>Human Rights Day

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>http://files.amnesty.org/udhr60/en/AI-FireUP-box-320×250-en.swfToday marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which reads as a very western declaration (which it is)with what seems like the American Dream as its founding principles. However, it has obviously been a key document in improving the lives of many. It has provided a foundation for constructing human rights, setting the human rights agenda and generating other conventions (like the the Declaration of the Rights of the Child – 50 years old next year!

Michael Ignatieff says: ‘Human rights cannot go truly global unless it goes deeply local. Only when this happens can the idea of human rights achieve its radically transformative aims’

It went deeply local in the Eastenders storyline of the relationship between adult Tony and 12+ Bianca which exploded on our screens last night. This incident highlighted how ordinary and believable abuse and exploitation can become to victims. (This was storyline developed with NSPCC)

Vocation

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In the teleology of vocation,
each moment has a vocation;
each day, many callings;
and each lifetime, many pathways,
in the context of God’s Holy Adventure.

Bruce Epperly: Process and Faith
He also refers to the words of singer/song writer Carrie Newcomer:

The empty page
The open book
Redemption everywhere I look.

Why are we waiting?

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>I’m trying to keep Christmas out of Advent – but here’s the world’s first Beach Hut Advent Calendar where Christmas is very much part of Advent.
Advent is a time of waiting and hope. The trouble is that we forget that it’s the Kingdom of God we are waiting for and not Christmas. And it’s a long wait because God takes his time. The reading yesterday was one that I had never really taken in before.

Do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:8)

God’s not going to take any short cuts. If he did he would undermine his merciful nature and break his promise to his people. For the mean time he gives us his Spirit to encourage, strengthen and comfort us – to give good time in the bad times of waiting for wrongs to be righted and for kingdom come.

>The colour of training and a bit of juggling

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>Tim Ling uncovered this for a recent conference:
Reed Learning asked its course delegates “what colour is training?”
Replies: green 44%, blue 18%, yellow 11%, red 10%, black! 5% & pink 5%
Fascinating insight or utter nonsense?
Well – some would describe green as the colour of growth, development and transformation. It is also thought to stimulate new ideas and change.

In the meantime, here’s something to do while listening to your ipod – especially if you love the Beatles. You will need balls and it will intrigue passers-by.

Paco forgiven

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Madrid is full of boys named Paco, which is diminutive for the name Francisco, and there is a Madrid joke about a father who came to Madrid and inserted an advertisement in the personal columns of El Liberal which said: PACO MEET ME AT THE HOTEL MONTANA NOON TUESDAY ALL IS FORGIVEN PAPA and how a squadron of Guardia Civil had to be called out to disperse the eight hundred young men who answerd the advertisement.

So begins Ernest Hemingway’s short story “The Capital of the World”

>A time forgiving

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>Red is the colour of Christmas.

I was supposed to have assembled an advent wreath for my wife’s school last night. It comes to her going this morning – no advent wreath, and the search for candles begins. “You need red candles” says I. “Why?” says she. Because …. the holly (crown of thorns) bears a berry as red as any blood thinks I as I hastily assemble the case for RED. And then there’s the robin’s red breast of the Christmas card, the poinsettias – and the awareness that Chrismas marks a time – let’s run the two words together – forgiving.

Miroslav Volf tells the story of his parents’ forgiveness for the soldier and the childminder who caused the death of Miroslav’s five year old brother, Daniel. He had slipped out under the nanny’s guard to go and play with the real soldiers of the nearby barracks. The bored soldiers welcoomed the diversion of their playmate. One of them put Daniel on a horse drawn bread wagon. As they went through a gate on a bumpy cobblestone road, Daniel leaned sideways and his head got stuck between the gatepost and the wagon. Daniel died on the way to hospital. Both parents forgave the child minder and the soldier. Why? “Because the Word of God tells us to forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us, and so we decided to forgive” said his parents. Human history is adorned by heroes like these people who say that enough is enough, and who, inspired by Jesus’s forgiveness, find themselves able to forgive. Miroslav’s father said: “why should one more mother be plunged into grief, this time because of the loss of her son, a good boy, but careless in a crucial moment …?”

Red is the colour of a time forgiving.

>Now this is beginning to look like Christmas

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>It will be difficult for the media to find room in their schedules for the “true meaning of Christmas”, but stuck in a media backwater – the media backwater equivalent of downtown Bethlehem – is a prizewinning film by Macclesfield Vicar and cartoonist, Taffy Davies. It’s worth a look at what he has managed to convey in a 60 second film, though I have to confess a preference for the first draft.

I was at a preaching workshop with taffy a few weeks ago. We heard Bishop Keith Sinclair telling us how he writes Sunday’s readings out in longhand as part of his sermon preparation – after that he often gets his moment of inspiration. Taking the story into a new medium (writing it rather than reading it) helps us to see new meaning.

Advent and the adult Christ

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It is an adult Christ that the community encounters during the Advent and Christmas cycles of Sunday and feasts: a Risen Lord who invites sinful people to become the church. Christmas does not ask us to pretend we were back in Bethlehem, kneeling before a crib; it asks us to recognize that the wood of the crib became the wood of the cross.

—Nathan Mitchel, quoted in, LITURGY WITH STYLE AND GRACE by Gabe Huck and Gerald T. Chinchar. (Archdiocese of Chicago, Liturgy Training Publications, 1998, page 97. Paper, ISBN 1-56854-186-4 in Preachers’ Exchange

>Asda Christmas Protest

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>That bloody Asda advert! It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. (Health warning – please only open this link to the advert if you are happy to go nuts!)
Actually it looks like they are trying to sell a Christmas survival kit. You’ll get through it with smiles, stuffing and silly hats. The Christmas adverts for Iceland, Tesco, M&S are all like a bushwacker trial – fingers down throat – is that Christmas? “I’m a Vicar get me out of here”.
I have started a petition to protest – where are the dark clouds, where’s the light shining in the darkness, where’s the young pregnant girl, where are the crowded streets, where’s the baby?
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Oh no it’s not!