On a Mission?

Charles Wesley posited four great statements about salvation, of which the most important is the first:

"All can be saved".

This is a great statement of hope, fundamental to the Christian Gospel. Never give up on anyone, be optimistic. Never fail to reach out, abandon no-one. We must remember this, or we are all lost.

However, dear old Charlie-boy, in his wonderful optimism, forgot to add an all-important rider, which we must also never forget. It is not as optimistic. I hate to say it is realistic, perhaps we can say it is non-idealistic, that will suffice. I posit this as statement 1A.

"Not all want to be saved".

You can't be saved if you don't want to be. Even when it seems logical from someone's state of mind/position that they should want to be saved, often they still don't.

We fail to recognise this at our peril.

(It is not an excuse for not trying; it is a reason to disengage on occasion, to keep oneself safe..)

Teenage Repression

Whereas boys are taught that anger is all right but tears are not, girls are taught that tears are all right but getting angry is not. (Insight from peer group supervision, thanks to my colleagues!)

Valentine's Day (Is Not Over)

Love stretches like infinity

Ever-present, uncatchable

Creeping into small spaces

Filling up the uncountable gaps

Immeasurably dense

Inexpressible

Multi-refractory

Stochastically simple.

I'm Free

How come I don't seem to have a single version of this song in my collection? Unbelievable.
I need to rectify that.

Here's a pic of Roger.

Get Off My Cloud

See when you belong to a "certain category" you are expected to sort everything out yourself, and someone will make that very clear to you. But when you are in "another category" you don't have to, you can tell that same someone who will tell someone else to send something on your behalf.

Equality? No.

We Don't Need No Education

I keep seeing children in supermarkets. Today it was the Scouts.

Not running about, but standing by the checkouts. They don't get in my way. They ask me politely if they can help me pack my bag and I say politely no I'm much better off doing it myself and they leave me to it and everyone is happy.

And I'm sure that some people are happy to have help packing their bags and it saves the cashier's time, and by knock-on, everyone's (except the children of course).

And I don't mind the Scouts being helpful, it's a voluntary organisation and they've always done it and it raises money for charity (they had other Scouts with large buckets). That's what the Scouts can choose to do. I still don't think it's much, y'know, fun, but hey.

But there has been a worrying trend, which is children in (smart) school uniform. There were some yesterday in Marks and Spencer and some the other day in Morrisons. In order:

What are these kids doing on December 23 in school uniform standing around in Marks and Spencer? If the term has finished, as I suspect it has, why have they been dragged out to the supermarket when they should be out playing (or inside playing, maybe, or playing with their phones at least)? (If it is the last day of term, it's not a very thrilling one. Teachers all run out of things to do?) Give them a break.

I was more concerned the other week. That was a Friday in term-time (unless the term finished very early, in which case the following arguments still mostly apply.)

Is it a good use of students' time to be spent standing around in supermarkets in preference to, ooh I don't know, take a random idea, being in lessons LEARNING stuff?

I didn't ask why they were doing it, I had to get on (and in truth I only thought about it properly later). I can't think of an answer I'd be happy with.

Were they raising money, for charity, or even worse, for their school? Not their job. That's for adults.

Is it some kind of PSE initiative to learn about money raising, about public service, volunteering? It seems at best desperately inefficient if it's not even counter-productive (who would want to repeat the experience?) I can't imagine what they got out of the experience. After 10 minutes, I think anyone would have got whatever point there was.

Is it about the new thing of "being responsible citizens"? Per-lease. Even I can't make a case for how that would work. Or "building links with the community". I'm struggling here, to find any reason.

Maybe it was so the teachers could do some Christmas shopping while they were there. Well at least something got done. Badly, and at a disproportionate cost, but something. Actually that seems to be the answer that makes the most sense and maximises usefulness of the activity.

If the children volunteered or "volunteered" then don't let them. If they weren't volunteers that's even worse.

Get the kids back in school.

Do They Know It's Christmas

Hello.

I been asked to come and tell you my story. Well not my story but what I know. Or think I know, I guess, was quite a while ago … 

I didn’t expect quite so many people …

Well I better say who I am first. I’m Joe. I runs the pub – the Shepherd’s Arms.

Behind the market. Took it over from my da when he died couple of years back. Not the best pub in town, I knows that. We certainly aren’t the King David, the posh one fronting on the market place with the prices to match, and we ain’t the Lion of Judah, the boutique one by the temple, either, come to that.

My PR manager says we’re budget. We been called worse, I’ll go with budget.

 

So anyway the story. It was when I were a lad and my da were in charge. I were just coming up twelve. It were the year of the big count, wha did they call it? – the Cen-sus. Roman thing. Only so’s they could get more taxes, my da said. Romans always pushing people about, I hate em, they done nothing for us. I’d tell you what I think of em only your man says you’re well brought up so’s I better not, and there’s kiddies too.

 

Anyway the Census, that were a nightmare. Everyone all over the country. Good for us mind never been so busy, people have to stay somewhere, even the King David got full. We didn’t have to go nowhere on account of we’d never moved nowhere but the people coming into town you wouldn’t believe, well I guess everyone says they’re King David’s line don’t they, how many wives he have? and I guess I must be too you just have to go back a ways. Point is, it were chaos. You couldn’t get in anywhere, people were staying with relatives, sharing rooms, we put someone in my room and I slept behind the bar three nights.

 

But the sorriest were this couple came round late at night, I know I’m getting there, this is who your man wanted me to say about. They’d been on the road for days man and girl. Yes, girl, she could only be bout fifteen and he were only a few years on me too. They’d walked all the way from wherever it was, he couldn’t even afford to hire a donkey for her and in her condition too and they were both done in, particularly her, he were half carrying her. Said they was betrothed but I dunno anyway. I think no-one would take em in and you couldn’t wonder really I think the family would have been too ‘shamed to ask anyone. We kept it quiet.

 

So they came to the door any road and me da weren’t sure either but me ma said we oughta you couldn’t let her go any further, she were nearly ready, and ma sent for a woman in fact. Well we had just nowhere so we put em in the barn and it were my job to look after em well da were too busy so he give it me my job, I know a barn, I were a bit embarrassed but there were nowhere else honest, least they was out of the cold.

 

Actually ma kept me out of the way after that, cos the girl had her baby right there in the barn. Believe that? Still I gather he were healthy enough, I snuck a quick peek once, looked all right, what did I know then though.

 

Well anyway there in’t much more to say, they stayed a few days, in the barn, and then hopped it back to wherever. I did hear them saying summat to ma about going back another way, dunno why – but - hang on - there were something happened, funny I never connected the two till now.

 

It were months later.

The soldiers came. Herod’s men, not the Romans. Middle of the night. Looking for new boy babies. They took our youngest, Reuben, he were eighteen months. Near killed my ma and it broke da up. Weren’t just us. Everyone they could find. Well the crowds had all gone and we were only a small village again, but there must have been two three dozen they found. None came back. We have a little service every year to remember.

 

Do you think they were looking for our couple?

 

I don’t understand.

 

I never heard any more about any of the three, just went on with life, that’s what you do, I keeps myself to myself.

 

Was this baby – you know - important?

 

Do you think they found him?

The More Things Change

The Black Knight had become the White Prince. But he still found himself dancing with snakes. The surprising thing was that it had taken him so long to realise. Spidersense still not working.