'recycling lotto' scheme could boost green lifestyle

Now here's an interesting dilemma for Christians -at least some. "The National Consumer Council (NCC) aims to boost recycling by staging a prize draw using recycled products as the ticket. A similar scheme in Norway boosted the number of people who recycled drink cartons from 30 per cent to 70 per cent."
The dilemma being the old one of not supporting lotteries because they offer to make money out of money by a game of chance where ones money is not earned and in a society where gambling is a source of false hope and ruined lives.
But wait on -there's no stake in this game and the aim is to make a virtuous action more likely. Okay so it's not true virtue or slavation but it would result in a better environment: I'm happy with that but I wonder how other Christian opinion might run with it. I think that it would be worth pointing out that the using of less altruistic drives in order to produce benefits for the common good is not new and is accepted as a potential ally in social welfare in much Christian thought [though not uncritically in the case of markets, for example]. It is also arguable that Jesus did it in appealing to our 'selfish' desire for forgiveness and salvation to motivate us to accept God's grace and to follow him. It's sometimes called enlightened self-interest and I can't see how [a] we can get away wihout it in some human life or [b] that it is necessarily and in itself wrong. The issue is how we weigh it agaisnt the needs and demands of others and of God.
Scotsman.com News - Sci-Tech - UK 'recycling lotto' scheme could boost green lifestyle:

My writings are going online

Having found what appears to be a good place to lodge stuff I write, I've started to collect it together and store it where others too can find them. The first up is an exploration of results of survey of English couples wanting their children 'Christened'. It comprises a statistical analysis and consideration of the cultural and pastoral significance of the data. The second is the Excel file of the stats compiled as tables and some graphs. Oh and you may find it helpful to have the report on the stats saying just what the questions were and the basic significant results.

http://www.archive.org/download/Christening_a_case_of_semantic_confusion/Xhristning.doc
http://www.archive.org/download/Christening_Questionnsire_results/QaireResults.xls
http://www.archive.org/download/Christening_Questionaire_Introduction/XngQaireIntro.rtf

Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'

If you like a firght for bedtime save this till you've got your hot chocolate, a report on the world's environmental accounts : "it is a sobering statement with much more red than black on the balance sheet,' the scientists warn. 'In many cases, it is literally a matter of living on borrowed time. By using up supplies of fresh groundwater faster than they can be recharged, for example, we are depleting assets at the expense of our children.'"

It's a good source of facts and figures for waking up the apathetic or over-optimistic.

Guardian Unlimited | Life | Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up':

Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'

Guardian Unlimited | Life | Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up': "it is a sobering statement with much more red than black on the balance sheet,' the scientists warn. 'In many cases, it is literally a matter of living on borrowed time. By using up supplies of fresh groundwater faster than they can be recharged, for example, we are depleting assets at the expense of our children.'"

Muslim self-questioning

These are word so a USA Muslim which should help us to understand more about the real situation with regard to Islam in the West. It also gives the lie to the impressions that are sometimes given about the health and faithfulness of the umma by some over-zealous propagandists.
"Why do only about 10 percent of U.S. Muslims regularly attend prayer at mosques? How long can the religion's leaders treat women as second-class citizens? When will Muslims respond forcefully to strains of extremism"
10% regularly attend mosque - the 'churchgoing' rate is similar to the UK 'Christian' rate. And I'm interested too in the perceptions of an Islamic insider that women are getting a raw deal from Islam and that there has not been a 'forceful' response to extremism [noting the reports recently of the only known fatwa against Al Qaida, I'd be happy if anyone can come up with others]. Of course it is possible that there is a lower rate of Mosque attandance [I don't know -I don't have comparative figures with, say, Egypt, to hand] in the USA because many Islamic BAckground people there are actually there in order to flee too-restrictive regimes and societies in the Muslim world ... be interesting to know.

Anyway, there is a lot to think about in this provocative report.
ContraCostaTimes.com | 03/28/2005 | Re-examining practice of faith:

God of the Soil

THis is an interestingly provocative article written by George Monbiot about the myth of progress and how he thinks that it is born in the soil of Abrahamic faiths. Interesting because of the parallels between soil types and the conditions for agricultural-suprlus civilisation and the experience of life as cyclical [paganism] or progressive [desert-born monotheism]. He writes:
"My untested hypothesis is as follows. The peculiarities of the Abrahamic religions – their astonishing success in colonising the world and their dangerous notion of progress (now inherited by secular society) – result from a marriage between the universal god of the nomads and the conditions which permitted cities to develop. The dominant beliefs of the past 2000 years are the result of an ancient migration from soils such as xerepts and xeralfs to soils such as fluvents and rendolls.
At Easter, the Christian belief in a permanent resurrection is mixed up with the pagan belief in a perpetual cycle of temporary resurrection and death. In church we worship the Christian notion of progress, which has now filtered into every aspect of our lives. But, amid the cracking of easter eggs and the murmur of prayer, there can still be heard the small, faint voice which reminds us that our ecological hubris must eventually be greeted by nemesis."
I'm thinking about how I respond to that as a Christian. Clearly it is not so simple for in practice both Judaism and Christianity acculturated to agricultural conditions in several climates and societies. And it ignores the other issues around paganism such as the way that it tended to divinise the rulers and support a feudal system and enshrine an ideology based on the myth of redemptive violence and thus of the permanent suppression of the peasantry and justification of violence to support that. Judaism has significant prophetic strands critiquing that in order to support a more egalitarian conception of humanity rather than condemning people to poverty and servitude simply because that was the divine order. Christianity at its worst has been when it has been seduced by the ideas of palaeo-paganism: divine kingship, moral order of necessary inequality and the necessity of violence. All of these are inimical to the genius of the Christian faith at its truest.

However, he does have a point that the present ecocidal tendencies of humanity have not been well addressed by Christian theology. On the other hand there is no reason why they should not be. It is the child of theology the myth of progress and modernism more widely that is the chiefest culprit which bent Christian thinking to its will after the Enlightenment. To our shame we let it, but not without significnat voices of protest both at the environmental impacts and the social.

The Christian notion of progress that Monbiot alludes to is not the same as the modernist one he actually means. The Christian notion of progress is shot through with the wariness about human moral frailty in the face of power, wealth and pleasure; all of which has a direct and critical bearing on the present ecological crisis.

Christian faith sees human beings living in and through matter -the earth- it sees vital relationships including ecological ones disrupted by human sin and calls us to the never-ceasing vigilence in order to make sure that our neighbours are loved practically and that justice, peace and the integrity of what God has made are upheld. That is progress in Christian terms ... always tempered by the realisation that sin is at the door waiting to undo or subvert what little progress we do make.

Not sure Monbiot's these sticks, you?
God of the Soil

Feebates, not fuel taxes, are key

This article discusses the issues around fuel taxes as a mechanism for producing changes in the decisions of car owners and car buyers. Milton Friedman is cited, not least because he appears to be advocating nuclear power which has largely died of the market and would require government subsidy to be resurrected ... not very fremarket libertarian a stance, eh?

Feebates, not fuel taxes, are key | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine

Sky WindPower Corporation

I seem to recall flagging this one up before [sorry about the pun!] but the fact that it has been picked up agains seems to indicate a frisson of interest. CErtainly seems to me to be worth investigating particularly as it could be located close to cities and so reduce transmission losses and costs.
Sky WindPower Corporation

HTB vicar factory on the way?

I wish Alpha all the best and I'm glad that it has been a means of helping many thousands to interact meaningfully and poitivley with the gospel. I have also to say though that I am aware that it has deficiencies and I would by no means want to rely on it as my chief or only strategy for evangelism. For a start, the research seems to chow that it mainly gets used by already-Christians who are seeking means to augment their spiritual growth. However, the success of the course has meant that HTB -the promoting church- are in a position to open up this training institute that could even end up training clergy. Not sure how I feel about that. TIme will tell perhaps, but it feels somehow divisive. It may indicate that I am feeling less comfortable with the form of Christianity that it stands for than I used to ...

Phase-Changing Wax and the One Liter House

A further useful material for energy efficientcy in a house. this time in the plaster of walls. Sounds truly remarkable in terms of savings. Another thing worth noting for the eco-house build.

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Phase-Changing Wax and the One Liter House

Counter-Jihad

Not so long ago, I blogged about the kind of fatwa I had been waiting to see from the Islamic umma, one that made a religious ruling against AL Qaeda and their ilk. Apparntely this has been a popular move amongst Muslims aswell: "Moderate Muslims are increasingly turning to Islam's sacred core - the Quran and the laws and traditions it inspires - to defend their views and discredit radicals as part of a 'counter-jihad' for Islamic hearts and minds.
The long and painful silence of moderate theologians and experts in Islam jurisprudence - who had been bought off or intimidated into silence - is finally starting to break apart,' said Khaled Abou El Fadl, an authority on Islamic law at the University of California-Los Angeles. 'We are seeing signs of a counter-jihad.'"
Which is probably to the good. It will also be interesting to see how much force it has. Note also that the most part of the support seems to have come from outside of the Muslim heartlands, though it's unclear whetehr this is a theological issue or one of access to the news/reporting of the fatwa or what. It does seem to me though that the kind of conditions that were around in a precurser to the European reformation are here in the Umma: lot's of people with a sense of the inhumanity of traditional interpretations and a desire for a religious expression with more humanity. On the other hand the extreme islamist interpretations which inveigh against the corruption of the traditional authroities are being seen also as a protest which is too inhumane since they are not peaceful and involve the taking of innocent life. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to kick-start the silent majority of Muslims into 'taking back their faith' and re-examinining its foundations.
Islam :: Muslims cheer clerics' attack on al-Qaeda:

Dry winter = drought fears

And of course rising tides as per last entry is unrelated to lack of water further inland. Again the incentives for English people to be moving further north are there to see, especially when these facts become reflected in pricing and insurance.
"Water shortages could become more frequent in the south and east over the next two decades as climate change develops and the population rises by at least 1m households"
SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society Environment | Dry winter prompts drought fears:

Flooding England's east

A full article describing the effects that are already taking place in terms of English shoreline which are being augmented by the effects of global warming. Looks to me like it's time for southerners to consider moving to the north.
The day after tomorrow - Sunday Times - Times Online

Loose lips lose data

Here's a frightening article demonstrating how easy it is for us to lulled into believing a scenario that would extract our personal data -enough to hack our online bank accounts- just for the promise of a chance to win some theatre tickets [substitute your prize of choice]. Made me think twice about at what point I might challenge a questioner's right to ask certain questions. We're sometimes too polite or too sacred that we would be ineligible for the prize if we don't anser but we have to remember that a prize is nothing if our bank account has been cleared out and we have thousands of someone else's debt attributed to us. Resolve with me now -I will not give out my name to random strangers or personal details that could be part of my security checks [in my case, my mother's maiden name would be safe to give out]. -Hey make it up if you don't want to be confrontational.
Security no match for theater lovers

Scientists Find Soft Tissue in T-Rex Bone

Just a heads up kind of post this: Jurassic Park is explicitly a heading in the article but they haven't yet determined whether a sample of DNA is there to be had. However, it may still prove useful in indicating answers to issues like whether a T.Rex might have been warm-bloodied or not.
Yahoo! News - Scientists Find Soft Tissue in T-Rex Bone

3six5 -Church in dispersed mode

These folk are doing pretty much the kind of hting that I think I've been heading towards doing if the opportunities present themselves or I can find a way to get it rolling. "There are two regular occasions when we meet in 'gathered' mode. Our main teaching sessions take place midweek. These are practical and designed to help us live a missional lifestyle at home, at work and in the community where we reside. Our worship time is presently fortnightly on a Saturday teatime. This is by mutual agreement and, at the moment, is the most convenient time for the members. Currently we meet in the local scout headquarters and our worship flows out of our experiences whilst in 'dispersed' mode rather than the other way round. We tend to begin with coffee, or a meal providing time to catch up with each other. After that we may sing, have an interactive presentation or listen to someone's story. All ages meet together and we try to include 'play' as part of our worship time. As much as possible we try to be multi-sensual and to use modern methods of teaching and communication that enable everyone to be involved. Worship is collaborative, informal, in plain English and fun. We work hard to make all that we do accessible and easy to understand so that anyone who comes to meet with us is not isolated by vocabulary, activities or conventions and can participate and feel part of everything. "
We've already done a lower-key version in the past and I've seen enough to know that it can work well and be very 'growing'. It is worth noting, of course, that the main leader is bivocational and no longer receives a stipend or a rent-free church house.
3six5:

Plant Fixes Its Flawed Gene

This could prompt a minor shake up of genetics and certainly could mean a more convoluted explanation of the mechanisms of heredity. Th epoint is that it's afurther deomonstration that it's not just DNA that's involved. Genetics is not as deterministic as some would have us believe. "The finding implies that some organisms may contain a cryptic backup copy of their genome that bypasses the usual mechanisms of heredity. If confirmed, it would represent an unprecedented exception to the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel in the 19th century. Equally surprising, the cryptic genome appears not to be made of DNA, the standard hereditary material."
The New York Times > Science > Startling Scientists, Plant Fixes Its Flawed Gene:

powered by spinach

Sounds very sci-fi but... "Zhang's team managed to artificially stabilise the protein complex at the heart of their system - comprised of 14 protein subunits and hundreds of chlorophyll molecules - using synthetic peptides to bind small amounts of water to it, within a sealed unit.

Light particles, or photons, excite coupled pairs of electrons within chlorophyll, causing an electron to transfer to a nearby receptor molecule."

So it doesn't sound like we'll be growing our power conversion any time soon but perhpas this could be an economic slution that doesn't depend on rare-ish metals.

New solar cells to be powered by spinach:

huge melons from rock dust

I saw this on the BBC news yesterday: "Cameron and Moira Thomson ... have been battling to prove that rock dust can replace the minerals that have been lost to the earth over the past 10,000 years and, as a result, rejuvenate the land and halt climate change. To prove their point, the couple have converted six acres of open, infertile land in the Grampian foothills near Pitlochry into a modern Eden. Using little more than rock dust mixed with compost, they have created rich, deep soils capable of producing cabbages the size of footballs, onions bigger than coconuts and gooseberries as big as plums."



Assuming that there was no sleight of hand going on then the pictures we saw of the veg produced was amazing. At first sight this looks like a magic bullet. Perhaps there are downsides, probably there are. I wonder what they might be?

News:

Another Step Towards the Participatory Panopticon

The idea behind the 'participatory panopticon' [and I think the allusion to Foucault is deliberate] is that 'Big Brother' is us: "The Participatory Panopticon won't arise out of a single, clear choice -- it will come from myriad smaller, rational decision and technologies, all intended to solve very real problems." Those problems being things like remembering what we were told in that phone call yeaterday about .... or wanting to make sure that we alwyas have the means to record those 'aaah' moments in life. Of course there are difficulties [rightly] in the way of this. In the UK you need to warn people that their conversations or images may be recorded and if they insist, they have a right to access to them or even to refuse to grant permission for them to be used -I think.

What are the grand-scale social consequences of a bottom-up surveillance society? Especially when it is foreseeable that some people may be able to pretty much build in the equipment to what they wear or even their own body. Will reviewing your day's recordings and editting it become a hobby [even some of it on line as weblogs?]. What will it do to our behaviour and psychology to live knowing that we are likely to be under surveillance. Will we 'act' up even more than we do already? [Oh yes, I hold to the view that we all act the particular versions of ourselves that we deem appropriate for our different social settings]. And how will that differ and be similar to the sense that those who have grown up in particular kinds of religious contexts have of being constantnly under surveillance by God? It all depends, I guess, on how you view the surveilleurs: as fashion fascistas likely to publish for the amusement of others every 'wrong' style decision we are caught making, or as our adoring audience or both or ... what?

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Another Step Towards the Participatory Panopticon:

Hybrid Trains

SOunds like a good idea. I must look out for stuff that compares electrification with onboard fuel options for trains. Unless we're generating lots of 'clean' leccy it may not come out as a good option.

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Hybrid Trains

Gorlov's Helical Turbine

THis is what I've been wondering about in terms of putting in the Wear river to power Durham. My only reservation is that I know from observation that it is a fishing river and there is a question about the fish and so on, but the article addresses that -apparently the thing sets up a kind of standing wave which discourages fish from entering it

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Gorlov's Helical Turbine

Home mix Portable Twin CD

Where were you when I needed you? This would have been [and may be yet] perfect for mixing CD's in a low-budget alt.worship setting ... certainly, given it outputs to an amp, it would have been a lot simpler to use than what I used in Bradford.
Acoustic Solutions CDJ-1 - Home mix Portable Twin CD Radio and Cassette Playe @ Savastore.com

show use -use less

Interesting indicator that if we give people the tools and motivation to make informed choices about conservation, they do it...

edie library - Case Study: Epson via Worldchanging

Hope House

I so love this practical advice on ecologising ones house. Another bookmarkable site for when we look to getting our own property and doing our utmost to getting of the grid.

Hope House

Pedal & Power

I've got one of those wind-up mobile phone chargers and it's hard work [the handle needs to be bigger]. THis looks a brilliant idea for cyclists though, charge your mobile as you cycle. In fact it might even fit a static cycle for those go-nowhere exercisers in gyms and the like?

Pedal & Power

Ourmedia

I've been looking for a parking space to make my articles and the like available and this is looking like a good possibility of something that I know will likely be around fro a while and survive the vicissitudes of moves and changes of ISP. Any use to you too?
Ourmedia Homepage | Ourmedia

I'll be back!

Tomorrow I'm bidding 'Hasta luego' to my family and heading off north of the River Tyne to be on retreat with the Northumbria Community and to lead a workshop on one of the days. The owrkship may contribute to the Paschal Sunday covenant ceremony. I do not know whether I will have internet access or time to blog. So if I don't you now know why.
I'm currently mulling over all the ideas I've had for leading a workshop on creative liturgy. I think that the biggest challenge is to put my own agenda aside so as to encourage the creativity and skills of others and yet to have ideas that can prove to be the enabling structures for others to get fired up and to develop further. All that in two hours! I suspect that one of the first things to be said will have to be that we will have lots of ideas and only a small number of them can be used on this occasion. There is a spirituality of 'letting go' of 'my' ideas in order to receive some of them back as 'our ideas'. Very hard when so often artistic or creative expression is constructed in our society as an individual or self- expression.

It also needs to be a process that recognises and uses a creative dynamic so as to act as a positive reinforcement and in a virtuous cycle with the thrust of the whole workshop....

Challenging.

Matthew 6:19-24

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth"



This seems to be a transitional or link passage between the previous stuff on rightly-motivated piety and what fallows on wealth. The link word is 'treasure'. In following the previous piety-paragraphs the treasures on earth would be most naturally interpreted as the admiration or respect of others -which, as we know in a culture which builds up its 'stars' in order to later find their clay feet and topple them, is so easily lost or stolen.



For me 'where your treasure is there your heart will be also' is one of the most resonant phrases in the gospels. The heart should be understood here in line with biblical bodily metaphoric usage as the seat of decision-making and willing. So 'whatever you treasure is what will determine the course of your life', more, I suspect: 'whatever directs your lifecourse is what you treasure'. This is a call, in effect, to examine our values and decisions in the light of what our way of living really says about them and to re-establish all of our living in the treasuring of God-in Christ. All to often we say we value the things of God, but our lifestyale says we value respectability or wealth or power or ... well you supply the rest in the light of your own self-examination.



What about all this 'eye' stuff, then? Probably best to think about it in terms of what we might term 'vision'. Our vision directs our way through life. If our life's-vision is a good one then our life will be full of 'light', if our life's-vision is impaired, then our lifecourse will be one of darkness. It's no good trying to split our vision between two ultimate loyalties; the nature of who we are and the nature of Godliness make it impossible to do that: it's like saying that you can have a black white. It's simply a logical contradiction. Either we live our lives in a way in which God is the integrating vision or we live our lives in a way in which something or someone else is the integrating factor. Like Tinkerbelle who was too small to have more than one emotion at once, we are cosmically too small to serve more than one ultimate loyalty at once.



Crosswalk.com - Matthew 6:19-24:

Unorthodox media carry message of Holy Week

I like to salute any alt.worshippy kinds of things that get positive media coverage -so here's my salute to these folk from down-under.
On a different but related point I keep wondering what it must be like to grow up celebrating a 'spring' festival in Autumn and a midwinter festival in summer -esecially when, as far as I can tell, so many of the cultural iconography is northern hemisphere. How far have Ozzies and NZies got with re-acculturating in this respect. Answers in a comment box ....
Unorthodox media carry message of Holy Week - National - www.theage.com.au

Eco-Cement

Hey, note what this says: this cement actually fixes CO2 as well as being lower energy. Worth noting for future building projects. "Eco-Cement uses a lower heating temperature during manufacturing, so less fossil fuels are used. Wastes such as fly an bottom ash, slags etc can be included, without incurring problems such as delayed reactions. Eco-Cement absorbs C02 from the atmosphere to set and harden and can be recycled."

New Inventors: Eco-Cement:

Bill and Sue's excellent adventure

Really encouraging and inspiring article about how to begin to reduce energy consumption and how they people behind it have modded their own house to do it. Secret seems to bew a large three-storey conservatory and cunning ventilation plus solar pannelling.
Dunster argues that his ideas are for everyone. As an architect who has championed sustainable living since his student days, he says we can massively reduce our impact on the planet through a combination of energy conservation and domestic power production. The problem, he claims, is information - people realising what their options are. There are mini wind turbines you can bolt on to your roof like a satellite dish, for example, yet you won't find these at the DIY store. And any electrician should be able to wire up a solar panel. Another issue is cost: whether it's organic veg or solar panels, it has never been cheap to be green.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bill and Sue's excellent adventure:

Sex education for all pupils 'needed to fight STD epidemic'

"Too many children are taught the basics of biology but not the emotional and social skills to help them handle sexual relationships, according to the Commons committee report" I can't help felling that this is a long-term cultural project, in reality. Our experience of raising kids seems to indicate that it is attitudes of parents and other significant adults that makes a huge difference, as well as the kind of upbringing that is full of healthy loving afirmation so that both the need to seek 'skin contact' to substitute for loving affirmation and the lack self-confidence to resist some kinds of peer-pressure are dealt with. We can't expect schools to deal with deeper and broader issues. Though I think we could expect them to help. Sexual promiscuity is not simply a personal choice: it has wider repurcussions on society which can be recognised as issues even by those who don't value sexuality as God-given and God-bounded.

So here's the argument in terms that matrialists can understand. STD's cost the nation money to treat. They cost productivity and they can cost lives. In addition, promiscuity weakens ties between children and parents [multiple partnerships] at cost to the emotional well-being of those children and add to the insecurity of life. In turn this adds costs to society in the form of dealing with the conflicts [caused by an insecure upbringing and averagely less adequate parenting?] and the healing that is necessary, arising from conflicts and unresolved 'issues'. Individualism hides the holistic costs of bad sexual choices. For the sake of the freedom of a few people to be relatively promiscuous without cost we now have a whole social system built on the presupposition of sexual licence. When it's a few people the cost are low: they are exploiting a social order where the stability provided by the majority of people behaving more or less 'uprightly'. However when that 'free' behaviour becomes the norm, it starts to cost society as a whole.

However, I'm not sure either that I like the look of the society that was rather too buttoned-down and rather intoloerant of difference .... can we have the best of both worlds? I suspect we can; but only by education and encouragement to freely choose the Good.

I also can't help feeling that the division of body from soul implicit in promiscuous sex is harmful to humans in the long term, but that needs some further thought. Promiscuity is a kind of gnostic heresy, in Christian terms. Perhaps we ought to be explaining the Christian view in terms more theologically informed by the gnostic debate than we have been doing. I'm up for it. In fact I hope to include it in a book I'm writing ....
The Observer | UK News | Sex education for all pupils 'needed to fight STD epidemic':

Who's going to live forever?

Now I sense that a lot of Christians have a knee-jerk reaction about this kind of story and I want to question what it is about. If we could find ways to live longer with resonable qulity of life, what issues does that present for Christians? I suspect that a lot of us get suspicious because it seems to encroach on the territory of eternal life and the like, some might even see the 'three-score and ten' years as prescriptive rather than descriptive? Then there is the suspicion that to desire to live longer is rather an act of bad faith in the promise of heaven. But is this necessarily so? Is it not rather that in some way to seek an earlier than necessary end to life is more like, in such circumstances, the mentality of so-called suicide-bombers? By that I mean the idea that we devalue life in this world and what we could accomplish by seeking the afterlife. This is the kind of attitude that is parodied in the phrase 'pie in the sky when we die' whereby improving the earthly lot of people was not given priority because of the thought that they'd be better off in heaven.

On the other hand there is a real theological issue in the idea in Genesis that shorter life spans made sure that human evil is not multiplied ... Would longer lives [especially by rich and powerful people] make it more likely that "the evil that men do" lives on with them and grows? How would this work? Note that fingers in the dyke is not an option: the flood, if it's coming, will come.

I do suspect that there would be real issues in this about cost and distribution of life chances [guess who get the chances and guess who don't], and issues about population and children [as the article suggests]. There are some hints of social consequences in the SF books by Julian May in the Galactic Milieu trilogy. We should give this some thought now.

I'm going to live forever - Review - Times Online

Matthew 6:16-18. Fasting.

"'And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you"



I note that this verse starts with a presumption that Jesus' followers will fast. Now it is possible that this was only addressed to those who were pysically present to hear these words and not meant for the post-Resurrection situation. However, since Matthew was written after the Resurrection it is hard to beleive that he would [or that God would have inspired him to] write this down if it was of only historical interest to post-Ascension disciples; it's there because it is for us. JEsus expected that we might fast.



Same rules apply in fasting as with other acts of piety: doing it so others will see and admire brings its own reward: others will see and admire. Full stop. God is not impressed. But as an act of devtion to God for God; fine. Its the motive that's important.



Incidently, it seems to me that this does not rule out, for example, leaving an Ash Wednesday cross on your forehead -provided it's done with a view, for example, to eliciting comment that might help people hear more of Christ [not much value however, if all it does is get you some kind of kudos or the talk revolves around simply the forms of service, for example]. That's a circumstance that is not within the purview of this bit of teaching. Similarly the idea of fasting to draw attention to some issue in the wider world -but remember; it doesn't make us right with God thougn it may sometimes be a working out of our rightness with God into action in the world.



I'm wondering however what is the value of fasting in relation to God? It won't make God love us more, it won't 'force' God to grant a request that otherwise He won't ... the effects must be about what it does to us, surely. This would be things like ... demonstrating to ourselves before God our seriousness about God or some issue we are praying about .... achieving clarity ... growing in self-discipline ... solidarity with others [or even with Christ, as in fasting in Lent to mark the 40 days in the wilderness or on Good Friday to mark Christ's suffering] ... Testimony indicates that God sometimes uses fasting to bring revelation or spiritual growth. However, we should remember that to do so is God's gracious gift not something our fasting can 'buy'. Fasting should be something that we feel led into not a supernatural bargaining chip.



A ntoe too that fasting should be undertaken with care for the physical body too, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit. So medical advice should be heeded and care about such things as caffeine withdrawal and [after longer fasts] reintroduction of foods. Partial fasts can be helpful too; the vegan fast of eastern Orthodoxy in Lent is worth noting as an example.



Crosswalk.com - Matthew 6:16-18:

Don't hand religion to the right

There are sign in this country that the right are seeking to recapture the religious vote [back to the days when it was supposed that the Church of England was the Tory party at prayer]. This article makes a foray into analysis of why the left loses the plot when it comes to religion. I think that the authors are right in saying this: "the religious left has found itself constantly challenged by the secular left. Whilst the religious right and neo-conservatives have worked together, progressives have split and split again. Blair is too embarrassed to talk the language of faith because he knows it would alienate his allies. Some object to religion on principle. Others insist that a Christian response is inevitably intolerant, exclusive, even racist. So left secularists welcomed Jubilee 2000 but ignored the fact that the Jubilee is a biblical concept."
What it doesn't say is that perhaps part of the problem is that Blair et al.s Christian Socialism has alienated its natural supporters by Blair's support for the USA-led intervention in Iraq and the winner is the right. However it is also true that 'fundamentalist' secularists are another reason for alienating Christian support: they seem intent on reserving progressive politics for those who don't beleive in God. Strange, really, since British progressive politics has traditionally been driven by Christians [principally Methodists, it seems].
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Don't hand religion to the right:

I Forgive Osama

Just a few weeks after the World Trade Center atrocity, our congregation at the Anglican Chaplaincy iat Bradford University held a service in which we were challenged to pray for and bless our enemies and those who persecute us -straight out of reflection on the Bible passage. One of the things we did was have a newspaper photo of Osama binLaden on the wall and some post-it notes with the challenge to write some prayers of blessing. It was indeed a challenge but we also discussed it. Some were prayers for the blessing of repentance to come to him [fair enough]. It so happened that our chapel was visited a little while later while these prayers were still up around the walls. The visitor on this occasion was a Jewish man who found it very hard to take. I tried to explain the teaching of Christ at this point but he was very bound up in the ideology of pre-emptive 'defense' We ended up with a heated discussion of the morality of kiling people before they could do something wrong. [Whatever happened to the idea of presumed innocent until proven guilty? Or even of trying to create conditions for peaceful resolutions]

Now I'm not sure how we talk about forgiveness in this case where the person has not been directly [?] affected but nevertheless it certainly fits within the orbit of praying for those who persecute us. So I applaud the bravery and fidelity to Christ's Spirit shown by this website....
"There may be those that would say this is a naive gesture. Violence and retaliation are inevitable. I cannot agree. I choose to reach out and forgive. I choose to hope for change. I choose to listen. I believe that forgiveness is the first step toward genuine dialogue and progress.
Finally, I want to ask Osama for forgiveness..."
I Forgive Osama

Don't deposit Wolfowitz with us, plead World Bank workers

Now I understand the fuss about Wolfowitz and the World Bank: "Staff at the World Bank fear Mr Wolfowitz might push through longstanding US proposals to make it an organisation that gives out grants rather than loans. 'It's much easier to politicise grants,' an official said. 'Loans have to be economically feasible.'
Hmmm that's an issue impacting potentially directly on development and the like.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Don't deposit Wolfowitz with us, plead World Bank workers:

"

New machines could turn homes into small factories

Ever thought how cool it would be if we could have replicators like on Star Trek? Well a step towards that may e here soon, and what's more, they replicate themselves!

As you read you'll see they aren't as 'magical' as the Star Trek ones but I suspect that they may be a significant something in 20 yeras time. Modding could become an everyday hobby or activity.
University of Bath News - New machines could turn homes into small factories

New Scientist 13 things that do not make sense - Features

Read this and prepare to be intruigued. I particularly like this first thing which is worth reading inconjunction with the fourth thing on homeopathy ... "DON'T try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away. This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it's not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared."
It makes me think that there really is something to what I learnt when considering the ministry of healing. Doctors and the like don't heal; they create conditions for healing to happen. Healing is what God has placed within the created order ...
New Scientist 13 things that do not make sense - Features:

Matthew 6:9-15. The Lord's prayer

"Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you;

but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."



Ther have been so many reflection and comment son this that it seems to weigh down the prospect of adding anything to it. Only the fact that I am doing this as a way of thinking out loud in God's presence and perhaps letting an onlooker or two find something helpful really encourages me to add to it. I've even written stuff myself before, at greater length.



So, the things that stay with me and I find I continue to muse on about this prayer are ...

Its shape

Its communality

The stress on forgiving.



I think that the contemporary church tends to miss all of these things about it and I would like to challenge us to take them more seriously because it is the Lord's prayer and passed on to guide our praying.

Shape. Note that its shape/flow is different to most prayer 'schemas': most of them begin with confession, no doubt because the influence of guides on 'how to become' a Christian start there and it gets to be thought to be the way we should do it. In the Lod's prayer confession is after praise, 'petition' and needs and leads into prayers for protection and right guidance. I am developing a series of daily offices that follow this pattern becasue I think that we should take it seriously -including the psycho-spiritual dynamics it implies.

Communality. 'Our', 'us', 'we', rather than 'my', 'me,' and 'I' -and this despite following on from an example of countering 'people-impressing' which commends lone praying! Even whe we pray alone we pray in Christ and so in solidarity with those who are in Christ with us. However, I would also suggest that praying together physically is important. For a start, many people are extroverts and find the company of others and the interaction to be helpful in their spiritual growth. For another thing, many of us need the insights, encouragement and gifts that others, in God's providence, bring to us. And we also need to recognise how much we form one another. We are corporately the image of God [Look at the wording in Genesis 1.27] our identity of God's people is affirmed and confirmed as we meet with others.

forgiving. So important its this that Matthew records Christ's expanding on the theme of forgiving. Yet how often does this get represented in our churches and fellowships. Where are the liturgies of forgiving? Where are the times of reflection to remember and 'let go of' those who we bear grudges towards? Where do we take the issue of unforgiveness at least as seriously as we take all sorts of relatively small doctrinal arguments?



Short one today: that's it for now.





Crosswalk.com - Matthew 6:9-15:

Londoner's big footprints crush the environment

This is asobering reflection on our lifestyles: "'In the long term, we cannot continue to have a capital city that has an Ecological Footprint of more than twice the size of Great Britain. No longer can we simply do nothing.' "

Of course the thing is to be able to continue to live healthy, productive and well-provided lives without taking way mroe than our fair share. A lot of us can do something towards this in terms of how we live, but it will also involve more infratructural issues being faced collectively ...

News: Londoner's big footprints crush the environment:

US pollution cuts could save 17,000 lives a year

This is potentially pretty significant: the potential for class action suits and actuarial input into insurance decisions means that pollution begins to be 'costed' by the polluter. DErgulated polluter pays principle. Free marketeers can give two cheers and wait to give a third if it actually works!

New Scientist Breaking News - US pollution cuts could save 17,000 lives a year

surefish.co.uk: ethical living - cleaning

I have only recenlty come across this site which seems to have some nice ideas and good links for practical solutions to everyday issues.

Another bookmarkable site, I think.

surefish.co.uk: ethical living - cleaning

Universities' �300m lure for best students

As far as I can make out this looks like a voluntary redistribution scheme that universities intend to run. So they charge max fees and use some of the income to subsidise poorer students. I'm twice interested in this having just decided not to do a PhD because my children are within 18 months and 30 months respectively of going to university and I have no idea of what our likely income might be, whether I will be employed, running my own business or bumming around trying to be useful ... the other reason is that if I am to do right by our kids I am pretty certain I can't afford the fees for my PhD so I'm just going to write and try to publish. The Myers-Briggs 'P' in me likes that better anyway: way too much structure for way too much of my future otherwise!
EducationGuardian.co.uk | Special Reports | Universities' �300m lure for best students

How to interview and hire people

'Sfunny; having just blogged about interview technique, one of my RSS feeds delivered me this on how to interview. It's interesting because I sometimes do interview others and it is insightful on how to make sure that the process really works for the hirer. However, it's also an insight into what one can do to be interviewed better. I'm getting something about being prepared to be gently assertive in order to make sure that the things that the interviewers need to see/notice really are noticed. If the question doesn't work, say so and say why and be prepared to ask what its rationale is. I'm pretty sure that if it's done nicely and in a spirit of cooperation it can't go too far wrong except if they want dependent 'yes-sayers' Or am I wrong on this?
How to interview and hire people - scottberkun.com

How to interview and hire people

@Sfunny; having just blogged about interview technique, one of my RSS feeds delivered me this on how to interview. It's interesting because I sometimes do interview others and it is insightful on how to make sure that the process really works for the hirer. However, it's also an insight into what one can do to be interviewed better. I'm getting something about being prepared to be gently assertive in order to make sure that the things that the interviewers need to see/notice really are noticed. If the question doesn't work, say so and say why and be prepared to ask what its rationale is. I'm pretty sure that if it's done nicely and in a spirit of cooperation it can't go too far wrong except if they want dependent 'yes-sayers' Or am I wrong on this?
How to interview and hire people - scottberkun.com

The peak of Mt Kilimanjaro as it has not been seen for 11,000 years

Enough said?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The peak of Mt Kilimanjaro as it has not been seen for 11,000 years

| Vatican appoints official Da Vinci Code debunker

I sort of agree and sort of disagree with this: "The Catholic church are overreacting: ultimately, it's only a novel and the controversy will eventually die down. On the other hand, the book raises some serious questions about the origins of Christianity. Even though it makes many glaring historical errors, the fact remains that early Christianity did take many variant forms, including Gnostic Christianity, and there are genuine issues to be examined. But such examinations should be undertaken by competent theologians and historians, not hack thriller writers who are very poor at their research"

THe fact that it is only a novel means that we should be measured in our response,. However, given that many people don't have a clue about the real historical issues and are culturally prejudiced against Christianity and towards 'marginal discourses' [read: heretical fringe movements], then the impression that the novel will leave is one that the churches will have to work hard to dislodge. The novel presents these things as if they are a factual basis for a fictional storyline and many people do not know enough to suspect differently. On the other hand dealing with a novel as if it's a scholarly work or a pornographic work is probably running the risk of appearing to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Vatican appoints official Da Vinci Code debunker:

A hardline on cotton

And while we think about fair trade here's another article this time about cotton production in central Asia. Here the political ramifications are even more 'sit up and take notice': "Islamists already have a foothold across central Asia. The ramifications of a poor response to this latest report by companies, NGOs and governments may be a great deal worse than just more working children"
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | A hardline on cotton:

the human cost of cheap Chinese goods

Now that Fair Trade is coming of age, perhaps its time to begin to think how the principles can be rolled out further: I would certainly think that Chinese coal miners and others in China are prime candidates. But the whole global scene probably brings some interesting dynamics to the issue. What do you think?
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Blood and coal: the human cost of cheap Chinese goods

Still jobseeking

Due to Blogger being unutterably slow over the last couple of days [what happened guys?] I hadn't posted before that I did not get offered the post at Sunderland University I was their second choice [see below]. Of the other candidates it was offered to the man most likely, I felt. However, I suspect that on paper I was the best qualified candidate and I'm hoping for some feedback on how I came over in the interviews. I suspect that my interview technique is not allowing to be seen that I could do a job like that really well and bring bags of creativity and insight to it. So if anyone knows some good sources of reflections and coaching on being interviewed, let me know.

I've asked for feedback with thte following questions:-
-Were there any aspects of my interview 'performance' that need strengthening?
-Were there any aspects of my written application that would be better expressed or should be less emphasised or differently presented?
-Is the issue of my having a career break something that I would be best to have some kind of pre-emptive documentation for next time [eg. a note from Bradford Diocesan HR outlining the circumstances of my redundancy]?
-Are you able to say any way[s] in which I might have been able to demonstrate myself a more appointable candidate than than the one who was offered the post?
-I noticed that some of the interviews, at least, seem to be criteria-based. I wonder if it would be possible to [a] have a list of the questions that were asked at both panels and [b] any notes on how I answered, especially in regard to what the criteria for assessing the answers were and how I 'scored' in that assessment.
-And Finally, my HR contacts tell me that quite often telling someone
that they are or were the second preferred candidate is a standard
practice for those who are not offered a post. I hope you won't take it
ill if I ask you to comment on that.

Amen to this

This say well and succintly a lot of things I feel about the way Church has to grow. I warm to the 'low key' thing: I've done my time in noisy and energetic gatherings and I love 'em some of the time. But I am also tired of the hype, the me-tooism and the shallowness that all too often goes with.
emergingchurch.info > reflection > brother maynard

Matthew 6:5 - 8

And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.



Since we pretty much dealt with the stuff about being seen when we loked at the previous four verses I'm going to concentrate on the prayer practicalities bits. Praying is primarioly a realtionship between ourselves and God and the danger involved in other people being involved is that it becomes a means to gain status/plaudits from others. So we need to be prepared to create the conditions that make the relationship with God paramount. That's the point of the prayer closet idea. A lot of spiritual direction coaching can be spent on thinking through with people just how to make sure they can amke those conditions in the context that they are in. It's not always easy and sometimes we have to be creative. Sometimes too we have to take stock of the whole of life and try to notice where God is already making contact or where we are finding ourselves drawn into a sense of God's presence; quite often these are not the 'traditional' parts of life for Godwardness.



This isn't outlawing group prayer -clearly the early church prayed together at various points formally in informally: the point is making sure our attitude is about growing closer to God not impressing other people. It is all too easy for this to happen, so group prayer should be balanced by prayer where the attitudes and scrutiny of other people is not something that impinges on our consciousness or even impinges on us unconsciously. This gives us the chance to practice intimacy with God so that we know how that connection is when we are with others and the human-pleasing temptations come along with it.



Now to heaping up empty phrases .... well, it's interesting to note that Jesus's difficulty with gentiles is not idolatry or worshipping another God but that they try to impress God by rhetorical force. There's some pause for thought there on relationship to other faiths and mission which isn't friendly to strongly exclusivist approaches but does sit rather more comfortably with inclusivists. One swallow doesn't make a summer and a simple text aiming at some other purpose doesn't make the inclusivist case, but it is suggestive, nevertheless.



More to the point is the reason for not heaping up the phrases: not only do they not impress God, but they are unnecessary since God knows all about it already. Our praying is not meant to be about informing God. So what is it about? Asking God for things!? But God knows what we need before we ask, the implication being that our asking is not really going to be about letting God know that we feel we need something; that's also something God knows. It seems to me that the only thing it can really be is about relationship-building between us and God. We ask for things in prayer to help us identify where we're at and we do so before God. By doing so we open ourselves up to seeing things a little bit more from a divine perspective ['a little bit' because we can't stand too much reality] and to being invited to offer our concern and even distress and empathy as means somehow to be included in what God is doing. Praying, in this perspective, becomes more about keeping company with God and letting ourselves be changed and used than about informing God or even trying to change God by saying something 'new' Sometimes God draws us into dialogue [cf Abraham in Genesis 18] and makes room for our growing appreciation of Who God is and What God is about to be part of what God unfolds into the world.



Praying is relationship, praying is being caught up in God's stuff, praying is opening oursleves up to Godding.



Crosswalk.com - Matthew 6:5 - 8

The Female-Led Muslim Prayer

A few years back I met a British-born female convert to Islam who reckoned there was no real reason why women couldn't lead mixed-sex Jummah prayers but I've found it hard to find anything about this since, so univocally androcentric have the sources been. So it's interesting to find this. The real thing is going to be how things play out from here. This really is a challenge to the tacit and sometimes not so tacit consensus in the Islamic world but based on the frequently-made Muslim claim that men and women are equal. Perhaps this is the way for women to bein to challenge the other inequalities that face them in Islam: their testimony being worth half a man's, for example, or divorce rights.

What will be interesting is the effect that such things will have on the structures of Islamic thought and the hermeneutical and interpretive methodologies employed in Islamic scholarship. These are 'places' that Chirstian theology has been long familiar with through it's part-creation of and participation in Enlightment culture. Islam has still to deal with the matter arising but cannot really avoid having to do so if it is to retain credibility for increasing numbers of increasingly well-educated and non-deferential western-situated Muslims.
Muslim WakeUp! Blog The Female-Led Prayer in the Arabic Press

Faked State

THis kind of nation-state [Serbia-Montenegro] needs to be considered when we are talking interantional agreements, labour conditions, the rule of law and development. Quite an eye-opening article on a state operating as 'giant covert operation' or 'black globalism'. The interesint remark is that they have the capacity to make real stuff rather than the fakes but choose not to bother. Perhaps we will be adding to the threat of global terror the threat of global knock-offs. The intersting thing will be how TNC's and WTO respond; after all this is simply free-market capitalism revealed in all its naked splendour: it concentrates the mond on the necessity for fair and just trading agreements and enforcement. Do the WTO and supporters dare call attention to this given its potential to imply awkward questions of the current GATT's?
Wired 13.03: VIEW

Air2Water

Interesting in view of the issues we have about water supply in terms of water purity and availability.

Air2Water - pure water, water machine, water from air, drinking water cooler, cleanest water, water system

Beyond Sustainability

This article is arguing that sustainability as a concept is fatally flawed in that it implies a depressing zero-sum worldview and is reliant on an atomistic/monosolution approach to resource use. As an example of a differnt approach where abundance is more in view: "People in Morocco have struggled to find a way to keep their native
argan forests from disappearing under the relentless pressure of firewood
harvesting. The key has been to find value-added uses for the tree that give
people a stake in its survival. Researchers first found that they could
extract an oil for use in cooking and traditional medicine. Exports to Europe
followed. But they now know that the tree contains more than this. It offers
extraction residues that have value! as anti-microbial agents and antioxidants.
The potential is just unfolding."

How come the confidence in abundance?
"A typical coffee business uses 0.2 percent of the coffee bean to
produce a cup of coffee. This means 99.8 percent of the coffee bush becomes
'waste'.
When we make a so-called green detergent from palm oil, we use only
5 percent of the biomass from the plantation; the rest is treated as waste.
When we ferment barley and hops to make beer, we take out only 8
percent of the sugars. the rest is treated as waste; the same for the proteins
and fibers.
Something less than 3 percent of the original Btu value of a lump
of coal makes it out as usable light in our lamps, similarly low percentages
exist for energy conversion in transportation and industry.
Studies show that between a half and three-fourths of the materials
used in our industrial economy are generated and treated as waste before ever
entering the economy. They are not seen or treated as commodities and aren~t
valued as such."

I think that this shadows the arguments of Amory and Lovins in 'Natural Capitalism'. Certainly the basic premise seems to me sound: if we can circulate atoms well enough then atoms parallel money where velocity of circulation in effect increases money supply. Proper recycling and mechanisms for encouraging multiple resource use create an abundance. It is worth recalling, for example that rainforest soils are typically quite poor, but the ecosystem is good at leveraging effective resource use to produce a very rich environment. I think that's right.

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Beyond Sustainability:

Duelling prognoses

The next in the series of articles at Worldchanging on the global food system where the author sets out to investigate and report just what seems to be going on. It's a helpful article laying out the two main competing prognostic schools of thought: "it seemed to me that there are two broad schools of dueling, wheeling thought, with a host of lesser and emerging schools emanating from them. The first is the modern Green Revolution. The second, simultaneously representing an older form of agrarian logic and a response to the Green Revolution, can be dubbed (perhaps unfairly) the Fatal Harvest School." It goes on to look at the main outlines of their approach and the strengths of their ideas. Worth bookmarking, imho.
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Postcards From The Global Food System (#2):

Curse of the Cursing Stone

This is a nice little issue for us to consider. It's been repeated several times over several days on our local TV news. You'll see in the article that there was a debate by Carlisle council about getting rid of a piece of artwork where a big chunk of granite has been inscribed with the words of an old Scots curse [uttered by a Bishop, according to the TV news] on the criminals of the Carlisle area. Apparently there were calls for it to be removed since many felt that ever since it had been put inplace there had benn a lot of ill luck for the region. The council saw the motion defeated. I couldn't work out who had been agitating against it; I suspected Pentecostal Christians and the like but perhaps not for: "The city council also say local Christian groups, including the Bishop of Carlisle, were consulted and were in agreement with the "Cursing Stone" and a blessing was included within the artwork taken from The Bible, Philippians 4 Verse 6." So it may turn out to be superstitious locals rather than Christians after all.

But I'm interested in feedback if I can get it. What do we think about such issues relating to territorial spirits and curses etc.? I'm skeptical but many are not ....
BBC - Cumbria - Features - Curse of the Cursing Stone

Matthew 6.1-4 -'publicity giving'

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
One of the things that comes to mind for me as I reflect on this passage is corporate charitable giving. There were plenty examples of this on the recent Red Nose day where plenty of firms and plc's were making sure that they raised money or gave money and that their branding was part of it. So how do we assess this in the light of the passage we're considering?

I suggest that we first recall what the passage says and be realistic about what happens in corporate giving. The passage tells us that practising piety in order to be seen and approved of earns no reward from God because the reward of being noticed is gained. THen we should notice that corporations are legally bound to maximise profit for their shareholders and that really is their bottom line. They are not doing things ultimately to please God but their shareholders. There is no shame in this, at one level; that's simply what they are supposed to do, it would be odd to expect them to aim to do something beyond the scope of their deeds of their creation. [Now I actually have issues theologically with this but for the time being it'll do]. The plc's give money to charity and put their brand on it in the hope that the feelgood factor we have about a good cause being helped will rub off on them and so help their brand image and ultimately contribute to their profits; a fairly cheap piece of advertising in fact.

I don't think that we should read the passeage as having a down on this; it is simply pointing out that if they are looking for the reward of being noticed practising charitable giving, then they have that reward. What the passage is saying further is that we should not confuse this behaviour with pleasing God: if pleasing God is the aim then it could well be and probably is better being practised in secret so that it really is for God's eyes and the fact of other eyes seeing it doesn't subvert piety into showing-off.

I think that we should be careful too of disparaging the raising of money for good causes by such means. There is no doubt in my mind that it is better to use money for the improvement of human welfare than not to: every human institution should serve human welfare in God's economy and wherever money is recalled to this aim, it should be celebrated. We are simply being reminded that we shouldn't invest any more significance in it or simply attribute godliness to it. It's not to say, either, that there may not be goodwill involved: it may be that Christians, for example, have worked within an organisation to convince them to do this and perhaps even to propose particular good works because they have a sense of the good that it would do. This is part of recalling money to its purpose of serving human welfare.

Where I think that we need to be alert is how such fundraising affects our attitudes. Firstly, in the light of this passage, we should be wary of imitating the corporate [or sometimes individual] attittude of using charitable giving as publicity; as a means of gaining good regard by others for ourselves: that way lies spiritual dangers of being more interested in reputation than in the things of God. This passage is an application of the idea of seeking first God's agenda placed in the realm of almsgiving. In fact the important thing for us as individuals is to cultivate an attitude of almost-instinctive generosity [where right hand doesn't know what the left is doing].

Another thing we need to take into account is the thing about not being overly impressed by 'publicity giving': let's celebrate that good is being done but let's also be wary of transferring too much kudos to the giver so that we become uncritical of the ill that corporations can do in pursuit of profit.

The point of Jesus's observation here is not to make us into grumblers always casting a cynical eye over fundraising events [I can't see how God's agenda is furthered by doing this constantly] but rather to encourage us to go about things differently; to make sure that we don't make a paradigm out of what we see so often and the celebration of 'goodness' that often accompanies and is implied in publicity-giving.

What publicity-giving is doing is taking something which is good and turning it also into an opportunity for self-advertising. This endangers purity of heart. However, since corporations are not strictly speaking the subjects or objects of personal salvation, this doesn't apply to them strictly. I think that leaves room for Christians to work with the coprorations to try to direct their money in ways that serve human welfare; just let's not give this corporate behaviour more signicance than it deserves. We actually doing something of a Robin Hood when we redirect corporate money like this.

Crosswalk.com - Matthew 6:1 - 4:

Link: http://bible1.crosswalk.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi?word=Matthew 6%3A1 - 4§ion=0&version=nrs&new=1&oq=&NavBook=mt&NavGo=6&NavCurrentChapter=6

Resumed with Matthew 6:1 - 4

After my recent busy few days, I had not got round to doing my daily Lenten thing of commenting on the sermon on the mount. At last I got back to it. So if anyone was folowing it and wondered what had happened: it was just that things had been busier than to allow me sufficient time to reflect at a keyboard.

Spanish Muslims issue 'fatwa' against Osama Bin Laden

A while back I said that in view of some of th ematerials in Muslim faoundatinal documents it would be helpful for us who are not Muslim to have some kind of authoritative declaration which gave a clear steer against terrorism; a fatwa, for example against Osama bin Laden, for example. Well, it appears that we have one. I'm not yet sure of its status though as "the fatwa had moral, rather than legal weight and would serve as a guide for Muslims".

However, since Salman Rushdie had fatwas against him it is helpful to know that there is at least one on bin Laden.
Islam :: Spanish Muslims issue 'fatwa' against Osama Bin Laden: "the fatwa had moral, rather than legal weight and would serve as a guide for Muslims."

Wolf at the Door

Worth following up for those who wnat a handy reference for how pervasive oil is in our lives and therefore the implications of the dangers we face as it dries up and we face rising prices right across our economies and not just at the petrol pump.
Wolf at the Door

Have you hugged a corporation today?

This is an excellent little article about tactics in dealing with the corps. One thing we need to do is to exercise the Christian virtue of doing as we'd be done by: if we want understanding and sympathetic dealing then we need to be prepared to give it. As well as challenging some behaviours that really must be challenged. I like tha analogy "Perhaps instead of thinking of corporations as terminators, we should think of them as overgrown toddlers, stumbling erratically in search of instant gratification but susceptible to behavior modification."

Part of the difficulty of the way we currently engage corporations on issues of concern is that we can inadvertantly produce behaviours that are not what we would want. "

So: they've been taking steps in the right direction but until now they've been, like Levis, scared to talk about it. And why are they scared to talk about it? Because if they start making noise about green stuff, they'll pop up on the radar of green groups, who will then proceed to publicly chastise them for not doing more, for still being, on balance (like most corporations), in environmental deficit. It's not worth the hassle. "

Have you hugged a corporation today? | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine

AOL and privacy

I found this shocking and wonder whether I really want to IM AOL users this is from the new TaC AIM set which supercede previous ones and are assuemd to be accepted if you continue to use the service ...
by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.

I can't see why they would want such control and conditions in operation. It think it's scary.

They don't get it, do they?

It's old news but I wanted to register my shock. The IRA offer to execute the men involved in a murder. It just seemed like an offer from the Mafia to 'hit' troublemakers. It seems like gangsterism putre and simple and I'm amazed they thought that it would be alright. But then I realised that they have in effect set themselves up as a police force in rebublican areas and partially been accepted as such and so they were presumably offering more of the same the difference being that now, perhaps, people are seeing it as a corrupt organisation in some local areas and would rather have the rule of law than kangaroo courts. It's a reminder of the importance of due process and the ability to scrutinise and hold accountable such processes to avoid injustice and miscarriages. It reminds us to to be vigilent about issues of legitimacy. What is legitimate in God's eyes is surely not arbitrary human authority upheld by fear and threat but justice upheld by consent... but then Romans 13 ... the conditions for fairness and justice need to be upheld and we should be supportive of that. However we should also support making sure that justice and fairness are continually defended and expanded. ny system taht promises that is better than one which doesn't.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | IRA offered to shoot McCartney killers

Half of Britons 'think being green is costly'

One of the biggest difficulties with selling greener living is perceptions about cost, and yet:

Philip Sellwood, EST's chief executive said "Households across the UK waste an unnecessary £200 a year on heating and powering their homes. That's the equivalent of an extra two tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted into our atmosphere and harming our environment.



And there is actually help at hand: "The government recently launched a £3m campaign, called the energy efficiency commitment, which is supported by the EST. The aim is to help consumers save energy and money by obliging companies to offer discounts on energy efficient measures. Through the initiative, customers can make savings of 20% on appliances which are deemed to be energy efficient.. Part of the difficulty has always been tht one needs to speculate in order to accumulate: ie up front capital costs which are recouped through subsequent savings. That's always a toughie for those on lower income and a sense of more urgent needs.





Half of Britons 'think being green is costly'

Interviews

Just taken a few days off since the show-round and interview process for the job of Anglican Chaplain at Sunderland University took the best part of two days once travelling was included. Basically it may be a while before we know since they are not going to make a decision until they have seen the references and they hadn't yet asked for those so I reckon it could be about a week to turn that round. It is a difficult way of doing it that they have chosen in terms of keeping candidates on tenterhooks for ages about their interview. I think I shall feed that back to them afterwards regardless of the result. Certainly, in processes I have managed, we have taken up references for all shortlisted candidates at the same time as we have asked them to interview which means that the post-interview discussion can include references. We need to make sure that such processes are humane for the candidates. I wonder whether there was a clerical error or whether, perhaps, they decided to change their approach half-way through? I hope that it wasn't that they didn't think about the pastoral effects for candidates having to be 'on alert' for ages. I hope too that it may be that they are also going to give proper feedback for candidates too.

It's a very interesting set-up they have there and I would be very interested to be part of both the university set-up and the Minister team. Not sure How well I did at interview: the questions I was asked were very good many times though one or two of them a little obscure, and, of course the difficulty with all questions about roles and jobs is [speaking as someone who has done quite a bit of interviewing and seen myself and colleagues asking less-than optimal questions] that they can be very vague and waffly: I kept wanting them to ask more specific questions than "How would you handle administration?". Better was "What approach would you take to the first few months ....?"

There was one question which I realised afterwards was for me so obvious that I missed its significance. It was about the fact that the university serves a traditionally working class area and what difference did I think that made. Since I have spent most of my ministry in working-class areas I had missed that they were really punting this question to people who were applying to a university chaplaincy post with middle-calss presuppositions about academia etc. So I wish I'd just said that I have spent most of my ministry dealing with working class communities and that I believe that WC people are just as capable of thinking and achieving but that the way that things are set up makes it harder for them to access, I've been involved in a university where 'widening participation' and also as a tutor to less traditional students: I know about this. I think my answer probably touched some of the main bases but in a waffly way; shame.

Coincidently, getting off the bus in Durham, I met the Industrial Chaplain who would be a colleague of whoever is appointed. He made it clear that he thought that on paper and in person I was the strongest candidate in a strong field of candidates. However, while his opinion has been solicited he is not part of the decision-making team. So that is encouraging, though to be honest, I have heard that a few times in the last nine months; 'second again' would be a hard emotional state to be in for a little while.

P2P finance?

Now this is a most intriguing and potentially explosive development: peer-to-peer ITC-mediated loans and fifnce; basically a credit union type idea that cuts out the banks. Something to keep an eye on as it may have potential to redirect money use in more humane ways. Presumably there are downsides too: so we need to keep an eye on it and discuss it more ...
Guardian Unlimited | Economic dispatch | Peer pressure

Wiki Becomes a Way of Life

I've used a few wikipaedia articles in my time and found them fairly helpful. Here's a nice little artcle about some of the people who keep it that way. I thought I was pretty clued up but these people are truly impressive.
Wired News: Wiki Becomes a Way of Life

Code dialects

Somewhere, deep inside of me, linguist meets baby-geek and becomes intrigued by this article on programmers use of code languages apparently, when you look at someone's code you can tell [once you're fluent]: "What editor they use, what idioms they use to avoid common pitfalls, and what organization patterns they employ all tell you what kind of programmer you're meeting."
A dialectology of computer code? Perhaps with its own sociolinguistics! Wonder if anyone has researched it from this angle?

Slashdot | Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective:

Nigerian campus gang fighting

This is picked up by Religionnews blog though the article doesn't show why it might: the violence is probably linked to Nigerian university cultic fraternities. ANyway the reason I was interested is putting this together with noticing that recruitment to British universities is quite high from Nigeria. While there are several 'ordinary' reasons for this: prestige, English language, ex-colonial links and so on I just wonder whether fear of campus violence could be another factor for some?
Campus Cults, Nigeria :: At least 9 die in Nigerian campus gang fighting

Tories to tackle global poverty

Short on detail but I think it is potentially significant that the party of the right in Britain looks as if it is shaping up to be serious about issues of poverty in the world at large. This might be a nce change from the dismissive Troy attitudes I used to encounter in the days when I wrote to Conservative MP's about such things. Let's hope it marks serious thinking about development that isn't just about making markets and arrangements both to sell British stuff [usually airms] and will take seriously that facts about cash flows between nations particularly in relation to historic debt. If that happens then perhaps a sufficient consensus can come about on world poverty in Britain for some serious and holistically helpful interventions by UK Gov.Ananova - Tories to tackle global poverty

Matthew 5:43-48

"'You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect"



Now if we understand 'love' to mean 'have warm glowing feelings towards', then I suspect that this is a recipe for psychological disturbance. If it means either 'seek the welfare of ... even at personal expense' or work towards making a situation where it becomes possible for you to have a positive relationship with ...', then I think we have something to work with. Let's face it we may love our family but we don't always like them let alone have warm glowy feelings for them [though sometimes we do and that's helpful in sustaining the longer term loving]; loving them means being prepared to work for their welfare, looking out for them, trying to see things from their point of view, working at reconciliation when things are hairy, doing stuff to help them and so on.



So let's re-read that list with enemies in view. It's still challenging, but in many cases it is possible to begin to imagine that perhaps it could happen. It's modelling God's attitude: whether we like God or not, many of the benefits God confers on us are available to all, save only those that are inherant in a positive relationship to God.



The idea of hating your enemies was probably about defining 'neighbour' in ways that ties of kin and race etc made easier. "Who is my neighbour?" -well actually your enemy is your neighbour. Simply patting ourselves on the back for having good deeded those I am tied to by 'natural bonds of affection and common interest' is not particularly virtuous; everyone does it; it's how we're made and how our making most easily expresses itself. The harder thing is to recognise that the call on our consideration, effort, regard and affirmation can also come fromthsoe whom we find difficult, who are unpleasant or whom we have been 'told' are beyond the scope of human consideration. In such cases we have to think: 'what would I do for this person if I naturally liked them and wanted to serve them?' and then do that thing. Actually, the exercise of learning to pray blessing on those for whom we feel anger and dsidain or disgust is a struggle but one that does change our heart. If you keep a prayer list, have a section for forgiving and blessing enemies and make sure you visit it regularly. It's always the ones who persecute us that are hardest: I don't think that just 'for our faith' is intended here: persecute means anytime we are harassed and held in contmept by others. Its hard not to seek revenge or to nurse a grudge. But remember, in working for that person's welfare you may be sowing the seeds that will change their persecution. One thing is almost certain they are not going to change if you or I are not prepared to break the cycle.



Crosswalk.com - Matthew 5:43-48:

Can the leopard change its spots or the trainer its ethics?

I find Treehugger a really useful soruce of info and particularly liked what they said about this item which I'd picked up a few days previously from another source.Short of it is that Nike look like they might be about to take ethical manufacture seriously. Given the negative publicity from sweatshop campaigns I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt as they must know that to announce something like this without following through is going to be a PR disaster, probably.

"Nike's new Considered line of shoes is the first one that has included such a blatantly sustainable slant in its pitch. Previous strategies, like their push to reduce PVC use in products, and their Reuse-a-Shoe program to recycle shoe soles into sport surfaces didn't ever have the kind of force or commitment behind them to satisfy the environmentalist community.
But Considered is different. Not only does the new line include standard enviro-conscious goals like incorporating recycled rubber, and reducing manufacturing wastage, but from the outset, Nike sets itself up with some very ambitious additional goals. These shoes will be designed without adhesives of any kind, to reduce the toxic effects on workers in factories, and the environment. These shoes will be designed for total component disassembly, for easy recycling. They will source materials within 200 miles of factories in order to reduce fuel consumption. They will even use vegetable-tanned leather, to eliminate toxic chromium in the waste pipeline. And wherever possible, strategies like woven lace uppers are used to minimize the need to cut patterns."

Ozone hole over UK?

Very worrying especially to fair-skinned celtic-stock people like me who are more disposed to UV-related melanomas.

News

'Denial lobby' turns up the heat

Brief report and comment on how the GWdenialist lobby are doing in GB.Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'Denial lobby' turns up the heat

Make climate change a policy principle - or drown in debt

Interesting discussion of UK treasury policy and the lack of envirnmental seriousness -indeed prudence- in it. "the moment economic policy drops anchor in the reality of environmental limits, contradictions emerge. For the whole world to enjoy UK levels of consumption would require the biocapacity of three planets like Earth. Living beyond our environmental means quickly leads to trouble. For instance, Brown's substantial manoeuvring to advance the international community on debt relief and aid issues is undermined by the Treasury's relative blind spot, to date, on global warming. Every one of the millennium development goals Brown supports stands to be blown away by climate change."

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Make climate change a policy principle - or drown in debt:

Workers to march for rail renationalisation

I wish them all the best; I can't really see how privatisation makes sense of natural public monopoly especially when the government is subsidising it anyway -how can that be anything other than paying shareholders and directors instead of distributing benefits to the public? The argument against renationalising when Railtrack went under was that it'd be too expensive, but the marchers are saying: "'You can't have individual different companies out there. The fact is it would be cheaper for the British government to renationalise it rather than bung three times the amount of subsidy that the former British Rail received.'"
Quite so.
Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Workers to march for rail renationalisation:

Just how shocking is the Gospel?

This is brilliant! I think that the reporter is right that the gospel really is this shocking. It like the fact that the Samaritan woman is translated into a Gay Muslim man; seems a good thought-experiment to me. OF course the thing dodges the issues about discipleship afterwards which vex so many of the churches right now but it is important to think about those issues from the fundamental perspective that this article/sermon takes. Perhaps it presupposes some takes on a set of exegetical questions, but I think that we need to face up to the implicit challenges of this retelling.
Ragamuffin Ramblings: Just how shocking is the Gospel?

We are what we eat or we eat as we are?

I was brought up by parents who had been formed by austerity and rationing: my upbringing was marked by frugal attitudes towards all sorts of things including food. For me this led to an attitude towards food where not eating is something that only happens if there is no food -While I'm not obese I do carry now more weight than I would like and I suspect my doctors would like to see about 5-10 kilos less of me. I don't know how typical I am but I'm beginning to wonder how far reaction to autsterity is a factor in obesity levels. Clearly that is challenged by the USA figures where austerity isn't a factor, but I wonder. I wonder too how it all relates to greed and sin. Some obesity is not so much greed as miseducation and sheer bad manufacture. Admittedly made to pander to our tastes but these are tastes formed by the need, throughout most human history, to stockpile energy as fat when you could against the lean time that were almost inevitable. Lean times have now for westerners been banished and replaced by abundance. How far are we responsible individually for the fact that we like what we like and food producers want to sell us it?

However, the issue of obesity can maks the 'more' important issues of 'food discipleship'. We need to be asking questions about the way that our food comes to us, by what means it is grown and what web of just or unjust trade does it participate in? What contexts do we eat in and how do they sustain or nurture community or not? Indeed do our eating envionments sutain us individually? Do we taste our food or is it we simpy do while other things [like TV] go on? I rather suspect that if we strain at the camel of such questions then the gnats of diet start to fall into place more and enable us to get a better picture of where our individual greedinesses lie or don't lie.

Let's not think "diet", let's think "global food and health".
The Observer | UK News | Britons break heavyweight record