smart enough to know i'm a fool.

This may be a daft thing to do given some of my readership, but what can i do; being smart enough to know i'm thick doesn't make me smart enough to not be thick... if you follow.

Assignments, essays and word counts are killing me and here's why: I understand enough to know that i don't know much. In other words, i get it; i don't get it.
The immediately preceeding 7 words seem to me to sum up one of the main purposes of my education i.e. to be able to gather enough contradictory information on any given subject to understand the arguments without having any unhumbly held resolutions to them. So assignment after assignment gets charged my way and the content seems to be centred around the principle of 'but we can't be sure' or 'we don't know'.

I get it. What i don't get is how i'm supposed to spin out my 7 word mantra into the 50 odd thousand words required for me to complete my formal education.

Knee news is good news

I'd recommend tearing knee ligaments to anyone, it's fantastic. You get to do all sorts of things you otherwise wouldn't.
Ok, so there are down sides, not least the sheer number of medics who queue up to take it in turns sitting on your foot and seeing how far they can pull your lower leg away from the rest of your body. Other than that and the pain, the immobility and the inconvenience, it's pretty good.

For example, MRI scans are brilliant. Alright, so you wait 8 weeks for an appointment and then they give you 12 hours notice for one, but once you get there - oh boy! The machine has the all around hum of a tank rolling by, interspersed with very loud bangs and occasional spurts of what sound like machine gun fire. It's quite something. Because of all this noise they give you headphones. These headphones play music(ish), except this doesn't block out the noise at all really. My experience was having to lie still for 20min, laughing out loud at the surreality of being played Phil Collins' Take A Look At Me Now, Lionel Richie's All Night Long and Sexual Healing, and Diana Ross' Chain Reaction - all in what sounded like the middle of a war zone. Where else could one participate in such a this as this?

Another top note of the whole ordeal was this morning. I'm at the stage now where i took part in my first 'leg class' that the physiotherapy dept run. It was basically an hour long class of a couple of circuits of leg based exercises. It's for those approaching full recovery. The brilliant bit was at the end of the class we had a game of uni-hoc; you know, the hockey for kids, with the big plastic sticks. I played this with 5 other adults of varying ability who i'd never met before, all of whom have very serious jobs i'm sure, and all of whom completely disregarded themselves in order to join in the fun. Where else could one find an experience like this?

Torn ligaments; they're the new black.

Giving Jesus a bed for the night.

The church of which i'm part has agreed to a contract offered by the local council to run emergency sheltered accommodation for rough sleepers through the winter. This means using our building, time, personnel and other resources dramatically differently from how we have been until now.

WWWWwwwwwooooooooooooooooooooooooo - Hhhhhhhhooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Exciting. Terrifying. Huge massive big deal. Only the beginning?

What's brilliant about this is:
How the move is seen and understood by the church as something truly 'gospel', something we can't as Christians deny or shirk.

The preparedness to address the wealth and complexity of 'how' questions in order to make it happen, rather than use the 'how' questions as reasons not to go ahead with it.

The fact that we will now have something of real substance around which to gather, theologise, worship and serve.

What's of concern, and worthy of further reflection is:
That it's taken an invitation from local government and financial payment for us to start doing this. If Jesus is our Lord, and not government or money, we ought to have been doing it already, or we need to exceed the terms of service agreed.

The potential for this work to continue but as a separate project from the church; rather than it be something the church does, it becoming something the church allows to happen so it can get on with its 'proper religious business'.

Other thoughts include:
My excitement over having large amounts of ministerial time taken up by night-time service to homeless people meaning that there could be a void of 'Sunday stuff' and pastoral stuff for the wider church to fill. I'm excited that this could force a fuller recognition of what 'community' means, ie. what it is to belong to one another and to take responsibility for one another, as well as for our religious practise. This has to be preferable to attitudes that look to be served and catered to.

The council has offered some of its resources from when it was running the scheme, things like camp beds, but most importantly two industrial washer dryers. The question of where we put these is a big one. Personally, i'd love them to go into the chapel space where they could also serve as an altar. Such an act could save us from any intentions of looking to continue to separate our 'holy spaces' from the nitty gritty of our work with 'the least' - like the two aren't radically intertwined!

Anyway, i'm sure you'll hear much more on this as it all continues to unfold. For now though, Wwwwwwwwooooooooooooooo - Hhhhhhhhhoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Six Random Facts Meme.

Been tagged by Glen Marshall

The Rules:

*Link to the person who tagged you.
*Post the rules on your blog.
*Write six random things about yourself.
*Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
*Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
*Let the tagger know when your entry is up.


1. I wanted to be a footballer, a pilot, a policeman, a missionary, an archaeologist and an actor when i grew up.
2. Mushrooms make me think of mould, slugs and ear lobes. I cannot abide them.
3. I can juggle basketballs.
4. I sometimes wonder how different my life would be if i were just 3 inches taller.
5. My first French kiss was in France. It was on a school trip, i was 11. She was Helen Ketteridge, she was 12.
6. I got a 'G' in GCSE RE. Ha!

My six tagees ... ASBO Jesus, Blake Huggins, Dan Hussey, Gareth Higgins, Rob Reed
sarcasmo

On a lighter note...

Well, October has been quite a month for several reasons i shan't go into here. Suffice to say this post is in relation to a few things which have served as distractions.

Tottenham - What the...?
Bottom of the table? Ramos, unable to identify his player's abilities or inabilities, proceeds in picking teams, week-in-week-out, which have no semblance of rhyme or reason. Comolli smugly sat, fantasising about being a premiership manager. Levy desperately trying to work out how to save his own skin.

Cue 'Arry Redknapp - TA-DA! Comolli, Ramos and coaching staff sacked, Pavlychenko scores, Spurs get first win of the season and then, after being 3-1 down, draw 4-4 with the gooners - away!

What on Earth next? Watch this space.

TV - Police procedurals.
Dexter is brilliant. Like Quincy... only Quincy's a psychopath. Serial killers have never been portrayed so favourably. Balances really well its dark subject matter with quirky humour. Unlike...

The Wire, which is just gritty. And i don't mean gritty like a eating a sandwich on the beach, i mean gritty like eating rocks on a scree slope. Its realism and moral complexity even gets two pages worth of mention and theological reflection in John D. Caputo's 'What would Jesus Deconstruct?'.

Quantum of Solace - Moore is less.
Craig is still brilliant, the action is still amped, it's more stylistic then any Bond before it, the plot is credible while still being Bondian, so why is it unsatisfying?
The action is too amped. It looks like it's been edited by a whole class of kids whose Ritalin has been cruelly exchanged for candyfloss. It is riding purely on the back of the emotional investment in Casino Royale, which negates any reason for having any of its own.
And, where Royale stripped lots of Bond lores back but still remained very 'Bond', this seems to have stripped more back (though what, i'm not sure), but it's at its expense. No 'Bond, James Bond', no Q or Moneypenny, no theme (until the credits), no Martini, No bacarat (or hold 'em), and no shooting down the gun barrel (until the credits).
Still worth a look, but there's something, erm, empty, about it. One positive comment it does make is to show how pseudo-environmentalism has become a tool for the powerful. But even this this is a little hard to swallow given the glut of sponsorship from C*ke, S*ny, B*rcl*ys, F*rd and Om*ga et al.

The meat of the issue.

Right, quite simply, i'm considering going veggie or certainly moving to a position where i only have meat on special occasions. I need your help. What are the ethics of the matter, what are the economics of the matter?

The grain used to feed up one cow (which makes, for the sake of argument, 100 meals) could instead be used to feed people (for the sake of argument, 1000 meals)and we could beat world hunger, is one argument frequently used. But what would happen to the animals if we all turned veggie, they'd still need feeding, right? What of all the people whose livelihoods depend on farmed meat?

On the one hand, i don't mind eating animals, i've done it for years and animals are absolutely delicious all over! On the other hand, i do regard them as spiritual beings and my treatment of them ought to reflect that.

I've always justified it in the past by these two things:
1. If it were down to me, i could kill, skin and cook an animal myself. It's not that i need someone else to buy me out of doing the dirty work, it's just that that's the way society has arranged itself. But i'm maybe a bit less convinced of that these days.

2. I would never make a distinction between animals i would eat and animals i wouldn't. What i mean is, some folk say "Oh, you can't eat rabbit, they're such lovely pets" therefore making a distinction between types of animals that were and weren't appropriate to eat. I always thought 'Hypocrite. If you'll eat a lamb, the cuteness factor can't mean a thing'. Worse still is where people make a fuss about acknowledging where the meat has come from. I'd eat horse, dog, sheep, pigeon - anything.
What i now think is that if animals are all on the same plain, perhaps that plain isn't one of edibility, but rather one of inedibility.

My backup justification has always been, well, Jesus at least advocated the catching and cooking of fish, and he'd have eaten a fair few passover lambs in his time too. The counter? I now recognise how vastly different his economic context was to mine.

The thing is, when one starts talking about 'justification' one has already acknowledged a position of defense, or that something's wrong.

Help me out, what are your takes on these arguments, and what are the important arguments i'm missing?

By the way, top tip: don't put 'meat' into a google image search, certainly not at work anyway.

I'm not racist, but...

Here's an interview that BBC Radio Birmingham broadcast with the rapidly-becoming-institutional-figure-in-British-comedy-and-broadcasting, Hardeep Singh Kohli. It's perhaps the worst interview ever to have made it into our homes. Yet, tragically, as almost charicatured as the interviewer is, he remains an ambassador of how ignorant, prejudiced and white, British biased we remain in this country.

divorced from scripture

At risk of treading on a very thoroughly scholarly man's toes, i have a good handle on the way the expression "The Bible says..." closes down engagement with, and discussion of, scripture in quite a destructive way. I love the possibilities in scripture to have encounters of God and the people of God. It's desperately exciting that just because the words say "Whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery" isn't necessarily the full picture or meaning of what's written, and how that facilitates discussion on the living out of scripture. I find that, in no way, problematic. I can be found to quite enjoy that tension and earnest seeking of Godly living amist all life's challenges and complexities.

What i do have a fairly significant concern over though, is where a situation arises in which one party presents a case for an approach to scripture that says "these are the words so, plainly, that's its meaning" and a responding party (who have a much looser take on divorce) are unable to respond in relation to the Bible. They may talk about complexities in life as it's experienced, they be able to talk quite easily about the nature of God as they understand it, but to be rendered completely detatched from engagement with the Bible bothers me. Surely Christian theology is only such when it is done in relation to the Bible, even if it's simply to disagree with what it says, at least that would show due consideration and an honest response. That would be better than to fluff one's way through biblical critique in a way which reveals that one's theological, moral or ethical stance has been dramatically transformed without referrance to what 'the Bible says'.

nee knee in A n' E.

I had a knee once. It was a good knee - as opposed to my bad knee which seemed to creak and click a bit and was occasionally uncomfortable. No, my good knee was the best, good and strong, never complained about anything. It was the kind of knee i could always rely my weight upon, i would often do this as i swung the foot beneath my bad knee at a ball.

Isn't it funny how Saturdays can change things. Here was i, doing my thing, relying on my best knee, when a large weight, i assume a body of one which desired said ball, came in crashing to my good knee from the side. It did twist and it did give, though not in a way which was ought nor familiar.

I didn't know i even had a medial collateral ligament. That fact has changed. And folk are caught exactly between staring and looking away as i pass in a splint with a limp and an old man's stick, the stick of my late grandfather-in-law from whence he was dealt a similar tackle. Chief starers thus far are young, fit men whose own mortality is met in my limp. I'm ignored by Big Issue sellers and a three legged cat this morning saw fit to gawp quizzically at my peculiar immaneuverability.

my day out.

Look where i was on Saturday.



I'm only gutted because i was expecting to be allowed to have a ride.

10 things i learnt this summer.

1. Sebastian Faulks writes a mean Bond novel. He did very well at:
- Picking up the character in a 60's setting from Ian Fleming.
- Allowing there to be influence from the journey the films (including the difficult to ignore Casino Royale reboot) have taken the character on since then.
- Working in some contemporary issues.

2. When your brother gets a job in New York the potential for holidaying out there makes for small comfort to the amount you'll miss him.

3. There comes a point where some people have it so tough that love, prayer, empathy and good wishes is all you're left with, but they all look somewhat aneamic.

4. I will be at every Glastonbury festival between now and my death.

5. Conducting marriage ceremonies and dedications for people who aren't part of the Church is bloody brilliant!

6. When you turn a certain age, people only seem able to talk to you about events that are still a year away!

7. Tottenham Hotspur are jinxed.

8. China sure can host an Olympic games. GB sure can get excited about hosting an Olypic Games. The podium 'black salute' of '68 was sadly not to be repeated with a 2008 twist. Shame, the simple wearing of orange would have been quite the statement.

9. Contact lenses are a bit... meh.

10. Bikes might just be God's way - good for you, good for the planet, good for Gold medals, good for a nice jaunt down a tow path to a pub.

Yes, you there, the boy at the back. You have a question?

The discussion on gays, lesbians and the Church has been struck up again. The Lambeth Conference cost the Church of England a reported £1.2M to achieve this end. So bits of discussion from different angles continues to unfold in lots of guises in lots of places. Lots has been said, and indeed, lots of people hurt. I feel as though i've heard many of the points that the differing sides have to make, and have a good grasp of the arguments. It's not my intention to replay them, or have them replayed here.

My intention is to ask a question that i haven't heard from anywhere else:
The people defined as liberal are arguing about what they perceive to be a justice / 'aparthied' issue. If they're so convinced by their position, why does Church unity take a greater importance to this? I suppose this is particulary a question of the Archbishop of Canterbury who, though his personal views are widely known, has opted to try and hold the anglican communion together - even with so much having been made of the 'integrity' with which ideas are held by both sides of the divide. If the discussion were over a gender or a racial issue this wouldn't happen would it? Those convinced of the equality of all before God wouldn't agree to stick together, to figure it out as we go. Not if all the while they believed it was extending the period a people group were being injustly treated, would they?

So, is Church unity more important than justice issues?

A couple of my thoughts on the question would be, firstly, that i firmly believe that, even across wildly divergant denominations, we remain one holy catholic Church. Secondly, to what are we called? To do justice or to do church?

i've been on a journey.

It's not planned that i do two film posts back to back, but i don't really have a lot of choice in the matter. See, when i was 6/7 my favourite film was a toss up between Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, probably Temple just sneaking it.

I loved film since then, but gave no more thought to what my favourite was until seeing The Usual Suspects aged 16; it completely took me on a ride. Characterisation was whole and brilliant, dialogue was so natural and paced incredibly, the story dragged me along and it sold me every dummy. Not only this, but the film is fully intended to be returned to again and again with nothing getting any clearer.

One day, when i was 20, i came home a bit early from having a really crappy day at work and wondering what the point of anything i did was. I got in and, having no idea what it was about, put on a old VHS copy i'd been lent of It's A Wonderful Life.
I'd never been so wholly moved by a film before that. Emotional responses, yes: I'd always got upset when Ricky gets shot in Boyz 'n' the Hood and when Dough Boy disappears at the end; Tremors always freaked me out; The Life of Brian always made me laugh hard (particularly the "now don't do it again!" line), but It's A Wonderful Life was something brand new. As much as i adored movies, film had never grabbed my spirit by the throat before.

Since then these two films have fought it out as my favourite (one for my head, one for my heart), my top choice being whichever of these i'd seen most recently (though IAWL just sneaking into 1st place over the past few years).

On Saturday night i watched my new all time favourite film for the first time. It stepped straight into the lead, and i knew it probably would by about half way through.



Sean Penn's Into The Wild is very special. The story is of one flawed young man ignoring the system and seeking to find life in its purest, most whole form. It's both heartbreaking, and heartbreakingly life affirming. One critic (Joe Morganstern) has quite rightly said "the film is as stirring, entertaining and steadfastly thrilling as it is beautiful". He's a better critic than i, since he writes for the Wall Street Journal, whilst i write for me and you three.

I think the main thing that did it for me was that it showed a guy whose life is, in some ways, the negative of mine, and yet is one i could really, really go for. In showing this, it tells a kind of 'grass is always greener' story. Whilst there is incredible freedom and raw beauty, and two fingers at bureaucracy, so-called authorities and corporate society, it also tells of the cost of these things. It holds up ideals, which is always inspiring, but also exposes the flaws in those ideals.

But this is just part of it, go see it yourself. It may not blow you away, films being personal, subjective an' all, but i'm sure you'll agree it was worth watching.

Knight lights in the dark.

This post comes complete with a 'No Spoiler' guarantee.


The Dark Knight is brilliant!

Christopher Nolan's sequel to Batman Begins (which is also very worthy of the label 'brilliant') is told fantastically. There's a wealth of characters and an ever-rolling web of motivation amongst them, and yet, even bearing in mind how large some of the roles are, the story is so well and so patiently edited that there really is a sense of everyone getting their piece of the action. Not only this, but 'their piece of the action' only serves the film to better it.

The opening sequence is reminiscent of the more adreneline fuelled parts of Heat (ie just because it's adreneline fuelled doesn't mean its brainless) and it doesn't really let up from there.

The Joker scared the crap out of me; Christopher Nolan and the late Heath Ledger have perfectly captured and presented his gleefully nihilistic mania. He's much, much more affecting than Nicholson's Joker who, though great, did put the ham in to Gotham.

It comes in at about 2hrs 30min long, but this isn't too long, i was virtually egging it on to go on longer the whole way through.

I guaranteed no spoilers, but want to offer more than just a review since the film potentially has a place in theological discourse re. atonement and discipleship. In order to do this these are your instructions:
A) Go see the film
B) follow these two links to Kez's blog
C) Come back here to let me know what you think about the relationship between the two.

Amen.

narcissi-silly blueerrrgggghhhh

This blog was named in acknowledgement of the tension that is wrestled between what a self-indulgent thing blogging is and the fact we can't escape from ourselves or our perspectives, since they're the only resources we actually have.
Some posts offer a critique of something, others a question for discussion and others still are more like journal entries or a record of thoughts that occur. This post is, of all my posts so far, the one that most clearly fits into the latter and most self-indulgent category.



I have many memories of being a young boy and being with my dad while he was shaving. I remember finding it fascinating; soap on his face in a specific shape, the razor sharp blade, the concentration and the way he would pull faces to get better access to different parts of his skin. I particularly remember not getting that part. I didn't understand why he couldn't just keep a straight face and shave plainly. I asked a couple of times to explain why, but his answer didn't really clear anything up for me.

Last night i shaved, and it was the first shave of my life where i realised that the faces i pull are not my dad's faces. I'm not offering my parentage up for question here, i'm very much a 'chip off the old block'; hence my surprise, i guess. In that moment i thought 'who's faces are these i'm pulling?'. I have no recollection of seeing either of my grandfathers shave, and suddenly i truly felt like part of a long, long lineage that reaches right back in time. I felt like the shaving faces i pull are someone else's, someone's shaving faces are survived in me, and then so must so much else be.

Obvious, i know, but i've not ever felt like that before. Almost embarrassingly, these feelings actually felt like quite a feat to have achieved, since i'm part of this culture of such individualism, disposability and immediacy. What is this? What's going on? Is it the first early groanings of middle age, is it me beginning to more fully face my mortality?

Excuse me, i have a vagina.

Forgive me, i'm a little peed off right now, i'm peed off by what i've seen in the news this past couple of days (no shock there then). This is specifically in relation to the goings on in the Church of England and its question of the appointment of female bishops.

'We can't have women as bishops because Jesus was a man and he picked 12 men to be his disciples, therefore... yadda, yadda, yadda, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense, where's my vision, where's my brain, just what kind of a God do i think we've got?'!!!!!!!!
Don't people see that this argument is akin to saying "we can't have women bishops because, in chess, the bishops are men, it just wouldn't be right. Sorry, my hands are tied" aaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh *sticks tongue in bottom lip*

The other reasoning for not going ahead with it is about having men coming under the authority of women. Two things - make that three things:
1. You are thick!
2. Don't men already come under the authority of women if they are male and in the parish of a female priest?
3. Isn't the head of the Church of England the Queen? What then of the fact that the whole of the Church of England currently does come under the authority of a woman?

Oh yeah, one more thing, just a cheeky 'heads up': This may not quite be the end of the debate, whichever way things go; women archbishops, anyone?

Why can't the Church quite grasp that what's reported of these discussions is, like it or not, a missional and ambassadorial activity. What is this message of Christ and his Church being sent out?

Nb. If you disagree with me, please don't be offended by my manner. Instead i invite you to characature me and my position, we're robust enough.

Glastonburycherrygobyebye.

Well, Glastonbury was simply brilliant. Here is a flavour of my Glastonbury:

Thursday -
Arrive, walk a mile or so dragging my body weight (probably more) in stuff. Set up camp explore the site, rain, heavy rain, hard rain, mud, thick mud, Roisin Murphy. Highlight of the set was her doing 'Suspicious Minds'. The Levellers.

Friday -
Showers (as in rain, not as in washing) thick, thick mud. Alabama 3 Open their set with "Have you given your infants acid? If you haven't given your infants acid yet, now is the time to do it. Acid never hurt no infant, no harm, no way". Candi Staton- highlight 'You Got the Love'. Lupe Fiasco, Fun Lovin' Criminals, then get over to the John Peel stage for Reverend and the Makers. Followed this with a bit of mooching around and catching some of Kings of Leon at the pyramid.

Saturday -
Sunshine with patchy cloud, ground drying out, making the transition from wellies to flip flops about 2ish. Even getting some shirt-off action a bit later. Martha Wainwright, Seasick Steve and Crowded House at the pyramid - quite honestly a privalidge to be there, sheer joy. Bumming about for a bit, catching a couple of smaller acts and DJs. Los Camposinos, Human Vocal Orchestra, Last of the Shadow Puppets and the wonderfully, camply and playfully spiritual MGMT. Off to the other stage for (instead of Jay-Z) Massive Attack. Aside from several musical highlights was Grant Marshall getting involved in the discussion about Jay-Z headlining saying "There's all this nonsense around about hip-hop not fitting with the tradition of the festival, if you want tradition you might aswell go back to fu+£ing church. If you ask me, tradition with this place is hanging out with strangers, getting your head fu+£ing Banjaxxed!" 'Banjaxxed' a word not used often enough i don't think.

Sunday -
Dry and hot, continuing with the flip flop theme. Pack up and drag everything (minus some food and beer) back to the car. Spend some time at the other stage, regrettably starting with an almost embarrassing Newton Faulkner. Fortunately Scouting for Girls were suprisingly good and pick the whole thing up. Then the mighty Mark Ronson (though he should have been billed as 'Mark Ronson and friends'). More mooching, then to the pyramid for Leonard Cohen. He was, as is to be expected, awesome. The highlight of the whole festival: the moments during which the sun disappears over the horizon he does (and in fact so do the whole of the enormous crowd) 'Hallelujah'. Tears. - love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken 'hallelujah' - Finally The Verve to tie things off. They were brilliant too and obviously their highlight was 'bitter sweet symphony'. Then to the tent to pack up the last bit of stuff and off to the car to sit stationary in traffic for two hours and not make it back to my folks place until 5am!

Now i sweep the streets i used to own.

I've got Coldplay's next single here, Viva La Vida. There's plenty of discussion around what it's about. It seems apparent to me that it works as a cautionary tale of how power, of any sort, is fleeting and how no-one stays on top forever. This means that it's completely open to interpretation as far as the power it's, potentially, specifically talking about. Lots has been made of the French revolution (though mainly due to the album's artwork rather than any lyrical content). My take? Could it be that Coldplay's next No.1 hit is about the demise of Christendom?

What can you do?

Sadly the universal music group won't allow this video to be embedded, but it is worth going to youtube to see it there. It's 'no handlebars' by the flobots. come back now, ya hear.

Lessons from my cat: Community.

People have been great about Mookey being missing, everyone's got their cat story which they tell about cats' miraculous reappearances (i could do with less of these now, i can't keep on looking and thinking 'is this the day she comes home?'. I'm trying to move on and if she shows up it's a bonus) though these stories were good to hear at first. We've relied on our neighbours and they've been brilliant, we put leaflets through doors getting people to check their garages and outbuildings etc to make sure Mookey wasn't stuck inside. We did two rounds of these. We put up posters which people let us put in their shops and stuff. We've both been stopped in the street and asked by people showing concern whether she's turned up. One lady chased us down the road to see if there was anything she could do, another called on our house to see if there was news - you only hear of 'crazy cat ladies' don't you, never 'crazy cat men', funny that. Anyway, people have been brilliant, i've been most impressed by people's efforts, but that's not the point i want to make.

Last Sunday i spoke on Jonah as part of our series exploring the minor prophets 'Mining the Minors' (which Kez is loving). It's a book which isn't actually about a whale swollowing a man (it wasn't a whale, it was a big fish, there aren't any whales in the Med. Oooh ooh ooh how do you get to Wales in a mini? One in the front, one in the back, easy.) it's instead about God's grace being unbounded. Jonah accepts God's grace for himself, but can't accept that God would be gracious to others also, he would rather put limits on it. The point is that if we accept God's grace we also have a part in it not stopping with us, but instead, passing it on and spreading it around.

So, what does Mookey have to say about the book of Jonah? Well, apart from not liking the idea of being thrown in the sea, but quit fancying the idea of a big fish, she has one point to make. If we're discouraged from drawing boundaries around the reach of God's grace, we as people end up seeing one another in a much less partisan way, we become more wholly 'community'. We belong to one another. So, if, when my cat goes missing, i look high and low for her, disturb all my neighbours twice with door to door leaflet drops, comfort Kelly, comfort Mav, design and put up posters everywhere, phone all sorts of animal rescue places and vets and database holding organisations and feel generally gutted - all because Mookey is my cat, how much more do i need to respond to people around me as though they are mine. It means that i ought respond, in a continuation of spreading God's grace, to your needs as though you were mine, as though you were my brother or sister or mother.

She can be pretty challenging can Mookey.

Lessons from my cat: Hope.

My cat's so cool she is even teaching me things in her absence. When she'd been gone a couple of days we started putting food out for just Maverick, a day or two later we put her bowl away. There will come a point in the next couple of weeks where we claim / cancel her insurance policy. As time goes on we increasingly live in the reality of Mookey not being around.

(i want to make it clear that i know i'm talking about a cat and how ridiculous that is, i do happen to think though, that these experiences speak into more important areas of life)

I was struck by a thought when Kelly put Mookey's bowl away. It was quite simply that she didn't throw it out. We kept it because we hoped she would come back and she'd need it again. Obviously Mookey was just missing and so her return was very possible (still is so people keep telling me "My cat was gone 2 weeks... my cat was away for 3 weeks, came back fine... i had a cat gone for a month... my cat came back with a broken leg and no tail... i heard a story of a cat gone for 2 years, came back fine" etc etc) but in this moment i was reminded of how i've felt about everyone i've known who's died.

As final as death seems to be, i still have a tiny but strong piece of me that is conviced it's not over at that point, that i'll relate to them again. I'm not talking about any kind of denial part of a grieving process (i don't think), i'm talking about the way that the question of what to do with someone's clothes after they've died lives on. That question is usually dealt with in fair immediacy of the death, but it's a quandry because we know the clothes won't be needed by the owner and also, i want to suggest from my experience, because we have hope of some sort of return or continuation / completion for them. This is hope.

I still have hope of getting the 'missing part' back of my grandmother (mamo) who died when i was 10. Likewise (again, aware of the ridiculous comparison), i have hope now of getting the missing part of Mookey's story back, whether she's died or been taken in or stolen by someone else, or trapped or lost somewhere. They say cats have 9 lives, Mookey isn't even two, so i have hope for the rest of her 8.07 lives.

I guess what i'm saying is that as a Christian i will speak of belief in some kind of complete, eternal, heavenly (and earthly) redemption, but in the moment that Kelly put Mookey's bowl away i was able to recognise it in the here and now and indeed, in past experiences of grief. At the point where it's tangible it moves from belief to hope and we can let that hope inform our belief.

I hate cats, they're rubbish!

First i need to apologise for the lack of 'bang' in my blogsplosion; there's been a problem with the fuse being longer than i thought it was.

Cats are rubbish.They use you for food. They're mercenary creatures, they'll come to you and pretend to be affectionate when they need something, then they'll bugger off back to doing whatever it is they do when they're not hungry.

Kelly and i have (had?) two cats; a brother and sister, Maverick and Mookey. Mookey's gone missing - 13 days now. Kelly had to really talk me into getting them (i mean reaaallllly talk me into to it, my first objection was "i'm allergic, they make me unable to breathe and i bleed from the eyes". She said "You'll get over it, we can have them on a trial period, if you're still bleeding after 3 months my mother can have them". Somehow i allowed this to swing it for me).

We got them 18 months ago, they were tiny, i couldn't breath. My turning blue and being covered in mucus which flowed freely from my nose and eyes (which felt like they were on fire) didn't stop me falling in love with them though. I even loved them when the scratches they gave me caused my skin to get enflamed. Kelly was right, i got over it - it only took me about one month.

But now Mookey is gone and i'm gutted. Mav is gutted too which makes me more upset. He mopes, and when he's not moping he's sat by the back gate just watching and waiting for her.

I knew i was right from the start, cats are rubbish, you let them in and they make you feel like this.

Me promoting someone else's wares for free. Damn it.

I jusT boUght, from a certaiN onlinE digital mp3 Stockist and retailer (for a very reasonable £6.99), the MGMT debut album 'Oracular Spectacular'. It was their 2nd single 'Electric Feel' that's currently getting airplay that caught my attention. I checked out other stuff of theirs and realised i was familiar with their first single too 'Time to Pretend', and went ahead with the purchase. It's brilliant.

There's lots of comparison been made between this and The Flaming Lips, but that doesn't quite do it. Anyone want to take a journey with me? Ok - it's more like this: imagine Turin Brakes grew up listening to loads of Bowie and then decided to make cynical yet nostalgic, dreamy, melodic electro. How's that for genre defiance!

If that sounds like it might be your cup o' cake, check it out.

Take Cover!!!

It's not just me is it, facebook has slowed blogging down hasn't it? It's certainly slowed me down anyway. A back-lash is coming though, there will be to follow shortly a blogsplosion of lots of stuff that's been going on in my tiny world.

Touched.

This follows from the series on music but is not part of it. Last week the question was asked 'What's the difference between the so-called spirituality of a piece of music and that which is simply its aesthetic?'. HHHHhhhhhhmmmmmmmm.

A discussion ensued around the assumption that music's aesthetic was not where its spirituality lay, or at least, could begin to be found. As part of this i'd want to ask about a simple drum beat, and some people identifying it as 'spiritual', because if it is, it begs the question "How can just a drum beat be broken into layers such as 'aesthetic' and 'greater spiritual depth'?"

There are various thoughts i have on this and bits of argument i'm compelled by from both perspectives, but what has really stuck with me since has been a further question, the question that lies beneath this discussion; what is spirituality, anyway?

Not that i, in anyway, am about to approach anything like 'an answer' to this question here, or indeed, ever, but there does seem to be an understanding i seem to be coming towards, for the moment at least.

I think there's value in seeking an answer somewhere in the realm of 'connectedness'. IE what connects us, shows us we're connected or makes us feel connected to, either one another or God, is spiritual. It's also therefore related to wholeness. Obviously this is very open to perversion and manipulation(but hey, isn't that also true of spirituality!), but there does seem to be something about the communality of God which Christians profess which fits with this.

I don't know if i think 'spiritual' is absolutely connectedness or if connectedness is just a part of what is spiritual, but there sure does seem a bit more than a link to me.

Anniversa-silly.

A year ago today i sat down to create a blog, and post for the very first time. Since then there's been a reasonable amount of self indulgent waffle; TV shows and films have come and gone, Welsh rugby and Spurs have had highs and lows, Agbrigg flooded and i attempted to express myself and my understanding of God. 49 posts in all (inc this one)- it's been fun, and so has following other people's blogs; i think i'll carry on for a bit. Which post generated the greatest response in comments? Well, after the interest in my second post (which included a futile discussion with a fundamentalist Yank Christian who had self-imposed the name 'Looney') it was the one about 'Which super hero are you?' of course!

The Song of the Soul. Pt.9

For the concluding post I felt it more appropriate to finish with another piece of music rather than more ranting. To tell the truth, there are about eight more bits i'd like to play on here, just from the top of my head, but i've opted for this; a gentle remix of an absolutely incredible record. Enjoy...

The Song of the Soul. Pt.8

The Song of the Soul. Pt.7

Ok, here's where it gets even more personal for me. I don't want to negate anything i've already said, but if the education i'm currently undergoing is teaching me anything, it's to critique ideas, theologies and such according to their context. That includes oneself, ie. what might lie behind why i think this way?

I've already admitted to being completely unmusical in practise, but there is also something that sits alongside that (though i'm not sure which is the horse and which is the cart), it's that i'm contemplative in nature. This means that when it comes to times of worship it works much better for me to be sat quietly thinking about God and life an' that. If there's music playing however, which there always is because it seems that that's the only way we know how to worship God, it ties me in knots immediately.

As soon as the band (or organist, or pianist etc) strike up i'm all over the place. Do i stand and sing with everyone else (even though standing is uncomfortable and the mere consideration of singing shifts my focus entirely from God and places it firmly on myself)? What about the fact that attempting to engage with the music in any way (for the most part) leads me not to the feet of Christ, but rather to a place where i wrestle with it? I find myself fighting to work out what i agree with or don't, plus all the things discussed in pt.5 racing through my mind, all serving to distract me from God's greatness.

Alternatively I could attempt what would be most natural to me, i could sit and be still before God. This however brings with it a [sometimes justified] paranoia. People looking down at me, wondering if i've lost my faith or if there's just something desperately wrong with me. "I noticed you weren't singing, are you ok?". Yes i'm fine, do you want me to actually engage with God, or do you want me to make it look like you think it should?

Anyway, long story short, can we please either use other resources in worship more, or use music better? It's killing me.

The Song of the Soul. Pt.6

The Song of the Soul. Pt.5

What follows is me approaching my most negative, but
- i believe it to be justified
- i am attempting to do this in a self-aware manner
and
- i will look to follow it with something on more of an upward swing.

Here are some reasons why i believe lots of worship music to be (at least) second rate:
One of the biggest factors is that Christian music (without getting into a discussion on how one defines it) is just that - Christian. What i mean is that where other music, and art in general for that matter, is about exploring and expressing this human condition of ours, Christian music does that but from a fixed point and within fixed parameters. That is to say, it's doctrinally bound; if a writer sits down to compose something there's enormous pressure for it to be 'right'. Sometimes however (in my experience, more often than we think), what is deemed to be 'right' is at odds with what is honest.

Another problem this person writing may have is, if one lyric appears to be too open to a wrong interpretation, there needs to be a qualification of what was meant in the next line (a problem of not such great importance in music that isn't doctrinally bound, since half the purpose is allowing it to be interpreted differently). What this means is that from the off, lots of Christian music is artistically compromised.

Why does so much of it seem so cliche: 'I just wanna love you Lord' - and so lacking in nuance, while cheap analogy abounds?

Obviously i'm not speaking of hymns here, but rather what are referred to as 'modern worship songs' - so we turn to hymns. What we find here in most cases however, are incredibly militaristic depictions of Christianity and God - victory, banner, army, weapon, marching, enemy, defeat, trample, slain, powers and triumph. Whilst we could argue the toss over the rights and wrongs of militaristic content and spiritual metaphor, there's no escaping the rampant patriarchy dripping from hymn books and still running amok in modern worship songs. I know that they (hymns) are a reflection of their day and therefore the patriarchy is of that era, but a.) it has carried over to today's worship and b.) congregation members more aware of the desperate importance of inclusive language wincing every second line, is not conducive to worship services.

The rhymes, seriously! There should be a prohibition on rhyming 'lost' with 'cost', 'king' with 'sing', 'face' with 'grace', and 'love' with 'above'. If Christian publishing houses had any integrity they'd have made this move a while back now.

Two final digs, combining as a knock-out blow:

Stuff that's written today is written (rightly so, to a point) to be easily imitable in local churches. The idea is that even untalented musicians should be able to play and lead it, and unmusical congregations should find it easy to sing along. What transpires is more artistically compromised music.

Also, so much of it seems quite theologically weak. This is a real problem when so many Christians seem to get their theology not from biblical reflection in discussion with their worshipping community, but rather from worship songs.

Right, i'm done, suffice to say that all of this combined adds up to one dimensional and shamefully diluted musical experiences and expression... and in the name of God? Is that appropriate? It's no wonder "the devil has the best music".

**News Flash**

We interrupt scheduled programming to bring you this report...



And that's all i have to say on the matter. We now return you to our scheduled broadcast 'The Song of the Soul'.

The Song of the Soul. Pt.4

The Song of the Soul. Pt.3

The gist of the discussion had in this interview centred on, what to me at least is, the fact that music IS a deeply spiritual experience / medium / encounter / expression / entity. It is a thing which reaches into our inner most being and causes us to identify long laid dormant thoughts, emotions and groanings.

I’m blown away by the idea that a combination of sounds, often though not always with words, can present us with ideals which make us want to soar, or comfort hurts and longings that they have so gently realised within us. I cannot begin to fathom how a combination of notes can be a ‘happy’ chord or a ‘sad’ chord, or the way they mess with the chemicals in our brains to that end. If we have this ready an access and control over a mystical tool such as music, despite having very little real understanding of it, how much more wondrous must God be who is not as recreationally available? Hence, music always points me to God.

So far i’ve spoken mostly of the spiritual prowess of ‘secular’ music (and this is where i begin to vent). How come then, that Morcheeba and Gorillaz lead me more into the presence of God than Matt Redman (for instance)? Why is it that Babyshambles (narcotic associations and swearing included) more readily brings me to a place where i can at once, and much more easily, express myself and be in awe of God, than most ‘worship music’?
I’m far more likely to be alerted to just how broken our world is by Jack Johnson and faithless (and in a different way to that of the spice girls) than stuff i’m going to hear in church. What’s more is JJ and faithless’ stuff is more likely to provoke action in response to that brokenness than stuff i hear in church too. Is there something wrong with me, or is there something wrong with the way we use music in worship?

The Song of the Soul. Pt.2

The Song of the Soul. Pt.1

Prepare thyself, i am about to unleash another mini-series, this one on the subject of music. My spleen will be vented and bile will spew forth. This subject is one which has a defining role in my identity, and certainly in my identity as a Christian.
I've considered blogging on this in the past but haven't got round to it. The catalyst this time was taking part in an interview for another student who's doing her dissertation on the spirituality of popular music (Hi Ingrid). Doing the interview was brilliant, and the only way we could fit it into the day was if we dodged chapel - also brilliant!
To start i need to play my hand open, this will be at the root of most of what i say. My name is andy and i'm a frustrated musician. I'm frustrated because i can't play a thing and i can't sing a note. All the while, my appreciation of music knows no bounds, music is one of the best and most powerful and fascinating things in all of God's creation. I just can't do any of it.
In this interview the first question was 'What sorts of popular music do you like?' and masses (a mass of?) joy ensued when just considering answers. Simply naming genres, sub-genres, bands, singer songwriters and producers was like being bashed in the mind with great audio flashes that carried with them huge emotional resonnances and points of spiritual connectedness.
blur, aimee mann, bob marley, radiohead, moby, hard-fi, van morrison, arrested development, jack johnson, the neptunes, bill withers, brand new heavies, kanye west, portishead, jamiroquai, nina simone....
Give it a go, who does that for you? Consider the joy a gift from me.

A step too far?

This is sort of an extension of the previous post, or perhaps more me wondering how you would feel about considering this an extension of the previous post. I'm reading some Bill Hicks (peace be upon him) at the moment. He's not a theologian in any classic or esteemed sense, he's a dead american stand-up comic (/prophet?) who got in lots and lots of trouble for making a lot of sense about lots of things and who threw in lots of coarse humour to ensure nothing he said would be swallowed whole or uncritically.

One of the things he's quite excited by and talks about a few times is his understanding of the word 'enthusiasm' coming from 'En Theos' or the 'God within'. What this says to him is that it's God in us that is at the root of things we get excited about. You see where this ties in to questions of authority. Is Bill too close to 'if it feels good do it' / 'be your own God'? Or in line with the idea of being 'Spirit led'?

Hhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Says who?

I've been thinking a little bit about authority and how that relates, theologically and hermenuetically, to the training i'm doing. Suppose i come to train (sorry, be formed / undergo ministerial formation - that's the lingo), and i'm of the persuasion that scripture is THE authority under which all other authority is measured, or, to put it another way, scripture is, in absolute terms, true and authoritative.

As I study and learn and gain more of a historical perspective on scripture and events recorded (we're still supposing here, ok) i would be put in a position where i was having to make a choice, on certain situations, between historical evidence and what scripture tells me. Suddenly i'd be finding myself as the one who has authority, because it would be me having to make that judgement call. Two things are realised in this.
First, that what God has done in allowing me to exist is give authority to me! I can choose who/what to authorise to have authority over me. Wow! How freeing, gracious and risky God is.
Secondly, My supposed intial position, where i believe the Bible to be authoritative, is a false idea. In reality what's gone on is one would've chosen to give authority completely to scripture, or more likely, one would've given authority completely to whoever it was teaching that the Bible has complete authority. How Ironic. The bottom line appears to be that we're empowered and encouraged to think and question and take ownership. That couldn't possibly be something ordained by God could it? Arrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.... Oh no, i can't pass any bucks any more, i have to take responsibility for my own existence. I'm going to tidy my room.

Ha! I'm back!

Right, first things first, Spurs are league cup champions! Let's have a little look shall we. This is the best video i've found so far. What an incredible seat this guy had. Two moments to look out for
1. The reception given to Avram Grant
2. Someone claiming they've touched God.