William is 10 years old on this coming Thursday- and today we had a party in the garden.
This year the theme he chose was ‘sport’- so we had a tournament. Each guest took the name of a country and then built up points playing football, cricket, basketball, archery, ‘pin the ball on the footballer’, obstacle course and good old pass the parcel with sport related forfeits.
And I think they (and we) enjoyed every minute! How many kids parties can you say that about?
The other day William got to handle one of our garden visitors in these parts…
Don’t worry- I was not letting my son cuddle up to a snake. It is one of the lovely slow worms- which is actually a kind of legless lizard. They eat all sorts of things that you do not want near your vegetable patch, so they are doubly welcome here.
But it got me thinking about this-
“And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
Mark 16:18 (although only in the later manuscripts.)
Mad.
Stark staring bonkers.
And yet, to anyone who has been part of a fundamentalist subculture- weirdly logical.
Who was it that said something like ‘Football is not life and death- it is more important than that’?
World cup mania is upon us. All over the world ordinary people are seized by a kind of quasi-religious madness. National flags are being festooned on cars and out of a million bedroom windows.
Apart from Scotland it seems. Here the national tone is driven by the fact that our national team did not qualify for the competition- through perennial inconsistency and an ability to snatch defeat from the brink of victory.
But the other overwhelming feature that dominates Scottish football is sectarianism. It is only possible to worship our team if we hate our main rival. And hate has a full spectrum- from a kind of fixed sneering prejudice right through to outright nasty violence and murder.
At club level, this has become mingled in with religion in an overt way- the Rangers/Celtic Protestant/Catholic stuff, which is a shameful stain on both football and faith.
At national level, this same process can be seen in the vitriol reserved for that old enemy- England. It is an instinctive, self perpetuating and self sustaining reaction- constantly re-enforced by repetition and peer pressure and sanctioned by school teachers, politicians and ministers of religion.
Of course, this is not just a Scottish phenomenon. After all, most great religious movements require the dual polarity of good and evil to drive passion and zeal. However, there is something particular Scottish about its application. It has becomes mixed with a thousand years conflict, of wounds both felt and dealt and of a kind of selective history that nurtures old enmity and perpetuates the possibility of more blood being spilt in the future. Is it possible that football has allowed us to ritualise these divisions in our national make up? Has it become a vehicle for the passing down of prejudice to the next generations?
Does this matter? Well I think it does. I believe that we Christians are called to bring blessing and healing to our communities- to be the embodiment, the demonstration and the very channels of peace.
Because we believe in the power of forgiveness.
And the call to love our enemies.
To be in this world, but not of it- which means that we are prepared to go against the cultural flow.
And the challenge to confront our own motives and motivations honestly before the God who knows all.
So here is a provocative challenge to those of us in Scotland who ascribe to this way of being. (I hope it does not get me into too much trouble!)
I want to invite you to participate in the spiritual discipline/practice of…
Supporting the English football team during the next world cup.
(If you are English- substitute ‘German’ for the word ‘England’.)
And if you think I am just being provocative and English- know this. I am simply not that much into football. My first allegiance is not to a flag, a country or a democracy, or clan. It is to a King and Kingdom.
Will competed in the local inter school sports event today- representing his school- and much to our (and his) surprise, he won 4 (yes FOUR) silver medals!
I finally got round to ordering a copy of this book today.
I have found McLaren’s remarkable writing transformative to my own understanding of faith for a number of years. I very much appreciate his willingness to be radical and controversial in his theological thinking, whilst remaining humble and graceful in his response to the tirade of abuse he has been subjected to.
However, I have found myself avoiding this book. Perhaps because I wonder if he is really saying anything new- all the reviews seem to suggest that it is a gathering together of ideas he has been developing in his previous writing. As I read the ’10 questions that are transforming the faith’ I suspect I know what his answers will be, more or less.
To be honest, the hype around the release of the book repelled me a little too…
But then again- perhaps this shows just how much the theological landscape has shifted over the past 10 years. Questions that would once have been as welcome as a trump in a spacesuit are now increasingly part of a the popularist mainstream.
Does this mean that we are seeing the development of a new kind of Christianity?
I am not sure. I hope so though.
In the meantime- I am going to read the book…
By the way- you can watch 10 videos and download study material for group discussions around the themes raised in the book from The Ooze.
Here is a taster- on that difficult questions of relationships with other faiths…
Vodpod videos no longer available.
The grass is too long
Mossed by a hundred wet summers
Rolling in from the western sea
Deadening the bounce
And flattering my feeble attempts
At shape and spin
Cutting out all shots
Apart from sweep and drive
.
But to me and my boy
This too is sacred turf
Our ‘Lords’
.
Where memories are made
By crafty curl of leather
And the joyous crack of willow
As the bat hallelujahs its connection
.
And the trees around the field
Clap their hands
We spent some time sticking pictures at housegroup last night.
We had gathered loads of clippings from newspapers and magazines, and used them to construct a great big prayer of thankfulness.
And there was much laughter, and much friendship.
Which was a kind of prayer too…
Michaela read this poem by Robert Siegel–
A Song of Praises
for the gray nudge of dawn at the window
for the chill that hangs around the bed and slips its cold tongue under the covers
for the cat who walks over my face purring murderously
for the warmth of the hip next to mine and sweet lethargy
for the cranking up the hill of the will until it turns me out of bed
for the robe’s warm caress along arm and shank
for the welcome of hot water, the dissolving of the nights stiff mask in the soft washcloth
for the light along the white porcelain sink
for the toothbrush’s savoury invasion of the tomb of the mouth and the resurrection of the breath
for the warm lather and the scrape of the razor and the skin smooth and pink that emerges
for the steam of the shower, the apprehensive shiver and then
its warm enfolding of the shoulders
its falling on the head like grace
its anointing of the whole body
and the soap’s smooth absolution
for the rough nap of the towel and its message to each skin cell
for the hairbrush’s pulling and pulling, waking the root of each hair
for the reassuring snap of elastic
for the hug of the belt that pulls all together
for the smell of coffee rising up the stairs announcing paradise
for the glass of golden juice in which light is condensed and the grapefruit’s sweet flesh
for the incense of butter on toast
for the eggs, like twin peaks over which the sun rises
and the jam for which the strawberries of summer have saved themselves
for the light whose long shaft lifts the kitchen into the realms of day
for Mozart elegantly measuring out the gazebos of heaven on the radio
and her face, for whom the kettle sings, and the coffee percs
and all the yellow birds in the wallpaper spread their wings
Ahhh.
I think I like this bloke’s poems.
(Although to be honest, I am not usually that grateful in the morning.)
So here is Audrey’s joke- it made me laugh anyway!
Did you hear about the agnostic insomniac dyslexic?
He lay awake all night tossing and turning, and wondering if there was a dog.
There has been a lot in the news recently about loneliness.
One in 10 Britons often feel lonely, and those aged 18-34 are more likely to worry about being isolated than older adults, according to a Mental Health Foundation report.
Four in 10 have been depressed because of loneliness, and 48% believe people are becoming lonelier.
While 17% of over-55s worry about being alone, 36% of under-35s do.
The elderly, jobless and those who are disabled are most likely to be affected.
Persistent loneliness is bad for people’s mental and physical health and can be linked to stress, heavy drinking and poor diet, says the charity.
Peter Byrne, associate registrar of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “Our stereotype of the older person, home alone … is challenged by information [showing] the number of children calling a helpline who are lonely has increased by 60% in five years.”
I find myself interested for several different reasons-
I work in a mental health setting, and the role of community and social support is being ever more recognised as both cause and potential recovery of mental ill health.
I am interested in the role of social networking (and other on line health and social care platforms) in supporting us- and have a strong feeling that our reliance on the web is contributing to the isolation of many people. The stats above for example suggest that loneliness is especially concerning in the ‘facebook generation’- who might have three hundred on line friends, but no-one to go to the pictures with at the weekend.
This is a recurrent theme on this blog- here for example.
It is also a key theme for our Greenbelt worship event this year.
Here is the question- if the statistics suggesting that loneliness, isolation and disconnectedness are increasingly defining characteristics of our society- then what should be the role of we, the agents of the Kingdom of the living (relational) God?
Who made us in a way to be at our best when we love and serve one another?
As we seek to serve those around us, how might we need to structure our activities to better shine light and sprinkle salt to bring out the good flavours of the societies we serve?
It used to be the strength of our institutions of faith- the way we brought together and unified our communities (sometimes for ill as well as good.) We birthed a thousand community groups- womens groups, mens groups, kids groups. And we served our communities at points of crisis and celebration in a way that marked and deepened our understandings of transitions.
We still do many of those things- but perhaps we need to think outside of the boxes in which we currently work within. There is great need out there…
this fragile tent 