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| Monday, August 3rd, 2009 | | 4:41 pm |
Kids and Violence
While I was failing to sleep last night, I heard The Forum on the World Service. One of the contributors was Camila Batmanghelidjh who founded Kids Company which works with deprived children in London with remarkable results. She talked about brain development and the fact that the prefrontal lobe which is the controlling part of the brain is programmed by loving care in the first three years of life. As a parent (or other caregiver) soothes the child the child learns how to soothe themselves. The kids Camilla works with have not received this loving care at an early age and so lack the calming mechanisms -- many said to her early in her work `I just can't calm down'. She describes them as 'themostatically impaired'. They have also experienced much violence and trauma in their short lives and have little control of their impulses which are often violent. By long-term work with these children, they can learn techniques for calming themselves and 87% re-engage with education. It struck me how much of a cycle occurs here. Often their parents won't have learnt the calming mechanisms either and so the children don't and so the cycle continues. I found various newspaper articles about her work the Independent, The Observer, The Timesand a conservative blogger who dismisses her work with no argument, merely by mocking her words | | Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 | | 8:40 pm |
Lay Presidency and Gay Bishops
Interesting post from Bishop Alan on Lay Presidency in the Diocese of Sydney. His final paragraph says a lot: Back last century, John Shelby Spong led the charge for lay presidency in his book Why Christianity must Change or Die. It looks as though this issue has now reached what one might call the Jensen Spong Vanishing Point. The whole matter was considered very fully by the 1998 Lambeth conference, which decisively rejected it. So 98 Lambeth 1:10 is to die for, and 98 Lambeth 3:22 is to dynamite. Simultaneously. Illogical, Captain? I love the idea of +Spong and ++Jensen agreeing on something (especially something which puts them both outside traditional Anglicanism)! And the attitudes to Lambeth resolutions is telling. | | Thursday, May 21st, 2009 | | 9:22 pm |
Change
I'm currently doing a Fresh Expressions Course with people from my church along with others from the Dioceses of Llandaf and Monmouth and the Methodists in this part of the world. At the session this week, one of the things we talked about related to change and a bell curve was given divided up into Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. The point was that to initiate change in a congregation one had to work mainly with the middle three groups -- going too much with the innovators could in fact backfire. In many ways, I could see the point. We were asked whether we were Innovators and a few responded. Then we were asked if any of us were Laggards and I was the only who responded. Someone pointed out that the people attending such a course were likely to be Innovators or Early Adopters. I made the point that in fact at different points and about different things we might react different. As I've thought about this for the last couple of days, I've come to be more dubious about this blanket categorisation. I am by basic inclination a laggard. I don't like change and certainly not change for change's sake. My reaction to An Inspector Calls last night is an example of that -- it wasn't how I'd imagined it from the script so I wasn't keen. Similarly, those of you who were present when MethSoc went to see the first Harry Potter will remember my reaction to change there! And while I laugh and am disappointed by those in churches who make visitors unwelcome by telling them they've sat in 'their seat', I've had that reaction to people who have sat in 'my seat' in the library. I don't act on it, but it's there. Whether I accept change depends a lot more on whether I understand the logic of it. For example, when I went to our sister church for services soon after our new vicar arrived, I wanted to rearrange the seating. Although it is a rectangular space, the altar is in one of the corners and to my mind it made most sense to have the chairs facing that way, but they were set out parallel to two of the walls. The new vicar agreed with me but was cautious about changing something to soon, but eventually cracked as she felt she wasn't communicating with one part of the church. She changed the layout and a couple of people complained the first week that they didn't know where to sit. Since then they've been fine. But I can sympathise with that reaction, even though I was a major proponent of the change. In church situations, it can be set out as being about our comfort versus mission but often the innovators are in fact asking for things to be changed to what they are comfortable with. One of the sensible things said in the course was that you needed to change values before you changed structures -- while changing structures is superficially easier than changing values, just changing structures without address the values leaves a lot of people hurt. This makes a lot of sense to me. If I'm onside with why things need to be changed, I'm a lot more likely to be happy with the change. | | 5:57 pm |
An Inspector Calls
Last night, I finally got to see An Inspector Calls. I studied this as one of my GCSE English Lit texts along with Macbeth and A Mayor of Casterbridge. It amused me at the time that the only one of this I saw in the theatre during my GCSE courses was in fact A Mayor of CasterbridgeI loved An Inspector Calls when we studied it and its message of 'Never ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee'. Thus I've long wanted to see it so when I noticed that it was on at The New Theatre this week I decided that I wanted to go. My first suggestion was to go on the Thursday but mum pointed out that this is Ascension Day so eventually we booked tickets for the Wednesday night. Sean Cavanagh (husband to the University Chaplain Lorraine, a director of Riding Lights and a West End set designer) told me it was a very good production and so I was looking for it. Unfortunately, my idea of a good production and Sean's appear to differ. I could see why a set designer would appreciate it, but felt on the whole it was over done. The thing is that An Inspector Calls only requires a very basic set -- a Dining Room -- but this production had gone much beyond that. The set was a mansion which opened part way through the first scene (when the Inspector arrived) but which was out of scale with characters. It was used to good effect to demonstrate the fact that the Birling's world was destroyed by the Inspector's visit and they way in which the parents and Gerald Croft (the daughter's fiancé) start trying to rebuild their life as though nothing had happened. However, this seemed to over egg the cake to me. The play, IMO, speaks for myself. Secondly, the Inspector was too aggressive and dramatic. My impression from reading the script is of a much more controlled character who is much more sinister. The Goole/Ghoul suggestion wasn't at all apparent. There were also various extraneous people around, like a young kid who spent most of the production being very still wearing the Inspector's hat. Reading the programme afterwards, it turned out that the idea of the production was that the play (set in 1912) was being acted out in 1945 to help people decide whether to vote for Churchill or Attlee. It was an interesting idea, but didn't really come off. I thought it started with an air raid siren, but it wasn't at all clear what that, or the kids playing the street had to do with the rest of it. I still loved it, because it is a wonderful play, but that was despite the production. Mum had a similar reaction -- she's never studied it, but saw it in Crewe 33 years ago and felt that that was a much more subtle and therefore more sinister production. | | Thursday, March 19th, 2009 | | 10:20 pm |
Tom Wright on Evangeliclas and Scripture
A friend recommended that I read Tom Wright's Oxford University Sermon entitled the Harvest and the Kingdom (available as a word document). Having just read it, I can see why he recommended it. It fits in well with the discussion we'd been having about the way in which evangelicals seem to preach more on the epistles than on St Paul. This began with my comment about said friend's father (an evangelical Anglican priest) being a better preacher on the epistles than the gospels. And I commented that I had been known to refer to evangelicals as epistolarians for this reason. This bit stood out to me as being very important: This is all the more ironic because, the evangelical has usually insisted on the authority of scripture, but has allowed that to shrink to mean ‘the authority of the bits of Paul which give me my scheme of how to get saved’, with the rest of scripture, including the gospels, as a rag-bag of useful material to pad it all out. To be fair, he also tells liberals off for being to keen to ignore St Paul and says: Exactly the same is true, in reverse, about a supposedly gospels-based kingdom-theology which is actually nothing more than social work with a pious face. | | Thursday, January 29th, 2009 | | 7:51 pm |
A Plague on both their houses
That's my basic sentiment towards Hamas and the Israeli Government. There's fault on both sides but both blame the other and show little concern the ordinary Israelis and Palestinians (who, I believe, want to live in peace). But, in the recent hostilities, I tend to blame Israel more than Hamas, because they are in a stronger position. Yes, many of the states around them are hostile, but they have decent facilities and roads and freedom of movement around their land. I don't condone terrorism, but I can see why the Palestinians are so frustrated that they elected Hamas, and given that, we have to lump it and be prepared to talk to them. Talking is the only way to a peace that satisfies both sides and that will require compromises from both sides. | | Friday, December 26th, 2008 | | 3:52 pm |
The Shack
While doing my Christmas shopping I spotted The Shack and succumbed to temptation and bought it. I'd heard interesting things about it and so wanted to read it for myself. I started it on Christmas Eve and finished today. It's good. I wanted to blog about it though being perverse the suggestion one does this at the end nearly made me change my mind. It's basically theodicy but has a wonderful depiction of God. At one point the trinitarian theology was a bit dodgy, but Trinitarian theology is notoriously dodgy. I've got lots of post it index tabs in bits I might go back to. I will also consider this review from a ConEvo stand point which warns of the dangers of the misleading theology of the book. I've not read it yet, but I will. | | Thursday, December 25th, 2008 | | 9:25 pm |
Midnight Mass
Well due to the organist being away our MC had to play the organ. I'd found one other server (newish to the congo LEM but hadn't served with us before) and then at the crib service we acquired another (a teenager from the other church in the parish) which gave us two acolytes and me as Thurifer cum MC. Quick walk through before Mass, and the acolytes did well for their first time at that church. The only thing I'd fault the teenager for was the white trainers and the other just failed to go to the middle a couple of times. Pity about the MC/Thurifer. It started badly -- by the time we'd had the run through it was nearly 25 past which didn't give me much time to light the coals and meant I didn't manage to find the Aspersorium and put it by the crib. The after ringing the bell to start us off I realised I hadn't put my cotta on, so the entrance procession was Thurifer in cassock, acolytes in cassock and cotta, deacon in alb and stole and priest in alb stole and cope. We stopped for prayers at the crib (without holy water) and then up to the altar and managed to do the swap to chasuble (which is awkward when there's a lapel mike involved) and I dashed out to the sacristy and put the thurible down and my cotta on. Went out after the psalm and lit another coal and went out in the second verse of the hymn got to Father (via the second pew as there were people in the front pew and the tree in the way) and went to pass her the incense to find I'd completely failed to pick it up! I muttered 'just bless it anyway' and we carried on. Mum had to cense the gospel book with a non-smoking thurible -- I'd be told to keep it down in the congregation but that was definitely taking it too far. Mum also forgot to pick up the handheld radio mike but she projected well enough (hopefully no-one was relying on the loop -- especially as the battery was going in the lapel mike too). Biggest problem at the offertory was that Father's book got left on her lectern at the head of the nave, so the deacon had to go and retrieve it, which meant I went to the chancel step to cense the congo having said if we'd run out of hymn (4 verses of Hark, the Herald Angels) I'd do it from the sanctuary step. EP and distribution went fine. I topped up the incense after the Sanctus/Benedictus which helped. We overconsecrated but about 10 of the 45 person congregation didn't receive* which explains that! Communion and Final hymns went well, priest and deacon attempting the descant for 'Sing choirs' then I led us out with a couple of 360s which is always fun. But despite the mistakes it was a wonderful service and a good start to Christmas. Long though -- we got there about 10:45 and didn't leave until 1:15 am. It was nice just turning up at the other church this morning and having to do nothing -- except point out (I think for the second year running) that 586 is Save us, O Lord a version of the Nunc antiphon from Compline and maybe it should be 588 See amid the winter's snow.** Good sermon from Father -- focussing on God coming as a baby and thus dependent on us. She had a line about 'babies crying and laughing now all around the world' to which she appended 'and in St Michael's' as there were two rather loud toddlers at the front which made a distraction into a feature. Then home to help cook the lunch (all three of us involved) which was rather nice (though the parsnip wasn't brilliant. *This is possibly a good thing in that it means we got some none regular churchgoers along I suspect. **I noticed later that it could also have been 589 See him lying on a bed of straw but the churchwarden checked the list before changing the number. | | Sunday, November 9th, 2008 | | 10:18 pm |
Poppies and Remembrance
It was Remembrance Sunday today. We marked it at church with silence at the start of the service this morning and then a 'parish service of remembrance' this evening. I finally managed to do what I've been intending to do for years today and wore both a red and a white poppy.* I'm aware that by doing so I'm probably annoying extremists on both sides, but I think that it gets the balance right. I don't just want to wear a white poppy because I think that that is potentially too much of a political statement (especially given how some chose to interpret the white poppy)** but nor am I entirely happy just wearing a red poppy especially given some of the more extreme views I have heard. I'm basically a pacifist -- in that I think that in the long run violence doesn't solve anything and that we should work for other ways of solving international conflicts but I'm aware that in a situation like 1939 with an aggressor like Hitler, it's hard to see what else should have been done but fight him, though I still won't justify everything we did.*** Also, my dad's dad was a conscientious objector who was in the ambulance corp and was involved in the liberation of Japanese concentration camps. I think that wearing a white poppy for me has a connection to that. It might be coincidental in that I only really started coming across white poppies after I went to Cambridge in 2001, but I think the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which I do not believe were justified have made me more wary of the red poppy because I don't want to be seen as supporting those wars, although I still mourn all those who have died in them. I will also comment that I only wore my poppies today. This is partly because I didn't get my white one until Thursday and by then canteen shop had run out of red ones and so I couldn't wear both until I got a red one at church this morning. However it is also that I find they start appearing on the telly a fortnight or more ahead of time and this seems too long ahead for me. I also find that if I wear one too early, I'll just lose it! I have not yet decided whether I'll wear them tomorrow and Tuesday. Possibly I'll take them to work (because cycling wearing them would be a sure way of losing them) and then decide. *Some of my colleagues had ordered some. **Though I find it very hard to understand the visceral dislike of the white poppy. ***But had we not been so aggressive and unforgiving after the first world war, would Hitler have been elected? And were there things which could have been done prior to 1939 which could have solved the problem without a war which killed millions. | | Saturday, November 1st, 2008 | | 8:17 pm |
| | Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | | 2:01 pm |
| | Monday, September 1st, 2008 | | 11:26 am |
| | Thursday, August 28th, 2008 | | 9:59 pm |
Last Choir Standing
Just caught up on Saturday's Last Choir Standing. It's interesting that the last four choirs were two from Wales and two Gospel choirs. Hard to chose between them for the final three ( spoiler ) | | Thursday, August 14th, 2008 | | 10:41 pm |
Yay! Ringing!
Went ringing tonight for the first time in ages (barring 20 mins in Cambridge on St James' day). I'd forgotten how enjoyable it is. Didn't do that much -- couple of lots of Bob Doubles,* some rounds on 6 and some rounds and calls on 10, but hopefully I'll get to do more in coming weeks. There were 18 or so there which is more than I was expecting, though only about 3 of them were actually locals (/Sunday ringers at that church). Four cathedral ringers there including two from the family of 4 kids and 2 parents who ring. One of whom, the youngest, has aged about 3 years in the year since I saw him last. He was a kid last time I saw him and now he's a young man. He's turned 16 in that time, but still. I barely recognised him. Though that was true of some people who'd seen him last week as he's had a hair cut (probably a number 2). Then pubbage, although the first attempt a Wetherspoons weren't letting under 18s in so we had to go elsewhere for our beer and cheese. *Doubles?????? I've rung that about once in the past 4 years having done much more minor and some major, but I remembered long fifths! Current Mood:  happy | | Thursday, July 31st, 2008 | | 1:22 pm |
I have just mailed a postscript file of my thesis to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) caliston to be printed! | | Sunday, July 13th, 2008 | | 4:48 pm |
Gay bishops
++Barry has spoken out in favour of Gay Bishops (and against the Covenant -- though that's not news). There's a diocesan forum this evening at Christchurch, Radyr with four bishops from the Communion. Could be interesting. Its venue has already been changed because of a pro-gay bishop being present. | | Monday, May 26th, 2008 | | 3:45 pm |
Yay!
And England win a testmatch by 6 wickets! Well done Monty! | | Thursday, April 17th, 2008 | | 12:30 am |
| | Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 | | 12:42 am |
Geekiness
My thesis contains many examples (c. 300) each of which is numbered and has a unique label. I also have a database containing all my examples (c. 1000) and those which have been included in my thesis (and a few that were included but have since been commented out!) have the label given them in the thesis in as a field. ( perl geekiness ) | | Saturday, April 5th, 2008 | | 2:00 pm |
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