Check out this really interesting radio 4 programme- this episode digs into the relationship between faith and the internet… including the bloke from Ship of fools, and St Pixels.
The discussion ranges from internet addiction, through to whether church can ever be ‘virtual’. Someone quotes ‘The word became FLESH and dwelt amongst us…’
You can download it as a podcast here.
The other Scottish Goans
We have been very busy over the last few weeks- doing a lot of traveling. It has been really good to catch up with family.
Michaela’s mum and step dad are staying with us this week.
A couple of weeks ago we were in the midlands of England, spending time with my mother, and my sister Katherine and her family. Katherine lives in a house that is always full of young people. She has four of her own- Josh the medical student, Elizabeth the ballet dancer, Ben the musician, and Nathaniel the youngest and apple of the eye. I don’t see enough of them all- but despite the distance, I love them dearly.
Then last week, we stayed for a night with my brother Steve, his wife Kate and little Jamie. There is a bigger story here, as we have only recently met.
My father and mother divorced when I was small, and I never knew him. We made contact again 2 years ago (my dad now lives in Northern Ireland,) and I was amazed to discover that I had a half brother who lives in Scotland, only a short drive from us.
You can imagine that the process of getting to know another branch of family that were strangers to us until recently has been wonderful, but deeply challenging.
Conversations with my father- and finding understanding of a sort.
Trying to explain to my mother the reasons why I would want such contact.
Taking my sister with me on the journey.
Last week, Steve and I had another of those ‘what if?’ discussions- wondering how our shared genetics interacted with out very different upbringings, and turned us into the people that we have become.
And I wonder. What might I have been with a different compost to grow in? Would the sensitivity that dogs me (and also inspires me) be mediated? Would I be more like me on my best days, or more like me on my worst?
These are impossible questions to resolve. All that we can do is note some of the ingredients, but the rest of it just IS.
And in this- like in all things- all will be well.
All manner of things shall be well…
Loved this from Brian McLaren’s blog (here)...
The Quakers and Methodists picked up on the old Celtic tradition of “anam cara” or soul friendship … and they practiced using queries (soul questions) to deepen the spiritual value of their friendships. Here are some queries I have used in friendships and small groups over the years …
How goes it with your soul?
What is draining you lately?
What is recharging you lately?
How have you felt God speaking to you?
How have you been able to see and serve Christ in the elderly, the poor, the young, the needy, or the rejected?
What has been a spiritual high point? Low point?
What challenges are you facing in the coming days?My book which goes into this area of spiritual practices is Finding Our Way Again. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
Because after all, it is a long way we travel, and how we need companionship…
Like many others who have found such life in and around this thing we have come to call ’emerging church’, I have such a love for these words ‘Kingdom of Heaven’.
For many years they were words of condemnation for me…
Something other.
Something distant and dangerous.
Something I had to fight to enter, and at best, I might scrape my way into on a technicality.
Something that was wrapped up in charismatic ideas of spiritual warfare and triumphalistic ecstatic wierdness.
Something that in order to serve, I needed to be Holy. And I was not.
I remember that moment when I began to catch a glimpse of a different meaning of the words- as spoken by Jesus.
Of the Kingdom of God as something that grows inside me, like an infectious bubble of blessing.
As something that is here now, but also still to come.
As something that I participate in, but is beyond my understanding.
That welcomes the weak, and the weary, and the child like.
And is glimpsed, almost as a mirage, in our communing and loving and laughing together.
And the call on us, the agents of this kingdom, not to turn the whole world blind or salty, but to shine light on truth and beauty, and to season the flavours of Jesus wherever we taste them.
If these ideas are new-ish to you, or you would like to hear some more about the context that Jesus was speaking into, when he spoke of the Kingdom- check out this excellent Aussie radio programme…
Just realised that this blog is just over a year old.
It feels longer. It is strange how this exercise of on-line contemplation has become integrated into my life. It has marked a year of happenings- family, faith and other stuff that found a way beneath the contemplative radar.
22,000 hits (but who is counting?!)
370 posts
308 comments
Has it been a good thing to spend time doing? I suppose the answer to this is inevitably mixed. Blogging can be such a selfish, self absorbed, even obsessive activity. But it has become one of the ways that I process thought. Even if no-one ever reads what I write, the process of writing for an invisible readership means that I am forced to structure and construct thought in a way that otherwise I may well not.
As for there being any wider value to the things I write- I leave this for you to judge.
So, to those of you who read- thanks!
Time for a revamp I think- expect some changes to how the blog looks…
Today Emily and I took our canoe out on Loch Tarsan, having packed the stove, the kettle and some marshmallows to toast over a fire.
It was a lovely day, and the head of the loch was shallow and warm (ish) so we also had a swim. Not a soul for miles, just the two of us, and wild creatures- an eagle overhead, and fish jumping at flies.
Store it up in the memory.
An ordinary day, me and my girl, loaded up with blessings.
The quote above is from my daughter, and is a description of my record player.
We have all these old records sitting on a shelf. Like many of us, I have not been able to bring myself to get rid of it, although until recently we had nothing to play them on. I bought a second hand Pro-Ject debut turntable from Ebay, which is perhaps the best quality turntable I have ever owned, and have fallen in love with the sound of vinyl again.
All those blokes (and they are always blokes) who get all dewy eyed about the analogue qualities of vinyl as opposed to the mass produced bland sound of digital music- well perhaps they have something right after all!
I love the way that the playing of a record is an EVENT- full of drama and edgyness- as you unsleeve the LP, blow the dust, carefully place it on the deck, and align the needle. Then comes the crackle and spit of the dust, before the music kicks into bright airy life. And there IS a different quality to the sound- a warmth and vitality that is noticeable. Or am I just becoming one of those blokes?
I have rediscovered some old favourites.
U2’s Rattle and Hum.
Old Christian cheesey music that I grew up with- early Graham Kendrick stuff like Fighter, and Cresta Run.
Joni Mitchell.
Crosby Stills and Nash.
Bruce Cockburn’s ‘Big Circumstance’
Aztec Camera, China Crisis… etc.
Come on round. Wear a tank top and let’s get all retro.
We are back home after a great few days.
It started out with a long drive down to Coalbrookdale, Telford, where we met up with some great folk who are part of the Tautoko network.
We met some great people, and had a chance to share hopes and dreams with others who are experimenting with new forms of church, mission and worship. It was strange to meet people from so many groups who I had heard of, visited on line, and perhaps even used ideas/material from.
I always find the process of being thrown into a sea of new people like this difficult at first. Michaela was in her element, swimming strongly, whereas I paddled in the shadows for a while. But by the end of the weekend, I hope we began to make some real connections- with people with whom we will get to know more in the future. Certainly it will make attendance at Greenbelt Festival very different, as there will be so many more familiar faces involved in planning and running parallel events.
I hesitate to mention any names, as we met so many folk, and had such great conversations- and typically I will get the names wrong! But I will risk mentioning a few…
Great to meet Laura Drane (thanks for the invite!) and chums from Sanctus 1 in Manchester. Also Jonny Baker, Mark Berry, Jenny from Spirited Exchanges, and Julie Wilson from Big stuff up here in Scotland. I also enjoyed meeting Martin and hearing about Beyond, down in Brighton- and loved the beach hut advent calender thing they did last year.
After all this, we had a great day out at the Blists Hill living museum– a step into Victorian industrial life.
We then visited family up in Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire. I spent a day and a half renovating my mothers garden pond (not a recommended pastime) and the kids visited Matlock Bath, and took the cable cars up the Heights of Abraham.
Here are a few assorted photo’s. Click to enlarge…
this fragile tent 