Haiti etc

What is a 'good' reaction to humanitarian disaster?

Do we make every effort to put ourselves in the shoes of the people affected, because true empathy is powerful? And is it possible to get better at empathy over time? (I think my imagination has grown better equipped to perceive the plight of people far away - but I'm not sure it does any good. Except perhaps help me pray. And of course it is hard to see what that achieves.)

Do we try to reach these people in some way - giving our time to work with the disadvantaged; sending money?

Do we acknowledge we can't help but instead motivate ourselves to seek out the lost and poor and suffering that might be closer? Some say there are always needs under our noses, if we can bothered to see them. But let's face it, things are so much better for my neighbourhood than they ever will be for Congo or Haiti or Afghanistan.

Do we campaign for our own government to do more to reach the disadvantaged? How, exactly? And how to avoid the self-righteousness evident in so many campaigners?

Do we try to learn more about tragic international situations? And how to begin that, when there are too many to count and the facts are hard to come by?

Do we feel gratitude that such things aren't happening to us? And isn't that simply smugness?

Do we allow such situations to make their impact on us; rather than focusing on how we make an impact on them?

I think what happens to a person in Haiti today is a part of my own life. And I think feeling thankful I do not suffer the same is valid. And I think the thanks and the solidarity are part of what it means to believe in a God who is both here and there. And I think tears might be the best reaction.

But what all this actually achieves...... I don't know.

2010 lah lah lah

Another year, another step closer home. Ha ha!

In terms of resolutions, in 2010 I shall try to only care about what I actually care about. If you know what I mean.
In terms of best books read.....not the most amazing year. But I got the Britney biography and Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising quintet for Chrissy, so things are looking up (!) Oryx and Crake was pretty good but fizzled out at the end.
In terms of best films seen - District 9 I think makes it to number 1.
In terms of best TV - watched all five The Wire seasons this year. Heartbroken but satisfied. May I adopt DuKwon?
Significant deaths - Michael Jackson (first childhood hero) and my Grandfather.
Significant births - too many! Including a neice.

Off we go!

Final frontier

Quite a lot of our friends and same-generation family members now have sprogs. It's quite unsettling.

You see, having a family may well become the only way of holding on to our social life. Whatever our mates may have said in advance, in each and every case the arrival of a little prune or prunette has fundamentally changed their approach to everything.

The thing is, although I see this change is profound, awe-inspiring and satisfying, I don't really want it. I quite like still being able to pop down the pub. And not being knackered. And fretting with carefree abandon about nothing but myself.

The baby frontier: can friendship survive it?

Pop

My Grandfather died early this morning.

I have so many good memories of him. He and Gran used to (and I'm sure she still does) pray for every one of their children, children-in-law and grandchildren each morning. That's 24 people, before you start on all the other stuff they prayed for. The list was pinned on the wall.

I remember him taking me and my brother Joe for walks each time we visited their Devon home. The walks were a rare 'get away from the parents and little siblings' treat and were meant to increase by 2 miles a year. I think he got a bit goosed at 11 miles and the routine ended!

I remember him making elaborate 'Joe-Anna' - salads, which contained all manner of exciting ingredients. It was the one kitchen indulgence my Gran allowed him!

I remember being thoroughly embarrased by him taking me out for an ice-cream in my early youth and sitting across the table staring intently at me eat, as if I were a long-lost treasure.

I remember welling up when he quoted Hamlet at his 80th birthday do: "There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may" I think it was. 

I remember he kept this tatty old bit of graph paper pinned to his office wall: I had meticulously coloured all the squares on it during the train journey to visit and he loved it.

I'll miss him. He was good and faithful and incredibly positive and fasincated by life. A founding father, you might say.

goal-oriented

Our culture values people partly on the basis of their productivity.

So, if you're of a certain age, qualification and physical ability you really should be earning, achieving and generally making the people around you feel better. In increasing measures each year.

One of the reasons church is so important is because it doesn't hold to that: people are valued regardless of achievement. So it bugs me when I see churchfolk separating their community into the 'give-ers' and the 'get-ers'.

You're 'off the hook' (or, alternatively, deemed incapable) if you are:

• old (too frail, too eccentric)
• a teenager (too likely to leave)
• a child (not ready)
• disabled (too much effort)
• a parent of one or more children (too busy and with better priorities)
• not necessarily a 'proper' Christian (shock horror - too dangerous!)
  

You're most certainly on the hook (or capable of so much more) if you are:

• single (so much time on your hands! - but needs watching as likely to be sexually unstable)
• full-time working (capable of anything, surely)
• without children (what else have you got to fill your time with?)
• deemed intelligent and capable
• certain in your Christian conviction.
  

If you're all five, heaven help you! Nobody will know what to talk to you about - except whether you might help serve coffee next week.

I'm being harsh. The churches I've been part of aren't really like that. In fact, it's really me who gets guilty and bored if I'm not busy achieving something or other; who feels affronted if someone else is asked to do something instead of me.

And, church sits in a funny place. We like to qualify time as either 'work' or 'leisure' What is church? Should we be giving or getting from it? How does it communicate its place in our lives?

I guess we should all be giving and getting from our church community. Which is why everyone should be deemed capable of contributing. And no-one should be seen primarily as a resource.