Just a little rant…

I just spent the last two hours in a student meeting. A student meeting..! Two hours..! I mean, I know that changing the Student Body’s Constitution is the height of importance… but oh my word! I don’t have two hours for a student meeting..!!!! No-one has two hours for a student meeting..!!

Women… stand up!

 

A Scottish friend of mine is a part-time student at IBTS. He teaches RE at Riverside School in Prague, and also goes to Sarka Valley Community Church, where Phil and I go. He is doing an essay on Scottish Baptist ministers who are women. (Well, he’s starting his research on it anyway!) He told me last night that there are 140 Baptist ministers in Scotland, and of those…

… 7 are women. 7 out of 140! What is that about?! And he further clarified that out of the 7 women, none were in sole charge of a church, in fact, all of them were either deacons, on the ministry teams of the churches, or chaplains in hospitals. That is utterly shocking! Scottish Baptists have to wake up. Baptist women have to stand up..!

I am so angry, it feels like I may explode.

Litany at the End of the Century… the come back.

So I promised that I would give you a contrasting song to the previous song… Litany at the End of the Century. I know that it had pretty hard hitting lyrics, but I think that provocative words are good for us to reflect on from time to time. Anyways, this is a different take on Psalm 42, from Jaromir Nohavica’s CD Moje smutne srace (My Sad Heart) BMG, 2000.

As a deer that wants to drink water

Runs through the forest to the hidden stream,

As a deer that wants to drink water,

 

So I long to be with you

I feel anxious alone

So I long to be with you.

 

Help me in my loneliness,

Help me in my life,

Help my abandoned soul.

Every night I call to you

Every night I call for help

 

A deep anguish has settled in my heart,

What darkness in front of my eyes

A deep anguish has settled in my heart.

 

I have never been as lonely as tonight,

Over-reaching pride has built a wall.

I have never been as lonely as tonight.

 

Help me in my loneliness,

Help me in my life,

Help my abandoned soul.

Every night I call to you,

Every night I call for help.

 

I believe in spite of everything

That my calling will reach to your ears,

I believe in spite of everything.

 

When the leave of the aspen tree fall down in October

I accept without reserve all that will come,

When the leaves of the aspen tree fall down in October.

 

Help me in my loneliness,

Help me in my life,

Help my abandoned soul.

Every night I call to you,

Every night I call for help.

 

(Note: In the Czech Republic, the aspen tree loses its leaves in November/December. So you can draw your own conclusions about what he’s saying!) I really love the lyrics to this song, and the music is beautiful too. I love the honesty and openness of what he is saying to God. Our lecturer asked us if we thought that we would be able to pray this song as a prayer in times of hardship. Most of us agreed that we would. She pressed us by asking whether the words about the leaves falling from the aspen tree would be included. I think that most of us still said that we would say them. What I like about the lines ‘when the leaves of the aspen tree fall down in October, I accept without reserve all that will come…’ is that in reality, although we may say that we give everything to God, we often keep something back for ourselves. We want to give all of our selves, lives, plans and futures, but we’re also scared to do that. These lines attested to that reality. I think they’re beautiful. Anyway, that’s all the lyrically fun for now!

On a completely different note… have you seen the trailer for the film ‘Jesus Camp’? It is very scary… A short article on Ekklesia gives a brief description: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_060919jesuscamp.shtml Basically, it seems to be a documentary film about a camp in America (obviously) that is ‘training’ up young ‘warriors’ to ‘take back America for Jesus’. In the trailer young children are seen weeping uncontrollably, shouting out etc. Its scares me to see young children so indoctrinated and brain-washed. (And it makes me even more scared of what their parents must be like to be sending them on a camp like this!) The leader of the camp says that she wants to train American Christian children like Muslim children are trained. Firstly, I feel that her perception that all Muslim children are trained to be jihad warriors, is crude, wrong and highly offensive. I also cannot understand why she thinks that taking a violent approach is helpful. Surely if she took those same children into different faith communities so that they could meet children from those backgrounds she would be building much more valuable bridges? Why always the war rhetoric? Why always the ‘we’ll teach ‘em’ attitude?

I believe that the challenge to Christians throughout the world today is not to condemn, judge or shy away from people of other faiths, but instead to engage and work with others for peace, for safer communities and for an end to poverty, strife and hunger. I hope that we will take up this challenge, because if we don’t, the future is bleak.

On another different note… my wonderful friend from Edinburgh, Laura, is coming on Friday for the weekend! Hopefully she will be the first of many! I am looking forward to showing her around Prague in all its gloriousness! It also means that I have a lovely weekend off from thinking about my theology/philosphy essay… which is excellent because I am really struggling at the moment. I’ve never been a fast reader when it comes to academic books, and having had a years break has definitely not helped! If you pray, please pray that I will be able to read much quicker!

Damn flipping annoying internet..! (in lovely Prague)

Sorry for the rant, but I just spent about two hours writing and crafting probably the most amazing blog post in the world, and when I tried to publish it, stupid wordpress decided to do only half of it. Obviously the over half just disappeared into the ether and my hard work is completely wasted! ARGH! Anyway, I was writing to tell my lovely friends and family (and random punters) how Phil and I are doing in Prague etc etc. I now am far too furious to attempt to redo it, so I will have to wait til I have calmed down. In the meantime, I will leave with you this lovely picture of a rainbow, taken outside of our flat window. Phil and I are well, I start my formal lectures tomorrow and Phil starts his first day in his first PROPER job as a fully qualified TESOL teacher. Please spare a thought (or a prayer… its propably more needed!) for him, as he needs to be at the company that he is teaching in at 7:30am tomorrow morning…. and most of you know that he is definitely not a morning person!

Dobrou noc… (Good night…)

(The only good thing about rainy days…)

Off I go to Wick

 

(multimap’s spelling is just priceless… Edingurgh, hmmm, so where’s that then?!)

Well, the time has finally come… Sue’s wedding is on Saturday, and I’m heading up to Wick tomorrow lunchtime. Flip me its miles away! Its probably still light til 11:30pm up there! Sarah and I are hiring a car from Inverness airport and driving up to Wick, which should be interesting! I’m looking forward to seeing the old flatmates again, its been a while… a jolly good time should be had!

My talk thing on Sunday night went pretty well I thought, although I was quite nervous to start with and suddenly my three pages (1.5 spaced, size 12 font!) felt like a 3 volume tome, but I got into it, and people seemed to be paying attention to me! Neil (the minister) asked people at the end for some feedback and it was good, so I feel encouraged. Will still need to get a whole lot of practice in before I feel really comfortable with it, but hopefully I’ll get many opportunities to inflict my trainee skills on innocent people!

Yesterday and Tuesday I did a couple of days work at a box-packing factory. Oh yes, I did. It was definitely an experience. The 3 ladies that worked with me were in their 50s and 60s, and were really friendly and helpful. Working there just even for those 2 days gave me a small insight into real ‘working class’ (I know its not very pc, but I don’t know how else to describe it) women’s lives. And it was both humbling, challenging and frustrating. Humbling and challenging because it made me realise how fortunate I am. Growing up with my parents happily married, going on holidays, going to university and now going to do my masters… these ladies’ kids didn’t have the same priviledges as that, and I think that alot of the time I took these things for granted. And it also made me realise how hard it must be for people to get out of their difficult personal circumatances sometimes. The one lady, Terry, really hates working in the factory, but she’s been there 6 years now, and she doesn’t really feel like she can do anything else. She is 6 years off her retirement and although she has applied for other jobs, she hasn’t got anywhere and she feels doomed. She also has RSI through working there, so its pretty rough for her. I tried to encourage her to maybe volunteer somewhere to get some other experience, and to get feedback from her interviews, but I really didn’t feel like I could actually help her at all. I just felt like a spoilt posh girl who didn’t understand what her life was like. Its so hard. We got on really well and it was great talking to her and finding out about her life, but I wish that I could have done more.

The experience was frustrating as well though, because of the close-minded views that the ladies sometimes had. Their main source of information for news and current affairs was the Daily Star. So, really, their opinions on the current situation in the UK with terrorist threats etc, could definitely not be repeated here! They often insinuated things like all Muslims were terrorists and should be sent back to where they came from etc. I tried to give an alternative opinion when I could, but I also didn’t want to come over as ‘holier than thou’. It made me concerned because there are millions of other people who read the Daily Star as their daily newspaper too, and if these people also have some of the racist opinions that seemed prevalent, then its no wonder that the UK is struggling with issues of intergration, and race relations. It also made me think about churches’ role in all of this. Where was the church for these women? Terry lives on her own, one lady was a raging racist and the other seemed quite lonely. How does the church reach out to women like these? What could I have said that would have helped? The gospel is for all people, so why did I feel that really it is very easy to be a Christian if you are white, middle class and educated? Its so hard. I don’t know the answers, and I don’t know how the church can relevantly reach out to millions of people like this, but I think that Christians and the church should seriously start thinking about these issues and finding solutions to them too. Its a challenge that is relevant to us all. We can’t just ignore the issue and hope that it will go away, we must be part of the solution.

Time is marching on, and Tuesday fast approaches! I can’t wait to be in Prague with Phil, it is going to be amazing! I am going to a conference that is going on at the Seminary next week. It is titled: The Theology of Creation Care: Christian Environmental Stewardship conference. What a name! I’m looking forward to going, and I will keep the blog up to date! I don’t think that I will have time in between getting back from Wick on Monday night to leaving for Prague on Tuesday morning to blog again, so farewell lovely friends! I will definitely keep blogging from Prague, as long as you read it, I’ll write it! Lots of love. xxx

What goes around, doesn’t come around…

Sometimes injustice goes unnoticed.

Sometimes hearts are broken and feelings hurt.

Sometimes your hands are tied; your mouth is gagged.

What goes around, doesn’t come around.

Those that cause hurt will not feel the pain of their victims.

Those that oppress will not be made to cower in fear.

But, there is a time coming when righteousness will reign.

The afflicted will not always be silenced,

the oppressed not forever forgotten.

Those condemned to the shadows will be released.

Justice will truimph!

                                                         Anonymous

Christian bigotry and insensitivity!

I recently received an email from a well-meaning friend asking me to sign a petition to get a film banned which apparently depicts Jesus and his disciples as homosexuals. Although I can see how this film might be offensive to certain people, I was greatly frustrated at the call to defend 'our Lord's honour' by trying to get this film banned in South America and Africa. Firstly, I obviously have not seen this film and so I do not feel that I can judge it without seeing it. Therefore why should I try to get it banned? Secondly, I believe in freedom of speech and expression. People have the right to say what they feel. If that means that they want to make a film depicting Jesus and his disciples in a way which I believe directly contradicts what the Gospels have to say about them, then that is entirely their own choice. Why do Christians get so upset about this sort of thing? Surely we can recognise that it is not true? In no way does it sound like this film is claiming to be the truth, so why not just let them get on with it? I don't seem to get emails from people asking me to sign petitions to try to cancel third world debt, or calls to email our MPs with concerns over people trafficking. But as soon as the word 'homosexual' is dropped in, everything changes. On that note, what about anyone who is homosexual that might have read that email? The insensitivity is appaulling! Didn't Jesus ask us to accept and love everyone, as he himself demonstrated? He did not judge, condemn or separate himself from those people that the religious Pharisees labelled as dirty or evil, instead, he spent time with them and showed his love to all who he met. I am frankly sick of Christians being self-righteous and 'holier than thou'. I believe that in order for us to become more like Jesus we have to stop sitting around in our holy huddles and looking out at the world saying how evil it all is, and actually get out there and engage with people. We need to relate to people, live in the real world and be part of our own communities, not just church communities. When we start doing that, then other people will stop seeing the church as old-fashioned, backward and hypocritical. Christianity will actually look appealling, because it will be modelled on Jesus' love, acceptance and forgiveness. This is the challenge that faces me, and anyone else who wants to truly reach out to others.

Also, if you want to do something that will actually make a difference, go to www.stopthetraffik.org and sign the petition to help to end people trafficking.