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."