MP Andy Reed is taking the 'Simplify Challenge' and attempting to live on £5 a day. He's blogging about it at the same time, which makes interesting reading. Here's some of what he had to say about food:
We have always tried to plan our meals so that we only buy food we need each week. But again this looks half hearted compared to the need to plan in far more detail and with a strict budget. There are so many little extras that now have disappeared. I saw the figures this week for the amount of food we throw away as a nation. I's a scandal and so planning will remain central to the way we do things.
The timing is hard too. We have had some good crops from the garden this year but sadly they are all coming to an end. Our greenhouse has been particularly good for tomatoes an cucumbers and we had the last of the french beans and rhubarb over the weekend.
So ironically for me food will be a more central part of my simplified life. I thought it was going to be all about reducing my consumption but wondering how to afford the next meal puts EVERYTHING into perspective!
To put this into perspective, an income of £5 a day still puts you in the top 900 million people in the world in terms of income, or the top 15%.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
How to Use Your Church Noticeboard
superb idea, done for a Baptist church in the US, via Church Marketing Sucks.
I'm not sure if this is one of those which only works if you stand in one place. Our church is by a main road, so we'd maybe need a sign with a pair of eyes that would 'follow' cars being driven at roughly 20 miles an hour. Or we could go really hi-tech, and get a number-plate reader, and have a sign which announced 'driver of AD55PTL, God wants you to cycle!' or something.
Bit like the talking ads in Minority Report, but without Tom Cruise, and in Yeovil.
We'd have to be careful not to get done by Lambeth Council for talking about God in something higher than a whisper.
What is it with Buses and Religion?
The Churches Advertising Network is hoping to get 2,000 of these
onto bus shelters in time for Christmas. More about the campaign here. Churches are being encouraged to buy a bus stop for £100, and CAN will do the rest. It'll be interesting to see if there's a parody of the ads by the agnostibus crew, in the slightly embarassing way Christians picked up on last years bus ads. They do have a book to promote, after all.
This cracking bit of art was around last year, but the most excellent 30-second nativity overshadowed it a bit, so I'm glad it's being recycled. It'll also fit perfectly with one of the carol services I'm involved with, at Yeovil College, on a theme of Poverty and Christmas.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
'A sickening misuse of the gift of life'
Outstanding piece in the Times today, about the hideousness of celebrity culture:
The centuries of prattle, of air time and screen time, the miles of column inches are a sickening misuse of the gift of life, of health and adequate nutrition, of freedom from oppression, of the access we now have to the world of knowledge and the arts. They are stolen from thought about, or discussion of, things that are truly important or worthwhile; fighting poverty, disease and the iniquities and injustice of the world; the profound joy afforded by literature and the arts; questions about the meaningful purpose of life.
The celebrity culture is a black hole sucking up light. It is not only a manifestation of the cretinisation or tabloidisation of our culture but further cretinises it.
Celebrity culture spreads like a stain. It engulfs even those whose fame is rooted in real achievement or real responsibility. As the empty are valued, so the valuable are emptied. They are treated as if they were as vacuous as pop idols. Scientists, artists and politicians become defined in the collective consciousness not by the serious, complex matters that they deal with or by their real achievements but, increasingly, by their sex lives, their personal traumas, their peccadillos.
Never mind the general theory of relativity and those field equations that are one of the greatest monuments of the human intellect. What the punter wants to know is whether Einstein s****ed his dog. (my emphasis)
Comedian Stewart Lee, critiquing celebrity 'books', made the point that someone who read them would end the books more stupid than when they started. Marcus Brigstocke 'alleged' on Sunday night that some atheists are atheists because they can't hold the concept 'God' in their head without their eyes glazing over. Maybe the Stupid Society is more of a problem than the Broken Society, or perhaps it's just a symptom of it. If our capacity to think and reason is broken, traded in for a pole dancer and the latest rock star implosion, then that's a serious problem.
There's probably a good book out there comparing the decline of the Roman empire with postmodern Britain, but I'm not sure I'm ready to get that depressed.
The centuries of prattle, of air time and screen time, the miles of column inches are a sickening misuse of the gift of life, of health and adequate nutrition, of freedom from oppression, of the access we now have to the world of knowledge and the arts. They are stolen from thought about, or discussion of, things that are truly important or worthwhile; fighting poverty, disease and the iniquities and injustice of the world; the profound joy afforded by literature and the arts; questions about the meaningful purpose of life.
The celebrity culture is a black hole sucking up light. It is not only a manifestation of the cretinisation or tabloidisation of our culture but further cretinises it.
Celebrity culture spreads like a stain. It engulfs even those whose fame is rooted in real achievement or real responsibility. As the empty are valued, so the valuable are emptied. They are treated as if they were as vacuous as pop idols. Scientists, artists and politicians become defined in the collective consciousness not by the serious, complex matters that they deal with or by their real achievements but, increasingly, by their sex lives, their personal traumas, their peccadillos.
Never mind the general theory of relativity and those field equations that are one of the greatest monuments of the human intellect. What the punter wants to know is whether Einstein s****ed his dog. (my emphasis)
Comedian Stewart Lee, critiquing celebrity 'books', made the point that someone who read them would end the books more stupid than when they started. Marcus Brigstocke 'alleged' on Sunday night that some atheists are atheists because they can't hold the concept 'God' in their head without their eyes glazing over. Maybe the Stupid Society is more of a problem than the Broken Society, or perhaps it's just a symptom of it. If our capacity to think and reason is broken, traded in for a pole dancer and the latest rock star implosion, then that's a serious problem.
There's probably a good book out there comparing the decline of the Roman empire with postmodern Britain, but I'm not sure I'm ready to get that depressed.
Jesus in Yarlswood, and the Economics of Sharing.
Wasn't sure whether to be heartened or depressed by yesterdays news.
A few weeks ago I tried to support a campaign for a Ugandan asylum seeker, who was deported by the UK authorities. One of the issues highlighted by the campaign was the inhumane treatment of children and families by the immigration system. A new report has found, effectively, institutionalised child abuse at Yarls Wood detention centre: infant children separated from their parents for 3 weeks, and a high rate of emotional and behavioural problems occurring in children at the centre.
Here's one summary: The report raised serious concerns over child protection issues after finding that at least 12 of the children had been separated from a main carer, two placed in detention with an adult with whom they had never lived, and one mother and her 20-month-old baby separated for three weeks during an outbreak of chicken pox.
The UK Border Agency are disputing the report, and saying it's dated, but if that's true, why would the Childrens Commissioner - following a visit just 6 months ago - be calling for the place to be sorted out?
Meanwhile, there is a campaign to change the way children of asylum seekers are treated. Matthew 25. One of them is Jesus. If the people in charge of the system knew that, would that change the way it operated?
On the plus side, following the Peace Prize that Passeth All Understanding, the Nobel Prize for Economics has gone to Elinor Ostrom, a woman studying the economics of sharing.
The findings of her research have been striking, as the Nobel committee pointed out, because they have challenged the established assumption that common property is poorly managed unless it is either regulated by government or privatised. She has shown how disparate individuals can band together and form collectives that protect the resource at hand.
That is an important message at a time when policymakers are grappling with how to cope with global warming. Again, it challenges a conventional assumption that without regulation or the action of private enterprise, no progress to change individual behaviour can be made.
about flipping time. I'm staggered at that last sentence - the 'conventional assumption' that only business or government can change individual behaviour. Thank God it's not true.
A few weeks ago I tried to support a campaign for a Ugandan asylum seeker, who was deported by the UK authorities. One of the issues highlighted by the campaign was the inhumane treatment of children and families by the immigration system. A new report has found, effectively, institutionalised child abuse at Yarls Wood detention centre: infant children separated from their parents for 3 weeks, and a high rate of emotional and behavioural problems occurring in children at the centre.
Here's one summary: The report raised serious concerns over child protection issues after finding that at least 12 of the children had been separated from a main carer, two placed in detention with an adult with whom they had never lived, and one mother and her 20-month-old baby separated for three weeks during an outbreak of chicken pox.
The UK Border Agency are disputing the report, and saying it's dated, but if that's true, why would the Childrens Commissioner - following a visit just 6 months ago - be calling for the place to be sorted out?
Meanwhile, there is a campaign to change the way children of asylum seekers are treated. Matthew 25. One of them is Jesus. If the people in charge of the system knew that, would that change the way it operated?
On the plus side, following the Peace Prize that Passeth All Understanding, the Nobel Prize for Economics has gone to Elinor Ostrom, a woman studying the economics of sharing.
The findings of her research have been striking, as the Nobel committee pointed out, because they have challenged the established assumption that common property is poorly managed unless it is either regulated by government or privatised. She has shown how disparate individuals can band together and form collectives that protect the resource at hand.
That is an important message at a time when policymakers are grappling with how to cope with global warming. Again, it challenges a conventional assumption that without regulation or the action of private enterprise, no progress to change individual behaviour can be made.
about flipping time. I'm staggered at that last sentence - the 'conventional assumption' that only business or government can change individual behaviour. Thank God it's not true.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Bodies Talk: the Web on Robbie Williams
There's been a lot of talk about Robbie Williams in the last few days. Too much talk in fact* Here's a round-up of some of it:
Christian Today quotes Jon from Freelance Theology : “We have a choice in the way we engage with someone like Robbie, But first we have to know what he is singing about.” Jon reckons the new single 'Bodies' is ultimately nihilistic, with a confused hotch-potch of religious ideas but ultimately its the cemetary rather than Jesus which marks the final destination. But despite that, it's a good discussion starter. Same article also picked up by Inspire.
Scribblings from My Desk notes that, in part, the lyrics are there to shock, and therefore attract extra interest. Seems to have worked! He also mentions a radio interview given by Williams In the interview I heard, Robbie confessed that although he'd been raised a Roman Catholic, he no longer knew who to pray to and perhaps the song reflects that confusion.
The Ton agrees with the confusion bit: The lyrics are all over the place with no overarching theme or smooth flow of ideas. The Blog of Kevin is worth a look, has an interesting interpretation: He wants perfection; he wants his reflection to be perfect. Not ordinary. Not mundane. But perfect. His reference to Jesus dying for him is about that – he doesn’t feel healed, perfect, restored, so what was Jesus’ death all about?
Good discussion on Wannabepriest, lots of points of view.
The jury is still out at the Worship Central forums.
There's a reference on this forum to another Williams interview (link broken) which notes:
He (Williams) says, when he wrote it George Bush was sending a lot of people to war in the name of Jesus, and being raised catholic the Jesus he he thinks he knows didn't die so that George Bush could send people to die in a needless war. And the "God save me rejection" bit is about the modern day struggle, people with body dysmorphias, anorexia, bulema, or who are not happy with their own image, have plastic surgery. And he thinks that is how people feel these days. Amen to all of that.
The X Factor performance itself has raised quite a few eyebrows itself, though it sounds like Williams was pretty strung out about it before he even got on stage. Must be a pretty nerve-racking thing to make a comeback after 3 years. Interesting that he dips out of singing 'Jesus didn't die for you' at the end. Deliberate? and that 'God bless you all' to the audience..... maybe it is a conspiracy after all.
*sorry, couldn't resist that. Prize for guessing the reference.
Christian Today quotes Jon from Freelance Theology : “We have a choice in the way we engage with someone like Robbie, But first we have to know what he is singing about.” Jon reckons the new single 'Bodies' is ultimately nihilistic, with a confused hotch-potch of religious ideas but ultimately its the cemetary rather than Jesus which marks the final destination. But despite that, it's a good discussion starter. Same article also picked up by Inspire.
Scribblings from My Desk notes that, in part, the lyrics are there to shock, and therefore attract extra interest. Seems to have worked! He also mentions a radio interview given by Williams In the interview I heard, Robbie confessed that although he'd been raised a Roman Catholic, he no longer knew who to pray to and perhaps the song reflects that confusion.
The Ton agrees with the confusion bit: The lyrics are all over the place with no overarching theme or smooth flow of ideas. The Blog of Kevin is worth a look, has an interesting interpretation: He wants perfection; he wants his reflection to be perfect. Not ordinary. Not mundane. But perfect. His reference to Jesus dying for him is about that – he doesn’t feel healed, perfect, restored, so what was Jesus’ death all about?
Good discussion on Wannabepriest, lots of points of view.
The jury is still out at the Worship Central forums.
There's a reference on this forum to another Williams interview (link broken) which notes:
He (Williams) says, when he wrote it George Bush was sending a lot of people to war in the name of Jesus, and being raised catholic the Jesus he he thinks he knows didn't die so that George Bush could send people to die in a needless war. And the "God save me rejection" bit is about the modern day struggle, people with body dysmorphias, anorexia, bulema, or who are not happy with their own image, have plastic surgery. And he thinks that is how people feel these days. Amen to all of that.
The X Factor performance itself has raised quite a few eyebrows itself, though it sounds like Williams was pretty strung out about it before he even got on stage. Must be a pretty nerve-racking thing to make a comeback after 3 years. Interesting that he dips out of singing 'Jesus didn't die for you' at the end. Deliberate? and that 'God bless you all' to the audience..... maybe it is a conspiracy after all.
*sorry, couldn't resist that. Prize for guessing the reference.
Review: Marcus Brigstocke 'God Collar'
Comedian Marcus Brigstocke is now well into his God Collar tour, a 1 man show with 1 main topic. As a preacher who struggles to hold people's attention for 10 minutes, I'm repeatedly struck how, through the medium of comedy, we're happy to listen to ideas and arguments being developed for a couple of hours. As long as there's a regular punchline, audiences can still think. Well over 2 hours of Brigstocke on Sunday night in Yeovil was a good workout for both the mind and the diaphragm.
And Brigstocke has certainly been thinking. "I have a God-shaped hole, but none of the available deities seem to fit." Much of the routine is about reasons not to believe - religious wars ("religion and war are like Ant and Dec, you never see them apart."), misogyny, obsession with rules, and so on. But at the same time Brigstocke is very honest about his desire to believe, and his conviction that there's something more to life than just reason ("sometimes I'd rather be happy than right"). The second half is quite personal, talking about his experience of family, children and bereavement, and the encore turned into a 30 minute Q&A session with the audience, giving Brigstocke the chance to land some precise blows on global warming and Top Gear.
It's an excellent show, if you can cope with a few crude bits. Along the way there is a pop at everyone from IPhone users to Nestle. Brigstocke is nothing if not even handed, from Muslims - "bags are for things, not people, grow up!" - to atheists "you're not cleverer than everybody else", there's something to annoy just about everyone. He points out the weirdness of agnostics who haven't really given the massive question of God any thought, and gives a superb summary of the difference between Protestants and Catholics.
There was plenty of challenging material. Noahs Ark, that famous childrens story, provided the lead in to a discussion of how many people in the Bible get killed by God. As for the rainbow as a reminder to God not to destroy the earth "if there's one thing worse than a murderous deity, it's a scatterbrained murderous deity." This is one Christians have wrestled with for centuries, ever since Marcion carved up the Bible in the second century to leave out the nasty bits.
More positively, Brigstocke spoke about 'Goodbye' (= 'God be with you') being a 'beautiful' thing, and how things like children and death are times when the God-shaped hole is more obvious. Talking of the death of his grandfather, and his best friend, Brigstocke muses on how comforting the idea of an afterlife would be, and then reminds us that this is exactly the same idea behind 9/11. Coincidentally, the comfort of an (imaginary?) afterlife is also at the root of Ricky Gervais's plot in The Invention of Lying.
Lots of other good stuff, I'm tempted to quote lots of the jokes but that would spoil it for anyone who might be tempted to catch him. I'd recommend it. It made me laugh, made me think, and makes me glad that the man behind We Are History is still going. The fact he's prepared to ruthlessly skewer Richard Dawkins probably helped! He'd done his homework on the local area too - which might have something to do with the fact he went to school in Bruton. On the downside, some pretty crude sexual references, and I'm not entirely sure that a bloke who habitually exposed himself to others is anything to admire.
As a Christian, I felt he was pretty fair about Christianity, with one or two exceptions, and most of his jokes about it were ones I wished I'd thought of first ("Christians are more obessed about gays than gays are"). He talked of having Christian friends and plenty of conversations with them, and I could believe it. This is the kind of atheist I'd be happy to have a pint with. Intelligent, fair, honest, questioning.
And Brigstocke has certainly been thinking. "I have a God-shaped hole, but none of the available deities seem to fit." Much of the routine is about reasons not to believe - religious wars ("religion and war are like Ant and Dec, you never see them apart."), misogyny, obsession with rules, and so on. But at the same time Brigstocke is very honest about his desire to believe, and his conviction that there's something more to life than just reason ("sometimes I'd rather be happy than right"). The second half is quite personal, talking about his experience of family, children and bereavement, and the encore turned into a 30 minute Q&A session with the audience, giving Brigstocke the chance to land some precise blows on global warming and Top Gear.
It's an excellent show, if you can cope with a few crude bits. Along the way there is a pop at everyone from IPhone users to Nestle. Brigstocke is nothing if not even handed, from Muslims - "bags are for things, not people, grow up!" - to atheists "you're not cleverer than everybody else", there's something to annoy just about everyone. He points out the weirdness of agnostics who haven't really given the massive question of God any thought, and gives a superb summary of the difference between Protestants and Catholics.
There was plenty of challenging material. Noahs Ark, that famous childrens story, provided the lead in to a discussion of how many people in the Bible get killed by God. As for the rainbow as a reminder to God not to destroy the earth "if there's one thing worse than a murderous deity, it's a scatterbrained murderous deity." This is one Christians have wrestled with for centuries, ever since Marcion carved up the Bible in the second century to leave out the nasty bits.
More positively, Brigstocke spoke about 'Goodbye' (= 'God be with you') being a 'beautiful' thing, and how things like children and death are times when the God-shaped hole is more obvious. Talking of the death of his grandfather, and his best friend, Brigstocke muses on how comforting the idea of an afterlife would be, and then reminds us that this is exactly the same idea behind 9/11. Coincidentally, the comfort of an (imaginary?) afterlife is also at the root of Ricky Gervais's plot in The Invention of Lying.
Lots of other good stuff, I'm tempted to quote lots of the jokes but that would spoil it for anyone who might be tempted to catch him. I'd recommend it. It made me laugh, made me think, and makes me glad that the man behind We Are History is still going. The fact he's prepared to ruthlessly skewer Richard Dawkins probably helped! He'd done his homework on the local area too - which might have something to do with the fact he went to school in Bruton. On the downside, some pretty crude sexual references, and I'm not entirely sure that a bloke who habitually exposed himself to others is anything to admire.
As a Christian, I felt he was pretty fair about Christianity, with one or two exceptions, and most of his jokes about it were ones I wished I'd thought of first ("Christians are more obessed about gays than gays are"). He talked of having Christian friends and plenty of conversations with them, and I could believe it. This is the kind of atheist I'd be happy to have a pint with. Intelligent, fair, honest, questioning.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Raise Money by Giving it Away
Around this time last month, we gave away £5 to everyone who came to our Cafe Service. That included first-time visitors, and children. The idea was to multiply the money during the next month, and then bring it back.
The challenge was to help raise £20,000 to build a new school in the Kibera slum in Kenya. Kibera is an area of 2 square kilometres, home to 1 million people. The average home is 3m x 3m (measure it out) and has an average occupancy of 5 people. The current school (pictured) is about to be knocked down to make room for a road and railway line. There'll be no compensation, and 200 kids will be without a school. In the UK it would cost £2-3million to build and equip a school for them. In Kibera, a local church has secured the land, and the cost will be a tiny fraction of what it would be here.
In September we gave away 57 envelopes, £285 in total. Yesterday, 38 of those came back, containing roughly £1300, a net gain of £1100. Cake sales, horse-naming competitions, marmalade-making, video nights, workplace collections, neighbourhood pub quizzes and home made cards, and a great sense of pride at what people had been able to achieve. Several other fundraising efforts are ongoing, including a sponsored half marathon, so I'm hoping that when it's all back in, we'll have raised £2000 or more.
This adds to roughly £500 raised at a conventional collection last week at our Harvest service towards the project. Interesting that giving money away has been up to 4 times more effective than simply asking for it!!! (though that's probably not a fair comparison! And it's not the kind of thing you can do every week).
It's amazing to see how motivated people have been, and how much they've enjoyed doing something for a good cause. Having a specific project has really helped. Two local schools are now interested in further links with the project.
Where did this all start? With one member of our congregation seeing an advert for a short-term mission trip to Africa, and deciding to have a go. She did a presentation to the church at the start of September, and everything else has kicked off since then. It's a great lesson in the power of the individual, and in creative fundraising which engages people's talents and interests.
One other trick: we gave the money away to the congregation with most 'fringe' members. Our Cafe Service has a regular congregation, but many only come to that, and nothing else. Result: most of their contacts for fundraising are outside the church, rather than inside it. That created a much bigger pool of money to fish in.
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