IKEA

A new desk seemed a very good idea, especially as it had attached shelves and was just the right size to replace the cluttered arrangement in my study.  And it was offered to me free via freecycle so I brought it home. I knew about IKEA and their construction system of little bolts tightened with an allen key. This was going to be a piece of cake.

The previous owner had disassembled it carefully and gave me all the bolts in a neatly sealed bag. He even took some photos of him disassembling it to help me as I came to put it back together.

Now unfortunately there was a delay between collecting said item of Ikea furniture in pieces and the time when I could put it together due to the late collection of a filing cabinet that now belongs in another place.

Said filing cabinet now collected I decided it was time to do the grand assembly and reorder the study. However, during the delay I had cleaned out my email inbox and many old files from freecycle had been deleted. (If you sign up to freecycle then you will get many dozens of emails a day and it is necessary to delete the backlog regularly to keep your computer hard drive from getting clogged.)  And to my horror I found all the photos of the dissasembly process and even the picture of it complete had been lost in the purge.

So what was to have been a simple construction became a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle as I had to work out from first principles what was likely to go where and which bolts to use in which place.

The assembly took much longer than planned but now is thankfully complete. However I have three bolts left over and I cannot see any vacant holes where they might fit. This is indeed a puzzle! Ikea wins.

Of course this whole exercise could be said to be a diversionary activity as I have a sermon to write!

The spirit of Christmas

This poem is very sentimental but it 

seems appropriate for use at

 the nursing home service later this week....
 

The Spirit of Christmas
Anon
 
I have a list of people I know
All written in a book
And every year at Christmastime
I go and take a look
And that is when I realise
That those names are a part
Not of the book they're written in
But of my very heart
For each name stands for someone
Who has crossed my path some time
And in that meeting they've become
A treasured friend of mine
And once you've met some people
The years can not erase
The memory of a pleasant word
Or a friendly face
So when I send a Christmas card
That is addressed to you
It's because you're on that list 
Of folk I'm indebted to
And you are one of many folk who
In times past I've met
And happen to be one of those
I don't want to forget
And whether I have known you for 
Many years or few
In some way you have a part in
Shaping things I do
This, the spirit of Christmas, that
Forever and ever endures
May it leave it richest blessing
In the hearts of you and yours. 

Incarnation

What is missing from our tableau in the stable? ( notes from my talk at the nativity service)

Smell is very important sense. Some smells can take you right back to a particular place or person.

Cycling along in Mallorca on narrow lanes beside villas hidden behind high hedges I started thinking abut swimming lessons at primary school and the old town public baths - I kept getting whiffs of ammonia smell – it was all the swimming pools in the gardens we were passing…those smells took me back

Nativity tableau missing something – smell... reality of being in a stable it was smelly – they don't have scratch and smell Christmas cards thankfully!

Think of the animal smells

The noises the grunts and heavy breathing

Then the birth messy noisy as that often is.. and there would be the natural smells associated with birth that are clinically sanitised these days so that people do not notice them.

We come looking for glory and all we see in the stable is ordinariness mess and smells

Where is the glory? The wonder the magic?

Well the glory is there and is seen in the ordinary as it always is

Wonder is seen in the eyes of the mother of a new born as she looks at the new little person who was so recently hidden inside her very self...

The special people who adorn the nativity sets in their blue robes and crimson - well they are there but much more ordinary than the great artists make them out to be in the classical paintings - they were ordinary working people

Dirty smelly shepherds straight in from their work still smelling of animals and wood smoke and not having washed since coming down off the hills

There were kings or wise men whichever they were – but they too would be dirty, smelly, having been on the road for many months, they might have first century equivalents of aftershave and deodorant but they would sill have an aroma of camels about them!

They thus sum up the meaning of incarnation the holy God the divine coming to earth and being with us as humans – and it has to get down among the reality of the smells and the mess in the midst of life if God really is part of life rather than just pretending.

The incarnation God became flesh and dwelt among us is only real when we can get round the amazing idea that the one who made the heavens and the earth came to earth and appeared in this very humble ordinary beginning.

If we think of the smells then we earth the story in the real world.

This wasn’t what many people expected and many people since have really struggled – look at the jewelled and gilded cathedrals people have made to worship this birth. Its so difficult for us to accept the ways of God who does big things in unexpected places and with unexpected people. What is God doing in you and me today? are we looking in the wrong places to see god at work or should we just look close to home in the ordinary things and places around us?

The word we use for all this is incarnation. God becoming flesh and becoming one of us.

So Jesus came to a world of smell and working people and ordinariness. This is a crucial theological fact for me about the Christmas story. That Jesus is found in our lives mixing in the ordinary events that we get involved in. There are people who say keep religion out of politics but they are really saying Jesus has no place here in this or that part of life.

Incarnation is about God, and thus the church, his body, being alongside people when they are hurting most, as many are doing right now. It is about being the voice of the voiceless, the loyal and courageous opposition to wrong-headed ideas and the equally loyal and courageous supporter for right-headed ideas, wherever the ideas come from. It is about refusing to limit work to those who come looking for spiritual help, because we know that the God who was incarnate in Jesus went about inaugurating the kingdom, which was and is a reality whether or not people acknowledge it.

You can see people fighting against the idea of incarnation when councils, despite all the mockery about political correctness, still try to ban Christmas - and a vote for a winterfest with no room for God no room for Jesus . . .

There was no room at the inn. The incarnation shows that Jesus came anyway! The incarnation shows a Jesus who will always come to be with us, bringing in himself the fullness of God. The message of Christmas is that Incarnation happened then and as a result Jesus cannot be kept out of life. And wherever we go, in whatever dark and seemingly Godless corners of the world He is with us! And that is something great to celebrate!

TIMEKEEPING

I wear a wristwatch. I rely on it all the time. Yesterday I realised something was wrong when I got on to the railway platform, and found the train I had expected to be just in time for had left five minutes previously. I had to get a later train. And all today it has continued to lose time.
A watch that does not keep time is worse than useless. It confuses. I know people who keep their watch permanently on the wrong time so that they are always early for an appointment. That is OK but when a battery is tired it just keeps loosing time and you never know how much it will be out!
I have found an old wind up watch to wear until I get a new battery but I don't know if it keeps good time or not! It is probably worse to have a working watch that you have no idea if it can keep time than one that you know is wrong!
Now that all phones and other devices have accurate time keepers built in will wristwatches become obsolete - or just be a piece of fashion jewellery and, like sundials, no longer be used for their designed purpose. Now sundials.... there is an idea. I could wear a small sundial on my wrist and would be able to know the time at least once or twice a week if the sun shone that often!

Dark chocolate

In praise of dark chocolate

I like chocolate and now I have read an article that encourages me to eat more of it - for the good of my health! It sounded so convincing I wondered if I should go down to the surgery and ask my doctor for a supply on prescription (fair trade of course!)

The article promised that dark chocolate (and only dark chocolate with over 60% cocoa solids) can boost your brain while protecting your heart from disease, your mind from depression, your body from cancer and keep your brain agile, countering the effects of aging. It can also help keep both your blood pressure and bad cholesterol level low!

The chemistry was beyond me but apparently dark chocolate contains theobromine, magnesium, epicatechin, monoamine oxidase inhibitors which allow the levels of serotonin and dopamine in the brain to remain higher for longer and it is rich in flavonols (antioxidents that attack free radicals. In fact it is a much more powerful antioxidant than the fruits and vegetables or even green tea noted for these properties.) It is also rich in phenylethylamine which activates neurotransmitters in your brain.

Those chemical names mean little to me but there are several peer reviewed papers that describe the various ways that darkchocolate helps your health. All this applies only to the dark stuff - if you are a dairy milk fan this does not apply!

I have read enough. I am convinced and I know what will be on my shopping list next time I go in a sweet shop!

Well-being - extract from a paper I wrote over the summer...

Ministers Well-being: An introductory discussion paper compiled from various sources

Introduction

In 1778, John Wesley wrote in a letter to Alexander Knox: “It will be a double blessing if you give yourself up to the Great Physician, that He may heal soul and body together. And unquestionably this is His design. He wants to give you … both inward and outward health” (Knox, 1837, pg 12). Wesley’s statement captures the desire God has for each person to reconcile with the best of themselves and the world around them. He is talking about human well-being, which is a process and not an end in itself.

The Well-being section of the Methodist church intranet site is for the connexional team. There a key sentence acknowledges that "we recognise that for ministers the boundaries between ‘work’ and other parts of life often merge." This fuzzy boundary makes well-being provision for ministers complex. 
 

In the secular world well-being is a live issue. The Guardian on Friday 15^th July 2011 had an article on happiness at work. People are not just motivated by money. The top motivator is "respect" – how valued and trusted by their organisation employees feel. Then comes (in order of priority) "type of work", "providing good service to customers", "the people you work with" and finally, good "work-life balance". It suggested five ways to make workplaces happier environments. First, we need managers with better social and interpersonal skills, who manage people by praise and reward and not fault-finding (because few managers do this, a pay rise is often the only time people feel their contribution is recognised). Second, individuals should have autonomy and control over their work – the absence of micro-management. Third, there needs to be a shorter working hours culture, where appropriate flexible working arrangements are available which people can take up without damaging their careers or feeling guilty. Fourth, there should be manageable workloads and achievable deadlines, and finally, a culture should be encouraged in which employees feel valued and trusted. This shows the difficulty of applying secular studies directly to ministers who don't have managers but do have incredible autonomy!

Why Ministerial Wellbeing?

Healthy ministers make for healthy churches. Unfortunately, unhealthy work patterns practiced by clergy in congregations have resulted in burnout, if not actual physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological break-downs. A holistic understanding of work is crucial if we want to develop healthy expectations and work standards for all ministers in circuit appointments.

Many things contribute to well-being, some of which are in the control of the individual and some are in the control of the church. ADR can help the minister and the church make changes to those things within the control of the church but could also make suggestions about those things that are within the personal control of the minister. Ultimately though a person is responsible for their own wellbeing outside work and to a great extent at work also.

Well-being can be split down into: emotional, spiritual, social and financial well-being.

1. Emotional well-being encompasses mood, self-efficacy, self-image, etc.,― essentially one’s viewpoint and confidence in oneself.

2. Spiritual well-being centers on the relationship with God and the activities that support and enhance this relationship such as prayer, meditation, worship, etc.

3. Social well-being considers the relationships within a person’s life including support from friends and family.

4. Financial well-being considers how well one is managing the business of living as well as preparing for retirement. While financial well-being is not often an element included in models of health, it is often a source of stress which can have major effects on multiple dimensions of health.

Each one of these components, when in their optimal state, helps to ensure the overall well-being and effectiveness of the human being. When one or more are impaired, the overall health and vitality of the individual suffers and their ability to thrive is diminished. In the case of a minister, this impairs their ability to answer the call to serve God and their community.

Book Review - searching for spiritual experience in today's world

Piers Moore Ede “All kinds of magic”, Bloomsbury, 2010, ISBN 978 1 4088 0962 4

Piers Moore Ede came to prominence with his first book, a travel guide searching the world for wild honey and this second work details a deeper inner search to fill his spiritual void. Piers has seen many glimpses of “the holy” in different cultures but never enough to have an life changing effect on him. This book is a detailed description of his exploration as he searches for deeper meaning to life through spiritual experience. Being English and having studied in the USA he rejects Christianity out of hand and like so many westerners before him sets off to India with a conviction that the subcontinent has a spirituality permeating all levels of society which has been lost in the west. Nothing though is as simple as it first seems as his meeting with a leading figure in India's secular society shows.

He is a very sensitive writer and having previously suffered from depression is both analytical and descriptive of all that he both thinks and experiences during this long journey of exploration. In this quest he meets holy men and women from Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic traditions and through their mystical insights he finds similarities in the experience of reality from the mystical vision and world view. He admits that this is frequently irrational and the book contains debates between his experiencing self and his critically analytic self as to what is really going on. He meets prophets, mediums, faith healers and oracles all of whom are both revered and feared in their societies yet all seem to fit in to the prevailing world view and what they do works for the people in their communities. He even examines the use of mind enhancing plant extracts (drugs) in religious traditions to raise awareness and bring enlightenment – which very reluctantly he decides to try.

The descriptions of all his experiences are meticulously recorded and written with great sensitivity. By the end of the book he recognises that he has been changed by the experiences and has become a different person.

It is interesting to note that not once does he look at religion or systems of belief per se – he is only interested in the experiential dimension; he wants to know and feel holiness and if he can accept the experience as real then he is prepared to be changed by it. But he is not prepared to take the word of others as to what he should do or feel and so he avoids the official religious castes.

He regards shamans as the most helpful assistants on his journey rather than priests. He discovers that these mystics often sit lightly to their religious tradition and are often regarded with suspicion by others in their faith groups (cf reactions of Muslims to Sufism)

His blind spot is that he totally ignores the western expressions of spirituality found in the various branches of Christianity, all of which have their spiritual, charismatic and mystical threads alongside the more orthodox. Perhaps his English upbringing has inoculated him from seeing Christianity as any more than a cultural shell leftover from centuries past. His analysis of all protestantism since the reformation sees it as dry, intellectual and wordy. He believes that the reformers squeezed all the holiness (or the magic) out of the religion.

This book is a good read. The descriptions of life in India took me back to my months there in the eighties. His sympathetic portraits of the characters he meets and the chance encounters that often made him take interesting detours in his journey give the whole story a lively sense of discovery and adventure. Ultimately I disagree with many of his conclusions, but he and I started and have ended up in very different places. But I thoroughly enjoyed sharing the journey with him.

(This book review first appeared in the journal of Spectrum)

The spirituality of Harry Potter and the deathly hallows

The last Harry Potter book has many deep spiritual themes in it. I identified twelve.

I bought the book on the day it came out and have just seen the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part two. It is a well written good story and a fitting end to the series. I thought it better than the earlier books in the series with a good pace and plenty of action throughout. If you haven’t read it you are safe to read on – there are no plot spoilers here.

After I put the book down I was struck by how deeply spiritual the book is. There are almost Christian parallels and allusions in the plot. Here is is list of the twelve points on which I base my argument.

1. The whole Harry Potter plot revolves around self sacrifice. “Greater love hath no man than he who lays down his life for his friends.”
2. Love and friendship are valued more highly that material things.
3. All the characters are seen to be flawed in their human make up – even the heroes. This could be argued to be original sin. Even Dumbledore is not perfect.
4. Redemption is possible for anyone who loves or feels remorse. Without love or remorse there is no redemption.
5. Heroism is reluctant and great deeds are portrayed as being hard and unpleasant for those doing them.
6. Death, when it comes at the right time, should not be feared but welcomed as a friend.
7. Happiness and joy come from human relationships and such real experiences cannot be created by magic.
8. That which is truly worthwhile often comes after a long struggle and there will be many times when you will be tempted to give up.
9. Power brings with it great responsibility and those best equipped to deal with power are those who do not seek it.
10. Self understanding awakens people to life and its potential.
11. There is a belief in life after death – perhaps even a vision of heaven in a near death experience. It could almost be said there is resurrection in the book but that is a bit far fetched!
12. There is a long journey through a metaphorical desert in the Deathly Hallows where leadership is tested and the direction to travel is not clear. This parallels with the journey of Moses through the wilderness.

For these twelve reasons I see spiritual depth in this book, much more than in the previous books in the series. I have no doubt people will be doing Ph.D. research on ideas such as this in a few years time!

post script :   J K Rowley says that the two quotes from the bible found by Harry and Hermione on the gravestones in Godrics Hollow are crucial to understanding the whole book. They are  "Where your treasure is there your heart shall be also" and "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death".....

I originally wrote this is July 2007 for the Spectrum magazine.

Old clothes and unintended consequences

I like charity shops for buying clothes. There is a sense of adventure, almost a feeling of being on a treasure hunt, as you look through the chaotic muddle of mixed cast-offs to see if you can find any hidden gems. It is so different from real shops where there are rows of identical styles and colours in all sizes. Instead there is an eclectic mix of sizes and styles and only one of each item. The element of a random gamble makes shopping so much more interesting! 

But there are problems behind this world of recycling clothes. There are many new clothes available for next to nothing that are sourced from the sweat shops in low income economies. They are so cheap when new that they are hardly worth selling second hand. They do not retain their pristine shape for long so they are soon handed in to charity shops. There are thus many tonnes of clothes donated:  far too many to be sold on the limited rails of any small town charity shop. So the shop hangs out on display what it thinks it can sell, sends to the head office anything of particular value or interest (many charities have premium shops that only sell designer brands) and then sells on all that is left over by weight.

When there were fewer charity shops and clothes were more expensive and they would try and sell most of the stuff that was donated in their stores and the remainder was sold for next to nothing for rags for recycling.

Now however a new trade has grown up to sort and sell these large amounts of second hand clothing to different markets. This came to light in recent news stories. There was serious concern expressed when it was revealed that the company who bought all the spare old clothes from Salvation Army recycling centres had made £1million profit by selling them on to shops in central and eastern Europe. It seems that there are many shops in these countries that want well known western brands such as Marks and Spencer or Next. No one suggested that anyone had done anything wrong. There was just incredulity that the surplus donated clothes had generated such profits. The Salvation Army was said to be looking at the policy of selling on their excess of donated items.

There is another consequence but this time in Africa. There are so many second hand clothes being shipped into certain African countries and being sold for low prices that local people who make a living from sewing and making garments are going out of business. No wonder when we see pictures on the TV news from an African village many people are wearing western tee shirts with recognisable slogans. This is particularly ironic when you see that Oxfam and other charities are selling fair trade clothes sourced from similar third world countries. Perhaps a solution can only come if there is widespread public revulsion at the cheap sweat shop produced clothes that leads to policies of ethical corporate responsibility that some chain stores have adopted. This will mean the end of the very cheap clothes that not only have destroyed much of the British made clothing industry but is now doing the same to producers in Africa!

Charity shops can be fun and raise much needed money for good causes but with the interconnectedness of the world economy, the booming trade in second hand clothes can sometimes have unintended consequences.

A former town planner reflects...

Walking through the depressing shopping mall that is the town centre of Cumbernauld new town I found an enormous range of pound shops. I didn't know there were so many chains specialising in this niche market. There was only one bookshop and that was of the discount "stack 'em high" variety. I nearly lost the will to live. A town centre tells you much about the aspirations and current state of a town. This mall told me if you want to buy any quality item go elsewhere. Cumbernauld New Town, once voted The Worlds Best New Town by the Association of American Architects, is now consistently voted the worst town in Scotland.

And this is the result of town planning. The new town rose in its concrete splendour in the hilly North Lanarkshire countryside from the dream of an architect/planners drawing board in the years immediately following 1956. Fifty five years later we can survey the results and judge the long term effects of this social engineering project.

The segregation of traffic from pedestrians has worked. This is a place where it is frequently quicker to walk to the centre from where you live than take the car, even though there seem to be ample car parks. The landscaping has worked - indeed there are so many trees along the roadsides between the various different parts of the town that you can think you have left the town completely. Early pictures from the sixties reveal a much bleaker appearance before the landscaping matured. And some of the architecture has worked.


But some of the architecture hasn't. The shopping centre is a case in point. In December 2005 the entire Town Centre won a public nomination for demolition in the Channel 4 series Demolition, where it was voted "the worst building in Britain".  The website of the Cumbernauld shopping centre bravely states that the scheme was “crowned as the UK’s first indoor shopping complex... the centre can claim to be the blueprint for all premier indoor shopping centres around the country today.” The outside may look bleak but inside the pound shops, charity shops and empty units line long malls connected by confusing passages and corridors, all decorated with shiny tiles. I couldn't get out of my mind that I was in a confusing labyrinthine public convenience!

The residential areas of Cumbernauld were designed with no pedestrian crossings, (zebra or pelican crossings, or traffic lights) Pedestrians had to cross roads by bridges and tunnels. This could not last and there is now a set of traffic lights in the Condorrat neighbourhood and traffic/pelican lights were erected beside the new Tesco in 2004.

One claim to fame is that Cumbernauld was the location for the film Gregory's Girl,  the well known and popular 1981 rom-com about coming of age and teenage unrequited love. I must revisit that film thirty years on and see if the locations are still recognisable.

Most of the residential areas are pleasant and the housing stock is of a high quality and at a much lower price than nearby Stirling or Falkirk. Externally some of  the housing schemes with their penchant for concrete and flat roofs and the tendency to have rows of garages facing the road with the houses facing onto a pedestrian walkway can give a bleak and depressing central European communist era feel.

So does it work as a space to live and work? It has many very pleasant residential areas and, like all towns, some areas with more needs and social problems. It was built too close to established centres of employment, commerce and shopping for the town to need to be self contained. Thus it works as a Glasgow commuter suburb, now with the greatly expanded car park at nearby Croy station. (Cumbernauld station itself is on a branch line with an infrequent service to anywhere.) The lively, modern shopping centres of Stirling and Falkirk are each only twenty minutes away. It is a pleasant place to live and much more attractive than in the early days when it looked like a modernist experiment in a vast greenfield building site. (Which I suppose it was.) The award winning architecture of the centre looks tired and dated and is widely disliked.

But the people of Cumbernauld were Glasgow people, moved there in the fifties and sixties from poor tenements and substandard housing. They have triumphed through the strength of the human spirit to make the place a lively and loved community that happily ignores the social engineering that went on all around them.

Emerging church?

Statistics suggest that the church in Britain is facing meltdown. There are many responses but I categorise them basically as twofold. First, a new emerging church is forming tentatively and albeit on a very small scale. This is a localised, uncoordinated, grass roots movement, ignoring the traditional ecclesiasial structures where people are seeking to find ways to live based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. This contrasts with the more common institutional response to decline by those who cannot see beyond their inherited views and live within the known structures. These are people who seem to be facing backwards to steer forwards, envisioning a future based on the remembered experiences of the past.

Emerging church is small and locally based, aiming to fit in with peoples lifestyles and without a clergy class to control it. Most of the groups are based on three principles - : a concern to embrace those looking for God; a corporate desire to know and worship God; a commitment to live together that goes beyond superficial friendship. Membership of the groups is open and the boundaries are fuzzy - there are no controls or standards of belief for those joining. It is a community where participation is more important than doctrine and peer to peer help and support is normative. The church always has been tempted to believe it is an end in itself. The characteristics that Jesus showed are less attractive – love, vulnerability, redemptive suffering, service and these living communities try to live out these values in their corporate life. They are participatory, interactive, learning communities with the characteristics of honesty and reality in acknowledging ambiguity and brokenness in the world as they find it. They have minimal structure look for meaning and the voice of God in contemporary culture. There is little or no emphasis on buildings with sacred spaces created on an ad-hoc basis.

But being small, uncoordinated and informal is also a weakness. Should a new form of structural church emerge that gains widespread popular support, and there are large wealthy Christian organisations who using the latest technology and business models to achieve such ascendancy, then these “fresh expressions” of “emerging church” could be crushed and forgotten. They will go down in history as a temporary aberration, just as the hippy Jesus movement of the sixties now is a relic of a past age (though a fond memory for some romantic aging rockers in the church!)

Are those living an alternative lifestyle or counter culturally a source for renewal? They are little known beyond their own circles and they have no influence in the all important formation of opinion by the media. How do these experimental experiences become more widely known? Where else is the discourse and experimentation taking place envisioning futures for church away from the tired icons of the denominations. In which forums are significant debates taking place involving innovative blue sky thinking and who, if anyone, is listening?

Solas: The Greenbelt festival’s little Scottish cousin - some reflections from a first time visitor

SOLAS was a great weekend but I came back with the conviction that I don't want to eat barbecued food for a while. The lovely group of people I was with barbecued a super communal meal every evening and, don't get me wrong though it was fantastic, I am now barbecued out. Solas means light in Gaelic and for me the festival brought entertainment and enlightenment.

Solas, now in its second year, is a small festival at Wiston, near Biggar, in the Scottish Borders exploring music, arts, culture, faith and contemporary issues. It is small, intimate, friendly festival with perhaps a maximum of about 700 people involved on site. I am told it is all Greenbelt is but on a much smaller scale and with no queues! The festival organisers have a vision of a Greenbelt type of event that is not hundreds of miles from Scotland and fits in with the Scottish school holidays (We are back to School by the time of the English August bank holiday)

Solas was a good relaxed place to be. The stalls and outlets supplying food and other essentials were fairly priced. It is free from corporate sponsorship. It is safe for all ages. A lasting image will be of wee toddlers dancing right in front of the main stage as one of the headline bands played their set. There were no security men in sight. Not all festivals are like this. There was no alcohol on sale on the site though many participants brought their own. Thankfully this meant that those whose expectation of festival is being smashed off their face for 48 hours hadn't bothered to come. Camping on the site was basic but I think most people can manage two nights without showers and hot water. (When almost everything is outdoors then personal odours are not a major issue!)

Three M's sum up my Solas experience: midges, music and meetings. I began both Saturday and Sunday mornings with an hour long yoga session led by a delightful lady who encouraged us gently to stretch parts that we normally ignore. A wonderfully invigorating start to any day although even at an early hour we had to use “skin so soft” on exposed parts because of the presence of those wee flying devils. Midges also were evident with a vengeance in the evenings but regrettably it was not the weather for much bare flesh.

The eclectic music programme was of a very high standard on both the main stage and other smaller acoustic venues. Open mike sessions encouraged many talented individuals to share their gifts. I laughed heartily with Dundee folk singer Michael Marra and was moved by many young bands. Traditional Scots Gaelic music was present, as was a classical cello and seemingly everything in between! The programme included films, drama, an art exhibition and events especially for small children and older teens.

Solas was a place of meeting as I reconnected with many friends from other places and also met formally in groups to listen to speakers on an exciting range of topical edgy subjects. Climate change, sectarianism, nationalism, violence and equality were all aired by people who were both knowledgeable and had something worthwhile to share. You could not go to these without having your social conscience stimulated. This year the Iona community had sponsored the programme of talks.

The two main sponsors of the festival as a whole were Greenbelt and Christian Aid. (The Christian Aid tent incidentally supplied excellent coffee and wonderful cakes!) We were asked to consider becoming Solas saints by pledging a small amount every month to help ensure the long term sustainability of the festival. This is essential as the consequence of not accepting corporate sponsorship means that it will probably make a loss again this year – which legally is the personal responsibility of the trustees.

There were spiritual elements to the programme – late night worship led by Holy city from Glasgow and an imaginative communion service on Sunday morning that included resources from all over the world.

Solas, I will be back next June.

Nationalism

What does Nationalism mean today?

I attended a discussion panel on nationalism yesterday and have been pondering the issue all day.

Where do I feel that I belong? At an emotional level nationalism is about where I feel at home. It is a sense of identity with a group larger than my immediate household or family. But which group? With the internet I can be as close to a friend in Panama or Paris as a friend on the other side of town. I was born in England but have lived in Scotland for twelve years. After the May 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections the question of my feelings about where I live is an important one. If I were into cheering for a sports team, which team would I support? Nationalism has to be based on a positive attitude for something rather than be defined by who we are different to or those with whom we have historic disagreements. The latter sort of nationalism is a destructive and festering resentment that is unfortunately present in England amongst groups claiming to be most patriotic.

I belong to the world. I travel. I can feel at home in many different places. The United Nations gives focus to this world identity. As a human being I belong to the earth.

But the world is just too big to identify with. I belong to continental Europe and felt at home on recent travel to Croatia, even though it is outside the EU, for we share much history and culture with the central European states. Then there is the EU which encompasses the part of Europe where I live and which has control and influence on many parts of modern life. If I say I feel a European do I mean an EU citizen or a citizen of the area including the countries outside the Union. The list goes on.

Within the EU we live in The British Isles (which includes the whole of Ireland) within the British Isles we are The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Within this we are Great Britain. In GB we are in Scotland. I am in Central Scotland. In that region I am in Stirling and within that local authority area I am in the parish of Blairlogie. Somewhere in this hierarchy of subsidiarities is my primary nationalist impulse.

I can be passionate and exhibit emotions equivalent to nationalism at several different levels. At various times and concerning various issues I will express these feelings relating to different entities. I can be Parochial and I can think globally. But at which level do I feel most nationalistic? It is an emotional decision rather than a legal or logical one. And at present my answer is that I don't really know. It is an issue that needs considerable further reflection before the promised independence referendum. 

Scottish Nationalism and the Idea of Europe: Concepts of Europe and the Nation (British Politics and Society)

The Scottish Debate: Essays on Scottish Nationalism

 Labour and Scottish Nationalism

 Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and Politics, 1707-2000

Even a lecture on neonatal medical ethics can inspire a poetic meditation!

Two options for making a baby, with love, in 2011

Option 1

I want a baby

I need some sperm

from tall athletic and intelligent guy - graduate of course

he loves donating

check internet availability

I need some eggs

from tall, blonde, musical and athletic girl: blue eyes

she loves college: being harvested pays the fees

check internet availability

I need a womb

non smoking home, good diet, no alcohol or drugs

she loves her family but needs to feed them

check internet availability

Then the waiting

cooking with the oven door closed

I have never loved waiting

can't think of a way to speed up this part

Then I'll take over

with my commissioned item delivered ready for use

I can give all the love in my heart

that I have stored up in welcome

* * * * *

Option 2

We loved and joined in love

made from love something small

that grew until it burst forth

through pain

to be loved

and love those who made her......

Lectionary poem

While struggling with the gospel reading for next Sunday I wrote the following poem...

Adultery (Matthew 5:27)

Jesus said,

It is not the sweaty consummation,

writhing: energy to ecstasy

that is most destructive.

Much worse are the mental

unconsummated fantasies

that override commitment

and undermine reality.

That give imagined passion

the motivation and power:

dreaming driving drawing draining

relationships in the real world.

What can compete with the unbridled unreality

of obsession that leads to a madness of dislocation?

“Blest are the pure in heart”

I wonder what they will make of it on Sunday?

Teaching an old dog new tricks

I have been singing all my life. In church in choirs or in the bath I have not been afraid to lift up my voice and sing. In small congregations I have given a lead by belting out the tune at full volume to help others sing along. In the choir I sang the bass line and was able to keep the line not least because I was always beside someone else singing the same notes.
But over the last few months things have changed. I joined the amateur dramatics and I have had to start again. For a start in the chorus you don't stand with the other basses - you are all mixed up on the stage so you have to try and keep your notes and listen out for others singing the same as you are whilst hearing mostly those singing  something totally different.
There is the times when members of the chorus come forward with a one liner solo. I was expecting to stand at the back of stage and grunt but no! I have two one liner solos to sing! There will be 400 people who have paid money for this! My previous experience hasn't really prepared me for this.
So yesterday I went for my first ever singing lesson. I learnt about warming up, how to stand, how to breathe and how to recognise my natural range and some tricks for trying to extend it. If only I had done this years ago I might have been on stage at La Scala by now - no perhaps not. But after that half hour I felt more confident and better equipped to do what I thought would just be a fuinl leisure time activity. So it is never too late to learn.... I hope.

Guilt

Now as a green activist, in my own small way, I have been trying to cut my carbon footprint. This week though I went to a meeting near London and to get there and back I flew. I didn't want to fly, and I didn't enjoy the flight but I had to do it because it was cheaper by a long way and it took much less time, allowing me to meet other commitments in my diary.

But I am left feeling guilty.
The system is stacked against making use of the railways. Getting a proper, European standard, high speed rail link from London to Scotland is decades away, since there are nimbys all along the route who will fight its development along every mile of the proposed track! And this is what we need for it would beat the pants off flying every time!
So this is a modern moral dilemma. Should I feel guilty? Should I plan better so that I allow for the extra time taken when not flying?
Does it matter? The flight is going to go anyway with or without me on board. Can I offset my carbon by doing something else? Perhaps I should put a new shrub or tree in the garden for each flight I take. Though that would  make me feel good would it actually do anything. Do any of these offsetting schemes actually work or are they elaborate scams to make you feel better.
No answers as usual but lots of questions to ponder. Perhaps as Christians we do the guilt thing more than most!

ND filters

Here is my new toy in action. I bought myself a ND (neutral density) filter for my camera with some money I was given at Christmas. So today, being the first day since Christmas when it has been mild, dry and snow and rain free I went along to the nearby Logie Burn with my tripod and tried out this gadget.
First problem - it makes the viewfinder very dark so it is hard to see what is there!
Second problem the exposure meter was giving readings I didn't believe so I set the camera to manual and experimented.
Well here is an example of what I did. It is too dark. It lacks sparkle. There are reflections that stop you seeing the colours in the rock.
But there is an exciting magic effect starting to emerge.
So that is my challenge for the next fine day.And perhaps I can put on a polarising filter too and get rid of the reflections!

I can see ethereal atmospheric promise here...

Next time perfection - I am aiming for no less than picture that makes people say wow when they see it.

Happy Epiphany

Just as everyone has put the nativity sets and Christmas decorations away the church calender marks the arrival of the wise men on the scene. So as the world is tired of Christmas, which for the secular world started in October, we in the church are still supposed to be enthusiastic about this part of the story.

I am just musing today on the meaning of the word epiphany. It means a sudden revelation or insight and is used for today because Jesus was revealed to the wise men. Other significant moments in history which have been celebrated as epiphanies are Archimedes shout of "Eureka" (I have found it) when the answer came to him. Other scientific discoveries have been called an epiphany moment.
Whilst for western Christians, the feast primarily commemorates the coming of the Magi; Eastern churches celebrate the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan. In both traditions, the essence is the same: the manifestation of Christ to the world. In Roman catholic countries in Europe chalk is used to write the initials of the three magi over the doors of churches and homes. The letters stand for the initials of the Magi (traditionally named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar).   C + M + B + 2011
In 2010 I was in Spain in January. There epiphany day is called El Día de los Reyes (The Day of the Kings), i.e., the day when a group of Kings or Magi, arrived to worship and bring three gifts to the baby Jesus after following a star in the heavens. We saw many houses decorated with models and cardboard cutouts of the kings climbing up walls and on balconies. Traditional belief is that Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar, representing Europe, Arabia, and Africa, arrived on horse, camel and elephant, bringing respectively gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus. Children leave their shoes ready for the Kings' presents before they go to bed on the eve of January 6. Sweet wine, nibbles, fruit and milk are left for the Kings and their camels. In Spain, children typically receive their presents on this day, rather than at Christmas.
At this time of year a sweet bread called Roscon is baked and served at special open air festivities. I was in the town square in Lorca in the Murcia region where they had baked the largest Roscon in the world!
But here the 6th January is just another working day while Scots wait for the next opportunity for a party which will be "Burns night" at the end of the month.   So back to work! And perhaps I will get an epiphany moment soon!
(P.S. Epiphany is a great excuse, as if anyone needs one, to read the famous poem about the Magi by TS Eliot - a poem which charts his personal journey to faith)

Chasing Francis

Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron is a novel that has a message. But unlike most books that try to combine the two this one really works. The characters are portrayed as real people not cardboard caricatures who only appear to mouth the message! (I am currently reading a "Christian novel" that is worthy but very hard going!)
The plot concerns the pastor of a conservative church in the USA who finds he has lost his conservative certainties and needs to take time out to rediscover what the church should be about. He goes to Italy and follows the footsteps of St Francis of Assisi in the company of some convivial Franciscans.
The plot allows a discussion of the insights of St Francis and an analysis of how his followers have implemented these ideas over the centuries.
The hero's insight is that Francis identified five priorities that he used to reform the church of his time and suggests that these same priorities are applicable today. These five key factors are transcendence, community, beauty, dignity and meaning. Having spent all his life in a conservative protestant environment the hero finds it liberating to be able to include his other senses in his worship and not simply rely on cerebral arguments for faith. As I look back on my recent ministry these factors have all been important but I have rarely found them as clearly articulated previously.
I could say much more about this book but I won't because I believe that you should read it for yourself! It even has the following glowing endorsement from Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury on the front cover - "I've now read it twice and found it equally compelling both times. It is a remarkable book." What more could I say!

I hate HTML

I am a very tolerant person and there is not much that I hate - but "hyper text markup language" or HTML is on the list. I have spent hours today trying to make some simple amendments to my website and the whole lot has got messed up! It is so time consuming and painful. I rememebr when I originally set it up it was easy. I had a drag and drop program then but it was lost in my last hardware upgrade.
I must find another drag and drop web layout program soon before I do my head in totally!!
Please excuse me if I go away and scream!