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I have to say it's been lovely having an enforced break from the internet! Jane and I have had an all-too-short holiday in a remote corner of south-east Devon - no internet and fairly dubious mobile reception. For those of us without sufficient self-discipline to impose a break from the media on ourselves, this sort of desert-island retreat should be made compulsory!

(By the way, last week's Desert Island Discs was one of those peaches which come along occasionally. The castaway was the actor, Martin Sheen (Jed Bartlett of The West Wing), whose own life-story is as gripping as the series. You can listen on podcast or here: Martin Sheen castaway.)

Where was I? Well, this time a week ago we were on the way back from my favourite place of worship, in Exmouth. I've only been there twice of course, and I know that there isn't a perfect church anywhere. However Christ Church in North Street for me scratches where it itches.... It's utterly unpretentious, but its people are serious about worship and discipleship. And they're very welcoming, family-friendly and unintimidating. We first met Katie and Tom and Nicky last year at New Wine, and have got to know other church members since. I reckon one mark of a healthy Christian family is where you feel at home when you step inside. This is like that.

Anyway there's too much to say about the action-packed week for this post. So it will have to keep to another time.

After thoughts

I was thinking more about the Tolstoy quotation last night, and it occurred to me that he was musing on the conundrum that humans are capable of comprehending incredible beauty and at the same time committing awful atrocities. I seem to remember St James writing about a similar paradox, which is unique to human beings. "From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water."

From The Guardian website

The last of our family has left this morning, and so now Jane and I are back to our normal quiet life. We have had a very jolly Christmas with the family. As I write, friends in Sydney will be watching the fireworks over the harbour and seeing in the New Year. I'm sure they won't begrudge their Aussie friends their celebrations (My friends are Brits). They need cheering up after the drubbing England gave them in the cricket at Melbourne. No Ashes this year, I'm afraid, Australia. You'll just have to make do with burnt out rocket-cases! Anyway, have a happy New Year.

"The religious person is someone who seeks a God who is instrumental, a useful tool to get escape from hell or even sin; the Christian serves God aesthetically, for the joy of who he is" (John Piper, quoting Jonathan Edwards, according to the Rev Sally Hitchener). I was reminded of this when listening to Sandi Shaw (of 'Puppet on a String' fame, aka Mrs Powell) on 'Desert Island Discs' this morning, who was something of a contrast to Nick Park (of Wallace and Gromit fame) last week. She was talking about her conversion to Buddhism, which happened when she chanted for the money to launch a new disc (£25,000), then boldly asked the boss of Sony Music for it and was given it. That seems fair and square instrumental. How much, I wonder, am I up for the joy of who He is?

Quotes

Following from the last post and my weariness with internal church politics, I read this quotation from Hilary Cotton (Vice Chair of WATCH - Women and the Church) on elections to a new General Synod in September: "We've got some work to do to make sure people stand for this Synod who are going to support this legislation, and to give them the story so far." (Church of England Newspaper 16th July) Which stands nicely alongside the ginger-group's advert of the week before: pictures of women bishops from the USA and round the world with the strap line, "Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church" - which of course echoes Revelation 2 and 3. That particular line seems to me entirely inadmissible in contemporary Christian debate - as it stands above contradiction and implies an obdurate resistance to God on the part of people who might beg to differ. Of course WATCH are not alone in political manoeuvring and claiming divine irrefutability. Whatever your view, that's just not the way for Jesus' followers to carry on, is it?

I've been reading Dinner with Mugabe by Heidi Holland, a fascinating study of power politics at its raw edge, and was struck by this quote: "The individual who inspires the politics of paranoia is often caught up in a primitive psychological defence that guards against depression, emptiness or meaninglessness." In other words, people who start campaigns demonising others are often trying to exorcise their own demons. "Ironically, the enemies from which such people most passionately distinguish themselves are those to which they are most closely bound" (page 205).

On a more, and unexpectedly positive, note, I was listening to Desert Island Discs on Saturday morning on which the castaway was Dr Gwen Adshead, consultant forensic psychotherapist at Broadmoor High Security Hospital. (By the way, I love the theme music with the seagulls' mewing overlaid. Brilliantly evocative! I'm so glad the BBC has never tried to change it.) You'd have thought that working with acutely disturbed criminals, such as the Yorkshire Ripper, would have given her an entirely jaundiced view of life. Actually it's given her an entirely realistic one.

Kirsty Young asked her about the unpredicability of life, "Do you think our expectations culturally right now are at a point where we expect too much happiness?"
Dr Adshead's reply was:

"Yes. I do. I sometimes wonder whether we don't prepare enough for the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'. Or rather I think we don't understand that pain and suffering, and rage and distress, are as normal a part of life as the happiness and the joy." (Desert Island Discs 17th July) Well said! Get real. Life doesn't always go our way.