What are we here for?

Taken from the Westminster Catechism

What is the chief end of man? (In other words, what is life all about, what are we here for?)

"Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever."

Methodist Prayer

Wonderful Methodist prayer - the language may be archaic but the sentiment behind it is great. (Thanks to Wikipedia for locating this!

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

(as used in the Book of Offices of the British Methodist Church, 1936)

Support for marriage

Interesting article in The Times. It seems the message that marriage is the best way to bring up children - which Christians have known for generations - is finally getting through to Government and wider society.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1466737.ece

racist nonsense

All the recent fuss about Big Brother and alleged racist comments about the Indian actress. Racism of course is bad, but we do seem to make it out to be the worst possible thing in the world. You can call someone stupid, or incompetent, or talentless - or worse insults, with no response at all, but call them a "Paki" (or similar) and you have the wrath of half the country on your back. Why? Why is it worse to insult people by reference to their skin colour or ethnic origin? I'm half Irish, if people call me "paddy" thats fine. The Aussies call us Poms, and thats OK, we call them Aussies, and that's Ok. But colour-related insults are an abomination, for some reason. I'm not advocating racism and i do not practice it, but it seems a strange set of double standards we live by. Really any kind of insulting or abusive behaviour or language is wrong, but why get so hung up on racism? I think its the least harmful aspect of BB!

Halloween - hate it!

I hate halloween! Apart from being a goulish fascination with nasty things, the "trick or treat" is a real pest and should be banned. Kids use it as an excuse to throw eggs at houses and be generally anti social. Its become such a big thing in the UK, and we have America to thank for that! Apparently the biggest commercial event after christmas and easter. But why, oh why, do kids want to dress up in black, cover themselves in blood and gory stuff? Its horrible and should be abolished!

Abroad thoughts from Home

Just come back from 2 weeks in India, visiting an orphanage, a training centre and a tv production charity. What's amazing about India (among many other things) is the way people are open to spiritual things. Because "religion" is so much a part of life there, people are very happy to talk about personal belief, and want to know more about Christianity. What a contrast to the Uk where people will cross the street to avoid someone preaching or giving out leaflets! So refreshing!

Israel/Lebanon

What a mess! We're all surely appalled at the personal cost of the conflict to both Lebanese and Israeli. It's always the innocent who suufer most in war and our prayers go out to them. But - and its a big "but", there is a terrorist organisation, Hizbollah, firing missiles into Israel from residential areas of Lebanon. What is Israel to do? These attacks and incursions by hizbollah have been going on for ages, and Israel cannot simply sit back and let them do it. Let's face it, if the Scottish started picking off English people in Berwick on Tweed (I think that's England!), while saying that England should not really exist, I think the English would be fighting back too! War is terrible, but its not always wrong. It wasn't wrong to confront Hitler in the 1940's, and its not wrong to combat world terrorism now. Blair and Bush were right to go into Iraq, and Israel is right to go into Lebanon. If we don't stand up against terrorists, the threat to the world is very real.

Controversial - I'd love to get some comments on this one!

Pretensious pronounciation

Have you noticed how some journalists - and other rather pretensious people (have I spelt that right?- meaning people who put on airs & graces) tend to try and pronounce foreign place names in a "foreign" way?? So instead of the English "Baghdad" (Bagdad) they say "Bugdad". And "Bassra" instead of the English Bazra. And "Bungladay-ish" instead of "Bangladesh." There was a tragic earthquake a couple of years ago in a place called Bam, and people insisted on pronouncning it "Barm". What's wrong with English?? (OK, I say Ma-Yor-ka, not "Ma-Jor-ka" so I suppose I'm as bad!

Graduation

Yesterday - 14th July 2006 - I graduated with an MA In Mass Communications from Leicester University. It was a great occasion, lots of pomp and ceremony. But it does make you ask, with all these people - thousands over several days - getting degrees, and the same thing going on at every Uni in the country, doesn't it devalue the degree, especially 1st degrees? If pretty well anyone can get one, it does seem to! Anyway, I am very pleased with my achievement!

Where has E gone?

Notice how people often don't pronounce the "e" in words? Seems to be a modern phenomenon. So "weather" becomes "wather", and "terrorist" becomes "tarrorist" They do it with all kinds of e-words. "Banefit", "walcome", "tallyvision" Its amazing! Next time you listen to the news or weather, especially on ITV or commercial radio, see if you notice as wall!

Lost art of communica8ing

Its all about image these days. A lot of the media, esp yoof media, doesn't reallly communicate anything meaningful! Just fast miving images to create a "feel", or radio promos that you ca't reallu hear or understand - they just make a noise which attempts to communicate "cool". And yet proper voices that talk to you are what people want. Poeple want to relate to people, not be sold an image.

people called Daz

There seem to be a lot of guys called Daz these days. First there was Daz Sampson on Eurovision, then I heard a guy called Daz phone into Chris Evans, then there was someone called Daz on Deal or No Deal (great show!) . What does it mean? Daz used to be a washing powder! (Do they still make it?) Is it short for Dave, or Derek, or Daniel? Wierd!

So this is my blog

I'm just trying out this blog idea. Will anyone read it? Will I be bothered to keep it up to date? Is this really the future of communication? All sorts of questions, no real answers, so what happens next?