Easter Weekend translated for cats?

World Cup Blogs 5. Colombia

Colombia?  Football?

For those of us old enough to remember, it means one thing - the world's most memorable goalkeeper, Rene Higuita.  Unique in so many ways, he was the main reason some of us wanted to watch Colombian games at previous World Cups - what might he do next?

This video doesn't show it but his style of play resulted in some awful moments too but risk = entertainment!  As he has said himself, no goalkeeper today would be allowed the creative and risk space to do what he did.

Somewhere in the heart of the Christian faith is risk.  In our church we are about to look more closely at one of Paul's missionary journeys and to read them is to feel the distance between the vibrant Christianity of the(often imprisoned and even executed) early believers and the 10:30 Sunday morning way the rich-world church does its faith today. 

May God make us interesting!

Christmas Card Mysteries: No 4

The mystery of this card can be easily summarised in one question.  Given the evidential star, why are those Wise Men heading in the wrong direction?

Perhaps they are three other wise men.  But then, why are they on a Christmas card?

Cor! Um, quorum?

Quorum, noun: The minimum number of members of an assembly or society that must be present at any of its meetings to make the proceedings of that meeting valid.

Bishops and Popes probably have many things to think about.  What they probably never think about is a quorum.  The House of Commons (Parliament in the UK) has a quorum but neatly does not demand that it needs to be in attendance.  Or at least only for a vote.

From time to time as a Baptist Pastor quorums have occupied my thoughts because in our congregational way of running church we have to have them for our 'governing body of the church of Christ on earth' to be in existence.

I could occupy webspace with mildly amusing anecdotes about desperate efforts to cross the line over the years, but fortunately last evening our church achieved an evening so bizarre that I now only have to remember this one anecdote to keep any listener in bemused interest.  (Warning: you are unlikely to understand what follows on first reading [you may never understand it])

The story goes like this:

• 8:00pm  Not at all for the first time in my experience I am chairing a meeting that is not quorate at the start time.  We wait.

• 8:10pm  We're (I'm) getting bored.  We start anyway.  This is not the planned meeting [hereafter the Agenda Meeting] but an Informal Meeting that can still listen and talk but can't do the stuff like minutes and decisions.  We are one person short of a quorum.

• 8:20pm  Lady A arrives! We have a quorum!  We start the Agenda Meeting.

• 8:40pm  Man A has to go home.  We no longer have a quorum.  We start another Informal Meeting because we think there is one more latecomer who has said he will try to be there by 9:00pm.

• 9:00pm  Man B arrives!  We have a quorum again.  We resume the Agenda Meeting.

• 9:20pm  Lady B suddenly announces she needs to leave.  The meeting is no longer quorate, never to be quorate again.  We have a third Informal Meeting to round off the evening.

• 9:35pm We end.  Though something meetingy had ended in me long before . . .

Staying Safe

However dirty the child might be parents do need to be careful.

Just Looking

The story is told of a man on his hands and knees under a street light looking for something.

Along came an Officer of the Law who was concerned with the man's behaviour so late at night.

"Have you lost something, sir?"

"My wallet, officer", drawled the man who was evidently somewhat the worse for drink.

"Do you remember when you last had it?", asked the policeman.

"Yes I think so.  I think I dropped it back there round the corner."

"Then if you don't mind me asking", continued the officer,"why are you looking for it on the pavement here?"

"There's a light here," replied the man. "Back there I couldn't see where I was looking".

It may be a joke, but I feel sure that something like this explains several things.  It explains why apparently normalised people go after messengers of disaster or death - into trafficking, into terrorism and the like.  That seems to them to be the light and they head there looking for something.

It also explains the difficulty the church often faces when it is dark even though it holds the answer.  Sometimes the light goes out because people become as in a private club or family and evangelism loses its meaning for them; sometimes the light goes out because people are too preoccupied with things other than light-giving; sometimes the light is lost in a compromised faith that admits immorality, dissension or unbelief; sometimes the doors of the church building are just mostly shut (and the lights literally out!).

If no light is shone on what needs to be found, it is strangely likely that people will head for any light even if what needs to be found is not there.

Meme?

I was inviting someone to an event with me but, having wished to come previously, on finding out the date they now sent an apology:

Hi John,

. . . Inevitably I am someone else that day and so can’t join you –I’m really sorry about that.

I wonder whether this is something of a standard excuse for us when we meet God.  Sure, my name might be the same on Monday as Sunday; at the business conference as at the Christian conference.  But I'm someone else.

Cats and Dogs

Here's a picture from a Garden Centre we visited recently.  It is so amazingly inappropriate that I had to take to the picture so I could believe what I had seen!

 

I suppose it is, if nothing else, a reminder that we need to look like the message we claim to convey.  Is this really any different to the good old fashioned Church split (you'll know our faith by our fellowship and love but just wait while we have an argument and go off in another direction first).  Is it actually any different to the grim-faced atmosphere that would greet the happy pagan on arrival in church (we're joyful, you know).  Is it really any different to looking at me?

Wrong Way

 

Here's the YouTube clip we showed in Church on Sunday.  What is truly amazing, as the reporter points out, is that not only does the player run the wrong way when he was on the verge of a touchdown: everyone on the field seems to join in the mistake.  So he gets tackled by the team that stood to gain if he kept running, his team-mates help him to run the wrong way too.

 

When we head the wrong way in any area of life, there's no telling how we disorientate others around us.  Well, there will be a telling one day in fact  . . .

Days to Remember 10: Dem Bones

One memorable day the builders laying the foundations of the Church's new building downed tools and left the site.  They had found human remains.

 

A very detailed plan of the graveyard the Church had between 1845 and 1854 (after which it was closed) exists.  However it has no reference point, just lines of named graves.  If you could find Mrs Jones you could possibly find Mr Smith a few feet along but there was no way of fining either of them.  Tales were told of a line of headstones that once formed a kind of fence down the side of the property next to the car park.  The assumption was that they had been moved in some previous building enterprise.  They exist no longer.  Plainly Baptists are a lot less careful about the dead than the Church of England who seem to have graveyards of antiquity well-kept around many of their churches.

 

The coroner however did not question my predecessors' carelessness in respect of their predecessors remains.  Instead he declared me entirely trustworthy - 'as priest' - to judge the remains as old and to 'reinter them with suitable dignity'.  I suppose this conjured up the idea of the churchyard sexton doing the honours with a robed vicar overseeing with prayers.

 

Baptist Colleges, though useful in many ways, help little with the really scary things of church life like baptising people without drowning them, dedicating infants without dropping them or marrying people without embarrassing them. Failure in such common practicalities indicates the total unpreparedness most Baptist ministers would feel at standing on a building site with a builder in a suit holding a black bag full of unearthed bones of former members and the Church Administrator standing nearby watchfully.  I duly felt unprepared.  The coroner's trust weighed heavily on me as the builder turned the sack over and a pile of old bones fell at my feet.  This action did not lend itself to great dignity, any dignity really, though I was wearing a jacket and tie as a start.

 

The plot of land where Mrs Jones and Mr Smith and the others would end up would be hidden under the path and entry way of the new building.  The temptation (had I been alone) to leave the pile intact would have been strong.  A sort of old Baptist ballast.  My onlookers and the distant brooding instruction of the coroner ('due dignity') led me to attempt a certain dignified reconstruction. 

 

Suppressing the part of me that wanted to burst out in despairing laughter, I began the task of placing the parts of Mrs Jones and Mr Smith in reasonable order - two leg bones, two legs, two hips, the middle bit (if the reader is unfamiliar please rewatch the earlier YouTube).  I laid these ancient Baptist remains with admirable dignity given my internal sense of the bizarre.  But like any old jigsaw from before 1854 there were pieces missing - most alarmingly a shortage of skulls which created special problems as it was not a lack that could be hidden from the beady-eyed builder in a suit.  There were too many legs as well though that was easier to deal with by some clever positioning as I learned my new trade.

 

Quite what parts of Mrs Jones and Mr Smith ended up in what order I shall never know and I trust the Good Lord to sort matters out on the Great Day.  I reflected that it was the one experience of Christian Ministry when I had the most authority over Church Members and even then I couldn't get them into order  . . .

Christmas is a very stressful time . . .

 

The Baptism of Children

I'm not a fan of this because

a) Infants cannot profess repentence and faith
b) Young children express learned phrases and their profession is less secure
c) There are enough things that can go wrong at the front of a church without introducing another one . . . !

Hearing

I owe this story to an elderly lady who told this tale about - an elderly lady!

The vicar dropped by to visit the lady who had been taken ill.  Because of her age and the seriousness of the illness it seemed time to prepare for the End.

"Vicar," said she, "You will take my Funeral Service when I pass away, won't you?"

"Well yes, of course, when that time comes."

"You'll do it, won't you?  Not the young curate?"

The vicar was a little alarmed.  He had thought the young curate was quite competent and  liked.  "Yes, I'll do it.  But may I ask why you insist on it being me rather than my colleague?  He's very caring."

"Oh, I do believe he's very kind.  But in the services I can never hear a word he says."

Squirrel

Thanks to the Baptist Union Council and Neil Brighton for leading me to this . . .

Gold

Once upon a time (please don't look for this story in the Bible...) there was a rich man who was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money that he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. An angel heard his plea and appeared to him.

"Sorry," said the angel, "but you can't take your wealth with you."

The man begged to see if he might bend the rules. The angel reappeared and informed the man that, as a special concession, he could to take one carry-on bag with him. Overjoyed, the man gathered his bag and filled it with pure gold bars and placed it beside his bed.

He died and showed up at the gates of heaven. The angel on guard, seeing the suitcase, says,

"Hold on, you can't bring that in here!"

The man explained that he had permission and asked the angel to verify his story. Having checked out the story the angel came back and said,

"You're right. You are allowed one carry-on bag, but I'm supposed to check its contents before letting it through."

The angel opened the bag to inspect the contents that the man had found too precious to leave behind and exclaimed,

"You've brought some pavement?"

Snow blow

As my car spends its eighth day stuck on the driveway and the snow continues to fall, here is a clip that neatly symbolises the effect of snowfall and ice on Wycombe over the last week . . .

Don't Say