a bit of an uplife

Some of the Best One-Liners on the Internet

• If I agreed with you we’d both be wrong.
• Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
• Children: You spend the first 2 years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next 16 years telling them to sit down and shut-up.
• Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’, and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
• A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
• I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
• You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
• When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.
• Keep the dream alive: Hit the snooze button.
• Archaeologist: someone whose career lies in ruins.
• To err is human, to blame it on somebody else shows management potential.
• For every action, there is a corresponding over-reaction.
• People tend to make rules for others and exceptions for themselves.
• The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.
• Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
• Discretion is being able to raise your eyebrow instead of your voice.
• Be careful of your thoughts, they may become words at any moment.
• Men are like mascara, they usually run at the first sign of emotion.
• There are two kinds of people who don’t say much: those who are quiet and those who talk a lot.

A group of frogs were travelling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.

The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.

The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die.

He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, “Did you not hear us?”

The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches two lessons:

1. There is power of life and death in the tongue. An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day.

2. A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them.

Be careful of what you say. Speak life to those who cross your path. The power of words… It is sometimes hard to understand that an encouraging word can go such a long way.

computer woes

My power cable for my MacBook decided to stop working as I decided I wanted to finish a long overdue paper. Saturday evening and I wanted to do some work but couldn’t. There was nothing left to do except to go to the Apple store on Regent Street for a new power cable.  I figured I could do it in an hour and a half or two hours tops.

Good.

Home.

£60 later but I could at least finish my paper.

But before doing so I decided I would just try my old power cable one last time.

Yep. You got it. It worked!

What’s that about?

why does jesus need new pr?

I never quite understood why Matthew Paul Turner would call his blog ‘Jesus Needs New PR“.  I wondered who are we to decide to re-image Jesus.  After all, everything that can be said about him has been said by him.  And he did so more eloquently than any of our sorry examples.

This week I realised that was the very point of his blog.  We make such sorry attempts at representing Jesus that we have in fact misrepresented him.  Matthew Paul Turner’s blog is a collection of videos, picture and stories. There was one that many of us on twitter have found very disturbing. It was this post, here.  It’s all about a “pray for Obama T-shirt”.  While it might seem innocuous on the face of it, the video at the foot of his post details just why we should all be worried.

#ff link love

In this link love post I wanted to share a few tweeters that I have enjoyed following either because they are just fun, they have something to say or I think that I can learn something from them.

I wanted to share them here.

• Carlos Whittaker – I first found his blog about his adoption some time ago when he was going through the process of adopting a child and after I had finished mourning the failure of my adoption process.  I was overjoyed when I saw him on twitter and his tweets do make me laugh but, because of his experience as a worship leader, I think there is possibly something that I can learn from his ministry. You can find his tweets here.
• Revsongbird – is a pastor in the United Church of Christ.  I first met her over at RevGalBlogPals.  RevGals also tweet here.
• Pinkhairedgirl – the first time I heard of pink haired girl aka Crystal Renaud, was when I stumbled across a blog post of hers about using a netty pot.  Being a Brit Chick, I’d never heard of a netty pot neither had I appreciated the extent of porn addiction in the church.  I have followed her blog and followed her on twitter and have a great appreciation for the work that she and others are doing to help those addicted to porn. You can read her tweets here.

Just in case you are wondering where the British tweeters are, here’s a few (tweeting isn’t as big here as it is in the US but it’s growing)

• Anna Drew tweets here and blogs here.
• Documentally – social media expert
• deiknuo – Pastor, photographer and blogger
• HarlemLoves – Editor and blogger
• BillySu – a Christian Home educator

I hope you enjoy them as much as I have and why not think about sharing your links with me.

 

humanist billboard campaign

This weeks the British Humanist Association has launched its latest campaign.   Like the previous bus campaign, the billboard campaign is designed to raise the voice of the non-religious in Britain.  It is also designed to challenge to state funding of faith schools.

The slogan for the campaign is, “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”.  Like the bus campaign it makes a number of assumptions.

• Only parents make a decision about what their children hear, learn and believe.  This is not true.  We live in a media age and, even if a child doesn’t watch tv programmes, this doesn’t mean they are not being socially condition by the media.  Children are subjected to all world ideologies whether it is at school, when using the computer, through books and children’s stories, by the things that their parent or parents talk about at home, by their friends and by the parent or parents of their friends.  I would certainly be foolish to assume that, because parents choose Christianity for themselves, that their thinking hasn’t been influenced by other ideologies and that they in turn don’t influence their children in all those ideologies. Even if it were possible to isolate the all the influences on a child’s thinking to that of their parent’s, wouldn’t it be plain crazy to assume that a child doesn’t have the capability to reject them or adapt them according to new information and influences?
• Humanism appears to assume that their world view (whatever that might be) is superior to any other and to a Christianity in particular. Well, shock of horrors, holding a Christian world view does not exclude all the details of a humanist world view.  My understanding is that there is some overlap.  Humanists believe in  individual rights and freedoms and that individual responsibility, social cooperation and mutual respect are also important.  I don’t see how Christianity is any different.  We too believe in these things but for humanists to deny the rights of a Christian to choose where they will send their child to school is a fundamental denial of this.  Christians are also are positive in the same way humanists are. Christians also gain inspiration from life, art and culture, and the natural world but we don’t limit our positivism simply to this realm as we are also realists and know that people also make bad choice.  A glimpse at the current state of society is a
• This campaign in particular and other humanist campaigns assume that religious schools don’t teach other world views.  I don’t believe this is the case. If anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, Christian schools teach other world religions, they teach about atheism, creationism they even teach evolution. Humanists, however, don’t want creationism to be taught in states schools.  They want world relgions of the school curriculum.  Surely that would mean that humanists are advocating that state schools teach an incomplete picture of the world?
• Humanism prides itself on partially on enlightenment tradition dating back 2,500 years by some who “believed in a god or gods, they were thoughtful, humane, open-minded people, and many of them fought against the ignorance and religious bigotry of their day”.  The Humanists website also states some of these philosophers and thinkers “did not accept traditional beliefs but thought for themselves and pushed human knowledge forwards”.  This statement appears to assume that Christians to not want to push human knowledge forward, that Christians do not welcome development and progression.  That is a false assumption.  Christians have made extensive contributions in the fields of medicine, science, philosophy technology which, in turn have made contributions to the advancement of humanity.  While Christians do not reject any of these fields of knowledge, we also recognise that to date human knowledge has only found a partially answer to some of the problems this world faces.

I would welcome your comments on this post, whether you agree or disagree. However, I would ask for an intelligent discussion and not one peppered with profanity.

 

another queen’s speeches

I used to work in the House of Lords and the State Opening of Parliament was always the greatest annual event in the diary.  The day starts early and I never quite got used to seeing both men and woman walking around the palace of Westminster in evening attire and pearls and, the Lords and Ladies in ermine – evening the in the middle of the day.

There is no other day in the parliamentary calendar when you see so many people treading the red carpet of the House of Lords and the blue in the Princess Chamber. The sights and the sounds will stay with me – the sand on the pavements for the Queen’s horses, the horses themselves within the grounds of the palace of Westminster (who we would go down and feed with sugar during the speech itself) and the pomp and ceremony.  I’ve missed it ever since leaving.  Today would have been my first opportunity to be in the palace of Westminster during this year’s Queen’s Speech for a number of years. Unfortunately however, I ingested something that is food for most people but poison for me.  My colleague made me a cup of tea and managed to put milk in it and I am suffering so won’t be in work, won’t get to see familiar sights and won’t even get to feed the horses (truth be known, we are in a different age and security may have changed considerably so I might not have been able to do that anyway).  So, today I am at home, nursing myself to health and watching the state opening on TV.

The Queen’s Speech isn’t just about the pomp and ceremony though, it is also a important day in the legislative calendar as today is the day that we learn what bills will be introduced to parliament and what MP’s will be discussing over the duration of the coming parliament – albeit a short one.

ghost forest exhibition

This week an exhibition is running in Trafalgar Square.  It’s quite a magnificent show in the middle of urban London.  And, as you all won’t be able to see it, I took some photographs and share them here.

All the trees were naturally sourced from in Ghana and, at the end of an exhibition they will be sent to Copenhagen for the global summit on climate change.

All pictures were taken on my iPhone and you can see more  images on my yfrog page.

i know it’s not Friday

Is it too late to do the Friday five?  If not, here goes.  If it is, oops.

1. How is this Friday the 13th looking for you?

It was a pretty normal Friday, at least for me. I always hope for an early start but never get one as I usually start by doing all those things I haven’t done during the week.  Things like cleaning, or having a relaxing bath rather than a quick shower. Or going shopping for the essentials as well as the non-essentials. Only once I have done that do I get to go to the library to work on my oh so late papers.  Friday was absolutely no different – except for the torrential rain!

2. Have you ever had anything unlucky happen on Friday the 13th?

I can’t think of anything unlucky that has ever happened to me on a Friday and answer is closely connected with the next question.

3. Did your family of origin embrace or scorn superstitions?

My mother’s religious belief determined the way I see superstitious belief – I don’t believe in it.

4. Are there any unique or amusing ones from your family, region, or ethnic background?

Oh yeah!  My sister had her first child when she was 19. Another was a lot older but wasn’t married either.  I remember when ever we took the children to church, my mother was told not to allow me to hold them as I would have my own. To be honest, I don’t think that they really meant I would become pregnant by some sort of mysterious process but that I would want my own! Little did they know. Twenty years later and I still have no children!

5. Do you love or hate horror movies like “Friday the 13th”?

I don’t like horror stories at the best of times.  Be warned, if you watch one with me, you had better wear protective clothing as I have a tendency to lash out!  I much prefer your classic English drama – for my oh so romantic heart!

a bit of an uplift

There are two polite people having dinner together. On the table there is a dish with one big piece of fish and one small piece of fish. They each politely say to each other:

“You may choose first.”

“No, you may choose first.”

And this goes on for a while. Then the first person says: “OK, I’ll take first.” And he takes the BIG piece of fish.

The second person says, “Why did you take the big piece? That’s not polite!” The first person says: “Which piece would *you* have taken?”  The second person replies: “Why, I would have taken the SMALL piece, of course.”

The first person says: “Then stop complaining, that’s what you have now!”

 

Manners are like the zero in arithmetic; they may not be much in themselves, but they are capable of adding a great deal to the value of everything else. (Freya Stark)

 

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. (Abraham Lincoln, 1809 – 1865)

 

Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right. (Henry Ford)

 

I think I began learning long ago that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others. (Booker T. Washington)

 

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reasons for remaining ashore. (Vincent Van Gogh)

 

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road. (Stephen Hawking, b. 1942)

 

I believe there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, and more perfect than the Saviour; there is in the world only one figure of absolute beauty: Christ. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

 

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: “I am blind, please help.”  There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words. Soon the hat began to fill up.  A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy asked him, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?” The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way. I wrote: “Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.’” The second sign reminded people that they were fortunate that they could see.  Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

 

If all the sleeping folks will wake up, and all the lukewarm folks will fire up, and all the disgruntled folks will sweeten up, and all the discouraged folks will cheer up, and all the depressed folks will look up, and all the estranged folks will make up, and all the gossiping folks will shut up, and all the dry bones will shake up, and all the true soldiers will stand up, and all the church members will pray up, and if the Saviour of all will be lifted up … then we can have the greatest renewal this world has ever known. (Richard Cardinal Cushing)

conference on climate change

From 7-18 December 2009 in Copenhagen delegates from 192 countries will meet to discuss and come to an agreement on:

• a new treaty to follow the Kyoto protocol which expires in 2012;
• new targets for industrialised nations to reduce carbon emissions;
• new targets for poorer nations to limit greenhouse gases;

In preparation for that there was a meeting here in London last night and the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change attended a public rally to answer questions on the current state of negotiations in the lead up to Copenhagen.

There were questions from the public who attended the event as well as from live international links from Kenya.  Abdi informed us that the cycle of droughts has gone from 11 years to every two years and is now followed by floods.  As a result 80% of live stock have been lost and people are struggling to feed themselves and their families.

There was also received an audio message from Papua New Guinea where islands will have to be evacuated.  And, in Bangladesh we heard how 20 million would be forced to migrate as 17% of the country would eventually be under water.

The messages were strong and clear. For those of us in the west reducing our carbon emissions is a lifestyle choice. For developing countries, it is a matter of life and death.

The plea was for all of us to reduce our emissions. The call to sacrificial living should neither be a difficult nor alien concept for the christians.  If nothing else, we would be doing the very thing we were created for have dominion over the earth (Gen 1:28).  For some that might evoke images of tyranny but that would be going too far. We are called to be like a shepherd who cares for, tends and feeds his animals.

There are few animals in the centre of London but, what ever takes place in the middle of the city has an impact on the animal kingdom and on the entire planet so I’m going to do everything I can to reduce my emissions and contribute to UK carbon reductions in a global effort to save the lives of people on the other side of the world.  I hope that you will join in too.