A beautiful quote

“By some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight, the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst”

Albert Raboteau

Today's (absence of) cheesy midi file

(The cyberhymnal midi file really is horrible, do give it a miss! Anyway, this one is a classic so I expect that you all know the tune)

Lord, I hear of showers of blessing,
Thou art scattering full and free;
Showers the thirsty land refreshing;
Let some drops now fall on me;
Even me, even me,
Let some drops now fall on me.

Pass me not, O God, my Father,
Sinful though my heart may be;
Thou mightst leave me, but the rather;
Let Thy mercy light on me;
Even me, even me,
Let Thy mercy light on me.

Pass me not, O gracious Savior,
Let me live and cling to Thee;
I am longing for Thy favor;
Whilst Thou’rt calling, O call me;
Even me, even me,
Whilst Thou’rt calling, O call me.

Pass me not, O mighty Spirit!
Thou canst make the blind to see;
Witnesser of Jesus’ merit,
Speak the Word of power to me;
Even me, even me,
Speak the Word of power to me.

Have I been in sin long sleeping,
Long been slighting, grieving Thee?
Has the world my heart been keeping?
O forgive and rescue me;
Even me, even me,
O forgive and rescue me.

Love of God, so pure and changeless,
Blood of Christ, so rich and free;
Grace of God, so strong and boundless
Magnify them all in me;
Even me, even me,
Magnify them all in me.

Pass me not; but pardon bringing,
Bind my heart, O Lord, to Thee;
Whilst the streams of life are springing,
Blessing others, O bless me;
Even me, even me,
Blessing others, O bless me.

Words: Elizabeth H. Codner
Music: William B. Bradbury

Paper flowers

"And don't you dare put flowers on my tomb. I want printed sheets of paper with the names and addresses of families for whom you have found housing".

(I never knew you could miss someone you've never met so very much. France misses her granddaddy. My country was so beautiful when he was living in it. When he was there with us, believing that one could still get some good out of a bunch of Frenchmen)

Uh oh...

I just found out that I have quite a lot in common with freegans. I'd always discarded them as a bunch of excentric clowns far too full-on for my liking. Then I wondered why I could not find anyone with half a critical mind among my centre-left friends.

I think that I still hate the hype though, so I'll pass on some of the more visible idiosyncratisms. As I once told one of my undergrad profs: I'd rather be a sheep in wolf's clothing.

picture credit: http://eyfa.org/bla

Favourite Mug

I thought I'd share the message on my favourite mug, which has been in our student kitchen for years, apparently:

Socialism is what a Labour Government does
Herbert Morrison

Yeah right....

Film Review 8: The Painted Veil (2006) directed by John Curran.

Kitty is a selfish upper class British girl who marries Walter, a bacteriologist, so she can get away from her family. Her family had been desperate to see her go in any case: supporting her cost money and it was about time she was supported by a husband. She follows Walter to China, but Walter is a bit reserved, bookish and not very talkative, so Kitty soon falls in love with someone else and has an affair.

When Walter finds out, he accepts a job in a remote village ravaged by cholera and asks Kitty to either follow him or to accept a humiliating divorce. The story is about Kitty’s “awakening of the heart”. Yet, it is not at all mushy. Kitty is a very tough nut who is profoundly self-centered and who does not care about anything or anyone in the world. Most of the movie depicts her resistance and her attempts to find a way out of having to crack open. I think I needed to see it. Possibly twice.

The raft and the sinking ship

I feel like I really should engage in the debate on Christians and the State by re-reading one or two of Poserorprophet’s latest posts on the topic (+ all the comments) and by also engaging with Stephen’s rather excellent responses. So let’s try…

To retrieve one metaphor used at some point in the debate, on the one hand we’ve got a sinking ship. The ship is really a galley that can only move forward by exploiting galley slaves and it regularly throws the useless slaves –the lumpenproletariat- overboard. The chattering classes on the deck barely know of the slaves’ existence and they don’t care anyway. You can’t really organise a mutiny either because power is so dissolved in society that beheading the king is no longer an option. These days, most passengers discipline themselves like zombies.

On the other hand we’ve got a tiny raft made up by a handful of dedicated Christians leaning towards Anabaptism and Christian anarchism. The people who end up on the raft are those who hate the big boat, don’t want to be part of it, jumped from it and swam to the raft. They're a rather demanding church, who does not shy away from advocating excommunication for members whose behaviour directly harms the brothers and sisters of our Lord. This excommunication is –they hope- temporary and encourages the would-be members of the raft to stop whatever harm they’re engaged in.

So we have some honest Christians on the raft, who mostly rescue the discarded Lumpenproletariat from the water. Some of them also yell out to the sinking ship in the hope that more passengers will take the jump and join the raft.

We also have some honest Christians on the sinking ship who don’t want to leave behind the 99.999 % of the population that will never join the raft. They’d rather die trying to fix the ship than leave the riffraff behind. They believe that there is something of God in everyone, Christian or not. So they will run down to the galley level and make a huge fuss there. Then they run back up to the leisure deck and make another fuss there. They try to fix the ship so it won’t sink all too quickly.

Finally, we’ve got folks like Stephen and myself, who work on the ship and yet they hear the raft calling (or blogging) and they don’t quite know how to respond. They're dead excited about the raft, but they won't leave their ship and the people who still depend on it.

Painting by Theodore Gericault, "The raft of the Medusa". Click for larger picture.