Category Archives: Uncategorized

Family road trip…

Posted on by
Reply

We are home after a rather exhausting trip round the country, visiting family.

First my brother and his wife, and little Jaimie at their new home in Haddington, below Edinburgh. Then down to Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire to see our wider family. It was lovely to see them all-

Michaela’s mum and my Mum.

My sister and her family. (Including a lovely night sat round a fire singing songs in their garden.)

Michaela’s brother and sister.

And her dad and his wife.

Then a trip down to Towcester to deliver Emily, who is off on a sailing trip on the Norfolk broads.

Then home via a wee party in Lancashire with some old friends.

Throw in some decorating, DIY, shopping trips and a lovely service in Derby Cathedral with some other old friends, and no wonder we are tired.

Tonight we will sleep soundly in our own beds…

Yesterday was Michaela’s birthday. We went on a trip to a public hall in South Normanton, where there was a display of local historical photographs- including this one, of Michaela’s paternal grandmother and great aunt, pushing two of her aunts in prams back in 1938.

 

We took this photograph- of three generations of Michaela’s family- her father (and wife Janet,) along with his sister Mavis (one of the babies in the prams above) then Michaela and her brother Chris, finally William.

Family is important. The threads that hold us all are stretched over long distances now, but it was a good journey…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Good Book- AC Grayling…

Posted on by
Reply

A C Grayling, secular humanist/atheist has taken it upon himself to re-write the Bible- as a secular, moral document. It seems his motivation was to make available the ‘good’ stuff whilst editing out the ‘God’ stuff.

Fair play to the bloke, people have accused me of the same. The whole emerging church conversation has often been accused of sanitising the unpleasant judgmental side of the Bible in favour of a more accessible and cuddly message.

I do not agree with either Grayling, or the assessment of EC critics of course…

Because the God we encounter in the stories of the Bible is capricious, glorious, confusing, challenging, forgiving, condemning, war making, peace bringing. Because of this, no matter how hard we try, systematising and defusing our ideas of God always fail.

It might be possible to read the Bible as a book of moral fables, of quaint historical interest, but also vaguely character building in indefinable ways. You will have to ignore whole bits of the Bible to do this of course, and along the way may come to wonder whether the Bible can be regarded as ‘moral’ at all.

What makes the Bible vital, engaging and alive is the spine tingling possibility of- God. What transforms the reading of the Bible is the fact that we use it to approach- God.

Without God- there would seem very little point in reading this miscellany of stories of ancient people.

So sorry AC- I will not be reading your ‘Good book’, I will stick to my not so good one, in all its messy challenge.

But then you did not expect me to do anything else did you?

 

Lent 19…

Posted on by
Reply

And from the depths of his learning– singing into his heart, come the word of the poet-prophet, Isaiah;

.

The poor and needy search for water but find none

Their tongues are parched and dry

But I am there to be found. I will not forget

I will burst forth rivers from barren hills

Spout fountains in the valleys

I’ll turn the sun baked desert crust into a cool pond

I’ll make the wastelands into verdant streams

.

Fix your eyes on my servant

In whom I am well pleased

Pope Joan went there first…

Posted on by
Reply

While we are on the subject of women in leadership, I was reminded of the story of Pope Joan the other day. (Check out book of the week on radio 4)

She supposedly reigned for a few years some time thought to be between 853 – 855 AD. It is probably just a story, but what a story!

The first mention of the female pope appears in the chronicle of Jean Pierier de Mailly, but the most popular and influential version was that interpolated into Martin of Troppau‘s Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum somewhat later in the 13th century. Most versions say that she was a talented and learned woman who disguised herself as a man, often at the behest of a lover. Due to her abilities she rises through the church hierarchy, eventually being chosen as pope. However, while riding on horseback one day, she gives birth to a child, thus revealing her sex. In most versions she dies shortly after, either by being killed by an angry mob, or from natural causes, and her memory is shunned by her successors.

She probably never existed.

But the point is, that for Centuries, people thought that she did- and for many she has come to personify something of the way Church has vilified and marginalised women. How women are seen as carriers of an evil seed- eaters of the fruit in the Garden.

I wonder if it also says something about how for women to succeed in a male dominated leadership environment, they have to disguise themselves as masculine. The Margaret Thatcher complex perhaps…

How do we celebrate difference whilst at the same time promote the sharing of power?

 

 

Dictatorship of the air…

Posted on by
Reply

As a young lad I went through a period of reading H G Wells novels.

To be honest, I found them very dry and antiquated, but I was a voracious reader and had read my way through many of the other books on our library shelves.

One of the books I remember trying to read was Well’s ‘The Shape of Things To Come‘- written in 1933 and strangely prophetic-

It sketched out Well’s prediction of a future world war, which he felt was likely to lead to stalemate, and chaos- following which he envisaged the emergence of a benign dictatorship, policed worldwide- using air power to enforce peace.

A dictatorship of the air.

I remember that even to my 12-13 year old perception, this Utopian vision seemed strange and outdated. It was committed to an idea of human progress through scientific advancement- which to anyone growing up in an age of nuclear stalemate seemed rather bizarre.

I was reminded of Wells’ ‘Dictatorship of the air’ again whilst listening to the news of western Jets patrolling the sky over Libya.

Another intervention into an oil rich third world dictatorship- another humanitarian disaster filling our screens.

Another attempt to overcome through technology and science.

Have we learnt nothing from recent wars- in the Balkans and in the Middle East? Or does the illusion of clean, disengaged warfare carried out at distance persist in the minds of our politicians?

Obama was reluctant- he is already fully engaged in bloody interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it seems he has been persuaded by our shiny new PM David Cameron, and his French colleagues.

I hope I am wrong. I hope Gaddafi gives up and pitches his tent elsewhere.

But history is not on his side.

Wells got it badly wrong.

Carrie’s coffee house on the news!

Posted on by
Reply

Michaela just sent me  a link to this clip-

I am not sure how old this is, but not for the first time- well done Mike and Alison, and may your project continue to be a source of grace to the young people who use it.

The story of this coffee house is an inspirational one- particularly at a time when some of us are asking questions about our own young people in Dunoon- amidst all the usual peer pressures and dangers.

Alison is a Dunoon girl, who met an American sailor who was then based in the Holy Loch. They married and went to live in in the USA, where they brought up two girls. Tragically, their oldest, Carrie, was killed in a car crash, but this terrible event became the catalyst for the Mike and Alison to start a youth coffee house in Carrie’s name- to provide a safe place for young people to hang out.

They were motivated by their grief, but also by great love and faith. And what they have achieved is special.

Perhaps it is time to start a franchise.

But then again- I suspect that most of the success of this project rests on the character that Mike and Alison bring- and that is hard to find.