coming home

Pippa and Lily-Anna are coming home today. Very excited about this and both Pip and I are slightly apprehensive. So far there have been people down the hall (i.e. the midwives at the hospital) anytime we have wanted to check anything etc. Now it's just going to be the two of us sharing our ignorance. Please remember the three of us in your prayers!

iPhone or iFlop

I've just finished watching Steve Job's keynote address at Macworld, San Francisco (had to watch it in 3 goes cos it was sooo long). And there was at least one moment where it's similarity to a Benny Hinn crusade was quite freaky (the moment where Jobs announced the iPhone - there was whooping and hollering, hands in the air and Jobs on the stage had them eating out of the palm of his hand...I'm sure if he'd have done an altar call then people would have signed up to whatever he wanted them to!)

Anyway, here's a few thoughts on the products:
I'm slightly disappointed with Apple TV (or iTV as it was previously known) - it seems like it's just a box to enable you to watch your iTunes content on your TV instead of on your computer. Which is fine - and it's got a nice user interface as you would expect from an Apple product - but if it had also incorporated a genuine PVR hard disk recorder (like TiVo or Sky+) then it would really have been something. Apple TV has just 40GB of hard disk space - used to store movies and other content which you have sent to it. I've just bought a hard disk PVR with 160GB of disk space on it, and it can record 2 channels at once while you are watching playback of another recording as well as a whole host of other features, and it cost considerably less than what I imagine Apple TV will sell for.

Secondly, the iPhone. Now this does look good, really good. And I'm sure it's going to give my Blackberry a real run for it's money. A couple of questions though:
1. I'm not sure about the touch screen when it comes to inputting text. One of the reasons I switched to Blackberry was that I really went off my last smartphone because it only had a touch screen. Over time the screen became increasingly unresponsive and letter recognition became more and more inaccurate. I really like the 'plasticky little keys' on my Blackberry that Steve Jobs was ridiculing and have found them to be a much faster way of typing than the touch screen.
2. The memory size. 4GB or 8GB are the iPhone options. When it was first announced I seriously thought it would mean I could upgrade both my phone and my iPod at the same time (I have an 'old' black and white, non-photo, non-video iPod). But if the maximum memory I can get on it is 8GB then I'm not sure it will work for me as an iPod. I would have hoped they could have found a way to fit 30GB of memory in but they are using flash memory so perhaps it's just impossible to offer that much space with flash.
I still want one though!!!

Lily-Anna Rees

I am very proud to announce the birth of our daughter Lily-Anna, born Sunday evening at 7.50pm weighing 8lb 7oz. Mother and baby are both doing really well. Here are a few photos from when she was about 17 hours old courtesy of Suzie who came to visit yesterday (I'm not as freaked out as I look, honest!). She has posted a whole set on flickr for all those who are interested here.

the waiting game

our baby is now 4 days overdue and we are getting pretty bored waiting around for it to make an appearance. we have used the time constructively though - we've managed to get through a whole season of 24 (season 5) which was great quality and utterly addictive as usual.

so the race to get the house finished before the baby arrived was not as much of a race as we thought it was! but it's pretty much done now.

apparently there are some fabled suggestions as to how to encourage the onset of labour - curry and sex being two of them. Although, as comedian Jeff Green pointed out, having to make a choice between those two might be the reason you got yourself into this situation in the first place!

repentance and faith

This week has been crazy - trying to get the house finished before the baby comes. The plan was something like this:
Mon & Tues - Tiler, Weds - Plasterer, Thurs - Plumber, Fri - Carpet Fitter, Weekend - baby. We're about half way through and we're not too far off schedule. We're really hoping the baby delays it's arrival till after the carpet's down though!
Anyway, last Sunday night at hOME I shared some thoughts on the day's gospel text, which included John the Baptist's words - 'bear fruit in keeping with repentance'. I said that repentance and faith seemed to form the core of both John's and Jesus's proclamation. My problem is that we seem to have changed the content of those two key elements. We have turned repentance into 'feeling sorry for wrong things' and faith into 'mental assent to a set of concepts'. I don't think either are correct.
Repentance is an act of the will, before it is ever an emotion, that enables us to 'speak the same as God' i.e. to call something as God calls it. And I don't think it's primarily about right or wrong actions, but true or false identities. When we sin we act out of a false identity - not who we are in God. And when we are holy we are acting out of our true identity, and we are living the future life now. It's not some arbitrary list of do's and don't's.
Faith is not about mental assent to a set of doctrinal statements (even the devils believe in that sense) but about action - following Jesus into transformed identity and reality. It's not my place to judge but I think that's why such a huge proportion on the last census identified themselves as 'Christian' - because we have ended up with a concept of believing without following. We have separated the two.
If we are turning (repentance) to follow Christ (faith) we can expect to see change in our lives - fruit in keeping with repentance. If we are no different now to how we used to be this raises some serious questions.
It wasn't a light-hearted discussion in hOME that night! But important stuff nevertheless I think. The podcast will be available here as soon as I manage to locate my firewire lead in our building site of a house!

The Nativity Story

Pip and I went to see The Nativity Story this morning. It was an odd mixture - it was earthy and gritty for the most part, which was good, but then there were some oddly cheesy moments - the birth scenes (John and Jesus) were a bit unbelievable and the less said about the star over Bethlehem the better. Also, I was slightly disappointed with how they did the angels - they could have done something creative but they just went for the old 'guy wearing white clothes' option.
Having said all that, I did find it moving and I am not ashamed to say that it made me cry more than once. Other things I thought:
- we don't give Joseph enough credit. He doesn't get much air time in church but his part of the story was so important.
- the fragility of the whole thing. There were any number of points that the whole thing could have turned to custard (let's not get into the theological points hidden within that sentence!)
- the sheer stupendousness of the whole idea...God becoming a baby....what?
- the in utero Christ. I feel pretty familiar with the baby Jesus, the child Jesus, the man Jesus, the crucified Jesus, the resurrected Jesus etc. but I haven't given much time or thought to Jesus in the womb. There's a lovely moment when Mary feels the foetus move for the first time which I found very moving.

Anyway, go and see it if you can.

'9'

We had another very good Service of 9 Lessons and Carols last Sunday evening. It's become a bit of a highlight of the Advent season for us. It was great to have so many guests and visitors too. As usual we had quite an eclectic mix of Lessons - some video stuff (I particularly liked Janine's use of Sigur Ros's Glosoli video for the Magi Lesson - it's an amazing video well worth checking out if you haven't seen it), a dance, and lots of other stuff. The above photo (from Rich) is of Martin doing his Lesson - he used a clip from the film 'The Believer' about a young Jewish guy who becomes a neo-Nazi! Pippa did an amazing meditation reflecting on her current experience of being pregnant and relating that to Mary's experience - it had at least one person in tears (well done wifey!). And of course the mulled wine and mince pies topped things off in the only really appropriate way!

New Bishop of Oxford

Today the identity of the next Bishop of Oxford has finally been announced (we were expecting an announcement at the end of September). John Pritchard is currently suffragan Bishop of Jarrow in the North East (so good monastic connections there with the Venerable Bede!) but I must confess I haven't heard of him before. Anyway, I just saw the local TV news item about it and he sounded ace. He was only on for a few seconds but used the time to say that he saw himself as a leader in mission (and said that's what he thought a Bishop was) and that he wanted to see the best of 'continuing' churches but also wanted to place an emphasis on 'new expressions' of church. So, we're off to a good start I think. If anyone wants to find out more about him (particularly Oxford types I guess) there's info here.

'9' tomorrow

Tomorrow night at hOME we are having our Carol service - a Service of 9 Lessons and Carols (with the Lessons being re-interpreted by 9 different members of the hOME community). We nicked the idea of Jonny/Grace in London (though we do it slightly differently). It's a highlight of the Advent season for us. If you're around the Oxford area do come and join us for some Carol singing and some mulled wine and mince pies afterwards. 6.30pm at St Alban's on Charles Street.

blogger beta

there have been gaps in my recent blogging - apologies faithful readers, I will try to plug some of these soon. But, as those of you who visit the site will see - I have now migrated to blogger beta (they finally let me on to it) - and this will explain to those of you who use RSS readers why all my recent posts have been republished.
It is a real step forward for Blogger as a blog engine, and easily enables you to add sidebar categories and other content.
I thought I would take this opportunity to change the strapline of my blog. Since I began it a few years ago it has been 'would the last one out of the church please switch off the lights'. But this statement doesn't accurately reflect my heart. It sounds like I have given up on the church but actually I love the church (even though it does drive me nuts sometimes).
So I have changed it to 'slowly learning to live life with God, and others, for the sake of the world' - which is a much closer reflection of where I, and us as a church community I think, are at these days.

My amazon wishlist

we're approaching the time of year when you will all, no doubt, be wondering what to get me for Christmas. Well - panic over - I have updated my amazon wish list. you can view it here. I have even added an order of priority and some comments! Happy shopping!

the Skinny at hOME

Good to have Andrew Jones with us last night at the hOME gathering. He joined in with our worship and we gave him the mic for a while. He told us some stories and shared some thoughts. He blogs it here and you can listen to the podcast here.

A load of us went for pizza and beer afterwards at Cafe Coco down the road from our meeting venue.

Casino Royale

Pip and I went to see Casino Royale last night. Brilliant! Two hours of top notch entertainment and definitely the best Bond film for a long time. Everyone's right about Daniel Craig - probably the best Bond since Connery. I'm really glad they decided to go for a much grittier, 'real', Bond, and it was a much grittier, 'real', film too - far less of those cheesy one-liners, no unbelievable gadgets that Bond just happens to have on him and that just happen to be the perfect gadget for the moment, no stupidly named, double-entendre laden females. Bit disappointed about some of the product placement in the film (you even see Richard Branson for a split second which is a bit bizarre), but all in all this is a cracker of a movie. Go see!

Off to Lindisfarne

After another lovely evening tonight with the hOME community I am off on retreat early in the morning to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in Northumbria for a few days. It's come at a great time - one of those things that's difficult to plan when you have to book quite a way in advance. Lindisfarne is an old place of retreat for me - I used to go there when I lived in Edinburgh as it's actually only about an hour south of Edinburgh. I'm planning to read the Orthodox classic - The Way of a Pilgrim - as well as Richard Rohr's 'Everything Belongs'. But I'm sure that much of the time will be spent walking and praying and reflecting. And I might even make it to the pub too. Bring it on!

Spurs v Chelski

as a long-suffering Spurs fan I have been waiting 16 years for Spurs to beat Chelsea. 16 years of hurt ended yesterday (though I suspect Jonny might have a different perspective on the result!)

Quote Me Happy

Another great quote - via Bob Hyatt's blog - from the inimitable Brian Maclaren:
"It's often easier to promote Christianity than to practice it". Ouch!

"absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

There has been a lot of talk - perhaps even a resurgence in some senses - of atheism recently. It's cool to be atheist again. Richard Dawkins book 'The God Delusion' has received a lot of attention (and also, it should be pointed out, some pretty damning responses as well). I blogged below about this quote - "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - which I came across recently. I love it and it's really made me think but as I have reflected on it I have begun to wonder whether actually the problem is not a lack of evidence for God's existence but - and I know this sounds nuts - almost that there's too much! Now I know this is not an argument to use when talking with an atheist! But the whole of life seems so deeply suffused with divine presence that I wonder whether it's just too obvious - we're too close to it - and we almost can't see the forest for the trees. What do you think?

iCount - Stopping Climate Chaos

Off to London today to participate in the 'iCount' Stop Climate Chaos march/rally in Trafalgar Square. Speakers to include: KT Tunstall, Rob Newman, Miranda Richardson, Simon Amstell, Rufus Hound, Ashok Sinha (Director – Stop Climate Chaos), Bishop of Liverpool, Adam Hart Davis, Dr Hany El Banna (President – Islamic relief) and Sharon Looremeta. If you're around London why not come and play your part. It's from 1-3pm. More info here. There's a service before hand at St Martin in the Fields church nearby at 12.30.

Seth Lakeman - Freedom Fields

As previously confessed on this blog, I have a bit of a folky streak which I have lived in denial of for some time. I guess it comes from the same place within me that enjoys a good, organic, cider occasionally (I know - my emerging church, belgian ale drinking, credentials are now in tatters).
Anyway, I have recently discovered the wonderful Seth Lakeman - nominated for the Mercury Music prize this year - and his debut (I think) album - Freedom Fields. It's really beautiful stuff - especially if you like your folk with some vocals and singalong tunes.
One thing I have noticed about folk though is that although the music is very often beautiful and you find yourself humming along quite quickly, when you listen more closely you find that, lyrically, the subject matter can often be quite bizarre. Take Seth Lakeman's new single as an example - it's a gorgeous song but it appears to be about a white rabbit. I guess I should have worked this out from the title - 'The White Hare' (ok so not a rabbit exactly, but you get my point). I know it's probably a metaphor for something (haven't listened closely enough yet) but you can be driving along singing the song to yourself and then be slightly alarmed by the fact you are being moved by a song about a rabbit!
Do have a listen though - you can hear the song in question on his website here.

The Nativity Story

New Line Cinema - makers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy - are releasing 'The Nativity Story' this December. It looks like it's surfing a kind of post Passion-of-the-Christ sort of wave - same look and feel judging by the trailers - gritty and pretty faithful to the texts by all accounts. I know some people really didn't like TPOTC but I did and no doubt will like this one too. It would be easy to be pretty cynical about it and say that it's obviously just a cash-cow for the studio (who no doubt saw what an amazing money spinner the Mel Gibson film was and thought "we'll have a bit of that action"). Maybe I'm playing right into their hands. But you can make up your own mind - more info here.