GadgetVicar

Bible Illuminated

An enterprising Swede has come up with the intriguing idea of presenting a cut-down version of the Bible in coffee table magazine style. Dag Soederberg, the Swedish businessman who came up with the idea says, "I'm not on a mission from God. I'm not particularly religious. I'm not telling anyone they should believe."

Read more on the Beeb.

If the daily illuminations offered on the supporting website are anything to go by, it's certainly an arresting combination.

I can't really comment on this much more without seeing the real thing. Time for a visit to a bookshop to check it out. Will I buy it? I doubt it, I've got the real thing X about twenty in our home. Mind you, Santa is coming.........

Episcopal Haiku

A friend sent me an encouraging card and a copy of Episcopal Haiku today (thanks, H!).

Among the gems:

Rehearsing readings,
folks fear they'll mispronounce names.
But who knows what's right?

Ever notice how
some priests gaze at your forehead,
never in your eyes?

Ascension!

Did it really happen and what could it mean?

....many of Luke's readers would know that when a Roman emperor died, it had become customary to declare that someone had seen his soul escaping from his body and going up to heaven. If you go to the top end of the Forum in Rome, stand under the Arch of Titus, and look up, you will see a carving of the soul of Titus, who was the emperor in the 80s of the first century, ascending into heaven. The message of this was clear: the emperor was becoming a god (thus enabling his son and heir to style himself 'son of god', which is a useful title if you want to run the world). The parallel is not so close this time, since Luke is clear that it was not Jesus' soul that ascended into heaven, but his whole. renewed, bodily, complete self. But there is a sense that Jesus is upstaging anything the Roman emperors might imagine for themselves. He is the reality, they are the parody - a theme we will notice more than once as Luke's story unfolds. And when, at the end of Luke's book, the good news of Jesus is preached in Rome itself, openly and unhindered, we have a sense of, 'Of course! That's how it had to be'. He is the world's true and rightful king sharing the very throne, and somehow even, so it seems, the identity, of the one true God.

                                                                                                                                    Tom Wright on Acts 1:9-11 (p14, Acts for Everyone, Part One)

Thursday Beverages

It's been an ultra-long day, beginning with an 8am breakfast with my prayer triplet at Wesley Owen, various meetings (also at WO - it's nice that they should let me use their premises as an office, all for the price of a few mugs of coffee), book shopping (see some of what I bought in the sidebar to the right), got my hearing back about lunchtime, more meetings, home for a quick 'Hello!', check emails/phone calls, then off to Glasgow City Mission to interview candidates for the Chief Executive's post. Home for 10.30 or so, a few phone calls to make and emails to read and reply to.

One of my oldest friends was advising us tonight - he was one of the youth leaders who recruited me for my first Christian leadership role, way back in 1980/1. It was lovely to see him, but also a little bit weird to be working with him again in a completely different context. Our times together since the eighties have been for hillwalking and beverage sessions. I think we must be due one of those soon?

Days off - The Plan

See The Children of Men with GadgetVicar Boy and pal.

Tidy up study!

Go for a walk.

Do weekly shop for swarm of locusts that live in the rectory.

Blairdrummond Safari Park tomorrow.

Finish reading a book.

Watch, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on DVD.

Intelligent Church

I've started to read Steve Chalke's and Anthony Watkis' 'Intelligent Church'. It is a good read, and one that I'm finding simultaneously encouraging, affirming and challenging. They are trying to help the Church engage with the world in a post-Christendom environment. Grace, love, and diversity feature heavily but there is also a rootedness in Jesus and scripture. It will mean a certain messiness but also an attractiveness; many churches today can't handle the former and are sadly lacking the latter.

I think this is what the Lord has called us to experiment with at St Silas'; how to be an ancient/future community of God's people that looks to the past, is open to the present, and anticipates the future. It's a heady mix.

I do wonder if the writers will find themselves preaching to the converted. The practical ideas included in the book are helpful, but I'm not sure how many conventional churches could or would take them on board.

It seems likely that what we are seeing happening, certainly in the UK, is small communities of people, in different streams, discovering new ways of doing church that work in their environment. Fresh Expressions is an attempt to encourage this too.

A word to the wise: if you have any influence in a church, let those who want to experiment a bit, do so. They might just be riding the wave of discovering how to be an 'Intelligent Church'.

War Things

Airfix has gone into receivership.

Making model planes, tanks and ships was a part of many males' childhood. Printed media for male children often focussed on war themes. In those days children were fascinated by war. What adults who had faced the real horror of war made of this fascination and glorification I don't know.

Making models however, did serve as an excellent apprenticeship for dealing with flat-packed furniture in later life. The occasional re-enactment of historical battles could be given a little extra realism when models were set on fire. I don't think this created too many pyromaniacs. Usually this activity was conducted outside and not as the models hung from the bedroom ceiling by little threads.

What other war-based things influenced childhoods in the sixties and seventies, that turned many into warmongering and politically incorrect adults?

The Victor comic. I remember going every weekend to the newsagent with my dad to pick up a copy.

Commando comics.Handy-sized, they became a favourite for swapping. One learned important German phrases which remain useful in our Euroland of today, such as, "Achtung ! Spitfeuer!" and "Britischer schweinhund!". I don't remember reading this particular edition, which resonates with the current interest that people seem to have in tattoos. "Too tough to kill" makes for a great motto across a forehead, though I suspect it woulld be taken by many in the gentle city of Glasgow as an invitation to try.

The Johnny Seven OMA (One Man Army). Many boys  could only dream of owning one of these seven-guns-in-one, that you could literally "have someone's eye out" with.

I've just about given up such childish interests, (apart from an occasional computer wargame) though I've retained an interest in military history. I'm also now mindful of the need to engage in spiritual warfare. No doubt my extensive experience from the likes of the above gave me a little bit of training in tactics!

A comfortable airport and a good book

Charlotte is a really attractive hub airport. It has good shops (Body Shop, electronics, books) and eateries. It is also spacious and quiet.

The only bugbear is the irritating muzak in the international departure lounge: a mixture of calypso and instantly forgettable jazz.  iPod rules in this situation, as five hours listening to this as I wait for the tranatlantic flight would drive me bonkers.

I'm reading a page-turner - Michael Crichton's State of Fear. Hopefully I can finish it overnight.

XBOX 360, Narnia, Embrace and Christmas

An XBOX 360 finally arrived this morning, and mighty fine it looks/sounds too. Of course I had to test it! GadgetVicar Boy will be pleased.

Also this morning, the GadgetVicar Family went to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's a fairly faithful rendition of the book, though somehow 'actioned-up', to keep flagging minds from wandering, I suspect. There is no real character development and there are incident(s) that not in the book, for example the waterfall scene. However, we loved it, and Tilda Swinton as the White Witch stole the show. I confess to finding it very moving (alright, I cried), particularly when Aslan died. Strangely bloodless, for such a violent tale, but no doubt this was done in order to keep the PG rating.

However, would anyone not schooled in Christian imagery, get the underlying message?

We then went for lunch at Pizza Hut, as a birthday treat from the family, which they all enjoyed thoroughly.

Tonight I'm off to a gig, to see Embrace at the SECC. Two concerts in two weeks - I haven't done that for ages!

Tomorrow, I'm preaching at the morning communion service and in the evening at our Carols by Candlelight service. It's a busy week coming up, though these will be the last sermons I preach in 2005, as I am on holiday for the Christmas weekend for the first and probably last time. Christmas last year went like this- Friday was Christmas Eve, Saturday was Christmas Day, and Boxing Day was Sunday. This is the minister's hardest combination. This year it's quite different- Christmas Eve is Saturday night and Christmas Day is Sunday. The easiest combination. In the USA, a number of the mega-churches are not meeting on Christmas Day, and are taking flak for it. They argue that attendance is low, and their staff need a break, just as many of their people take one at Christmas.

This year, the GadgetVicar kids will be able to talk about 'the year that dad took Christmas off to be with us'. So instead of me doing church at the midnight service and Christmas day all-age communion, followed by my traditional cooking of lunch for the myriad of people in the rectory, we'll be just the five of us at a little service somewhere on Christmas Eve, with me not having to do too much. We'll sleep in a little cabin on the shore of Loch Eck. We really hope it snows!

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Squeezing a 700-odd page book into a 3 hour movie is a tough job, and the GadgetVicar Girls were concerned about 'the bits they missed out', but it is still a good watch. The struggles of teenage friendship and courtship are portrayed in scenes which are both funny and painful. Rowling continues in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien, painting pictures of good versus evil, elitism and the use of power, and the nature of self-sacrificial love.

Two websites worth visiting for information on the Christian imagery in the Potter series are available here and here.

Finally, here is some of  the wisdom and wit of Albus Dumbledore:

"You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it".

"People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right."

"I do enjoy knitting patterns."

"You have not asked me what my favourite type of jam is, to see if I am the real Professor Dumbledore and not a Death Eater in disguise. For future reference, it's raspberry."

Voldemort: "There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!"
Dumbledore: "You are quite wrong. Indeed your failure to recognize that there are things worse than death has always been your greatest weakness."

"I'm not worried Harry,... I am with you."

“Soon we must all make the choice between what is right and what is easy”

“Remember Cedric. Remember, should the time come for you to choose between what is right, and what is easy, remember a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he crossed the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory.”