Archaic English, the book of Mormon and religious English

An interesting article in Language Log Language Log � Archaic English verb endings and the Book of Mormon, where we are reminded of some interesting grammatical mistakes in the Book of Mormon.

And that the Urim and Thummim breastplate did not aid the grammarless translator, or his uninspired amanuensis, or even his village printer, is evident from such eccentric irregularities and bold departures from the "well of English undefiled" as:
“thou remembereth” (page 27); "and I have not written but a small part of the things I saw" (page 35); "therefore they did not look unto the Lord as they had ought" (ibid.);…"and this he done" (page 225); "and the words of Amulek which was declared unto the people" (page 245); "now the object of these lawyers were to get gain" (page 251);…
I pause out of breath, with this result of a most cursory inspection of the inspired pages under examination

Now, the speculations about what this may or may not say about the alleged divine origins of said book are not entirely convincing, though the comments do help develop this aspect of the article.
Why I want to comment is to note the phenomenon of archaisms for religious speech. Needs more investigation but there surely is something to investigate: a number of Anglicisings of the Qur'an opt for KJV English (Pickthall being the most prominent). And then listen to what happens in programmes like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed when they want to wheel out some serious ritual ...

So are we missing something important in terms of contextualisation in going for prayer in contemporary English?

World is facing a natural resources crisis worse than financial crunch

This is important, and I'm just putting this together in my head with the fact that I need to rework some teaching and learning materials for a course on parish mission. It's a report on a report: World is facing a natural resources crisis worse than financial crunch. The main thing to get our heads round is this: "The Living Planet report calculates that humans are using 30% more resources than the Earth can replenish each year, which is leading to deforestation, degraded soils, polluted air and water, and dramatic declines in numbers of fish and other species. As a result, we are running up an ecological debt of $4tr (�2.5tr) to $4.5tr every year - double the estimated losses made by the world's financial institutions as a result of the credit crisis - say the report's authors, led by the conservation group WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund. The figure is based on a UN report which calculated the economic value of services provided by ecosystems"
And I am reminded that this issue, therefore, puts all our arguments about church governance and cultural change into a very different perspective. Our response as Christians and communities of faith needs to be analogous to the way that 'the Irish Saved Civilisation', albeit that we have to do it as a matter of intention. It will affect mission for the next few centuries (assuming we have them). After all, just think; what will apologetics look like if we've been part of the solution rather than blessed the behaviours that have caused the problem? For a comparison, think about the slave trade.

Drug use falling, says British Crime Survey

Who'd 'a' thought it? Not me, that's for sure. But I'm not unhappy to find this out.Drug use falling, says British Crime Survey | Society | guardian.co.uk: "The use of illicit drugs is in decline in Britain, according to figures published today, with cocaine use falling and cannabis use at its lowest for a decade."
What I can't find a clue about though is 'why?'. What is or are the causal factor/s. Anyone got some clues?

Jeremy Leggett: Peak oil is just five years away, and we must start to plan now to avert a truly ruinous crisis |

This is important. Personally, I think we may already have hit peak oil, but maybe we've a handful of years left. This is a serious call to prayer and action. Jeremy Leggett: Peak oil is just five years away, and we must start to plan now to avert a truly ruinous crisis: "First, continuing growth in demand in China and India is likely to drown out any reduction in demand from structural changes in the west. Second, the oil industry has – almost incomprehensibly – been investing less in exploration in recent years. Too much of the vast profit we saw from BP earlier this week goes on share buybacks. Third, the industry is relying on aged oilfields, aged infrastructure and an aged workforce just at the time when oilfields are becoming more difficult to find and are taking ever longer — sometimes more than a decade — to bring onstream even when found. Fourth, the oil- and gas-producing nations have massive and growing infrastructure programmes that increasingly cut into their scope for export. Fifth, we worry that Opec has been subject to the same irrational exuberance about delivery capacity as the international oil companies have been. If we accelerate the green industrial revolution, we believe we can soften the blow of the oil crunch, set up the recovery and get out of oil dependence surprisingly quickly."
Accelerate the greening of industry could be a Godsend at this point in history: a kind of Keynsian virtuous cycle moment. This is the kairos moment ...

US presidential preference of voting machines

For those of you who have picked up some hints in news reports ... "
more music charts"
US presidential preference � GraphJam: Music and Pop Culture in Charts and Graphs. Let us explain them.:

Why People Hate Windows

Yep!
"
Why People Hate Windows � GraphJam: Music and Pop Culture in Charts and Graphs. Let us explain them.: "

more music charts

Motivation and creatives

Now this sums up where I'd got to in thinking about this but hadn't yet put into words. I think I instinctively understood this but haven't always been very good at acting on because of lack of experience in the past (as I look back).

... you can only really shout at people a couple of times a season if you want it to be effective — if you do it every week they just get used to it and ignore you. And if you have to shout, encourage and cajole your people to put the effort in every week, then something’s wrong.

And then comes a really nice metaphor/analogy which helps to conceptualise what's going on.

I once went to a seminar with psychotherapy guru Bill O’Hanlon where he talked about motivation in therapy. He drew an analogy with curling, the winter sport in which players take turns to throw a stone across the ice towards a target, while their teammates sweep the ice in front of it with brushes, to reduce friction and help the stone slide further. According to Bill, it’s not the therapist’s job to throw the stone — the impetus for change has to come from the client. The therapist’s role is to sweep the ice and help the client keep going, facilitating rather than pushing. I think the same applies to management — if you’ve got people who put plenty of force and direction into their throw, you can do a fantastic job scrubbing away the ice in front of them. But if there’s no energy coming from them, you can sweep all you like but the stone won’t move.

I thought that it also potentially helps understand the role of a life-coach: a lot of coaching is about motivation but it isn't about creating motivation, ultimately, it's about identifying it and connecting it up with life situations. And, I think that it also relates to spiritual direction: helping people to access the tradition/s in ways that are congruent with their kairos. This includes noting their personality, life-stage, history and motivators, but sweeping the ice before the stone is a good picture. There is the desire a person has to connect and live with God, but there is friction as sin derails and slows. A soul-friend's job is to help brush away the friction and even to help steer the stone (judicious sweeping can help make some pathways more likely) but the hurl is the befriended's job. As the sum up says:

So you can’t ‘motivate’ anybody else. You can show them the target, smooth the way and cheer them along. But motivation is something you draw out rather than put in.

Of course, in leadership this can make for a somewhat laid-back style, but outside of military or pay-disciplined environments, that's necessary otherwise the heavy-handedness demotivates. In church terms, I've come across successful clergy-leaders but some of them have had a high attrition rate among those they have brought in to partnership with them; their momentum and 'success' has been bought at the expense of a lot of burnout or collaborator-churn. Of course, there are also potential cultural problems; if leadership is culturally defined, in effect, in Il Duce terms this working-with leadership is always going to seem weak and anaemic. However, it is likely to be longer-term and to grow others better. The one thing that can carry the Duce leadership is a strong ability to envision others so that collectively individual motivations and concerns are firmly connected up in people's minds with organisational or ministry goals. The problem that can arise from that is that rhetorical power frays in contact with realities.

Have a look at the article for further thoughts on how to maintain motivation. Again this can apply to both coaching and spiritual accompaniment by helping to identify actual motivations and realities and vocations and to examine these against the false consciousnesses created by gift-envy, church 'ideologies' and ministry projection.
I'll be watching the further episodes of this...