abbotsford.org.uk

Harvest Prayer

Getting down to writing my bit in the harvest festival on Sunday. The theme is bees and here's the first wee prayer, just to whet the appetite. Here after the bees take over...

God of honey and harvest
of grain and grape
of ocean and orchard
This harvest time
May we both praise and pray
praise you for the abundance
and pray that this harvest is not just shared
but shared justly

God of beehives and breadbaskets
of living webs and the weaving of life
of ecosystems and economy
This harvest time
may we both praise and pray
praise you for the wealth of the harvest
and pray that this harvest is not just a promise
but is full of promise for all

God of bumble bees and blue whales
evolution and environment
ice-field and star-field
This harvest time
may we both praise and pray
praise you for the sheer wonder of the world
and pray that this harvest is not about our wealth
but the wealth of our generosity

400th anniversary

It is almost 400 years ago that the King James version of the Bible was first published. It just so happens that the NIV is being revised and published 2011, exactly 400 years since the Authorised Version. I don't know what they are revising but if you had the chance what would you revise in the Bible?

I'd start with the adding a few books that were missed first time round and I'd have wee labels with every new edition so that people could stick one of them the margins at all the bits I'm not quite sure of.

And you...?

Always look on the bright side of life...

I've just read a really interesting article in Third Way about optimism and linking it with the Lottery. I'm not a lottery person, I'm not a raffle person, I'm not a tumbola person (though I have a pension, but that's the point...read on).

There's been some good recent research into why people play the lottery and poorer people play more knowing the chances are zero of winning (or 1 in 14 000 000 which is almost zero) because playing is not about being irrational or unintelligent. Lottery is a game of the imagination. It's about hope. Lottery and optimism both have little regard for the odds.

So why don't I trust lotteries and raffles as decent things to do to raise money given how much of our faith is based on hope? Well, optimism and hope in faith terms is not a lottery. Faithful optimism is based on a promise and that's the massive difference (a bit like my pension because it promises a certain amount. There's another bit that is chancing it's arm in getting more and credit crunches have shown the difference between groundless hope and hope based on promise).

Lotteries, raffles etc "is not a tax on stupidity, but a tax on those who have no promise... to engage with". So where does that place us in finding church funds the easy way?

Swine Flue and Disappearing Bees

A new report has been published earlier this month where all the ideas about why the bees are disappearing have come together. May Berenbaum (an etomologist) and others think they now know why: some viruses prevent the bees creating proteits and protiens help the bees fight of infection, detox from pesticides, repair their cells and meet the worl head on.

Apparently Swine Flu for humans and Colony Colapse Disorder for bees have grown from the same underlying cause: stuff moves further round the world and almost immediately now, more than it ever did, and it all get's mixed up together in one great multiple onslaught and our bodies, and the bees too, haven't built defences against them yet. Splat!

This from the New York Time article:

If anything, this latest news about CCD makes the problem more relevant to the future, because it confirms what every holistic systems thinker has been telling us. Honeybee health is inextricably linked to the health of the entire environment, including our own. If we can create systems of domestic food production that take their cues from the cycles of nature, and let honeybees play the roles they evolved to play, then the system will take care of itself. But if we continue to push the system farther and farther out of equilibrium by relying on chemical shortcuts and fossil fuel intervention to fix the inevitable breakdowns, then we will never get off the crisis treadmill.

What's happening to the bee's: Harvest

Next Sunday (the 4th) is it Harvest for us. The theme this year is "What's happening to the bee's"

There's lots of honey in the bible lands made of it to cakes baked with it. It's clearly a theological food and so there will be plenty of that. Bees will feature muchly and there will be a prayer of "B's", a statement of faith rooted in justice for the environment and community.

Just think of the similarities between people and bees: community, swarming, working, creating, dedication and who has most to teach who?

There a big noticeboard in the church dedicated to the harvest festival so go down and take a look and if you can't come over from whatever coutry you are reading this from, there are some images below. Harvest justice. Harvest integrity. Harvest compassion. Harvest truth. Harvest challenge. It's about the Bees: the blessing, the beauty, the becoming, the being, the benediction.

10:10

Heads of government have all found the time to attend the UN Climate conference in New York and kick start the climate change negotiations. How did they manage to do that?

However, even if China is going to make big cuts though what they've offered so far, while every little bit counts, is tinkering which is what most other givernments are doing, are we doing any better.

Let's go for 10% in our own emissions by this time next year. I know lot's of people have changed their light bulbs and have has insulation in their lofts since lofts were invented but now the fun really begins.

Go to 10:10 to make some progress and lifestyle changes that will make 10% cuts. We're looking for 1 million people to have signed up by the end of the week. How about it? You know your planet wants to.

Mountain Sunday images

These from Tom from Canada, Dolomites and Bonnie, Bonnie Scotland.

Chocolate Teapots (September 27th 2009)

Bit of a cheat this week. We're having a songs of praise for creation with the theme being 'Mountain Sunday' according to the Season of Creation we are following. So before you all break out with The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music, there are some things to say.

Mountains have always been sacred things perhaps because they are understood as being closer to heaven. Transfigurations and glory sit atop them in abundance. Castles and defences were always placed there for they commanded a position of power. They have always created barriers (hope you are watching the BBC Lost Land of the Volcano which is just stunning) that enabled different culture to grow up. And they have always been seen as pretty permanent except that time when God decided to come home from Exile and choose to level them, or Jesus humousously eltting us into a kingdom secret that they can be moved by mustard seed faith.

So mountains have always been pretty impressive and the place where gods live. But in the Bible they are places where things change: think about the 10 commandments: the relationship changes between God and the Hebrews; Jesus and the temptations: the relationship changes between God and Jesus; the transfiguration: the relationship changes between Jesus and disciples. God reveals a little more of the holy. For God they seem to be places where the divine is at it's weakest because God can't help but shift the balance a little and give stuff away about heaven. Or is it if you manage to journey to mountain tops (faith-wise as much as climbing wise) then that is when humanity has reached a point where stuff has happened that we can face and recognise and be moved by the next piece of revelation.

So look to the horizon. See that mountain? That's God's resting place and our next place of revelation. You have to journey to get there. And you have to climb it. But, of course, if you had a wee mustard seed faith in your pocket, you wouldn't need to journey, you could get the mountain to come to you.

Perhaps it's easier to go on the journey but you never know, we might find a mustard seed on the way.

Never work with...

We're a pretty low-tech congregation in terms of our worship eqipment and I'm happy to use our creativity in so many other ways that are more physical, and have far greater presence, and are held up with stick-backed plastic and hope. But today we used a few PowerPoint slides to show off some types of clouds that give us messages and then we went on to wonder what other messages we get from the sky leading to 'The heavens tell out the glory of God'. On paper at least (no one got much about God but at least they will be able to tell the weather better).

My own personal problem (and it is my own, but by way of cathartic apology I mention it here) when I plan a PowerPoint thing it always goes on too long because the trick lies in the last slide, and so you have to go through them all to get there. So my apologies for that this morning, a tad too long. And by the time you get to the focus of the discussion, ie the skies tell the weather but also the glory of God, everyone is bored. So I'm adding that to my list of things not to work with.

And that works in nicely with one of my top ten excuses which I regularly use when I go into denial: blame the equipment!

Psalm 19 again

Here's the contemporary reading from today. Not startling but some nice phrases to soak into. A wee bit of a lean towards The Message but not much. Voice 1 is the King James version and Voice 2 is original.

Voice 1	The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork
Voice 2	God's glory is unfolded across the sky in the deepest azure blue and all the heavens from horizon to horizon reveal God’s love of starlight and galaxy.
Voice 1	Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
Voice 2	As the day turns into night and into day once more, the silent, rising praise is spoken through sunrise and sunset. Oh, that you could hear the alleluias that are wrapped up ready for the day to break and the glory held in sacred whispers at midnight
Voice 1	There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Voice 2	No language yet exists that can contain the praise of creation. It is in the silence that the truth is spoken. Listen in, tune in, wait in, the pulse of silence for it is the voice of the creator.
Voice 1	Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Voice 2	The blue of heaven is so vast it fills one horizon to the next and has become the play pen for the light: a great dome of light that starves the darkness and has been named Sun.
Voice 1	Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race
Voice 2	Like a newly married groom seeing the world with new eyes, leaping into the day with new energy and enthusiasm and with great steps crosses a thousand acres of sky running the race called Day
Voice 1	His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
Voice 2	Beginning in the East and sinking into the west this it the path of the light, burning away all that stops it, warming the earth for life, and hearts for faith.
Voice 1	The heavens are telling the glory of God.
Voice 2	The whole sky reveals the size and mystery of creation