The longest night of the year

i really liked this post from james hawes over at sunday papers.
it resonates strongly with me: being in tune with the natural rhythms of nature and adjusting our lifestyles accordingly.
as we draw to the end of the year, maybe its a time to reconsider how we approach the way we live in relation to the seasons of the year.
here are another few links i found that relate to it:
wikipedia
national geographic video
Winter Solstice Celebrations for Families and Households

tradition continued

one of our current, and fairly recently invented, traditions, is to go to the movies as a family on boxing day. it all began in 2002, when we went into the city on a whim, just to wander about, look at the city and its people, drink some coffee, and enjoy being together after christmas day. i don't even remember what the movie was that year, but the following ones are more memorable:

2003 - the lord of the rings: the two towers
2004 - the lord of the rings: the return of the king
2005 - the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe
2006 - the prestige.

and i think for me, its become a way of giving my family a present that we can all enjoy together, that exists for that moment but is always talked about later as being a good time together.

tradition in itself is not necessarily a bad thing.

what traditions do you have?

arise (hon) 'sir' bono

yep, its true. bono's being awarded an honourary knighthood for "his services to the music industry and for his humanitarian work".
you can read more on U2's website here, and the beeb's site here.
i think that's great, and i think its an honour for him - a great man.
i think 2 of his great quotes are:
"celebrity is currency, and i want to spend mine well"; and
"we can't do everything, but the things we can, we must".
congratulations to him.

podcasting queen

yep, its official: the queen will be podcasting her christmas message.
it will be available via itunes on christmas day at 3pm gmt.
you can subscribe to the podcast via the monarchy website here.
go queen....can't wait!

tagged

emily has tagged me, which means i need to share 5 things about me that you probably don't know.
this has started through roger von oech who tagged jonny baker and so its gone on.
happy to oblige....

1. i deferred a place at ballarat uni, where i was going to do a b.a. with the idea of becoming a journalist. i never did take the place at uni, as i found the surfing lifestyle far more agreeable than that of a student.
2. back in the 1960s, i played for geelong in the little league on the hallowed turf of the MCG during the half time game that entertained the crowd back in the day.
3. from 1994-99 i worked for john smith in australia, as a pastor in his church, and as part of the vfl (values for life) team.
4. my wife (who is right into genealogy) says that i have real convict blood in me that goes back to the days of sending convicts to australia.
5. its only been in the last 2 years that i've discovered the joy of cooking. i could never understand the idea of spending ages preparing food for it to be gone in 10 mins, and the net effect was the same as that of eating cheese on toast - the net effect being a full belly. my repertoire is not large, but it seems i'm not bad at what i do...

so now, i'm tagging kirbs, lewis, john davies, antony hanson, mark mossa s.j.

save paper at christmas

great tip from friends of the earth about saving paper:

It is estimated that over Christmas as much as 83 square km of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey! Use less by re-using gift wrap, or wrap gifts with unwanted posters, wallpaper, pages from glossy mags - or even spare pieces of fabric. Use string instead of tape, so that the paper can be re-used.

For more practical advice, competitions, quiz and discussion forums see:

www.foe.co.uk/living/

U2 "Window in the Skies"

check this fab vid of U2's new song.
and here are the lyrics, courtesy of @U2.

a song for advent

watch it through to the end.
this is the kind of stuff that stirs me.
this is the kind of stuff that is dangerous.
danger is involved when you want to change the world.
changing the world is at the heart of why jesus was born.
if you're into dangerous living, then check out the next soliton gathering here.
Lazyb - Underwear Goes Inside The Pants

support the cheerleaders!

below is a message i just got from the director of the ascension eagles cheerleaders. they need financial support in helping them to represent england in the 2007 world championships.

Dear AEC supporters,

I wanted to let you know that Ascension Eagles are appearing on the X-Factor Final this Saturday, 16th December. Very exciting!

Despite our success, we aren't raising the funds we'd hoped for -- 58 people texted CHEER in November and 23 have texted in December. Please can you help us circulate our appeal and get more people to support us?

Encourage people to visit this link, where they can see our performance from An Audience with Take That, and remind them to text their support!

Thank you for all you do!

Email your MP about the killer in the kitchen

here's something practical you can do this advent, as in your waiting for the return of the lord, his changing of your hearts leads to practical action in the way your behaviour affects others - particularly the poor and powerless (see luke 3:7-18)
follow the links that show the text of the early day motion, and which mps have already signed. if yours isn't there, then follow the next links to send them an email.
i've emailed my mp, neil gerrard today.

blogging set to peak in 2007

the bbc report here that the rise in blogging will end next year. there are 2 main reasons: those who have a predisposition to blog will have already started; and, others get bored with it and move on.
interesting to see this, as i've been wondering lately when blogging will become yesterday, and how long the rising phenomenon can continue.
i've gotten bored with it at times myself, as you can see from the archive list for the middle of the year.
and sometimes i wonder what the value of a blog is if its not generating discussion. i know that there are some folks who like what i write, and some who look in everyday would be disappointed if i stopped.
i wish i'd started it 5 years ago when jonny baker was telling me about it when he first started. i could've done some good stuff then about the community work and the garden cafe that i was heavily involved in.
the main reason for starting this year, was actually so that i didn't have to write an end of year newsletter as those i would send it to could keep up with what's going on throughout the year. but even that hasn't happened very well.
it's also been interesting to see how many others have put down their blogs over this year for all manner of reasons, including the time it takes (tho a real good bit of advice is that 'if it takes longer than 10 mins/day, then forget it'); boredom; and the subtle one of idolatry.
i'm still open-minded about whether its worth it as my readership is not large, and my mood can swing.
but for now.....

the sign of the sabbath

the rest of the seventh day is a memorial of creation, but also a sign of the covenant between god's people and himself. if a king were to ratify a treaty or agreement this would bear a sign, usually an image of the gods he owed allegiance to, but israel was commanded to not make any such image - instead the sabbath itself would be the sign, and a representation of his nature. only israel had a seven-day cycle of weeks.
we do not sense today how unique israel truly was, for the seven-day week has since become the practice of the world.

adapted from Jewish Roots, as printed in the Northumbria Community's Celtic Daily Prayer

all things coffee

thanks to si kirby for this tip about a new, ethical coffee distribution company, ethical addictions.
this looks like a great little fair trade company, who even give you a free sample of their coffee delivered to your door! and make sure you click on the little movie link to get a look at the the promo for the plantation in tanzania.

and a fabulous new type of coffee machine that i'd love to get, the presso (that's it in the picture). you can buy it here in the uk through culinaire.

there are quite a few good sites about coffee, like caffeist (coffee geekery), and grendel's green coffee blog (passionate about home roasting - this looks like the thing to try).

mmmmmmmm........coffeeeeeeee

world aids day

today is world aids day.
aids is highlighted on 1st december every year.
every year more people die - they don't have to.
in first world countries, becoming hiv positive is no longer the death sentence it was 20 years ago. but it still is in developing countries.
you can watch bono's message about it here.
you can also watch his address to the american presidential prayer breakfast earlier this year, here.
you can learn about the red campaign here.
you can check out info on africa here.
you can join the 'you me us' campaign here.

there's no end of stuff you can look at, just google 'world aids day'.
but will you translate your looking into action?

jesus saw those people others didn't want to see. he went out of his way to include the poor, the lepers, the unacceptable into the party of god's kingdom. he did something about what he saw. hiv/aids is like the leprosy of today. christians at leat, have a duty to follow their master's example.

small actions by lots of people create a mass effect. small actions with visible symbols attached, like a wearing a red ribbon, create a heightened awareness that opens the door for conversation about what the red ribbon is for.
small actions like writing to politicians about the inequity of developing world health care compared to our own, and the protected interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies in comparison to the unprotected needs of millions of hiv infected people in developing countries is the chance to put the power of democracy into action on behalf of those whose voices go unheard.

go on, do something today - you really can; perhaps you must.

muggings - cause, effect, and hope

excellent interview on bbc radio4's today programme this morning, that looks at the question of why young people go around mugging others. you can listen again here.
youthworkers, camila batmangelidgh of kids company, and shaun bailey bring a damning critique and indictment on our liberal democracy that has neglected the care and safety of our children so that they actually feel unsafe in the world. that feeling of being unsafe coupled with a lack of love and care, along with a relentless media-driven diet of violence places too many children literally into survival mode that means the only way they can see that they can be safe is to become known as dangerous.
of course, this sounds like more liberal wishy-washy excuse-making for bad behaviour, but i find myself saying more often these days, that delinquent parents and adults are making delinquent children.
we do well to remember that jesus welcomed children into his circle in such a way that shocked his culture, when he said, 'to such as these (children) belong the kingdom of god'. in other words, the 'status' of children is second to none in the eyes of the king of the universe. that also means that the responsibility for the love and care and nurture and discipline of these first-class citizens of god's kingdom lies with adults.
the critique of the youthworkers mentioned above is that adults are the cause of their own misery because they have failed in their responsibility to the children they have begotten.
this is a complex issue that will not suffer simplistic solutions. it will require nothing less than a cultural shift, probably taking a generation or more to flow through.
but its not hopeless. einstein said that it only takes 8% of any given population to change for the rest of the population to change with them.
people like camila and shaun need to play a louder and more prominent role in helping our society to understand what's going on and develop strategies at a political level that are more effective than what we currently have.
churches need to take heart and realise that they have an enormous part to play in this issue too, as they provide most of the country's youthworkers. organisations like frontier youth trust and oasis trust do great work in training youthworkers and contributing at a significant political level by engaging in prophetic dialogue with the makers of public policy. youthwork programmes like ascension eagles cheerleaders take a long term approach to working with young people and their wider community that actually effect a cultural shift at a micro level.
the downward spiral of violence and revenge is not the only way to be feel safe in our world. the dear man whose son was murdered by 2 young men for his mobile phone and travel card has chosen to look for a better way.
the season of advent leading to christmas reminds us that god did not, and has not given up on the human condition, flawed as it is. the decision of god to live among us as jesus of nazareth, taking responsibility for the children he created continues to inspire a real, living and transformational hope that the way life is, is not necessarily the way it needs to be, and that the human condition is actually redeemable.
there is hope yet, and there are those who live hope.

i'm rich!

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 319,576,092 richest person on earth!

i sometimes think it doesn't feel like i'm amongst the richest people in the world, but from a global perspective, i am. i've just got to think back to my kenyan trip for some perspective....

billy's values debate and bill(y) of rights

just finished reading billy bragg's book, 'the progressive patriot - a search for belonging'.
i enjoyed it, even though i've had sod-all of a history with billy bragg. i remember hearing him for the first time on the radio in the car in australia, circa 1997. i'd heard of him by reputation through friends, but never bought an album or followed his career.
i saw him for the first time 2 summers ago at greenbelt festival, in cheltenham. i think he was there for pretty much the whole festival, and shared podiums discussing globalisation etc with such luminaries as dame anita roddick. he also was the headlining act for the last night on the mainstage, and played a great night - just him and his guitar. i remember him commenting that he really liked greenbelt, as it was 'a festival that had real soul'.
anyway, his book seems well researched. i say 'seems', because i'm no great shakes on history, but what he writes seems to ring enough bells for me to ring true enough. his own family history is very important to him as he unwinds his thesis on what being british, and english, means today. the history ranges from pre-roman times when his own backyard was an impressive hill fort that was important for international trade, through the purpose and signing of magna carta, the industrial revolution, the early dockers strikes that led to the early unions, the 2 world wars, his own musical journey, right down to today's debates about values, and his own desire to see a formal bill of rights that he wants to see on the back of the (inevitable?) identity card.
and that's where he gets to really: wanting a debate on what he sees as the traditional british values of fairness, tolerance, and decency; along with a debate on this country producing its own bill of rights.
perhaps i'm naive, but as an outsider, born and raised in the one-time 'colony' of australia, yet someone whose own history is directly connected to the mills of yorkshire, and whose family fought at gallipoli, i think billy is onto something. he's wanting to more readily define what britain is 'for', as opposed to having about it a history and air of what it stands against. for newcomers to anything, let alone a new country in which to settle, surely its a helpful, nay, needful thing for the newcomers to have a clear understanding of what the new place stands 'for'.
in my post last month on 'beneath the veil', is a link to a doco in which a muslim woman experiments in wearing a veil, as she doesn't normally do so. at the end of the doco she makes a marked plea to, 'not tell us what you're against, but please, tell us want you want us to be part of.'
we're finding out about this stuff in microcosm in our church in our current process of redefining our purpose, values, and vision.
here's a brief view of how we're going about it:
part 1: your purpose. this is about what you are for.
part 2: your values. this is about what you are like.
part 3: your vision: this is about what you do.
its a bit like a cake really:
the purpose of a cake is to be eaten and enjoyed. there’s nothing outstanding about that, as its probably true for all cakes.
the values of the cake are about its ingredients. the ingredients give the flavour and texture. highly important.
the vision of the cake is what the cake actually turns out like. (remember that metaphors have limited use...)
your purpose and values will determine your vision. what you are for, and what you are like will be worked out in a concrete context.
for example, if your group and my group had exactly the same purpose and values (and its quite possible for that to be true), but we were in different parts of the country with radically different contexts, then the ways in which our purpose and values are expressed in concrete terms would be very different because of the differences in context. but people who encounter us in our different contexts would encounter a deep and noticeable similarity in what we say we're for (purpose) and what that feels like (values) to be part of, even though the way that's worked out in concrete life will necessarily be different because of the different contexts.
it seems to me, that a real problem with the idea of debating 'values', is that for a country like this with such a long-established history, the inhabitants with a long historical connection with the country think that the established values are 'obvious'. but the problem is, that for newcomers, those values are not obvious because they're not actually written down and its very hard to get a consensus on exactly what they are.
you could say something similar about the way churches operate too.
anyway, there's another review of billy's book here by john davies, someone more erudite and intelligent than me.
but whatever you think of what i've written here, i reckon billy bragg's book is well worth a read, and offers something of substance, and a realistic suggestion for taking the current public debate on being british and english, forward.

blog behaviour and the creation of moral virtual communities (original)

doug pagitt has expressed his discontent with blog behaviour, and maggi dawn has also picked up on it. ben witherington, also in the usa, has some good thoughts on the subject.

the prospect of bad behaviour was one of the main reasons i didn't take up blogging when jonny baker started - i still remember the conversation with him outside a coffee shop in london. the virtual community is quite different in culture to what we normally experience in the flesh and blood.

there is a theological challenge for the church to engage with virtual culture, and the incarnation brings a good critique. below is something i wrote a few years ago when at college that i offer to put into the pot:

Virtual culture, virtual community, virtual humans: ergo, virtual God?
Is it possible to have a virtual society with virtual humans who create a virtual culture? Almost ten years ago, a thesis was produced by Tim North, which looked at these issues in the wider context of an anthropological study of the Internet and its users. Underlying his thesis was the primary research question of whether the users of the Internet and Usenet global computer networks form a society that has a distinct culture of its own. After discussing whether it is possible for a society to have more than one culture, North concludes that, ‘It seems reasonable…to assume that the members of a particular society all share the same culture.’ However, he goes on to argue that the nature of the Internet is such that it spans the globe, and that if it were to conform to the classical anthropological understandings of society and culture then its users would need to be from the one society. This obviously cannot be the case, and so he resolves the issue by creating a new term for the Internet’s societal structure, which he calls the pan-societal superstructure. So, a new way of thinking about society is created with the Internet. This pan-societal superstructure frees the Internet from some of the responsibilities of ordinary society such as providing food and shelter for its inhabitants, because its members are also members of societies that already provide those things.

This new way of thinking about society, virtual community and culture, (which sounds like an oxymoron) has nevertheless been taken seriously by the private sector as it engages with globalisation. For example, Sandia, a major research and development agency in USA is doing work in conjunction with BT in this country in developing virtual culture in cyberspace so that Internet communication becomes more like a ‘real’ place. One of Sandia’s developers, Elaine Raybourn says, ‘Designers of collaborative virtual communities now have the opportunity and responsibility to consider the impact of the underlying dynamics of culture and intercultural interactions such as identity, negotiation, conflict, power, equity, and trust on virtual spaces and collaborative communities.’

Some of the work they are doing incorporates the use of ‘avatars’ – human-shaped figures that can be generically representative, or fairly sophisticated 3D representations of an individual which include skin texture, hair and eye colour, all faithfully reproduced on the screen. Raybourn says, ‘The avatar is you in cyberspace… your avatar might ‘walk’ on the computer screen and ‘sit down’ at a table with others in virtual meeting space. It’s your persona on the Internet.’ Essentially, it’s a more sophisticated form of a ‘chat room’.

So, to some extent, a virtual human exists in cyberspace. But what effect does cyberspace have on valuing a human being? And where does cyberspace’s valuing of human beings lead in the discussion about humanity’s relationship to, and valuing by, God?

We do not live alone as individuals in the Universe. Historically, we are creatures of community. The social sciences are in general agreement that we are products of the shaping of our communities, and that we in turn shape others who encounter us. So if a person’s community is predominantly virtual (e.g. being an only child of absentee parents, who is brought up with massive TV and computer input, lacking in social skills, who is home-tutored for schooling, who gets a job as a computer operator working from home), will that person’s self-image correspond to a virtual self-image, and only be able to conceive of a virtual God?

Embodying the Trinity in the Incarnation
From a Christian perspective, it seems quite weird to think of humanity being able to be valued if it is ‘disembodied’ in cyberspace. There is no biblical understanding of humans existing without being body and soul. The apostle Paul also sees no separation of being, either physical or spiritual, as he talks about the body being the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19-20). At an essence level, we cannot be who or what we are not. Later in that letter, he speaks of the resurrection of Christ, the dead, and our resurrection bodies. Paul insists that what will be for us will be as it was for Christ: transformed bodies for a transformed existence. But the reality of that eschatological transformation is not reserved for that ‘pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die’ sense, rather, it provides the Christian with a hope that must also be grounded and lived out in the real world in the present (1 Cor 15:58).

Of course, Paul’s context was very different to our current context from a technological perspective. But does that necessarily mean the hermeneutic for valuing human beings will need to be wildly different? In the words of that great old song, ‘…it ain’t necessarily so’.

One of the basic tenets of social Trinitarianism is that human beings are only fully human in their imaging of God when they are in living relationship with one another. Their individuality is only ever fully realised as they encounter the ‘other’. This is because God is a ‘community’ of three persons who are fully individual only in their relationship with one another. This ‘relationality’ has been a great insight from post-modernity about identity formation, and the nature of the Trinity. So perhaps the hermeneutical critique of relationality needs to be brought to the new context of cyberspace.

So, let us try to put these thoughts together. God is love in the fellowship of the Trinity. The Trinity is something we cannot see (and so could be loosely argued that it itself is in some kind of analogy to cyberspace). If the Trinity is something we think of as being encounter-able when we die and are resurrected, but we also bring Paul’s critique of the eschatological transformation of our bodies which means something very real to us in the present, then we cannot escape the obvious implication of the invisible (disembodied?) God taking physical human form in the Incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth. So if the Ultimate Reality of the God of the Universe finds it necessary to show Ultimate Love and Value to humanity and the rest of creation in physical human form, then anything less is also bound to be something less than fully human, and subject to being treated in ways that are less than how we have been treated by the Trinitarian, Incarnational love of God.

Cyberspace needs the critique of the Trinity and the Incarnation if it is to be a place where humanity can be truly valued as we enter the new world before us.

As humanity finds itself in a shifting, transforming context through post-modernity and has to learn to live with itself and the world in new ways, it seems to me that the valuing of humanity is not something to be done in abstraction, or any disconnection from real flesh and blood interaction.

I think there are many implications that will need to be grasped and interacted with by the Church if it is to meaningfully engage with the rapidly changing context of western civilisation. Some of these implications could be:

1.If missiological anthropologists tell us that God speaks to us in ways we can understand, then how does God speak into a virtual world inhabited by virtual humans who are participating in life in hitherto unknown ways?
2. How do we create moral virtual communities?
3. How will the Church be a foretaste of the new humanity in relationship with God as expressed in cyberspace?
4. How will eschatology and incarnation need to be addressed in cyberspace?
5. If only a small, but very powerful minority of the world have access to this form of virtual reality, will that minority exercise its power over the rest of humanity by insisting that virtual reality has precedence over normal reality?
6. How will the various humanities express their love to each other, and how will they value one another’s humanity?

The Church must take up the issue in this new millennium.

Tags: blog, virtual morality, incarnation, trinity, behaviour