002011-10-16T20:33:50.176+01:00Rational BeliefThere are three claims that I think we need to defend if we are to engage in a rational belief.<br /> <br />The first is to accept the limitations and possibilities of a philosophically reasonable claim that belief in God is an a priori one. That is, it is not based on any form of evidence, it is a choice before all others are made. The logic is straightforward. Evidence of any kind is within creation. It can point to many things, but not beyond itself to something outside creation. You choose either to see what is with the assumption that it is made, in which case all speaks of its making, or you see it on the assumption that it simply is, in which case there is no evidence of its making. Christians cannot therefore ‘prove’ God’s existence, they can only claim that given their believe in God, it make sense of the world as we see it and understand it. It has 'internal coherence.' In particular the category of the supernatural must be seen as essentially absurd. God is. God’s existence though is so far beyond our understanding of existence that we can only assume it as essentially a mystery, beyond simple logic. Anything that is, is natural. We can't see or sense anything that isn’t. The expression, 'supernatural' merely speaks of where it comes from. But all creation, including what we class as 'supernatural', comes from God. We may talk of miracles, but they are not miracles because they are supernatural. We sense them, they exist within the creation and are therefore natural. We may not be able to explain them, but it isn’t that inability that defines them as miraculous, rather it is what they ‘show’ us of God that defines them. We can also assume that one day everything we can’t currently explain in scientific terms will be explainable, but we will not have lost the idea of miracle, because even now, it is not the limitations of human science that define, but the revelation of the event as God given. In a similar way, we can probably give a good account of what ‘being in love’ is about in scientific terms, the complex of hormones, social behaviour, culture and the rest, but, and this brings me to the second claim, we still haven’t really got to the heart of what love is about for human beings if we give priority to scientific language. Scientific reductionism doesn’t work for most of the important things in life.<br /><br />The second claim is to accept the limitations and possibilities of knowledge and truth that are held in forms other than ‘literal words’. The emphasis of science is the elevation of one form of knowledge to be of greater importance and truthfulness than others. The false claim of science is that literal truth matters, other types of truth don’t. It hasn’t, of course, always been so. Human expression, description, interpretation and wisdom, is held in many ways, in forms of words such as poetry, story, mythology, metaphor, and song; it is also held in other that words, in music, dance, mime, architecture, painting, sculpture and the richness of culture and custom. Christians must therefore not mix their mediums. It is as pointless to ask, ‘is it literally true?’ of a bible story as it is to the same question of a piece of music. It may be truthful, wise and within the nature of its medium true, but it isn’t ‘literally true’ for it never set out to be. Though some may see this as a limitation, as noted above, most of the things that really matter such as love, really don’t do very well in the language of science. Though that language matters to us, it quickly runs out of texture and shape, and gives a poor parody of love, for example, that is well expressed in most other forms of knowledge. This observation leads me to the third claim. If scientific language is neither the only form of how we tell the truth, and often an unhelpful one, we are challenged to reengage with pre-scientific knowledge without the prejudice and patronising approach that has characterised the modern world.<br /><br />The third claim is to accept the validity of pre scientific knowledge, knowing it for what it is with both proper respect and caution. The Bible, for example, is precisely concerned with the important questions of being human. Thousands of years of wisdom are contained there. From a Christian perspective it is an account of God’s searching for his creation and of humanities search for God. It offers us wisdom and insight that are essential for us to grasp the world today. It is valid because it is grounded in experience, because those that wrote it seek to help us, because God continues to invite us to engage to make sense.<br /><br />Reasonable belief thus knows the nature of theological knowledge. It is never literal. Theology is closer to dance, music, metaphor and poetry than it is ever to ‘scientific’ of literal truth. You can never talk about God with 'literal truth'. It is both reasonable, because it makes sense and is logical, and it is belief, because, like atheism, it makes assumptions about God that cannot be either proved or disproved. Atheism is also a ‘faith position’. <br /><br />Reasonable belief is reasonable because it is aware of what it is doing – it is a choice to accept that God exists, and that this choice can’t be proved, it can only demonstrate an internal coherence. It is reasonable because it understands the nature of the way we can talk about the ‘inexpressible’ of human experience, of love and glory, wonder and deity. It is reasonable because it trusts in the lengthy human journey and discovery about meaning and purpose. It is belief because the choice is not to assent to a proposition, but to inhabit a story. It is belief because inhabiting a story isn’t to think something only, but live something completely. It is belief because the choice is to be part of an historic community of women and men seeking for a God who reaches out to us. It is reasonable belief because every part of human intellect and integrity is involved in the heart and souls commitment to a way of life that transforms all in the light of God’s steadfast love and to God’s eternal glory.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-30155512184842775922010-02-02T21:57:00.002+00:002010-02-02T22:02:00.141+00:00Taking the plungeJudith and I are wondering about seeking permission to start a ‘Fresh Expression’ of Church as part of the Enfield Circuit and wondered if you would help.<br />We don’t think we want to meet on a Sunday because that is such a difficult time for us with our preaching engagements and Mark’s work.<br />We want to start the Church with other people thinking and praying things through from the beginning.<br />Our thoughts so far – though nothing is set in stone and we offer these just to give you a feel of where we are coming from. <br />1) Worship will be the heart of all our meetings as we try and explore the height, depth, length and breadth of God’s love.<br />2) Our Church will be made up of small groups meeting in various places in and around North London.<br />3) We will meet to plan the life and work of the small groups together.<br />4) The groups will come together for worship and perhaps a meal. This will be our ‘Sunday’ but we think it may be a Friday evening. We may only come together like this once a month.<br />5) At all our meetings, small groups or gathered, we will explore scripture together believing it will change the way we live, think and act<br />6) As individuals we will encourage each other to develop patterns of private and family prayer, bible reading and fellowship.<br />7) Within the groups we will try to develop patterns of accountability and support for each other to encourage each other in Christian living<br />8) We will look at how we can contribute to the community and take actions for justice in the world.<br />9) We will seek to be inclusive and open as a Church accepting people as God has made them.<br />10) We believe we are called to ‘make disciples of all nations’ and so from the start believe we should invite others to join us. <br />We imagine that if this interests you, you may want to explore this idea and still be part of another Church. We want to do this ourselves. In some ways it will be in the first place simply a form of house fellowship which meets with other house fellowships regularly. However, we hope that for some people at least it will be ‘their Church’ – particularly those who find regular church hard work and off putting.<br />What do you think?<br />Would you like to come together to explore this idea with us?<br />There is no commitment in doing so, and just praying together would be encouraging to us.<br />Kind regards<br />Mark and Judith WakelinAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-16469820626299036272010-01-20T21:23:00.002+00:002010-01-20T21:27:24.044+00:00Racism and the Methodist Church a White Person’s thoughts.A definition that I find helpful – racism is ‘prejudice with power’. <br />Prejudice is something that everyone is prone to. Indeed you might argue that prejudice helps on occasion to ensure our survival. It is prejudice that allows you to make very rapid distinctions between things when taking your time to weigh the evidence in a fair and an impartial way would make it dangerous. But prejudice is also sometimes wrong, and sometimes badly wrong. We need to find ways of noticing prejudice and overcoming it.<br />Power, is about money, position, influence; it is about the majority over the minority. If you have power over someone it means that your point of view counts more than theirs does, your way of doing things is more likely to be taken. We need to find ways of understanding power, and for whom we exercise it.<br />Thus a racist is a person who is prejudiced (that’s just about every one) who happens to have power over people. That means I’m a racist. I don’t mean I’m unduly rude or behave in a gross way towards the large variety of people from ethnic minorities who come my way, it means that I’m in a position of power and influence that often they do not share and I bring to that position the prejudices I own with the rest of humanity.<br />Moreover – and this is where it gets very difficult, I live in a society where the majority of people share my ethnicity, or near enough. My own prejudices are thus combined with the prejudices of a majority of people, and thus my racism becomes entrenched in the systems, the way things are done. Racism becomes systemic and that also means the Methodist Church is racist. <br />My Personal Story<br />My prejudices are particularly sharp when it comes to the Black Diaspora. This is not through my own choice, though you might argue I haven’t done enough about overcoming it. It is because the stories I have grown up with about people from Africa are so particularly negative. An important part of my childhood was in Africa and the very fact that it was my father and mother, white people, who had to go abroad to bring help to people in Africa, distorts my own learning about people from that vast continent. How can it be otherwise? My parents were, of course, bent on doing good. The sacrifices they made, and indeed caused their children to make, cannot be underestimated. My father, a top medical student, ‘sacrificed’ his promising career because of his passionate belief in justice and alleviating the suffering of others. Africa was his greatest love, greater than any family relationship including his children. Africa has marked me emotionally and physically. It has got under my skin as surely as the ‘tumbu’ flies whose larvae have marked my back in dozens of places. But though I am drawn, fascinated, and indeed feel a deep love for Africa, I carry prejudices deeply burnt into me, sustained by the dominant Western stories of Africa I have read, enhanced by a constant drip of Western media images, documentaries and reports. The Africa I know is one that suffers, fails, and pleads for aid, it is presented to me as incompetent and corrupt. Although my personal experience was one of wonderful people, intelligent and able, industrious and competent, I have grown up as many Westerners with a simplified one sided account of a massively complex reality that is Africa. Not ‘one country’ but a continent of many, thousands of cultures, views, stories all subsumed into a dominant theme of poverty and trouble.<br />If you are a fellow white person resisting this argument that you share my prejudices then a little test might help to persuade you. What positive stories come easily to your mind about Africa? Recall any civilisations you know which existed before the white person came to Africa? What famous Kings or Queens, art and culture, invention and creativity are you aware of? Such stories exist, but because these stories are not ‘our stories’ then we hardly know them and what we are left with is an unbalanced view. Not just prejudiced but profoundly biased. Now you might argue, “but surely other ethnic groups are more likely to know stories of their own civilisations than ours.” Possibly so, though European colonists did much to suppress black history, and taught European history with great enthusiasm. But this isn’t the point. I accept that human beings tend to prejudice, even bias – but racism is more than that. The poisonous and dangerous cocktail is when such lazy partial stories are combined with the power and influence of a dominant ethnicity.<br />You might argue from this that racism isn’t a ‘moral’ position; that it is inevitable and no choice is involved by the individual at all. I am prejudiced because I’m human and in a position of greater power and influence because I am white. I am thus, by dint of my opening definition of racism a racist. This is a ‘given’; but do I have a moral choice about it? I can hardly change my upbringing or my belonging to a dominant ethnicity. However the given isn’t all that shapes me. To what I have been given, through no choice of my own goes the unquestioning acceptance of the benefits that I accrue and the lack of effort I display in overcoming and questioning the easy assumptions that I have grown up with.<br />The moral choices come in how I’m prepared to accept the underserved privilege and what I do with such benefits, and the un-thought out assumptions that I have accepted. Moreover, racism is always more than an individual’s choice. It is because racism is a consequence of a dominant ethnicity that racism always expresses itself not only in how an individual functions, but in how that dominant ethnicity functions. Even if there isn’t anything particularly wrong with a given groups ‘way of doing things’, if it is different enough from another group who have less influence and power, it will serve to exclude them.<br />Take church leadership. Many churches run themselves in a fairly instinctive way. It is not good or bad – just un-reflected upon. You might imagine a church where leadership is not determined in a formal way but through friendship and mutual encouragement. Harmless enough – but suppose you are not naturally in those friendship groups? Informality that allows the dominant group to ‘feel at home’ acts quite unconsciously to make the less dominant group feel excluded. No one has been grossly racist or even impolite – but racism has become part of the system – ‘systemic’.<br />The situation is grave in my view. If you ‘get’ the above you can’t help noticing again and again how casually the white majority acts in profoundly unhelpful ways. No one in the Connexional Team, for example, would say, ‘we don’t want you because you are not white’. The fact remains, however that the leadership is white. Why so? Or what of Churches with white leadership and the rich diversity not represented in leadership, Junior Church, or indeed the ordained ministry. What of our music – the extraordinary gift of people from around the world and ‘new’ music is so often the music of the white middle class renewal movement. You could add to my stories. This is however superficial – as Martin Luther King once said – ‘segregation gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority’. How many people feel ‘falsely superior’ how many are feeling ‘falsely inferior’? <br />Where is all this leading?<br />Well I’m not seeking to roll around in guilt but rather to underline both my own contribution to what I see as a problem in Methodism at the moment, and some of the ways the problem becomes part of the system. I do this because it is way past the time when we, and I mean white Christians, take responsibility for this and stop waiting for various ethnic minorities to sort out the situation. It is our problem because it is our prejudices and because we are in the majority and dominant in our society. <br />Three things I feel committed to <br />1) To review my stories. To enrich a one-sided awareness of a complex reality with other stories. For example, not only of Africa as a victim of natural disaster and European exploitation but as the cradle of the human race with a history more ancient than anywhere else, of cultural and indeed ethnic diversity more rich than the rest of the world put together. I must learn to listen more.<br />2) To notice the privilege I enjoy, the benefits, some perhaps deserved, but many simply by chance of birth; benefits of money, opportunity, position; of influence and power and to ask, ‘how do I use them?’ – or rather, ‘for whom I use them?’ I must learn to be more generous in my gratitude and giving.<br />3) To inquire a little bit more deeply at the way a dominant culture behaves and organises itself so that others are excluded and to act to change those structures. I must be more active in my desire for change. <br />What do you think –and what do you commit yourself to?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-72499553491298031132010-01-01T21:42:00.003+00:002010-01-01T21:46:33.793+00:00Praying for the rainI was always taught you shouldn’t pray for a fine day on your holidays. I’m not sure exactly who told me, it was the sort of thing you absorbed. Our prayer began with ‘help us to pray for the right things’. Prayer for oneself in any case was frowned upon. You prayed for others. It makes me wonder though, what exactly do we think is going on when we pray our prayers of petition and intercession?<br /><br />Do we think God is sitting on divine hands waiting for a clear cut request before anything gets done? It’s hardly likely and stranger still, though I’ve heard it said, its hard to believe that ‘God likes to be asked’. The idea that God is a bit like a very grumpy great aunt I had who would not pass something until she was asked, even though she knew, and knew that you knew, that she was aware what you wanted. She also said, ‘don’t forget the magic word’, which is a bit like liturgical correctness!<br /><br />From what we understand of God revealed in Christ I think we can assume that God doesn’t actually need our reminders or our advice. We might assume that God chooses to work through people. This is a key part of our faith for our history as a people is littered with examples of God’s will being done through the cooperation of ordinary folk. In fact God’s continual trust in us is nothing short of amazing. But apart from prayer helping us get our act together and thus our lives more sorted, is prayer doing anything in particular aside from changing the person doing the praying?<br /><br />Here are some thoughts<br /><br />1) I don’t think rules get broken, though we may not know all the rules so it is possible for things to happen outside the patterns we currently call laws. If God makes the world to follow laws it is fair to assume that the laws matter and the creator is the last one likely to disregard them. God’s activity will thus be open to the same scrutiny as the rest of creation. In other words scientists will be able to explore what happened and make sense of it if a prayer is answered in an ‘objective way’. Indeed the mechanism by which something happens will, I believe, be able to be understood and explained. It is, however, always worth bearing in mind that the langue of science is only able to describe a little of the complex reality of our human experience. <br />2) Answers to prayer are about our wholeness and healing (life in all its fullness) and not a pandering to our laziness and desires for short cuts. God doesn’t want to create childish people dependent and ‘addicted’ to divine intervention. The ‘pop a pill’ generation is not going to be satisfied by a saviour who always requires something of those that are saved. It is not that we earn our healing but we have to be ‘up for it’ and often our problem is a lack of readiness to live as healed and forgiven people. Jesus says, ‘what do you want me to do for you?’ rather than assume he knows what is best for us.<br />3) Prayer is about developing a relationship rather than performing magic. It is strange how strongly against magic the Bible is. Magic is the manipulation of supernatural forces. Get the ‘spell right’ and the result will follow. Prayer doesn’t guarantee results because it is about a deepening love with our creator, not finding clever ways of making the creator do what is asked. When Jesus says, ‘anything you do in my name’, he is not offering a formulae or incantation but rather indicating the kind of relationship that prayer involves. ‘In the name’ is clearly about obedience on our part and faithfulness on God’s part. The relationship is not equal but neither is it about dependency. In fact the building of relationship is as much the proper outcome of prayer as anything else. <br />4) Prayer is about discovering our deepest longings which surprisingly are to do with God and not something base and self destructive. Underneath the superficial desires of greed, lust, pride and the rest lies the most profound of longings to re-connect with our creator, to be in love with our maker, to find ourselves ‘lost in wonder love and praise’. This may sound counter intuitive but any experienced pastor will tell you that even the most complicated and muddled of messes that people get into, underneath it all are some fairly basically good intentions. That’s the trouble with these messes; they confuse a proper longing with a false solution that only adds to the problems and needs it appeared to address. <br /><br />An example<br /><br />Suppose I desperately need a sunny day and want to say simply to God, ‘please don’t make it rain’. As I said at the beginning I was told never to make this kind of prayer, but supposing I do and take seriously Jesus saying, ‘ask for whatever you need in my name’. <br /><br />First – I don’t think God will break weather laws and I don’t think God will simply make my life easier. Both these thoughts are very important. To mess up laws is fundamentally immoral and God is the essence of righteousness and love. To favour my particular needs has to be set against the difficult reality of a world in which people die because of too much or too little rain. Christians who smugly believe that God answers little petty prayers such as ‘please don’t make it rain’ by interfering with the vast complex weather systems of the world are not only suggesting the creator and law giver sits loose to the law of creation, but that people die and starve in other places because of divine neglect who no doubt uttered their prayers with considerably more passion and conviction.<br /><br />What is the point of praying then?<br /><br />Second – It’s no good pretending other than I would really really like it to be sunny. Prayer is fundamentally about honesty. ‘This is where I am’ is a good place to begin any prayer and perhaps this is the key. Prayer is about a conversation not a magical incantation in which we lay before God our needs for the day; a Santa Clause God who we hope will notice how good we’ve been. As a conversation starter it is fair enough; but it isn’t the end of the conversation. The very act of ‘handing over’ the concern may be enough. We say, ‘this is what I want’, but then, in trusting and grateful obedience, cope with what we get. On some occasions and perhaps with a better example, the conversation continues and deepens. ‘What is my want really about?’ What am I afraid of, what are my worries about? Why is this prayer so urgent for me? Will I be losing face if it rains? Will people I care about have a less happy day and look less well on my efforts? You might imagine the very convoluted reasons that lie behind wanting something as simple as a sunny day. Here prayer becomes a profound journey of self discovery and awareness of self in the context of God’s love.<br /><br />Third – God doesn’t say ‘no’ to our prayers, but neither is the answer a simple agreement about our interpretation of what it is we do need. A child may ask a parent for some junk food. The parent may well refuse the request for junk food, but not the underlying need that the request contains. In a sense the child is doing two things. First indicating a genuine need, they are hungry. Second making a suggestion based upon their views as to how best that need might best be met. The parent correctly meets their request but doesn’t take their advice. This understanding may work for such minor things, but I’ve prayed long and hard about some one who is terribly ill hoping that they wouldn’t die, and they have. It is very hard to see my request as a trivial matter, junk food, that a greater being simply ignores. Their may be truth in the argument still, for we surely don’t understand the mystery of death. But it doesn’t seem wholly fair! God’s yes may be a very difficult thing to deal with and I’ve not got much further in my prayers than a fairly profound ‘ouch’ in God’s direction. <br /><br />Fourth - the outcome of the prayer for the weather may thus be a ‘letting go’ in trust that what comes our way is something that we can deal with. It may also be a deepening of our understanding of our real needs to which we have attached a particular piece of advice. Both these consequences of our conversation with God will result in basic confidence and more creativity in facing the reality of the day. Grateful if the sun shines, and far more ready to cope if it doesn’t. This in its turn may touch how we behave with others, our calmness, for example, allowing more confidence and creativity with others. The change is a profound one for us, and thus for others, for our own well being, and the common weal. As we become more ‘fully alive’ so our life spreads to others. <br /><br />But is that all the prayer has done?<br /><br />I wonder if prayer is in fact a much deeper matter than a form of structured meditation in the presence of God. As we pray with honesty and obedience I believe we are aligning ourselves with God will. We become in that moment a channel of grace. When less well aligned we were a blockage, something in the way of the outpouring of grace and love upon the world. As we slowly become more aligned with God in our prayer, we become more and more ‘in tune’ with God, more and more ‘aligned’ with God’s purposes and power. The grace of God is such that by being a channel of grace we not only bless others, but are ourselves blessed.<br /><br />Prayer thus has a number of consequences and may well begin with the simplest and perhaps most inappropriate of cries!<br /><br />1) A handing over and thus a growth of trusting obedience<br />2) A deepening awareness of the most profound basis of our desires<br />3) A greater understanding of how best our profound desires will be satisfied<br />4) A developing relationship with God so that we become a channel rather than a blockage of divine grace<br /><br />If prayer is about listening as well as speaking, discovering as much as declaring, then it is hard to see how it won’t change not only the world, but the person who prays. But the weather? Will that be different? Personally I doubt it, but I suspect that if it rains after such an honest and exciting encounter with God, I’ll get my umbrella, find a lamp post and start singing.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-17054831700743275582009-12-31T11:08:00.003+00:002009-12-31T11:20:43.552+00:00Believing in Fairies at the bottom of the GardenRichard Dawkins (the God Delusion) is right, there are no Fairies at the bottom of the garden and Christians who believe in a God in the same way as people believe in Fairies are falling down at the First Commandment. <br /><br />Fairies, should they exist, would do so within the creation, they can therefore only ever be creatures of God and not God. Obvious I suppose, but Dawkins has a point. Listening to many Christians you would imagine that a large and kindly Fairy is exactly what God is like for them. God's activity is limited to the 'supernatural' moments, the parts of life that 'we can't explain in any other way'. God is 'provable' because science is yet to explain everything.<br /><br />If this is the case God is getting a bit smaller every day because science is getting better. If this is the case then God isn't God at all but a far lesser 'supernatural being' that only exists within creation and who works in a rather shy and coy way doing bits of supernatural stuff here and there but not in a particularly consistent or helpful way. Whatever else we might say about God one thing is absolutely certain, if God exists, the nature of such existence is utterly beyond the creation for which God is responsible. <br /><br />While I'm quite prepared to believe that there are odd things that science hasn't yet explained, I'm quite sure it will eventually. If Fairies do exist, one day some will catch one, determine its breeding habits and find a way to exploit if for commercial gain. I'm quite sure that all 'miracles' will one day be explained. But that is not the point of a miracle. A miracle isn't a miracle because it is not explainable in any other way, a miracle is a miracle because it 'shows' something new to us about God. What makes a miracle a miracle isn't that we can't explain it, but God wanted to show us something. In other words its something that God intends not something human beings don't understand. If God's activity is limited to the bits we can't explain in any other way, then God has been slowing down over the years and doing less and less.<br /><br />I believe in God and in miracles. I don't believe in the supernatural. I do believe God chooses to reveal truth and hope both through the normal order of things and in particular moments of grace and love. Both can be explained by science because science explains the order of things and everything God does, by definition, happens within 'the order of things'. It is important, however, to notice that 'the order of things' can not be explained solely by science because the language of science is fairly limited. For example science is pretty good at saying what hormones are around when you are in love but not what love actually means for us. For that you need poetry, stories, music, dance and probably some chocolate.<br /><br />The supernatural is not a Godly focused category in any case. It can't define something as from God because every thing is from God. Instead it is human focused. We use the word supernatural when we come across something that we can't explain. This is a foolish category to use to describe God's activity because God is involved in far more things than 'we can't explain', and we are constantly finding ways of explaining things anyway. We should instead look to understand God's activity in terms of God's love and grace and longing for us to know and love, to be and to become. <br /><br />In many ways I'm sceptical about Christian claims for miracles, they have the flavour of an infomercial on TV, or a scam in my Spam box. If you want a dose of common sense about all 'alternative' healing and the like then read, 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre. However I'm not totally sceptical, in fact I'm aware in my own life of the 'power of prayer' and the change that God brings in individual lives. I'm also sure that such things will one day be explained by Science. Having said that it is important to know what 'explaining by science' means. Scientists may believe that if one day they can explain the mechanisms by which prayer works they have 'explained away prayer'. But they won't have done. Science isn't the only way to talk about reality. It is the best way to talk sometimes, but at others the very worst. A miracle isn't something that 'we can't explain' but something that makes us understand God a bit better. Just because we know, for example, that a sunset is caused by the peculiar way light behaves when it passes through the atmosphere doesn't alter the fact that on some days a sunset stirs the heart and fills us with praise. St Augustine, a great African theologian said, 'all creation cries out that it is made!'. Any healing be it medical, meditative or prayerful is Godly and sometimes it will be a miracle as well. Being alert to miracles is a Christian discipline not of credulity but discernment, not of 'belief in fairies', but a rational will to be 'in love with God and to worship.'<br /><br />Which brings me back to Dawkins. He is an iconoclast – a 'breaker down of idols'. That is a GOOD THING TO BE! Idols get in the way of the true God. A supernatural, father Christmas, fairy at the bottom of the garden, God is a creation of human beings to explain what can't be explained. Such idols need to be toppled because they get in the way of the real God. The real God exists beyond creation but chooses to become involved in our world because of love. The real God is beyond our proving and disproving and exists beyond time and space and yet 'he wrapped him in our clay'. The real God is revealed in the exotic and the ordinary, the unexplained and the totally familiar. With Islam we can say, 'God is Great', with St John we can say better, 'God is Love' and with brother Wesley, best of all, 'God is with us!'<br /><br />Let Christians beware of their Idols – Dawkins is out to pull them down!<br />Let Richard Dawkins beware of God for he's being doing God's will despite himself for years, and one day, when he's knocked down all the idols he'll meet the living God and be lost in wonder love and praise!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-67721770828063607672009-12-30T22:55:00.001+00:002009-12-30T22:56:55.334+00:00Maps and Language and Happy New YearOur culture values literal language as the only way to speak simply and seriously about things. Other ways of talking about our experience of the world such as story, poetry and metaphor are all relegated to at best a distortion and worst the 'opposite of truth'. So we say, 'don't tell stories', when we mean, 'don't lie'. We say, 'I mean that literally' when we actually mean, 'I mean that seriously'. We say, 'literally do this' when we mean, 'simply'. <br /><br />The over valuing of literal ways of expressing our experience of reality needs challenging. Literal truth doesn't help us talk about the most important things, and when you force yourself to speak literally, you end up saying some very silly things about those important things. The most obvious example of this is God talk where 'taking the bible literally' has become for some the same as, 'taking it seriously', or reading it honestly and not complicating it with 'man made' interpretations. <br /><br />Taking the bible literally however is absurd. It isn't simple so you can't pretend it is and to be serious about it and faithful, you need to know what kind of language it is using at any given point. To believe, as I do, that it is inspired by God, doesn't let you off the hook by assuming that God used only modern ways of using language! <br /><br />So regarding literal language we need to challenge the two assumptions. One is that literal truth is 'simple' and without distortion. Second that other ways of talking about reality are not serious and are complicating things for the sake of it. I'm not sure I can do that here – though I'll have a go on another day. Instead here is a way of thinking that I find helpful, I'm curious to know if you find it so!<br /><br />Language is way of 'mapping reality'. To make a map you try and find ways of representing a complex terrain by omitting some details, distorting others, make generalisations about this feature, and by simplifying everything. All maps do this, even very accurate maps. If they didn't there wouldn't be any point in them because the 'terrain' would be its own map! The satirist Jonathan Swift said, 'the only true map of Ireland is Ireland' and you know what he means. There are dozens of different types of map and each one distorts, generalises, omits and simplifies in its own way. This doesn't make one map 'true' and another 'false', they simply do different jobs. <br /><br />I think this is a useful analogy for language though it is important to notice that language has a far more difficult job to do than simply representing the terrain. It is particularly difficult for language to try and talk about God. How can anything we ever say about God be 'literally true' – that is simple and straightforward? <br /><br />To extend the analogy of maps you notice that it is the purpose of the map that determines what kind of distortions etc., it makes. Maps of London are a good example:<br /><br />AtoZ maps of London distort the width of roads and put the names of roads down the middle. Neither of these distortions are 'literally true' and no one thinks they are. But they are hugely useful. The AtoZ also omits vast amounts of information and London is simplified to a series of roads with the occasional symbol to tell you where a station or the like is. <br /><br />Tourist maps of London distort certain features hugely. St Paul's, for example, if understood literally is about a mile high. The main tourist features are emphasised not to deceive but to help a visitor notice where they are.<br /><br />The Tube map is a highly stylised version of London. It makes little effort to get distances or directions accurately but concentrates its attention on the intersections of lines and the stops on a particular line. Again no one is confused by this. You don't get out the underground map if you wish to walk or drive across London.<br /><br />An aerial photo of London is a type of map. It is certainly very accurate and full of detail. It is also great fun if you know where you are. I can zoom in and see my car outside my house from two years ago when the photo was taken. However, it is probably the least useful map for getting around. You couldn't find the tube lines there or the street names unless you distort the simple photograph by overlaying the street map. In fact it is only with such a distortion that you could really see it as useful at all. The most literal map is ironically the least helpful.<br /><br />There are many other maps, bus maps, road maps, ordinance survey maps, and no doubt dozens of specialist maps showing drains, electric cables, and the ownership of land and its boundaries. Each maps' distortions and simplifications are shaped not by a desire to confuse of deceive, but by a particular purpose; to help a tourist, or guide you on your tube journey, to help you dig up the road, or know where the hills are. <br /><br />To apply the analogy to language, in stead of different maps you have different types of language and text: poetry, metaphor, myth, legend, biography, adverts, editorials, political manifestos etc.. Into that you need to ask, 'what of theology in general and the bible in particular? <br /><br />Using only literal language gets us into trouble quite quickly. We say 'God is Father' – and I've heard people say, 'I literally believe it'. What they mean, I hope, is that they mean it seriously. But that isn't the same as literally. What they are resisting, I hope, is the idea that this is, 'only a metaphor'. Their personal relationship with God as father has perhaps been challenged by those who want to minimise the relationship. But all 'Father' can be is something like a metaphor. God isn't 'literally' our father because we define father in biological terms and God isn't a biological being. We say 'Jesus is the Son of God' and say, 'we mean that literally', but of all the many ways we might be using language here the very last one is 'literal'. Jesus isn't a God/Man hybrid with fifty percent God genes. God doesn't have genes. We are I suspect wanting to say, 'I mean this seriously' – 'this matters more than anything else'. But if it isn't a 'literal' map of God what kind of map is it?<br /><br />I wonder if Theology is its own type of language and if so, I suspect it is much more like metaphor, poetry and story than it is biology text book. I also wonder what rules and conventions govern the way that 'God talk' distorts, simplifies, generalises and omits the vastness of God's grace and goodness? If God talk is a distinctive form of language then I think we need to recognise both the advantages of it being this form, and the limitations. We can't ever be as dogmatic and exact as 'literal' language allows, but we can express a little bit more powerfully the 'height and depth of God's love'.<br /><br />Another analogy might be a piece of music. Beethoven's 'Pastoral Symphony' is clearly an attempt to represent the wonder of the country side. It isn't however very accurate as, say, a recording of the countryside might be on a tape recorder. You can't ask certain questions of it such as, 'is it green', or 'does it smell of hay'. But if you 'get' the music you may well find you discover a richness of what nature is about that no text book could ever give you, or even for that matter a decent set of photographs. You can ask, 'is it truthful' but not is it 'literally true'. The recording of the countryside, the occasional sound of a bird, the hiss of the wind in the corn, the chirp of insects, perhaps an animal sound, may be soothing, but I wonder if it would every be as truthful of the countryside as Beethoven's masterpiece. Here is perhaps a human irony, 'literal' forms of truth don't really do very well outside of bus time tables and biology text books. Not that I'm dismissing either, its just that on their own they are a bit dull. <br /><br />Here is a challenge, 'How often do we ask, 'is it green' kind of questions about the Bible and our words about God?'<br /><br />I'm asked, 'do you believe literally in the virgin birth', and I'm lost for words. I've no idea on one level about what happened two thousand years ago. I'm not sure I understand the kind of language that is being used by the Gospel writers. Are they trying to be 'scientific' fifteen hundred years too early? Is this a biological kind of claim? Is 'inspired' the same as 'modern scientific?' I simply don't know. But I don't think that is what the story of the virgin birth is asking of me. It is a story and if I want to 'take it seriously' then I simply get into the story like I'd get into a piece of music, look at some art or read a poem. I'm swept up in a way of representing reality that can't really be expressed in any other way. 'Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man' as Charles Wesley put it. Stories and poems communicate things that literal truth can't. I certainly 'believe in the virgin birth', but not 'literally' – how can I? But neither 'just metaphorically' – it matters far too much. I believe in it in a similar way to being caught up in a great piece of music. I 'inhabit the story' which is far more than simply accepting what may or may not be a scientific claim.<br /><br />Any way – I hope this analogy about maps and music is interesting and I wonder what kind of 'map' theology actually is.<br /><br />Happy New YearAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-86394111240652727702009-12-11T19:01:00.002+00:002009-12-11T19:03:39.233+00:00Story - Elizabeth’s First SnowmanA Christmas story for Elizabeth<br /><br />The first night is always the important night. Then slowly, surely, wonderfully, magically the carefully shaped and patted, decorated and dressed, large pile of snow becomes a real snowman. The twigs that were so lovingly pushed into snow bodies become real arms. The little stones in the head start to look out on the world, and the mouth, formed with a cold soggy glove shoved almost as an afterthought below the carrot nose becomes a mouth and starts to smile on the dawn. It is then, as the first fingers of light creep over the back lawns of houses throughout the country, that the newly woken snowman first feels the benefit of the woollen scarf and the generously lent hat. <br /><br />It is, of course, a busy time for the local authorities who send around their inspectors to register all the snowmen in the borough who have awoken that night. To record their details, date of awakening, height, weight, and of course, appropriate use of vegetables. The lack of fresh vegetables has had poor effect on both the health and look of many a snowman in recent times despite the government’s various educational initiatives and the local supermarket running their two for the price of one carrot offers.<br /><br />And this morning was the first morning for Elizabeth’s first snowman. How she had worked rolling the snow balls totally by herself. Her fingers red with the cold, wet and aching. Her feet shivering in boots just too big for her and squelching as she wandered over the back garden looking for all that was needed to make her very first snowman. Two twigs, not quite the same size, or indeed quite in proportion to the snow she had gathered would have to do for arms. One stone and one rather darkened acorn would have to pass for eyes. A rather shabby Norwich City supporter’s hat and an even shabbier dishcloth for a scarf would have to do for clothes. The nose, a shrivelled parsnip, long forgotten in the vegetable rack, completed the face. And Elizabeth smiled and saw that it was good. Her first snowman. The best snowman she had ever made. A work of love at great cost, of tingling fingers and aching arms, of numb toes and a nose so cold that no one would give her proper cuddle until she had warmed up and had a bath. But it was her snowman, her first snowman, and she went to bed that night knowing it was the special night, the important night, when snowman always become real under the clear star filled night of the winter. <br /><br />And so the magic had happened and as if waking from a dream Elizabeth’s First Snowman had come to life, had wiggled her fingers, yawned, looked around and smiled at the lovely world. <br /><br />A little while later, a robin, proud of his good looks and very possessive of the exact place where Elizabeth’s First Snowman had begun to awaken and greet the morning, came chirping up. <br /><br />“And what exactly are you?” asked the robin in the rudest possible way.<br /><br />“A Snowman!” came the confident reply, for all snowmen awaken to know exactly who they are and why they are there.<br /><br />“A what?” exclaimed the rather handsome and to be honest rather rough robin. “I’ve seen hundreds of snowmen and you are the worst, ugliest, most pathetic pile of grubby snow I’ve ever seen and on my patch, sitting on my worms, and in my way”<br /><br />Elizabeth’s First Snowman was very surprised. She had awakened to the morning feeling only profound happiness that she should be alive. She had noticed the world in the first flush of the dawn as a somewhere of such beauty; her eyes looking out over the lawn as if upon a place of paradise, of first beauty, and loveliness. She had felt her fingers and her arms and the feeling had been of delight as one feels on the first day of a holiday, or on Christmas morning. Even the cold wind that had blown around the gap in the house had made her simply grateful to Elizabeth for the kindly gift of the scarf, and the extraordinarily generous cap that kept her head warm and comfortable and feeling, to be honest, very elegant and well dressed.<br /><br />“But I’m beautiful” the snowman said, “Elizabeth made me, and her fingers hurt so much, and her feet squelched so in her boots, and her toes were so numb, and her nose was so cold that no one would cuddle her until she had warmed up and had a bath and she was so pleased with me.”<br /><br />“Nope, you are the ugliest, poorest excuse for a snowman I’ve ever seen, you’ve no real head, your body is hopelessly lopsided, one arm is twenty times bigger than the other, and who ever heard of a parsnip nose? And besides which, you’re sitting on my breakfast and I wish you’d go away.<br /><br />The robin hopped away, satisfied that in his own honest way he had helped Elizabeth’s First Snowman come to terms with the realities of life and get used to ‘The Way Things Are’. The snowman was very puzzled. She knew was beautiful because Elizabeth had made her and the robin must simply be wrong, but the robin had looked so handsome, and been so certain, and he had known so much, and she had been a real snowman for only 45 minutes – what could she know?<br /><br />Pondering these deep, disturbing, and puzzling thoughts, the light still only just calling the world into life, Elizabeth’s First Snowman looked around her world, and knew it was a good place. The plant boarders with the soft white covering of new snow almost glowed in the early morning light. Birds stirred and sang their winter songs, and in the distance she could hear the roar of the cars of people too busy to notice that this was the most wonderful morning. Then she saw, crunching across the lawn in large heavy boots, a remarkably short man who was holding a computer which glowed in his face and gave him a somewhat sinister look.<br /><br />“Ahem!” he said, looking a little confused at Elizabeth’s First Snowman. “The Main Database has told me there is a newly awakened snowman to register here, but it can’t mean you, can it? What are you; you look like a grubby pile of snow?”<br /><br />“I’m a Snowman” Elizabeth’s First Snowman said, with just the first tinge of doubt and sadness. “Elizabeth made me” and as she said it her mouth trembled and she nearly cried. “She made me yesterday after tea, before her bath and her story, and her fingers ached, and her toes were so numb, and her nose was so cold that no one would cuddle her until she had warmed up and had a bath, and she said I was lovely”<br /><br />“Ahem – Elizabeth you say, you wouldn’t be Elizabeth’s first snowman would you?<br /><br />“Yes” came the worried and by now increasingly anxious reply.<br /><br />“Ahh, well, allowances have to be made, and the Main Database has clearly noticed you. Now let me see, you are 37½ centimetres high on the left side, and you have two eyes, though only one is a regulation stone, the mouth’s a bit wide, and the right arm is more of a flying buttress than strictly an arm, it’s your nose that’s the main problem. It’s a very pale carrot and little bit more shrivelled than we normally allow.<br /><br />“It’s a parsnip” Elizabeth’s First Snowman said a little defensively.<br /><br />“O dear, a parsnip you say? Not really the done thing, let me just check if that counts. Mmm – I suppose it is a root vegetable, though so much lower in health giving carotene, but we are having such a problem with vegetables these days. Mmmm It will have to do! Now then, I’ve registered you as, ‘Elizabeth’s first snowman’ and I’ll come and collect you tomorrow morning when this cold snap ends.’<br /><br />“Tomorrow? I thought I’d be able to play with her for days.”<br /><br />“I’m sorry that’s not possible, it’s partly to do with global warming, and partly to do with the fact that you are only 37½ centimetres high and there is not a lot of you to melt. Anyway, it will be plenty of time to be a good snowman. Cheery bye!”<br /><br />Having given this remarkable and disturbing information the noticeably short man walked back across the lawn leaving Elizabeth’s First Snowman wondering about herself and the world in which she lived. Her heart was simply full of love for Elizabeth, for she had made her, given her a nose and a mouth and arms and a Norwich City supporter’s hat and a dishcloth for a scarf. How could she not be grateful? But she had also been made lopsided, that’s what the robin had said, and her nose was the wrong colour, and she only had one day before she had to leave Elizabeth and this wonderful garden. Doubts began to creep into her, and sadness, and she wondered if all snowmen were like her?<br /><br />She was just about to get really gloomy when a noisy chirp from just above her on tree branch made her look up. She saw a very lovely squirrel. What a wonderful world, was all she could think. It was a such a soft grey with just a tinge of brown and the fluffiest, prettiest tale that you could imagine. <br /><br />“What on earth are you?” the lovely squirrel asked in a far from lovely chatter.<br /><br />“I’m a snowman” Elizabeth’s First Snowman answered with only the slightest quiver in her voice and only the smallest little tear in her eye that unfortunately immediately turned to ice and looked like a small bump on her face.<br /><br />“Naa – you’re not a proper snowman, just look at you! And hey! Just a minute – what the ….? I’m speechless!’ <br /><br />The squirrel leapt down with the daintiest of moves and springing before the snowman took a closer look at her right eye.<br /><br />“I simply can’t believe it!! That’s my acorn, mine do you understand? You wretched, thieving, pathetic excuse of a snowman, you’ve gone and nicked my lunch.”<br /><br />With that, and to Elizabeth’s First Snowman’s shocked surprise, the squirrel reached up and took out her eye. “I’ll have that back,” he said, and sprang away chattering angrily to eat what had, up until then, been part of Elizabeth’s First Snowman’s face.<br /><br />Now she did sob. A day that had started so wonderfully, so full of promise had become not only the first day in her life but the Worst Day in her Life. “Oh I so wish” she said, “I so wish I was a little taller, a little less lopsided, a little more like a proper snowman.” She sobbed and sobbed and as she sobbed her tears formed bumps and lumps and eventually whole icicles that made it look a little like she had a beard. “Oh!” she said, “Oh! I so wish that Elizabeth had made me better! Perhaps even that some one else had made me who knew what they were doing”. She suddenly stopped sobbing as she realised what she had said. Her heart pounded with the horror of her thoughts. She thought of what Elizabeth had done for her, of her cold hands and squelching feet, of her numb toes and her nose that was so cold that no one would give her a proper cuddle until she had warmed up and had a bath. The snowman thought of how happy she had been to see this paradise of a garden and watch the first light of her first day creep across the beautiful snow until it had touched her. She was suddenly filled with gratitude as she felt the warmth of the dishcloth which was her scarf and the incredibly, unbelievably elegant hat that made her feel so smart. Elizabeth loves me, she thought, she made me and she saw that I was good.<br /><br />At just that moment, when the sun had almost reached the winter height above the dark snow covered bushes at the bottom of the garden, Elizabeth came out with her mum, and her dad, and a camera and a smile on her face so big that the whole world was made warmer. <br /><br />Elizabeth pointed at the snowman and giggled and said, ‘I made her’, and her mum looked and felt such pride that she didn’t quite know what to say. “It’s beautiful, Elizabeth, it’s the best snowman in the whole garden”. “Mum, it’s the only snowman in the garden” Elizabeth complained, “I know dear, but it’s still the best”. And Elizabeth showed her mum and dad how she had made her first snowman, and she showed them the Norwich City supporter’s hat that she had borrowed from her uncle, and the dishcloth that she had found under the sink, and the parsnip that she had rescued from the vegetable rack and the eyes…..<br /><br />“Oh dear!” Elizabeth cried in real distress, “She’s lost an eye” and frantically she looked around to see where it might have fallen. But search as she might it wasn’t there, and in all that snow covered garden there seemed nothing that would take its place.<br /><br />“Never mind,” said her mum, “it makes her distinctive.” <br />“But I want her to look normal” sighed Elizabeth. Mum and Dad looked at the snowman, all 37½ centimetres of it, with a branch in one side that looked more like a buttress, with a cap a good deal bigger than its head and a very shrivelled parsnip for a nose, and they understood. And Dad gave Elizabeth his favourite worry stone that he kept in his pocket, smooth and shiny and all the way from a special place. And Elizabeth put it carefully in her snowman’s face. And they took pictures and Elizabeth was Very Proud and so were her parents.<br /><br />The rest of that day, that special day, was wonderful for Elizabeth’s First Snowman. She watched the family play on the lawn, throw snowballs at each other, laugh, have a silly picnic - even though it was cold and getter wetter all the time. She was often referred to and her heart filled with more and more happiness until she felt she would burst. She knew she was a proper snowman because Elizabeth had made her and loved her and so she no longer worried about the robin or the squirrel, or the little man with his computer. And Elizabeth was so proud of her and so pleased that she had been able to make her Very First Snowman Without Any Help At All.<br /><br />Dusk came early and Elizabeth’s First Snowman was content that she had been the best snowman she could be. She felt the change in the weather as the clouds covered the sky and the air grew warmer but she was without fear or regret. This is what it is to be a snowman and for her the only the sadness was the sadness she would cause when she melted. <br /><br />At dawn the short man with his computer came to her.<br /><br />“Well he said, you have done well – and especially so because you were someone’s first snowman. We are all very proud of you and we have changed the rules about parsnips in your honour”<br /><br />Elizabeth’s First Snowman melted away and the snow turned to slush and the blanket covering the garden slowly dwindled leaving only bare soil and a rather squishy lawn. Dawn came and then the morning and as soon as she could Elizabeth came rushing out to play but as she did her heart sank nearly as fast as her boots sank into the soaking lawn.<br /><br />“She’s gone” she cried running to where her very first snowman had sat. And all that was left were two stones one very shiny and special, a large branch and small twig, a parsnip, her uncle’s Norwich City supporter’s hat and a dishcloth. She collected them up tenderly, and sobbed, “I made her and she’s gone”. And her mum and dad came out and they saw their little Elizabeth crouching in the mud where her first snowman had been, and they took her hand, they didn’t say anything because sometimes saying nothing is the very best thing to say, but they did cuddle her even though she was by then a little muddy and her nose was very cold.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-9490672902784341682009-12-08T19:26:00.001+00:002009-12-08T19:27:57.286+00:00Story "A New Beginning"Arthur the Dragon, of impeccable lineage, slept fitfully and dreamed vividly upon his huge pile of treasure. The golden crowns, the silver cups, the jewel encrusted swords, and mountains of freshly minted Euros, provided no ease for the weary beast as his mind raced over his many problems and difficulties. In the half awake ness of the night, the challenges of the coming day. And the memories of the preceding one, took on strange proportion and evoked profound anxieties. “If only,” he thought wistfully, “I hadn’t eaten that third maiden.” The guilt of his over indulgence weighed heavily upon him and he tossed and turned some more, and meditated further on the woes of life and the angst of his existence. “Never again shall I be so greedy,” he vowed, “from now on I will lead a life of virtue, avoid indulgence and indigestion, and sleep more soundly on my pension fund.”<br /><br />The morning came as a great relief to him, and leaving insomnia and guilt induced fretfulness, he entered the new day with a lighter step. Admittedly his steps weren’t that light, and his short trip to his golden bath, resulted in the casual destruction of some rare works of art, but in his mind he felt the burden lifted. From the steamy embrace of the glistening tub, he reviewed the struggles of the night, and reaffirmed his desire to live from now on a life of unquestionable honour and nobility. Heaving himself up and out of the water, he towelled his body down with vigour and noticing with grief the ample rotundity of his once lithe frame, he sighed, “There is much to achieve, and I fear I have let things slide.”<br /><br />Starting out on a life of virtue is not easy, and from breakfast on he felt the growing weariness of his decision. His teeth ached for something crunchier than sugar free muesli, his talons itched for something to grip more lively than a banana, but his resolve was strong and he braced himself for the uphill journey to dragon like perfection. He saw himself in days to come, slim and calm, guilt free, at ease with himself and with the world, no longer an object of horror the young maidens of the nearby village. Perhaps, he thought with tremulous heart, perhaps be held instead in warm affection? His mind wandered down this gentle fantasy, as he saw his picture adorn the walls of adoring fans. “Arthur the noble!” they breathed, “Arthur the honourable,” they sighed, “Arthur the down right gorgeous,” they affirmed. He smacked his lips at the prospect, and realised, to his horror, that his tummy rumbled, unsatisfied by his low fat, high roughage meal, longing instead for a more substantial diet. “How difficult temptation is,” he thought, banishing the image of the flavoursome feast his idol fantasy had evoked,<br /><br />“Virtue is dull,” he mused, no longer the excitement of anticipation, the thrill of the hunt and a scrumptious repast. The can of beans that awaited his midday snack cared neither way if he should eat them or not eat them. “I miss the lack of interest that my food had in me,” he sadly moaned. “It is neither here nor there to a tin if I breathe fire, or crunch it in my magnificent teeth.” But his resolve strong, he banished the melancholy of his new found virtue and schooled his mind to think the higher thoughts of a beast no longer controlled by base passions.<br /><br />The day passed with weary length and more than once he found himself stretching his limbs as if in preparation for his old ways. “This won’t do!” he cried out, slamming his giant paw on to the top of a particularly lovely Georgian tea pot and flattening it completely. He rose and grabbing his coat marched swiftly from the bone and treasure strewn cave into the cold of the January evening. The walk invigorated him and his steamy breath enveloped him as he moved purposefully towards the house of the minister of the local church. He knocked loudly on the door and waited impatiently for an answer. It came, but slowly, and eventually a terrified face looked around the now badly damaged entrance. “Can I help?” the minister asked, her voice cracking with fear, her husband, in the background, hastily pushing the children and cats into the kitchen and slamming the door. “Yes!” cried the dragon, trying not to notice the munchable and delicious cleric in front of him, “I have decided on a life of virtue and I need some help!” It was only the years of training that made it possible for the, young minister to whisper feebly, “I think you better come in!”<br /><br />Soon the giant animal, its massive form filling half the manse study, began to pour out his difficult burdens upon the fearful and over wrought minister seated nervously behind her cluttered desk. “Well, I’m glad to meet you,” she said, “I’ve heard so much about you, you’ve eaten so many of my friends.”<br /><br />“Have I?” he replied his colour rising with shame, his sharp claws twitching with discomfort. “Well I want to eat them no more!” he declared, “but I’m finding it hard – if virtue is its own reward I want to know the timescale, the potential pitfalls, the anticipated outcomes and the best substitutions for my diet, for fruit will simply not do.”<br /><br />“I’m a vegetarian,” she contributed meekly, “perhaps a recipe for my lasagne would help?”<br />“No!” the dragon almost shouted, “I need more than a new diet, I want to know how to lead a new life, I want to be noble and honourable, and loved by all.No longer do I want this all too solid flesh to evoke horror and fear in my church family on a Sunday. What must I do to live the new life?”<br /><br />Even the excellence of her three years in college and two years in Circuit had not prepared her for such a question. Should she counsel constraint? – Eat maidens only on high days and holidays, or perhaps cut it down to one a day? But no, her task was to offer new life, not just an adjusted life. With resolve she looked the dragon straight in the face, and spoke, she hoped, directly to his heart. “It is good that you have come, for what you seek is right, but the path is not easy.”<br /><br />“It surely isn’t,” said the dragon as his tummy rumbled with unreasonable loudness, and his eye glinted with unusual hunger straight back into the eyes of his counsellor.<br /><br />“It is not easy,” she repeated with an alarmed and hurried voice. “Your lifestyle simply won’t do, but you are a dragon and must be true to your self.”<br /><br />“True, true,” he muttered rather eagerly.<br /><br />“Tofu and bean curd, nut roasts and omelettes, will not in themselves satisfy your fleshly cravings – you need a wholly new life, filled with mighty struggles and challenges to test your courage and strength.”<br /><br />“But what can they be?” he asked, drawing himself somewhat closer to the minister who was now shaking with fear.<br /><br />“I challenge you,” she firmly spoke, “to live your life for others. To think no longer of yourself, but only of the needs of people that you once saw as lunch.”<br /><br />“Other people?” he asked with a puzzled voice, “I should care for others?”<br /><br />“To seek virtue is far too hard in itself unless there is purpose for your virtuosity.” The dragon drew back, the idea so new, so novel, so utterly beyond his dreams. “And shall I rest easier on my bed if I seek not so much as to eat them but to serve them?”<br /><br />“Only if you take up your bed and sell it.”<br /><br />“Sell my bed?” he mused with awakening happiness, for he had never liked it, and gold made a dreadful place to rest. “Now that is an idea.” He looked with renewed respect at the woman before him. “You have given me much to think about and fed me in a way I hadn’t fully expected.” A new vision flashed before him, of a dragon fighting for justice, struggling to help, and sleeping easily on a smooth stone floor swept of its bones and empty of its prickly treasure.<br /><br />“I’ll start now!” he said and went on his way smoking with joy.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-86312330531748400132009-11-28T14:01:00.000+00:002009-11-28T14:05:14.257+00:00'Annunciation' - reading for AdventOn this thin thread<br />such weight of promise hangs<br />my yes or no the channel of a good<br />far greater than I.<br /><br />On this quiet moment<br />waits all the hopes of heaven<br />who have longed for ages past<br />far older than I.<br /><br />On this fragile will<br />a mightier will is paused<br />purposing good for all creation<br />far larger than I.<br /><br />And in the balance is<br />the good or evil<br />the hope or despair<br />the now or never.<br /><br />(silence)<br /><br />And heaven's singing stops<br />as with baited breath<br />they wait a little longer<br />and hope a little longer<br />that what shall be<br />shall be through me<br />far more wonderful than IAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-11299770993779985372009-11-28T13:23:00.001+00:002009-11-28T13:30:13.169+00:00A Short Sketch for Christmas "Full Of Goodness"Two young parents sitting among Christmas decorations reading or something similar. Off stage you hear the sound of a baby crying fairly quietly.<br /><br />Mum: It’s your turn. (Reading book or doing something)<br />Dad: No it isn’t, it’s your turn, I did the dustbins (not putting down paper)<br />Mum: Yes and I did everything else. Besides I’m tired.<br />Dad: Ok I’ll toss you for it. Heads or tails? (putting down paper and reaching for wallet).<br />Mum: Will you stop being so stupid and go and see what’s wrong with the baby.<br />Dad: Nothing’s wrong with the baby. It’s fed, it’s watered, it’s moist where it should be moist and dry where it should be dry, it’s affirmed, loved, safe warm ………<br />Mum: …..and crying. Don’t bother I’ll go.<br />Dad: No, no – it’s my turn (Leaves. Baby stops crying Dad returns).<br />Mum: (Looking up from book) Everything all right?.<br />Dad: Well it still can’t talk, it is doubly incontinent, and it’s hardly started the novel I left it yesterday.<br />Mum: I wish you wouldn’t call Gemma an it, and what do you expect she’s only three weeks old.<br />Dad: Suppose so, but it’s a cause for worry.<br />Mum: No it isn’t she’s perfect in every detail<br />Dad: But what about the child next door, he reads, writes, and helps his mother around the house!.<br />Mum: He’s fifteen years old, and the idea of him helping his mother around the house is absurd. <br />Dad: Oh, I don’t know, I expected them to come more complete than this. Neither of us have trouble talking, and we don’t have to wear nappies.<br /> Where does she get it from? It’s not my side of the family I’m sure. (musing and thoughtful) Mmmm your uncle was a bit odd.<br />Mum: Babies are babies – they are growing and learning. Can’t you <br />tell? She smiled so beautifully the other day. <br />Dad: Bert said that was wind.<br />Mum: Bert would.<br />Dad: But still – you would have thought that a sensible God would have invented babies that could do the basics.<br />Mum: They can – they breath, they feed, and fairly soon after they smile. If those aren’t the basics I don’t know what is.<br />Dad: Well I meant walk, and talk, and reason and do quadratic equations.<br />Mum: Well YOU can’t do those<br />Dad: That’s not the point.<br />Mum: Well what is?<br />Dad: Well it’s such a risk. Just imagine, you’re God and you decide to invent a baby. You’d want to make sure that they’re safe, and happy. You wouldn’t want to risk such a precious thing. You would want to trust such a wonderful idea to a couple of anxious new parents like us. So – after the birds and the bees bit, the baby would be able to look after themselves, be able to fight back, have an instinctive ability to survive. What you would not do is design a helpless, damp, semi-sentient, half bald toothless creature in a cot. I mean – how would God like to be born that way?<br />Mum: (Very calmly and reasonably) But he was dear. God trusted himself to the love of a mother and a father. He came as a vulnerable a baby to teach us the power of love. So stop worrying, Gemma is fine, growing as God intended, full of grace and truth.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-90360905503637636492009-11-25T10:18:00.000+00:002009-11-25T21:13:47.768+00:00A Story “Harmony in immortal Souls”A long time ago, when poetry was still allowed and artists celebrated beauty with beautiful works, a group of friends used to meet and share their love of words.<br /><br />They told each other stories that no one had ever written down, and found themselves lost in the wonder of other lives, of people who did extraordinary things and they felt their deepest feelings.<br /><br />They sang each other songs of older days and times, of simpler choices and grander schemes. Such beauty they sang, such unutterable beauty that words alone failed them, and music and rhythm carried the greater meaning, and held the more lofty passions.<br /><br />They recalled the journey of their people and wept again at their sadness, felt again their shame, rejoiced again at new beginnings, of hope and of expectation. They found themselves living in the story, shaped by it, living for it, choosing their future as they remembered their past<br /><br />And most of all they spoke out loud the words of power that are poems. <br /><br />Delicate words that could cut through diamond.<br /><br />Gentle words that would destroy nations. <br /><br />Powerful words that with a feather like touch could raise the dead and bring into being that which is not yet.<br /><br />They would gaze, as friends do after a long day of work, into the night sky untroubled by extra lights so that the ancient shine of primeval stars haunted their present with its tales of the past.<br /><br />And they said out loud<br /><br />“Look, how the floor of heaven<br />Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;<br />There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st<br />But in his motion like an angel sings ...<br />Such harmony is in immortal souls;”<br /><br />And so their sleeping was held by their dreaming, dreaming not only of what has been, but what still might be. The friends sharing the harmony of immortal souls.<br /><br />And yet a mischief came upon them. Quiet, mouse like, hardly a mischief at all. The friends, lost in the wonder of all that is, sought to uncover and discover, to understand and to categorise. They still sang their songs, and told their stories, and lost themselves in words so delicate they still might cut diamonds, but they demanded more of those words. Not just the gentleness of persuasion, but the cast iron certainty of conviction. Unhappy to describe only, they asked of words that they might define.<br /><br />And the mischief was not in the definition. Nor was the mischief in the discovery. For such things they discovered! Heaven itself became yet more wonderful. Mighty engines caught up in power and energy, in reaction and destruction, in creation and formation. Hydrogen fusing into heavy and heavier elements until perhaps becoming the patines of bright Gold. The mischief was not in the new words, for here were words that did new things in new and wonderful ways, that brought yet more harmony. The mischief was in the pride of the new words. For some spoke and demanded that these New Words must replace the old words. These words, cannot live where the old ones still flourish. We now know what heaven is really made of!<br /><br />And the friends divided.<br /><br />Some said. "Of course this is the case." “How can heaven be made of paving stones of gold, when now in our wiser moments we discover that stars are no more that complex atomic reactions, of fission and fusion and diffusion of light?” “The old stories cannot be true, we have been hood-winked and tricked and our integrity is compromised” So they told the stories no more. Songs stopped being sung and the rhythm and the music that held meanings too deep for words fell silent on a world growing colder than even the sun could warm in all its nuclear fury.<br /><br />But others said. “But how can our old stories be false they have been so true to us?” "They must mean things in the same way the New Words mean? We cannot accept that the sun is only Hydrogen. It must be gold! What we have found out is false, only what we have been told in the past must be true." "What the old words meant was meant in the New Words way." They too bowed before the pride of the New Words, and lost their love of how words used to be. So although they still told the stories, sang the songs, and tried to remember the poetic words gentle enough to cut through diamonds, they only said them in the New Words way, cool and careful, and argumentative, and definitive and with the cast iron certainty of conviction.<br /><br />Such mischief that ended harmony and stopped the old songs from being sung, that silenced the stories that held community. But most most of all, that blunted the gentle words of poetry so that diamonds stayed as an allotrope of carbon, too hard for words to cut.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-86493022130319440202009-11-22T14:34:00.000+00:002009-11-25T12:46:19.649+00:00God LovesIt is an interesting experience to be woken every hour throughout the night to make sure you are still alive (see previous blog). It puts the question in your mind about life and death and whether, when the chips are down, you believe it all. My own reflection is that I do, but perhaps not the way I'm expected to or even expected myself to. I remember similar reflections when I had a stroke a few years ago, and they have developed a little since. Here they are, free I hope from too much self indulgence and 'grandstanding!'. <br /><br />The old chorus, 'Jesus loves me this I know 'cos the bible tells me so', allegedly a favourite of Karl Barth, has always struck me as thin kind of argument. I will confess that its not as thin as it was for me at one time in my more hard nosed 'liberal positivist' days. The importance of accepting what you are told in general, and of Scripture in particular has gained ground in my ever changing attempts to understand what knowledge is and how it might be discerned and engaged with. Ellen Charry's book 'On the Renewing of your Mind' makes a good stab at critiquing Locke, Hulme and other's attempt to divide faith from reason, and makes the case for the 'reasonableness of trust'. However, if the only reason I were to believe that Jesus loves me were because the Bible tells me so I'd be puzzled and profoundly disappointed. Barth's radical rejection of the capacity of the human mind to know about God other than through revelation limits the capaicty of God speaking through other aspects of creation, and God's making use of the truly extraordinary abilities of the human mind both individually and 'severally!' However knowing that I am loved seems to be the most basic of what God wants to tell me. All the rest seems somehow less substantial. I am loved; that is all I truly can know about the life to come the rest is 'in the details'.<br /><br />So facing death do I know, for example, that there is an afterlife? If I were content with Barth's proposition that 'the Bible tells me so', then I suppose I would know, for the Bible does tell me so. But I need more than that. I respect and need revelation, but I need experience as well. I need reason in there. I need other people's experience and knowledge. I'm afraid, when push comes to shove I therefore can't say 'I know' there is an afterlife and certainly not any comforting details about it. Indeed all the hints of scripture and tradition would indicate that it is wholly different and beyond what I can experience and know in the present in any case. <br /><br />I am very strongly persuaded indeed that there is no such separate thing as a human soul that will be untouched by my dying, continuing in classical philosophical fashion freed from physical encumbrance. This ancient view divides up my humanity in a way that St Paul would have been dismayed about. I am a body and who I am is expressed as a physical body in a physical world. All the talk of spiritualism is total rot at the very best and at worst hardly bears thinking about. In that sense I'm utterly against supernaturalist views of death and dying and content that who I am dies and will go back to the dust from which it comes. To be honest I won't believe I have a separate soul unless Scientists show me on a screen and then I'll be mortified! Christians have traditionally never really argued for the continuance of the soul in this way in any case, which is why we talk of 'resurrection'. Resurrection means 'the dead being raised' and not 'the soul continuing as if nothing had happened'. To be resurrected we will need a new body and this doesn't imply a physical body or even one within this time and space, this time bounded creation. Indeed all the hints seem to imply that resurrection is about the ending of time and space, and existence within the eternal time frame of God which is outside creation. Outside creation it is by definition outside any capacity I have to speculate about it both in a general sense or in any details about 'where, when, how, who..etc'. <br /><br />Put simply I can see that I can have a view about the truth or otherwise of a resurrected body other than the bible claims this so. Believe me that helps, but not enough. I can't, however hard I try, simply accept that just because the bible says it is enough. Given this claim having no possibility for anything else to back it up I have to remain some one who believes in the story but doesn't know for a fact, <br /><br />What did I find myself knowing as worried nurses woke me to inquire every hour if I was still around? Only this. God loves. That is enough for my dying and those that are left in their grieving. Whatever will be, way beyond my capacity to understand in any way at all, will be in God's love. I find I don't need to know any more, though I might choose to believe much more than that. And I know that I am loved not simply because the Bible tells me so. I know that I'm loved from my conception and birth as a gentleness held me and let me go, as a baby nursed and fed, changed and held, as toddler painfully learning to walk away from one type of closeness to another, through friendships and learning into adulthood and new adventures, of a faithful loving partner, wonderful children and their partners of grand children and of getting older until finally one day (but not this day) death will come as a friend and not an enemy. I do know also that I am loved because the bible tells me so and tells me things I could never find out for myself, of a story that in time tells of the timeless love of God who lays down his life for my life and who comes that I may have 'life in all its fullness'. God loves because as 1 John 4 says, 'God is love!'. <br /><br />Sometimes you need to know details, but at others you don't. Perhaps our creeds are too long and we need to hang on to something simpler and more powerful. I have experienced on occasions, and on this one, with all that I am the present love of God through the closeness of his Spirit, recognised and learned through the wonder of people, the graciousness of creation, the holiness of divine Word and the nurture of the Church community. That is enough for my living and my dying.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-1390639039705873042009-11-22T13:27:00.000+00:002009-11-22T13:29:42.225+00:00And are we yet aliveAdventurous weekend in Airedale Hospital - set the NHS chasing various wild geese. I had been poorly and checked in with A&E because I'd not drunk water for 24 hours and didn't seem likely to as I was being sick. I only wanted to go home from lovely time with Supers in Ilkley. First - they didn't seem worried about my worries (sick and head aching) they were worried about the ECG test and said they thought I'd a heart attack. I hadn't. 'Are you sure you've not had chest pains' (believe me I wouldn't have been shy about telling them) Then they thought the sickness was a consequence of another stroke (it wasn't) but it meant they kept waking me up to make sure I hadn't died . . all through the night, on the hour every hour. Then they thought I had Meningitis so were going to lumber puncture me to find out which one. Fortunately wiser council prevailed and they diagnosed viral Meningitis which means a few days off work - I really haven't been that ill!! Virus not yet defeated but finitely on the losing side. Thanks to Methodism though for excellent Chaplain (Jacky), Chairs (Vernon and Peter) and general systems - plus NHS behaved well if arguably a little over zealous.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-32103987195473122122009-11-15T18:26:00.000+00:002009-11-15T18:32:43.980+00:00Worries in the nightI'm deeply suspicious about arguments about 'moral decline', because it seems that the feeling of 'moral decline' is what happens to all of us as we get older and isn't real. People have been sensing a decline from the days before time began and if their sense was real we would be so deep in the mire now that we wouldn't notice any more. But here's a worry. Ricky Gervais a main stream comedian said on 'Desert Island Discs' that he would use the bible as toilet paper. Now for those who don't know the BBC or this programme, it is impossible to say how utterly mainstream this programme is. It has been broadcast for years, since 1942. It is a gentle, friendly, homely and endearing programme that entertains and informs with intelligence and usually a lightness of touch. The date of the Ricky Gervais broadcast was over two years ago, 24 June 2007, but I woke last night worrying and I've been wondering why. What worries me, I think, is not his dismissal of a book that has shaped cultures around the world. He is both entitled to his opinion and welcome to read what he wants to read. My worry is that someone somewhere believes his view is mainstream and non-controversial. A show that sums up 'middle Britain' with a producer well aware of who would be listening, allowed it to go on air, believing there would be little if any complaint. I'm sad, of course, that any person should want to be offensive about something that matters to me, but to be honest I can simply choose not to be offended, which I do. No – the concern is that we have reached a place where the humour boundary is no longer a vulgar joke about the bible, such a view is apparently now main stream, it's BBC Radio 4, 'Desert Island Disks' – this is acceptable and clearly no longer meant to be 'funny, 'edgy' and the stuff of humour. Humour doesn't exist here in its sharpest form it exists far away at the edge, pushing boundaries. And this begs the question, what obscenity, what vulgarity, what crudeness, what cruelty must we now count as edgy if the mainstream has broken boundaries not part of the core of any society for thousands of years? <br /><br />There has always, of course, been vulgarity, obscenity, blasphemy and cruelty in humour. There have always been people who unable to see beauty and hope in something themselves, have been persuaded that it is acceptable to pour scorn on those that do. This seems to be inevitable, the nature of taste, of freedom and a society that can tolerate and make room for all. Ricky Gervais is not unusual in his humour, and it seems beyond question that he should be allowed to think such things and express them as freely as he wants. He isn't the issue. It is the 'sign of the times' that is the issue. In other ages and other times such views would be expressed with an awareness of their shamefulness, of an inkling of understanding of the lines that are being crossed. But when in history has such vulgarity been at the heart of acceptability and not its edge? When have the boundaries of humour been pushed so far away that it seems incomprehensible to understand where they will go? There are answers to that – but each sends a shiver down the spine. There have been societies of profound depravity when the utterly unacceptable becomes the normal, when the unimaginable becomes the common place. In such societies lines have not only been crossed but obliterated, and with all bets off and no holds barred, deeds have been done that will always shame the human race.<br /><br />Now an obscene coment on the BBC, even towards the end of a favourite programme such as 'Desert Island Discs', is not a sign of the total degradation of our society. I suspect that it is much more likely that BBC producer is actually out of step with the majority of people in Britain who would have paused and wondered that such a thing be said and perhaps felt a sadness at a loss of innocence. Few would bother to complain for the tide is against such sensitivities. Still – strange as it may seem I woke with a worry and am wondering why.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7169407657026869808.post-20275096560209736732009-11-08T20:10:00.001+00:002009-11-28T20:21:04.879+00:00Give Peace a Chance<div><br /><div>Remembrance Sunday this year was especially sharp, all the remembering of brave folk from years back, but I suppose like most people in the UK we were thinking of all those getting killed and badly wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. I've met quite a few members of the forces in my life and never met one who glorifies war. I have a huge respect for their professionalism and their courage, and often their wise view of what violence can and cannot do. I do wonder, however, if we are not all caught up in what is essentially a form of addictive behaviour? </div><div><br /></div><div>Addiction seems to be characterised as doing something that makes you feel better, but eventually contributes to you feeling worse. It is usually harmful to you in some way as well. So you drink alcohol to take away the painful feelings, but if over done the alcohol eventually makes you feel more pain. This cycle of behaviour can get out of hand, and it is very difficult to get out of it. The one thing you know you really must stop doing is the one thing that makes you feel better about the fact that you can't. So as human beings we eat too much, work too hard, take various drugs, and generally get ourselves in a muddle. </div><div><br /></div><div>Some would argue for 'cold turkey' as the only way out, give up the addiction straight away, but others for a more gradual approach. All would agree that a whole host of other issues need to be addressed as well. The triggers for such unhelpful behaviours, the habits and rituals that were involved, and above all how to achieve the good that was felt by that behaviour; the problem solved, the 'high' experienced. Giving up an addiction always involves loss I would imagine.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I'm wondering if violence and war aren't like that? Of course violence 'solves a problem' in the short and perhaps medium term. Dreadful injustices are addressed, cruel regimes overthrown, the weak defended. It is hard for any one, however pacifist, to not recognise that the Nazis needed stopping. But the violence itself, the act of War itself, the preparation for it, the resources used in it, the whole ritual and habit of violence, actually contributes to the problems it is called on to stop.</div><div><br /></div><div>Where were the seeds of the Second World War sown? In what ghastly soil did the evil of Nazism grow? And where was the violence that led to those seeds germinating and flourishing? A sorry tale, no doubt, that takes us back to Cain and Able and the mystery of the Fall itself. More somberly we may ask where are the wars of tomorrow being created, problems fermenting that will one day cry out for violence to solve them?</div><div><br /></div><div>Violence is constantly being presented as 'redemptive' to us, the inevitable and brave act to put right intolerable injustice and pain. We live within an unquestioning story in which good people must shoot bad people for good to triumph. But like a heroine addict shooting up the act that gives calm and peace is no more than the factor that will in hours time bring grief and sadness. It is also killing the addict. </div><div><br /></div><div>I believe Christians are called to live in a different story. It is a story in which love, not violence will cure the agonies of injustice. Some would say we should wean ourselves off violence or go 'cold turkey' and stop immediately. My grand father and my father were both Pacifists one in the First and Dad in the Second World Wars. I can't quite get my head around not fighting to stop the Nazis, and there have been other times since when violence seems to have solved a problem so terrible that it seemed reasonable to say, 'what else could we do?'. But what I do wonder is if all violence is not addictive and while it makes us feel better will always in the long term make things worse. </div><div><br /></div><div>I wonder indeed if we have to give peace a chance and challenge the 'Remembrance' culture of promoting the idea of redemptive violence. To challenge the preparing and making of war as a major contributer to the problems it claims to solve. To do so without questioning the nobility and courage of the armed forces and especially of those who have died and will die.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps we can look for the causes of the next war with as much energy as we revel in past victories: Injustice of land, water, climate change - of huge discrepancies of wealth, access to health and education and opportunity.</div><div><br /></div><div>There will no doubt be other wars in the future, evil people today flourishing in the neglected fields of injustice and ignorance. Should we just wait and wait for those foul seeds to grow into maturity and then be left with the no choice but the choice of the hopeless addict scrabbling for their 'kit' to shoot more death into their veins.</div><div><br /></div><div>So I'm wondering if we can act now to love and understand our enemy. To do good to those that have hurt us. To live in a different story, not of redemptive violence, but of a suffering God who redeems all through love. Perhaps we must pour into development issues the same ingenuity, energy, professionalism and resources that are absorbed into our tragic addiction to war. Perhaps, even if we don't go 'cold turkey', we may also have to endure the agony of withdrawal, or losing the 'good that violence does', knowing that if we do we will eventually get better as a human race. We may have to suffer the suffering of a recovering addict as we long and long for God's will to be done in God's way.</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15352667995988901824noreply@blogger.com1