Simon Says ...

"Marriage" for all? Today the Government have begun the process of introducing State Registered Same Sex Partnerships . These are legally registered partnerships that offer many of the same rights to partners as marriage. Two cheers are due. The remaining cheer is withheld because it is not straightforwardly called 'marriage'. Indeed, the government is very nervous of the 'm-word' in this context. However, if it looks like marriage and smells like marriage ... The government are nervous, no doubt, because of the opposition of those who have already been getting press coverage by suggesting that this somehow weakens marriage. Let's stop for a moment and consider how that is possible. How can an arrangement which is clearly dependent on the existing arrangements for marriage weaken those relationships. Surely this is a welcome acknowledgement that marriage is a stable and life-affirming relationship that those who are not presently involved ...

Homer Says ... Some of the wisdom of Homer Simpson. This comes from an episode in which Homer finds himself a missionary in the South Pacific. One of the things he does is to build a chapel for the natives. Admiring his handiwork, he turns to a little girl and says: "I may not know much about God, but we built a pretty nice cage for him" A deeply biblical sentiment, I think!

This evening one of our congregation gave up some time to speak to a group of us about dementia. She is a nurse specialist working with people who have dementia and a great enthusiast about her field. It's hard to pin down what I learned, there were so many things flying around from how alzheimer's disease works to the differences in behaviour caused by dementia. So here are some musings after the event. I think what I found most revealing was the fact that people with dementia live in the moment much more than the rest of us (a factor of losing memory). The memories that remain are the deeply ingrained ones, deeply ingrained because deeply significant (whether for good or for ill). There is something of profound spiritual importance here concerning identity. It's also a challenge to the way in which the rest of us live, burdened by self-consciousness, inhibition and being too well-mannered to tell the truth. The liberating power of dementia sounds like a deeply i...

It's nice to be popular ... I've already been booked for a carol service in December! I must be doing something right.

Stations of the Cross I spent the day putting together some Stations of the Cross for a Bible Study group tomorrow. We've been looking at Mark's Gospel and have reached the end. It's been an unexpectedly moving piece of work - thinking of ways that the Biblical journey of Jesus to the cross can be expressed in ways that connect to the lives of young people today. Only tomorrow will tell whether it works for the young people, but I enjoyed doing it. I didn't use the traditional stations as I was trying to keep to the discipline of reading Mark's Gospel. Using stations as a way of reading the text speaks to me of the way that I read the Bible not as a textbook, or a source of information, but as a way of life. It's also very appropriate to Mark's Gospel, in which disciples are always "on the way". The stations begin with this: "Stations are places where people wait while they are going from one place to another. A bus stop is lik...

Mothering Sunday I'm not just being picky when I insist that today is called 'Mothering Sunday'. I always have a difficult time trying to find a card that says 'Mothering Sunday', and this seems to get worse as time goes on. The reason behind this is that the card I am looking for will not be sent to my mother, but to my step-mother. Cards that talk about 'Mothers Day' do not include that relationship (and an increasing number of the relationships that people share). In fact mothering is a relationship that includes a huge number of relationships in which I am involved. My mother was only the first of these. For a vitally important time after she died, my father was the key figure in mothering me and my brother (although I wait until Father's Day to send him a card). My step-mother, grandmothers and other relatives and friends of the family have all played their part in mothering me. For all of them I am grateful and give thanks. Tod...

One Year On A year ago today the war on Iraq began. I was one of the people who marched in February 2003, urging the government not to go to war. My brother was a soldier in the war, which meant that the war was a time of worry and tension for me. I still think we were wrong to go to war - pre-emptive attacks are of dubious legality and a dangerous precedent. Saddam Hussein was a dreadful ruler who did terrible things, but there are many others. The time to intervene should have been to prevent the massacres, not to go in and dig up the mass graves. Today the stop the war coalition is organising a series of rallies and marches around the world. But this time I will not march. It would be irresponsible to withdraw troops before the country is secure (and it clearly is anything but). Politicians must be held to account, and are being. The Spanish government lost an election, and Tony Blair may find that he loses the next one. But, like it or not, the war happened. It is...

Praying with Pictures Through Lent we have been running a series called praying with pictures. This is my meditation on Andrei Rublev's icon of the hospitality of Abraham (based on the story in Genesis 18). In Rublev’s icon, the story of Abraham has faded but has not vanished entirely. A sketchy house and a crooked tree are all that remain. They remind us that this is not a photograph, but that God is revealed in stories, in unexpected visits and bread shared under oak trees. Here God the Trinity takes centre stage. But no bearded old man and out of place dove. Rather three young figures, similar and different, gathered around a table. At the centre, a figure dressed in dark red, to whom our eye is drawn. Dressed as Eastern art depicts Christ, it is this figure that draws us in. At the centre of the Trinity is Jesus, this man with his stories. They are our way in to knowing God. But we cannot make eye contact with him. His eyes look to his right (our left...

For Immanuel Kant the starry sky above and the moral law within were the two best proofs of God.

The BBC website has a story about Annie Vallotton who is the artist responsible for the line drawings in the Good News Bible. She is also, on account of this, the best selling artist of all time. I have fond memories of these and some of them are very good indeed. Their simplicity makes them very powerful. I've lifted some of her pictures from the website: Here's her picture of Jesus on the cross: And here's Job getting so angry that he punches the ground: Finally, just for fun, here's Noah's ark:

Some Recent Reading One of the things I find blogging useful for is to record some impressions and initial responses to things I've read, seen, heard etc. So here's my notes on recent reading material. 1. Theo Hobson, Against Establishment: An Anglican Polemic (DLT, 2003). I have mixed feelings about this. Everything I liked about this has a downside, but then everything I disliked has some value. It's a very in-house book for Anglicans and the question of establishment seems less important now than it once did. Hobson paints in very broad brush strokes (his little guide to past thinking is the best example of this). It's never as crass as Colin Buchanan's more extended arguments against establishment, but musters the same degree of passion. I found it too uncritical of its sources to be hugely helpful (Peter Hitchens and Roger Scruton are put in the same list as Martyn Percy and John Habgood) - there's more than a little tarring-with-the-same-...

I found this explanation of Acts of Devotion during the eucharist (via Maggi Dawn's blog). It's an excellent introduction to why we cross ourselves, why we bow and perform other physical gestures during the eucharist, all rooted in the incarnation. I shall recomment this to questioners.

It's Fairtrade Fortnight at the moment and that seemed a subject worth blogging about. The Fairtrade Mark is ten years old - Happy Birthday! I remember as a student sitting in a lecture theatre while someone from Christian Aid told us about this new initiative. I think the Fairtrade Mark and CafeDirect were launched at about the same time. Both have been phenomenally successful. CafeDirect now has a 1% share in the coffee market in this country. My guess is that other fairtrade coffees can only amount to another 1% at best, so there's plenty left to do! The Fairtrade Foundation has suggestions for being a 'Fairtrade Church', which I think I will take to our PCCs. It will be more interesting than other topics that we have to address (I see the accounts have to be approved at the next meeting!). There are only three things that you have to do to be a Fairtrade Church: i. use Fairtrade tea and coffee for all meetings for which you have responsibility. ...