Today’s News in Limerick Form, #4

A face from the Old Middle East
in the lid of a breakfast-time feast?
Is he saying, I ponder,
to this family in Rhondda:
“Beware of the Pharisees’ yeast”?

Today’s News in limerick form, #3

“Go Jade, we have made our decision:
save Royaume-Uni from derision!”
But despite all those votes,
can a song with six notes
really go on to win Eurovision?

Today’s News in limerick form, #2

“The manner in which Jesus died
was brutal, it can’t be denied.
To Gentiles it’s foolish -
to Sussex folk, ghoulish.
So… let’s not preach Christ crucified.”

Actually, this news needs a bit more comment. I mean, I can understand – sort of – the nervousness of the church concerned that their sculpture of the crucified Christ might be just so stark that it puts people off, and their impulse that an empty cross might direct people more towards resurrection hope. Part of me is sympathetic to the concern not to “put people off” by having such a “scary” sculpture in the equivalent of the shop window.

But… well, part of me says no, if we are to recognise the depth of God’s love for us then we must allow it to confront us in the fulness of Good Friday’s agony.

The first time I visited Rome and the Vatican was as a teenager. I don’t remember much about the visit, but I do recall the one piece of artwork that struck me more deeply and immediately than any other, from the busts to the Sistine ceiling. It was a small and simple desktop crucifix – wrought iron I think, certainly not gold or silver – upon which the figure of Christ was seen not hanging serenely but jutting his chest forward in agony.

I’d go so far as to say that the image was formative for me. I was strongly reminded of it years later in ministerial training, when I encountered some very similar renditions in the set of images “The Christ We Share”.

An image of Jesus on the cross may well be unpleasant. It may well send shivers down the spine – indeed it surely should. But where will such an image testify more strongly to the truth it depicts: at a church, or in a museum?

Today’s News in limerick form, #1

He’s old, yet he’s young. Big hair too.
His vehicle is boxy and blue.
Change of actor again
in two thousand and ten -
but all I can say is: er, Who?

The true meaning of Christmas songs

Interesting research reported on BBC News tonight:

According to [Durham University's] head of music Bennett Zon, O Come All Ye Faithful is actually a birth ode to Bonnie Prince Charlie…Prof Zon, said there was “far more” to the carol – also known as Adeste Fideles – than was originally thought.

He said: “Fideles is Faithful Catholic Jacobites. Bethlehem is a common Jacobite cipher for England, and Regem Angelorum is a well-known pun on Angelorum, angels and Anglorum, English.

“The meaning of the Christmas carol is clear: ‘Come and Behold Him, Born the King of Angels’ really means, ‘Come and Behold Him, Born the King of the English’ – Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

Well, dear reader, in the spirit of academic endeavour, shall we explore another seasonal ditty thusly? Yes, let’s.

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We’re happy tonight.
Walking in a winter wonderland.

Notice the subtle spin with which the writers present this midwinter scene. The grim reality of weather-related travel chaos (hence “walking”) is brushed aside. And there’s more than a hint of didacticism in the parenthetical “are you listening… we’re happy tonight”. Clearly this is a song aimed at telling us what to think. But who’s behind it, and where is it heading?

Gone away is the bluebird,
Here to stay is a new bird

Here the writers declare their hand. The blue is gone, the new is here. It’s Britain, 1st May 1997. Election Day. The Conservative party, with blue as its colour, is ousted from government. New Labour. New bird.

He sings a love song,
As we go along,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

And now the depiction of idyllic winter scenes begins to make sense. The last time Labour had been in power, the country endured the notorious Winter of Discontent – wage disputes in the private and public sectors, power cuts, uncollected rubbish, restricted hospital admissions. But now, in a heroically audacious piece of PR, the writers attempt to excise the memory of that winter in favour of an altogether more palatable hibernal mythos with which New Labour can associate itself.

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown.

Now, this is clever. A reference to Tony Blair in the song would have been just too obvious – but in any case, in May 97 His Blairness didn’t really need bigging up. Gordon Brown, on the other hand, was never the most media-friendly of faces or voices. So the writers create a nice jovial cameo for the incoming Chancellor, nicknaming him the Parson as a nod to his child-of-the-manse background.

He’ll say: Are you married? We’ll say: No man,
But you can do the job when you’re in town.

An extraordinary piece of perspicacity here, looking ahead a full 7 years from the 1997 Sitz im Leben. For in 2004 the Civil Partnership Act in the UK made available to same-sex couples a legal standing equivalent to marriage. New Labour would, indeed, do the job while they were in town.

Later on, we’ll conspire,
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid
The plans that we’ve made,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

The song finishes with a paean to the principles of media management. It’s your basic joined-up blue-sky thinking that sings from the same hymn sheet and knows a good day to bury bad news when it sees one.

So there we have it. Winter Wonderland is actually a song about the Labour victory in the 1997 UK general election.

Just don’t tell Perry Como.

City boy

Ever since moving away from the London suburbs some 5 years ago, I’ve said to anyone who’ll listen that I really enjoyed growing up in the Capital but I really don’t feel drawn to the idea of moving back there.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve that become a convert to country living – ok, part of my pastorate is semi-rural and I’m finding it not as alien as I would once have imagined, but home now is in a town of about 25,000 and I still really value and need the convenience that such an environment affords: the shops (especially the ones that open late), the transport links, and so on.

Still, it’s only since leaving the city that I’ve realised how – well – urban it can be. When I’m there now I find myself quietly grieving for the paucity of trees; subconsciously breathing a little less deeply as if in protest at the polluted air.

How different the experience today, though, when I arrived in another capital city.

I like Edinburgh. I can’t say I know it well – hardly even superficially, for I’ve only been here about 4 or 5 times and rarely with much free time to speak of.

In fact, although it’s only a couple of months since I last passed through, I’d forgotten how much I do like Edinburgh. But after a crowded train journey today, I found myself really glad of the time to walk from the station to our training venue near the Botanic Gardens.

Glad to pass some of the shops that you just don’t get in villages or towns – the department stores and fast food outlets on Princes Street, the piano shop with a striking blue Bechstein upright, the two or three hybrid antique shop/pawnbrokers.

Glad also to find myself on a street called Dundas, and thus to be reminded of my training placement in Toronto and all that I learned there about cultural identity. Glad to notice a shop sign in cyrillic script, and thus to find myself in a place that knows about multicultural living.

I found myself glad not only for the time to walk, but for the fact that I was in a city.

That Doctor Who cliffhanger

Lots of speculation after Saturday’s cracking penultimate episode The Stolen Earth. Is this a genuine regeneration? And if so, who’s going to be the 11th Doctor?

After literally minutes of rigorous conjecture, I believe I have the answer…

A bold move, but the pictures speak for themselves.

Suggest a sermon topic

So I’ve agreed to take part in a series of midweek lunchtime services elsewhere in the Circuit next month. The series theme: ‘Questions we don’t often hear in sermons’.

I gather that my colleagues have already snapped up the opportunity to explain whether God swears, why God won’t help us win the lottery, and whether there are slugs in heaven.

Since they’ve chosen all the obvious topics, what burning question do you think I should preach on? Suggestions welcome!

Update: In the absence of any better suggestions (well, any suggestions actually), I’m going to go with “Would Jesus watch Big Brother?”

Dr Barth and Dr Seuss

The erstwhile Ben Myers has been reading, and asks what Karl Barth and Dr Seuss might have in common. Hmm…

Are your books of any use?
Are they? Are they, Dr Seuss?
Rhymes divine, but logic flimsy:
aren’t your works mere idle whimsy?
Cat in Hat, Things One and Two -
do they speak of what is true?

True, my friend? You ask what’s true?
True is what’s revealed to you.
Logic is not here or there.
Logic won’t go anywhere.
Sometimes what you read won’t fit.
Sometimes that’s the point of it.

Look, here’s Karl. Now gather round:
he will show you what he’s found.
Word is spoken (can you guess?):
God’s big No and bigger Yes.
Yes, I like the Son of Man!
Yes, I choose him, says I Am.

Seuss and Barth and Barth and Seuss:
sauce for gander, sauce for goose.
Thus a simple children’s rhyme
holds a truth to last all time.
Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.

Who’d have thought that Fox in Socks
might be neo-orthodox?

More on mission and ‘relevance’

There’s some animated discussion on our missional/sociological response to church decline here and here on Connexions, whilst over at Faith and Theology there’s another take on theology and ‘relevance’.

It’s been suggested to me that the point of the missional ‘relevant worship’ strategy is not to deny or lessen the enormity of discipleship’s demands, but rather to attract and draw people in before then inviting them, in effect, to ‘take up their cross’.

But I can’t help observing that the fishermen whom Jesus called, telling them that he would make them fishers for people, worked with boats and nets rather than a line from the shore. They knew nothing of the ‘baited hook’ approach.