Culture and Christianity

Slow train to birmingham

2012-01-14T01:01:00.001-08:00

Looking out of the window, above the reams of paper I am wading through: this is my view.

Sometimes slow trains are good things.

Sometimes they make you look up from the text and invite you to watch, waitn and experience.

Sometimes slow trains offer gracious surprises; frosty fields, pastel sunrises and a blanket of mist that guarentees that even at minus 8 degrees c, the world is enveloped and safe.

Sunrise over wembley.

2011-12-18T23:59:00.001-08:00

You can't stop art!

2011-12-12T14:19:00.001-08:00

CGMC

2011-11-09T00:39:00.001-08:00

So, what are you thinking about?!

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Never stop exploring

2011-11-05T04:55:00.001-07:00

What are you exploring today?

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Toilet commandment

2011-11-02T03:26:00.001-07:00

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Local preacing and contemporary culture teaching session -Bibliography

2011-10-22T01:05:00.001-07:00

In today's teaching session, I will mostly be using these books and loads of clips from youtube.

Hope

2011-10-21T08:00:00.001-07:00

Where have you seen hope today?

Munchkin Pumpkin

2011-10-21T07:25:00.001-07:00

I am delighted and amused by these at the local supermarket - munchkin pumpkins.

Brilliant.

What would you do with yours?

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Award

2011-10-19T04:28:00.001-07:00

Thanks to all who made an odd idea an award winning reality.

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Please visit www.methodist.org.uk for information and resources
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10 rules of online engagement

2011-10-18T12:56:00.001-07:00

Excelllent blog by @digitalnun:

http://www.ibenedictines.org/2011/10/16/10-rules-for-online-engagement/?utm_s...

To Follow. To Serve.

2011-10-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

[First published on www.bigbible.org.uk on 6th October]

Those first young people. The pioneers.

The apostles.

Building super highways in an unknown sky.

Leaving partners and children in their snug homes with a kiss and a
promise to return.

Roaring into the clouds to battle wind and stars.

Their safety systems built of brain

and heart.

They landed where there were no lights.

Transforming strange names from tall tales into pictures on postcards
home.

And those next people who travelled further, faster, higher than any in
history

And the ones after them travelling further than anyone in history

Who skimmed the edge of space

Skimmed the edge of heaven

Of dreams

And we follow them up there.

To live by an unbreakable promise

To same four word stitched into every uniform, of every disciple who
follows their call.

To follow. To serve.

Tell Show Be

2011-10-04T03:42:00.000-07:00

TELL.SHOW.BE. - English from Tell.Show.Be on Vimeo.

The Letter.

2011-02-03T03:40:00.000-08:00

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”

I saw a man open a letter today.

Perhaps not so surprising, except for a few additional facts (and additional facts are always interesting, aren’t they?)

You probably need some context.

I was on a train (as was the man).

The letter opened had been carried in a satchel. The sort of satchel that is either trying to be made by a Famous Designer and thus not having a Label – or the sort of satchel that is trying not to stand out amidst other Labels because the Fashion Designer shunned it. Whichever it was, this letter had all the evidence of tattered corners of a letter that had been carried around for a few hours before its secrets were shared.

The letter was handwritten.

I have no idea what the letter contained (mainly because I had to get off the train, rather than disinterest. A few more minutes and these ‘facts’ would be embellished with quotes, as I starred eagle eyed at the text before me.)

However, it left me imagining.

The Romantic in me imagined a letter from a long lost lover. A guilty confession. A declaration of love. A hopeful conclusion.

The cynic in me imagined a letter from his partner. A guilty confession. A declaration of love. An apology. A tear stained signature.

The nostalgic part of me imagined a pen friend from childhood. Shared stories of teenage exchange programmes. A stumbling fluency of French and English and German. Jokes. Laughter. And a piece of news to share.

A handwritten letter, carefully carried in a satchel and then opened in a split second between Bond Street and Green Park.

So I decide. Tonight I will write a letter.

Perhaps from my Romantic self.

Perhaps the Cynic.

Perhaps even the nostalgic.

Whichever I choose, I wonder if you will join me?

That's snow-business

2011-01-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

‘I think I wished too hard…’

He was only a small boy, but today, he could not see his feet. In fact, he could not even see his knees. As he stepped out of his front door on this cold and wintery day, he quickly realised that today was different.

Today, his wish had come true.

Rather than being able to stare down at his slightly football-knock bruised knees.
Rather than even being able to look at his shiny wellies with his favourite cartoon character staring back at him.
Today, he was knee deep in the whitest, crispest, coldest, most beautiful snow that he had ever seen.

All of a sudden, he felt like the boy in the ‘Snowman.’ He really was walking in the air.
Excitement bubbled up inside him, as he began to explore this strange new world in which he was now a part.

All too soon, his play was cut short. The sky that had once been light beige, hung a heavy and deep grey. The white landscape before him began to turn entirely white as the next blizzard began its visitation.

As he dried out in front of the long radiator by the window, the boy stared out through the blizzard. Realising that the snow that had come up to his knees was slowly growing deeper and deeper and deeper, the boy took a deep, disappointment, almost frightened, breath.

“Perhaps I wished too hard”
He whispered to himself.

"Comfort, Comfort, My People."

2011-01-24T07:30:00.000-08:00

‘It’s all about me and a bowl of soup.’
Nigel Slater

Comfort foods do exactly what they say on the packet. They are those small indulgences that bring memories of home colliding with dreams of roaring fires, duvets and being curled up in a good book. They are the things that bring us to a place of safety. Hope. A place where we are totally at ease with ourselves and our thoughts. No threat. No challenge. No questions.

Comfort can be a place to breathe.

To disengage.

A place and an action that will not judge us, will not cajole us. And, because it is a comfort, will have no resulting implication for our hips or waistline.

Where do you find your comfort?

In what areas of your life do you need space to breathe and to be?

Maybe today, find a place in your diary and book it as a date with your own ‘bowl of soul’ and spend some comfort time.

Ask God to show you what He means in Isaiah by ‘comforting’ his people.

And how's about making soup, and inviting a friend to dinner?

Balka's Box

2011-01-11T04:09:00.000-08:00

“For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world's Light."
John 9:5 (The Message)

It was a black box.
30 metres long and 13 metres high.
A big, black, box, issuing forth an invitation to walk inside; to be enveloped by the silence and darkness contained therein. With only the felt-lined walls for safety, intrepid explorers took small, faltering steps into the darkness.

The world, as Balka explores in his 2009 installation ‘How it is’, is a very dark place indeed. The piece itself presents a commentary upon what it is to be human.

“Balka intends to provide an experience for visitors which is both personal and collective, creating a range of sensory and emotional experiences through sound, contrasting light and shade, individual experience and awareness of others, perhaps provoking feelings of apprehension, excitement or intrigue.”

It is easy to see that the world we live in can be an incredibly oppressive place. And yet, as with the Big Black Box, there are places where shards of light bring transformation, hope, excitement and peace. Life can bring with it isolation, fear and loneliness – and so often there are no felt walls with which to feel one’s way to safety.

What might it mean for us to be in a place where all of our fears and isolation and doubt are contained and exposed; only to turn around and realise that there is indeed Light. Our physical act of repentance (or about-turning) bringing us back once again to the reality that there is transformation and hope and excitement and peace.

As Bono is often quoted as saying, ‘The job of the church is to tear away the corners of darkness to let the light of Christ shine through.’

It was a black box, issuing forth its invitation to step inside and to be enveloped in the silence and darkness. To be read and known and exposed. In the black boxes of our lives, I wonder where the torn corners of light may be found. I wonder where we have the audacity to scrape away at the edges of the darkness and to see the light shine through.