Saying Goodbye to Little Grandma (1918 - 2008)

This is the short talk I gave at my Grandma's funeral on Friday. Well roughly anyway - this is what I intended to say, and managed most of!

______

Today, like many of you I am experiencing the perplexing collision of grief and gratitude. There is today a real sense of grief, in her passing, her no longer being here – her absence. Alongside that however there is also a huge sense of gratitude. Gratitude for having known her, her love, care, interest, encouragement and example! I am also aware that many people do not get to enjoy a grandparent for 37 years as I have (35 years for my sister!)

We are also very grateful to all of you who have come here today, for being here and sharing this important and significant occasion with us. If you had told my Grandma a year ago, how many people would come and remember her today – she just would not have believed you! If she had known how far some of you have come to be here she would have said, “you shouldn't have!”. And then she would have spent the rest of the day worrying about you getting home!


My sister and I have spent a lot of time on the phone this week, sharing memories of our Grandma. There are so many happy memories, stretching back so far. As we talked, memory after memory – too many to mention came back to us. The 1st draft of this was about an hour long!

The first thing we remembered was all the places that we explored with Grandma – and with our Grandpa when he was alive too. Penton Hook islands in the Thames, Windsor Great Park, The Copper Horse, Virginia Water, Saville Gardens, Winkworth Arboretum, Bushy Park, Woodland Gardens, St Anne’s Hill, Chertsey Lock, Laleham, Windsor Castle on the train, or on the boat from Staines! And these are just a few of the places she took us, and we explored together.

The next way we thought of Grandma was at home, initially in Parkland Grove with my Grandpa, subsequently in Chaucer Road with George. Grandma’s house in Parkland Grove was where we went for exciting sleepovers as young children, and where we went when we were off sick from school – and were looked after!

Grandma’s House was always a place of welcome. A place where we were always wanted. She was always pleased to see us – it never seemed to be an inconvenient time! And I know that this was not just something reserved for her grandchildren – because I met so many of you there too, and so many people have spoken about her always open welcoming door.

There was only one person I have ever come across who was unwelcome in her house. My sister was there with Grandma one Tuesday, George had gone out to do the shopping – when an aggressive drunken man staggered in through the front door and began shouting in the house. Facing him my sister froze, not knowing what to do. Grandma however – by this stage in her 80s, marched past her, grabbed the bloke and frogmarched him out of the door! Amazed, my sister said, “how did you do that?!” and was met with dismissive “we fought a war you know!” look from Grandma!

Significantly though – and this was Grandma, once outside and not threatening her she spoke to him, established that he was looking for directions and helped him and explained where to go!

As we talked more and more about memories of Grandma, we realised that in so many of our memories Grandma was laughing! Either smiling, chuckling or really laughing, and that fills so many of our memories – and we have seen her laugh until tears rolled down her face!

Now, every family has its different traditions! In our family, one of our most hallowed traditions was teasing Grandma – fairly remorselessly and unmercifully! Something, I hasten to say, she loved, played up to and positively encouraged. And I can still picture her face, laughing until it hurt, her face getting redder, and tears rolling down it!

On one occasion, not that long after my Grandpa had died, Grandma decided to experiment with what was intended to be a subtle, delicate, purple rinse in her hair! In fact it turned out to be rather more….., well OK – it was shocking purple! My sister and I lost sight of her somewhere at Virginia Water and went around asking people if they had seen an old lady with purple hair! When this proved to be a successful way to locate her, we never let her forget her flirtation with punk fashion!

We also loved to wind Grandma up! When my (now) wife started to visit during the University holidays, Grandma (desperate to know all the details!) would come up and say, “is she a special friend?”. I would reply, “Grandma, all my friends are special!” Simply to frustrate her insatiable curiosity!

Over so many years, we had so much fun with our little Grandma! We were so well look after! She cared for us. She worried about us. She prayed for us
She encouraged us.

But I do not want this afternoon just to think about incidents that happened and what she did. I would also like to remember some of her qualities. I would like to mention three things that her life and example have taught me:

The first is this: People matter more than things!
A cynical critic of modern life said: “We used to use things and love people, but today we love things and use people” Not my Grandma! She loved people! Valued people! She loved you – and you knew it when you visited her! Maybe because she knew what it was like to be genuinely poor as we heard in her biography which was read earlier. But what drove her life – what informed the daily choices she made - was not the accumulation of goods, but caring for and serving other people.

The second thing is this: The nature of True Beauty
We live in an age in which are bombarded with messages from the world- most obviously in advertising. The message that is thrust upon us is this, that beauty, attractiveness and value are outward things which come though opulent living, conspicuous consumption, outward adornment, and an obsession with appearance. My Grandma didn’t epitomise any of those outward things – or strive after them. Yet countless people were drawn to her. She had a warmth, a radiance, a genuine beauty that drew people to her!

Her life demonstrates what the Bible indicates – that true beauty isn’t external and communicated through outward things. True beauty comes from communing with God and is communicated through character!

For her, the desire to be more Christlike was not merely an ‘article of faith’ - but a reason for living!! And you will simply never understand my Grandma unless you have grasped that!

The third thing is this: What it means to be truly Great
When the history books are written of the last century I doubt my Grandma’s name will be mentioned! Instead it will be full of the names and deeds of Kings, Prime Ministers, Generals and Millionaires. But I believe that at the end of all things when GOD weighs the world in the balances of His values. True Greatness – will be seen not to have been held by those who wielded great earthly power. But by those, like my Grandma, who were faithful, humble, ordinary servants of Christ! People whose lives were shaped by Him - whose characters were moulded by Him! People like my Grandma – who never sought attention, never pushed herself forward, never issued clever put-downs or diminished others for her own gain. People whose greatest joy was quietly serving Christ – and others. This will be revealed as the meaning of true greatness. I think its what Jesus meant when he said, “The first will be last and the last will be first”!

Finally, she was a wonderful Grandma, and a wonderful example! We could not have asked for a better Grandma! Hence the collision of grief and gratitude we feel today - because of the love we have received, the fun we have had, and the example we have been set!

The hurting were drawn to her and she always offered genuine love and concern. The doubting and the lost came to her and she pointed them to Christ (and several found Him). She offered genuine love without patronising. She shared Christ humbly and openly but never forcefully.

In so doing she exemplified everything to which I aspire.

_______

Goodbye Little Grandma

Rest in Peace

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror;

then we shall see face to face.

Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,

even as I am fully known.

Pouring Money Down the Drain?

Traditionally, charities have been exempt from paying water/sewerage charges. Providing water for everything from homeless shelters to churches was seen as the very least the state could do, without burdening them with a tax to pay for it. In Scotland, at least, all that could soon change with the government's plans to axe this charitable exemption in their current review of water charging.

The government's handling of the charitable sector over the last decade has been a mixed bag. On one hand the gift-aid scheme has continued to channel a large amount of cash out of government coffers and into charitable works; on the other hand the gradual shift in emphasis from direct to 'stealth' taxes has meant that an ever reducing proportion of the overall tax burden is eligible for such benefits.

If the charitable exemption from water charging is axed as proposed, it will amount to an extra tax being imposed upon some of the most valuable work being done in our communities. In Scotland it is a de facto tax, because Scottish Water remains state owned. It is certainly the case that as we enter a probable recession, the government's revenues from business profits will tumble, their borrowing increase and they will need to claw-back expenditure from every conceivable source. The fact remains however that we still pursue foreign policy initiatives which in their scale have failed to notice our decline from being a major world player with an Empire, to being a minor European state. The UK bill in Iraq has now topped £7bn, but apparently we cannot pipe water to the CATH centre for the homeless in Perth, without taxing them.

If the general principles of this proposal seem all wrong, the details look worse. Whichever well-meaning bureaucrat was charged with the task of establishing principles for charging water rates has decided that the most equitable way of banding the properties is by 'roof area'. This bizarre and entirely arbitrary idea no doubt looks terrific when viewed from the perspective of ...... well anywhere except the real world. In practice it could mean that a large church building could be put into a very high billing-band, not because hundreds of church-members go there to bath, wash their clothes, run their dishwashers or run micro-breweries or other such water-guzzling activities, but simply because their beautiful old church has a lot of roof tiles.

If, like me, you think that the government should be recognising the value of the charitable sector and not imposing such burdens upon it, read on! There is a petition being presented to the Scottish Government, requesting that the charitable exemption from water charges be maintained. If you agree with me and wish to sign it, you can do so here. If you disagree, tell me why!

Book Notes: Pies and Prejudice by Stuart Maconie

Having extolled the virtues of a good bog-book, here's one that has amused me of late! Contrary to the expected stereotype, Maconie is a DJ who is literate, and these are his musings as he revisits his homeland "The North of England". Maconie is a proud Northerner, who despises the South and all it stands for, but one who parodies himself and admits that he lives in London and enjoys much of the southern-ness he so deprecates! The North though, is his home, and his anecdotes, observations (both present and historical) are often funny, sometimes alarming, occasionally a little crude - but all told in his trademark laconic style, and often with compelling use of language.

His travels take him through Lancashire towns (Mills and Bhuna!); to seedy Blackpool, "that great lurid behemoth of tat"; to Bury where they can't screen for colon cancer because the locals eat so much blood-laden black pudding that they show up thousands of false positives; to Liverpool whose "Beatles heritage industry.. is as sentimental and savvy as only Liverpool can be". What's lovely is that Maconie writes not like a Boris Johnson who comes from outside to mock, but writes as a local who both adores his home and finds it funny. And his book takes him on through the North-East, through cities, across mountains and moors. Hugely enjoyable light reading - this is a bog book!



Then on Sunday, I was approached by a grinning Everton fan, and so was immediately suspicious. His opening words were, "I've been reading your blog". Many an inauspicious conversation has commenced thus! So my heart sank, and I begun to mentally recall everything posted over the last few months - trying to work out who I might have offended this time! However - as I wound down the car window to speak to him, he handed me this:


Apparently short-snippets of light reading designed for those few quiet moments a day, come ready packaged. Cheers!

More Pod Fuel!

I posted recently on a number of good things available as podcasts these days and how much I was enjoying several of them, here. Recent weeks has led to the addition of a number of useful subscriptions (all free I might add!). In what is listed I have added direct links to the provider - but all of these listed as podcasts can be found directly through iTunes too.

The BBC has the usually excellent, "From Our Own Correspondent" now available, this week featuring more from Iraq - on the quality of daily life being experienced by ordinary Baghdadi's.

Great Speeches in History, is an excellent little podcast which raids the sound archives every fortnight to add a, sometimes crackly recording, of a momentous speech. Recently they have made available the iconic "I have a dream" from Martin Luther King Jr, Churchill's first public broadcast as Prime Minister, vowing to resist Nazi oppression as German tanks roll across an as yet still resisting France, and the speech at the UN inaugurating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All fascinating stuff.

Endlessly Restless drew my attention to one of the Sunday sermons given at HTB in London (the place my wife and I attended The Marriage Course training) - and there's been some things of interest there.

The BBC is now podcasting not only news bulletins,but also local and regional news bulletins too. Tayside and Central has its own regular five minute news summary, and BBC Radio Scotland has its outdoors programme Scotland Outdoors up there too.

Not on the podcast front, but free audio downloads, Tim Keller in New York has a new series of talks outlining his approach to Christian Apologetics, which are the basis of his new book, "Reason for God". These are a thoughtful and considered discussion of Christian orthodoxy, and why he finds it coherent - in the light of the cultural questions posed by post modernity. The download page is here.

How Advertising Actually Works

Raining Cats and Hats

So all we could do was to
Sit!

...............Sit!

............................Sit!

........................................Sit!
And we did not like it.
Not one little bit.

Bog Book

Everyone should have a bog-book.

In common with all other humans, there are a few quiet moments every day which I spend hidden away, allowing my body to dispose of its waste (an entirely natural process, neither a passing fad, nor injurious to health). I have discovered that these need not be wasted minutes, but in fact can become time well spent, if one has been careful in selecting a suitable bog book, and left it within reach.

There are certain requirements that a good bog book must possess however. It must be the sort of easy reading that is easy to pick up and put down, to be appreciated in small amounts, and not requiring much continuity of thought. It cannot be too intellectually demanding, or concentration sapping, but works better if it is lighthearted, and well written. Maps work well, as do humorous poems, books with very short chapters, and some travel writing; novels and academic books on the other hand are disastrous bog books and should be left in the study.

So my advice for the day, my top-tip is this. Get yourself a bog book, a toilet-tome, a cludgie-companion. The smallest room in the house, need be the dullest, no more!

Planners

"You'll never squeeze another house in there!"

-"Just watch us!"

You couldn't make it up..

The headline of the day is that there is industrial action looming, and a walkout planned at...... ACAS!

(incidentally, why is there only one Competition Commission?)

Anyone fancy a hillwalk or two?

A cold, grimy day on 'The Buachaille'

The walking and outdoor programme has just been announced for the year - and it looks good, with a mixture of Munro's and high-level walks for the sad-Munro-baggers amongst us, some easier low level walks, and a couple of days suitable for families too.

19 April Ben Vrackie
10 May Glen Coe (part of West Highland Way)
31 May Isle of May
21 June Bynack More, Cairngorms
26 July Sgor Gaoith and Mullach Clach a’Bhlair, Glen Feshie
23 August Beinn a’Chlachair, Geal Charn and Creag Pitridh, (nr Laggan)
30 August Millport, Cumbrae (cycle trip during C/W festival)
13 September Drymen to Balhaha, over Connick Hill (West Highland Way)
25 October Fife coastal (Part IV)

Walks usually leave from the car-park at Perth Baptist Church, and we share cars as much as possible. Times vary according to the distance to travel and the severity of the walk. These are not instructor-lead walks, and everyone going assumes responsibility for their own equipment, safety and navigation. However it is more fun to climb the hills together than all going off and doing different hills on the same day! Anyone is welcome to tag along with the eclectic characters who usually amass for such occasions!

Home

Where the longing to be, collides with the work to be done.

Where the joy and the mess, mingle shamelessly together.

Where wounds are both most sorely made, and most deeply healed.

Home.

Slap the architect

I spotted this yesterday, and thought I had come accross a scandalous cutting-of-corners by a builder who couldn't be bothered putting ends on the rhones and running two down-pipes; but instead thought that no-one would notice if he just ran it right accross in front of a window!

Until I noticed the following, and saw lots of windows in the same condition.

It's not a mess, or shoddy workmanship, it's a feature, oooooh! I had what might be called a "slap that architect" moment.

An image for today: Forgiveness

That which is divided can yet grow as one

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Hoaking through the kitsch

The In-laws are having a clear out, which means we have been the happy recipients of several boxes of suspect material from the bedroom my wife occuppied before she left home. Some of what emerged from the foostie smelling banana boxes was delightful. For instance we found loads of my wife's school work from when she was quite young, through to A-level physics and the like. Some of what we found was quite twee, happy debris left over from the array of trinketry that marked the course of one little girl's childhood. Hugely enjoyable to rake through all this, and try and imagine what my wife must have been like at various stages of her life - so many years before we met.

Other things which emerged from the innards of the boxes however, was far more sinister - like the giant Charles and Di wedding album pictured. Before I get all smug and superior and say that when the 'dreadful duo' got married I was somewhat disinterested and went outside and played in a huge sandpit on the farm in Cornwall where we were on holiday at the time - it would be fair to point out that when it happened my future-wife was a very young girl, and that the princess fantasy seemes to be peculiarly de rigeour for small females! Also, she had the privilege of growing up in the loyalist half of Northern Ireland - which has the reputation for being the last bastion of Royalist paraphenalia left in the UK (although this too is fading fast and is technically known as the peace-dividend). On the other hand, I was young enough to think that the Royal wedding was tedious in the extreme - and that was before it got worse and he kissed her - YUK!

Nevertheless, whilst at the time such an album would have disinterested me - in retrospect to hold such a priceless example of kitsch is a remarkable thing! To read all the puke-rendering text about marriages made in heaven and the like, is very black comedy indeed. Who would have thought that only a few years later the re-run of the Trial of Queen Caroline would have been conducted in the courts of the tabloids! What is equally remarkable is that it is ten years since Diana's death, well as Mohammaed Al Fayed would presumably say, Tempus Fuggit!

We're only a little way into the boxes - I can't wait to see what horrors or delights this family time-capsule will reveal next!

Book Note: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson and The Penguin Book of first World War Poetry

I was somewhat surprised to find myself reading this one, as it is distinctly not the sort of thing I usually read! The circumstances themselves were unusual, we were away from home for a couple of days, and I didn't take enough reading material with me, finished what I had brought and my wife handed me this, which she had bought and suggested that it might fill the gap.

The story is set in the 1960s and concerns a young couple of newlyweds, Edward and Florence, as they embark on their honeymoon.

Simply and straightforwardly written, McEwan tells the story of one night at a hotel on Chesil beach, their wedding night, in which all the naive pair's sexual hopes, fears, scars and expectations, all collide in the absence of communication - with consequences which shape their lives. The book ranges accross their past histories and what has brought each of them to this scene, and pans forward through time to explore its consequences.

Tragic, painful, erotic, troubling and revealing, the story is gently explored with facts emerging, and hidden secrets being alluded to - so that the whole picture only slowly appears. The tragic and the hopeful are nicely intertwined throughout the book, as it provides the reader both with the narrative and the thoughts of both participants - as they fail to understand each other. Far from leaving the reader in despair at the fate of the imaginaries however, I thought that it provoked a longing for communication and knowing - with a compelling relevance in the real world. An oddly hopeful gloom!

Now here's a strange one! Tove Jansson's "Summer Book" is the recipient of rave reviews, which proclaim it as a short story, which is a great work of insight and philosophy, humour and brilliant characterisation.

Well - it was enjoyable, atmospheric in spades, quirky in almost every way and an overdose of whimsy in creating the mood and sense of place on the remote Finnish island communities in which it is set (all of which are comendable).

Why is it that every Scandanavian book I have every read is concerned with death? Very long dark winters may have somthing to do with it!

Beyond these amusing atributes the book didn't do a huge amount for me. I found it hard to connect with in many ways, and although it kept my attention to the end, and has left a mark in my mind with some of the memorable scenes described, by the end I was a little dissapointed. Perhaps though this wasn't the fault of the book. If I had stumbled accross it in an ordinary jacket and opened it, I might have been intrugued and drawn in. The fact that the reviews I had read were so adulatory perhaps raised my expectations to an unrealistic level which could only lead to dissapointment!

And so back here again to a book which has been read and re-read over the years. The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry is something which never fails to engage my mind, move me deeply and make me profoundly depressed all day! I found last week when my wife and I were selcting our favourite poems from various sources, I was quite unable to read some of these out loud.

The horror of the trenches was not captured best in early films, photos or by war correspondants, but by the diaries and poems of the volunteers whose lives were the ammunition that the rival European empires threw at each other between 1914-18. This little compemdium captures a good cross section from a whole range of authors including famous works by writers such as Wilfred Owen. For some reason, I think it is Seigfried Sasoon's poems which I find most revealing, and which bring their experiences home to me with the most peculiar force. I think it is the combination of his heartfelt and expressive turn-of-phrase, and the way in which he picks out specific details of the individual dead, capturing the sense of loss more acutely than some of the grander poems which seek to capture the senselessness of the whole. He picks out odd details of their lives, or clothes, pictures wives and mothers waiting and home, or the strange rituals written out in final letters from the front. Sassoons' diaries and post-war reflections are also well worth a read.

Reading selections from this book actually makes me look at the country differently. Young men from farms, villages, and from this town all crowded into trains which left Perth for army training camps and the front. Every town and village has its war memorials, like the charming one overlooking the river at Tayport. The railway station has a sombre brass plaque, which lists the men of Perth General Station who were killed in France and never came back to this town, while old pictures of Perth often feature the "Patriotic Barrow"; a mobile recruiting station, which drummed up support for the war effort and persuaded men to sign up. I read these poems and am drawn into their world, then look at my house built in 1910 and wonder who lived here; if they went to France, if they returned, or if they still lie in Flanders, Ypres, Paschendale or The Somme.

Basra? Helmand? How many more poems are there to be written now?

Ultimately it's an act of worship...

We are once again in the middle of hosting "The Marriage Course", this time with a completely different group of people - and once again its been really enjoyable, meeting them, feeding them, and organising the course.

In this context I was asked to read "Married for God" by Christopher Ash because it is written partly as a crticism of The Marriage Course from a very theologically conservative position. Essentially the criticism is that 'The Marriage Course' is far too geared towards empowering couples to successfully steer their lives together; rather than being prescriptive about how they should live. As such Ash charges The Marriage Course with being less-than-Christian in its failure to critique consumerism, but using the Christian tradition as a facilitator for making happy marriages another lifestyle asset to consume.

Ash is both right and wrong in what he writes. Aside from the fact that he writes in a sometimes awkward and grating style, and with more than a hint of patronising his reader, and some decidedly minority interpretations of some key Biblical texts, Ash does make one especially telling point. The Marriage Course, with its practical treatment of matters such as 'communication', or 'conflict resolution' assumes that these are good things to achieve without exploring the motivation for doing so. This is in part because The Marriage Course is also designed to be accessible to people who are not committed Christians, but want to explore the practical benefits of the course and are willing to listen to this being done from a broadly Christian persective. Ash's insight then is that for the Christian, working at the practicalites of successful marriage are ultimately a matter of worship.

If Ash had thought that by reading his book I would have become less enthusiastic about The Marriage Course - he would be quite wrong however. If one shares his underlying perspective about life's motivation being worship; and that this is something not contained within church services, but which saturates all of life; then persuing the practicalities of "forgiveness" etc as seen on The Marriage Course, become not disposable lifestyle options - but urgent matters of discipleship! Some of what Ash writes may be questionable, but this key insight, makes me all the more eager to host The Marriage Course this evening, and not merely as a pleasant, enjoyable or even worthwhile thing to do. Ultimately, it's an act of worship.

Gentle Spirit

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me..... and to celebrate it I have just been presented with this, a bottle of Jura malt whisky, by the Hon Mr and Mrs Percy Cowpat (no less). This 'gift of the spirit' is not one I've tried before, and it's always a pleasure to open a new bottle, pour just a smidgeon into a quaich and then inhale deeply through the nose over it, to get a delicious foretaste into what lies ahead.

In this case I was surprised by what I smelt. The other island whiskies I have tasted contain a hefty snort of peat and smoke to the nose, whether it's the clean, flavoursome Bowmore, the perfectly balanced caramel complexity of Bruichladdich, full-on assault of Lagavulin or the spices of Talisker that is evapourating towards the nostrils! Jura, though smelled light, delicate, more like honey than caramel, and almost entirely devoid of the dragon-qualities of some of its nearby Islay neighbours. I was intrigued.

On the palate Jura turned out to be exactly as its odour had indicated, light, delicate, almost heathery more than peaty, and tasting quite similar I thought to Dalwhinnie, that other gentle Highland spirit. The other notable absence from the taste was the sea. Other west-coasters, like the Islays or Oban are given an edge to their taste-profile with a whiff of sea salt which has been absorbed by the barrels. In its place in the Jura I tasted a softness from the (presumably sherry?) casks akin to the standard-finish Glenmorangies.

What do I make of it? Well to my very amateur taste buds, this is a rather pleasant whisky which makes a delightfully quaffable pre-dinner drink, as it sparkles and delights the drinker with its clean, delicate, sweetness; rather than beguiling the taste-buds with challenges and complexities. A mouthfull of Bruichladdich I can play with for ages, feeling and finding different ranges of tastes and textures within it the longer I do so, Jura by contrast I am tempted to drink too fast, as it slips down all too easily.

The other thing to note is that despite the overall look being damaged by a ghastly customs and exise sticker, the thick bottle (shaped like a Victorian ceramic hot-water-bottle) is gorgeous! In recent months I have been the happy recpient of a bottle of Talisker (Skye), Aberlour (Speyside) and now this Jura. These three brilliantly contrasting malts will happily perptuate my Sunday-night-dram tradition for most of 2008 I think!

One from the archives...

The "Horns of Alligin" from the summit of Beinn Alligin. I was sorting out old photos taken from before I had this blog and stumbled accross this, one of my favourites. It's unusual to see the Horns so well defined, and I was grateful that the sun was on it, and the mountain behind it was in the shade (to see it properly, click to enlarge). It is also a reminder of a wonderful day in wonderful hills in wonderful weather, with the legendary Percy Cowpat - whose presence in Scotland has been sadly lacking over recent years, and whose walking boots I would love to see coming out of their semi-retirement.

Psalm 42 Re-Hashed

As the heat of the coarse desert sand
Burns the soles of my feet
I cannot stand still for long.
As the burning arid desert air
Cracks my parched lips,
the throbbing of my head
and the stinging in my eyes
drives me forward.
I will not stop until I am
renewed by moisture.
Until clean, fresh, beautiful water
Fills my mouth, splashes on my chin
And runs between my fingers again.

And Lord, I long to long for you
with the longing that strives,
and aches and perseveres.
With the longing that cannot
be satisfied in desert wastes,
but searches night and day
for the breath of life.
That longs for the intrusion
Of the divine
Into the mundane.

So let me long for you O God,
And let my longing not be
Shallow, or passing,
But a longing that is genuine
-and long.....

Overcome my reluctant feet who
seek comfort and not you.
Soften my unresponsive heart
enable it to delight in greater things.

I cannot long - so to be filled
until I taste your presence.
Yet I cannot taste,
Until I have learned to long for you
before, above and beyond all things.

In your mercy, grant to this dry soul,
just one drop of the moisture
of your nearness.
Enough to make me long
for nothing else but this;
Communion with the
Three-in-One and One-in-Three

Natural Beauty

The visit of the family (Northern Ireland branch) was a good excuse to go exploring and enjoy some of the countryside we have the privilege to live so close to. Both families managed to prise their young boys away from assorted electronic gadgets and get them in the car for the drive to Aberfeldy, which was wonderful in itself, alongside the Tay, tumbling and glistening in the bright, crisp winter sunshine. Then we had a walk around the Birks of Aberfeldy - which is stunning, enchanting and delightful. The girls managed to walk most of the way without pleading for piggy-backs, and we occasionally managed to persuade the boys that stopping to appreciate this natural beauty is as important as rushing home to finish the game of Fifa '08 on the playstation!

Then on from there to inspect the Fortingall Yew billed as "Europe, and possibly the world's oldest living thing" - as a brief stop-off before standing in awe at graceful symmetry and sweeping curves of Schiehallion, first from Schiehallion Road, then Kinloch Rannoch and then finally from the celebrated Queen's View by Loch Tummel. Enthusiasm from some members of the group waned with each stop, and numbers getting out of the car had dropped from 8 at Aberfeldy to a mere 5 by our last stop.

Above, for those who missed it then, is the Queen's View, a mere 150m from where you sat!

Other pix from the day are lurking here:

Forgiveness Seminar

I'm looking forward to this event coming up in Perth soon, and hoping that I'll be able to get (or at least get a copy of the recording if not). It promises to be stirring, troubling, uplifting and challenging -on a number of levels.

The Christian teaching on forgiveness is stretching enough when applied to the petty disputes and irritations of my life, and there have been times when frankly I have just not wanted to be reconciled to the other, nor wanted to offer forgiveness. Yet - being able to do so is life-giving, right, God-honouring and unburdening. What intrigues me is what this seminar will reveal about living-out Christ's challenging ethics, when the pain inflicted is not on the level of domestic dissapointment, but of hatred, barbarity and mass murder.

There are those of course who reject out of hand any such Christ-inspired attempts to love enemies and be reconciled to the pepetrators of crime. Last week the IRA bomber Patrick Magee and Harvey Thomas (whose body was pulled, barely alive from the Brighton rubble from Magee's bomb) shared the platform at my parents church and talked openly about their dialogue and how they have pursued forgiveness, reconcilliation and even friendship. This however did not happen without a written protest from Norman Tebbit, another of Maggee's victims, who categorically believes that notions of reconcilliation are nothing more than a naive violation of the basic principles of justice, which would (possibly) not offer Maggee the lectern but the lethal injection.

Whilst I am instinctively against Tebbit (and not just 'cos it was him!), this is obviously not a conviction which, thank God, I have ever had tested in the crucible of personal bereavement. Perhaps if I had suffered like him - I too would see Christian-reconcilliationism has foolish and dangerous. What I am interested in hearing is how in exactly this testing experience Lesley Bilinda was able to follow Christ, and how it has affected her subsequently. It promises to be a significant morning.

Podcasts

The Onion News Network produces news coverage of this quality every day! Their high-quality investigative reporting is now available on podcast too, so I look forward to their insights being delivered to my computer regularly.

I have also discovered thay there a number of other good podcasts around, which I use to top-up my iPod for long journeys, here'a a few I have enjoyed recently:

"Radio 4 Friday Night Comedy": The 6:30pm slot on radio 4 is bundled as a single podcast, and the current series it downloads is "The Newsquiz". Many laughs this week including this from Jeremy Hardy: "I was told I should live every day as if it were my last....... so I have spent most of today lying in bed, gently drifting in and out of consciousness!"

A number of Radio4's documentary and factual programmea are now downloadable as well, including Thinking Allowed, and In Our Time - both of which are time well spent. Sadly R4 have decided not to podcast Michael Rosen's charming Word of Mouth series nor the scurrillous Down the Line.

A good new-music podcast that I subscribe to is "Three from Leith". Every week, from his home in Leith, Grant Mason previews the work of new or unsigned bands, and strings it together with his personal ramblings.

Off they go!

Congratulations!

A flight from Glasgow to the "Norwich: Alan Partridge International Airport", carried us high above the snowdrifts that were trapping drivers between Edinburgh and Newcastle on Friday night - and to a family wedding for the weekend. Happily free from the entanglements of children for a couple of days, thanks to their Grandmother (London) we were able to enjoy such rare pleasures as the long-forgotten "lie-in" and the indulgence of reading a whole book without interruption! The real reason for the trip however was to join in the celebrations like this:




Attempts to implicate us in being in any way directly involved in causing, being present during, or even encouraging any er... 'adjustments' made to the happy couple's house for their return from honeymoon are purely speculative in nature and we accept no responsibility for any losses to property or persons - if indeed anything has been done to their house, which it probably hasn't, but obviously we don't know because we weren't there.

The Impression of Speed

Perth, about an hour ago.

Perthpix

Boris and The Saints

Young Boris' wish finally came true at the weekend when he was taken to a professional football match. He often plays on Saturday mornings on the training pitches under the shadow of the main stand at St Johnstone's McDiarmid Park, and has expressed frequent longings to get inside the big ground and see the real thing.

It may have been freezing cold, it may have been raining, and it may have only been St. Johnstone beating Stirling Albion 2-1 in the Scottish first division, and it wasn't exactly the beautiful game - but between 3 and 5 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, there wasn't a happier boy in Scotland. "This is a day I will never forget" he beamed!

We were both numpties however. I was a numpty because it is so long since I have been to a game that I wasn't aware of all the regulations about what you could/couldn't bring in to the ground. So part of our snacks/drinks had to be hidden behind the counter in the souvenir shop. Then Boris was a numpty because he couldn't get the hang of the tip-up seat. What seemed to defeat him repeatedly was the fact that if he stood up to cheer, the seat would tip-up and not be there for him to plunge his weight back down on to. He kept many people amused with his unintentional slapstick routine for much of the game.

Wet, shivering and £20 worse off, I retreated to the warmth of the car feeling that Dad-duties had been satisfyingly completed. All the way home, Boris read me the fixture list for the rest of the season from his programme. Maybe see you there!

Lines across London

Delivered by stealth, under cover of darkness, I arrived at concrete, soulless Euston. Having slipped silently over the dark silhouettes of Beattock and Shap, I rubbed my eyes and awoke to its sulphurous glare and multi-storey-car-park charm. In a half-slept stagger I meandered its interminable platforms before descending the escalator to London's underground veins. Here, I waited until caressed by the hot foul air that announced the tube's arrival. A thousand parallel lives travel through the earth together unmet, until accidental eyes collide - to self-consciously avert. Mind the gap.

At rush-hour Vauxhall, the dark river lumbers on, while the Oval's gas-holders preside over the seething city below. Countless trains whine through the platforms, draining the suburbs of life in its daily tidal flow. Reading, Guildford, Dorking, Kingston, Portsmouth, surrender its finest to the jaws of Waterloo. The graffiti artist who once wrote 'Good Morning Lemmings' on the A40 would be moved by the ruthless efficiency they have achieved on the old LSWR.

Driven by the need to live, a stubborn weed drives its way through the tarmac, to break free into glorious air - and smells London. Fetid, dank, littered London. Crowded, bloated, screaming London. This faded Imperial bully, whose Empire once coloured half the atlas, whose marbled wealth was extracted through tyranny, can barely feed and clothe its own.

My train arrives, and takes me out through Clapham junction, across featureless leafy suburbia and towards air. Berlin had a wall, but the edge of this great city is marked by the M25 motorway. As the train glides over it, four-lanes of stationary red lights mark it's passage North, as four lanes of stationary headlamps do for the South. The cold constrictors embrace diminishes a thousand lifetimes.

It took all the effort she could muster. It took several attempts. But yet undeniably, her weak, bloodied, trembling hand was moving out from under the sheet. In an act of sheer willpower, the fractured pieces of her mind managed to connect for just long enough to instruct the hand to rise, to mine; first one, and then the other. And to me they came, seeking love, seeking presence, reassurance, connection. These old, damaged, precious hands, bruised and emaciated, gave-out an old familiar love, even as they drank in the steady drip-drip-dip that was keeping her alive. There are moments of extraordinary beauty here amongst the dread.

The night train smuggled me out of London that night. This time the power failed in my carriage and we slid through the city's fingers in total darkness, the oppressive shadowy outlines of great buildings bearing down upon us with even greater force -now that we were denied bright windows behind which to hide.

The train accelerated as it drew me towards the windswept and happy North, and I eagerly anticipated walking home and the cold, clean, Scottish rain on my face. So I stared out of the window for the last time at dark London, this place in which wars are schemed and millions ruined; and realised that somehow this is also the setting for moments of exquisite beauty, where daily countless trembling hands meet.

Book Notes: William Wilberforce - The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner by William Hague

I have been immersed in this book for the last week or so. I was given it as a Christmas present, and I must admit when I received it I was a little surprised, and not a little sceptical (William Hague??!) .

Now however, about two-thirds of the way through I am thoroughly enjoying an excellent read. Hague has done a huge amount of research, and presents the story of the man, in the context of the political and ideological backdrop of his age, with remarkable insight and clarity of writing. The way he deals with Wilberforce's faith, is excellent too -in that he seeks to understand Wilberforce in his own terms and to not merely critique the man from without, but also to understand him from within. His discussion of the spiritual and psychological process of conversion is fascinating, as is the use of Wilberforce's diaries to demonstrate the warm-but-driven Puritan spirituality which animated every aspect of his work - from his celebrated campaign against the slave trade, his opposition to war and attempts to curb use of the death penalty - as well as his hostility to revolutionary ideas and trade unions. As one would expect, Hague is especially adept at describing the drama of the parliamentary machinations surrounding the many-decade long fight for abolition of the wicked 'trade in souls.'

Wilberforce's conviction that the spiritual and moral goals he pursued were set before him by God, were brought into sharp focus by the fact that he had a strong sense of accountability before the God who judges - and his frequent bouts of ill health. As such he lived with an urgency of purpose which meant that he tried to relentlessly pursue these goals, with a sense that the time he had in which to achieve them was diminishing.

With fascinating material on early influences, spiritual formation, his relationship with Pitt, social action, personal life, political career - this is an excellent read. While it is thoughtful in its analysis, extensive in its research and referencing, and so well paints the personal narrative onto the times in which they occurred, it does not descend into the mire of obscure academic debates and jargon -but is clearly and accessibly written. It is an excellent place to go if, like me, the film "Amazing Grace" left you full of questions about the man, his faith and the times in which he sought to work outwork it. I didn't expect it to be this good!

All sung out.... . .

The only thing I really dislike about church these days is ... singing. I have spent my life singing in various contexts, as a child, as an adult, along with music, on my own, with others -and in various church contexts have sung probably every hymn and worship song around. It isn't simply that my voice is failing and that I cannot sing properly anymore, although that is an increasingly uncomfortable obstacle to overcome - I think it is more than that. Today for example, the kids talk was great, the times of quiet reflection and prayer were helpful, communion was meaningful, and the sermon useful, solid exegesis; however I am increasingly finding the church music a distracting obstacle to overcome in order to present myself in a worshipful frame of mind to God. What makes it worse is that I am struggling both with the musical style which we use - and some of the lyrical content offered. In short, I am sometimes invited to sing songs I don't identify with, in a musical format that makes me cringe.. sometimes deeply.

It isn't simply a case that we don't import the latest trendy worship songs from the conference circuit because these can be amongst the worse offenders. Today for example, meaningful worship was facilitated in songs such as "Great is Thy Faithfulness". I was conscious the whole time of my Grandma's failing health in the hospital, this was uplifting, and faith-nurturing. The new song sung however, was from the very bottom drawer of the "Jesus loves you Boogaloo" school of songwriting, with vacuous theology and a tune so twee it could have come from Mary Poppins. Such things make me feel almost entirely alienated, and frankly depressed.

Do you know what I would really like? A complete rest from singing in church. Even if it were only for a few months -perhaps that would rekindle my enthusiasm. Perhaps it would enable us to find other ways of expressing our praise, and it might also facilitate some serious thinking about the purpose of church music, rather than the assumption that singing is what we must always do when we meet together! (There is a biblical mandate to sing, but no indication that this must form the essential content of every meeting of believers.)

The other thing I would really like would be to meet with other people, read the Bible together, pray together, share needs and support one another - without a cheesy musical accompaniment....... so, see you at housegroup!!

[rant over]

Prayer

Tonight I am once again praying for my little Grandma, who is very ill in hospital.

Dunsinane

THIRD APPARITION:
Be lion-mettled, proud and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are;
Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until
Great Birnan Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him

MACBETH:
That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements! Good!
Rebellious dead rise never till the wood
Of Birnan rise, and our high-placed Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time and mortal custom......

(click photo to enlarge and read the info)

A great afternoon today on Dunsinane Hill, allegedly the castle of Macbeth, where carrying branches from Birnam hill as camouflage, Malcolm and Macduff finally killed him. There was neither murder, armies, battles nor demonic word-play to grapple with today, merely icy cold winds. Boris and Norris were in their element, enjoying the space to run and plenty of wet mud to slosh about in, and the battlements of an iron-age fort to scale.

Wonderful views from the top as well (despite the fact that it was so gloomy and overcast). The Tay rail bridge at Dundee is obvious, with the road bridge just visible in the background.

Even Dundee looks nice from up here!

What are you looking at?

After spectacularly failing his eye-tests, young Norris is now the proud owner (and wearer) of glasses. How long he is prepared to wear them (especially if teased), or how long they will remain intact and not scratched during the school day is anyone's guess! Today however he was highly amused with what appeared to be going to school in fancy dress, asking if his teacher would recognise him! Young Doris (2) has come out in sympathy with her brother and has decided that she will wear her sunglasses all day. This is probably not a remarkable show of solidarity, more an unwillingness to be left out of the game.

Last year, as you may know, young Norris had all manner of problems with his hearing - which resulted in surgery. This year it seems to be his eyesight. No points will be awarded to anyone who adds any comments to this post about Pinball.............

Wonderful Tryfan

(Thanks to Mr Mackay for the photo, of the North Top from the summit)

Tryfan was the first real 'mountain' that I ever climbed. Prior to a week in Snowdonia with a group from Strode's College, I had spent many happy days wandering across the North Downs, trekking up scarp and down dip though the rolling English weald, and also a week staggering through the peat bogs of the Peak District. Scrambling up Tryfan's North ridge to the summit stones (known as Adam and Eve) was my first exposure to, well..... exposure, nearly 3,000 glorious feet of it down to the loch below. Though the scrambling is generally straightforward, Tryfan was a new an exhilarating experience.

Going back to Tryfan again - twenty years later was great. The first time I climbed it, I was young, light, and very fit and healthy - and it was a glorious summer's day. This time, I was the oldest, fattest and weariest member of the group - and not only was it Baltic, but the top 500ft or so were covered in ice. By the time we reached the ice layer it was too far to turn back - not out of sheer stubbornness, but because it actually safer to climb the last few hundred feet and then make the easier descent route - than to try and descend the slippery North ridge! In addition to this, on previous attempts on the hill I have avoided the North top, and skirted it up the gully to the east - but Alan and his pals (several of whom are hardened Alpinists) spent a lot of effort researching the hardest routes up the thing!

When we returned to Pete's Eats in Llanberis for a well-earned cuppa I was very satisfied with the day. My fears of being left languishing as the young-fit members of Alan's climbing club disappeared over the horizon had been unfounded, and I had managed not to fall off anything too significant. Along with meeting the array of fascinating characters with whom I was walking, it was especially good to be back on Tryfan - a wonderful hill.

Man Cold

Could have been filmed on our house today..... thanks to the Solihull 5 for showing me the clip.

AJ's send-off

Seventeen characters assembled in Snowdonia this weekend to celebrate the final days of AJ as a single man. People from his Uni days, work colleagues and fellow climbers were joined by a couple of token family members like me, and his brother who had organised the whole thing. A most entertaining collection of characters they were too, some quite sensible, some eccentrics and one or two complete nutters- all lead to a most enjoyable weekend.

The Heights Hotel in Llamberis was the establishment lucky enough to be chosen for the escapade, and it proved to be more than a match for any anti-social behaviour on offer from our party. Several of the guys present had held their stag weekends here in the "Scabes Hilton" such is its reputation for low prices and willful ignorance of licensing hours.

The photo above captures AJ himself at the foot of the climb up Tryfan, expressing his appreciation to everyone for dressing him in a little foxy pink number for the climb. To his immense credit he did wear the carefully selected attire all the way to the summit, despite the startled expressions it generated on the faces of all the other climbers on the North Ridge that day!

Kandoo?? KanDON'T!!!!

Kandoo are marketed as "flushable toilet wipes", ideal one would think for helping the owners of young tender bottoms to clean their own rear-ends, thus more happily completing the ever-amusing process of toilet-training. It turns out that their product description is a little misleading however! That they are described as 'toilet wipes' rather than 'bottom wipes' is not the point in question (such a minor quibble would be pedantic) - rather, the misleading part is the claim that these are 'flushable'. In fact they have a propensity to block drains... badly!

How do I know this? Well, we were settling down to enjoy New Year, with houseful of guests, when it became apparent that our drains were blocked solid! Drain opening chemicals (in huge doses) failed to shift the blockage, as did attempting to flush it with a hose-pipe. This meant calling in the professionals, who duly appeared with day-glo jackets and high-pressure jets. These blasted though the day's waste, found and removed the cause of the problem - a collection of Kandoo wipes! "B***** Kandoo wipes, the bane of my life!" cried the drain-man, who explained that they have been advising customers not to use them, and that the makers of Kandoo are suing them to defend the reputation of their product. It appears that the definition of "flushable" to Kandoo means that a single wipe can negotiate 1 U-bend in ideal factory conditions, whereas to DynoRod, "not flushable" means "wherever we go, they jam drains up and cause no end of bother!

Independent tests reported by The Times reveled that while many ordinary toilet rolls disperse within 2-3 minutes in water, Kandoo's remained undispersed at the end of the 5-day test! No wonder, that a houseful of guests, with many young children present - all with very productive digestive tracts can cause a drains problem!

I realise that recent posts here have focused on both poo and puke, but alas such is my life!

Kandoo?? Kandon't, whatever you do!

Book Notes: Can We Believe Genesis Today? by Ernest Lucas

I believe it was Dr Stumpy Greenisland who recommended this one to me - and he is usually a reliable recommender of good reading material. As he is a scientist by trade and a Christian by conviction, books on the interplay between science and faith are very much his area, so I knew he wouldn't recommend anything unworthy of attention. What I was less sure about is whether I would understand a book (with sciency bits in it) that he suggested!

I was relieved to find though, that Ernest Lucas' two PhD's (one in science, one in theology) have not made him incomprehensible to students schooled in only one of those disciplines - but has made him rather adept at communicating between the two - at a popular level. This book is especially useful because it contains not merely his argument - but a textbook style overview of different problems in theology and science (especially as concerns Genesis) and the range of suggested solutions. He does however go on to state which of those solutions he finds most reasonable and why. I was amazed at how much science I learnt in the course of it!

It strikes me that while most books, be they theology, science, history, sociology, psychology, or whatever, explore a very narrow area of specialist knowledge in highly technical language - more interdisciplinary studies like this are needed, to explore the interfaces between such disciplines and to educate the ordinary reader as to the conclusions.

Lucas, although a molecular biologist in his scientific career, has taken a lot of time to also explore other crucial areas of science, such geology, fossil records, physics and so forth, to present the reader with an introductory guide to the current debates. A biblical critic by theological training he also presents three main ways in which the Genesis texts have been handled over the course of the last 1800 years - and suggests ways that they should be faithfully, yet responsibly read today.

This book will not satisfy the advanced student of either biblical criticism or of the scientific disciplines referred to. However as a starting point in the discussion it is most helpful. The bibliography at the end of each chapter is also helpfully annotated indicating where to go to explore more from the different positions explored there.

On a cold and frosty morning..

We're all just back from celebrating a very cold Christmas with the in-laws. Travelling there and back was entertaining. On the way there, Boris was horribly car-sick, all over the car. On the way back, Doris was explosively sea-sick, all over my wife. Her whole family were back home this year, with attendant spouses and children too - so the ratio of humans and wrapping paper to floor-space was a bit pressured! It was worth all the vomiting (and clearing up) to join in the fun though.

Christmas is Offensive (it's Official!)

Apparently the BACC (the body that passes TV adverts as fit for airing) is in a quandary over the song, "I Saw Three Ships". Its new policy is that in ads, festive soundtracks are not to feature any tunes which refer to the birth of Christ, (ie Carols) but only secular ditties like "Jingle Bells". "Three Ships" causes a dilemma in that it does reference Christ (and his mother) but no-one remembers that, so no offence caused!1

The underlying assumption is of course that Christian content (and note this - only in the tune, not even in sung lyrics) is so offensive that the public must be protected from it! But to whom (apart from the unelected apparatchiks of the BACC) is the Christmas story offensive? Presumably the answer is that it is offensive to atheists and adherents of other faiths.

But wait just a moment - this is what other faith communities are saying today:

• "Hindus celebrate Christmas too. It's a great holiday for everyone living in Britain," said Anil Bhanot, general secretary of the UK Hindu Council. Sikh spokesman Indarjit Singh said: "Every year I am asked 'Do I object to the celebration of Christmas?' It's an absurd question. As ever, my family and I will send out our Christmas cards to our Christian friends and others." Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Shayk Ibrahim Mogra said: "To suggest celebrating Christmas and having decorations offends Muslims is absurd. Why can't we have more nativity scenes in Britain?"2.

So is it the voices of increasingly militant atheists who are demanding the banishing of Christmas Carols from public life? Apparently not so, as this year even dear old Richard Dawkins (Oxford Professor for the Public Misunderstanding of Faith) will be singing along, joining in the traditions - the content of which he so despises.

What is more baffling in the debate though is this. When Christians are offended by anything from porn to blasphemy, the media's standard response is, "if it offends you -turn it off, no-one is forcing you to watch it!". Why then does the same standard not apply when it is Christianity which is deemed to be the offence!? Perhaps on this occasion the free-market has something to say. Surely if the public at large are so offended by the tune of 'Silent Night' that it will make people switch off their TV's in outrage, tarring the brand in question with negative connotations so damaging that advertisers themselves will switch to 'Jingle Bells'! If not, then who are the BACC to protect us from our own traditions and tastes?!

There is, of course, a good side to this controversy. The advertising industry is one of consistently questionable ethics; not just in the obvious matter of dubious claims and small print, nor even in the way in which so many seek to bolster their brand by appealing to at least one of the so-called "7 Deadly Sins";3 but more in the deceit of selling 'product' on the basis of 'image' when there is no link between the two. Perhaps Christians should be grateful that the story of the coming of Christ into the world, of the love and mercy of God in sending us His Son, is not being drawn into this miry world of image construction, spin, deceit and flogging tat. There is, after all an inherent contradiction between the "gotta-have-it" worldview of the advert, and the one who told us that it is "better to give than to receive".4

So, are we better off with the BACC's anti-Christian agenda, and the further driving of our Christian heritage from public space; or should we be grateful for the fact that Christ is not being used as a tool for selling tinsel? There is no obvious answer to that dilemma, but here is a radical suggestion. Perhaps the BACC should spend its time and money seeking to reform the culture of advertising, rather than doggedly pursuing its private ideological agenda. Perhaps if they did that, they might be able to pass adverts as fit-to-air, which have the transparent integrity fitting to be backed by a song about Christ.

Happy Winterval!

________________

1. Ad Nauseum, Private Eye, No 1120, 11 Jan 2008, p11

2.Trevor Phillips Calls for Nativity Plays in All Schools (link)

3. As a Radio4 documentry last year demonstrated.

4. Acts 20:35