Category Archives: Uncategorized

Del’s beautiful (but absolutely pointless) machine…

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Time for something to lighten the mood I reckon- after all the discussion about pain and suffering and death and gas chambers.

Check out the clip.

This old guy must have spent countless hours making this lovely thing. It is a work of rough-handed, craftsman-genius.

It has no discernible purpose. It has no obvious meaning.

He is either slightly bonkers, or a backwoods savant who deserves international recognition. Or both.

But I love the fact that we humans can create such things. Perhaps there is no higher modern art form than this one…

EBAY launches WorldofGood

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I thought it was worth giving this new enterprise a plug. With ebay behind it, it should be successful!

Here’s the blurb;

WorldofGood.com by eBay is the world’s first online marketplace to convene thousands of People Positive and Eco Positive sellers and products all in one place, empowering you to shop in ways that align with your personal values. Respected, independent organizations verify the positive impact every product has on people and the planet. Our goal is to ensure that every choice you make here is a good one.

Check it out here.

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Castles and boundaries…

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We humans are so good at creating boundaries- in groups, and out groups. Nations states often seem to have a dependent relationship with their enemies.

We have seen the extremes of this- the walls around China, or Berlin, and now- Palestine.

This learning to love thing- it is tough.

I have commented before on how difficult living in community with others can be- how it peels you and then salts the sore bits. (See here.)

At times I think that anyone who tries to live like this is engaging in a foolish ritual, that is guaranteed to be fruitless and painful. Like squatting in spurs.

But then I see a flicker again of how things should be. A friend with an arm around another, seeming to generate warmth that is tangible. Or a relationship that has been bad, now made good… and the picture given to us in Acts 3 seems possible.

32All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.

But lets never kid ourselves that this path of love is an easy one- or even an instinctive one.

our rambling old house

our rambling old house

We British people have been blessed with many good things- comparative peace, the rule of law, freedoms that others envy. Our experience of poverty and injustice is often second hand. But sometimes, our castles are seiged- just a little,,,

We live in a big old house in Dunoon, that we regard as God’s house. (Although, somewhat unfairly, the mortgage is ours!) We try to keep open doors, and offer respite to folk who need it. We use the many rooms for all sorts of different things, and for us, the house is a blessing through which we seek to bless others.

In our town there are many issues over boundaries and access to property. Our house is accessed over a rough track that goes over land owned by another property. This is no problem of itself- there are laws that deal with ‘kith and carriage’, and the requirement to maintain people’s rights of access. Our house was built in 1840, and used to be a hotel- so these are not new issues!

But there will always be some for whom this becomes a problem. We were unfortunate enough to have one of these people moving into the property over which we accessed our house. He decided that he did not like other people using his lane, and did everything he could to try to make it difficult for us, our visitors, and the other people who live up the lane.

He narrowed the entrance, and put in huge speed bumps that damaged cars. He refused to cut away obstructive trees. He blocked the lane with vehicles and refused to let our visitors in or out. He set his dog loose, and laughed when it attacked me.

Neighbours got involved in pitched battles with him, in which he threatened violence. Police and solicitors were involved. We tried our best to stay out of it all. We tried to build a relationship with him, and to speak to his wife and his young son, who would scurry on by. We worried about what sort of life they were leading in the midst of all this aggression and anger.

But living with this eats away at you. Finding a position of love and forgiveness in the shadow of such unpleasantness- this is hard.

It was a great relief to us when he moved away, to a more isolated location up country.

But this being a small town, I keep bumping into him, or his wife. He glares, and I seethe a little.

I need some Holy Spirit help… perhaps yet there will be an opportunity to show something of Jesus…

One thing that happened a couple of days ago though,was that we received a solicitors letter informing us that half of the house next door had been built on our land. It was asking us if we would give consent for the boundaries to be re-drawn.

It was an easy decision to make, and felt very good.

Landmarks

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A few weeks ago, we took the canoes out to Loch Striven, round the other side of the Cowal peninsular. We paddled for a while out along the loch, until we found a landing spot next to a raised beach of soft stones. A perfect spot for a picnic.

As with all our coast line, the tide had left its usual selection of plastic, old rope and broken fish boxes on the beach- but I do not think anyone had been there for years.

William and I saw what looked like some old walls in the distance, and went off exploring.

what we found used to be someone’s house. A crofter perhaps, or a fisherman- now long gone.

Much of our small crowded planet can no longer be regarded as true wilderness. As you walk to the hills, you will almost certainly walk over a landscape marked everywhere by man.

Fields and field boundaries – some new, some ancient, shaping the subsequent developments.

Hedgerows and dry stone walls.

Old signs of settlement, perhaps still in use, perhaps now redundant, abandoned, remaining only as a growth of bracken and nettles, rising in ground fertilised by the nitrates left behind in the passing.

The very paths we walk upon have been made by the passing of other feet walking their own walk, into their own unknown uncertain futures, now past and gone.

We humans have transformed the planet in the last few thousand years of our ascendancy. Forests gone, rivers diverted. Roads made straight across mountain and valley. Many of these marks are irreversible, at least in the foreseeable future. The land may clothe them in green, but the marks will remain for thousands of years to come.

As I write, the debate about how our patterns of living might have contributed to accelerating climate change continues to rage.

Humans have been of significant influence on my islands for a mere 5000 years or so. In some parts of the world, they can trace the mark of man further, in many, much less. What a legacy we inherit from our forebears – both great, and fearful.

Our lives have been shaped by this legacy too. We stand on the shoulders of those who gave the land its present shape.

Others will stand on ours.

Fragile

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If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrows rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetimes argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are

I heard this song again the other day for the first time in years- ‘Fragile’ by Sting. Thought it appropriate given the title of this blog…

The song takes me back to being a student, painfully shy, searching for some kind of shelf to hang from. For a while it seemed as though I would surely fall.

It was music, and passionate ideas that saved me.

Oh- and Michaela of course.

Life… is so fragile.

If you can cope with the aching beauty of another song about fragility and loss- check out this track by Martyn Joseph

Church abuse 3

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I have posted previously about abusive situations in churches (see Church abuse and church abuse 2.)

I felt justified in focusing on such negative aspects of the people of faith as I keep coming across people who used to go to church. When I ask them to tell me their stories, my heart breaks. I have had two conversations in the last week that trod the same path.

But lest it seem as though I just want to bash church- here is something that I hope will redress the balance…

Another film from America, called ‘Lord save us from your followers’ explores the image that Christians portray to the wider US nation and finds evidence that Jesus is at work…

For more info, and a download for the film- check out this link.

Here is another short trailer…

Englishness

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In an earlier post, I said this…

I loved Seth Lakeman’s set on Saturday evening- he made me proud- not sure what of exactly- perhaps that English-ness thing again.

A trip down south set me thinking again about my roots, and the nature of our heritage in these wonderful islands.

I have struggled to feel fully at home anywhere- at least in terms of geography. I am Northern English, if anything- and that is a different thing from Southern English I can tell you!

But my father is Irish.

And I live in beautiful, proud Scotland.

But still, I remain… English.

This comes to me in subtle ways. In gentle landscapes and rugged hills misted with rains and quartered off by ‘dry’ stone walls.

In a love for cricket in all its skillful grace.

It is wrapped up in stories of working men trespassing in the Penine hills in defiance of the landowners- claiming the gritstone for their weekends and their children’s picnics.

Of the Levellers and the Luddites and the Chartists.

Of the Methodists who formed the labour movement with their English kind of revolution.

It has nothing to do with this

or even this

Perhaps most of us encounter our roots through our cultural connection- perhaps above all things, through music. Perhaps that why I enjoyed Seth Lakeman driving folk music at Greenbelt so much. Despite him being a Southener, his music, rising as it does from working class South West England, communicates something of the history that connects me with who I am, and where I came from. My Scottish friends can not understand this- any more than I can really ever become Scottish.

One of my favourite bands is another West country duo called A show of Hands. They wrote a song that captures something of this. Here’s a you tube clip of their (somewhat naff!) video. Song is great though…

Reflections on the futility/centrality of sport

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athens_olympic_stadium_greece_2.jpg (JPEG Image, 600×391 pixels)

Stuart Cutler, whose blog I enjoy, said something interesting about sport here

He said “when you deconstruct any sport, it is ridiculous…”

I reckon he’s right. It set me thinking about something else-

“Bread and circuses”

A phrase used by a Roman poet to deplore the declining heroism of the Romans after the end of the Roman Republic, and as the Roman Empire began. “Two things only people desire- bread and circuses”. In times of unrest, the Roman governors threw huge spectacles, and handed out free bread.

At present, the Olympics fill our screens, but it seems only a sneeze since the football world cup raised a million hopes and dreams for English football fans. Flags waved from suburban windows and on car aerials. There was probably another song in the charts about football coming home, badly sung by an embarrassed set of England footballers. And the sun shone on the hopes of the whole nation, at least for a while…

I suppose I am a sports snob. I love cricket, and so got all worked up over the Ashes win over Australia (we were soon humbled by the return matches in Australia, which we lost 5-0!) but I am genuinely bemused at the effect of watching some men kick a ball about on a football field.

It has been suggested quite seriously by economic and political analysts that the success or otherwise of the England football team (and perhaps that of other nations too, even Scotland!) has a measurable effect on the nation. People’s spending patterns change, they impregnate one another more or less frequently, they vote differently, and crime and public order offences fluctuate like the league table itself. Such is the power of public entertainment, filtered through mass media, to a population hungry for meaning- for significance rather than the mundane predictability of life.

The Romans knew this, and perhaps little has changed, apart from the forms of entertainment themselves. They used to idolize men who fought and killed for entertainment. We now just reserve our thirst for blood for whoever the current England manager is. Why would anyone want that job?

But I too also love those moments of magic when a man or woman transcends what all have the right to expect, pushing beyond every psychological and physical barrier, and against all the odds, winning the prize.

A sublime goal scored by the 18 year old Michael Owen

A 6 smacked high over the boundary and into the crowd by Andrew Flintoff, right into to the hands of his proudly watching father (who promptly drops it),

And the time when I heard about Eddie the Eagle strapping on his milk bottle bottom glasses and launching himself from his garden shed, in training for the Olympic ski jump.
I remember these moments. As much as they can be, in a disposable age, they become almost eternal- they are public property, the milestones of our lives. We store them away like songs and smells that always take us back to particular time and place, and in their own way, they are as beautiful as sonnets.

But it is not enough. How can we elevate football or cricket or rock music or package holidays or anything for that matter, to become the pre-eminent point of emotional and spiritual expression in our lives? It seems to me that so many of us have let these manufactured things become the mechanism for fulfillment and borrowed success in our lives. We fill the voids in our lives with off-the-shelf imitations of reality, sanctioned and given shared legitimacy by TV. As with all things, it is hard to go against the flow.

We could talk about the state of the earth, of inequality, of poverty and starvation of children, of global warming and the melting polar icecaps. Or about the death of conversation, the end of community, and the breakdown of family life. But it is all a bit earnest, a bit oppressive. The issues are too big for us to grasp, and anyway, we are all entitled to a bit of a rest at the end of a working day, right? A bit of down time, a good match?

Yes, but time goes by so quickly. We start out full of optimism, and all too soon our children have grown, and mortgages have become the millstones that tie us to jobs offering little beyond a wage check. I believe in an eternal perspective, which offers a life in so many more dimensions. And in a God who sends his Spirit amongst the crowd, stirring like a wind on the waters, reminding us of what it means to be made in the image of a creative, Creator God, softening us from the plastic wrapping of our lives, bringing in life and love and freedom. Calling us to be so much more than passive observers of the TV screens-

But to see Flintoff in his pomp, humbling the mighty Australians, making them look like children bowling at their older brother, punching a smooth extra cover drive, then rocking back and smashing a square cut of withering power past a startled baggy green cap…

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A slice of idol worship- Bruce Cockburn

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Here is some footage of Bruce Cockburn playing the guitar. I think this bloke is incredibly talented- both as a guitarist, and a poet. I love his lyricism, but I discovered him because he had something to say- from the tradition of the traveling troubadour/protest singer.

Enjoy!

(He is not an idol really, but we all need hero’s I reckon!)