Primevera Picnics

My first picnic of the year was a joy, sitting in the grounds of Langley school, watching hockey enthroned on a deck chair with travelling rug, pouring cups of tea and snacking on baguette and short bread fingers. Shame the game wasn't as civilised!?!
Do you ever feel like you're in limbo waiting for the changes to come and the plans to arrive. In April my life changes completely yet here I am in March treading water?!? Even the weather seems a waiting game - but I have started the mowing the lawn, picnics and using the washing line - just yearning for consistently warmer days. Waiting to be able to say:
"The Sun is shining - I am gardening! Everything is right with the world!"

Confucian Enlightenment

I read a really interesting article by Grace Moon today about the right to rule - divine/ democratic/ conduct befitting. Are we really more advanced and civilised than 5,000 year old China? Read the article see what you think... www.velvetparkmedia.com/blogs/google-v-mandate-heaven
Here is how I responded:
I am always intrigued by Chinese women - such formidable matriarchs yet such an underclass in China. I never understand women's oppression anywhere - I think we are so formidable I pity the man who tries to cage us - but that leaves me to suspect that we are complicit in our own submission??!?? I often find women to be far more vehement in their sexism and gender expectations/enforcement - even lots of gay women... Straight women are almost always caustically hard on themselves and other women - whilst expecting so much less from a man??


I don't think that you can either fully understand, nor criticise from a superior position, a culture you are not within - there is so much poverty and human rights violations in both our countries - admittedly in a less in your face way - but that doesn't make us superior.
I think so much that happens in China politically is wrong - but Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina and inner city estates in the UK have taught me that there is a lot of dirt under our liberal democratic rugs - more than I ever imagined even as a cynical politics Graduate. We and our governments are ALL wrong. I remember something that Confucius said about learning from everybody - from their irritating or bad ways how not to be - from their good and admirable ways how to be - He said it with eloquence and brilliance. But I try to follow it - How we are is what will change others not what we say.

The North Wind Does Blow and We Shall Have...

The wind has blown strongly from the North in England and it has bought with it ice and snow, both a delight and a frustration. We are not geared up for any prolonged snowfall in England and schools close at the slightest opportunity - leaving me at home with very hyperactive children for most of the week. Wrapping up warm whilst taking brisk walks, sledge rides, making snowmen and having snowball fights are real winter joys, but a three year old with a chest infection precludes most of them for more than a few minutes. Even roaring log fires and steaming mugs of tea can dull in their delight when they are more of an essential then an indulgence. But the wind has brought with it flocks of field fares and redwings to bejewel the garden in exchange for the berries that they have devoured leaving the barest branches.

Individualism Vs the Need to Belong

The rise in evangelical Christianity is caused by a rise in individualist
consumer-driven culture. Discuss.
If asked what do I think about this is one thing - add the word discuss and I feel I have to write a text book essay first defining the agreed terms - analysing different general theories concerning these and extrapolating the causal links between them.... but I am going to not be contained by these expectations - whether mine or academia's. I will say what I think in note form as if in a normal conversation over a pint or a pot of tea - Here goes....
I think consumer Christianity is definitely egocentric - it is generally about what one - I - myself - get from church or faith position, although not exclusively - co-dependent worshippers dig how much they can slavishly give or masochistically suffer!?!? But ultimately it is about consuming as an individual rather than worshipping corporately. Catholics and traditional Anglicans, Methodists and Baptists tend to go to church from a sense of community, tradition, duty etc,. and (here I am generalising for the sake of non thesis proportions) less for individual satisfaction with the quality or style of service. Although, arguably people are creatures of habit and therefore often likely to prefer worship in the context of the traditions from which they originate ( I wanted to use the verb Ken?? so which word is my dysphasia groping for??? Call me Spooner and hit me with a Mallaprop) so the issue of personal preference may not be out of play as such - just operating within different expectations??
So I take this as pretty much given and directly relate it to the growth of "supermarket" churches - charismatic, evangelical, modern (ish - they wish!!) Where people drive to large places of worship often away from their geographical community.
BUT I think evangelical Christianity as a whole has grown because of separate factors - there was definitely a tangible backlash against liberal attitudes within culture and a 'call to arms' against pervasive lapses of traditional Victoriana Morals - Mary Whitehouse and others like her resounded the horn of Christian Morality to hold sway over the media and society at large rather than go gentle into that good night - less acceptance and tacit silence, more placard waving and standing outside Jerry springer on cold winter evenings.
The concept of Christians being the moral guardians of the 'lost'!?!? Forgetting that: 'He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world' and 'it is not for us to judge those who are not of the church'. The idea people needed saving from sin rather than a recognition sin was inevitable in all and irrelevant after the cross - that yes we should protect the weak but that God is bigger than sin - I believe what he wants is for Christians to glow with the healthy benefits of being in relationship with him - not try to club a heathen over the head and drag them back into the safe CONFINES of the church!!??!! Nor try, or even think it possible, to make the rest of the world morally right without that relationship with God.A fallen world - or at least a human world is going to be fallible and broken - Eden it will not be - neither is the church, we just pretend most of the time and can be worse under the surface from the pretence. Just like environmental policy people need more than fear or judgement to make them change in any way effectively. Aesop got it with the tale of the sun and the wind - ( pertinent illustration for global warming lectures!!) People respond far better to the carrot than they do the stick!!
I think the evangelical church grew because people wanted more certainty within a dramatically changing society - post modernism, mass media and massive population movement has resulted in many feeling unrooted and insecure - the evangelical church - like Islam offers far more definite certainty and rules - a line to stand one side of and feel safe and sometimes even better than those on the other side. In my mind this regional, national and global social insecurity is the bigger causal factor of both individualism, evangelical Christianity and fundamentalism as a whole - itself caused by the migratory changes in human organisation. Communities are now fluid - generally anonymous and often not geographically based - people are strange when you're a stranger -solution a new tribalism??? Essentially people want to belong and want clear identifiers of that belonging. Culturally it is a fighting battle to see worshipping locally as a viable long term option- communities are now far more about shared interests and experiences than localities - so you cannot just belong because of where you live there needs to be clearer parameters and the evangelical church where it has grown has arguably provided those. Arguably at the cost, and what a cost, of focusing less on Jesus' enigmatic uncertain parables and more on the modernity of Paul's definite teachings.

The Rise and Fall

"The rise in evangelical Christianity is caused by a rise in individualist
consumer-driven culture." Discuss. It's not often a girl gets asked that in a life time!?!
And when asked a curve ball I do as I am want to - refer to the bizarre random oddities of Google Images to answer for me. Be it planetary healing - The brothers Judd or the anti-green posy ( which is ironic since I was asked the question by an Environmental Scientist). One or two are apt but the rest - I ask you - what could possibly be in those blogs and sites to link to this search!!??!! There really are some weirder blogs than mine - you'll be scared to know!??!

Where were you at the fall?

This week has seen the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. So where were you and what were you doing when you heard about, and probably witnessed via the media, this momentous occasion? I was 14 starting on my GCSE's having been unable to walk for several months- It was probably one of the first times other than the Falklands war, Royal Wedding, IRA bombs, chernobyl, football riots or Miner's strikes that I was truly aware of more than Newsround news.
It seemed to be an amazing thing that sister was reunited with sister - that people were tearing it down with their bare hands. It was probably at a time of awakening for me - exciting texts in English, advanced algebraic equations, teachers who talked to you like near equals and were interested in your opinion. So to be becoming aware of the world at a time of such tumoltuous (sp?) change was exciting - it is probably when I became aware of politics being a positive thing not just tyranny and backlash - although China was to soon make us aware that tyranny was still live and kicking.

We Shall Remember Them

The Ambient Wonder Rememberance event went really well!! It was Multi-sensory with a capital M. Rosemary to crush and sniff, poppy seeds to dip and grind your "french bread" into, fantastic soundtrack and the images projected onto a sheet hanging in the room were powerful.
An activity with poppy seeds representing the number of war deaths was profound - so many running through your finger tips - and it did not include the 140 million estimated deaths from democide and genocide that occurred during the context of military conflicts!??!? I was moved by the war poems that were scattered around the room.I also loved the response where you reflected as the crepe paper petal melted into the water and then lay it bleeding onto the canvas.