I was asked to do a bit for the local paper. Here's what I submitted.
It is perhaps a guilty pleasure of mine that I like the Bill and Ted films of the late eighties and early nineties. The films show a utopian view of a future society which is founded on Bill and Ted’s music, and where the underpinning mantra is “be excellent to each other.”
In Matthew’s gospel , chapter 22, after being told that we must love our God, Jesus told us to “love our neighbour as ourself.” These are the two most important commandments, which all the other laws hang on. These days, the person that is our neighbour may not live in the same street, town or country as ourselves. Through social media, our neighbours could be anywhere in the world, and may not share our faith or our ideas on how society should be run. Hard as it may sometimes seem, we are all neighbours, and we need to love each other.
If we want to make the world the best it can be, then we need to spend less time sharing gossip and rumours about our neighbours and instead, reach out to them with a love as great as the love we have for ourselves. So get out there, and whatever you do, be excellent to each other!
Friday, 30 January 2015
Friday, 16 January 2015
In Tribute
Something I have managed to avoid in the course of my placements is funerals. Or more to the point, people seem to stop dying when I'm around. While this is good for the congregational roll, it's not that good for my training. In fact, on my second placement, I'm sure I went on holiday and there were two funerals in my absence. This is my fourth placing with a church, and I have only had involvement in two funerals.
The other month a man in the parish died. I went along with my supervisor to meet his family and had a pleasant chat about his life and times. He had lived a full life, and was well known in the community. While my supervisor talked, I took notes and afterwards tried to create a tribute. While I wasn't going to be delivering the tribute, I wanted the practice under real conditions.
Well it sucked. I wrote something that described his life, but it just didn't have a lot of feeling to it. I got the important details right, like family names. This was made all the more interesting by the fact that everyone in the family had James as their given name, so Jim, Jimmy etc. I think my first problem was that I just didn't have time afterwards to write the tribute up immediately. It was later in the evening that I had the time to sit and write. The next time I will go straight home and write while things are fresh. But it also demonstrated that I just haven't had the practice.
My plan for the next wee while is to just write tributes, whether or not the person is dead, just to get into the practice of writing a 400 word biography. While I might base this on biographical interviews from Youtube, if we have a conversation and I'm taking notes under the table...
The other month a man in the parish died. I went along with my supervisor to meet his family and had a pleasant chat about his life and times. He had lived a full life, and was well known in the community. While my supervisor talked, I took notes and afterwards tried to create a tribute. While I wasn't going to be delivering the tribute, I wanted the practice under real conditions.
Well it sucked. I wrote something that described his life, but it just didn't have a lot of feeling to it. I got the important details right, like family names. This was made all the more interesting by the fact that everyone in the family had James as their given name, so Jim, Jimmy etc. I think my first problem was that I just didn't have time afterwards to write the tribute up immediately. It was later in the evening that I had the time to sit and write. The next time I will go straight home and write while things are fresh. But it also demonstrated that I just haven't had the practice.
My plan for the next wee while is to just write tributes, whether or not the person is dead, just to get into the practice of writing a 400 word biography. While I might base this on biographical interviews from Youtube, if we have a conversation and I'm taking notes under the table...
Wednesday, 31 December 2014
Thoughts On the subject of Christmas.
It's been and gone. Sort of sorry to see it past. But what happened...
Well there was the children's Christmas party to start with. A couple of hours of feeding the wee folk sugar and artificial colouring, while the parents looked on. It was a good fun gathering, and was surprisingly popular. The kids had a good time, and I was impressed at the amount of Christmas jumpers that were on display.
Then, immediately after the party we had the Christingle service. Now I had never been to one of these before, so my first time being at one was in giving the Christingle talk. I had read up on them beforehand, and I will have to admit that I didn't like the idea of the whole service. I know that we use illustrations and other visual clues to explain the message through the year, but there was something about the idea of the orange and the candle that felt a little forced to me. Also, when we have a collecting basket for the foodbank in the hallway, I'm reluctant to use foodstuffs in a service if there's a chance it will go to waste. I am in two minds about whether I would agree to be part of such a service again, although if it is something that brings people a little closer to the Christmas message, in a new and refreshing way, then it is a good thing. Although for a couple of the children present, they would have been happy if we had just given them the candles and flames to play with.
Sunday there was a nativity play during the service. Away in a manger is always cute when the children sing it. Children were a little hyper, but they were enjoying the message, and the older folk liked seeing the younger members enjoying playing an active part in the service. It's not a day for heavy theology, just simple messages in bite sized chunks that the children can enjoy.
At this point in the proceedings, both Mrs G and myself were nursing a pretty bad cold, so we were relying on cough sweets to get us through. Watch Night was struggled through, and I mimed most of my singing, in order to preserve my voice. Turnout was good, and there was a genuine Christmassy,feeling of expectation for Christmas morning. It wasn't a large gathering, but it was a friendly, spiritual one.
After a token visit to my house to sleep, it was back out for Christmas morning. Toys everywhere, and children running around was a sharp contrast to the slightly more formal service that this church is used to. It made being heard a bit more challenging, but my voice survived. Again, not a time for heavy weight theology in the message, but instead, a need to keep everyone interested. Halfway through the lords prayer, my supervisor was interupted by "To infinity and beyond!" from the cheap seats. Someone had brought their Buzz lightyear toy. Awesome!
Then it was back to the house to flop. Christmas made for a tiring couple of days, but at least it happened away from the weekend, where, had Christmas fallen on a Saturday, I would have had three days of worship to undertake. This season has been an easy introduction to Christmas worship.
In theory, the next time I encounter Christmas, I may be a real minister...
Well there was the children's Christmas party to start with. A couple of hours of feeding the wee folk sugar and artificial colouring, while the parents looked on. It was a good fun gathering, and was surprisingly popular. The kids had a good time, and I was impressed at the amount of Christmas jumpers that were on display.
Then, immediately after the party we had the Christingle service. Now I had never been to one of these before, so my first time being at one was in giving the Christingle talk. I had read up on them beforehand, and I will have to admit that I didn't like the idea of the whole service. I know that we use illustrations and other visual clues to explain the message through the year, but there was something about the idea of the orange and the candle that felt a little forced to me. Also, when we have a collecting basket for the foodbank in the hallway, I'm reluctant to use foodstuffs in a service if there's a chance it will go to waste. I am in two minds about whether I would agree to be part of such a service again, although if it is something that brings people a little closer to the Christmas message, in a new and refreshing way, then it is a good thing. Although for a couple of the children present, they would have been happy if we had just given them the candles and flames to play with.
Sunday there was a nativity play during the service. Away in a manger is always cute when the children sing it. Children were a little hyper, but they were enjoying the message, and the older folk liked seeing the younger members enjoying playing an active part in the service. It's not a day for heavy theology, just simple messages in bite sized chunks that the children can enjoy.
At this point in the proceedings, both Mrs G and myself were nursing a pretty bad cold, so we were relying on cough sweets to get us through. Watch Night was struggled through, and I mimed most of my singing, in order to preserve my voice. Turnout was good, and there was a genuine Christmassy,feeling of expectation for Christmas morning. It wasn't a large gathering, but it was a friendly, spiritual one.
After a token visit to my house to sleep, it was back out for Christmas morning. Toys everywhere, and children running around was a sharp contrast to the slightly more formal service that this church is used to. It made being heard a bit more challenging, but my voice survived. Again, not a time for heavy weight theology in the message, but instead, a need to keep everyone interested. Halfway through the lords prayer, my supervisor was interupted by "To infinity and beyond!" from the cheap seats. Someone had brought their Buzz lightyear toy. Awesome!
Then it was back to the house to flop. Christmas made for a tiring couple of days, but at least it happened away from the weekend, where, had Christmas fallen on a Saturday, I would have had three days of worship to undertake. This season has been an easy introduction to Christmas worship.
In theory, the next time I encounter Christmas, I may be a real minister...
Friday, 26 December 2014
Sympathy
From the BBC. Link
Original text of the article below.
"'Worst Christmas ever'
... from Essex, said her 10-year-old son got an Xbox One for Christmas, and he and a friend had spent weeks planning what games they would play together online.
She said they had been downloading a game since 09:00 GMT - and by 23:40 it was still not ready.
"He has spent most of the day in tears," she said.
"He says it's been his worst Christmas ever.
"I think Xbox should compensate us all."
I'm finding it a little hard to be sympathetic here. I can think of one or two people that are having a Christmas that may be a shade harder than toys not working. Worst Christmas ever? Compensation?
For anyone else, here's some seasonal advice from Reddit that may be useful next year.
Merry Christmas.
Original text of the article below.
"'Worst Christmas ever'
... from Essex, said her 10-year-old son got an Xbox One for Christmas, and he and a friend had spent weeks planning what games they would play together online.
She said they had been downloading a game since 09:00 GMT - and by 23:40 it was still not ready.
"He has spent most of the day in tears," she said.
"He says it's been his worst Christmas ever.
"I think Xbox should compensate us all."
I'm finding it a little hard to be sympathetic here. I can think of one or two people that are having a Christmas that may be a shade harder than toys not working. Worst Christmas ever? Compensation?
For anyone else, here's some seasonal advice from Reddit that may be useful next year.
Merry Christmas.
Wednesday, 24 December 2014
Tuesday, 23 December 2014
Monday, 22 December 2014
Sunday, 21 December 2014
Saturday, 20 December 2014
Thursday, 18 December 2014
Essential skills.
Today I discovered that, while not an essential requirement for Ministry, the knowledge of how to repair a trumpet valve is exceptionally useful.
This is why school assemblies and children's music recitals are so stressful. A girl got up on stage to perform her trumpet recital. We were willing her on to each note, but when her instrument failed her about four notes in, we just didn't want her to lose confidence, after all, it's a brave person that will stand up in front of the entire school plus parents and perform. It wasn't the children that were stressed, but the adults on their behalf.
So, the music teacher (violinist), girl and myself (didgeridoo-ist) retreated to the music room, to pool our shared trumpet knowledge to work out exactly what was going wrong.
I don't play trumpet, nor have I ever played trumpet. But I have done plumbing, and, at the end of the day, it's all just pipes.
So when the girl's trumpet had a valve that appeared to have rotated round in its body, it was a simple matter of applying plumbing principles to realign the airflow.
To the relief of everyone present, the girl got back up on stage, and gave us a note perfect performance.
And of course, it was worth going to hear the nursery sing "Away in a Manger."
This is why school assemblies and children's music recitals are so stressful. A girl got up on stage to perform her trumpet recital. We were willing her on to each note, but when her instrument failed her about four notes in, we just didn't want her to lose confidence, after all, it's a brave person that will stand up in front of the entire school plus parents and perform. It wasn't the children that were stressed, but the adults on their behalf.
So, the music teacher (violinist), girl and myself (didgeridoo-ist) retreated to the music room, to pool our shared trumpet knowledge to work out exactly what was going wrong.
I don't play trumpet, nor have I ever played trumpet. But I have done plumbing, and, at the end of the day, it's all just pipes.
So when the girl's trumpet had a valve that appeared to have rotated round in its body, it was a simple matter of applying plumbing principles to realign the airflow.
To the relief of everyone present, the girl got back up on stage, and gave us a note perfect performance.
And of course, it was worth going to hear the nursery sing "Away in a Manger."
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