Thanks to Brian McLaren for this clip…
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Constantine’s Pagan Influence on Christianity
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Shelter from the snow…
The snow is here.
It has been smothering the East of the country for the last few days, but the cold winds blowing in from the heart of Europe have found their way to the West.
It is lovely, but everything has stopped. We have a car full of rubbish for the tip that we can not move, and the snow shows no signs of stopping.
The chickens are a little freaked- this must be their first experience of snow.
I spent some time in my workshop clearing it out and blocking off some of the open side- what keeps the rain out is not as effective against drifting snow. And the chickens were keen to join me.
I did not have the heart to kick them back out into the snow.
It is still one of my favourite places to be…
Ashes to Ashes…
William was ill last week, and watched some DVDs of England’s win in the 2005 Ashes series repeatedly. He has become a bit of a cricket fanatic (and of course, as a fellow sufferer, I am proud of him!)
William decided we needed our own trophy, and so burnt a wooden stump in the fireplace, and put the ashes in a jam jar. (I could explain why he did this, but if you do not know already, then you are probably not interested in cricket history…)
Genius!
So far, it is one match each in a five match series. Played in poor light on dodgy monoblock with a hard plastic covered full size ball that hurts when it hits you.
I thought it worth mentioning as England play Australia in the first of five Ashes tests tonight. England are the current holders, but have not won in Australia since the early 1980’s and start this time as marginal favourites, with an Australian team in disarray.
To whet the appetite, I thought it appropriate to share a Freddy Flintoff story. In 2005 after an incredibly close match which was narrowly edged by England, Australian cricketer Brett Lee collapsed to the grass in tears. In what was hailed as a piece of great sportsmanship that could only be seen in the sport of cricket, Flintoff went up to him, put a supportive arm around his shoulder and whispered some words in his ear.
Here is Flintoff describing the incident, which tells a rather different side to the story-
Winter calls us to fireside…
It is a cold night.
It feels as though winter is with us now- the trees are almost bare apart from a few rattly dry leaves. Frost is on the windows of the car, and the sky has a cold clarity that brings out the wonder in me.
Not that I linger long before the expanse of it- rather I shiver and feel the beckoning call of the fireside.
Tonight our housegroup met- we watched the second of the recent ‘Big Silence‘ series.
As ever there was much laughter first though- my favourite story tonight was from Pauline, who described taking her grand kids on the train into Glasgow, and being uncomfortable as they were sitting next to some loud sweary young people.
“It was great last night” shouted one. “We got pissed and talked about good stuff like drink and sex and zombies!”
Drink and sex- fair enough.
But zombies?
Creativity…
I watched “The madness of Peter Howson” on TV tonight.
I watched him spending months and months creating a painting of John Ogilvie, Catholic son of a Scottish Calvinist, who was hanged for ‘refusing to accept the King’s spiritual jurisdiction’.
For Howson, the creative process was a tortuous one- constantly making and remaking the work, whilst struggling with depression and suicidal feelings.
Along the way he was diagnosed as suffering from Aspergers syndrome, and his assets are now managed by a Guardian.
I have met Howson at an art exhibition we staged as part of an Aoradh event- he cuts an odd and rather shambolic figure, but his genius is without doubt. It arises out of his own twisted brokeness which seem to be the compost in which this wonderful art grows.
Which set me thinking again about creativity- where it comes from, and what can set it loose.
For Howson, this is not a risk free joyful process- it is crowded with self doubt and self criticism. But above all, his creativity is driven– he is compelled to create.
My own experience is far more limited- in terms of my creative talent, my drive and thankfully even my measure of existential angst. But there was something in watching Howson tonight that very much resonated with me- and no doubt would do with lots of creative people.
For us, creating things brings life.
But it also pitches us on a rollercoaster of emotion- joy, doubt, uncertainty, crises of confidence.
But not getting on the rollercoaster is simply not an option.
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1st collector for BBC News – Howson completes Ogilvie work
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Slow down- come to Dunoon…
Apparently my home town of Dunoon officially has one of the slowest broadband speeds in the UK.
Kind of makes you proud.
Of course it is not that long ago that we were all used to dial up speeds (remember that annoying connection noise?)- but these days 1.9 meg is pretty slow. I am currently getting about 54 KB/sec.
But I am just back from a night in Glasgow, where Michaela and I went to see Jools Holland (Sorry- not really my cup of tea, talented though the band were) and then we spent a day shopping in the city.
It was lovely to walk a city with my wife, but it was so busy. Cars everywhere, fighting for a few inches of space, and to be a few seconds faster away from the lights.
So it was good to get the ferry over to the place where even cyber space has been slowed down.
Come and see- it is good for the soul…
This made me smile- toilet twinning…
My mate Simon told me about this the other day- in response to a conversation about alternative Christmas presents…
International charities Cord and Tearfund have linked up to bring you Toilet Twinning: a unique way to help transform lives in poor communities across the world.
Since the launch of Toilet Twinning in 2008, more than 1,500 latrines have been built in Burundi – providing safe loos for at least 9,000 people! So… squat’s it all about?
There’s a serious message here though-
up a stink
It’s out of order! 1 in 3 people across the world don’t have somewhere safe to go to the toilet. Bad sanitation is one of the world’s biggest killers: it hits women, children, old and sick people hardest. Every minute, three children under the age of five die because of dirty water and poor sanitation. And, right this minute, around half the people in the world have an illness caused by bad sanitation.
Women and girls suffer most
In Africa, half of young girls who drop out of school do so because they need to collect water – often from many miles away – or because the school hasn’t got separate toilets for boys and girls. Not having a loo puts people at risk of being bitten by snakes as they squat in the grass and makes women and girls a target for sexual assault as they go to the toilet in the open.
Big job
We must do what we can to make a difference.
Providing people with clean water and basic sanitation is one of the most cost-effective ways to release people from poverty: for every £1 spent on water and sanitation, £8 is returned through saved time, increased productivity and reduced health costs.
Missing the target
In 2000, 189 countries from across the world signed up to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. The plan was that we’d all work together to end extreme poverty by 2015. But little action means some targets will be missed by DECADES. If we carry on like this, it’s predicted we won’t hit the sanitation target in sub-Saharan Africa until the 23rd century.
So if anyone wants to buy us a toilet twin for our downstairs loo, I will forever more poo with pride!
WORDS…
A great little film thanks to Justin–
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20 years of social work…
20 years ago I became a social worker.
It seemed like the thing to do.
I was driven by a desire to do a job that had at its very centre the desire to help other people. I think this was driven by a number of things- my own troubled childhood, a social conscience that was stoked by a progressive education and perhaps above all, my faith.
It was a mix of motivations that I have never quite escaped- despite the frequent screaming frustrations of working within a bureaucracy, and the early disillusionment with the idealism of being a genuine change agent- working both within and against the state.
It survived the huge pressure of work in inner city Greater Manchester with people in mental health crisis- in what could be a very scary, violent place. It survived because I met some wonderful people, and there was value in kindness and caring, even if I often felt impotent and ineffectual when faced with such overwhelming need.
It survived work as a therapist in GP surgeries- seeing 6-7 people a day with a wide variety of brokenness. Along the way I became more aware of my own brokenness- and aspired to become a wounded healer.
It survived a move to Scotland, and an encounter with a different kind of stress- where the busyness was driven by isolation and lack of resources over a wide rural area.
It has even survived a move into management, with all the power mongering and encounters with the sociopaths.
But under the recent onslaught, the flame flickers dimly. I am tired. My blood pressure is high. I suffer from cluster headaches. Sleep fluctuates. All the classic signs of approaching burnout.
But then- it has been a bad day. And there are still better days- perhaps tomorrow…
And I am trying to do the right things to try to keep the balance towards the centre.
In the hope that the motivations that took me into social work survive, well- survive social work.
Keith Douglas- WW2 poet…
In a previous post, I asked if anyone had heard of poets from the 2nd world war, and confessed that I could not remember one.
But thanks to the BBC, this evening, on remembrance day, I heard about the life of another poet- Keith Douglas.
A man whose difficult childhood turned him into himself- into his own imagination. A difficult, mercurial man, born into extraordinary times. An intelligent man, with a precious gift.
A man who was to die three days after the D day landings, but whose poetry remains as a means of communicating the nature and horror of war.
Here is one of his poems, entitled ‘How to Kill’
Under the parabola of a ball,
a child turning into a man,
I looked into the air too long.
The ball fell in my hand, it sang
in the closed fist: Open Open
Behold a gift designed to kill.Now in my dial of glass appears
the soldier who is going to die.
He smiles, and moves about in ways
his mother knows, habits of his.
The wires touch his face: I cry
NOW. Death, like a familiar, hearsAnd look, has made a man of dust
of a man of flesh. This sorcery
I do. Being damned, I am amused
to see the centre of love diffused
and the wave of love travel into vacancy.
How easy it is to make a ghost.The weightless mosquito touches
her tiny shadow on the stone,
and with how like, how infinite
a lightness, man and shadow meet.
They fuse. A shadow is a man
when the mosquito death approaches
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1st collector for Keith Douglas- WW2 poet…
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this fragile tent 