The Berlin Wall

We used to live in a flat beneath a German man and his wife. One day he was telling us that as a student in East Berlin, he had a quiet night out with friends. He went to the cinema to watch a movie, came back to one of their flats for a few drinks, then they all fell asleep. He woke up the next morning to hear on the news that the Wall had come down. He’d been in Berlin the whole time and missed it.

World Peace and the olympics

Mark Sayers has written a great article about the olympic opening ceremony and the unspoken hopes it has of achieving peace in the world. At the same time as these hopes were being aired, Russia and Georgia started a new war.

Read the whole article here.

You can’t take it with you

I came across a funny story from Reuters News

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German man was such an avid collector of weapons and other paraphernalia that he ran out of space at home and had to sleep in a hotel, neighbors said following the 71-year-old’s death.

Executors found an arsenal of weaponry and assorted goods at the man’s two-story home in the western city of Aachen, police said on Wednesday.

“There were 71 guns — one for each year of his life,” said police spokesman Paul Kemen. “He also had 41 cases of ammunition and five walking sticks fitted with retractable blades.”

Heiner Hautermans, a reporter at the Aachener Nachrichten paper, said neighbors related how the man, who lived alone, collected everything from clothing to garden tools and watches.

“The house was stuffed to the rafters,” he said. “By the end, the neighbors said he had to sleep in a hotel sometimes because there was no more room.”

One neighbor sometimes handled up to 14 deliveries of goods a day for the man when he was out, he added. “At some point she got fed up with it.”

No heirs have yet been found for the man, police said.

I can’t help but being reminded of the parable of the rich fool in the gospel of Luke. There’s nothing wrong with collecting things, although in this case it meant that he couldn’t live in his own house, which is surely going too far. Earthy security is one thing, but don’t we all have an eternal secutirty to think about too? When we die we have to leave all that we have collected behind. It stays here to be passed on to our family and friends. The parable of the rich fool goes on to talk about being rich towards God. As this is something that will exist after death, maybe this is where the majority of my attention should be.

Earthquake in the UK

Measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale, there has been an earthquake in England. It’s epicentre was  just outside Market Rasen in North Lincolnshire and it struck at about 1am. Some residents report that their dogs started barking 30seconds beforehand, and then they felt and heard the tremors. There was some fear, as peopel didn’t know what it was – earthquakes are not expected in the UK. The biggest surprise for many was the loud noise it made. Only one person was injured. Full BBC coverage here.

There was another one a few years ago centred around Dudley, near Birmingham. That also struck in the middle of the night. At the the time I was living about an hours drive from Dudley and the tremors could be felt where I was living. I, however, didn’t feel them as I was asleep at the time. I remember my sense of disbelief when I heard about it the next morning, and my mild annoyance that I’d missed it. Earthquakes are very rare here, and they’re never very strong. Today’s earthquake was the strongest for 25 years.

For those who are interested, the Richter scale is a logarithmic scale, so an earthquake measuring 6.0 is roughly 31 times stronger than one measuring 5.0, and a measurement of 7.0 is 1000 stronger than one of 5.0. The great earthquake in San Francisco in 1906 was about 25000 times stronger than the one in the UK today.

Has anyone been involved in a mild earthquake like this one? what was it like?

Shooting in Illinois University – Why again?

Why does this always seem to happen in the United States?  A gunman entered the campus at Cole Hall, a place where students tend to gather, opened fire, killed 6, injured many more, before turning the gun on himself.  Read more here (BBC) and here (CNN).

It doesn’t take much of a search to find other examples of similar events happening. Virginia, Pennsylvania Amish, Nebraska Shopping Mall, Columbine, Colorado Church, and there are many others.

Why does it seem to happen in the US? I don’t know the answer – I’m sure there are no easy answers, – comments welcome.

This problem is of course not confined to the US. In 1996 a lone gunman walked into a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and murdered 16 children and their teacher, before killing himself. However, what followed seemed to be dramatically different. There was a “gun amnesty” – anyone who owned an illegal firearm could drop it into any police station anonymously without the possibility of charges. This had the effect of taking guns off the street. There was an immediate public outcry for tighter gun controls, which were introduced fairly quickly afterwards. Guns became harder to buy. I don’t think it has happened since (or at least, not as frequently as in the US)

I know it says in the constitution that everyone has the right to bear arms. This was introduced long ago for good reason. However society is no longer the same as it was in 1776. Is this a right that we need to give up in order to reduce the number of gun deaths? Surely there must be a way of protecting that right so that honest citizens can still hunt safely AND our children are protected in their schools and colleges. How about a better national register, or a law which bans guns from all residential areas (including in our homes), but at the same time allows gun clubs to exist for the purposes of hunting. These are only ideas, I’m no politician – but it seems like the NRA is too loud and powerful for any of this to change. Are they happy with the frequency of such shootings?

But what is driving people to kill and take their own life in the first place. Is life really that empty? Surely in a materialist consumer society where education is available where there is an abundance of life-enhancing technologies there would be no need for such action. Or is it ultimately empty at its core. Is genuine human relationship lacking? This emptiness seems to be resulting in a greater threat to US life than terrorism.

Society needs to rediscover the purpose of human life -  only this, and not the abundance of things, can lead to ultimate fulfillment. Who are we? What are we about? Why do we exist? How do we relate to each other? Have we been consuming (buying) out identities and purpose instead of discovering them? Weren’t we made to be creative, instead of buy creatively? Weren’t we made for long term committed, deep, ‘take the rough with the smooth’, relationships (which offer stability to soceity) rather than serial monogamy with no depth. How on earth can we understand each other and be understood if we don’t take the time to do it? Real depth in relationship cannot be bought or found instantly, but surely it is worth it to create a society without fear. In a society without fear, there is no need to kill or be killed.

“There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18)

Just opening the debate.

Pluralism Rocks

Pluralism is often blamed for putting restrictions on what Christians can or cannot do or say. The recent British Airways Cross debate demonstrates one aspect of that. However, I recently came across a more positive aspect of what pluralism can do. This is great… this is what the BBC website says about Christianity. Apparently it hasn’t always said this, it was updated recently to reflect Christians real views.

The rules of a tolerant culture say that all opinions are equally valid, therefore all opinions should have equal (or proportionate) airtime. The rules of postmodernism imply that there is no single overarching truth, there for all ‘truths’ must be equally represented. Organisations like the BBC and BA inherently agree to run their businesses under these rules. Hence the cross rule for BA who can’t be seen to favour Christians over anyone else. However, they also can’t be seen to discriminate either.

Of course, as a Christian, I can’t agree with the implied rules of the culture, but I’m quite happy to use secular means to carry Christian truth.

What is interesting about the BBC article is their use of story. It’s not just a 12-point list of abstract beliefs but they give details of what it actually means to be a Christian – how it impacts lives.

I remember about four years ago a colleague said to me “As far as I can see, God doesn’t actually do anything.” At the time I was a bit flumoxed for an answer as we had already spent the best part of two years debating the relation between God and science. Rather than continue the abstract philosophical debate with a bit of apologetics, perhaps the best thing is just to demonstrate in person and tell stories of my own faith.

Maybe now is a moment for a bit of testimony sharing. What has it meant for me to be a Christian so far today? Well, I got up and read a chapter from Characters Around the Cross, about Judas, and was gently convicted of my tendency to focus on material things. I walked into college and prayed for a couple of friends, one of whom has just experienced a recovery (healing?) from a long standing illness. I heard a great talk in chapel about the promise of ultimate future and the final victory of Christ, which made me want to worship him. And I was greatly encouraged by some news from a colleague, that God had answered a long-standing prayer.

If you’re gonna lie, lie properly

An article about the perils of lying…

From the BBC:

A South African man has been fined $140 for taking a week off work, telling his employers he was pregnant. Charles Sibindana, 27, stole a certificate from a clinic during his pregnant girlfriend’s checkup, a court near Johannesburg heard. He then added his own details to the note and submitted it and took seven days off work, seemingly unaware that only women consult gynaecologists.

His employers became suspicious and investigated the matter. On passing sentence Magistrate Bruno Van Eeden warned Mr Sibindana “not to walk around faking sick letters from gynaecologists” as if he was pregnant, the South African Press Association news agency reported.
From… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/ 6190772.stm