Praise through the mundane See-through faith has a good daily thought that begins with the question, "What do a metal worker, someone who sets gems, someone who is skillful with a needle, and someone who builds well have in common?"

It's good stuff - go read it.

But it also reminded me of one of my favourite passages that may, or may not, be scripture, depending on your point of view. If I've blogged this before you will recognise it, I suspect. It comes from the book of Ecclesiasticus, part of the Apocrypha. It is accepted as canon by the Roman Catholic Church, referred to as useful for instruction but not the setting of doctrine by the Church of England, and avoided by much of Protestantism.

Nevertheless I love this part. Ecclesiasticus 37:25-34... and I trust that the publishers of the Revised English Bible will forgive my quoting it here verbatim (typing errors excepted!):

How can one become wise who follows the plough,
whose pride is in wielding the goad,
who is absorbed in the task of driving oxen,
whose talk is all about cattle?
He concentrates on ploughing his furrows,
and toils late to give the heifers their fodder.
So it is with every craftsman and designer
working both day and night.
Such are those who make engravings on signets
and patiently vary the design;
they concentrate on making an exact likeness
and stay up to all hours to finish their task.
So it is with the smith, sitting by his anvil,
intent on his ironwork.
The fiery vapours shrivel his flesh
as he wrestles in the heat of the furnace;
the hammer rings in his ears again and again,
and his eyes are on the pattern he is copying.
He concentrates on completing the task
and stays up late to give it a perfect finish.
So it is with the potter, sitting at his work,
turning the whel with his feet,
always engroosed in the task
of making up his tally of vessels;
he moulds the clay with his arm,
crouching forward to exert his strength.
He concentrates on finishing the glazing,
and stays up to clean the furnace.

All these rely on their hands,
and each is skiful at his own craft.
Without them a city would have no inhabitants;
no settlers or travellers would come to it.
Yet they are not in demand at public discussions,
not do they attain high office in the assembly.
They do not sit on the judge's bench
or understand the decisions of the courts.
They cannot expond moral or legal principles
and are not ready with maxims.
But they maintain the fabric of this world,
and the practice of their craft is their prayer.

I just find that such a reminder, at all times, of the dangers of intellectual superioity to which many of us are prone, not to mentionthe issue that prayers are not necessarily made of words- the practice of their craft is their prayer.

It's not really so far from the beatitudes, is it? Blessed are the meek...

(As an entirely separate issue, does anyone know of an electronic version of the REB? The nearest I've found is an American Bible Study package add-on, and it only runs on Apple Mac!)  ¶ 1:10 pm 1 comments

  New Ageisms and Missed Opportunities? (Category: faith)

Some readers may remember my post some time back about the quandary I faced about a charity psychic fair in a local school. Well, I have finally decided to write to the Governors to express my concern - and unless the media get hold of it (and my lips are sealed at this point) that is all you will hear about it in detail. (Not that I expect that it will make a difference, but it may.)

Nevertheless as part of my research and preparation I have come across a list of practices that one euphemistically named "Alternative Therapy" provider counted as being categories for membership of their grouping. (I shan't give the URL!) The list itself is quite informative:

Acupunture, Alexander Technique, Archetype Therapy, Aromatherapy, Astrological Counselling, Aura Soma, Aurora Magnetic Crystal Sound Healing, Chakra Balancing, Colonic Irrigation, Counselling, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, Crystal Healing, Ear Candle Therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique, Energy Balance Massage, Entity Removal, Feng Shui, Flower Remedies, Freewill Therapy, Hand Analysis, Harmonic Sounds, Crystal and Magnet Therapy, Herbal Medicine, Homeopathy, Hypnosis, Indian Head Massage, Iridology, Life Coaching, Magnified Healing, Massage, Mediation & Conflict Resolution, Meditation, Meridian Cleansing, Metaphysics, Naturopathy, Nutrition, Osteopathy, Past Life Therapy, Psychic Counselling, Rebirthing, Reflexology, Reiki, Shamanic Healing, Shiatsu, Spirit Rescue, Spiritual Healing, T'ai Chi Ch'uan and Yoga.

Beyond the question of actually trying to work out what some of these are, and see behind euphenisms (such as "Astrological Counselling" for what most would refer to Horoscopes, etc etc) there are a number of categories that any suitably gifted and trained Christian could, as I understand it, actually qualify as a "Alternative Therapy" Practioner: Counselling (and it's psychic-named equivalent, referring instead to the actions of the Holy Spirit), Entity Removal (which may or may not be Exorcism by any other name), Life Coaching, Mediation and Conflict Resolution, Meditation and Spiritual Healing.

It returns to an earlier question: why are people willing to look elsewhere than the Christian faith, and what are we going to do about it? I know Steve Hollingsworth of the Church Army and John Drane are both active in this field, but what about the rest of us (even if many Dioceses have one Diocesan Exorcist, and often standing instructions to refer cases to them).

After all it was Counselling (in the widest sense), and possibly even "Life Coaching" that started me off on the search for vocation. Surely many of the "shorter" list are exactly the things we should be about. Am I? Not enough, I fear.

As an added twist all these Practioners generally expect payment for services rendered, which reminds me once again about the fundamentally opposite position of things offered out of love and service. I've wondered before whether I shoud advertise my "services" in a different manner, "Community Faith Consultant" or "Listening Ear".

And don't get me started on the whole issue of charitable involvement and visibility of Christians....

Incidentally this is my 100th post, apparently!  ¶ 9:57 am 2 comments

  Divine Vision or Insane Dream? (Category: faith)

In an excellent meeting with my support group yesterday (you know who you are - thank you) I had a blinding flash of inspiration - an idea brimming with potential, an idea which would solve a number of problems (while creating a few new challenges, admittedly), an idea that could make good news for not just me but another organisation that always likes good PR in MLPK.

The question is whether it is so blindlingly obvious because it's stupid, or because it's divine. (Just look at some of the prophets and ask if they were divinely inspired or just plain wacko - rhetorical question, but you know what I mean!) One of those where you just say "Nah. Not in a month of Sundays." Unless that is, God planted it there.

And the most annoying thing? I can't blog it in detail, just in case they are reading this blog!

If it were to come off it would be a serious bit of the miraculous. So, do I
(a) have the patience to enquire upstairs, and
(b) the courage to implement it?

If I haven't posted more on this by Easter remind me and ask what happened - although if it comes off you'll probably know before then - or at least, all two of you who read this will!

(Seriously excited Moose here - who really needs to stop working when he said that over an hour ago!)  ¶ 9:45 pm 0 comments

  Moose needs (Category: life, trivia)

After the example from Kathryn at Good in Parts, herself quoting maggi

Moose needs work

Moose needs money.

Moose needs large areas of continuous forest connected by wooded passageways.

Moose needs to use the yellow pages and call the store in advance.

Moose needs to slow his decline

Moose needs 40+ pounds of food a day.

Moose needs sponsors just as badly as everyone else

Moose Needs to Relax Sometimes

Moose needs to make enough money to pay his DSL bill and put food on my family's plate.

Moose needs a designer

For the first ten halfway sensible Google responses to the searh "[name] needs" some of these are remarkably perceptive....  ¶ 10:18 pm 1 comments

  Imagination explosion: Resumption of normal service (vi) (Category: Role-Playing Games)

As I have commented elsewhere in this blog it does feel that, despite having not blogged a lot over the past few weeks, I have found a lot of space for creative writing for RPGs - and that's not about Rocket-Propelled Grenades!

I must confess that since the excellent chance to meet other collaborators on the Gwenthia project a couple of months back I have done very little. I'm not sure how much has been a lack of inspiration and how much just the need for a change. Sorry guys, I will get back on track in the near future (like next week).

I've also been trying to write a piece in Glorantha for submission to the next Continuum convention book, which is shaping up rather nicely (or was until my butterfly imagination skitted elsewhere a few weeks ago). Be reassured that it stands firmly within the traditions of the Con (ie. slightly eccentric...) In the same vein I'm still awaiting the publication of my piece in Tradetalk.

The thing that has really been grabbing my creativity of late is the marvellous Traveller RPG, a vintage thing if there ever was one. I thought I'd blogged about this before, but I may not have. My latest wave of interest has been sparked off by the acquisition of a lot of the old Traveller and MegaTraveller books via eBay, and the recently released MegaTraveller canon in PDFs on CD-Rom. For those of you who recognise any of this stuff I have been re-writing the history of the Third Imperium to avoid the Solomani Rim War and instead re-integrate the Solomani Sphere into the Imperium, thus opening up another frontier for development - The Imperial Rim. This has also allowed the creation of the Office of the Rimward Develoment Agency (motto "bringing order to the Imperial Rim")...

Such vastly time-consuming projects have also given me a chance to bug-hunt the version of the Traveller world-buiding computer program "Heaven and Earth" - the version which I possess seeming to produce too few gas giants in systems, not to mentionthen having to tweak the (random) results to make just a little more sense. I've also recently discovered a MegaTraveller Ship Building program ("Ships III for Windows") which doesn't seem to get some of the details right, at least at TL12. It has reminded me just how complicated the starship design sequences are.

Sad? Me? Nonsense, I'm a very happy little gearhead and I won't brook a word of criticsm, perhaps..

Aren't clergy allowed to a have a life? :-)  ¶ 9:12 pm 2 comments

  Rule of Life: Resumption of normal service (v) (Category: faith)

Several score of moons ago, at college, I sorted out a rule of life with my tutor. It included such wonderful items as "go to the college bar if still working at 10 pm, you must stop", and even the expectation of enjoying a Pub Lunch once a week in term time. (These passed into college folklore for a while as "Dr Moose's Pastoral Pub Lunches" and they were both great fun and great conversation places). This, of course, will probably confirm people's opinions of me as an alcoholic - but there were, of course, more serious items, about prayer space, private devotion, and even the importance of going on silent retreat once a year. 72 hours of silent retreat is long enough to allow the Bible to read you, as well as allowing you to hear yourself think and a little more of what God is trying to say...

It is time I re-examined, or rather re-wrote, my rule of life. I haven't been on retreat since we arrived in MLPK, and resuming blogging with a regular frequency, also needs to be somewhere there too - as well as making dedicated theological/devotional reading space - otherwise my bookshelves will continue to be ornamental rather than educational.

How much of this will happen, or more likely, how much will survive the arrival of number 2, is another matter!  ¶ 9:01 pm 0 comments

  Different adoration: Resumption of normal service (iv) I'm not quite sure how they calculated it, or quite were it applies (UK/Western Europe I'd guess), but I recently heard a quote to the effect that most people spent the same amount of their lifetime praying as they did kissing.

Is that kissing when younger and being prayerful when older? :)

In a way the figures shouldn't be too surprising in this unconscious symmetry. They are, after all, both methods of adoration and relationship building... (even to the extent of prayer being able to be thought of as intimate encounter with the divine).

Nevertheless as I said to the chaps in the chippy - yelling "O God" does not necessarily constitute prayer!  ¶ 8:54 pm 0 comments

  Prayer time: Resumption of normal service (iii) (Category: faith)

Another thing last week that made me ponder was a question from my Tai Chi teacher (or "Chinese Dance" as GLW puts it). Being of a "spiritual" bent and teaching meditation among other things TCT asked how much I prayed a week.

Now, I know that sometimes it is hard to define what counts as prayer, or how many "arrow-prayers" make one minute, and whether to count the Eucharistic Prayer and other "service-leading vicarious prayers" etc etc but I was able to work out that on an average week I'd managed only 40 minutes of intercession and listening in Morning and Evening Prayer.

Yet... we are called to be people of prayer. How would my relationship with GLW or LM develop (or not) if they had 40 minutes a week from me? I spend an hour most weeks in Tai Chi lessons, of which 15 minutes is meditation, and properly accounted should add to my weekly total.

I used to do 70 minutes or so a day for a year or so at Poly. I wouldn't think twice about spending 40 minutes or more on personal writing on a quiet evening. So, it was an interesting bit of perspective assessment.

And I still haven't worked out a correct response, not forgetting my tendency to fall asleep, sorry make that "meditate in the presence of God" if I spend more than 5 minutes or so listening to God much of the time!)  ¶ 8:41 pm 0 comments

  e-Godparents? Resumption of normal service (ii) (Category: faith)

Here's something you may not have have come across. In the Anglican (and I presume RC and even Methodist) traditions an infant or child may be baptised on the word of Godparents, who effectively stand surety for the child until (s)he reaches a suitbale age to confirm those vows.

Notwithstanding all the questions of what makes a good Godparent, what parents think Godparents are there to do (irrespective of the minister!), how do you deal with the request that Aunty A be a Godparent when Aunty A lives in the antipodes?

Enter the age of the e-Godparent! Has anyone else among the dog-collared readers of this blog (that's about 3 at last count...) come across the same? Do you also send an email and attached text of the service which looks a bit like this:

"Dear Aunty A,

Hopefully you will be expecting this email about you being a Godparent for Baby B.

Since I understand that you will be unable to be present on the occasion I just wanted to check that you are aware of the responsibilities of Godparents, both in terms of the promises made for Baby B, and for yourself in the future. (I am sure you are, and are happy with this, but I must nevertheless check.) Until the day of baptism by video-conferencing then email will just have to do!

You'll find attached to this a copy of the Baptismal service order.

In the section headed "Liturgy of Baptism" there are a number of questions that Godparents are expected to answer.

The first concerns your willingness to pray forBaby B, and by example draw him deeper into the community of Christian believers, being there for them (so much as the realities of distance allow!)

The second recognises that he will be beginning a journey of faith, and that until he can decide and articulate that faith for himself that you will speak on his behalf, and help him to reach that point.

A further two sets of questions fall under the heading of "Decision" and while they are made on Baby B's behalf you should be able to answer them for yourself as well. They amount to a summary of Christian faith and belief, an on-going commitment rather than a one-off statement.

I'm sure from my chats with Parent C and Parent D that none of this should prove too problematic!

Please forgive me if this all seems hide-bound and formal. I just want to check that you know what you are letting yourself in for with promises that are as important as wedding vows. I just wish I had the opportunity to speak with more Godparents before the day!

If you could email me to let me know that you are happy to positively answer these questions I'd really appreciate it!

Please do email me if you do have any questions or worries and I'll do my best to answer.

Regards,

Minister E"

Or is it just me? How do, or would, you deal with such a request - and does anyone know the "correct" response? (Yes, I could just send it in to The Church Times - and can guess which of the regular correspondent might answer - but that would be too easy. Although it is about time I got a letter in there again...)

Any takers?  ¶ 8:27 pm 1 comments

  Resumption of Normal Service...(i) (Category: Life)

Right, folks. I will now attempt to get back on track with this blogging lark (is that a sweet-singing bird with a blog?)

I think I mentioned in my last post something about the challenge to think with more theological rigour, and somewhat surprisingly perhaps this blog provides the opportunity to do that, as well as encouraging the habit of regular writing.

I do, however, have a few points in my defence. Despite it feeling like I've had a little more personal space, as well as family space since number 2 is due in January, I've also been plagued by a swarm of migraines (well 3 in 3 weeks, 2 of them in the same week. And believe me, a migraines 20 minutes before leading Holy Communion is no joke, I assure you!) It's a common feature of the autumn for me - mainly a result of the sun being low in the sky and something to do with high levels of contrast between light and shadow. It's also a reminder that I need to get my eyes checked again - and I haven't or two years now, so I'd better. Isn't it lucky that an opticians has been added to the list of amenities in MLPK (not that I can probably afford it!)

Talking of affording our television has also died. One day short of a year after the purchase of a reconditioned set, to replace the two LM broke (!), it went "pop" and worketh not. It looks like we might eventually get round to renting a set, just like the old days - but until then we have been generously indefinitely "lent" a set to keep CBeebies viewable. If you read this and you know who you are, thank you again - LM has already worked out the buttons!

Until that time the "new" one looks more like a little one eyed god in the corner of the room, rather than the large idol to entertainment and information that dominated the lounge before. It feels right, but the you forget how small a small TV is...

More to follow on "Faith".....  ¶ 7:42 pm 1 comments