A Life Reviewed

do it anyway.

2009-07-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

I really like this:

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

-this version is credited to Mother Teresa

seen here.

'Britain's biggest charity shop'

2009-06-22T03:04:00.000-07:00

Some while ago we noticed the existence of the Newlife Superstore - sometimes described as the biggest charity shop in Britain. I'd recently been discussing charity shops on twitter with @charityshops and others, so thought it was a good opportunity to check it out.

So we planned our attack. Despite Cannock being about 45 minutes away by car, we decided to take the eco option and go by train using the rather excellent Network West Midlands daysaver ticket.

Unfortunately it appears that so few people actually use these tickets, the station ticket office are not aware of them. Cue 10 mins of frustration at Tile Hill station. C'mon Centro, if you want people to buy the tickets, make sure the train companies know they exist!

Anyway, what with a change in Birmingham, the journey was almost doubled. Still, after a bit of a walk on arrival in Cannock we eventually arrived at the Newlife shop.

The layout is similar to TK Maxx - large numbers of rails of clothing with lots of people. Yes, really there were loads of people in a charity shop!

The main difference with any other charity shop is that Newlife accept products from brands because they're not wanted for whatever reason. This arrangement means that Newlife has to remove every label from every piece of clothing they sell. Believe me, that is a lot of labels.

There is clothing everywhere. There is no proper organisation of sizes and styles. When you add in the fact that the labels are removed (and hence it is very hard to tell sizes of things you're looking at), browsing for clothing becomes a major headache. And as a man, there is a small percentage of mens clothing, much mixed haphazardly with the womens. In the end I just gave up.

Good points:

Brave attempt at a different style of charity shop

Bad points:

Massive queues at changing rooms.
Inexplicable £3.50 charge to use the store
Clothing randomly mixed around the store
Lack of labels meaning finding anything is very difficult
Shortage of decent amount of mens clothing
Large number of Newlife websites mean that planning a visit is extremely difficult.

Politics Jesus of The - the theology of Yoda.

2009-06-15T05:20:00.000-07:00

I have been reading the amazing book 'The politics of Jesus' by John Howard Yoder (here from Amazon but other online bookshops are available).

I cannot state too strongly at the beginning - this is hard mental strain theology. The book is packed with clinical examination, careful criticism and referenced comments. Indeed, sometimes the pages are more than half full of footnotes which can be very offputting.

OK, that health warning out of the way, the theology is highly charged and dangerous. Yoder's central thesis is that too often the Church and Christianity has sought to minimise the social dimensions of Jesus' ministry in the gospels to the extent that we now are in a position of finding reasons to ignore his direct commands.

For a start, I found two points extremely well argued. First, the dichotomy of the biblical narrative in who actually owns and controls the world. Yoder argues that the essence of the 'right' way of things is divine even when the structures are not. So the notion of laws protecting the innocent are God-given, but the way they are used are not. Further, we constantly find ways to worship these broken structures rather than God who gave them. So for you and I, our faith is more likely to be in things like the NHS, our pensions, job security, social security, dole etc than God. These things are not necessarily bad, but they are not God.

Second, Yoder has some things to say about the stormy relationship many people have with the epistles. He argues that rather than attempting to correct and temper the impression given of the Christ in the gospels, the epistles are actually largely older than the written gospels. Hence the oldest writings are of the heavenly spiritual Christ and this is tempered by the memories of the human Jesus written in the gospels within people's memory.

Further, in an amazingly good point, Yoder demolishes the subsurvient and dominating attitude some derive from reading some of the epistles. Rather than being the 'natural order of things' for women to be under the men, for example, this is written to people who already know that there are no men or women or jew or greek in the body of Christ. Paul's argument then becomes one of encouraging those who now understand that they have self-determination to exercise it with humility, even to the extent of humble submission to men in order to win them over. I cannot equal the force of the argument, but Yoder argues that there would be no point in Paul stating that women, slaves etc were inferior because everything in the societies where they lived was literally screaming that this was so. The radical gospel was the one stating that they were actually equal, spiritual individuals who were empowered to make choices for themselves.

It strikes me that good talking points from this include:

1. In what way are we actually living in submission to the God we profess rather than other earthly structures - other than not at all?

2. If we truly believe that other people are worth as much as we are (and, by the way, isn't it interesting how we conveniently ignore the injunction to 'love each other as I have loved you') it is almost impossible for us to live as we do. For example we would oppose any immigration controls because our poor migrant brethren have as much right to the resources we take for granted as we do. The notion of a nation state would be entirely redundant.

The deserving poor and the undeserving rich

2009-06-01T02:49:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we were at a loose end so decided to visit a local National Trust property. For those who don't know, the National Trust is an obsession for the middle-aged middle-classes, and being one of the biggest and wealthiest landowners in the UK is responsible for the upkeep of a large number of historical buildings and large areas of British countryside.

Anyway, we visited one of our most local properties - Packwood House. The story in brief is that a wealthy bloke bought a house at the beginning of the twentieth century which had a debatable historical link to the civil war and his son with the improbable name Graham Baron Ash set about collecting artefacts with which to adorn said building. So it is a twentieth century reproduction of a Tudor building.

Soon after completing this, the building was donated to the nation via the National Trust. I'm not sure of the reason for the donation, but tax and death duty is very likely to come into it.

Meanwhile, I have been reading Sarah Wise's book The Blackest Streets which uncovers life in one of London's nastiest slums at the end of the nineteenth century. Lying in an area between some of the busiest roads, it was a dark network of paths - too narrow to even be described as roads - and appalling housing.

At the time, there was the idea floating around of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, the latter being thieves, drunkards and the lazy. This distinction was important, as the Victorian conscience demanded protection of the deserving from the weight of poverty. Uncovering a classic example of Orwellian double-think, Sarah Wise exposes the truth. Those charged with improving the health and sanitation of those who lived in the darkness were the same people who had least to gain from improvements because they were involved in the chain of house rents imposed on the residents. And, it turns out, those who ultimately owned the land were some of the nation's most wealthy individuals, literally acting as parasites on the poor. They claimed to be interested in the morality of the poor (which seemed to be largely about being publicly aghast about lax sexual behaviour, drunkenness etc, vices which are hardly exclusive to the poorest) whilst at the same time were those involved in creating the conditions which forced people to live in this squalor. These places were dens of vice and crime. But they were also places where people worked ridiculously hard to make ends meet, where people fought tooth and claw against the system which seemed to inevitably lead to a spiral of poverty leading to death in the workhouse. Indeed, at several points, those comfortable living members of the ruling classes sought to reduce the meagre social safety net payments to 'encourage the poor to work'.

So we have on one side the 'deserving rich' who are lauded for having saved a load of artefacts for the nation using some un-named source of wealth. On the other, we have the 'undeserving poor' who lived unbelievably bad lives making matchboxes and other poorly paid piecerate work whose lives amounted for so little that when the slums were cleared they were instantly forgotten and their names added to the mountain of bodies at the Somme.

Whilst the slums might have gone from London, the attitude remains. We are constantly bombarded by rich people finding ever more imaginative ways to throw pennies to the poor. We imagine that we are justified to live our lives of leisure and prosperity because 'we have worked hard for it and deserve it'. We try to convince ourselves that we should lead lives of 'positivity', patting ourselves on the back for doing things which in the final analysis amount to very little indeed.

The elephant in the room is that we are responsible for the structural sin that allows people like you and me to live lives of excess whilst other people have lives which amount to almost nothing. The theology of 'original sin' is unfashionable because people don't want to believe that people can be condemned before they've actually done anything.

But the truth is fairly easy to see. Most societies spiral into injustice whereby the few are supported by the poverty of the many. We live as we do because others live in poverty.

Unfortunately for us, justice eventually prevails. We're living on borrowed time.

church and politics

2009-05-12T01:52:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I was reading about how the majority of the Christian church capitulated in Germany as the Nazis took control. Ironic, perhaps, that we then sat in church on Sunday to hear the preacher praise the 'Christian' president.

Obama is clearly not Hitler. But still.

the heart

2009-05-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we ventured into a local Baptist church. I was quite different to anything that we've recently experienced - for a start, nobody spoke to us. At all. Which is OK because we didn't really want to have to explain ourselves for the nth time. Just unusual.

Anyway, in a long and rambling sermon, the preacher was talking about where in the body the bible speaks of things happening. For example, whilst we tend to imagine passions and emotions happening in the heart, the bible talks of them happening in the guts and the bowels. Which makes a bit of sense when you think about it, the guts being rather tense in stressful situations and so on.

In contrast, he was saying that the heart is the place where you will things. So you might believe things academically in your brain, you might feel things in your guts, but you are moved by the will of your heart. This is the deepest place of my being which moves me to the extent of affecting the rest of my life.

Which is an interesting reflection in an otherwise rather tedious service.

the sweetest words

2009-04-29T03:46:00.000-07:00

I have recently been learning a low-cost way to print t-shirts and have been really impressed with the results. As part of my learning, I decided to produce a range of t-shirt prints inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The bastard child of two world wars, the UDHR sits as a strange legal-but-not-legal philosophy of the United Nations. Widely flouted, widely ignored and unenforceable it might be, but it remains some of the most powerful words to come out of the twentieth century.

As an avowed secularist, I think we could do far worse than regularly consider the implications of the UDHR, perhaps encompassed by Article 1:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Despite what my society tries to tell me, there is no human rubbish. No trailer trash. No worthless pond scum. My worth is not measured in pounds sterling. The poorest person in Sierra Leone might not have a house, a car, enough food and the other innumerable things I take for granted, but he is worth the same as me. He is as much a person as I am. We are brethren, whether we recognise it or not.

More than that - nobody, NOBODY has a divine right to rule over others. Don't ask me to vote for you because of your religion or lack of it, because the answer will be no. Power corrupts, especially unearned power. Your title and position means nothing to me.

But in some ways, the clipped tones of the UDHR sound terribly unhelpful and ambitious. It is one thing to recognise that people have an inherent worth and rights which cannot be taken away from them, but it is another thing to know what to do with that information when a large percentage of the population of the world is deprived of those same rights.

We are tempted to focus on ourselves, our rights, our self worth. We are tempted to campaign vigorously (perhaps violently) when we perceive that they are taken away. Unfortunately the uncomfortable truth is that we do not need to assert these rights. On a world scale, we have no idea what is torture, or police brutality. To pretend that actions which the state does against our protests is in any way reminiscent of the abuses that go on elsewhere is entirely fallacious. For one thing, people recognise and complain in our country. Accidents and deaths which occur at the hands of officials are investigated by the media if nobody else. Even Guantanamo - which lies at the far end of acceptable behaviour of a free state - is not forgotten.

Please hear me - these things are not unimportant. We should take these things seriously, particularly when the actions by our state and institutions betray obvious inconsistencies and hypocrisies. But how much more seriously should we take the facts that in countries where police brutality really exists people just disappear? Where deaths are common, unremarkable, unreported and not investigated? Gandhiji said that we should be constantly considering the effect of our actions on the poorest person we knew. Unfortunately, I've met some very poor people who are unaffected by more than 90% of our campaigning, which has more to do with us than them.

Rather than constantly harping on about slights to our perception of our own human rights, we should be concerned far more with those who have nothing resembling rights. Instead of loudly complaining about our 'Freedom of Speech' we should be speaking up for those who are not able to complain.

Whilst these things were buzzing around in my head on the bike earlier, I couldn't help but also think of words from my own religious community. The Sermon on the Mount contains one of the most ignored parts of Christian scripture. Perhaps for some of the same reasons I've mentioned above - it seems so far-fetched and, in some ways, highly offensive.

Matthew 5:

1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them saying:
3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The poor are clearly not blessed - they're kicked around, treated as if they are worthless, ignored, vilified and treated as subhuman.

But wouldn't it be amazing if people actually lived as if they believed this. What kind of a world would it be when a group of people decided that the most holy, most valuable people were the smelliest, smallest, ignored, forgotten people on the planet? When they desired interaction with these people because they recognised that they were blessed and that some of the blessing might rub off on those whom the world considers to be worthy. That holiness is not to be measured by how many titles you have, how often you visit holy places, which special words you use - but simply by how you interact with 'the least of these'.

I think that is a really profound and beautiful idea.

crowds and the church

2009-04-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

Thinking some more about this stuff on the bike today.

We like to go to watch ice-hockey. We join in with the shouts and choruses, celebrate when we win and get moody when we don't.

But the difference between ice hockey and the church is that church isn't supposed to be a spectator sport. There are not supposed to be people who sit in the stands and enjoy the ride. We're all supposed to be in the team.

Maybe that is an unfair analogue. What do you think?

Quitting church

2009-04-06T02:41:00.000-07:00

Having avoided church for most of Lent, I returned yesterday for the Palm Sunday service.

The young people were involved in many aspects of the service. This is almost the only good thing to say about it.

The theme was contrasting Jesus' entry to Pilate's (with him portrayed as a mafia godfather) and then thinking about how we might see these as analogues in our own times.

Now, I have some problems with this and had to leave the building whilst I tried to wrestle with what they were.

First, I don't see any mention of Pilate behaving in this way. I might be missing something, but a service which is meant to be 'about the story' might do better to actually 'be about the story' rather than making up a load of other crap which you'd rather talk about. Please tell me if I have missed something about Pilate in the story which might relate to this service.

Second, and perhaps far more importantly, it totally misses the point of the story. To be fair, I discovered later that the version in John is quite different to that in the other gospels, but this was the version used in the service. In John the sequence is this: Lazarus is raised, Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey, the people go mad, a couple of people want to meet him, Jesus says some weird stuff and then tells the crowd he is going to die. The crowd get a bit annoyed saying that the messiah isn't allowed to leave and Jesus goes into hiding.

In the other gospels there is an exaggerated discussion of finding the donkey, Jesus does more teaching, turns over tables in the synagogue (which is much earlier in John) and that kind of thing.

Indeed, looking closer at the passage in more detail - I think all the gospels agree on this order: Mary (or someone else) pours expensive perfume over Jesus' feet. Judas thinks this is a waste of money but Jesus rebukes him. Jesus stands in the temple complaining about the way the authorities treat widows and then sees someone in poverty putting all that is left from her life savings into the pot. Jesus then talks about the unimportance of religious buildings. Then Jesus rides into the city on a donkey and the crowd goes celebrity-mad but soon after turn against him.

To me, this is about worship. The only thing that is praised is the waste of expensive perfume. The widow's mite is used as an example of abuse in the temple. Jesus has no truck with the crowd and punctures their overblown celebrations. Something there is saying that worship is precious, expensive, costly. Something is saying that it should not be used to pressurise the weak into doing stupid stuff. Something is saying that the flag-waving misunderstands the nature of the messiah.

So to then use this passage as an opportunity for flag-waving (literally) and suggesting that we should be on the crowd's side rather than Pilates is a step too far. Furthermore it is indicative of the 'me-worship' form of church whereby a bunch of people with comparatively few problems make out that Jesus is just out to make them feel better. No, actually.

the Islamic mirror

2009-04-03T01:20:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I am blown away by a library book. This week I randomly picked up a book with a bright yellow cover which looks a little like the kind of trashy cheap fiction I often read.

In spidery letters the title reads "Desperately Seeking Paradise" and underneath in bold cartoon capitals "ZIAUDDIN SARDAR".

Little did I know what was in store. Rather than cheap fiction, this book is the story of Ziauddin Sardar's seeking after the truth. Unsatisfied with the diet of theology and practice he is served at home, Zia journeys after various movements looking for something more in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and more. Frequently he hears Muslims desiring the instillation of Shariah law in their country/culture yet he is convinced that most aspects of Shariah as practiced in modern times have more to do with cultural norms in the Middle Ages (when many of them became accepted as norms for the religion) than Islam and the Koran.

I obviously am not qualified to make any statements about the theology or philosophy of Islam. But what I can say is this: the whole thing sounds scarily familiar.

Many of the philosophical strands I recognise in Christianity. Many of the attitudes expressed about other members of the religion (who might believe something slightly different) are the same. There is the same pressure from people who believe there is a 'correct' form of practice. There is the same malignant, cancerous form of thinking that suggests deviation from the norm is blasphemous and that deep thinking and reason are in opposition to belief.

Even more scarily, some of the language used is exactly the same. Muslims speak of the worldwide community being a body. Many discuss how to develop 'Islamic' science curricula.

And perhaps most strikingly, the Koran teaches that there is no need for a human intermediary between man and God - which is one of the key aspects of Reformation thinking. Yet each Islamic community has its own hierarchy of Mullah, Ayatollahs, scholars, judges - just as Christian communities have bishops, priests, pastors etc.

What is boils down to is that our practices and idiosyncrasies are not so different. In a bizarre form of co-evolution of thought, we've walked down the same theological roads in apparent isolation and developed the same stupid attitudes.

It seems that whilst there are important differences in our baseline religious beliefs, it is hard to see the wood for the trees due to the huge amount of added baggage we've added over hundreds of years. Apologies for the mixed metaphor there.

have blog, need money

2009-03-16T06:10:00.001-07:00

Suddenly need some money to do something. My skills include blogging, twitter, css and html writing, basic php, wordpress etc.

Or in English, I can make and maintain a blog, write a website etc.

relationship with God

2009-03-09T05:03:00.000-07:00

I was having a discussion on Saturday about the phrase 'the most important thing in my life is my relationship with God' and why I am unsure that it is really very helpful. It is a hard thing to talk about given that my worldview is coloured by a particular background - but generally I hold to most parts of my fairly orthodox evangelical Christian theology (so cannot really be described as a liberal). My issue is mostly that we've missed the point with church.

We have made the issue all about Jesus and Me - but mostly about me. I am continually and increasingly concerned how little we actually believe the gospels actually apply to us. I see no indication that this syrupy emotional stuff is desirable for the Christ-follower in the gospels. Indeed, when Jesus meets those we reject (those with doubts, the sick, the unworthy, the prostitute, the smelly) he exhibits generosity yet when he meets people who are more like us (ie members of the religious aristocracy) he is particularly harsh. Rather than encouraging people like us, he points the finger, calls names, says we're shallow, without faith, hypocrites and like snakes.

Of course, there are times when everyone is feeling particularly broken and needs to know the warmth of a loving God. Indeed, there are some who have missed out on much in this life and really really need a touch of grace.

But we really need to get over the implication that God is Michael Jackson and is primarily interested in our adulation and syrupy indulgences. The Christian is not to mouth the Lord's Prayer but live it. Each day I should be asking whether I am for the Kingdom of justice and peace or against it. Each day I should be asking for forgiveness of those around me as I have been forgiven and blessed. If I claim to 'love the Lord' I should be living the things he said: reaching out to those in prison, healing the sick, visiting the helpless. If I am not doing those things, I should not claim to have anything to do with him.

God is not primarily interested in your emotional wellbeing. Get over yourself.

should I come or should I go?

2009-02-23T02:39:00.000-08:00

Not sure whether to give up. It has been fun, though tiring. But we've not much left.

God's bus advert

2009-02-02T03:28:00.000-08:00

Manure and diamonds

2009-02-02T02:40:00.000-08:00

Too often church appears to me to be about wading through the manure looking for diamonds. And finding there is a large amount of manure and not many diamonds.

Yet it is good to find diamonds. Yesterday about the only person at the church who makes me want to stay admitted he was struggling with prayer. What he actually said was that he wasn't convinced of the value of prayer, but continued anyway. I was a humbled by someone who could admit something so apparently fundamental yet also felt he would continue fighting to keep doing it.

Later we had a fun conversation with someone who works as the city archivist - it was really funny to see the sparkle in his eye as he told us some details of some long-forgotten local fact. I'm really attracted to people of passion.

And I guess this is the root of my problem with church (and Church in general) - often the people are nice, warm, well meaning and generous. They are sometimes also passionate. But we seem to inhabit a space where the creativity is beaten out of them, where radical ideas are superseded by limp acceptance of ever more worship services.

Church just isn't supposed to be like this.

TV tears

2009-01-18T12:14:00.000-08:00

British TV show Secret Millionaire takes some of the country's richest people and puts them to work, volunteering in some of the toughest places. The idea is that they get to meet some of the people working against the odds in their community and at the end of their stay decide who they will financially support.

It is a bit artificial - how often do mystery men appear with a camera crew for a week and take an interest in people doing unnoticed voluntary work? On the other hand, the people they meet are gut wrenching.

In the episode I saw, middle-aged property tycoon 'why travel by bus - it is such a waste of time' David Pearl spent some time around a hospital in Portsmouth.

One particularly memorable character he met was a lady volunteering to help patients who were having difficulty eating. It turned out that the lady had been in hospital and realised that some of the patients could not eat their food and the nurses did not have time to help. So she got special permission to help. When David later spent some time at home with the lady, it turned out that she was in permanent pain. He could not understand why someone would do that for others, particularly when they had serious illnesses themselves.

When given some money to go on holiday, the remarkable lady burst into tears and said 'I didn't do it for the money'. It was impossible not to cry.

Later, a small disabled lady who was the heart-and-soul of the Macmillan centre was given a some money for a honeymoon and had to be told not to give it away but spend it on herself.

Perhaps not surprisingly the volunteers know much more about life than the millionaires.

Why I am not celebrating Christmas

2008-12-17T01:57:00.000-08:00

In Gaza, they're eating grass.

In Sudan, thousands are being enslaved.

In Zimbabwe thousands have contracted cholera.

There is no peace on earth. There is nothing worth celebrating in an orgy of overeating and spending.

too much blogging

2008-12-12T01:57:00.000-08:00

I now blog in lots of places.

freedomclothing.posterous.com is our main work blog

freedomclothing.tumblr.com is our tumbleblog on recycled fashion. I tend to throw things up there without too much thought.

twitter.com/freedomclothing is our twit

This is our facebook page for the v-vamp competition

I also still get involved at www.justiceandcompassion.com when I can think of something sensible to say and the timesonline environmental blog when I haven't.

Just in case anyone was wondering why this blog is being neglected...

Blog Comment Day

2008-12-03T00:21:00.000-08:00

As part of John Smulo's Blog Comment Day I have left comments on:

ABC's Campus Chatter

Dustin Curtis' interesting post about success and worthiness

The Shakhammer blog about secret rooms

I also commented on a post about making maps (awaiting moderation)

And finally about Safespace's exciting news

Here endeth today's blog commenting. 4 new blogs, one old friend.

[I am not convinced about having a 'blog commenting day' but there we are. A minor detail.]

weird food

2008-11-20T01:02:00.000-08:00

Food is the latest weapon children use against each other. Not in terms of food fights, but my daughter is laughed at for having 'weird' food. Her lunchbox contains home-baked cakes (containing raisins, arrrggghhhh), vegetable soups, crisps that are not Walkers, apples that are not red. Still, thank heaven for small mercies, they've not noticed the areas where she really is weird ;)

Have we not reached a turning point in society when dried fruit is weird?

Anyway, I rushed around this morning cooking cakes ready before school and just about made it. I wish I was more organised.

least favourite

2008-11-19T06:56:00.000-08:00

What is your least favourite aspect of your job? Mine is validating html pages, followed closely by doing paperwork.

2008-11-06T06:33:00.001-08:00

Does anyone else feel like they missed something earlier in their lives which meant that they ended up somewhere they weren't supposed to be?

Terry Pratchett has a good turn of phrase - the trousers of time opened up due to a problem in the space-time continuum, and I fell down the wrong leg.

don't vote

2008-11-02T08:05:00.000-08:00

Or if you do, don't let condescending hollywood actors decide for you.

hard talk

2008-10-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

I have been increasingly uncomfortable in church over the last years, and particularly in the last few months. My discomfort is generally that church seems to have become an exercise in spiritual-sounding personal development, whereby the primary motivation is to know God because he will make me feel better. Like a drug, we continue to be addicted to what we like about church because it meets our needs for a spiritual rush. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth.

A couple of bloggers I know are also struggling with this, including John Smulo, who concludes that the problem is that church is all about Sundays and Mark Berry who suggests it is because of an emphasis on Worship over Mission. Both are worth looking at if you want to think about this issue further.

Personally, I think the issue (tangentially linked to both John and Mark's blogs) is that we are all engaged in Me Worship rather than the Worship of Christ as Saviour. Because if we actually loved the Christ in the way we profess in a thousand soppy songs in church, we would follow his commands with at least the passion we belt these things out. Worship of Christ is not primarily about standing in church and saying (and/or doing) the right things. It is in following his commands. Like visiting the prisoner and selling our house and giving the money to the poor. How many people do you know who actually do that?

Yes, we often do need to know that God loves us. Yes, we often do have self-image problems and no these things are not bad in themselves. But we have screw the message big time. Christianity is emphatically not about what we normally talk about in church. Church is not about feeling great and thinking of ever more elaborate ways to get other people to have the same feelings. If you don't believe me, try reading a gospel and noting the words of Christ as if he is actually talking to you.

In our particular church, we have a very old building and a major financial issue. Which is not a great mixture when your focus is almost entirely around services (we have 10 a week with 10 distinct congregations). Without going into great detail, the financial issue is not going to go away and is exacerbated by the fact that most people do not want to throw their own money to the bottomless pit which is the building fund. Perfectly understandably. I don't either.

I am attempting to spread the idea that this is actually an opportunity to be more engaged in our community. If we believed that we had to raise significant sums, we would be forced to consider how we might (ethically and sensibly) attempt to raise money by offering worthwhile services to our community. Or we might just prove to ourselves that we cannot afford to pay for our building and take steps to leave it in trust to the national heritage (or something else which doesn't involve us throwing significant sums of money at it).

The reaction is generally positive, so I am encouraged that things will change.

without hot air

2008-10-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

David MacKay, a Professor in the Cambridge University Physics department has released a new e-book. I would really recommend anyone who is interested in the environment, global warming or energy sustainability to go to http://www.withouthotair.com/, download the full book of 'Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air' and get reading.

Please do not let the author's title put you off, the book is very reasonable and good to read by non-Physicists.

Some highlights for me were:

1. Proof that lots of small actions do not add up to one large action. MacKay measured the energy use of a mobile phone charger plugged in when it was not on. The energy usage was barely measurable and was lower than the amount of energy wasted as heat as the phone is actually charging. If one focussed on this as a 'green action' one would be affecting less than 0.1% of our personal energy use. Even if everyone in the country did this 'small action' the net effect would be negligible.

2. The fact that we are in a total mess over energy policy. Even if we were to pave the nation with solar panels, stick wind turbines in the sea in an area twice the size of Wales and use all our land area to grow energy crops, that is not going to meet the demand. Sadly, renewables are not going to power our country any time soon.

This is an important issue for us greenies. We protest about nuclear power (a campaign which I support) and incineration (which I support), worry about wind turbines (which I don't) and tidal barriers (which I'm not sure about), complain about energy crops (which I can see might be an issue where they to become widespread, but I think that is unlikely) and protest new fossil fuel power stations (another cause I support). But we don't have a good alternative explanation of where we are going to get energy from.

I am currently writing a comment piece about global fashion. In doing research, I found out that some Sub-Saharan African countries are importing vast volumes of Second-hand European clothing. For some, it represents over 80% of all imports. In Ghana, 60% of all clothing sales are in Second-hand clothing.

Now, to me, this is an unethical trade - something our sorry excuse for a society has created by deciding certain people are only fit for our hand-me-downs. On the other hand, we're not going to be able to stop the trade without major changes in the global fashion industry and in the way we think of clothing when we want to stop wearing it. Also, millions of very poor people depend on it. There is no point in complaining about this trade without a) finding a better use for the clothing and b) thinking about the poor people who would be affected if it suddenly stopped. It would be interesting to snap my fingers and stop it. It would be good if we hadn't got to this position. But I cannot will it away.

In the same way, I cannot pretend the energy problem is easily solved by willpower.

Again, I recommend all readers of this blog to download the book and read it for themselves even if it only provokes questions and further thought on the issues.

nooooooooo

2008-09-26T06:07:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd heard this before.

Bankrupcy and the Millennium Development Goals

2008-09-26T01:52:00.000-07:00

Question: How much is the proposed bail-out by the US government worth and how much has yet to be found to pay for the Millennium Development Goals?

Answer: $700 billion and $25 billion respectively. That's right folks, we need 28 times more money to fix the banking system than to stop 20,000 children dying needlessly every day. And guess which is easier to find. Morally Bankrupt is not too strong a term.

h/t One Hand Clapping

Distributism

2008-09-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

Maybe this is the solution to the credit crunch woes.

Post modernism

2008-09-25T01:54:00.000-07:00

I have been frustrated for a while and wondering why so many things seem to start and then give up before seeing the thing through. I suspect as Julie Clawson says, it is because we're all far too post-modern for our own good, and travelling is more important than reaching a destination.

church

2008-09-22T02:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the best church experience I've had for years.

On Saturday I met up with a group from Servants to hear about their plans for work in Southwark, London. It was a good day, I really appreciated having the opportunity to meet up with them. In the process, I met our friends' son. He is having a difficult time at the moment. Anyway, I found out that he enjoyed juggling, so on Sunday I brought my clubs to church thinking that maybe we could do some practising together.

Anyway, as we arrived, it turned out that there had been some conflict in our friend's house that morning so the son wasn't coming to church. So I asked if I could go and juggle with him at home.

Which I did. I avoided church altogether, spent half an hour juggling and half an hour walking through the Coventry suburbs in silence. And the world felt good for a few minutes.

the economics of Apartheid

2008-09-16T02:46:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting things I was reading in Naomi Klein's book Shock Doctrine was about South Africa. One of the main drivers for the anti-Apartheid movement was the massive inequalities that existed within the country, so that a small white elite lived like white Europeans whilst the blacks and coloureds lived as poor Africans in the townships.

Today, despite the routing of Apartheid, the inequalities are even greater. The rich have got richer and the poor have got even poorer.

But what struck me was that the radicalising effect of the inequality. The blacks did not just want a vote, they wanted a more equal society. How much more should be be radicalised with the knowledge that we live in a global Apartheid?

kettle

2008-09-10T02:35:00.000-07:00

Some while ago we added a broken kettle to our litany of broken consumer goods (which now lists fridge-freezer, washing machine, microwave and several kettles).

Having researched the most environmentally sound replacement (obviously), we finally chose one from Amazon. We have now had two 'new' kettles from Amazon which we had to send back - one was missing a part and the other didn't work at all.

I'm not sure if this is symptomatic of Amazon or the manufacturer, but surely says something.

kiekegaard does it again

2008-09-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

How about this for a powerful quote:

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?
Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."

alpha posters

2008-09-08T01:44:00.000-07:00

In church yesterday there was a little presentation table with the latest selection of posters for the Alpha course. The poster says "What am I doing here?" and underneath is asks "If God did exist, what would you ask?"

The former is a question I frequently ask in church. If God exists, I guess I ought to be asking why he lets it all continue.

10 reasons why having a vasectomy is better than the visiting the dentist

2008-09-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

1. Treatment for a vasectomy is free on the NHS.

2. You get a free cup of tea after a vasectomy.

3. You have to visit the dentist and have it all done again in six months.

4. When the dentist says 'this might hurt', it really hurts.

5. Your jaw doesn't ache after a vasectomy.

6. Your wife is impressed after you visit the doctor, and a little annoyed when you need to have more treatment at the dentist.

7. At the dentist, you get bored of looking at his/her face. At the doctor, you can pretend you are doing something else entirely.

8. Your daughter doesn't ask to 'see the work' after a visit to the doctor.

9. You have no previous experiences to make you scared at the doctor.

10. There really is nothing more disgusting than having that little vacuum cleaner in your mouth. Nothing.

[By the way, I know it is nothing compared to childbirth. Just in case you were wondering]

Vasectomy

2008-09-05T03:42:00.000-07:00

Guess what I've been doing today.

Sarah Palin

2008-09-03T03:15:00.000-07:00

What I'd like to know is what any seventeen year old did to deserve a mother like that. If it was me, I'd elope somewhere out of the public eye. Fast. But YMMV.

By the way, I still don't care about the US elections.

[edit] Actually, maybe she was really bad in a past life and was reincarnated as the pregnant daughter of a Republican

Non co-operation

2008-09-02T01:16:00.000-07:00

In what cause would you refuse to co-operate with your government even if it led to a fine or imprisonment?

What criteria are you using to come to a decision?

Gandhiji the failure

2008-08-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was reading another biography of Gandhi for the last week. Two things really stood out - Gandhi's ethics were malleable. You could, actually, change his mind with a decent argument. Whilst on the one hand he would do almost anything to defend the Truth (as he saw it), he was not too proud to admit he'd got some stuff wrong and to publicly change his mind. Whilst at times he had become almost a dictator to whom every other Congress leader deferred to, he would go with the consensus, even if he totally disagreed with it. When the Congress leaders (whom he knew extremely well, had been imprisoned with, etc) eventually took power, he criticised the governments inactions.

Secondly, Gandhi seemed to transcend politics. At times, he held the population in the palm of his hand and managed to influence millions with little more than the threat to stop eating. At others, particularly at the end of his life when the partition of British India into India and Pakistan led to horrific violence, he felt that all he had worked for was lost and that he was a complete failure. He was never quite able to persuade enough people to live up to the ideals he believed they were capable of.

weird mentality

2008-08-22T08:25:00.001-07:00

It seems we often want to read books, go to talks, write blogs etc about doing things - as opposed to actually doing anything (and sometimes are very aggressive about not actually doing anything except attending or reading or blogging or whatever). How did we get into this mentality?

Repent

2008-08-19T01:05:00.000-07:00

I have to confess that I failed miserably at an Olympic boycott. The reason was that we spent a week in Germany where H was at an academic conference. As she was engaged in important work late into the evening (networking, eating, etc), I spent a lot of late evenings on my own whilst my daughter slept.

With not much else to do, I ended up getting a bit hooked on the Olympics (diving and gymnastics of all things). So, I'm sorry. I shall be more careful about making claims like that again.

too educated for hierarchical structures?

2008-07-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

I wonder if there is a progression of believing depending on how educated you and your culture is. Ancient cultures often have very well defined hierarchical structures which dominate life. It is said that children develop best in a well structured environment.

So I wonder if my dissatisfaction with institutional religion is a combination of being taught (and strong belief) in democracy and the importance of self-thought and self-action and living in a culture where the usefulness of most hierarchical structures have been demolished. Does that even make any sense?

In most periods of history, presumably democracy would not have been much use as most people would not have known how to exercise their rights. Maybe there is no point in telling a woman she has the right to make her own life choices when her only experience is within a rigid hierarchical society where she has few apparent choices to make.

As we're educated, we appreciate how many other options there are and how many other things we could be doing. With reference to religion, I don't really want to be told how to behave or how to think - presumably as I've been taught to argue and consider the merits of a case rather than accept someone's word for it.

OK, I'm boring myself now.

£3 an hour

2008-07-29T01:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a very unnerving experience of meeting some women who said that they legally get paid around £3 per hour - bearing in mind that the national minimum wage is £5.52.

I've not yet decided what to do with this information except feel ashamed that we live in a country where some of the poorest people are paid a fraction of the national minimum wage.

the beginning of the end for google

2008-07-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

it is called cuil

Read it and weap, google.

losing faith

2008-07-22T14:19:00.000-07:00

What happens when an Anglican Priest literally loses faith and asks the authorities to take away his license?

Is this a candidate for the most honest post seen this year?

the beatitude creed

2008-07-17T04:30:00.000-07:00

A good thought from scott over on The Crowded Handbasket, a new blog about being at the edges of faith.

How about this for a novel creed:

I believe that the poor in spirit will inherit the kingdom of Heaven.
I believe there will be comfort for those who mourn.
I believe that being meek is a good thing and that those who give everything will inherit the earth.
I believe that those whose heart is set on seeking righteousness will find it.
I believe the merciful will receive more than they think they deserve.
I believe the pure in heart will be blessed and will see God.
I believe that those who long for peace and do more than others think is safe are children of the living God.
I believe in a place of safety for those who are hurt for trying to do the right thing.

I believe that being poor, and ignored and weak, and sick and tired and broken and messed up and kicked around is not as spiritually dangerous as being self-satisfied and clever and well-clothed and well-fed and degreed and creed-ed and important.

New Creeds

2008-07-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

Imagine we could wash away all our existing Christian creeds, where would you start constructing a new one?

Broken consumer goods

2008-07-16T03:09:00.000-07:00

To add to our collection of broken consumer goods, our kettle has stopped working. It is Morphy Richards brand and we have had it for about 4 years.

Our washing machine has stood in the kitchen unused for several months. It is probably the oldest consumer product we have - and was bought soon after we were married in the summer of 2000.

And of course, a while back we had a disastrous short relationship with a fridge-freezer.

Boycotting Olympics

2008-07-15T01:34:00.000-07:00

It is now only 28 days until the start of the Beijing Olympic Games.

Whilst I am not a great sports enthusiast and we have not had a TV for many years, it is hard not to get caught up in this feast of sport. And of course, there is nothing wrong with that.

With only a month to go, the campaign to boycott the games gathers pace. Reporters Sans Frontieres says

Around 30 journalists and 50 Internet users are currently detained in China. Some of them since the 1980s. The government blocks access to thousands for news websites. It jams the Chinese, Tibetan and Uyghur-language programmes of 10 international radio stations. After focusing on websites and chat forums, the authorities are now concentrating on blogs and video-sharing sites. China’s blog services incorporate all the filters that block keywords considered “subversive” by the censors. The law severely punishes “divulging state secrets,” “subversion” and “defamation” - charges that are regularly used to silence the most outspoken critics. Although the rules for foreign journalists have been relaxed, it is still impossible for the international media to employ Chinese journalists or to move about freely in Tibet and Xinjiang.

The Chinese authorities promised the IOC and international community concrete improvements in human rights in order to win the 2008 Olympics for Beijing. But they changed their tone after getting what they wanted. For example, then deputy Prime Minister Li Lanqing said, four days after the IOC vote in 2001, that “China’s Olympic victory” should encourage the country to maintain its “healthy life” by combatting such problems as the Falungong spiritual movement, which had “stirred up violent crime.” Several thousands of Falungong followers have been jailed since the movement was banned and at least 100 have died in detention.

I think China is a despotic and disgusting regime which should be boycotted. I pledge to switch off (and/or not read) any media outlet about the Olympic Games for the duration. With holidays and a full timetable of test matches, that shouldn't be too difficult.

Bishops

2008-07-07T04:47:00.000-07:00

I wonder which Anglican group I should fall into when I say that I don't think women should be bishops - because I don't believe bishops serve any useful function.

Isn't a bit ridiculous when the management of a Christian church is the main headline in the news?

Homeless

2008-07-05T02:02:00.000-07:00

As has been kindly pointed out in a recent comment the problem is that I'm Not An Anglican.

Which is fine and no real surprise. I wonder a) what I am and b) what I am supposed to do with that knowledge given that I don't fit anywhere else either.

I know it is a very cheesy thing to say, but I wonder if Jesus, John the Baptist or Francis of Assisi would have fitted within any of our modern expressions of Church either. I wonder how people like Chesterton, CS Lewis and Dostoevsky managed when they were free-thinkers and seemed to stand against Church for The Sake of It.

I wonder what we'd do if someone like Kirekegaard turned up. Anyway, maybe it doesn't really matter and maybe I don't really care.

I might turn up at church and stay for coffee, but don't expect me to get involved in any way.

Card Games

2008-07-04T03:28:00.000-07:00

We quite regularly play a card game, which we call Racing Demons. The rules are a bit complicated to explain, but basically it is like playing patience with other players. Each person has their own pack of cards and you build upon suits that the other people are playing.

Anyway. I was interested to see that the game has various names and variations on the rules we normally play. It would be interesting to do some research on card games and how variations on rules have arisen in families.

Is it time we Got Over Google?

2008-07-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

As someone who uses the internet Far Too Much, the smiley cheerful way that Google is taking over my life is starting to really get to me. Most of my day is spent on the Google Search Engine, many of my friends use Gmail addresses, and of course there are a load of other handy Google branded gadgets you can hang your life upon.

Whilst it is now fashionable to hate Microsoft and many people are now experimenting with Linux-based operating systems, we seem to have welcomed the monster that is Google into our lives without much complaint.

Why is that? Well for a start, google is free. At least it is free for those of us who don't try to advertise with google. The competition is so great that this has forced the prices sky-high. Second, Google is easy to use and addictive. It doesn't normally go wrong.

On the other hand, Google must single-handedly hold more sensitive data on more people than any other corporation in the world. Forget closed-circuit TV, if government really wanted to spy on us they'd just ask Google for our details. Something that already happened in China - albeit with yesterday's internet giant Yahoo.

And as a very basic principle, I believe in Small is Beautiful. Google is big, ergo it is not beautiful. Maybe it is time more people rebelled against Google and the other corporations that are taking over our online lives *cough* myspacefacebookwordpress *cough*

Maybe the future is ours. Maybe we can actually make a difference - if we focus on the small and the non-profit. Maybe we need to reorganise our lives around alternative search engines, non profits and the tiny competitors of Google. Maybe it isn't actually that difficult if we really try.

Meanwhile, I've got to get back to promoting and optimising our websites for all those Google visitors.

Broadband Internet - human right?

2008-06-27T04:53:00.001-07:00

Is it, dear reader, a basic human right for all Americans to have broadband internet access?

Anglican google ad

2008-06-26T04:35:00.000-07:00

Positive Impacts

2008-06-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

Our new website, Positive Impacts, complete with a new blog has just gone live and we've been working on improving our main site.

All-change

2008-06-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Some staples we've not eaten very much of recently:

Bananas
Oranges
Soya mince
Rice
Squash
Tea

Some staples we've eaten a lot:

Potatoes
Dairy products, particularly cheese yoghurt and milk
Carrots
Cabbage
Frozen blackberries/blackcurrants/redcurrants
Pastry
Vegetable soups

Some things we're not doing so much:

Driving (less than once a week now)
Drinking Coffee
Eating red meat
Using the washing machine (ours is still bust)

Some things we're doing a lot more:
Walking
Catching the bus
Cycling
Hand washing clothing

Smug

2008-06-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

I must confess a slight smugness this evening. Let me ask forgiveness in advance - I'm not totally sure my position really helps anyone.

My position is this: having been involved in various Anglican churches in the evangelical end of the spectrum, I have experienced quite a few types of church and types of Anglican. I have believed for a long time that the church is destined for division (and then further subdivision) and that this is not necessarily a bad thing. We have very little in common it seems to me, and some of us have more in common with groups outside of the church than with those inside, which seems to me to be rather ridiculous.

I find problems with all the subgroups I am aware of:

Evangelicals are too abrasive.

Charismatics are on a different planet

Middle of the Road Anglicans are just dull (and neither hot nor cold about anything beyond the church fete).

I don't know much about High Church Anglicans but have no inclination to find out anything more about them.

I have problems with the church structures, church governance, church expectations, church choirs, the priesthood, 'worship leaders' of all kinds, parading, stained glass windows, high altars, buildings, flower rotas, biblical illiteracy, over-intellectualisation (and its converse, the prevention of 'thinking' at all costs), clothing, service times, dullness, groovy-ness, Christmas, the church calendar, and a load of other things I can't so easily trot off the top of my head. In short, about the only reason I attend an Anglican church is that I have a certain affinity to written liturgy (which wears off quite regularly) and generally have some connection with the middle-class professors, company directors and teachers we meet there.

Also I've been elsewhere, and whilst other churches cannot boast such a variety of things to really hate, they are still hugely irritating. I'm not convinced any of us are really very close to the Way of Christ we claim to profess, and on the whole churches are part of the problem not the solution.

Back to smugness. I confess it makes me smile to observe the hypocrisy. I think Archbishop Akinola and his friends claiming to be more biblicalthan his opponents is hilarious. Without even starting on the issue of homosexuality: a man with a religious title, wearing silly hats, religious clothing, attending a conference in a religious spot with other pointed-hat-wearing-religious leaders claims to have be more in tune with Jesus the carpenters' son than another bunch of pointed-hat-wearing-religious-leaders elsewhere. Give me a break.

And for those on the Charismatic wing of the Anglican church to make out they are part of some great move of the Spirit and/or revival when they're actually hypnotised by a pumped-up liar/cheat/psychopath (I can't decide which) is hilarious.

Can I logically disown all of them? By distancing myself from one group, am I not automatically putting myself into another.

Or take the homosexuality debate: I don't think homosexuals should be ordained.

For the simple reason that I don't believe anyone should be ordained. I don't believe in the priesthood.

OK, for the record, I will record my position: morally, I hold conservative sexual ethics. I think sexual intimacy is for one partner of the other gender. Other forms of sexual contact are destructive, and therefore in my opinion are sinful. I'm sorry if that offends you, but that is my morality and I'm sticking with it at the moment.

However, I would support Gay Marriage (or whatever participants wanted to call it). I can see that society is made up of people who want to do all kinds of things that I find offensive, and two people choosing to formalise their loving relationship seems to me to be a Good Thing for society. In the same way, I might not like the lifestyle or precepts of Hinduism (random example), but I think that society should recognise a Hindu marriage where participants have chosen that relationship freely. Of course, there are problems with taking this position further (for example, what happens if someone wants to marry a bunch of people), but I don't see that we are talking about the complicated ethics regarding these other relationships when talking about two people of the same gender entering a voluntary committed relationship. There is is ample evidence that bigamous relationship are abusive, coercive and/or destructive for society over and beyond monogamous homosexual relationships (for which I am not aware of any evidence of wider destructive influence on society).

I don't particularly want to see those relationships formalised in a church of which I am a member, but I do not have any right to veto what other people do in other churches or religious buildings. I'm not totally convinced of the value of weddings anyway.

So there it is. Plenty of things for anyone to aim attacks at me.

brown sauce

2008-06-17T02:11:00.000-07:00

How about that for a serving suggestion - a bacon buttie sans brown sauce

fear

2008-06-13T02:00:00.000-07:00

I was thinking the other day what it would be like to have another child. Eight years ago, the prospect of the birth of my daughter was a major fear. It was really scary.

Today, I have conquered that fear. I'm not scared by the idea of having another child. Bringing up our daughter has been annoying, tiring, headache-inducing, boring - but mostly it has been fun, liberating, funny, educational and good. She turned our world upside-down, and we discovered it was better that way up.

We're soon to be having a party. An animal-fancy-dress party. I'm going to be a stick insect. She has it all planned out.

That's my girl.

*proud beam*

10 reasons why Ubuntu is better than Windows

2008-06-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

1. You can't make a coffee in the time it takes to boot Ubuntu.

2. Newer versions of Ubuntu are better than the previous version, unlike Windows.

3. Ubuntu rarely crashes, unlike Windows.

4. There are many thousands of viruses affecting Windows. There are only a few dozen affecting Linux. Hence whereas a virus scan for a computer running Windows might take 45 minutes, a linux version of the same virus scanner takes 5 minutes.

5. When you have a problem with Windows, it takes hours of frustration and you can rarely fix it yourself. When you have a problem with Ubuntu, it takes hours of frustration but you can find a fix or someone who knows how to fix it.

6. An Ubuntu user is inevitably learning about how his computer works. A Windows user is waiting for his computer to go wrong.

7. Old versions of Ubuntu are still supported.

8. Bill Gates has nothing to do with Ubuntu.

9. You don't get that annoying Word paperclip in Ubunutu.

10. It is simple to remove any application you don't need in Ubuntu and to find more that you do.

And of course, it is free. Bargain.

Hardy Heron

2008-06-09T05:59:00.000-07:00

My linux box just updated itself to Ubuntu 8.04, codenamed Hardy Heron.

For those who are not in the know, this means that we have a desktop computer which is not running Microsoft Windows, but an alternative Operating System known as Ubuntu which works using Linux.

And boy, does it work. Bearing in mind that I'm not a computer geek, this thing is really good - an outstanding example of co-operation in all senses of the word. You've no need to use microsoft ever again. Really, I mean that.

Caroline Lucas, MEP

2008-06-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

I just received this email (another in the series I wrote to 'green celebrities' regarding the climate change conversation).

Dear Joe,

Thank you for your email about the stark and difficult decisions that need to be made with regard to climate change. Caroline has asked me to respond on her behalf and please excuse the delay in doing.

The Green Party strongly agrees that there is a moral imperative to act to tackle climate change. Caroline works closely with organisations such as Christian Aid and War on Want to highlight that this not just an environmental crisis we face but also a social one – and one that will impact on the poorest people first, and worst.

Her approach is very much focused on the idea that individuals need to take action to reduce their own impact but that the greater need is for government to put in place a legislative framework that will enable the kind of personal and consumer decision making that is necessary. So, for example, she argues that pricing of transport should facilitate the promotion of sustainable options. The Green Party also advocate a carbon ration – an allowance that each individual can spend as they choose each year but which cannot be exceeded. The ration could be traded and, as evidence suggests that those on lower incomes tend to be more carbon efficient they could chose to gain financially for their behaviour. The crucial element of such a scheme is that although the wealthiest people could afford to buy the right to emit carbon this would have a cap. The Green Party also supports a related scheme that would work on a global level, called contraction and convergence. This too has a strong social element and seeks to impose an overall cap on emissions per capita.

As you note, failure to curb greenhouse gas emissions will probably lead to any number of nightmare scenarios unfolding across the globe. Caroline would argue that the current rise in food and oil prices is an early manifestation of the kind of social breakdown that occurs when the global population lives beyond its environmental capacity. In 2006 she wrote to government and the EU to enquire what measures were in place to plan for peak oil – the point at which demand outstrips the possibility of supply – and resulting high oil prices. The unanimous response was ‘this will not happen’. Caroline disagrees and this year’s rocketing oil prices are evidence that the world is not equipped to manage a growing scarcity of fossil fuels and all that implies. Nor, she would argue, is it equipped to deal with eg hyper inflation or mass internal migration as sea levels rise. The Green Party believes it has policies that can prevent such scenarios becoming a reality but whilst the focus remains on finding ways to continue business as usual via investment in eg carbon capture and storage or a switch to biofuels, it is a struggle for these to gain ground.

Please be assured that Caroline and the Green Party are utterly aware of the need to put in place a strategy based on assuming the worst – namely that CO2 levels are not kept within 350ppm and we go past the point of no return with regard a changing climate. Her work at European level involves striking a balance between this and more positive work on ways to prevent it happening. She will also continue to keep up the pressure on the national government to properly consider its response to the likely consequences of passing that point of no return.

Thank you for taking the time to write to Caroline and you can read more about her work at www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk

Kind regards,

Cath.

Cath Miller

Constituency Coordinator and Researcher

Office of Dr Caroline Lucas

Green Party MEP for SE England

Suite 58, The Hop Exchange

24 Southwark Street

London SE1 1TY

Tel: 020 7407 6281

Email: carolinelucas@greenmeps.org.uk

www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk

You have automatically been signed up to receive bimonthly email bulletins from Caroline. Please respond to this message putting INFO as the subject header if you do NOT want to receive these bulletins.

Nice to know that I've also signed up for bimonthly email bulletins, wouldn't you say?

lost for words

2008-05-29T12:09:00.001-07:00

agggg....

2008-05-29T00:45:00.001-07:00

What do you say to someone who:

1. Puts forward a position
2. When you disagree (or in fact just act ambivalent about the idea) implies that you're not just disagreeing with him but with God
3. When you refuse to communicate on that level, implies that you've deeply hurt him?

I don't wish to talk to anyone who suggests that a normal daily choice (in this case the level of communication between old friends) is somehow dictated by God to him. Even if he is right - and it strikes me that there is nothing inherently wrong about the idea, just that I'm not really prepared to spend a lot of effort to get back in touch with people who haven't shown much interest up to now (and to be fair, I have a long list of people I feel far more guilty about not being closer in touch with) - I think this attitude of 'you're not just arguing with me, you're arguing with God and I've prayed about it so I am right' is dangerous.

And what really galls is the emotional blackmail. 'If you were looking for a way to really hurt me, you've found it. Well done.' he says.

This after I sent a short message which said 'Just so you know, I will not be replying to your letter in the immediate future, if at all. I don't appreciate the way you speak to me at times.'

In fact, I wrote a long 6 page letter explaining exactly what I thought of it, spilling a lot of bile and anger. I decided that this was going a bit far, so abbreviated it to this two sentence message.

I'm not sure I have anything else to say to him at the moment.

css

2008-05-21T04:31:00.000-07:00

I'm revamping our website using CSS. I'm a total novice so it is taking a very long time - hopefully something new will be in place very soon.

slug slaughter

2008-05-21T02:11:00.001-07:00

Good Morning, here is the Vegetable Garden News.

*BONG*
Slugs have appeared at full strength in the last few days.
*BONG*
Despite laying several coke traps, these have so far not made any difference.
*BONG*
Dastardly slugs have avoided walking on eggshells. It is thought they must have stilts.
*BONG*
Scientists are unsure of the benefits of coffee grains and say that a further extensive trial is required
*BONG*
Innocent cauliflowers caught up in the crossfire are particularly unhappy.

What has worked is using some planks from an old fence between the rows of vegetables. The slugs seem to like to crawl beneath the planks and multiply. Hence, we are regularly discovering the little critters beneath and then sending them to their doom. Ha HA HA HA Ha.

The spinach in the hanging baskets seems to be growing well, as do the strawberries and tomatoes. The potatoes are starting to sprout (hurrah) and the beans are having a valiant attempt to grow up the stakes.

church and grief

2008-05-20T01:38:00.000-07:00

In the church circles we currently move in, a couple of middle aged men have died. Both professionals, both well known and involved in their communities. Both lives cruelly ended before their time, leaving a hole in their family.

One observation I make is that church doesn't seem to change much. We still sing the same tired choruses. The same people still jiggle on the spot and raise their hands.

We don't really seem to know what to do with death. We're uncomfortable with grief. Someone I recently met said he knew people who stopped attending church after the 11 September attacks - because the choruses just seemed to continue regardless.

Please don't think I'm having a go at anyone here - I'm sure there are mitigating circumstances. Maybe few people at the service I attended knew the deceased. Maybe the time for grief was elsewhere.

When my wife's grandfather died a few weeks ago, there were few signs of grief from the close family - I think because we'd seen his health disintegrate and death felt like a release for everyone involved. Maybe for us, the grief will creep up and affect us in other ways. The only person who was really upset at the graveside was a relative who saw him very irregularly and knew him best in younger life, and I guess felt the loss of burying an old man who he had such fond childhood memories.

The other week there was a very beautiful moment in a service we attended. Burdened as I am with many doubts, I stood for much of it in silence. As I listened to others singing, I heard a very clear, very out-of-tune voice with a strong Spanish accent. And as I listened more, I felt that the clear voice was leading the singing, and everyone else was the accompanying chorus of a great solo. It was a spine-tingling moment, and for a short while I found that I had some release.

2008 veg

2008-05-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

We just heard that the allotment site we were working last year has been let in its entirety to a local charity working with disabled people. Which is really good news, it is much too good a resource to be wasted.

Meantime, we've been converting our back garden into a vegetable patch, on the basis that if it is under our noses, we've a better chance of actually being able to keep an eye on it. We also bought seedlings rather than seed, as we're rubbish at bringing on plants.

So, we have a few tomato plants in buckets, strawberries in pots, herbs and spring onions in hanging baskets. We also have some potatoes in black dustbins (which I'm told is a good way to grow them).

In the ground, we have cauliflower, cabbages, rhubarb, lettuce and more herbs. We still have to find space for aubergine, sunflower and a couple of bean plants. We also have a few marrow seeds to try. We have also plumbed in a water butt to the drains from the garage, to preserve water. It hasn't rained in a while, but when it did, I was amazed at how quickly it filled up.

We've also been working hard on slug defence, which is including used coffee grains, coke traps and eggshells. So far so good, no sign of any slugs.

2008-05-07T03:42:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I attended a conference entitled 'New Habits for a New Era? Exploring New Monasticism", run jointly by the Anabaptist Network and the Northumbria Community.

The Anabaptist Network is about the nearest we get to Mennonites in the UK (there is only one Mennonite congregation I think) and sees its role to promote anabaptist thinking throughout the church in the UK, enthusing Christians where they are rather than creating new churches.

The Northumbria Community is a dispersed religious community based on Lindesfarne in the far north of England. To cut a long story very short, it is a liturgical community with a lot of celtic influences.

Although I have been interested in the anabaptists for a while and have known about the Northumbria community through their liturgy (which we used daily for over a year), it is fair to say that I would not have attended if the conference had not taken place in Coventry.

Anyway, there were various seminars to attend - and I went to one about anabaptist history and practice and another about new monastic groups, how they differ from 'traditional' monastic groups and what they can offer the rest of the church.

I appreciate it is hard to give a full day conference justice in a few words, but generally I was frustrated. The attendees were all white, mostly middle aged, middle class and well educated. The style was all-talk. Speakers were often asked questions from the floor, but these were often convoluted and concerned very specific points of theology or practice.

Both the anabaptists and the new-monastics seemed to be labouring the same point - that they were offering the wider church a better/richer way to 'do' church (utilising certain groovy music or liturgy, meeting at different times, using multimedia, sporting funny haircuts [WHAT IS IT ABOUT RELIGIOUS PEOPLE AND HAIRCUTS/HATS?], living together or apart, following in the way of Saint Somoneoneorother and so on) yet there seemed to be a monumental lack of discussion about what the point of it all was.

The point that unless these things assist us in our sacrificial service of our neighbour, they are of no more or less worth than any other form of church.

On Sunday I spent had a long searching conversation with someone at the church we attended. In some ways it was helpful, although it was somewhat tempered by the fact that it was H's (indirect) boss at the University. I'm not sure how comfortable I am attending church with two Statistics Professors that are so well acquainted with my wife's career. Anyway, it was very apparent how her perception of her role was influencing her advice and how I should look at my life.

We also attended an evening service at the church - which was later than we can normally manage due to B needing to get to bed on time the night before a school day. This was the first time I can remember being properly engaged in a service in a very long time. It seems that my engagement with church is inversely proportional to the polish, so the more rubbish it is the more chance there is of spiritual engagement.

Futerra

2008-05-07T00:32:00.000-07:00

As suggested by Jonathon Porritt, I contacted the Futerra thinktank.

This is the reply I received from Ed Gillespie, a director there.

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your email – what do you suggest? Preparing the bunkers and arming ourselves to the teeth?

; )

I share your concerns, and you’re right we need to turn up the heat on people (no pun intended) and cut through the complacency without seeming like rabid doomsdayers (not an easy task)

As Dylan Thomas said ‘Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light’

No easy answers I’m afraid – but yes, we are a bit fooked right now (I’ve been to China)

Yours eternally hopefully (groundless hope like unconditional love being the only type worth having)

Ed

Did you know...

2008-05-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

...there is a UN office for SPACE?

Excuse me?

Jonathon Porritt

2008-05-02T01:05:00.000-07:00

I recently received an email from Jonathon Porritt, the UK eco-guru (who runs Forum for the Future, a government funded environmental thinktank) in response to an email I sent regarding some of the things I've been saying recently in this blog.

He said:

Dear Joe

Thank you very much indeed for your recent email.

I don’t doubt you are right that we need to be re-thinking these things in a pretty dramatic way, as its clear that people still haven’t really begun to get the true message about climate change – and what this really means for their lives today, let alone for people’s lives tomorrow.

But the difficulties contained in your email – that the only way in which we could jolt people out of that complacency is to start talking about the almost unimaginably horrible consequences that runaway climate change would bring with it. And a lot of the evidence demonstrates that when people are confronted with that kind of exceptionally negative message, they just turn off. Rather than being empowered to get stuck in (both personal and political), they withdraw even more into various patterns of denial, not least the reassurance that continuing scientific controversy seems to bring with it.

This is proving to be an immensely difficult psychological conundrum! All sorts of people currently very involved in climate change communications are worried about how to break out of this fix, and how to up people’s energy levels onto a completely different plain. An organisation called Futerra has done a lot of work on this, and you might want to check out their website. So quite difficult to know how to really push this one forward in the way that you propose!

Best wishes

JONATHON

Kierkegaard on trying hard

2008-04-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

"There is, for example, a man in Copenhagen. He travels by ship to London and back in the greatest comfort and ease, “and,” says the pastor, “this was his North Pole expedition. No, he did not reach the North Pole, but he tried.” “It is perfectly clear,” expounds the preacher, “that if you are going to make an expedition to the North Pole and live in Copenhagen, you must first of all leave Copenhagen. This man did that. On the other hand, no one has yet reached the North Pole anyway. Even those who have gone the farthest have only made an effort. But so has this man. To travel to London is also an effort.” Wonderful, tremendously popular! And to take a ride to the city park on Sunday afternoon, leaving one’s home, is also an effort aimed at discovering the North Pole: ergo, we are all striving! This is the way all of us have become Christians, and paying Christians to boot!"

2008-04-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

This is where I part company with many environmentalists. With 6.5 billion people going to 9 billion, much of the environment is unsavable. But if we warm significantly more than 2°C from pre-industrial levels -- and especially if we warm more than 3°C, as would be all but inevitable if we keep on our current emissions path for another decade or so -- then the environment and climate that made modern human civilization possible will be ruined, probably for hundreds of years. And that means misery for many if not most of the next 10 to 20 billion people to walk the planet.

Joseph Romm

Suicidal environmentalism

2008-04-24T03:10:00.000-07:00

If the scientists are correct, our planet is going to change. And I don't know about anyone else, but my gut feeling is that there aren't enough people who want/are able to contemplate the necessary changes in their lifestyles to stop it.

Maybe we need a change of approach. Maybe we need to be, as Alaistair McIntosh says, planetary hospice workers instead of pretending that anything we can do will stop it.

Maybe the environmental movement needs a bit of 'doom and gloom' and maybe the bad news is the only thing worth listening to: focusing on small changes in our lifestyles might be life affirming and positive for our frame of mind, but maybe we also need to consider/plan/think about what we're going to do if the changes are as expected and we haven't been able to reduce emissions by the necessary rate.

And maybe the truth is that the only way that the majority of the world can survive is if their problems are removed: i.e. us.

Peak Internet

2008-04-23T02:20:00.001-07:00

From a friend:

Because everything is getting privatised, public libraries are now underfunded, and books aren't being maintained. Instead, they're being converted into binary code and kept on computers (ever heard of 'peak internet'?). How much of the accumulated wisdom of humanity will get lost when the power goes out?

Church and climate change

2008-04-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

Don't Panic!

This is helpfully written on the wipe-clean cover of the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy. I'm wondering whether it should also be written on the bible (and I'm starting to wonder whether Douglas Adams was having a snarky dig at the bible with that).

In church this morning, a chemistry professor at the university was preaching. What she preached about doesn't really matter, although it contained a lot of chemistry (which was strangely acceptable, this church is a very academic place). Anyway, at one point she was talking about Climate Change, and said something along the lines of "Climate Change is a fact, and sometimes when we think about the implications of our behaviour, it sends us a bit crazy. But the important thing to remember is not to panic - because God is in control."

I have a few questions:

1. Is she saying that we shouldn't be trying at all or just being realistic?

2. Even if we accept God is in control, since when have people been immune from the effects of sin? Is it not possible that God will leave us to lie in the bed we've created by burning fossil fuels?

3. What happened to repentance and the call to life-changing behaviour anyway?

This whole Christianity thing is starting to sound like a dance where we find ever more reasons to avoid dealing with the responsibility and eventually the effects of our actions.

Neither are we

2008-04-17T01:31:00.000-07:00

“Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!” I’m afraid, my friends, that neither are we. Our commitment to our national culture supersedes our commitment to our faith. We do not live in an oppressed nation. We do not serve an oppressive God. Yet we allow ourselves to complacently exist in a culture that focuses on self and satisfaction of personal desires.

Kimberly Roth

food, waste and climate change

2008-04-13T11:59:00.001-07:00

Curiously, some of the major results of our Local Food Lent experiment were caused by becoming a paid writer. That is a bit of a broad generalisation of what I do, but I do get paid a bit for submitting regular environmental blog posts. I now read a lot more and think a lot more about what I read.

For example, last week I learnt that:

1. 50% of all food is wasted between the farm and the plate. Of the food that reaches our kitchens, 30% is thrown away uneaten (I'm not clear whether this is included within the 50% or not). This amount of food is sufficient to meet the half of the annual imports of food for the continent of Africa. This is almost a criminal waste when there are parts of the world where the poor are rioting over food.

2. If you measure the energy balance of food, it costs far more in calories to grow and transport them than we get from the food. Which when you stop and think about it is crackers. We'd be better off learning to survive on drinking petroleum, it'd be a lot more efficient. Sadly it appears that driving a short distance to the shops may well be more energy efficient than walking if you eat a lot of meat.

3. At least one respected climate scientist is reported to have said that the IPCC's recent target for CO2 in the atmosphere is far too high. This is the concentration in the atmosphere beyond which it is going to be really hard to get things back to normal - the tipping point. And if he is correct, we are within a hair of this point already. So rather than attempting to find political solutions which allow a 'sustainable' amount of CO2 growth in the future, the truth might be that we need to dramatically reduce the absolute concentration of CO2 and not just reduce the rate of increase. This would require a dramatic decrease in our standard of living one way or another - we either do it voluntarily or have the effects of climate change do it for us.

Green Politics

2008-04-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

Iranian style.

Response to JeremyY

2008-04-02T02:28:00.000-07:00

JeremyY posted an important post over on YAR which I wanted to respond to, but unfortunately the comments have been closed. Please have a look over there to see what it was all about.

-------

If you were to ask the professor the qualitative difference between 'being gay' and 'being black' he might say that 'being black' is something that happens to you at birth, whereas 'being gay' is a lifestyle choice you take on at some point in your life. I don't know, maybe I am putting words into his mouth.

For many people, anal sex (for example) is just fundamentally wrong because the anus is not for that function and the vagina is. So if your professor believes that the essence of being gay is the desire to do something which he characterises as 'anatural' then he puts that on a different level to being black. Of course, there are many others who believe that their sexuality is part of their being and not something they take on by 'doing' anything in particular.

The problem is, as correctly pointed out above, that this identification of behavioural sin has led to numerous injustices against gay people by the church - which would not be acceptable if they were against other groups.

And I guess what I want to say is this: it is OK to believe that other people's behaviour is sinful and/or unacceptable. I can think of a huge pile of things which I find unacceptable in other religious traditions, for example.

What is not OK is to deny me the rights and privileges you enjoy because - and only because - you find my actions abhorrent. Society functions largely because people ignore the things they find abhorrent in others, how are you deciding that this particular aspect of my life is more abhorrent than anything else? If you are going to deny gays an equivalent legal instrument to recognise long term fidelity, are you also going to deny the reality of Hindu marriage because you find some of their rituals disgusting?

We need to reframe the discussion so that it no longer revolves around the level of offence some people feel about other people's behaviour.

Once we have done that, we need to carefully listen to the needs and hurts of gay people and attempt to meet their demands where they are legitimate and constructive, which I believe they mostly are.

Kierkegaard

2008-03-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

I have just discovered Kierkegaarde, having previously thought he was only for theologians and philosophers.

I really like what I read. Here is a bit that made me laugh out loud:

In the magnificent cathedral the honorable and Right Reverend Geheime-General-Ober-Hof-Pradikant, the elect favorite of the fashionable world, appears before an elect company and preaches with emotion upon the text he himself elected: “God has chosen the base things of this world, and the things that are despised” – and nobody laughs.

And how true is this?

As a career man and job holder the pastor proclaims Christianity. He says: My job is to proclaim Christianity – I am hired simply to preach. And so it is with the pastor’s proclamation. The congregation on the other hand excuses itself from doing what the sermon says by declaring: We have so many other things to take care of; such a stringent Christianity can be re-quired only of the pastor, the man of God. And thus we arrive at the result: Christianity – but no Christians.

Larry Norman

2008-02-26T05:47:00.000-08:00

Thing is that Larry Norman was not a great singer, not really a great songwriter. He was not particularly successful, went through a couple of marriages and spent the last few years in and out of hospital - largely forgotten.

But y'know, his songs had an unusual power. He had an amazing way with words. He said things that nobody else was saying in the clean-necked church of his day.

I don't believe in politics whilst the masses stay unfed.
Until the leaders change priorities and supply the poor with bread.

No Country for Old Men

2008-02-20T14:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if you have seen this film, but briefly if you haven't, it is the (rather bloody) story of a mass murderer, a policeman and a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It is set against large and bleak landscapes with detailed characters for even small parts.

Although it made me wince, it is a really powerful film and I am glad I saw it.

The backstory, I feel, speaks of a feeling of hopelessness - that even good guys lose out in the end, that bad guys prevail and things don't work out neatly as they should. As a piece of post-modern, post gen-X theatre, I think it works well, with confusing dialogue, dead-ends and so on.

But ultimately I think this is how many people feel. Those within the radical community (which of course can be defined in any number of ways) are now starting to lose the plot. The past 'certainties' are gone (even where those are things that we discovered ourselves), the beliefs we started our earlier adult lives with now start to sound like nonsense. In spite of what others want to tell us, the world seems a dark place with few sparks of light, and whilst we try to rejoice about the light it seems curlish not to admit the darkness exists. Yet, no matter how much we want things to change, no matter how hard we change ourselves, things don't seem to change as fast as we want to, and it is really hard to keep going.

book tag

2008-02-14T03:52:00.000-08:00

Dave Keen tagged me with one of these silly blog things:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five other people.

Which seems pretty harmless.

Question: what is the point of 3?

OK, I'm going to assume we are posting the fifth, sixth and seventh sentences from page 123.

Kitty did not say a word of this; she spoke only of her state of mind.
'I have no troubles whatever,' she said when she had grown calm - 'but can you understand that everything has become horrid, disgusting and course to me, and above all I myself? You can't think what horrid thoughts I have about everything.'
'But what horrid thoughts can you have?' asked Dolly smiling.

I'm not sure what that is supposed to prove. Special prize to anyone who can identify the novel, which as a hint was not written in English.

Anyway, I don't really go for this tagging malarkey, but to play along, I tag Karin, Benjamin, Scott, Jamie and there is space for anyone else who wants to be tagged. Don't all jump at once.

I'm guessing most of those aren't going to bother, having more important things to do. Still, all their blogs are worth a look.

Meanwhile, in case you've been wondering where I am, I have been blogging about our local diet here and also writing regular articles for the celsias blog here.

I miss my dog

2008-01-23T00:40:00.000-08:00

During most of my childhood, we had a small Jack Russell terrier. I used to walk her every day.

She died in 1997. I've not thought about it for years, but I miss her.

the other side

2008-01-17T06:22:00.000-08:00

Occasionally in life you get the opportunity to meet a remarkable person. The other day, I had the privilege to meet one. After laughing loudly about the latest trick she'd played on her family - which incidentally involved hiring a hot tub over Christmas (what a great idea) - Sue* told us about her life as a minister in one of the roughest estates in our community. An almost post-apocalyptic community where houses not only stand empty and blocked out, but are still black from recent arson attacks. Where whole blocks of flats are boarded up and where the shops have bars on the windows.

It is a community in flux. Some people work hard, and move away as quickly as possible. Others are institutionally dependant, having been many years living on government social security payments. Local government is rebuilding and rehousing in the community, so people are being moved from one part of the area to another. At the bottom are the asylum seekers, who move in because they have nowhere else to go.

This community has received millions in grants, various groups have internet centres, walk-in advice centres, after-school care centres, nurseries and women's projects. Yet an air of sadness hangs in the air, a community that hopes for a better future but can't quite believe that it will happen.

Sue has a brisk style and takes no prisoners, so managed to invite herself onto many of the management groups which run projects in the area. She is the only person who lives in the area. Professionals commute to sort out other peoples' problems and other peoples' lives.

From the standpoint of commuting from one area of middle-class intelligentsia to upper-working class suburbia, it is like observing life through the bottom of a milk bottle. Our lives become havens of irrelevance compared to the struggles others face. Yet it is hard to know how to break out of the boxes we live in and how we could assist those stuck in cycles of poverty, neglect and crime even if we did.

*not her real name

On the Amish

2008-01-10T03:08:00.000-08:00

Whilst seeing the difficulties and acknowledging the hardships inherent with being born into a sect, I can only stand and admire the Amish, and I was pleased to find this blog: amishamerica.typepad.com

I have long thought that the enterprising Amish have much to teach the rest of us.

As I found out meeting members of Church Communities, which is the Anabaptist Mennonite group formerly known as Bruderhof (with some similarities to the Amish), they are wonderfully simple and open people.

Doing it.

2008-01-09T03:46:00.000-08:00

The Onion is one of the silliest websites on the internet.

This report for example is extremely silly. Hilarious, but silly. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I bet you laughed at the last line.

Living Simpler

2008-01-03T14:11:00.000-08:00

As a very random spur-of-the-moment idea, I've started a new blog here: livingsimpler.wordpress.com

The idea is to try to work on replacing some of our normal consumer products with low-carbon alternatives, thinking through environmental changes in our lives, cutting through some of the crap which is bandied about, and generally treating climate change as a Real Issue rather than Somebody Else's Problem or something which only requires changing a few lightbulbs.

This blog is going to continue with the more random and philosophical stuff which you know (and probably hate). Please come over and get involved.

The Righteous Men

2008-01-02T01:38:00.000-08:00

I've never been very interested in Judaism, it being a belief system which encompasses most of what I dislike about religion: lots of rituals, funny clothing, long beards and so on.

The only thing I knew about the Jewish form of mysticism known as Kabbalah was regarding the 'popstar' Madonna. Which didn't really attract it to me.

Anyway, that said, I've just been reading a novel which contains an interesting idea. It describes mystical people known as Tzadikim Nistarim, Righteous men. The idea is that in every generation there are just 36 truly righteous people (36 being a very special number) who hold the world up. If they were all to die at once, the world would immediately end.

So far, so mumbo-jumbo.

For me, the interesting thing is the characteristics of these people. Whilst this is an ancient Jewish idea, some Jews believe that the 36 are hidden throughout the world - ie not necessarily amongst Jews. Second, the righteousness of these men is hidden. Third, their good deeds empower rather than degrade the receiver. So here, deep within this very well structured religion is the idea that what is most important is not the rituals, what you look like, what you say etc. The important thing is what you do to other people.

And there are a whole bunch of stories about these secret Righteous men, being found in surprising places. For example, the pimp from a brothel who when a desperate woman comes to him to sell herself to pay for an injustice, instead goes and sells his own possessions and gives her the money. The man who sets up a refugee camp, spending his own money, totally outwith of any outside help or notice.

People from all walks of life, who as a kind of hobby see a need and seek to do something about it. Without fanfare, without prizes, mostly without being noticed at all.

How about that for an idea?

The evolution of institution

2008-01-01T03:45:00.000-08:00

It is 1 January 2008 and I'm alone at home with man-flu. It isn't great.

Anyway, I was thinking last night about how hard it is to get an accurate public perception of the past. For example, how many people know more than a couple of lines about Napoleon?

Then I was thinking about how quickly things change and evolve. For example, Baden-Powell only started the Scouting movement in 1907. Yet how much of his original advice is still relevant in scouting? He cannot have imagined what would happen with the organisation he started, how the official and unofficial parts of the scouting movement would evolve.

I wonder if that has happened with Jesus

TIRTA 9: The Little Things

2007-12-23T03:00:00.000-08:00

At the end of last week, we completely killed our business website to such an extent that there was nothing to be seen. After several days of working to 1am, we finally were able to get it back to a near-normal state. Fortunately it is christmas so nobody is really paying much attention to it anyway.

Basically what happened was that we'd upgraded the software that makes it work and that had completely messed it up, and we had to do a long and complicated gymnastics manoeuvre to get it back.

Most of the problem was caused by a very small file which you wouldn't even notice unless you knew it was there and what it did.

The biblical prophet Zechariah - who is usually only heard of at this time of the year if at all (yes I know, different man. Never mind) - said something which is sometimes translated "Do not despise the day of small things'.

Little things are sometimes very important. Sometimes we lack the perspective to notice what things are really important, dull, irrelevant etc when we are actually living them.

So, this year I'll be listening out for the unnoticed and ignored little things about Christmas. Happy holidays to you.

Things I Relearnt This Advent: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7
Part 8

wealth calculation

2007-12-20T06:22:00.000-08:00

Here is a scary calculation.

According to the world bank 2003 figures, the bottom 10% of the world earn around $400 a year on average. That is around £200.

Our house is worth around £130,000 - that is the amount of secured debt that we can get. Which represents about 650 years of the yearly income of a person in the bottom 10%. Which is around 10 lifetimes. My life is worth 10 times of the poorest person.

Of that £130,000, we've paid off about £75,000 (more or less), which means we actually have capital worth 375 years or about 5.75 of the life income of the poorest people.

Is there a gospel for the middle classes?

2007-12-20T05:32:00.000-08:00

Lampmeister commented on my last post:

Ok, but there is no evidence to suggest that there were animals, wise men, a stable or that Jesus had "the lowest birth story". Surely the Christian message is that Christ lived and died for *all*?

This ties into some thinking I was doing this morning whilst walking through the mist to the post office and back (bit late this year with our christmas cards).

Lampmeister, if you're reading this, I hope you don't mind if I answer your question indirectly.

If we look at the life and words of Christ, it is fairly clear that he behaved differently with different people. With some he was angry. With some gentle. With some exasperated. All fine so far.

But if we look carefully, it was the people like us - ie generally middle class reasonably intelligent, sofa-sitting, respectable church attenders - that he was harshest with. The people he spent most time with were people we spend little time with - the sick, the poor, the ignored, the ignorant, the ones with doubts. To those he offered healing, words of hope.

To people like us, the ones who know the theology, he offered the confusing story, the extra mile and the impossible challenge.

The poor, he said, were to be put first, to be lifted up. The rich, he said, were to be put last, put down. To those who knew nothing, he said they understood about the kingdom of heaven. To those who had ticked all the right boxes, he said knew nothing.

Any person of any personal disaster is both a victim of circumstance and bad choices. To a greater or lesser extent, we are all partly responsible for the mess we are in. To a greater or lesser extent, the mess we are in was caused by the environment around us. Nobody is totally to blame outwith of their environment. No environment can be blamed entirely for the mess we are in.

But if we look to the situation of the poor in our world, they have fewer choices and few ways to make their lives better. If we look at the problems of the middle chattering classes, problems are overwhelmingly self-inflicted.

So what is the gospel story for the poor? That you are not worthless, that you are not forgotten, that your Father in heaven cares about you and that he has prepared a place of good things which you missed out in this life. That you can receive supernatural assistance to climb out of your circumstance and change the world.

So in contrast, what is the gospel story for the middle classes? That our lives, our church and our world are messed up, and we are largely responsible. That we are not as important as we think we are. That our Father in heaven has prepared good things which we don't deserve because we have taken more than our fair share in this life - but to receive those things, we must make ourselves poor. That we can receive supernatural assistance to break down the walls of wealth we have built around us, to go out and change the world.

Hear me clearly: this is not to say that our middle class problems don't exist, nor that God does not care about them or us. But for most people, the reality is that they pale into insignificance compared to the lot suffered by the poor around us.

So no, the message is not just that "that Christ lived and died for *all*?". For us, the middle classes, God offers us both love and discipline, and as in the past we have been very anxious to discipline others according to our own arbitrary measures of holiness, we can expect also to be judged as harshly for the messes we have created. If we believe in the gospel, we cannot help but be changed to become more like the poor.

This is all easily seen in the gospels. So we then have to ask ourselves which is more consistent: the Jesus who fits our narrow middle class expectations, or the Jesus who was born into the kind of grinding poverty that a majority of the world experience.

TIRTA 8: the Middle Class Jesus

2007-12-20T02:13:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was talking with a friend about the horrific conditions of refugees in camps we are both acquainted with. The worst thing about these camps is not that they contain starving children that they're riddled with disease (though they often are) that they're places of violence (though they often are), unemployment etc.

The worst thing about them is that the people have no hope. From the outside it is difficult to know even where to start to help.

Poverty is best described as a situation where you are completely without hope of a better future, that you feel your life is entirely worthless and are totally forgotten by the world - and worse, used as a political football by those who really have no interest in your welfare or your immediate needs.

Without putting too fine a point on it, this is the kind of environment that Jesus came into the world. Yet we dress it up to be so clean and tidy and middle class.

Take this photo, for example (taken by Suzannnaa in Ooty, lucky person). We have this perception of antiseptic stables, clean birthing chambers, obedient animals. Yet is it possible we have erected a false god to please our middle class christian sentiments? In India the animals walk in the street and feed on the garbage. A feeding trough/manger is most likely to be on a street corner as anywhere else. The open sewers and filth is overpowering. People scratch a living, their children playing with the dirt as they have nothing else.

How have we missed the shock of the incarnation? That God did not come to palaces. He did not even come to the comfortable middle classes so they could feel smug and superior. He came to the lowest, had the lowest birth story, the whiff of infidelity, the early experience of being a refugee, the life of an apprentice. Even with the 'three kings' and stars, this is not the story of a great messiah but of a child born in a slum to go on to live and die in obscurity.

Is there any wonder that the lost, the forgotten and the unwanted marvel in this story whereas in our comfort it is twee and covered in tinsel? That the lowest take the message of the story - that God is actually interested in them to the extent that he came to be like them - whereas in our culture it is all about obtaining more stuff.

Things I Relearnt This Advent: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7

Marxism

2007-12-19T00:21:00.000-08:00

Taking a break from learning Advent lessons, I can across this letter from Groucho Marx to Warner Brothers. WB had claimed that the Marx film A Night in Casablanca had a title too similar to their own Casablanca

I just don’t understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.

Classic.

TIRTA 7: Christmas Carols Suck

2007-12-17T01:38:00.000-08:00

Christmas carols a) suck b) have nothing whatsoever to do with the Advent story and c) confuse the dickens out of anyone who only goes to church once a year.

Let us take some examples.

Exhibit A "not quite what we meant"

According to wikipedia, this one has been around since at least 1833 when it was included in a collection of carols. It is thought to be to a traditional tune and the author is unknown.

It also includes the rather famous line "The Which His Mother Mary", which I have seen numerous times printed in hymn books. The only good thing about this carol is when you point out to people what they have just sung, and have them try to explain why it makes perfect sense.

Exhibit B "noooo, someone make it stop"

Again according to wikipedia, we have been singing about non-crying newborn babies since at least 1885. I don't care what cuddly stories people want to tell me, small babies who don't cry are either a) extremely sick or b) dead.

Exhibit C "a crime against poetry"

Then from 1872 we have this nonsense. Only in a carol could someone get away with the rhyming couplets 'snow on snow on snow on snow'. Let us not even discuss the time of year or the likelihood of deep snow in Bethlehem (not likely). Let this just stand as a crime against poetry.

I'm boycotting stupid carols.

Things I Relearnt This Advent: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6

TIRTA 6: The road to Bethlehem

2007-12-16T09:31:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking some more about the donkey thing. To travel today between Galilee and Bethlehem, you travel along Route 90, a road which appears to exist within the Palestinian controlled West Bank and away from the rest of Israel, yet in reality is a closed road for the military and settlers.

I travelled along it last year, and it is a strange journey. It runs down from Galilee, alongside the Jordan, through many miles of apparently empty land - save for the odd settler farm, past Israeli settlements, past Jericho (now totally surrounded by settlements), past the odd very poor refugee camps with people living under tents and down to Jerusalem.

I'd imagine it isn't particularly pleasant walking, but then maybe not as dramatic as we are used to hearing. It is pretty dry, but we're not talking about walking across desert sand dunes. It is about 70 miles, so several days of walking.

Bethlehem/Beit Sahour/Beit Jala lies above Jerusalem, so the final part of the journey would be a bit of a climb. However, we are still talking hills rather than full mountains.

A rather more hazardous journey would have been the escape into Egypt, probably via Gaza. I've not been that far north in Egypt, but I understand it to be extremely hot and barren. Once in Egypt, it is unlikely that these refugees would have been treated particularly well. Today's Egyptians see themselves as descendants from the Pharaohs rather than Africans, Arabs or anyone else. To be a refugee in Egypt today is not a good experience.

So to summarise - there might/might not have been a donkey, the journey was long but not particularly arduous (and probably one they made on a semi-regular basis), there was no stable, no inn, no innkeeper. Having been found by local shepherds and strange visitors, the family at some unspecified later point had to escape into Egypt, which was more likely to be a difficult journey, made in a hurry and to a country which didn't really want them. At some unspecified later point, it was safe and the family returned to live in Galilee. The next we hear is from Jesus' early teens in Luke's gospel (which interestingly does not mention the escape to Egypt).

I wonder how this experience of being in danger and unwanted affected the family. How Joseph and Mary survived without permanent mental scarring and/or illness - given their experience with angels etc. And funny how the story is so often couched in terms of victory and success when in at least one account it includes elements of fear and last minute escape.

Things I Relearnt This Advent: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5