Myebook - Praying The Pattern: 1,00 reads

Well, I last reported on 23 June when I had notification of 500 reads.Myebook - Praying The Pattern, Well, a couple of weeks down the line and it's up to 1000 reads.

So that's what they're called: Mondegreens

Misheard -or rather misanalysed- lyrics to songs are called mondegreens. This article gives the etymology. snopes.com: Christmas Carol Mondegreens
My favourite is probably "the hot dogs go on" for "the heart does go on" in 'I will always love you'.
Oh and Desmond Dekker's 'the Israelites' turns out to be the most prolific producer of mondegreens.

How about you?

How does learning happen best?

I've been teaching or rather trying to facilitate learning about theological reflection. I keep an eye on research as best I can to help me to reflect ongoingly on things learning. One of the things I put before students is a bunch of models of theological reflection. The main one of these is an adaptation of the Kolb cycle; the pastoral cycle or spiral (there are others) One of the things I have said to students is that we should regard this as a tool for making sure that the things that happen when we reflect at our best are built into our reflection and become second nature to us: they are the ingredients of good reflection and that therefore we may notice that things are not as tidy as the models would seem to imply. This was simply being honest on my part: my observation of using the pastoral spiral to facilitate reflection on critical incidents or aspects of placement experience showed me that things that fit under the different phases of the spiral/cycle simply do not appear in the 'right' order often. A thought about an action point may actually feed back to analysis because it enables us to see a dimension of the situation afresh. Or it may feed back to reflection by exposing a theological assumption or opening up a theological vista not previously noted. The same kind of feed-back or feed-forward things can be seen with all of the staging points on the spiral/cycle.

So I felt affirmed to have been pointed to this article,
How does learning happen best? in which Phil Race makes a consonant observation: "I maintain that human brains are much more sophisticated than merely to perform sequential operations in any particular order. Our brains work on overlapping areas all at once. Whatever we do, we have feelings about it. We're always making sense of the feedback we get as we do things or as we think things. We're always in the process of making sense of the experience of what we try to do or try to think. In short, all the stages in our learning are going on all the time. Certainly, we may focus on one aspect of learning more than others at a given time, but we don't suddenly stop doing one thing and switch to another."
No argument from me!
He offers instead a ripples on a pond model. I'm not actually convinced that this is better in terms of the diagram, but the idea of feedback is at least conceptually built in. I note, too, that he is looking at learning through a different set of staging points (helpfully recognising the emotional side of the matter too). I'm going to be thinking about the modelling even more now, though ....

Barth Conference: Islam and paganism

Having recognised that many of the positions I have come to are very consonant with things that Barth seems to have said, it was interesting to come across an blogged account of a recent conference on Barth:Via Crucis: 2009 Barth Conference: Day 1
Doubly interesting to read this intriguing comment on Islam and Christian faith articulated by Scott Jones: "Barth saw National Socialism as a 'new Islam,' a false ideology led by a false messiah (Hitler). The compelling question, it seems, is why Barth would have seen this connection between Islam and National Socialism as such an obvious one to make. Why does he see Islam as more akin to paganism than to Judaism and Christianity?
After a bit of discussion of Islam's emphasis on revelation vis-a-vis a text (the Koran), the point was made that 'nothing separates Islam and Christianity so radically as the different ways they say the same thing: that there is one God' (CD II/1, 449). There is in Islam a lack of a coming or a becoming of God. This is a point worthy of further exploration, particularly in Christian-Muslim relations."
Absolutely, though I don't think that latter is a new point; what is ponder-worthy is the kinship Barth sees between Islam and paganism (or should that be with a P?). No doubt a shocking thought for many Muslims and others. Nevertheless, I think we need to counterbalance the Abrahamic faiths lumping-together with a recognition that there is an 'odd-one-out' and it is Islam. However, I remain to be convinced the becomingness of God is the differentiator. Certainly since Maimonides (interestingly, writing in an Islamic context), Judaism has tending to understand 'ehad' more like the Islamic 'tawhid' ... and probably for polemic reasons to some degree (but I'm writing beyond my secure competence here, happy to be corrected and further informed). And I would be interested to know, too, what understanding of 'pagan' is being worked with here. The hint is that it would be Aryan revival ideology rather than the more cuddly neo-paganism of earth-centred spirituality in the post 60's west.

The art of citation

Thanks to Ben Myers, an interesting little post on citation: Faith and Theology: The art of citation: "‘citations in my work are like armed thieves who emerge suddenly and rob leisurely strollers of their convictions.’ He thus uses citations strategically; they are part of the guerilla warfare he wages against the preconceived notions of his reader…. To cite without quotation marks is to offer the idea without the imprimatur of an author or authority. This requires of the idea that it stand or fall on its own merits and not find automatic support from its lineage."
This has got me thinking for a couple of reasons, one is discussions over the last two years with our external markers about, inter alia, the way that students use quotes sometimes to 'hide behind' and so we don't hear their own evaluations and voice in the text, the other is that I'm trying to do some writing and discovering that I'm writing a lot on some topics from the heart with the result that by comparison with stuff I mark and read, it can seem light on citation. Both of these things along with this little reflection are emboldening me to just write and perhaps look at citing later and in a subdued sort of way.
But still thinking (and that's without going onto the practically fraught question of what citation method we should go for at college as standarad!).

Ouch!

Chrisendom: The New Church of England Logo

How bishops are viewed

For those who don't sub to the CT, you may have to wait a couple of weeks before you can view it. But it's worth the wait. It's a summary of Mike Keulmans' research on bishops and in particular some polling about how bishops are seen by some lay people, some clergy and some retired bishops. For me it was, on the whole, encouraging in that my supposition that most of us think that bishops probably ought to be able to exercise a more fully pastoral and 'coaching' role towards clergy was vindicated. The concerning thing was my other hobby horse about equalising of stipends was not. I'm wondering whether this is because actually the issues need more airing.

Anyway, to the nub of the matter. Mike concludes with this statement.

My conclusion, based on the survey statistics and the experience of the early Church, is that it is time to turn the deanery of 25 to 35 parishes into a diocese. We must leave behind all the expensive and irrelevant trappings inherited from medieval prelacy, and instead make the episcopal task more manageable and realistic so that practical demon­stration may be given to the essential warmth and care of the episcopal shepherd, who is meant to mirror the Good Shepherd himself

.
I would suggest that this is worth taking seriously. That it implies bishops' stipends should be in line with other clergy and that we should have wider structures to share some minsitries and functions more widely than the mini-diocese. To me this suggests that my previous support of Gareth Miller's plan for ten provinces needs modifying: the dioceses need to be even smaller and perhaps something like four times as many.

Anyway, I wrote to the Church Times. We'll see whether they publish but this is what I wrote.

I wonder whether the results of Mike Keulmans' research fall within
the remit of the dioceses commission, because they really ought to.
Mike's suggestion on the basis of his research really should be part
of any wide-ranging consideration of our practice of episcopacy and
the radical option he points to should be given serious consideration:
that "it is time to turn the deanery of 25 to 35 parishes into a
diocese. We must leave behind all the expensive and irrelevant
trappings inherited from medieval prelacy, and instead make the
episcopal task more manageable and realistic so that practical
demon­stration may be given to the essential warmth and care of the episcopal shepherd, who is meant to mirror the Good Shepherd himself". This conclusion does seem to be warrented by the demands of the role as it should be. And it is not the first time that these columns have seen a call to recognise the deanery as a more appropriate span of episcopal care. Now I reckon that there is some discussion to be had about the number of parishes; at the other extreme I have in mind the example of a diocese in the USA where 90 parishes seemed to produce a vibrant entity for mutual support and mission (interestingly the campanion diocese of Bradford whose recent synodical motion has helped raise the issue for discussion).

This suggestion is added weight, I believe, by taking note of a significant trend and its implications: the pattern of clergy deployment and employment conditions. Increasingly we are seeing self-supporting ministries and part-time ministries of a variety of patterns becoming a more normal part of the ministry patterns in many areas. One of the challenges that has become apparent with these ministries is that they don't fit easily with patterns of mutual care and co-ordination which works ''best' for those with full-time availability. So it is easy for them to be sidelined and that is even more unacceptable when their numbers become proportionally greater. It is in those kinds of circumstances that a bishop with more availability to support clergy of a variety of ministry-patterns becomes important and strategically valuable. The obverse of greater localisation would also be to make sure that there are mechanisms for
sharing of ministries and resources more widely so that each mini-diocese isn't going to try to replicate current diocesan resources but can call on and contribute to officers to help with such things as legal advice, inter-faith issues or resource-development. So we may wish to consider arch-dioceses and/or provincial structures as units of wider sharing of resources.

One of the issues, of course, that this would bring to the surface would be the issue of stipends. Mike's figures show little support for equalising stipends with 'ordinary' clergy. Space may have prevented
him from elaborating on any indications of reasons for this. My guess is that it is an 'instinctive', culturally-influenced sense that seniority and responsibility should be rewarded financially. Of course, this reason would look far less convincing under Mike's proposal of smaller dioceses. Perhaps, though, it indicates also that we also need to have a fuller debate about the meaning of 'stipend' and whether 'responsibility' really washes in a stipendiary framework. With reference to the proposal to reduce the number of bishops in order to save money, it would surely be a better option to equalise their stipends with the rest of us and increase their numbers otherwise we're merely likely to be turning them into figureheads and civil functionaries and that seems a bad use of a stipend, all told.

So can be ask the dioceses commission to research and bring forward proposals for an appropriate span of care for bishops under different models of responsibility and of the measures needed to support such patterns of ministry?

Church Times - How bishops are viewed

Winning the ultimate battle: against war

Not a total surprise if you've been keeping an eye on recent writings about evolution and humanity; particularly relating to neoteny (eg human societies are far less violent that chimpansees' and we manage to live at far higher densities with far less trouble) So go and read this New Scientist article: Winning the ultimate battle: How humans could end war: "rather than being a product of our genes, it looks as if warfare emerged in response to a changing lifestyle. Even then it was far from inevitable, as the variability in warmongering between cultures and across time attests. The Embers have found links between rates of warfare and environmental factors, notably droughts, floods and other natural disasters that impact upon resources and provoke fears of famine."
Much of the evidence seems to indicate war is a cultural construct rather than genetically programmed. The UN idea of building a culture of peace is well-founded. However, that doesn't mean that peace doesn't need working at. The thing is, are we prepared to invesst as much in what makes for peace as we have been in what tends to war?

A targum on James 1

I've been enjoying Brian Walsh's use of exegetical and expository tools. Here's an excerpt of something on James 1:1-18

When you face all kinds of trials,

the infirmities of older age,

the insecurities of being a young person,

the struggles with loneliness,

painful confusion about sexuality,

the collapse of beloved institutions,

a marriage that has seen happier days,

tensions within the family,

you name it!

then again I say to you, this is pure joy!

“Joy?” you ask.

Grin and bear it, maybe.

Dig in and get through the trouble, perhaps.

Maybe even patience.

But joy?

This is the kind of stuff that strips me of any capacity for joy.

Economic anxiety,

worries about the future,

deep internal pain,

that debilitating sense of loss,

that impending death in so many areas of our lives …

and you say we should receive all this with joy?

Pure joy?

Yes, my friends, joy.

I understand that all of this is hard.

I’ve been there, I know.

Whole thing ...

Muslims and Christians ‘can share faith ethically’

Check it out. I've just been considering how we represent the ethics of mission in some of our courses, and this seems to add grist to that mill: Church Times - Muslims and Christians ‘can share faith ethically’: There is a ten-point code of conduct to guide us. Actually seems pretty good. Only the last point might be controversial for some Muslims. The rest are hard to object to in principle. Though, of course, sometimes practice falls short.
"1. both faiths believed they should proclaim their faith by words and attitudes, actions and lifestyles;

2. in language and method, both faiths should recognise that people’s choice of faith was primarily a matter between themselves and God;

3. “sharing our faith should never be coercive”;

4. caring for people should never be manipulated to gain a convert;

5. nor should conversion be linked to inducements;

6. neither faith should diminish the faith of others and each should speak honestly about their own faith;

8. people should be honest about their motivations;

9. they can rejoice with converts but be sensitive to the loss that others felt; and

10. “Whilst we may feel hurt when someone we know and love chooses to leave our faith, we will respect their decision and will not force them to stay, or harass them afterwards.”"

See also Richard Sudworth's comments.

Bishops, more or less

In the general Synod meeting at the end of this week, "there is a diocesan synod motion from Bradford. The diocese wants to reduce the number of bishops and other senior clergy. It points out that, while the number of stipendiary parochial clergy has fallen, there has been no fall in the number of suffra�gan bishops, archdeacons, and other senior clergy.
It asks whether there could be part-stipendiary or self-supporting dignitaries, or whether their work could be shared between teams of parochial clergy. The motion asks the Archbishops’ Council to formulate proposals for a reduction, and bring them to the Synod in three years."
I think we should be asking the kind of question this motion throws us into. My own view is that this is the wrong way to go about the issue. We do need to cut costs, but I can't see how reducing the number of bishops etc will help without a change in their roles. So if we have to consider what bishops etc are for then let's have that debate and decide on that basis. Practicalities impinge: if we stick with episcopal confirmation, then is there a danger that fewer bishops become more focussed on dispensing that particular sacramental?

My preference is to start with the 10 provinces idea which effectively takes a look at the geography and also gives a framework for cutting back on some senior posts and offers savings to dioceses in the form of sharing resources at provincial level. Now, if we baulk at creating more provincial level issues, then I'm comfortable with replacing the idea with that of having 'archdioceses' (like those urban dioceses where they have episcopal areas) but with the aim of sharing across the archdiocese.

I would like to encourage us to consider whether we should do two things instead (and this is a different proposal from the 10 provinces one, though not exclusive of it): one is to extend the equalisation of stipends to all clergy, bishops, archdeacons, deans of cathedrals. I see no argument for calling a salary a 'stipend' if it is going to be differential according to hierarchical status rather than need. Then we can look more sanguinely at the proposal that we actually need more bishops. I would suggest that either bishops cover a deanery-sized area or something the size of about half a dozen deaneries. The aim being to allow bishops to be real supports and coaches to their fellow presbyters (recall, they are still so ordained), they might be also involved in some kind of ministry in a parish or chaplaincy too. Consider that Italian bishops are effectively, I'm told, the bishop for a town or city. That seems a reasonable way forward.
Church Times - July Synod to be leaner, but, with any luck not meaner:

1,000 Quid fines -1k reasons not to volunteer for an ID card

Much though I hate to say it, on this point the Conservatives are right: "how the scheme could be 'voluntary' when they were penalties for failing to provide information for the database: 'If it is a voluntary card, why are there penalties attached for failing to provide that information?' he said, adding that the government should warn people that once they 'volunteer' for a passport or ID card it was then compulsory for the rest of their lives."�1,000 fines to bolster ID cards as�Tories pledge to scrap scheme | Politics | The Guardian:

Christians at Work, some helps

Hereford Dioceses get a hat tip from me for this: CristiansatWork Here's why the issue is important: "Too often we give the impression that work is part of the ‘secular' world and that the ‘real work', God's work, only gets done in church or through the church in our neighbourhoods. It is a fundamental view of the project that life should not be separated into the ‘sacred' and the ‘secular'; all of life is sacred to God and consequently to ourselves. The ‘Christians at Work' project aims to enable people to be more effective in their place of work and encourage Churches to support them, through prayer, teaching and action."
The hat-tip is because they've made materials freely available. I've yet to go through them. Do let me know with a comment on this post if you've seen them and used them and what you think.
Also worth checking out:
The Christian and Paid Work.
Ministry in Daily Life (ECLA).

Talking God in public debate

A heads-up for a useful report from Theos. It's Jonathan Chaplin's Talking God , The legitimacy of Religious Public Reasoning. TalkingGod1.pdf (application/pdf Object) It's particularly useful to those thinking about how secularity and religion co-exist in public space. I recognise useful stuff from the point of being a chaplain in HE and FE as well as the obvious relevance to political debate. At the launch event, the author said something really helpful which encapsulated something I'd been saying for years but never yet found a satisfying way to say.

The majority of commentators appear to think it is inappropriate for religious believers to appeal to their own faith commitments in public debate. The reality is that secular commentators have their own faith commitments. It is just as reasonable for public reasoning to be religious as 'secular'. The challenge for all parties is to ensure that their arguments enrich political debate.

Quite so.

Nuclear weapons: Global Zero is coming

"out of the spotlight, Global Zero, a new alliance of prominent diplomats, military and civic leaders, is beginning to persuade the nuclear powers that there is only one answer to solve this crisis: the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Presidents Obama and Medvedev are meeting next week. Let's call on them to put their historic pledge into action and lead global efforts to achieve a nuclear free world. Sign the declaration below and help build a massive citizen call to action. Global Zero leaders will deliver it directly to the Presidents of the US and Russia."
Nuclear weapons: Global Zero is coming:

Beggar your neighbour! -The insidiousness of

This ad really got under my skin and not in a good way. The reason is the way that it illustrates and in a sense sanctions or renders unproblematical the notion that happiness may be a zero-sum game: my happiness is increased or bought at the expense of your envy or unhappiness. I think this may be insidious because it legitimises a view of the world where we see happiness or, rather, the things that may contribute to happiness as in short supply and so if we are happy then that means somewhere else someone else has not to be (there has been another seriess of tele ads about similar 'balances'). This could be a slippery slope to accepting gross injustice and inequality ("someone's got to be poor and unhappy, so why should it be me? Alternatively, why shouldn't it be me that's the lucky one: blow the other poor sod.") and it also seems to be relating strongly to the Yin-yang/Force view of the world: it's all about balance. And that latter is only a step away from cosmological dualism; good and evil are equal and opposite forces.

I could say more, but I won't just now as I'm due to help with a Storytelling project run by our church in a local school ...

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A quiet service in a cafe

I thought I post up a recent service I led in a cafe during regular opening hours. Part of the subtext was to be able to worship together without making a nuisance of ourselves in private/public space and yet to be worshipping in secular space. It was a service to finish our contextual theology programme and to commission participants to go on their placements. Interestingly, my role as 'liturgical leader' was to distribute the instructions and resources for each phase of the liturgy to the groups (of c 4 people around different tables), judging when and how to move them on and occasionally interacting with different groups to help them as necessary. I found I was praying for the participants quite a lot while I wandered between tables and tried to get a sense of how things were going.
The alert among you may notice yet another liturgy 'of mine' using the Lord's prayer as shaping principle.

Each of the emboldened sections below was made onto a separate piece of A5 paper one or two per group.

CTP commissioning liturgy @ambience cafe
Praise
each group: try to write a haiku in praise of God, as far as possible drawing on things from CTP.
A haiku is a poem of three lines; line one has 5 syllables, line two has 7, and line three 5.
When you have finished, pass on your haiku to the next table along, and receive from the next table the other way their haiku. Read out the haiku you now have in your possession.

Asks
Share one thing each from CTP that has caused you to pray for something you'd not prayed about before or for something the wider world (as distinct from just your own personal needs or learning).
When everyone has shared their prayer point,
spend a few moments to reflect that God has heard it all,
and the unspoken aspects of what we have shared
and recognise in the pause that in hearing, God is answering.

Needs
Read all of this section before starting.
One at a time, share /remind the others at the table with you:
* where you're going on placement
* what you are most looking forward to
* and what you are most concerned about.
After each person has shared and before the next person shares their information, pause and one or two people pray quietly about what has been shared (recommended prayer style is eyes open, normal conversational voice as if God is sat with you at the table part of the conversation).

Ministry of the word
When everyone has shared and been prayed for, spend a while sharing Biblical passages that have spoken to you in the past when you have been facing new challenges. When everyone has shared, are there any of them that speak to you now?

Forgive(n)ness
Look at the words of confession on the paper provided at this point. As you reflect and recognise how the words may apply to you, take the red pen and apply the ink to one of your fingers or thumbs and put the imprint on the confession paper as a sign of your 'amen' to the prayer.
When everyone has done that, use one of the wipes to clean the remaining ink from your neighbour's finger/thumb, using such words as "God forgives us our sins".

Commissioning
Form a 'star' of hands sports-team style while one or two speak words of encouragement and commissioning, such as:
God give us eyes to see the Kingdom in the unlikely places,
ears to hear whispers of the Spirit stirring in the life of the world,
and hearts to sense God's compassion for those pushed to the margins.

Afterword
Some of the table groups ended with a 'yay' shout: probably the most disturbing thing to the other punters in the cafe, but even then not that intrusive. I think I'd be up for trying to plant a church in a cafe along these lines. I'm told the Ambiance may be closing; it's changing hands. However, if it stays open as a cafe, with that kind of space and -dare I say it?- ambiance, it'd be a good venue....

Young offenders may face justice from neighbours

No, not a prescription for vigilantism, rather a sensible and tested restorative justice approach. This is the article: Young offenders to face justice from neighbours | Society | The Observer: The salient points seem to be summed up at the end
"'Young people are more likely to give up crime if they face up to communities and victims to pay back for their crimes and tackle the causes of offending,' Oppenheim said.
Adam Mansky, a founder of the centre, said overall levels of crime in the area had declined faster than in the rest of New York, partly because offenders were more willing to comply with alternatives to custodial sentences.
'Before the Red Hook Centre opened, only 13% of local residents approved of the court system; within two years of its opening, approval for the justice centre stood at 78%,' he said."
Regular readers will already know that I think we should be doing this more often, not least because of the relational nature of human beings. Restorative justice also enables the dignity of being able to try to right, to some degree, wrongs as well as properly enabling a sense of the costs of offences to the victims. Much crime, I believe, relies on precisely the exclusion or denial of effects on victims who are in effect dehumanised or rather un-personed in the perpetrator's thinking. Once empathy is brought into the picture, real restoration can begin.

The New Socialism

I've benn meaning to blog this for ages. It is essentially making a connection between the bottom up, 'creative commons', copyleft ethos of the 'hacker plus' communities and more global political movements. The full title says a bit more: The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online And I judge that the best summary quote is this: "When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism."
In the bad old days when Maggie Thatcher's blue rinsed minions were squandering north sea oil and making short-trem profits for the state by selling back to the ideologically primed sections of British society what we all once collectively owned (some might call that stealing), the main alternative was a version of state-monopolistic capitalism which some sections of the Labour party and people like the SWP embraced. The other alternative of co-operatives was mainly propounded by the Liberals and the Co-operative party (who bizarrely, imo, make common cause with the Labour party which consistently ignores opportunities to encourage co-operatives): namely co-operatives. The article referenced here is essentially talking about informal, 'liquid' co-operatives. Of such is the Kingdom of heaven ...

Myebook - Praying The Pattern

Just been informed that in the last 3 months since I launced it as an e-book,Myebook - Praying The Pattern has been read 500 times.
Minor celebration. Of course some of those may have been people looking but not reading the lot.