A Modern Parable

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Once upon a time there was a scout group.  It was a very enjoyable scout group, which ran many camps every year, and attracted many different people from a range of backgrounds.  It wasn’t massive, but it wasn’t tiny, indeed, much like Goldilocks‘ bowl of porridge, one could describe it as ‘just right’.

Then things started changing.  A number of people moved up to the 13+ Explorer Scout section, and at a similar time a new leader arrived, full of ideas, promising new things.  But the new Explorer Scouts were lazy and unenthusiastic.  They turned up, but made little effort to join in.

The leader grew disillusioned.  He began to put more and more time into university work, and less and less time into preparing activities.  Camps went from regular to rare to never.  Indeed, some nights only a couple of people would turn up.

People soon started dropping out.  When the younger scouts moved up they too quickly lost interest, and fell into the harmful downward spiral.

Eventually even the leader quit, work offering him placements in far flung places, and scouts offering him nothing but disappointment.

The group continued to meet without a leader, but, with no-one to fill in the forms and sign on the dotted line, they were soon forced to hunt for a new leader.  And no-one came forward.  After all, who’d lead a group who were notorious for not doing anything?

Eventually, with no leader, and few members, the group was disbanded.  Maybe some people went to other groups, but more likely they just left disillusioned with the entire scout network.  And that was it.  The end.

De-Stress our Examinations!

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I’ve recently finished my AS level exams, and one of the key features of those, and probably all the exams I ever will sit, is the stress.  Stress is a horrible thing, invading into every aspect of one’s life, and so now I’ve been acting especially grouchy.  So, considering this, would it not be better if all our exams were made a bit more stress free?

The De-Stress Our Examinations Party

Manifesto for a Better Earth Exam…

Item 1 – All pupils should be allowed to take lucky mascots into school.  This can include, but is not limited to, lucky cuddly animals, lucky real animals, lucky calculators, lucky supercomputers, lucky particle accelerators, and lucky teachers.

Item 2 – During exam periods, students should have their time made as comfortable as possible.  Examples of relaxational techniques include foot massages and back rubs, performed by trained invigilators, fanning with traditional Egyptian feather fans, warm bubble baths (very bubbly), relaxing music, and for exam papers to be colour-coded in such a way as to be pleasing to the eye.

Item 3 – Exam questions should be of three forms and three forms only.  These should be join-the-dots, copy-what-the-person-next-to-you-wrote, and colour-in-the-picture questions.

Item 4 – Pages that have no questions written on them should not have ‘This page has no questions written on it”.  Instead, it should be headed with the words “This page has been left blank to doodle on.”  The page should also have inspirations and starting doodles, for those people who are just too stressed out to be creative.

Item 5 – All information should be given in the question.

 

Sounds about right to me.  Any joiners?

A Special Place in Hell for Rob Bell?

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So I notice, probably belatedly, that Rob Bell is a Universalist. Actually, I may have to explain that sentence. Rob Bell is one of the poster boys for the American ‘Ermergent’ church, and perhaps the epitome of Famous Christianity. He is most well known for his ‘Nooma’ series of DVDs, a series of short DVD films where he engages the audience using his vast storehouse of anecdotes. He also wrote ‘Velvet Elvis’, which, although I’ve never read it, is apparently very good, by which I mean the world and his dog have read it. His most recent publication, ‘Love Wins’ is rather controversial, because he happened to suggest that he thought that God was kind enough to offer forgiveness to everyone, so that anyone could go to heaven. I know, I’ve never heard anything so absurd.

Universalism is this belief that everyone will be forgiven and go to heaven. Bell is one of the first ‘Famous Christians‘ to take up this idea, mainly because anyone who has tried it before has been shot down by the Evangelical movement, who clearly hate the idea of anyone going to heaven who isn’t them. Probably because they realise how much of their lives they have wasted standing on street corners shouting damnation at everyone, and also because they were looking forward to being able to watch the sinners burn. Don’t let anyone tell you Christians can’t be really cruel when they feel like it.

But is Universalism a terrible thing? More importantly, are the arguments against it watertight? The key one I’ve heard, other than looking through the Bible and picking out all your favourite quotes, is that we as Christians were told (the Great Commission) to go out and preach the gospel, and Universalism would end that. Would it? I think not.

(Alright, I’m just warning you that this is a heavily Christian-oriented post, and anyone who gets bored of things like Songs of Praise, or doesn’t listen to Thought For The Day on Radio Four might get slightly bored. Sorry…)

It all comes down to Christian mission. What is it? What is it’s purpose? Is the aim to grab as many people as possible and bundle them through the pearly gates, or are we called to something more complex?

We can start simply by looking at the name we give to the story of Jesus Christ: The Gospels, or Good News. We are spreading good news, and we’re doing so out of love. Indeed, the second greatest commandment was to love your neighbour. And the greatest sign of love was, of course, the Gospel story of Jesus’ sacrifice. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son[...]“. It’s a circle. We love others, so we share the Good News, which is a story of love.

So what does this mean for evangelism? Well, it means that we are not preaching about an afterlife, but a relationship with God. And not just a heavenly relationship, but a relationship here on earth that allows us to make, in the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “[...]Your kingdom come, Your will be done[...]“.

In some ways, it doesn’t even matter who gets to heaven. Heaven is just a by-product of a perfect relationship. What we must do as Christians here on earth is spread this relationship. We should be preaching love, even if they still get to heaven in the end. Joel 2 tells us that God is love, and 1 John 4:8 tells us that if you do not know love, you don’t know God, and thus, if you don’t know God, you cannot know love.

Spreading the word is quite literally spreading the love. We don’t need to worry about heaven at all, because we are stewards of the earth, the first commission of humanity, from the moment we were created in the Garden of Eden. And what earth is there without love? So let us spread love. I think I’m repeating myself. You get the picture anyway. Our command is love, not judgement, so let’s not worry about heaven, and instead spread the love. This might be heresy.

I’m Not Racist But…

'Dave the Rave'. Does he know what unity is?

Unity is important. Without unity, where would we be? Unity affects all of us, right down to being able to accept that in a game of football, maybe someone else is in a better place to score. Unity allows marraiges, relationships, friendships, and keeps them strong and binding. Without unity our society would not function.

Unity is a two-way thing. It requires one to give a part of one’s self, in order to recieve mutual good. If two people, two countries, two parties of any description refuse to give up anything, how can unity form between them?

Recently, the Middle East peacetalks have demonstrated this fact. It was required that both parties gave up a small part of their mutual hate in order to be able to talk about unity. About peace.

This week, David Cameron told the world that multiculturalism has failed. Has it? I don’t know. I have seen some beautiful things done in the name of multiculturalism. I have eaten the most fantastic foods. The balti dish, according to legend, is actually a fusion of traditional Indian tandoori food, and traditional British gravy.

But we have to accept, we aren’t doing very good job of it. Instead of absolute cohesion, people seem to be forming ghettoes, isolating themselves from the families around them. I can think of two reasons for this.

The first is obvious, and has been mentioned so many times that I scarecly need mention it. I can already see it buzzing around in your mind. These people, applying to be members of our country must learn to be cohesive. And yes, this is true. But we must be realistic about groups of people, many of whom have been fleeing from foreign forces, and what we can expect from them.

This brings me on to my second point.

We must also help them. Multiculturalism is unity. And unity requires both sides to share. And share we do not, as you may be able to tell you, aside from what causes cancer today.

So what should we be doing?

Running away from our atrocious ideas of ‘political correctness gone mad‘. Okay, so ‘PC’ can be a bit odd, but it’s better than the alternative, which is for the government to write letters beginning ‘Dear Nigger’. Don’t knock policial correctness, although don’t encourage it.

Secondly, we need to get stupid ideas about who we are dealing with out of our heads. Not all young asian men are plotting to blow up the world. Very few are, actually, and if we were to give them a country that they could be proud of, the might stop. Terrorists are generally second generation immigrantants, people who cannot understand why their parents would have moved, who have not even lived in the country with which they are associated, and invariable assocociate themselves with.

Also very recently, our politicians voted on whether defy ECHR guidance and ignore the international community by refusing fundamental rights to those imprisoned for various wrong-doings.

Why? Because we do not understand unity. We think that this law is about doing what we think best, and ignoring anyone who wants to try to make the world a better place.

Prisoners voting is not bad. It will have very little effect on anything. From a moral point of view, those who have commited crimes against the country maybe shouldn’t be able to influence the laws of the country, but giving these rights to prisoners may even encourage them to vote, thus increasing their participation in society, and decreasing re-offending rates.

To be quite honest, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we are no longer a world superpower. We must refuse this petty idea that we make the rules. No. We must now obey the rules that other people make. Thanks to our history, we still have some influence. Instead of flouncing around abusing this influence, we should be using it. If we do not think that this internanional law is right, we must fight it on the international level, not the national level.  We must open up debate, not close it by ignoring anything that has been said.

This is unity, where, for international accord, we must sacrifice some of the things we believe in to hold on to those that are more important.

If David Cameron cannot understand the basic principle behind unity of giving to recieve, I’m not entirely sure he should be leading our country.

Well excuse me…

These guys are cool... Except when they're dealing with Nokia.

You know, there’s a lot of great things about WordPress.  Really.  There are far more than, say, Blogger, which fails at a lot of things.  But really guys, surely a half-decent app isn’t beyond your scope?

It started recently when, upon finding the WordPress for Nokia application (from here) I decided to download.  It would be useful, I thought, to have a WordPress application on my phone that would allow me to edit and create posts, deal with comments, and even sort out the sorry state of my page arrays.  So I downloaded it.  I opened it immediately, mainly because it told me to, and started my exploration.  From what I’ve seen, the WfN app is a really nice app.  I feels good, it has a good selection of features, it works with the phone’s system.  I liked it.  So I closed it down, ready to use properly when I might actually need it.

That was where my troubles began.

I had even set it as a shortcut on my home screen.  I found the time to grab my API key – to see my blog’s stats – and opened the application again.

It failed.

It hung perpetually on the opening screen.  You know, the sort of ‘loading’ one, where it sort of waits for a couple of seconds before letting you through to the main menu?  Well it didn’t let you through to any sort of menu, be it main or rather substandard.  So I tried again.  You know.  A mechanic, a hardware designer and a software designer are going down a hill when the brakes and engine suddenly stop working.  The car rolls down the hill.  When the reach the bottom, they get out and decide what to do.  The mechanic looks around the car, then kicks it thoroughly.  The hardware designer pulls out an antistatic device and whacks it with a screwdriver.  The software designer suggests that they all push it to the top of the hill and see if the same thing happens again.  Long story short, it happened again.

I’m aghast.  Mainly because I like the sound of aghast as an emotion.  But also because the app was shaping up to be a really nice app.

So I looked on the Ovi Store to see if anyone else was having this problem.  They were.  So I looked on the WordPress for Nokia homepage, in the hope that this might have some answers.  The first page is fairly promising, so I clicked on FAQ.  I kid you not, two months after the original post on the WordPress.com blog, I was greeted with the words ‘Stay tuned for the frequently asked questions.’  Yes.  That was all.

So I clicked on the forums.  It didn’t look promising.  My problems had been noted.  Once.  Two months ago.  Number of replies?  None.  To their credit, the developers had attempted to answer some questions, although usually by saying that they were looking into the problem.  Being as answer rate was approximately 45% on a total of nine problems, some of which, from my glancing over, appeared to be much the same problem, I was slightly disappointed.

But I want to end on a high.  So what am I going to do?  I’m going to hit publish.  I’m going to tell the developers at their blog.  Then I’m going to bed.  Hopefully things will look better in the morning.  Good night.

The Twilight of Modern Fiction

Twilight. Urgh.

Well, I’m sure it won’t have escaped your notice that I may not have actually been carrying out my New Year’s resolution very well.  Well, you may not have noticed any difference in posting schedules at all, actually, but I have been trying to post every week.  I’ve had exams, actually, which is why I’ve been struggling to get on, although that is, of course, no excuse.  However, I did manage to scroll past such horrors as these.  Yes.  Twilight fanfic.  Although then again, what with that hot yet oh so sensitive Edward Cullen, and the exciting, dark idea of vampires, is it any wonder why people are so desperate to write their own versions?

“So, I’m here at the  Booker prize awards ceremony, and with me is young new writer, Ms. Mary Sue Watson.  Ms. Watson, how does it feel to have recieved such a prestigious nomination?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m amazed.  But then I think it’s only a testament to how much we should all be appreciating Edward, and how much he deserves to win.”

“Hmm, yes.  But then critics have attacked your books by saying that they are merely the deluded imaginings of a teenage girl locked in a fantasy world, with no bearing on real life at all.  What would you say to them?”

“Well, that is clearly complete nonsense.  The main character in the book has a completely different name to mine – she’s called Margery.  How much more different can you get?  Plus her birthday is a whole three days after mine.  And she’s short and podgy.  Do I look like I’m short and podgy to you?”

“Ah, well…  Let’s just skip to the next question.  What would it mean for you to win this award?”

“Well, I think the real honour must go to Edward.”

“But isn’t Edward an imaginary char-  Let’s not go there.  Your book, ah, builds on a lot of Stephanie Meyer‘s work.  What do you think the impact of, say, Twilight has been on the world?”

“Well, I think her books really have a lot to say about modern culture.  In fact, just as, for example, Jane Austen‘s ‘Pride and Prejudice‘ really created the meme of  the tall, dark stranger, so Meyer has created today’s romantic ideal  in the form of a dark person who must be controlled, yet ultimately is something beautiful out of something that should normally be feared.  That Cullen is essentially a baseless, empty character with very little substance very easily allows girls to attach their own ideal men into his place.  In fact, it also allows them to project some of his traits onto those that they see around them.  This accessibility has really affected a generation of girls.  Anyway, what was the question?”

“What impact do you think Twilight has had on the world?”

“Well, Edward is really good looking…”

“Thank you for letting us interview you, and we wish you all the best, especially if you should ever grow out of your childish obsession and contribute something useful to society.  Maybe become a video games designer.  Anyway, back to you in the studio.”

On a completely unrelated note, did anyone else see The King’s Speech?  I’d thoroughly recommend it.  Watch out for Timothy Spall playing the part of Winston Churchill.  Oh, and, while preparing for this post, I enjoyed this.  I hope you will too.

Come the Resolution…

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Well, I guess it’s back to work again.  Do I detect a glimmer of fear in your eyes?  Yes, I think I do.  I know the feeling.

I hope you’ve got some good Resolutions.  More time with the family?  Anybody out there cutting down on the drinking?  I’d recommend Wii Fit if you’re going to try to lose weight.  But not if your brother is sitting in the next room listening to it.  Because then it’s just irritating.

I’ve decided that I need my own resolution.  Yes, because between A levels and fundraising for the Jamboree, I just don’t have enough to do…  And along came this.  For those of you too lazy to find out what it is, it’s the post every day for a year challenge, set up this year by WordPress to inspire lazy people like me.  Except I’ve taken the lazy option and gone for post every week for a year challenge.  Which is still good, eh?  I dunno.

Anyway, posting every week for a year.  WordPress have told me to use Plinky, although I’m not completely sure if it’s all that helpful…  But blogging is a two way thing.  Honestly.  Probably.  Maybe.  Anyway, why don’t you get a blog?  It’s not too late to start.  Maybe stretch on a bit at the end of next year to catch up…  But if you are, let’s do it together!  Hi five!  And now, signing off…