Readers may have noticed a new panel on the right hand side of this blog, which gives a list of the things that I've recently posted on "Twitter". For those who have not yet come across this new phenomenon, Twitter is the latest thing for social networking on the Internet.
I was persuaded to sign up by a friend, and at first could not see the point - apart from anything else, you can't post anything more than 140 character (not words, characters!) in length. However, by some process that it is not altogether possible to explain, I have met some very interesting people, and discovered that quite profound thoughts can be exchanged in 140 characters. It is actually very good discipline for brevity, realising how many words we use that are not ACTUALLY necessary to convey meaning. And if I want to say more, like this, I can put it on the blog and post a link on Twitter, so that anyone who is interested can read it.
One drawback is the potential for time-wasting, reading what others have posted (or tweeted to use the correct jargon) and thinking up suitably witty tweets in reply. Another is concern about what one puts on there - especially if it turns up in other places. As already mentioned, my "Twitter-stream" is shown on this blog, and my latest tweet also comes up on my benefice web-site. In addition, The Church Mouse blog has a Twitter-stream for all twittering clergy. I'm wondering quite what anyone made of it who happened to spot that "countryvicar", my Twitter user-name, tweeted to a well-known author about naked bin-men the other day. All an innocent matter of someone misreading what someone else had written, but open to misconstruction nonetheless! My latest tweet is hardly more appropriate - being a wish for a ground-to-air missile to deal with low-flying aircraft disturbing an otherwise lovely evening. As I type, I'm probably being monitored by GCHQ as a potential terrorist!
I wondered whether I was lowering the tone of the Churchmouse Twitter-stream, after all, people perhaps look at it expecting to find uplifting words of wisdom, not a clergy-person exercising her questionable sense of humour. But I was reassured when I discovered that other vicars, and even bishops, were tweeting in just as daft a way as I do. Clearly the point (if there is one) of reading ecclesiastical tweets is to realise that clergy are just like everyone else - and that has to be a good thing!
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness!
I was reading a comment on a Christian blog called The Church Mouse, which asked why the author had not discovered any comments by blogging vicars about the affair that has been at the top of the news for the last few days - ie the attempts to smear Conservative MPs by one of Gordon Brown's special advisers. I thought about this, and wondered why I had not felt moved to comment on this story.
I think that the main reason is, appalled as I am by the fact that anyone should go out of their way to spread unpleasant lies about others, it does concern me that this story has driven so much else off the front pages. There are so many people suffering around the world, whom we forget about if they are not in our news, that I feel that this issue is getting more than its fair share of air time. Yes, it is of public interest and should not be "hushed up", but I do feel that I have heard more than I could ever have wished to about this subject over last few days.
I know that it is unfashionable to quote the Ten Commandments, but they do sum up the whole debate in six words. "Thou shalt not bear false witness" and, as I once saw on a T-shirt, God said "What part of 'THOU SHALT NOT' do you not understand?" This commandment is sometimes explained as "You should not lie"; but it is not about fibbing, it is about deliberately and maliciously saying something that is untrue about another person. I believe I am right in saying that, under the ancient Jewish law, a person who made an accusation which was proved to be false would incur the penalty intended for their victim - up to and including stoning to death. This recognised how important it was not to bear false witness, and the damage that unfounded allegations could cause to society as well as the individual.
In planning to put scurrilous reports about individuals on a web-site, the perpetrator's aim was to damage those people, and by extension their political party, and there is justice in the fact that it is his job, reputation and party that have suffered what he intended for others. I doubt that it occurred to him that what he was doing would also damage society itself, yet that is what it has done. Not only by keeping more important issues out of the news, but by undermining our political system. For all its faults, we do have one of the few regimes in the world that I would wish live under, and I suspect that if most people are honest they will say the same. We damage that at all our peril!
I think that the main reason is, appalled as I am by the fact that anyone should go out of their way to spread unpleasant lies about others, it does concern me that this story has driven so much else off the front pages. There are so many people suffering around the world, whom we forget about if they are not in our news, that I feel that this issue is getting more than its fair share of air time. Yes, it is of public interest and should not be "hushed up", but I do feel that I have heard more than I could ever have wished to about this subject over last few days.
I know that it is unfashionable to quote the Ten Commandments, but they do sum up the whole debate in six words. "Thou shalt not bear false witness" and, as I once saw on a T-shirt, God said "What part of 'THOU SHALT NOT' do you not understand?" This commandment is sometimes explained as "You should not lie"; but it is not about fibbing, it is about deliberately and maliciously saying something that is untrue about another person. I believe I am right in saying that, under the ancient Jewish law, a person who made an accusation which was proved to be false would incur the penalty intended for their victim - up to and including stoning to death. This recognised how important it was not to bear false witness, and the damage that unfounded allegations could cause to society as well as the individual.
In planning to put scurrilous reports about individuals on a web-site, the perpetrator's aim was to damage those people, and by extension their political party, and there is justice in the fact that it is his job, reputation and party that have suffered what he intended for others. I doubt that it occurred to him that what he was doing would also damage society itself, yet that is what it has done. Not only by keeping more important issues out of the news, but by undermining our political system. For all its faults, we do have one of the few regimes in the world that I would wish live under, and I suspect that if most people are honest they will say the same. We damage that at all our peril!
Monday, 13 April 2009
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
It was really lovely to see so many people in church yesterday to celebrate our Lord's Resurrection. Sometimes, it seems that people place far more significance on Christmas than Easter, and that is of course a very important Christian festival too. But if Jesus had only been born, then lived out his life and died like any other human being, nothing would have changed. It was the fact that he was able to overcome death that makes the difference to us today.
I have had some interesting discussions recently with people who do not believe in God, or in an afterlife. I agree that I cannot empirically prove that there is anything after death, any more than those who believe there is nothing can prove that. But if Jesus' disciples did not encounter their risen Lord, what changed them from a group terrified that they would suffer the same fate as their Master into people prepared to risk their lives to tell others about him? We know, not just from the Bible but from other sources, that many of Jesus's first followers met dreadful deaths; surely it is one thing to risk that for something in which you passionately believe, but who would do so for something they knew was not true?
I have had some interesting discussions recently with people who do not believe in God, or in an afterlife. I agree that I cannot empirically prove that there is anything after death, any more than those who believe there is nothing can prove that. But if Jesus' disciples did not encounter their risen Lord, what changed them from a group terrified that they would suffer the same fate as their Master into people prepared to risk their lives to tell others about him? We know, not just from the Bible but from other sources, that many of Jesus's first followers met dreadful deaths; surely it is one thing to risk that for something in which you passionately believe, but who would do so for something they knew was not true?
Monday, 6 April 2009
Jesus
One of the top subjects on Twitter last night was "Jesus". Thinking that this sounded like an interesting strand, I had a look at what was being posted. About half the posts were by people who were referring to Jesus Christ in some way, but the other half were people using the name as an expletive. As a Christian, I do find this use of our Lord's name in this way somewhat offensive, yet there is also something positive there too.
Most frequently used swear words refer to something that is essential to life, or at least of major significance - I won't list the ones that come to my mind, but think about it! The people who use "Jesus" as a swear word may well say that he is not essential to or significant in their lives, yet how then does the use of his name add anything to what they are saying? Any other word would do just as well. Perhaps the way that we will know when Jesus really becomes insignificant is when the use of his name to vent anger is replaced by "Mobile Phone!!!"
Most frequently used swear words refer to something that is essential to life, or at least of major significance - I won't list the ones that come to my mind, but think about it! The people who use "Jesus" as a swear word may well say that he is not essential to or significant in their lives, yet how then does the use of his name add anything to what they are saying? Any other word would do just as well. Perhaps the way that we will know when Jesus really becomes insignificant is when the use of his name to vent anger is replaced by "Mobile Phone!!!"
Saturday, 4 April 2009
A beautiful evening
I'm watching the sun sink slowly behind the Malvern Hills, after a good day when I've actually got quite a bit of work done. If I could just get rid of whatever has been ailing my throat and chest for nearly a fortnight, life would be even better!
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday when we celebrate Jesus riding into Jerusalem to be hailed as King by an ecstatic crowd. Yet within less than a week that crowd was shouting "Crucify him, crucify him". Isn't it interesting how some things never change? How many people can we all think of who have been feted in the media one week, only to be vilified the next?
It is often because they do not deliver totally unrealistic expectations, and this was what happened to Jesus. The crowd thought that he would drive the Romans out of the land of Israel, not realising that his Kingdom was one of peace rather than war. When he seemed more interested in putting things right in the Jewish Temple, the Jewish religious leaders and the people turned against him.
Christians should always stand up for what is right rather than what is popular, but sometimes we find good excuses for the easy option - and sometimes, in a comlex world, it's not always easy to agree on what is "right".
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday when we celebrate Jesus riding into Jerusalem to be hailed as King by an ecstatic crowd. Yet within less than a week that crowd was shouting "Crucify him, crucify him". Isn't it interesting how some things never change? How many people can we all think of who have been feted in the media one week, only to be vilified the next?
It is often because they do not deliver totally unrealistic expectations, and this was what happened to Jesus. The crowd thought that he would drive the Romans out of the land of Israel, not realising that his Kingdom was one of peace rather than war. When he seemed more interested in putting things right in the Jewish Temple, the Jewish religious leaders and the people turned against him.
Christians should always stand up for what is right rather than what is popular, but sometimes we find good excuses for the easy option - and sometimes, in a comlex world, it's not always easy to agree on what is "right".
Thursday, 2 April 2009
G20 - what else?!
Yesterday, Dave Walker, Church Times Blogger and Cartoonist, asked on his blog what question we would like to put to G20 leaders. Mine was "If stimulating the world economy means people buying things they don't need with money they haven't got, what's the point?" I wrote an article along these lines in a Parish Magazine when everything went wrong with the economy in the early 1990s, but clearly no-one in power read it, so here we are again, only things are even worse this time.
I have enormous sympathy for anyone who has lost their job, or is on short time, or in negative equity as result of the economic downturn, and I can fully understand the feeling that we need to get the banks lending so that things can be produced and sold, and the good times can return. Yet at the same time, we know that all this consumption damages the environment, and does nothing to help the poorest people in the world.
We are regularly given statistics on how much we waste - food we throw away, clothes we don't wear - and then there are all the perfectly serviceable electrical goods that we replace just because we want the latest model. I have heard a number of interviews in the media recently in which people who have been hit by the credit crunch have been talking about the fact that it has made them ask themselves if they really need something - before they buy it.
While I don't want to sound like a sanctimonious (or parsimonious!) dinosaur, I find it hard to imagine ever doing anything else! This does not mean that I live without mod-cons, I just don't replace them until they stop working. I doubt that a brand new washing machine would get my clothes any cleaner than my 12-year old one; arguably a new one could be slightly more energy efficient, but a life-time's use would not compensate for the pollution caused in making it. I wear my clothes until they fall apart - "we've noticed" I hear you cry! - and am still driving the 8-year old car that I've hated since the day I bought it. I do not only do this because I believe it is the way that we should live in a finite world, or because I believe that we should all give a proportion of our income to the church and/or charity. It also, totally selfishly, means that I can afford outings with friends and family, holidays, books, theatre trips, and other things that I enjoy. You can have a lot of nice meals out for the cost of a flat-screen TV!
When Gordon Brown and others talk about stimulating the economy, they mean going back to a time when people bought without first asking the question "do I actually need this?" We have the opportunity to change the world and achieve something that all the recent prosperity in the developed world has failed to do - give people who cannot even buy the things that they do need the chance to do so. And we could reduce the world's carbon emissions, land fill, toxic waste, etc, by not manufacturing and disposing of so much. But this would need a complete re-think of how we do things, otherwise the millions of people world-wide, who have relied on all this excess consumption for a living, will be plunged into unending poverty. I don't doubt that the world leaders meeting in London have the combined intellect to achieve such a re-think, but sadly I do doubt that they have the will.
I have enormous sympathy for anyone who has lost their job, or is on short time, or in negative equity as result of the economic downturn, and I can fully understand the feeling that we need to get the banks lending so that things can be produced and sold, and the good times can return. Yet at the same time, we know that all this consumption damages the environment, and does nothing to help the poorest people in the world.
We are regularly given statistics on how much we waste - food we throw away, clothes we don't wear - and then there are all the perfectly serviceable electrical goods that we replace just because we want the latest model. I have heard a number of interviews in the media recently in which people who have been hit by the credit crunch have been talking about the fact that it has made them ask themselves if they really need something - before they buy it.
While I don't want to sound like a sanctimonious (or parsimonious!) dinosaur, I find it hard to imagine ever doing anything else! This does not mean that I live without mod-cons, I just don't replace them until they stop working. I doubt that a brand new washing machine would get my clothes any cleaner than my 12-year old one; arguably a new one could be slightly more energy efficient, but a life-time's use would not compensate for the pollution caused in making it. I wear my clothes until they fall apart - "we've noticed" I hear you cry! - and am still driving the 8-year old car that I've hated since the day I bought it. I do not only do this because I believe it is the way that we should live in a finite world, or because I believe that we should all give a proportion of our income to the church and/or charity. It also, totally selfishly, means that I can afford outings with friends and family, holidays, books, theatre trips, and other things that I enjoy. You can have a lot of nice meals out for the cost of a flat-screen TV!
When Gordon Brown and others talk about stimulating the economy, they mean going back to a time when people bought without first asking the question "do I actually need this?" We have the opportunity to change the world and achieve something that all the recent prosperity in the developed world has failed to do - give people who cannot even buy the things that they do need the chance to do so. And we could reduce the world's carbon emissions, land fill, toxic waste, etc, by not manufacturing and disposing of so much. But this would need a complete re-think of how we do things, otherwise the millions of people world-wide, who have relied on all this excess consumption for a living, will be plunged into unending poverty. I don't doubt that the world leaders meeting in London have the combined intellect to achieve such a re-think, but sadly I do doubt that they have the will.
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