Bringing in the New Year

Off down to London to bring in the New Year with a good buddy. Aiming to go to Somerset House to watch (not participate in - too chicken) the skating and then onto somewhere near the London Eye to watch the fireworks. We'll wave to you all from the telly. (PSL will have to be careful of complete and utter strangers slightly worse for wear, wanting to snog him - just like sharing the peace at HTB)

Whatever you're doing, have a really good one and see you all in 2007 - I wonder what it holds for us, emerging or not?

the afterglow

So how was it for you?
Best bits...watching my nearest and dearest opening their pressies on Christmas morning, everyone mucking in to help with the Christmas meal, Christmas Radio 4 for the talk, Classic FM for the carols and Radio 1 for the nonsense, timing 'the big shop' just right (this year was my quietest ever -and did I feel smug- you bet I did) friends joining us on Christmas Day for lunch, the Christmas 'liturgy' we used throughout the meal (thanks Steve) and waking up on Boxing day knowing it was all over again..
Worst bits...spending money again and again and again, realising some of the carols I have sung for years and years actually make no sense at all and that words have been selected purely because they rhyme("christian children all should beeee, mild, obediant good as heeee, when like stars His children crowned, All in white shall wait around." - how dull ) and regretting that yet again I've not spent enough time reflecting on the time splitting events of God Incarnate.
So my little blogging friends...what were the hits and misses for you?

links

In an attempt to make this blog a bit more useful I've put in some links to other sites and blogs that you might want to take a look at. As there are zillions of the things all floating around on the blogosphere, I realise this is just scratching the surface. Let me know if you've found some good ones and I'll add them on - but I'm drawing the line at the Formula 1 website - sorry PSL!
(sorry the page looks a bit dodgy at the mo but struggling to get the different bits to move around)

not dead just sleeping

Have been officially what is known in blogger-speak as 'dormant.' In other words- nowts been going on in the posting department. Ironic really since life has been anything but dormant. Will try to do better in the coming weeks. Look out for a flurry of deeply meaningful and deeply meaningless outpourings.

searching for meaning

Went on the hunt for Christmas cards today. Once I'd discounted the meaningless robins and snowmen, the 'winterfall' scenes of snow and ice (which, with the ridiculous temperatures we've got at the minute should soon be a dim and distant memory anyway), the fairies, goblins, brussel sprouts, puddings, trees and yet more snowmen - I was left with the sickly sweet nativity scenes of grinning shepherds, nun-like mary's and pristine mangers, all of which seemed to say zilch about 'God-with- Us.' Maybe this picture taken by Ben Bell is more what it really was and is about. And not a bit of glitter or holly in sight.

what are you waiting for

Proud to say I have never

Read a great article in the paper yesterday. The Daily Torygraph has started a new club. It's called The Society of People Who Never....
Here's a few examples from the deluge the paper received;
I have never...
Watched or read anything with the word "celebrity" in the title, used an ipod, drunk bottled water, eaten Turkey twizzlers, pot Noodles, buffalo wings, doner kebabs, been to Disneyland,Legoland or Alton Towers, worn a baseball hat, eaten cream when custard is available, travelled on a bus, prepared a Jamie Oliver recipe, finished a DH Lawrence novel, fored a gun, seen a James Bond movie.
Now apparently it's not about us all being grunpy old men and women (even if that's probably the general reading population of the Torygraph) it's more about Britain still being a nation peopled by rebels with minds of their own.
here's my bid for membership -
I'm proud to say I have never...
been on a skiing holiday, climbed very high mountains, pickled onions, seen Les Mis, eaten cold baked beans or queued up for the latest Harry Potter book.

So what about you?

the whole truth and nothing but the truth

So how did the discussion on 'truth' go?
Chatting recently to Zoe, she passed a comment about the fact that there could be no 'absolute truths' - now I wouldn't have said we were that far apart on matters of belief, but at that moment I realised I was just a post -modernist wearing the equivalent of a funny moustache and glasses to disguise my modernity shaped view of life (and death) .....I keep trying, but those annoying little absolutes keep sneaking through. On the other hand, the post-modernists could just be absolutely wrong on the matter of truth. And just what was Jesus getting at when He described himself as 'the truth' ?

what's your poison?

This week we haven't met mid-week as usual. That's because we're holding a whiskey tasting evening at T&F's on Friday evening. Unfortunately, we can't make it - and despite it being the national drink of my homeland - you can keep it - would rather drink neat dettol. No doubt, after a few taste-bud numbing sips the conversation will flow - anyone volunteering to post the day-after-the-night-before -blog for those of us who can't make it? Have fun! (contact S&W if you need details, times etc)

NHS & the White House

I read an amazing story in the morning paper yesterday. Apparently, the US deputy health secretary, Alex Azar, has been in London to lobby British ministers to allow the world's huge pharmaceutical companies (mostly US based) unrestricted access to the NHS as part of a package of free market reforms. Azar claimed that attempts to use rationing procedures such as those used by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to cut soaring drugs bills was stifling innovation, not surprisingly the same argument is used by the pharmaceutical companies. Azar also shared the US method of offering private insurance packages to people on Medicare ( the Healthcare scheme provided in the US to the poor and elderly). He went on to suggest that the UK government could consider a similar scheme so that everyone could have basic healthcare, but would have to take out insurance themselves to top up the scheme if they wanted better healthcare than the basic level which the state could afford!
I hope they either put him on the next flight back to Washington DC, or applied for the UK to become the 51st state!

Faith & Offence.

People of faith are offended by very different things! Richard Dawkins gives offence to many Christians, I can't say he bothers me. It seems to me that his efforts at mocking Christianity are the equivalent of trying to flatten Ben Nevis by throwing stones at it! As a Christian I'm more offended by the Fundamentalist Christian Right. I'm offended that they are global warming deniers, claim that anyone concerned for the environment is a pagan, are warmongers instead of peacemakers, happy for the very rich to get tax cuts at the expense of the poor, that Justice is explained away as charity, Israel is in the right whatever it does, the war in Iraq is OK, that Christians with a different point of view are vilified, and that they have nothing to say about corruption in big business, the arms trade, trade justice, debt relief, torture, rendition, and imprisonment without trial.

red or white?

Seen or heard this article on the news today? Kind of related to our discussion last night.
Jonathon Bartley the director of ekklesia has thrown this into the arena;
"The Christian tradition, and specifically the crucifix, have a great deal in common with the poppy. Both are linked to sacrifice. Both take a location of bloodshed and violence and make a statement about it. And both attempt to give us hope in the face of death. They imply that those who died did not do so in vain", Bartley writes. "But whilst apparently banned from wearing one symbol of hope (the cross), public figures in Britain are simultaneously urged, indeed in many cases, required, to wear another (the red poppy) – almost as an article of faith. There is a political correctness about the red poppy, which often goes unnoticed. "But there is a crucial difference between the red poppy and the crucifix. Whilst the red poppy implies redemption can come through war, the Christian story implies that redemption comes through nonviolent sacrifice. The white poppy is much more Christian, in that respect, than the red variety.

Has he got a point? I have to own up and say I've never seen wearing a red poppy as having much to do with redemption - it's more of a reminder to me - but maybe he's right in that there is a sense that NOT to wear a poppy is seen as somehow very un pc. As for a white poppy being more Christian....hmmm...

feeling proud

IT skills are on the up - have worked out how to do a link ( I know, I know, it's not exactly rocket science) and for any of my less IT literate pals out there - if you see a word on the post with a line underneath it like this - click on it and it'll take you to another web page. Now I'm going to bore you all senseless with all sorts of irrelevant links all over the blogosphere....you have been warned.

The cross and the veil

This coming week we'll be thinking about the recent furore over muslim women being asked to remove their veils and the case of Ms Eweida of British Airways being sent home on unpaid leave because she refused to hide her crucifix under her uniform. Is this a case of religious discrimination on both parties' part, or is one more extreme than the other?Maybe we should take a leaf from France's book and declare ourselves a secular state - no crosses, no veils, no messy religious stuff getting in the way of what we should really be about.
Oh well, think on, and we'll thrash it out at Steve and Wendy's on Wednesday.

We talked last night in the pub about prayer. We had a good time I think. Since I'm struggling to write anything wise or profound, here's a little bit from our favourite monk Abbot Christopher Jamieson from 'The Monastery.'

"I have never found prayer easy, but what gets easier is accepting the fact. So I worry less about technique and more about my fundamental, heartfelt attitude to God while I am praying. In simple faith, I offer myself and my community into the hands of God, with no striving after effect and without worrying too much about the distractions that inevitably come." While time is not the measure of quality in prayer, without giving the time there is ultimately no prayer. Now you will rightly say that a busy parent can pray while helping the children or walking the dog; true, but if that is the only kind of prayer , then I question whether that may not gradually become personal reflection time rather than prayer."

change or die

The Stern report on global warming has been top of the news over the last couple of days. Finally, it seems, someone is being taking seriously- interestingly and probably quite predictably, it's an economist that's finally got the great, the good, and the not-so-good's attention. (It's uncanny how money can concentrate the mind.)
As a group of people with lots, some and no faith - I wonder what our reaction to the report is. Personally, I think it doesn't matter a toss what my reaction is if it doesn't make a blind bit of difference to what I do - in fifty years time my grandchildren won't care if I thought carbon emissions were worrying - they'll be wanting to know what I did about it. It seems to me it's all about the thinking and the talking being translated into action. That's where it can all get a bit 'difficult' and quietly, I'd like to cling to the idea that it's just not as bad as the experts make out and things will all be sorted out somehow. That's when I'm grateful for friends who shift up a gear and put the talk into action - they have a good effect on me and stop me getting too comfy. I'd like to be part of a community that seeks to do that for one another - not through a sense of superiority, or through pressure, but through example, encouragement and accountability. What d'you think?
And, as I drove back from work tonight, listening to the radio, I couldn't help but draw some comparisons with my reaction to the Stern report and with what we have said about the Church.(see saturday's post) The thinking and the talking is absolutely necessary and good - but at what point does it need to become action? We've had many a talk about our concerns about the need for the church to change - but maybe now is the time to take some action, take some risks and get a little bit uncomfortable before it's too late.
"The task is urgent. Delaying action, even by a decade or two, will take us into dangerous territory. We must not let this window of opportunity pass.' Sir Nicholas Stern

What is “church in the pub”? I don’t know. What is church? I’ve been going a wee while and I’m not at all sure I know that either. It does seem somewhat bizarre that at a time when many people report that they are more open to spirituality than ever before, attendance at traditional churches continues to decline (perhaps terminally?). The Church has for centuries maintained its faith in the reality of an unseen but nevertheless utterly real spiritual dimension. Faith in materialist answers to life’s problems is on the wane; many instinctively know that all that glistens does not satisfy, that men and women shall not live, truly happily, on bread alone. People seek more. There is some existential yearning for meaning….relationship….hope, which the latest stuff cannot fulfil. So why isn’t the Church cashing in?
Perhaps it is just the image. Would a repackaging of the product result in people flocking into the churches once more. Trendy vicars in leathers playing electric guitars? I suspect not….though it is undoubtedly true that much of the Church is as connected to contemporary culture as a cod piece. Long live Father Ted. Maybe it’s not the job of the Church to respond to changing culture anyway; it stands fast to eternal truth and the faithful remnant worship. If we pass through a cultural and spiritual “Dark Ages” every once in a millennium or so, the task of the faithful is to keep the light burning in uncomfortable times.
However what if the Church has been caught in a modernist time warp and that the claim to have “Truth” all sown up and neatly packaged in pew sized bites now appears not only arrogant but also unbelievable? What if the Church is seen by some to be the very last place to come to for a sense of spiritual connection? What if the “institutional-ness” of the Church is the barrier? What if the language of Church is no longer culturally passed on and we enter the brave new world of Post Christendom?
Too many questions. It’s time for a pint of real cider. See you there.

what's in a name?

Names are important aren't they? - You've only got to talk to teachers and watch their faces when you mention certain names- (for me it's Daniel - angelic looking but had the ability to destroy in a matter of seconds any thoughts or plans to teach him anything...)
So I thought I'd better explain where the name 'Third Space' comes from - hopefully no one out there is feeling queasy at the mention of it because it has triggered some hideous bad memory (doc: "dear, dear this means we'll have to very painfully and very slowly remove your third space.")
Like all the best names, it's stolen - from michael frost - who has written a book called "exiles - living missionally in a post christian culture." (when I've upped my blogging skills I'll be able to link you to his book but that's a bit beyond me at the moment) He suggests that christians need to get out of their churches, and out of their homes into 'third places'- places where people meet, relax, relate - the pub, cafe, gym etc and this seems exactly what we're trying to do with our group.
So there you have it - Third Space - hope you like it - at least it's not Daniel or Shane or Listeria...

Always quite tricky things introductions.
Do we shake hands? (very British) kiss? (far too familiar) kiss on both cheeks? (far too 'luvey') -ask, 'what do you do?' - (so predictable) ...it's all a bit of a dilemma. And then, once we've got past the introductions, there's the worry of 'what do we actually talk about?" - will we be able to keep the conversation going ?- or will there be those difficult silences?
So deep breath, let's get on with it. Allow me to introduce the blogging (and bloggers) of 'Third Space' (cue fanfare.) I only have one tiny sneaking worry that this might be the equivalent of being introduced to the most boring person at the party who talks a lot but has absolutelt zilch to say. Let's try to think positive and see it more as getting to know the apparently introverted shy, standing in the kitchen, eating the peanuts nervously party goer, who appears on first impressions to be hard work, but actually turns out to be the most fascinating, well-informed, passionate person you've ever met. (well, there's nothing like being aspirational)