Reasons to be cheerful

I know that some Anglicans will be feeling a bit glum following the news from Synod, so I thought I would post about a few reasons to be cheerful from the news:

1. I know it was only against Bangladesh, but England produced a stunning batting display yesterday to seal the series win. Given the embarassing defeat on the weekend, it was good to see Strauss hitting the ball into the Edgbaston building site with great frequency. This was probably one of the finest batting displays by an England captain in recent years.
2. It's taken months, but it looks like BP have managed to make some progress on halting the oil tragedy in the Mexican Gulf. It seems to have taken a ridiculous amount of time to get to this stage, but at least there's an end in sight.
3. The best team in the world cup actually managed to win it! Despite the ugly tactics and technique displayed by the Dutch, then Spaniards' dedication to playing good football eventually shone through. Howard Webb had a hard match to referee, and I think he struck a good balance between keeping the game moving and dealing out some justice. Holland should have been down to 9 or 10 men by the end of the first half, so they have no right to complain about the referee's decisions!
4. A planned cull of badgers in Wales has been halted. I am still known to some people as 'Mr Badger' (following an innocent adoption of a call-sign at a Chaplaincy Carol Service many moons ago), and I have an affinity for the furry little critters! I must also add that when I last checked, the scientific evidence did not support the hatred which is shown towards my monochrome kin. Leave us alone! We're not giving TB to your cattle.
5. Hayley Matthews, currently at Lancaster Priory (who have a new website), has been appointed as Chaplain to Media City. This is the new development in Salford which will house a massive new BBC development. Well done Hayley!
6. This wonderful story about a milkman in Lancashire made me proud of my East Lancs roots. I'm not always so proud when I see stories of the BNP gaining ground in elections, but this is the kind of story that lifts the soul. This white, working class man from a depressed former mill town has challenged stereotypes by becoming fluent in Gujarati so he can communicate more effectively with his Asian customers.

64 days

Women bishops

I've been following the synod debate on women bishops with a degree of frustration and exasperation! I know there isn't an easy solution which will please everyone; there never is! That's the crux of the matter. We don't all agree, and we're trying to find a way to accommodate that difference of opinion. The problem is that this gesture of goodwill, or whatever it is, was always going to fail. I'm not being hyperbolic here. I really think that we're barking up the wrong tree if we think there's a system out there which will please everyone. 

For me, the Anglican Communion is stronger for its breadth of opinion; we already disagree with others on many issues. I know this is a big issue, and I know it's complicated for many reasons, but please can we stop looking for a magic solution that neatens everything off, and accept that as the Anglican Communion is already a rough and ready affair, it will probably stay like that?

I'm not naive enough to think that it's as simple as that. I know there's a lot of detail to be discussed and negotiated, but what I'm arguing here is that the whole approach has to be different. Rather than beating ourselves up over the fact that we can't find a perfect system, let's stop looking for it. Let's just look to move on in some way; even if it's difficult and messy.

Maggi Dawn has a humbling point for those will find it difficult to stay in a church with women bishops:

This, of course, is precisely what women have also been saying for quite a long time. The “I will have to leave the church if a or b happens or doesn’t happen…” argument is a matter of conscience for all of us, but it’s not the basis for a decision. It’s impossible to create a way forward that meets everyone’s requirements; that’s precisely what the disagreement is about.

Money, money, money

Today, I am struck once more by the polarisation (in financial terms) of the world I currently inhabit compared to the one I am moving to. My job today is to do some analysis on a £2.7M annual budget. When we move to Cambridge in September, we will have to work out how to live on £18k per annum. Must be careful not to transpose any decimal points in either set of calculations.  

Remembering 7/7

MrsLanky and I watched a programme the other night about 'miracles' that occurred during the 7/7 bombings. It was produced by the BBC religion unit, and persistently asked questions about fate, guardian angels and the like.  It was a thought provoking programme.

The thing that really caught my attention, though, was towards the end of the programme. The family of one of the people who died, Miriam, had used compensation payouts and other funds to set up a centre for blind children in India in Miriam's memory. Her sister expressed the view that Miriam's death was a positive opportunity to make a bigger difference to the world than she could have made in her lifetime. The centre has worked with 15,000 children since it opened!

I'm amazed and humbled by the fact that people who were so close to this unimaginable trauma and grief have been able to see anything positive in it. It's almost unreal, and it makes me feel very humble.

It was a reminder to us that, whilst grief of this magnitude will never leave the bereaved, it quickly falls away from the public consciousness. Of course, we will remember 7/7 when it comes round to July each year. There will be programmes like this one and newspaper stories. But we won't be thinking about it in a few days time. Everyday things will take priority again. Not for those who are still grieving their loss. They will continue to think about it daily for many years, maybe for the rest of their lives. That's what makes Miriam's family so inspirational to me. When they recall the dreadful events of 7/7, they also have the positive thoughts of the centre in India to go with them. This can't take away the grief, but it clearly helps them to deal with it.

A hosepipe ban, and it's raining!

I heard on the radio this morning that we are to be subject to a hosepipe ban in the north west. It isn't a problem for us as we do any garden watering from a water butt. It is ironic, though, that as the news trickled into my ears from my bedside radio, I struggled to hear it over the pounding sound of torrential rain on our roof!

I know one rain storm does not fill all the reservoirs, but we've now had the best part of a week of cooler and wetter weather. United Utilities are going to find it hard to convince people of the necessity for the ban. They're going to need to show us the low levels in Thirlemere and the other reservoirs to make their point. This table from their website needs to find its way out with the press releases, and they need to tell us more about why the levels are still low. I think I understand the geological reasons why a prolonged dry spell is particularly difficult in this part of the world, but I don't think most other people do.
70 days

	Actual stock	Change since last week	Normal year	Last year
Regional total	64.2%	-3.4%	83.2%	80.9%
North & West Cumbria	50.4%	-8.3%	92.0%	98.8%
Haweswater & Thirlmere	51.4%	-3.1%	77.0%	79.2%
Pennine sources	56.3%	-3.5%	79.0%	67.9%
Dee & Vyrnwy reservoirs	77.9%	-3.4%	89.0%	89.4%

Rev. episode 2

We watched the second episode of Rev. last night. I said last week that it was off to a slow start, but I definitely think it's getting into its stride now.

Maybe because of my own prejudices, I particularly enjoyed the parody of the 'raving evo' pastor with his smoothie bar and white sofas. My only concern about the jokes so far is that many people outside the church (or just on the edges) would not pick up on them. Some of the humour is very subtle, and some of the references are very churchy and very C of E. This suits me fine, and I find it very funny, but I wonder what someone without a church background would make of it.

The other thing I enjoyed about last night's episode was the development of the relationship between the vicar and his wife. Though it is comedy, and subject to exaggeration/hyperbole, I feel like this series is getting closer to showing what vicars really get up to than any other TV series has ever managed before. Fundamentally, he is shown as a fairly ordinary bloke who is trying to find a healthy balance between his work and family. In amongst all of this are the random characters that you actually do find in churches.

I'll be watching again next week. Apparently the first episode was viewed by more people than viewed Big Brother!
Maggi Dawn has posted today with her thoughts on the series so far.She links to Simon Marsh's post on the same subject.

Sermon for Corpus Christi

This is the text from a sermon for Corpus Christi at the Lancaster University Chaplaincy Centre, United Service, 2010. Sorry it's long! 

Introduction
For an Anglican to be asked to preach at a Roman Catholic Mass on the Feast of Corpus Christi is something that can only happen somewhere like this! I’m honoured to have been asked, even though Father Hugh hadn’t realised what day it was when he asked me to preach.

As this is a united service, and as we all have a different experience of church, I thought it would be worth beginning with some explanation about the fairly Catholic feast day we celebrate today. Corpus Christi is a celebration of the importance and centrality of communion in the church. In some parts of the world, there are bright and boisterous processions of the blessed sacrament, and the day is a big deal! Here in the UK, it tends to be a more sober affair, if it is celebrated at all!

As a Philosophy graduate, I was tempted, for a very brief moment, to deal with some of the nitty gritty theology and philosophy of the eucharist, but common sense got the better of me, and I decided on a different tack.

Communion at Chaplaincy
By the time we leave Lancaster in September, it will be 13 years since I arrived at the university and discovered this rather odd expression of “church” on the campus. It’s very tempting to become acclimatised to Chaplaincy; to begin to think of it as normal. But it really isn’t!

One of the things that marks Lancaster’s Chaplaincy out against other ecumenical church communities is its approach to communion. In many ecumenical settings, communion is avoided at all costs, because it is felt to be a difficult area; a source of dispute and disagreement between the different traditions (and sometimes within individual denominations). At Lancaster, the ‘united service’ is a sign of hope for greater Christian unity, though I acknowledge that for some it is unsatisfactory and clumsy in theological terms. It gives an opportunity for each of us to see another way and a different approach, and it allows our views and opinions about communion to be challenged and refreshed. This has to be a good thing! For all of us. Even if it isn’t always a comfortable experience.

Meals and hospitality
I have a strong memory of A level English Literature classes. We were studying Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, and we were asked to brainstorm on some of the key themes in the book. As we got further into the exercise, it became very clear that food was a very significant theme, and it got its own section of the whiteboard with an expanding spider diagram detailing the different references to food we could each recall.

I thought of this occasion when I began to think about writing this sermon. Like Great Expectations, food is a matter of great importance in the bible, and, more specifically, the act of eating together is something which is documented on many occasions, as we heard in our readings this morning. As well as the examples we’ve just heard, there are many famous occasions where Jesus takes time to eat with people: sinners, tax collectors, women with dubious reputations... the list goes on and on! According to one source on the internet, there are over 700 references to eating in the bible, and I can well believe it.

I could go on for some time recalling significant instances of meals in the bible, and my point here is that, just like Great Expectations, this isn’t a coincidence. The presentation of food and the sharing of meals is there for a reason.

Especially in the New Testament, the importance of sharing meals, and of hospitality, is that this is one of Jesus’ key ways of putting people at ease, and relating to them in a very natural way.

When we eat together, we tend not to do so in stony silence! We usually spend our time chatting, recalling common experiences and learning more about our dining companions. If you attend a dinner party with people you don’t know, you would usually hope to have made some new friends by the end of the evening. And so it is with Jesus. By inviting and enabling people to eat together, his primary concern is not with their dietary wellbeing! He’s not checking they’re getting their 5 a day or to see if they’re drinking too much wine! He wants his guests to spend time together, relating to each other and getting to know each other. And he wants to get to know them too! In all of these things, Jesus is setting a perfect example of building community and enacting communion.

In the communion service as we now know it, we are not invited to partake in an act of solitary dietary sustenance. Instead, we are invited to eat together and to share a meal with Jesus, where he enables us to get to know our neighbour and to spend some time building a community.

This is why communion at Chaplaincy has always been so important to me. It has given me a chance to become part of a community with a broader group of people than I could hope to meet in a ‘regular’ parish.

The cultural relevance of communion
Another observation which strikes me as significant here is a specific one about culture. In the Western Church, we get rather hung up on some of the specifics of communion. Whilst I understand and respect the reasons for tradition and customs in the church, perhaps we sometimes get a bit distracted from the most important issues. Let me explain further...

Rural Lancashire, despite the weather, has some striking similarities to the land Jesus occupied 2000 years ago:

We have a very large number of sheep and livestock dotted around our hillsides, and we have a cultural memory that extends back before the invention of quad bikes and tractors to shepherds and a more manual approach to agriculture.

Despite massive changes to the diet of the average Lancastrian, bread is still at the centre. Sandwiches for lunch, toast at breakfast, naan bread with your chicken tikka massala in the evening. Bread is still a staple of our diet as it was when Jesus ate and drank with friends and followers.

So why does any of that matter and what does it have to do with communion? Well it matters when it comes to working out the significance of the bible for us in 21st century Lancashire. The cultural references in the bible relate to a particular place and time, and by chance, they also relate to us today in a very direct way. We’re very fortunate in this respect.

Parables about shepherds and accounts of bread and wine speak directly to our cultural experience. This is great for us, but what about those places where sheep don’t live, where there’s no coastline and no fishermen, or where bread isn’t on the menu because rice is the staple food? How would we relate to the lessons and examples of the bible if we didn’t have some of the common items of culture that we take for granted?

It might seem trivial, but this issue cuts to the core of what we believe about communion.

‘the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, “this is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me”’

What Jesus did was to take the everyday items of bread and wine (by the way, it probably wasn’t a vintage bottle of French red! It was more likely a rough and ready home-brew). He took these mundane, everyday items and he blessed them. In the same way he would have done at every meal time. He also said that when we do the same thing, we celebrate his memorial, and those basic elements become transformed somehow, to be for us, his body and his blood.

Jesus took an everyday act with everyday items, and began the sacrament we now know as communion, and which we celebrate today.

When Jesus set this phenomenon in motion, do you think he was hung-up on the specific ingredients of that meal as the template for communion for the next 2000 years? Most parts of the church take very seriously the aim to remain faithful to the particulars of the communion elements – bread and wine – and this goes down to very fine detail about what can and cannot be done! But what meaning, for the communicant, does this carry where bread and wine are not everyday items?

What I’m not saying here is that tradition and doctrine are not important. Of course they are, and I’m quite a traditionalist in many ways. I’m simply saying that we ought to take opportunities like this to explore what communion means in our place and time, and also in other places.

I’d like to teach you a song to which I was introduced a few months ago, and it says much of what I want to say in song. It talks of Jesus as the rice of life, and it comes from Malaysia, where rice is the staple food, and to think of Jesus as rice rather than bread is meaningful.

Teach song - The rice of life

Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to take us back to our gospel reading: ‘Jesus made the crowds welcome and talked to them about the Kingdom of God’. The example Jesus sets for us time and again in the New Testament is that a very real aspect of communion is to be found in people’s kitchens and round their dining tables, with meals, drinks and conversations. This doesn’t undermine the importance of Mass, or Communion, or the Lord’s Supper – however we know it – it simply challenges us to broaden or understanding about what Jesus was getting at when he broke bread and drank wine.

Maybe we need to readdress our approach to food and community on an everyday basis. Maybe we should consider saying grace before our meals if we don’t already. Maybe we should look at Jesus’ example a little more closely as we decide how best to perform our mission as a church.

It’s no coincidence that the fastest growing areas of the church in this country take food an hospitality to heart - I’m thinking of the Alpha model of meals and discussion.

We need to remember that Jesus used his ministry on earth to relate to people and to build communion and community. This is the example that should be at the heart of our lives as individuals and as the church.

It's not Dibley! (warning, this post contains a naughty word!)

Thanks to the wonderful Sky+ box in the Lanky household, we watched 'Rev.' last night due to postgrad group commitments on Monday. Having read a lot about the series already, I had a good feel for what it would be like before I watched it.

It's not Dibley, there's no laugh track (hurrah), and the humour is far from slapstick. Despite a couple of outbursts, the language is not nearly as fruity as 'the thick of it', but it's definitely not Dibley! I especially liked the bit where the vicar removed his collar as he told a bunch of abusive builders to 'fuck off!'.
I heard an interview with a cast member from 'The Wire' the other day, and she said that until well into the first season of the show, many of the actors thought it was fairly poor. It was only when the characters had developed and the rhythm of the dialogue had settled that they started to get into it and see its potential.
I'm not saying that I think Rev. is poor, but I am saying that this was a gentle start for what I expect will be a very good series. It has caricatures, but they aren't like the ones in Dibley. They are keenly observed, and therefore very amusing; especially for those of us who are part of similar church communities.
All in all, a solid start. I've already set the Sky box to record the entire series.
Other bloggers have watched too:

Church Times blog
Mark Vernon's blog
Bishop David Chillingworth's blog
David Keen's post has lots of other links too.

Thunder and lightning

Last night we were treated to a rare (for Lancater) display of nature's power in the form of a spectaular thunderstorm. LittleLanky slept right through the excitement, but MrsLanky and I were woken by the show. 

I know some people find it scary, and I can understand why, but I just find it exciting. It's like taking part in an extreme sport without leaving the comfort of your own bed. A little bit of risk, but zero effort!

Needless to say, the rain that accompanied the thunder and lightning means that the water butt is now full, and I certainly don't need to water any plants today. Maybe United Utilities can postpone the hosepipe ban for a little longer.

Here comes the rain

I'm not often pleased to see the rain, but today is an exception. The rain has arrived (with its customary odd smell), and I'm happy. The strawberries in the garden would be delighted if they were capable of emotion. I can feel the water butt filling as I type... It's still warm though!

79 days

New BBC 2 comedy: Rev

Tonight sees the first episode of a new BBC comedy starring Tom Hollander as a new vicar in an urban setting. From what I've read, I'm expecting something more like 'The Thick of it' than 'The Vicar of Dibley'. Anyway, tune in tonight: BBC2, 22:00.

Read more about it at the Church Times website...

The many joys of a British summer

England are through the group stages of the world cup and set to take on the old enemy this weekend. Shock exits for Italy and France have shaken the tournament up a bit after its slow start! Live streaming footage available from ITV and the good old Beeb mean that those with a desktop PC at work (and no bandwidth or IP restrictions) are able to watch and work (I learnt I could actually multitask during England's last game).

Wimbledon is off to a flyer! Warm and dry weather mean no lost time so far, and the most epic of matches concluded yesterday to give us all a reminder that, for all the training and precision of the serve-volley game, it's still possible for a surprise to turn up occasionally.

The England cricket team have beaten the other old enemy, Australia, twice in three days! And it was in the 50 over format of the game; one which we are meant to be bad at (though opinion seems to be turning).

Add all this to the hospipe-ban-weather, and the rare site of yellow-brown lawns in Lancaster, and it makes me realise why I love the summer. The only way to top it off would be if a farner came to me and asked me to help with hay-making. That would bring back some very happy childhood memories of Salesis Farm.

Gareth Malone and my telly face, part 2

Regular readers will remember my glowing praise for the Gareth Malone series about the South Oxhey Choir. Well he's back on the telly again, and this time he's trying to bring together a young people's chorus for a new opera at Glyndebourne.

As a rule, MrsLanky and I are not opera fans; I'm certainly not sure what I think about modern opera. I can say, however, that we have been very impressed by this latest BBC series. The best moments of the show are when Malone works one to one with someone who is struggling, or who thinks they can't sing. He shows how, in many cases, the issue is not ability but confidence. And Malone has the disarming ability to give people confidence in their ability to sing.

The particularly interesting aspect of this series is the fact that Malone has been asked to work with a piece that is still a work in progress. It hasn't been completed by the time he needs to start teaching it! 

I don't know if it makes me a bad person, but it's affirming to see such a capable person working at the edge of his ability. It gives me confidence from watching him; especially seeing him receive coaching on conducting! His balance of humility and confidence is an inspiration. The telly face was definitely in evidence last night.

Anyway, iPlayer has the first 2 episodes, and you can catch it on BBC2 at 9pm on Thursdays.

82 days

A hosepipe ban, in Lancashire?

I thought I was dreaming when I heard John Humphrys quizzing a representative from United Utilities about a possible hosepipe ban in the Northwest of England. Normally the Southeast are the first to suffer. The last time I remember a hosepipe ban in this area, I think I was more concerned about whether I would still be allowed to use a water pistol or not! OK, it may not of been that long ago, but I am struggling to remember it.

I know I mentioned the other day about the good weather in Lancaster, and I noticed the low water level in Thirlmere when we passed it a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't think we were that dry.

Anyway, it seems we had some drizzle during the night. Maybe that will hold off the ban for a little while longer.

First of the lasts

This weekend saw the first of many things we will do for the last time in Lancaster over the coming weeks. At the end of the summer term, the 'Postgrad Group', to which the Lankies belong, are 'volunteered' for the job of providing a barbecue lunch after the Sunday morning service at the Chaplaincy Centre. On one notable and now legendary occasion, I recall the Lancaster weather providing some challenging conditions. Mr H and I were chief barbecue operatives, and we ended up sheltering under umbrellas whilst the rainwater rose around our ankles. We ended up barbecueing in about 6 inches of standing water, such was the ferocity of the rain storm.

Thankfully, the last Chaplaincy barbecue for which we are likely to be responsible was accomanied by glorious weather. The sun shone all day, as it is set to do for much of this week.

Lancaster is noted for it's challenging weather patterns, but our final year here has been great (so far). A proper winter with snow that stuck (the first in 13 years living in Lancaster), and a dry and warm summer which will hopefully continue a little longer!

This weekend also saw our last term-time 'Reflect' service. The undergraduate students will all be departing next weekend, and by the time 7pm on Sunday comes around, they will all be gone. Reflect does continue through the vacation, but with more modest numbers. This means the music has to change slightly - we'll lose a couple of accomplished part-singers, so we'll go for more simple songs and chants. This changes the essential character of the services until the undergrads return in October. 

After the service last night, I had a look back through the register of services. It seems we started Reflect in October 2006 - wow! It's amazing how time flies, and how services like this evolve. We've settled into a pattern of fairly traditional liturgies. We still have a mix of music from the Iona Community, Taize and a few good-old hymns, but we seem to have drifted into an amount of liturgical consistency which I had never envisaged at the beginning. 
Anyway, we're now on the home straight with Reflect. Fortunately, volunteers have come forward to take on the admin side of the service, so it will keep going after we've gone to Cambridge. This makes me very happy!
86 days to go

Why are finance forms always the same?

My current job is in a context where finance forms abound. I'm well used to the various formats and the different ways of thinking about money, and I'm accustomed to the tendency to use shorthand phrases and acronyms which mean nothing to most of the population. It shouldn't surprise me, therefore, that I have a number of questions to ask the DDO about how one is meant to fill in the 'family budget for ordinands' form which is due this Friday. Having not been an ordinand before, this is all new to me! I'm also not familiar with the various benefits and tax credits for which we may be eligible. One of the problems is that if I apply for any benefits or credits now, the assessment would be based on my current salary, and not my impending student status. If I don't get actual figures based on an actual application, I can't really put anything on the form.

My job for this evening is to do a bit more internet research. After that, if I still have questions, I'll give the DDO a call. I'm sure this could be simpler!
91 days

The power of positive reinforcement

I've never been a follower of organised boycotts such as the Nestle one. I understand the key issues, but you need to take a lot of 'facts' on trust from a partisan when you support such a campaign. I have no idea whether Nestle are good are bad - how would I know that what I've been told about them is correct and free of bias?

I also have a more fundamental discomfort about organised boycotts like this. I'd much rather take action based on my own rationale rather than received wisdom.

Finally, there's a significant issue here about how we are seeking to modify the behaviour of these corporations (that is what we're trying to do isn't it?). We're told by child psychologists that we should ignore any undesired behavioural traits in our children, and reward them when we see preferred behaviour (note my hedging away from good and bad - once a philosopher...). Maybe this is an approach we should take with corporations, businesses and organisations. Perhaps, as Phil Cooke suggests, we should reward a retailer because they have exceeded our expectations.

I know from my experience in retail that you rarely get good customer feedback. When you do, it lights up your face, and you're motivated for another week in one of the most poorly paid jobs around. On the other hand, people are very happy to tell you when their expectations have not been met; sometimes in brutal terms. Why, as a society, is it easier to chide than to praise? Is there something about the human mind that makes us do this, or have we been 'trained' into this mode of behaviour? Either way, perhaps we should be the start of a revolution which, rather than boycotting on the basis of presumed wrongdoing, takes a positive experience as the motivation for affirmation - even on a corporate level. Carrots rather than sticks!

Pining for my piano

Since I left home at the age of 19, I have been without my piano. It was a gift to me from my Grandparents, and I learnt to play on it. Though I must admit, I didn't learn very well! I got to Grade 2 and decided that all those exams and hours of practice (not that I ever did an hour of practice) were too much effort.

Since going to university, my music-making has gone in a more choral route (despite the purchase of a lovely electro-acoustic guitar). The voice is the only truly portable instrument, and you don't struggle to fit it in a university bedroom! Through singing, and teaching songs to others, my music reading has got a lot better. I used to be ok on the pitch of notes, but I was easily confused by rhythms. This is still true to an extent, but I find that a bit of concentration soon sorts it out.

When we move to Cambridge in September, we will have enough space to accommodate the piano which now sits in my parents' dining room. I can't wait to have it! It's not that I will play it every day, but I do think that I will enjoy being able to try a bit of sightreading, and bashing out the accompaniments to Taize chants or Iona songs. The weakness of the voice is that harmony cannot easily be achieved when you're on your own (with a few exceptions). This is where the piano comes in! you can hear how the different parts relate to each other, and get prepared for any accidentals or clashes before they happen.
So there you go. I'm pining for my piano, but this will soon come to an end in September. I bet it needs tuning.

Keep your eyes on Kerrigan

Although he's already 21 (geriatric by England team standards), Lancashire's Simon Kerrigan is still a player to watch in my opinion (I've mentioned him before). Monty has fallen by the wayside and Swann, though brilliant, will not last forever. So who is in the wings to carry on the rejuvenated spin attack for England?
Kerrigan's recent performances for Lancashire make me think that he may end up wearing an England shirt (at least a Lions variant) before too long. From what I have read, it seems that he has the special skill of being able to turn a game with a short passage of inspired bowling. I suppose that if he wants to compete for an England cap, he will need to work hard on his batting and fielding. By ousting Monty as England's number 1 spin option, Swann has shown that spin alone is no longer sufficient! I'm sure Peter Moores will be working on this with Kerrigan already.

The day Stephen Hawking helped my prayer life

As I've blogged already this week, I'm participating in a week of accompanied prayer. As such, my attention has been slanted (to a greater extent than usual) towards my prayer life. 

Yesterday, I followed a link from a blog, and I eventually arrived at an article about an interview given to ABC in the USA about Professor Stephen Hawking's latest TV series over the pond. I have a lot of time for Hawking. His work in explaining the more complex ideas in theoretical physics to a lay audience has been inspirational.

The paragraph in the article that caught my attention was one that resonated with something that has come up in the sessions with my prayer guide. From one of Hawking's answers about religion:

"What could define God [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."

I have a tendency to intellectualise God and faith (probably a personality-type issue). This can be very necessary, but it can sometimes reduce God to something like Hawking's caricature in the paragraph above; 'the embodiment of the laws of nature' and nothing more. I think when I intellectualise and theorise God, it becomes tempting to think of God only as a way of describing and understanding the physical reality of the world, and not as the personal God that Hawking criticises as a human-made artefact. This tendency reminds me of the 'category mistake' referred to by Rowan Williams in reference to creationism. We try to fit God into an inappropriate and inadequate system of understanding - scientific 'proof' - and we end up with an incomplete conception of the thing we were trying to understand.
I expect that one of the reasons I have this tendency is my degree in philosophy and my subsequent interest in the ongoing tussle between Dawkins and the religious world. I think I often confine my contemplation of God to philosophical thoughts about his existence, and the interaction of religious ideas with scientific ones, and I stop short of trying to know God better.
So Stephen Hawking has inadvertently encouraged me to address this matter in my private prayer time. I've resolved to try further to understand God in the personal sense that Hawking rejects. 
97 days (meant to do this each day - will try harder)