A new post!!! Rather than giving up on social media for Lent, I am going to take up blogging again. However, this time I shall do it on the parish blog: https://badshotleaandhale.org/2017/03/01/lent-so-what-now/

What's it all About?

What’s Christmas all about?  Have you found yourself  wondering this at Christmas time?  If so come and join a group of others discovering together what Christmas and other faith issues mean.  “Just Looking” will be running in February and March 2011 in Amersham at a time convenient for those who want to come.  If you are interested please let Alan Crawley know – 01494 433826, Twitter @revdalan (please use direct message)

Feed In Tariffs

On today's show my guest, Lesley Fellows, referred to two companies, among many, who are involved in providing green energy solutions that qualify for the governments Feed in Tariffs and Renewable Heat Incentive.

They were Ice Energy and The Solar Coop.  If you do decide to get in touch with them, please mention that you heard about them through Radio Christmas.

I'm sure that there ought to be some form of disclaimer here, but just to say that I have no experience of these people, so make your own minds up!

Thought for the day

This is my thought for the day for Radio Christmas this morning.  If you have come here because you have already heard it and want to know the answer (if you haven't ignore this bit!) then click to see more at the bottom.  If not then here it is!

Well. Here it is. Merry Christmas. Everybody’s having fun.

At least I hope that is the case. It is certainly true here at Radio Christmas, despite all the last minute panics to get ready, and I hope that it will be true for you as Christmas draws near. But Christmas can also be a difficult time – difficult for those who’ve recently lost jobs, difficult for those who’ve got ill relatives, difficult for those who’ve lost loved ones recently or at this time of year.

And perhaps it’s superficially difficult for those of us who have to pack extra shopping and partying into our already full lives. It’s all rather “Goodness, another year has gone by since last Christmas”.

And then of course there are the perils of Christmas Day itself “You’d better watch out”, “you’d better not cry” we find ourselves saying to children at 4 in the morning (if we aren’t careful).

I don’t want a lot for Christmas, but that doesn’t seem to make it any easier.

But I get ahead of myself – in church terms we are in Advent – and as churches we are watching and waiting – preparing. Not only for Christmas but also for the coming of Christ.

Now I don’t want to get all precious and stop people singing carols before Christmas, but I do want to encourage everyone to spend some time in the next 3 ½ weeks thinking about what Christmas means to them.

What – you say, another thing to add the long list that I’ve already got?

Well, do you know what is important to you about Christmas? Perhaps you do – but I suspect that many of us don’t!

Is it that Snow is falling all around us, children playing having fun, eating and drinking too much – or is it something else?

Of course with many of the things that we hold dear we can easily be disappointed “They said there’ll be snow at Christmas”, “they said there’ll be peace on earth”.

The birth of Jesus tells us that God loves us, loves us enough to send His Son to show us how to live. Not in a fearful way – but in a way that allows us to live our lives fully and fearlessly. Jesus birth and death show us that it isn’t what happens to us that gives or takes away our happiness, it is how we respond to those events. And if we are loved my experience is that we can cope with anything – and need be afraid of nothing.

And so this is Christmas, a vivid life giving example that God loves us; and in response may we be able to say: It’s Christmas time there’s no need to be afraid.

Oh – and it’s also time for a bit of fun – I don’t know whether you spotted them, but I quoted the first lines from 9 Christmas songs in this piece. If you want to find out where they were you can listen again on www.radiochristmas.co.uk or have a look at my blog: revdalan.blogspot.com.

Marked up copy below the fold.

Radio Christmas

Back for a few one off special posts, rather like a reluctant movie star out plugging the latest film.  This is to alert people to the existence of Radio Christmas which is a (very) local radio station to Amersham and the surrounding areas, but which can also be heard over the web (see home page) and for which a best selling (?) iPhone app is available.

This is a wonderful local community project raising money for Streetkids in South America, and also building community in the wider Amersham area.

I have a show, Call Reverend Alan on Thursday lunchtimes 2nd, 9th and 16th December at 1pm (hence the point of the plug!).

 I'm also doing Thought for the Day on 1st December at about 7.45.

The show will be an opportunity to call, email or tweet in and ask questions of my guests and myself , as well as listen to some of the things that my guests are up to and a few songs.  As I write, the schedule is:

2nd December: Rev’d Dr Lesley Fellows, Member of Oxford Diocesan Environmental Group, International Moderator, No Anglican Covenant Coalition and blogger.

9th December: Rt Rev’d Dr Alan Wilson, The Bishop of Buckingham (and blogger)

16th December: Rev’d Paul Willis, Co Founder Wycombe Night Shelter












16 December: Rev’d Pippa Soundy Assistant Curate St Michael and All Angels, Amersham on the Hill, Community Minister to the Church Mission Society, based in Oxford

Au revoir

After yesterdays post I thought that I was going to spend some time thinking about whether I wanted to continue blogging at the present.  However, my reaction to the idea of stopping - at least temporarily - was such that I know that it is something that I want to do.  And once the decision is made...

It has been fun sharing with you all, but for the time being, as Jimmy Young (Jeremy Vine to you younger types) used to say on the JY prog TTFN.

One parting thought!  If George Osborne wants to know where to start cutting then he could try the MoD - why do we need the 4th largest military spend in the world, why do we need nuclear, even if we just paid the soldiers and military contractors to sit at home we would save the hardware costs.  And shouldn't matters of war now be a UN issue?

To Blog or not to Blog

While I was away last week I didn't blog - and it was good!  Then I get back and find this from Clayboy.

I wrote quite a long time ago about blogging and many of the themes remain.  I still think that blogging is for me, and I still think that there is a stress to me in blogging.  The most obvious solution would be to blog less often.  However last week I was talking to a counsellor and they talked about the weekly relationship - and how if the time between meetings stretches out things get saved up to say, and are more thought through, whereas turning up weekly the unconscious has more opportunity to get out.  I think the same is true of blogging.  Posting daily means that some days there is nothing to say - and yet they are sometimes the days when I learn most as I write something down that I didn't know.

The thing that I didn't write about in the earlier post was the community of bloggers.  It feels antisocial to blog but not to read others blogs, to blog but not read and sometimes respond to comments - but both of these activities can be very time consuming.

What am I going to do?  Not sure!  Watch this space.

Is it possible to describe a mystical experience?

The following comes from Richard Rohr's daily email.  I am sure that my atheist friends will say that this is nothing to do with God, but with the exception of "Union" I would would expect agreement that these are good things and ask how they find them in their life?

To sum up these two weeks, mystical encounter always implies a dipping and even falling into a Great Love, and below are just some ways to describe it. It is first of all a momentary "state,” and with years of practice, the state becomes a permanent trait and a way of life. But know this is available to ALL of you! In fact, you are hard wired to receive it.

• Enlargement: You will become larger in your heart and attitudes, not smaller.
• Union: You will have a stronger sense of union with things, not disunion from things or others. You know you are not alone.
• Freedom: You will exhibit a deep sense of inner freedom, not constriction.
• Optimism: You will find a grounded hopefulness within yourself, not pessimism.
• Safety: You will feel a primal security and a “being held”, not anxiety.
• Rest: You will have found a deep and abiding resting place, deeper than any passing restlessness.
• Possibility: You will be filled with creativity and options, over any "all or nothing" thinking.
• Permission: You will wonder, "where does all this inner spaciousness come from?"

Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate ... Seeing God in All Things

Gi's a job

This article talks about the increasingly common practice of expecting young people to work without pay to gain experience.

I am quite clear that I come down on the side of banning it as a practice.  If we claim to be a meritocracy (which I think we do) then making certain jobs open only to those who can fund free working is unfair and should not be allowed.  I think that there is also a good point in the article about the minimum wage!

However, whilst this may be seen as a modern phenomenon and one which is spreading among the more popular jobs (nearly called them professions J), it has a long history as I can recall in my younger days that barristers (and I don't mean coffee makers) had to study and then work for a pittance and be paid in arrears such that most of that profession came from those who were able to subsidise the early part of the training.  A quick look now suggests that this has changed with pupillages funded, so here is one example where action has already been taken.

An alternative would be for the government to sponsor this year, much as they do with student loans - however I am wary of this because, as with student loans, there would still be a temptation for those from more disadvantaged backgrounds to run up large debts.

What benefit is there to the companies?  To avoid minimum wage issues there should be no immediate gain to them, so presumably it is about seeing candidates ahead of time; they could always develop better recruitment procedures - after all if they are after talent then at present they are ruling a significant proportion of the population out.

Whether you are French or not...   Time for another break.  Back soon.

Does our desire as Christians to be inclusive of all sorts of people mean that we will never say, 'You should not do that'? Surefish Daily Reading

I read this yesterday and so wanted to answer this question!  There is a big difference between advising people and ordering them.  Too often Christians order people - and it is wrong and it does us no good.  We need to respect people's free will, of course we can explain our views to them, but to order them or threaten them shows an arrogance that is not found in Jesus.

Some Christians also do not appear to understand the difference between the law of the land and a belief drawn from faith.  I may or may not believe something is wrong because of my faith - but if I live in a land which has chosen a different law then I am free to campaign against it - and in many senses I have a duty to do so - but if I chose to break the law in doing so I must be prepared to take the consequences.  After all we have rather a good role model for doing exactly that.

Is the rational all there is?

Since I blogged on rationality the other day the web seems to have been full of others doing the same.

Apparently Terry Sanderson had held Rowan Williams up to ridicule but Andrew Brown supported him, my Bishop chipped in comparing the spirit and dogma and the Naked Pastor critiqued faith from within.  Then Richard Rohr sent round a daily thought with the following:

So we have these words describing mystical moments: enlargement, connection or union, and emancipation. You may not use these same words, but on a practical level it is experienced as a new capacity and a new desire to love. And you wonder where it comes from. Why do I have this new desire, this new capacity to love some new people, to love the old people better, maybe to enter into some kind of new love for the world? I even find my thoughts are more immediately loving.
Clearly, you are participating in a love that’s being given to you. You are not creating this. You are not generating this. It is being generated through you and in you and for you. You are participating in something larger than yourself, and you are just allowing it and trusting it for the pure gift that it is.

The question that I will keep posing is what about the things that can't be proven: are they worthless and to be ignored, or can we admit that there is something of worth which cannot be proven?  My vote is for the latter.

Communicating across Divides

For those who have been following the debates on faith and proof, there is another of our Millennium lectures coming up which might be of interest if you are anywhere near Amersham.

Reflection on an authentic language of the Spirit, by Harvey Gillman, Tuesday June 29. 8 pm.  St Michael and All Angels, Amersham on the Hill.


What do we mean by religion and spirituality? What do we mean by truth in a community of faith? How far can language embody meaning? How can communication lead to communion? These themes will be explored in relation to a world of conflicting understandings of truth. Harvey comes to this topic paradoxically as one who finds meaning in ambiguous poetry, revelation in music and depth in silence.

Harvey Gillman was outreach secretary for British Quakers for 18 years. He writes and lectures on spirituality, language and how we can use difference compassionately and with integrity. His books include: A Light that is Shining, an introductory book on British Quakers; A Minority of One; and Consider the Blackbird.

Do you like this?

Place your hope in God alone. If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself, but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge.
The Rule of Benedict http://www.eriebenedictines.org/benedict (only there 1 day in 4 months) http://www.osb.org/rb/

I like this quote from Benedict, but I have a friend who dislikes it - we haven't gone into why - but I think that it is an example of the religious paradox that I was writing about yesterday.  It isn't necessarily that I think that it is "true", but that it gives insight into ways of thinking which help me come to God.

What do you think?

Paradox and Faith

Something else which I suspect will get up the nose of atheists is the concept of religious paradox.  I want to say (and mean) both that God is powerless and that God is powerful.

When we are talking about God we cannot use language - God is bigger than language - instead we are working with metaphor - and sometimes a metaphor of powerlessness helps us understand more, and sometimes a metaphor of powerful does.  All of these help us colour in our picture of God - or perhaps taking an apophatic path help us in removing bits that aren't in the picture!

Pete Rollins is very good on paradox in all his books

Faith - Pragmatist v Rationalist

The debate between we of faith and an atheist rationalist has been going on in the comments of a number of blog posts (here, here, here and here for example).

As a pragmatist I am finding it frustrating as we appear to have little common ground to debate on; for example we agree that there is no scientific data to base our thinking on, but that is all that is allowed as proof by our atheist friend.  When it comes to circumstantial evidence, for example the behaviour of Christians, then it is responded that this could come from another source (which of course it could).  The one argument that I don't think has been answered is that Christians behave in counter intuitive ways (see long quote below fold), but ways which when they are lived lead to life in all its fullness (John 10:10, GNB), but again subjective experience is not allowed.

Fowler's theory of Faith Development defines faith thus:

Think if you will, of faith as `universal’, as a feature of living, acting, and self-understanding of all human beings whether they claim to be `believers’ or religious or not (Fowler & Keen, 1985:17).

As teachers of the faith one of the things that we have to deal with is that there are people at all faith stages in our congregations, and things which may be helpful to those at one stage might well be harmful to those at another.  Somehow we have to find a way of speaking to all, of encouraging all, without frightening some away.  That is why I believe that clergy will say things in private that they will not say in public or on a blog - in private one to one conversation it is much easier to work with where that person is!

Whilst taking on board Fowler's comment:

that the stages should never be used for the nefarious comparison or the devaluing of persons (Fowler, 1987:80)

I do believe that those in the higher numbered stages are less likely to behave in ways which militant atheists object to.

The challenge to those of us of faith is perhaps how to move people through the faith journey, and perhaps as a real challenge how to evangelise directly into the later stages, for if the stages apply to whatever "faith" we have then it should in theory be possible to do this - although most programs, such as Alpha,  appear to introduce people to the early stages.

Twitter

I have been holding out for a while now, but yesterday finally signed up for Twitter.  revdalan is me if there are others of you out there who want to follow my jottings.

Already I have added Tweetdeck for my laptop and TinyTwitter for my phone - though without an unlimited data option I have left it on manual updating!

The question that I have is how will I manage the additional stream of information coming my way?  And I don't know the answer to that!   Yet.

The other question is how I will handle the visibility.  I try to control too much (even though I know I can't!) and I think Twitter will help me learn to deal with that.  After all, if I am broadcasting my thoughts to the world (as I suppose I do on this blog) I am letting go of control, and somehow with Twitter it seems more so than blogging - not sure why.

What experiences do others have in this space?

Do we all have a special gift?

A couple of days ago I met up with some old colleagues.  One of them mentioned that he had heard Clive Woodward saying that early in life you should find what you can excel at and nurture it.  None of us knew what our gift in this area was (and we are all of an age when too much time is spent talking about pensions J) and it set me wondering whether that something exists - and if it does what it might be.

This also takes us into the nature v nurture debate and that is also informed by Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers". In it he talks about how the vast majority of Ice Hockey players have birthdays in January, February and March - the reason for this being that if they start playing at a young age their greater development gives them and advantage which is magnified by the further opportunities that they get.  OK, so perhaps if your birthday is later in the year then Ice Hockey should not be your sport - but that to me questions whether you have a specific gift, or whether you have a number of aptitudes which can be developed in a number of different ways.

Perhaps I have misinterpreted Clive Woodward and what he was doing was to encourage everyone to find something which they enjoy and then to do it to the very best of their ability for its own sake - but sadly I doubt it.

Faith in God encourages us to see everyone (including ourselves) as loved by God for who we are and not what we do.  Our current society seems to be trying very hard to persuade us that this isn't true.

Ethical Companies

It is good to see companies being monitored for ethical behaviour.  However, as always there are question marks about what constitutes ethical behaviour.  Personally I see the treatment of employees as a major part of this and do not consider the "rank and yank" approach to appraisals as ethical.  I don't know whether they still use it but General Electric certainly used to and lo and behold they appear on the ethical companies list!

Shouldn't there be a threshold for this?  Good policies in one space shouldn't be able to outweigh bad ones in another.  After all they are the only company ranked in their sector.  Or is this a case of not being able to agree that "rank and yank" is bad?

What about Extra Curricular activities?

Is this person unfit to be a teacher because of this photo (with a caption saying "drunken pirate")?

I have blogged before about the perils of the net when it comes to employment.  But decided to have another go after seeing this article in the Guardian about someone arrested for a tweet, and someone else refused a teaching degree, they claim on the basis of a My Space entry.  I haven't fully read the judgement in this case, although comments on one of the sites covering it suggests that the issues were other than the photo.

What interests me about this are the range of views that exist in this area, for example the comments on this version of the story, from what you do off the job is no one elses business through to everything you do is part of the job (perhaps only for certain jobs).  It also touches on Red's question on differences of opinion.  Are there jobs where your behaviour off the job disqualifies you from carrying out the job?  I think the answer has to be yes - although with qualifications.  Nobody is perfect (I know this will come as a shock to some of you out there ;)) so the question becomes what imperfections do we focus on?  Red asked whether we would make a priest having an affair a Bishop - slightly tongue in cheek I would ask whether we would make a priest lending money a Bishop - after all the Bible says more about usury.  The same goes for other public roles, doctors, politicians and of course teachers.

I guess where I fall on this is that there are behaviours which would disqualify people from certain jobs, but having your photo taken as above isn't one of them.