This morning the Prime Minister was due to announce the launch of Election Snap, a new card game from the Conservative party. Should have gone to Specsavers. It is one of a growing range of games from the Teresa May Card School, many invented in the quiet hours of her childhood in a vicarage, waiting for her dad to finish writing another sermon.
Election Snap: a riotous game for all the family. Can you tell the difference between one middle aged, middle class, white privately educated male with no career outside politics and another? Neither can the electorate.
Bridge (Burning): which political leader can be quickest to resign at the first hint of bad electoral news? Usually won by Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn is struggling to understand the rules.
Patience: available in several different versions. The Libdem version takes about 100 years to play out, and even then it turns out to help the other players more than you.
Solitaire: Also known as Michael Gove's political career.
Go Fish: Robust UKIP response to any question raised in the EU parliament about quotas.
Texas Hold 'Em: mass penitentiary on the Mexican border for illegals.
Family Fortunes: in the US version the main aim of the game is to have a very large one, but make out that it doesn't affect the way you play in the slightest
Beggar My Neighbour: or in George Osborne's case, Beggar the Whole Country
Special editions: the Conservative pack comes with 2 knaves, the Jack of Goves and the Jack of Johnsons. The Libdem pack will deal with anyone, and the Labour pack is red throughout but with no Aces and is hard to reshuffle.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Lent Thought
"I remembered reading the account of a spiritual seeker who interrupted a busy life to spend a few days in a monastery. 'I hope your stay is a blessed one' said the monk who showed the visitor to his cell. 'If you need anything, let us know and we'll teach you how to live without it.' "
(Philip Yancey Prayer)
(Philip Yancey Prayer)
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
The Lego Batman Movie: New Bricks, Old Message
Like any dutiful parent of a Lego-mad son, the fixed point in school half term week was the Lego Batman Movie. Less frenetic than the Lego Movie, and following a more conventional storyline, it was fun and occasionally inspired without being spectacularly brilliant.
In the movie Batman is prickly, anti-social, and doesn't want or like company, yet keeps a DVD library of romcoms and relationship movies. The 'redemption' of Batman is his discovery of his need of others - his 'family' of Robin, Batgirl and Alfred, and even his need for arch-enemy Joker.
Have we heard this somewhere before? Maybe in Ice Age, where the 3 misfits find their place in their new 'herd' of sloth, tiger and mammoth. Maybe in The Incredibles, where Mr Incredible discovers that 'I work alone' doesn't work. Maybe in Harry Potter, where Harry is repeatedly reminded by his friends (especially towards the end of the saga) that he can't do this all on his own and is stupid to try. Maybe in the annoying 'Everything is Awesome' theme song from the first Lego movie - 'everything is awesome when you're part of the team.' Or dig back to 'About a Boy', the Hugh Grant movie where Grants character is just as averse to company as Batman, but discovers along with the Boy, that 'we all need backup'.
What is it about this story that we repeatedly tell it to ourselves, and repeatedly hear it and find that it has traction? Our society is individualistic, dependence and commitment don't come naturally, and aren't encouraged. And in the place of the old gods, discovering a new-found 'family' is the nearest thing we can offer to a spiritual experience of communal identity and belonging. Maybe its an indicator of the failure of the church to provide genuine community, where people can belong, find purpose, acceptance and love.
It may be Robin who is formally adopted (sort of) but Batman is an orphan too, and just as much in need of family, perhaps more so, than Robin. The Bible speaks of adoption into a family where we are loved, where we belong, where we find our place in the team of the master builder. A consumer society is by nature transient, material things are given too much significance and relationships too little. The hunger for belonging reflects that primal part of our design: 'it is not good for the man to be alone'. It is the persistence of his friends which finally wears Batmans resistance down, and saves him in the process. Persist in loving, welcoming, accepting, there may be a Batman out there who needs you.
In the movie Batman is prickly, anti-social, and doesn't want or like company, yet keeps a DVD library of romcoms and relationship movies. The 'redemption' of Batman is his discovery of his need of others - his 'family' of Robin, Batgirl and Alfred, and even his need for arch-enemy Joker.
Have we heard this somewhere before? Maybe in Ice Age, where the 3 misfits find their place in their new 'herd' of sloth, tiger and mammoth. Maybe in The Incredibles, where Mr Incredible discovers that 'I work alone' doesn't work. Maybe in Harry Potter, where Harry is repeatedly reminded by his friends (especially towards the end of the saga) that he can't do this all on his own and is stupid to try. Maybe in the annoying 'Everything is Awesome' theme song from the first Lego movie - 'everything is awesome when you're part of the team.' Or dig back to 'About a Boy', the Hugh Grant movie where Grants character is just as averse to company as Batman, but discovers along with the Boy, that 'we all need backup'.
What is it about this story that we repeatedly tell it to ourselves, and repeatedly hear it and find that it has traction? Our society is individualistic, dependence and commitment don't come naturally, and aren't encouraged. And in the place of the old gods, discovering a new-found 'family' is the nearest thing we can offer to a spiritual experience of communal identity and belonging. Maybe its an indicator of the failure of the church to provide genuine community, where people can belong, find purpose, acceptance and love.
It may be Robin who is formally adopted (sort of) but Batman is an orphan too, and just as much in need of family, perhaps more so, than Robin. The Bible speaks of adoption into a family where we are loved, where we belong, where we find our place in the team of the master builder. A consumer society is by nature transient, material things are given too much significance and relationships too little. The hunger for belonging reflects that primal part of our design: 'it is not good for the man to be alone'. It is the persistence of his friends which finally wears Batmans resistance down, and saves him in the process. Persist in loving, welcoming, accepting, there may be a Batman out there who needs you.
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Appointing a Vicar
over the next few days we will be mostly doing this.
Prayers appreciated, if you're that way inclined.
Thursday, February 02, 2017
Time to Talk Day
CS Lewis experience in his grief still strikes a chord.
“An odd by-product of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t. Some funk it altogether. R. has been avoiding me for a week. I like best the well brought-up young men, almost boys, who walk up to me as if I were a dentist, turn very red, get it over, and then edge away to the bar as quickly as they decently can. Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers.” ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Today is 'Time to Talk' day. If you know someone who's struggling, message them and say hi. If you know someone who you suspect is struggling, but has never actually said so, message them too. So many people with mental illness fear what others will say if they admit to it. That's part of what the illness does to you. It's a hard thing to open up about mental illness, lets make it as easy as possible.
“An odd by-product of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t. Some funk it altogether. R. has been avoiding me for a week. I like best the well brought-up young men, almost boys, who walk up to me as if I were a dentist, turn very red, get it over, and then edge away to the bar as quickly as they decently can. Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers.” ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Today is 'Time to Talk' day. If you know someone who's struggling, message them and say hi. If you know someone who you suspect is struggling, but has never actually said so, message them too. So many people with mental illness fear what others will say if they admit to it. That's part of what the illness does to you. It's a hard thing to open up about mental illness, lets make it as easy as possible.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Jesus' Border Policy; A Clarification
I'm prepping for Sundays sermon on Matthew 19, whilst the world debates border controls. Struck by the fact that the Kingdom of God has an open border policy for the poor in spirit, children, persecuted and those who express their faith through kindness, and stringent border controls for the rich and those who ignore the needy.
Boycott this blog if you don't agree with it
If Chinese new years were named after cricketers, 2017 would be the Year of the Boycott. A few weeks ago an American chat show host disinvited a potential guest because of the comments they had made about homosexuality.
Ewan McGregor then disinvited himself from a chance to promote Trainspotting 2 on Good Morning Britain, after seeing what Piers Morgan had tweeted about the US Womens March.
Now over a million people want to stop Donald Trump coming to the UK, after his dreadful (and cack-handedly executed) executive order on immigration.
Making statements is all fine and good, but I worry about the boycotting bandwagon. Despite becoming more globally connected, its very easy to use social media to surround ourselves with the voices we agree with, and then imagine that this represents the world. I don't often side with Russell Brand, but this is what you do with people you don't agree with. Jesus never shied away from his enemies and the people he disagreed with. He engaged with them, exposed them, loved them, and gave them the chance to change. Retreating into right-thinking silos may feel virtuous, but in a fragmenting world, we need more loving engagement and respectful debate, not less.
If we close our borders to Trump, then we borrow his weapons. We can do better.
Ewan McGregor then disinvited himself from a chance to promote Trainspotting 2 on Good Morning Britain, after seeing what Piers Morgan had tweeted about the US Womens March.
Now over a million people want to stop Donald Trump coming to the UK, after his dreadful (and cack-handedly executed) executive order on immigration.
Making statements is all fine and good, but I worry about the boycotting bandwagon. Despite becoming more globally connected, its very easy to use social media to surround ourselves with the voices we agree with, and then imagine that this represents the world. I don't often side with Russell Brand, but this is what you do with people you don't agree with. Jesus never shied away from his enemies and the people he disagreed with. He engaged with them, exposed them, loved them, and gave them the chance to change. Retreating into right-thinking silos may feel virtuous, but in a fragmenting world, we need more loving engagement and respectful debate, not less.
If we close our borders to Trump, then we borrow his weapons. We can do better.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
New Alpha film series - 'who is Jesus?'
A few months ago Alpha redid there materials into a new 'film series'. These are good - nicely presented, a move away from the lecture style, to something a bit more varied. I've used the clip on the reliability of the new testament (from 6:40 in) and folk found it really helpful.
if you can't view this clip, try https://vimeo.com/183533609
if you can't view this clip, try https://vimeo.com/183533609
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