National siesta day

"In Britain the Siesta has not been part of our culture. But that is changing. Research shows that a siesta in the middle of a working day recharges our energy levels, increases memory, concentration and human productivity by up to 34%."

Siesta 2Siesta Awareness

Blogged with Flock

flaming lips

Flickr: Photos from supajem

saw the flaming lips at the O2 festival in Hyde Park on friday. Awesome. Dancing spacemen, santas, aliens, superheroes, confetti, balloons, and of course wayne in his space bubble...

Blogged with Flock

Meteorogical meditation

"At The Cloud Appreciation Society we love clouds, we're not ashamed to say it and we've had enough of people moaning about them. Read our manifesto and see how we are fighting the banality of ‘blue-sky thinking’."
The Cloud Appreciation Society


On the subject of things found in the sky, this week I have also been enjoying Flock.

It's a free browser, it's simple, uncluttered and it's very cool. Best of all, you can just highlight something, right click and blog it in seconds. Magic. You can get it here, so not actually in the sky at all.  (Thanks to Mark for the tip.)
Unfortunately it doesn't yet work on xanga, but that should be only a matter of time... The integration with blogger, typepad and flickr is awesome.

Blogged with Flock

Unknown white male

I saw this the other day at the ICA. An intriguing documentary. A man wakes up on the New York subway with no idea who he is, where he has come from or where he is going. The film follows his story as he works out who he is, and the reactions of his friends and family.
Since he's forgotten all the events of his life, he gets to see the sea again for the first time, fall in love again for the first time. He has to meet his own dad and his sisters, and watch old holiday videos without any of the memories attached. Being a photographer, he his friends film the whole thing, and it raises a whole load of questions about who we are and what makes us us - are we the sum of our experiences, or is there a fundamental personality that exists apart from our experiences?
If it's showing anywhere near you, do go and see it...

www.unknownwhitemale.co.uk

crimes against humanity

Some strong words here from E F Shumacher on economic priorities. It really resonates with me as a christian, though Shumacher is actually applying the principles of Buddhism to his economic theory. I don't think we've even begun to work out how to genuinely live as Christians in our current economic system. There are ways to live differently as real communities that we haven't explored at all.

“If greed were not the master of modern man - ably assited by envy - how could it be that the frenzy of economism does not abate as higher ‘standards of living’ are attained, and that it is precisely the richest societies which pursue their economic advantage with the greatest ruthlessness? How could we explain the almost universal refusal on the part of the rich societies to work towards the humanisation of work?
That soul destroying, meaningless, mechanical, monotonous, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no amount of ‘bread and circuses’ can compensate for the damage done - these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence - because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a crime against humanity.”

E F Shumacher, Small is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered, p24

easter

Here are a pair of short easter films that we developed at work this year. Take a look...

eternity

everything is complete, and there is no more time to keep

A brief exercise in comparative religion

If I were not already a Christian, I think I would subscribe to one of Kurt Vonnegut’s religions.
I quite like the teachings on Bokonon in ‘Cat’s Cradle’, whose principle rule is this: “Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”

Even better however, is the religion introduced in ‘The Sirens of Titan’, the magnificently named Church of God of the Utterly Indifferent. Here is a prayer from said church, from the lips of the Reverend C Horner Redwine.
“O Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagneic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Volumes of Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia - what could we do for thee that thou couldst not do for thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest thee? Nothing. Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say ‘Somebody up there likes me’. And no longer can a tyrant say ‘God wants this or that to hppen and anybody who doesn’t help this or that to happen is against God.’ O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain!”

film 2006

There are some refreshingly unHollywood films out at the moment. If you haven’t seen ‘Goodnight, and good luck’ yet, you might need to be quick. It’s black and white, nicely understated, and is a very simple piece of film making. It’s set in a 1950s TV studio, concerns a reporter’s conflict with Joe McCarthy, and has a lot to say about modern journalism. It’s also a good deal better than ‘Syriana’, which is slightly less clever and controversial than it thinks it is.

There’s also some great African cinema out in ‘Tsotsi’ and ‘Shooting Dogs’, and African cinema is a rare bird indeed. I think technically they’re billed as British films because of funding, but there are fair percentages of bona fide South Africans and Rwandans in the crew.
I haven’t seen ‘Tsotsi’ yet, but ‘Shooting Dogs’ is worth a look. It’s a true story from Rwanda, focuses on a specific school, and is shot in the actual locations with survivors of the genocide among the crew and extras. It’s an unusual film in that you know there is no happy ending. The characters develop at the same pace as the sense of menace, and you begin to understand and like people just as it becomes obvious that they’re fate is sealed. It’s a bold way of structuring a story, to frame it in a context of impending death.

If you get a chance to see it, do. And let me know what you think. Both this one and ‘Goodnight…’ have some interesting Christian perspectives.

2006…the year the film industry remembers its audience has a mind?

famine psalm

We wrote psalms in church last night. This is mine.

Father in heaven, I have a matter to raise with you.
I read it on the guardian online this week, and I know you did too.
It concerns the land of Kenya, a place that is near my heart,
And I know that you and I share a love for its people.

As you will be aware, without the help of the guardian,
there has been no rain,
and much of East Africa is in the grip of drought.

The land has dried up and hardened,
The earth is warped and cracked.
The riverbeds run dry,
And no water is found in the well.

The trees are shrivelled like driftwood,
No grass, no leaves, nothing green.

The dogs lie panting in the shade,
And the goats stagger in the sun.
The cattle drop to their knees in the wasteland.
Their bleached bones lie white in the sand.
The sheep are led out to graze and find only dust,
And the wind throws it back in their faces.

How much worse it is for the people,
Who know of cities and supermarkets,
Who have seen in movies and magazines,
McDonalds and KFC.

God, how is it that I can choose from a thousand places to eat, while others scratch among the rocks?
How is this fair? How is this right? God, where is your justice?
It makes me angry, and yet, I am angry that I am not angrier.
I am familiar with the images of famine.
The starving children no longer move me.
I am saddened at how de-sensitised I have become,
Even when disaster strikes a place I know and love.
Lord move me, break me, show me what I must do,
For I feel so powerless in the face of such a system.

But I digress. For Kenya Lord, send rain.
Send a harvest.
And until then, Lord, send food,
with honest distribution and good government.
Aid with no conditions, a gift to those who can give nothing in return.
Stir up those who have to provide for those who have nothing.

And again Lord, send rain, and revive the land.
Coax grass from the desert plains
And fields of maize from the windswept hills.

Bring life from the dust,
for you are a God who specialises in life out of death.

Hear my prayer Lord, from this your well-fed servant,
and feed the hungry.

article: killer drought threatens east africa
article: only god knows how we will survive

Ice sculpture

The Snow Show

The mad farmer liberation front

In everything I read at the moment there seems to be a quote from Wendell Berry. Has anyone read any?
This is something of his that I liked:

The mad farmer liberation front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.


So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.


Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.


Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?


Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

subverting the empire

I'm reading this at the moment. Here are a couple of quotes I liked.

''Dreams, by definition, are supposed to be unique and imaginative. Yet the bulk of the population is dreaming the same dream. It's a dream of wealth, power, fame, plenty of sex and exciting recreational opportunities' When a whole population dreams the same dream, empire is triumphant.'

'Even in a post-modern world, the human mind continues to think in terms of stories, and naturally seeks to order experience, looks for explanations of sequences of events, is attracted to dramas. There is, if you will, a narrative quality to human experience. In allowing ourselves to adopt and be adopted by a particular story, we are in fact assuming a set of practices which will shape the way we relate to our world and destiny.'

I'd never made the link between idolatry and imagination before, but in the modern context you can see how this plays out - we take on the dreams of the idol of consumerism, and we cannot imagine any other way things could be.

tragedy, comedy and fairytale

I'm reading ‘ telling the truth - the gospel as tragedy, comedy and fairytale’

It's an interesting book. Let me throw two quotes at you:

“One wonders if there is anyting more crucial for the preacher to do than to obey the sadness of our time... by speaking out of our times and into our times not just what we ought to say about the gospel, not just what would appear to be in the interests of the gospel for us to say, but what we have ourselves felt about it.”

“So let us use words, but in addition to using them to explain, expound, exhort, let us use them to evoke, to set us to dreaming as well as to thinking, to use words at their most prophetic and truthful. The prophets used them to stir in us memories and longings and intuitions that we starve for without knowing that we starve. Let us use words which do not only try to give answers to the questions that we ask or ought to ask, but which help us to hear the questions that we do not have words for asking...”

In between those two quotes the author, Frederick Buechner, describes Pontius Pilate’s commute, the pictures on his desk, and how he’s been trying to give up smoking. He contemplates the difference between truths and the truth, and notes that the silence before a preacher speaks is often the most profound part of a sermon.
I haven’t got very far yet, so I’ll have to come back to you on this one, but the point so far is this: that the truth of God, life, the gospel and the way things are is a truth that is too big to be contained in particular truths, in statements and propositions, in the aforementioned explaining, exhorting and expounding.
And when you look at the Bible, this is what you find. Sure, the epistles are full of exhortations and explanations, but because we focus on them so much we forget that most of the Bible isn’t written in that style. It’s in poetry, in prophesy, in story and drama, from the woes of Jeremiah to the dances of David, the warnings of Amos or the great hopes of Isaiah.
When Jesus was asked difficult questions, he asked questions back, changed the subject, or told a story. And when he was asked ‘what is truth?’ in John 18:38, he said nothing.

Can there be more truth in silence than in a smart answer? Is a metaphor more honest than a statement of fact?

Anyway, I’d better finish the book before I say anything else...

Being Yourself

If you haven't been there yet, visit www.beingyourself.info for me.

It's a site we launched in September at work, and it's based on Psalm 139. The idea is to find a new way of engaging with the psalm, and getting people into it who might never have bothered with the Bible. Take a look. It's a bit of an experiment, and I'd love to know what you make of it.

It's not meant to just sit there on the web and look pretty either. www.lifewords.info/beingyourself is a user site that explains what it's about and how you can use it in your church.

wanderers

In case you've just ambled across, this is a blog that I've never really publicised. I will sooner or later get round to putting stuff here, as you can comment without being a member.

In the meantime, my thoughts are here: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=supajem

stars, promises

Let me tell you a story...

“Suddenly his eyes were open, the surroundings making themselves known piece by piece in the darkness - the dull grey of the ceiling, the soft wind in the trees beyond it, the warm presence of his sleeping wife an arm’s length away.
Careful not to wake her, he slipped from under the covers, rose and stretched, and stepped into his sandals. He slipped out of the tent and stood, alone with the thoughts that kept him awake, the nagging inadequacies and the self-doubts.
On the other side of the canvas slept his beautiful bride, the envy of the king of Egypt, and he was unable to give her what she most desired. Either that, or she was unable to give him what he longed for. Their faithfulness to each other meant they would never know who was to blame, if blame their was.
He walked, and he remembered that first year, the mutterings of in-laws, the talk of the neighbours, the laughter of the young men, the quiet sadness of the childless couple.
Many years stood between him and those first questions. Circumstances had changed. There was the wealth, respect, wisdom, but the ache would not go away. What good was all he had acheived? He had a servant for an heir. He was blessed, and yet the blessings seemed at times like mockery.
Long after he and his wife had stopped trying he would sit and stare at the shepherds’ fires on the hill, or walk through the moon-dappled shade to the edge of the trees to where the sky broke vast overhead.
And there he would stand and bathe in the enormity of the night sky, and the words of a ancient promise would come to him again, words that he confessed had at times rung hollow: ‘I will make you a great nation.’
These words had tested him. At times he had clung to them, at other times abandoned them. Sometimes they filled him with hope, and on other days he despaired at how much time had passed, that the opportunity was gone, and he and his wife were too old.
He knew, and yet he wondered. He hoped, and yet he hardly dared.

‘Look up into the night sky and count the stars if you can. Your descendants will be like that.’

The old man sighs, the heartfelt prayers so often repeated that words hardly seem necessary any more. He walks slowly back, parts the curtains of the tent and quietly steps through, drawing the strings behind him. He slips off the sandals and wipes the dust from his feet. Then he tip-toes across the goatskin rug and creeps under the blankets again. Sarah half stirs and he pauses, not wanting to wake her. He settles, and reaches across to place his hand gently on her belly, as he’s done a thousand times before. And he knows.
He despairs, he grieves, his patience wanes and his trust wavers, and yet he knows.

day one

standby...

I'm actually here: www.xanga.com/supajem