Random IM verse #1

My good friend Linda and I experimented with some poetic co-creation. This is the result, the first co-authored random verse through the medium of instant messaging, line by line. Hope you like it. The link below gives the topicality.

Ed is so brilliant
a wizard on Ning
no bad thing
but not really social
one silent night
it was too hard to listen
even owls took flight
without a hoot
into the deeply dark sooty sky

logging on gave no clarity
he mourned a lack of parity
on tax and havens
he climbed the highest mountain
searched optimally for justice
wondered if U2
like him
suddenly found themselves
friendless

U2 and tax havens

Gaelic is endangered, should I care?

According to UNESCO's 'Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger' Gaelic is 'definately endangered.' A language is endangered when its speakers stop using it, or use it less often and stop passing it on to the next generation.

There were just 58,552 Gaelic speakers left in the 2001 census. Thats about the population of a town like Dunfermline.

This Times article lays into the "Gaelic triumphalism" which "surfaces whenever the little that remains of the culture comes under threat of further erosion, at the same time as Gaelic is crowbarred into an ever-increasing number of crannies in lowland life."

At £20m a year for BBC Alba? Sounds a lot but still only £350 per head per speaker. But taking in the wider public spending (£50m) on 1.2% of the population this rises to about £850 a head.

But consider this.

Koichiro Matsuura, Unesco's director-general, said: "The death of a language leads to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage, especially the invaluable heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it – from poems and legends to proverbs and jokes."

How important is it to know that Bheinn Mhor means 'Big Hill?'

Africa needs God?....

I've been getting peeved at the over-use of Matthew Parris' recent Times article, "As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God," by evangelicals in church sermons. If you missed it then Google it but essentially he has done a confessional piece saying that his experience of mission work in Africa confounds him as a diehard athiest. " I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa" he writes.

His main interest is not so much in the cause but the effect leading him to conclude "a whole belief system must first be supplanted."

An unbelieving colleague was appalled and made this blistering critique which I find hard to challenge:
"Unfortunately this article doesn't really go into that debate but peddles some really racist stuff - I'm suprised it was allowed to be published and surprised at Matthew Parris. Traditionally in parts of Africa people don't look you in the eye as it's seen as a mark of disrespect - those who do are likely to do it because they have been around lots of Western people, not necessarily christians. Africa has
had a lot of crap imposed on it from the West - and I would argue Western democracy was one of them. Democracy in the west took centuries to develop along with the civil society that shaped it. Imposing democracy on other cultures has undermined traditional systems some of which are much closer to the true concept of democracy. The idea that as Mr Parris suggests we should now "supplant a whole belief system"
completely appalls me - he must have missed the whole climate change debate if he thinks the west still has good ideas for the rest of humanity.

I've got soul but I'm not a soldier!

A revelation today. My son, nearly nine, has expressed a new life aspiration, to be a soldier! I'm shocked to the core.
"Because so many people are dying!" And he wants to help. Not for King and Country. Not in the killing, he wants to help. There's something noble in this. To Fight, to Protect, to Defend!
I hadnt thought through any desire to be in warfare or a battle with any sense of justice any sense at all of a positive putcome, surely there must be sometimes. Or is liberation usually just a transfer from one tyranny to another?
Can a combatant be a subversive peacemaker?

Secular Sunday

We had a secular Sunday today just like the majority of our neighbours. Slept in, had a brunch of baguette and scrambled egg and ham, filter coffee, just eased into the day, glided around the house. Then all of us out for a family swim after walking the dog along the Clyde for a little stretch. (Just to be clear we swam in our local pool not the Clyde!) After that a very late lunch in IKEA; the ultimate secular temple.

It was wonderful and one of the most restful Sabbaths of long while. Why should this be so? Obviously the novelty factor, then the absence of pressure, the lack of challenge. But I'm wondering what else. Why would anyone give that up to go and be part of a church worship service?

Quantum of humanity

Well I’ve seen the latest Bond movie. The recipe has changed; mixed much more quickly, faster fight scenes with lots of bone crunching sounds, no gadgets, no humour, no black and white, no fantasy island evil empires, just brutal, clinical despatching of whoever gets in the way of the grudge, ‘duty’ and a hunger for revenge.

Bond has never been warm or human. He has never been so efficient. He has never faced a corporate eco-terrorist before. This Bond wears his glamour like work overalls which is reasonable enough because its dirty stuff his duty requires. He shows a quantum of humanity.

That quantum is this; a drive to find the right order of things, a drive to find love, to find acceptance and approval. There is a residual trace element in the 2008 Bond of these traits of humanity.

The portrayal of omnipresent corporate greed, acting almost as a sovereign empire, carving up the world, for a shadowy elite isn’t that far fetched. Its worryingly accurate.

Advice

"Be regular and orderly in your life, that you may be violent and original in your work"
Gustave Flaubert

Looking for Divine Nobodies

This thought comes from mulling over the sermon of two weeks past. Our guest preacher was a lovely guy Barry Grecu of Ministry Emmaus Inc, of Atlanta.
I liked his motif of a 'divine nobody.' People who have quietly, persistently, maybe even invisibly impacted upon our lives and our lifecourse leading to a deeper and closer encouter and journey with God.
It seem close to the premise of Mitch Alblom's magnificent novel 'The 5 people you meet in Heaven.' That the unknown quantities in your life, footnotes, passers by, observers may be much more significant than we could ever realise. So I will be looking out for them and hoping that I too may be impacting, may be just a ripple that forms a wave and then tide of change.

More unbearable infanticide

Its seems the brutality towards our young is on the rise. I'm thinking of the double murder of the Tamil children in London and the death by starvation of the 7 year old Indian girl in Birmingham.
How can this be happening? Are we simply seeing the media mining a theme here and grisly child murder stories that otherwise wouldnt make through the newsrooms are now flagged up for public consumption?

World that cant bear children

Some people, like me in their thirties, say they won’t have children, even if they married. They say they couldn’t bear to bring children into the world, because the world has become so bad.

I used the think that attitude was incredibility selfish. Isn’t it the most wonderful thing in the world was to bring in a new life, and share in its blossoming and development?

Yet I now sense some of the empathy and depth of that position. Its only because I have children myself that I have been dumbfounded by the increasing hostility to children portrayed by the events that have unfolded in the media and emerged from Amstetten, Dewsbury, Praia de Luz, Liverpool, Glasgow, Dunblane.

It seems there is a pervasive disregard for young life. Could this mark a civilisation on the edge of collapse? Yet isn’t there the possibility that obscene events like this have happened throughout history? Fathers abusing daughters, uncles abusing nieces, children killing children?

So could it be that it’s the portrayal of it that’s the new unsettling dimension? Think of the Madeleine story. A year on, still headlines. Unprecedented apologies from tabloids for over a hundred fabricated stories. But isn’t that drive for stories itself driven by the demand for the freak show thrill of ‘true’ shocking sensational revelations? What does that say about our sick society?

The intensifying trend in recent years of news stories about cruelty and abuse to children, sometimes ending in murder, risks desensitising us to events are true, shocking and real. Yet they need to be heard however inexplicable, inexcusable and in the case of Amstetten, for so long, unsuspected, undetected, and unknown.

Can the punishment fit the crime?

One of the worst elements of the Amstetten crimes is that they are so shocking, so off the scale, that forgiveness and justice are rendered impotent.

It would be inconceivable that Elizabeth Fritzl could ever be able to countenance forgiving her father. That she could find it in her heart to not hold it against him. That he was a damaged man acting under impulses he couldn’t control. No it’s all too premeditated and calculated for that.

The gravity and depravity of the man’s deeds are such that forgiveness seems too costly for his victim, someone who has already paid such a high price already.

Justice is weakened as he is a 73 year old who has had a long fulfilling life enjoying himself doing what he likes best, controlling and dominating those around him. For a man who is now eliciting sympathy with the line ‘oh well at least I didn’t kill them” a prison sentence in his last years is surely nothing more than a time out. Even the death penalty doesn’t cut it. Its surely better that he pays in time and is imprisoned with his freedom curtailed like his victim offspring.

But I feel there should be something more. My feeling is that there needs to be, in every country, an exceptional space in the justice system for crimes that are so unprecedented, so heinous, that a public execution is the ultimate sanction. That way there is humiliation for those monstrous perpetrators in their perverse denial. Justice is seen done and a message to goes out society at large that evil can be and will be reckoned with.

But then in our baying for blood it makes monsters of us all.

Multi or mono-faith?

An interesting thought bolted unexpectedly out of Sunday’s sermon. There is apparently a serious prospect, or at least a debate, of the Church of Scotland proposing offering some of their churches for multi-faith worship.

This provoked a somewhat unnecessarily staunch defence of remaining a Christian worship community. There has been no desire in our own community of believers to unite with others for multi faith worship. The notion is not even on our radar.

However I do believe we would do well to think it through. The prospect of Scotland’s main denomination opening out to embrace all faith worship seems strange and unnecessary. Yet as a counterpoint and also increasingly disturbing is the creeping secular intolerance of faith groups (although secularists target mainstream Christianity and don’t dare take on other faiths)

It seems unnecessary for the Kirk to consider this, as I can’t imagine any reciprocity in the arrangement. Will Christians be welcome to inter faith worship at the Mosque, gentiles to Synagogue?

As usual our 20-30 centuries old scriptures don’t give direct guidance. Like climate change, genetic engineering, nuclear arms, the topic of multi-faith worship is a modern encumbrance.

The OT gives the story of Ezekiel on Mt Carmel. This is seriously confrontational multi-faith worship. Taunting the followers of Baal to invoke a miracle of fire, which the Lord finally brings burning up any credibility in following a false faith.

Yet Jesus took a much more gentle approach with the woman at the well. He willingly debated the place of worship; Samaria or Mount Zion. He unveiled the inner place of worship in Spirit and in Truth. But qualified this worship as the kind that the Father seeks.

Would not the Father hear and seek the genuine worship of one true god in the heart of the Muslim Jew and Christian? With our monotheistic and Abrahamic brothers and sisters can we not bond over our common heritage and shared scriptures?

Grass greener

Now that my post holiday blues have receded and I'm settling back into normality again I wonder why the grass gets greener?

Now that Ive stopped Googling for affordable island homes on Mull and imagining an idyllic alternative lifestyle in the Hebrides I have realised it's our false concept of life that's to blame.

Holidays are a recent invention. Our great grandparents would in all likelihood not have had any. Certainly the Hebridean islanders of even recent times would not have taken any time off except for sickness and maybe for exceptional family reasons that forced them to travel somewhere. The other exception being the 18th century rich young who were despatched on grand tours of Europe. Going more distantly through history travel was the exclusive domain only by necessity inhabited by soldiers, sailers and merchants. The only people opting to travel were ecclesiastical scholars and missionaries.

This current and the last generation are the first to regularly travel for pleasure. 'A change as good as a rest' entered the lexicon and expectation. Holidays and time off incrementally became personal rights. Hitherto these had been communal things; festivals, religious feast days.

So in deliberately exposing ourselves to the possibilities of alternative lives in undreamt of locations we stoke fires of jealosy. We envy Meditteranean lifestyle, culture and diet. We envy tanned skin. We covet a place in the sun.

Then we are led to disdain our driech grey skies even more and become so dour that 4 weeks in sunny climes every becomes almost a medical requirement for national health.

Mulling around

Back from a week on the Isle of Mull. A wonderful place. Never has the North Atlantic looked so azure and Meditteranean. Staying on the 'Ross' the southern fingered peninsula we had easy cycling access to two pristine sandy beaches.
Our caravan had a view that so rested the soul. Across from Bunessan bay to Staffa, Treshnish Isles, Lunga and more distantly to Coll and Tiree.
Just 6 miles away we could take the 5 minute ferry hop to Iona. Another uniquely stirring and peace making place.

The Independent to rebrand as The Intolerant

A shamefully hysterical polemic piece by the Independent about the suspicious dealings of CARE Interns at Westminster. There are 12 of these sinister Christians employed by MP's (well less than 2% of them) With such 'long reach' they have 'masterminded' opposition to the latest embryology bill, at the same time The Independent ackowledges the long arm of the Roman Catholic Church leaning on the PM and members of his cabinet!

A re-reading of the article substituting 'gay' or 'muslim' for Care, evangelical or Christian would be very disturbing indeed.

Most absurd of all is the ever hysterical Richard Dawkins rent-a-quote "If only these restless busybodies would keep their prejudices to themselves, nobody would object. But they can't resist inflicting their ignorant opinions on others." Please take your own advice Dawkins.

Stunted snowman victim of global warming

Pitiful. All that could be mustered by my office colleagues on the roofgarden in Glasgow's only snowfall this year. Climate change is ruining our snowmen production.

Many mansions, many doors?

Increasingly I have found the narrow path less comfortable. It seems an inflexible and limited route. There is a lack of latitude over the way taken for deviation, carelessness and loss of bearings. In all of our times, in all of our journeys hasn’t there always been a multitude of pathways. Isn’t it the direction and destination that count?

Its too hard to accept that this is all there is, the one and only chance. The evidence for evil is too powerful and pervasive. A three score and ten without any resolution, any meaning, is too unbearable and a curtailed life even more so.

If I were asked now about the ultimate destination, the pie in the sky thing, then I would affirm my belief in heaven. I cant say what heaven exactly is. I would say it’s an afterlife with God. I think it’ll be brilliant beyond our imagining. More colourful, more noisy, and as crowded or as solitary as we can ever desire.

It’s the getting there. We don’t have to do anything. That’s enormously comforting. No anxious earning of approval. In by grace and by the faith. Yet how will they know unless He is preached? So may didn’t know and will not know. They will not be ‘in.’ Or will they be there? Will they be because of other ways? Will we visit many mansions? Will there be many surprises? Shall we be eternally stumbling upon Muslim brothers and Hindu sisters that we never knew and that like us they travelled there too? Perhaps in parallel with us or in a diametric route but still able to satisfy the Truth and finding the Way?

Of course taking a narrow path needn’t mean singular. I don’t think believing the magnanimity of God and his blessing of many paths affects my witness to Him. Rather I think it strengthens it. Its clear to me that I can show people to the door that I know best as it has been revealed to me. I cant and wouldn’t direct people to the path along to the mosque, temple or chapel because I know nothing of it. So I can only point to the door where Jesus stands and knocks.

Café Scientifique: Edinburgh, Moscow and Recife

Friday 29th Feb 09: Today I was taking part in a videoconference on climate change via a 3-way videoconference with people in Moscow and Recife. It was great to be taking part in a real-time adaptation solution and seeing this in action. Dialogue without air travel.

Adaptation to and mitigation of climate change were the main topics. How do we get the push and momentum amongst confused and indifferent publics? How much more did we feel our respective governments need to do? How much to we wait for top-level action or act ourselves?

The urgency is clear; we have breached 450 ppm of CO2, the highest level for 600,000 years, taking us into uncharted territory beyond the known naturally cyclical parameters. There was a call for clarity on the need to measure the true scope and increasing speed of the problem- ensuring the whole range of GHG were being accounted for; something highlighted by the thawing of permafrost in Russia and consequent methane release.

Optimism was notably absent. Yet we in Edinburgh seemed coy about our early success in having legislative action in both Westminster and Holyrood. The first climate change legalisation in the world after all!

Cloverfield - Mission Implausible

28th Feb 08: I misspent an hour and half today watching this minicam monster movie. It’s tediously compelling. The sheer pointlessness was almost disturbing.

I wasn’t sure what was in the mind of the makers. “Lets do a Godzilla movie but like really, really realistic?” The script was vacuous and didn’t help the earnestness of the performances which were actually pretty good. I’ve never seen a movie so undiversified in its characters. NY seemed to have eliminated all elderly and children.

There was no higher purpose. It was “ohmigod lets get outta here” again and again. There wasn’t any sacrificial heroism. What do movies like this say about us? That we should empathise with the shiny beautiful young yuppie people? That we should readily accept that they implicit represent of all humankind? That America and Manhattan in particular is symbolic of our highest pinnacle of civilisation? That we should be shocked and in awe if its under attack and losing? I just couldn’t relate or even care about them.

What worked though was the unrelenting grinding and overpowering soundtrack. The shudders, thuds and shrieks build up into a convincing and head throbbing crescendo. And when the military strikes build up too the sense of jeopardy oozes off the screen. But the hero’s search for his loved one didn’t cut enough through all the effects to make a satisfying climax. It was bleak and brutal. That’s another thing that worked though, the realism (although the spawned aliens was a reference too far and didn’t add much to the horror anyway.)

Blogs can change the world...well public services maybe...a bit

Was inspired by this story of blogger who breaks through virtual into reality and makes change happen. Well done mate!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/08/summit.reynolds