03/31/10

Day 43: Jesus’ Anger

Sunday night’s youth group was themed around anger and the small group study turned out to be quite interesting. As Christians we tend to take 2 routes with anger. Firstly we take the ‘anger is wrong‘ approach and draw a line…then comes approach 2 in response to ‘didn’t Jesus get angry?‘ which comes in the form of the response ‘yes but it was righteous anger’.

The phrase ‘righteous anger‘ seems to be a suitably ambiguous phrase used to say ‘ummm…yes Jesus got angry…let’s move on‘. However it’s quite interesting to make the distinction between anger and righteous anger. From my understanding there is ‘righteous anger’ and ‘uncontrolled anger’.

Uncontrolled anger is the image of anger we probably imagine the most and probably the most common type of anger…uncontrolled anger is the anger where you lash out, where someone is attacked, where you say things you don’t mean…the sort of anger that you feel embarrassed about after (and possibly become so ashamed about you don’t even apologise for).

Righteous anger on the other hand is a whole different kettle of fish. The most common example that we use is that of Matthew 21 where Jesus enters the temple and turns the tables of the people selling things. This example is all well and good but neither Matthew, Mark or Luke where it appears mention that Jesus was angry.

The second example however does! In Mark 3 we read:

Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

it’s obvious from his actions here that the anger of Jesus was that of controlled anger…He was angry about their hardened hearts and angry that they just didn’t get it.

The real point of this blog post though was to pose the question do we get angry enough?

I don’t mean angry in the shouting, hitting people sense but in the sense of do we get angry about the things we should? Are we angry enough about injustice? Are angry about those who’s hearts are hardened?

Even typing those two questions above I feel a little uncomfortable because anger is such a misunderstood emotion. The Oxford dictionary describes it as ‘a strong feelings of annoyance, displeasure or hostility’ and so I wonder if the anger Jesus talks about is closer to being a passionate dissatisfaction? Surely the emotions of passion and anger are similar? I know when I’m passionate about something I talk enthusiastically and also if I’m angry about something I equally talk enthusiastically.

So is ‘passionate dissatisfaction‘ a better description for righteous anger? It’s possibly a better description of the way we feel when things aren’t the way God wants them.

This blog is very much a series of thoughts, reflections and ponderings so please feel free to challenge it, comment, disagree or whatever you desire!

03/30/10

Day 42: Panorama: Chocolate – The Bitter Truth

I heard from friends that the panorama on the 24th March had been on chocolate, it’s origins and Fairtrade so I thought I’d give it a watch (you can too here). I have to say having watched Panorama on Primark I expected something negative…and in fairness I was half right.

The program aimed to show us where the majority of our chocolate comes from and show how easy it is to get chocolate produced by children onto our markets and the program truly did this. It was both amazing and shocking to see how easy it was for them to find chocolate that had been harvested by children and even more shocking at how easy this chocolate was to get into the stream of chocolate heading to our big companies.

As a keen Fairtrade supporter it was interesting to understand the difference between Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade and that the big difference is traceability. This means that all plantations that supply Fairtrade cocoa beans can be traced and inspected and that these inspections have caused plantations to be forced to stop using children for labour and whilst the lady from the Fairtrade Foundation didn’t respond particularly well to the interview questions the programme highlighted the important role of Fairtrade in making cocoa beans traceable and in ensuring that children are not used.

The programme also challenged me over my chocolate buying habits and I’m seriously contemplating only buying Fairtrade chocolate because it doesn’t matter whether it’s Mars, Nestle or Cadbury the chances are unless it’s Fairtrade children have been used to produce it…plus Divine Coffee-Chocolate is yummy…the only thing stopping me is a like of Mars…my current thinking is that as Cadbury aim to make their product range Fairtrade I’ll buy Cadbury and Fairtrade.

Interestingly the programme also produced some ‘Children definitely used in production’ chocolate and showed it to the public who were appalled and said they wouldn’t buy it…which highlights the importance of making people aware of where their products come from so they can make educated consumer choices….if everyone knew I bet firms would be leaping to go Fairtrade or ensure they didn’t use children!

Finally the programme also managed to find some Nestle farmers using children…brilliant - join me in a Nestle free Easter

03/29/10

Day 41: Can’t we just have RATM again?

A campaign has sprung up in the last month aiming to get the Delirious? song ‘History Maker’ to number 1 for Easter…the Facebook group (here) has almost 50,000 members (which I’m not sure is enough for a number 1) and is encouraging people to download 1 of 2 versions of the Delirious? song.

Alongside this the campaign organiser has set up a website called ‘Invade the Airwaves’ just in case you’re confused about what the campaign is about…it also has a ‘in the press’ section detailing 2 local BBC stations who’ve featured the campaign and a host of Christian sites talking about it…not quite the media storm that the Christmas Rage Against the Machine project got.

On the website they even have an ‘FAQ’ for those people confused by the entire concept (I’m sure it’s simple!) and as part of this there is the following statement:

Two things really. Firstly, the evident power of social media (namely Facebook) to bring about such a powerful campaign with outstanding results that Rage Against The Machine delivered at Christmas 2009. Secondly, a huge personal dissatisfaction that such an angry song featuring the ‘F’ word at the end several times, was the talk of the nation at a time when the focal point of the Christmas period should be peace

Now whilst the author is right that Christmas should be about peace he has clearly not realised what the RATM song was about. Killing in the name was written about the racist policemen in the area where the band were based, it isn’t an anthem for violence but one for justice, it’s an anti-war song and anti-hypocrisy and whilst screaming ‘F*** you I won’t do what you tell me’ wouldn’t be my personal approach I find that the message in the song represents a lot of the things Jesus stood for.

I’ve been invited to the campaign to get Delirious? to number 1 twice and both times I’ve clicked ‘Reject’ (I am attending a Nestle free Easter though!) and the reason for this is simply it’s not a good idea…Christian music is generally so awful it’s better off kept off the airwaves….alongside this I don’t believe for 5 seconds Jesus would remotely care about it, He never aimed for popularity…in fact he managed to hack off his own people so much they wanted him crucified.

So Delirious? for Easter number 1? I hope not…let’s have the new Scouting for Girls song instead!

03/28/10

Day 40: Palm Sunday

All over the world today is Palm Sunday and thousands of Christians everywhere will have received a Palm Cross and read Luke 19 where we read about Jesus instructing His disciples to go off and find a donkey and bring it back followed by Jesus riding on this donkey with people all around praising him (other than the Pharisees who as per normal weren’t happy!).

Whilst I understand that this happened to fulfill the prophesies it’s a very weird passage when put in the context of Jesus’ ministry coming to the end and even stranger to think that by the end of the week He would be crucified and His body placed in a tomb.

The reason this seems so odd is that Palm Sunday in a nutshell looks like a celebration, there’s praising and cheering and a general celebration feel about it yet Jesus must have known His time was coming to an end and so when we also have that knowledge it doesn’t feel like much to celebrate…it must be like celebrating someone’s birthday knowing they have a terminal illness…yes it’s a celebration but you have something looming over you.

Palm Sunday does however feel like a bit of a stopping point…a bit of a landmark representing the end of Jesus ministry as God incarnate and the beginning of the end….perhaps in the words of Five Iron Frenzy we should say ‘the end is near’ in reference to Palm Sunday.

03/27/10

Day 39: Mflow

A friend on twitter posted about a new programme called ‘mflow’ the other day wondering if it would be the next Spotify. I have since requested an invite to mflow and had a chance to preview it and whilst the reviews talk about it being a cross between Spotify and Twitter I seriously don’t think it’s the next big thing!

The interface is very similar to Spotify but with the addition an an ‘inbox’ where your friends can recommend music to you as can mflow. Songs recommended to you in this inbox can be previewed in full…but that’s where the good stops!

The majority of previews on mflow are 30 second snippits which I can already do on iTunes if I want to listen to part of the song and so perhaps the only extra function that mflow offers is the ability to recommend music to friends however if I want to do this I can already text them, mention it to them in person, tweet them or facebook them so whilst it’s nice of mflow to combine the two for me I’d much rather listen to songs in full on Spotify, get music recommendations from friends by Facebook or Twitter and not clog up my computer with another application.

Mflow? no no

03/26/10

Day 38: In Context

As I mentioned on Wednesday yesterday I attended a day of lectures being run by Youth, Mission and Culture in Leeds on the subject of Gender. It was great to have the opportunity to spend sometime thinking in depth about a subject without it being linked to a course, essay or just being stuff that I know because I’ve done a degree in youth work.

The day was split into 3 parts with 3 lecturers (well….4 really!). The first part took a look at gender from a scientific point of view including the social sciences and biology. The 2nd looked at the theological side of things and the third looked at how we work with young people and different genders.

The part of the day I found the most interesting was the theological lecture. It was lead by Elaine Storkey of Tearfund and was very interesting. I always find that theology is fascinating yet I don’t have the patience or desire to look at it massively in depth on a regular basis so a one off theology lecture was perfect.

The primarily focus was looking at the gender roles we see in the bible and especially on what the bible says about women. With women in ministry being a big issue for some Christians (I believe we call them sexists!!!) it was very interesting to look at the key verses from Paul that they use as their argument against women in ministry. For example the passage where Paul tells women that they can’t speak in church put in context is there because the women in this church were disturbing their husbands worshiping with pointless gossip and comments such as ‘Did you put the cat out?’ (in 21st century terms!).

Alongside this looking at the attitude of Jesus towards women re-affirmed to me that a lot of this women in ministry stuff is nonsense but more importantly it reminded me how important it is to look at things in context. It’s so easy to take the bible out of proportion and get the wrong end of the Jesus-stick!

All in all a very good day and I’m looking forward to another one cropping up next year!

03/25/10

Day 37: Facebook Fun!

I’ve just returned from the gender day I mentioned yesterday and will blog on it properly tomorrow however today ‘The Sun’ has an article with some fun things from Facebook so I thought I’d share on and link you to the others…they’re vaguely amusing, although my favourite Facebook group is still ‘I hate it when you’re out with MC Hammer and he won’t let you touch anything’ (I didn’t join it!)

Article Link (if you can call it an article)

and my favourite…

03/24/10

Day 36: Gender Day

Tomorrow I’m heading up to Leeds for a day of lectures from Youth, Culture and Mission all themed on gender and youth work. It’ll be my first ‘lectures’ since leaving uni last May and I’m actually looking forward to it. I think it’ll be a really interesting opportunity to find out more about gender as a topic especially as there seems to be more and more gender issues amongst young people now.

Anyone else reading this going?

On a complete side-note being at blog number 36 with a week until Easter proves that if you include the Sundays there are more than 40 days in lent…I’m looking forward to not blogging every day actually…quality not quantity eh?

03/23/10

Day 35: Wedding Planning

Since Jo and myself started planning the wedding in August we’ve realised that actually it’s not that difficult to plan a wedding…there’s been a few difficulties but when it comes to the actual planning, idea collecting etc we’ve both realised that we tend to sing from the same metaphorical hymn sheet with both of us agreeing on pretty much every aspect of wedding stuff.

I haven’t really updated my blog on wedding stuff much largely because we have a wedding blog but I thought today I’d give a very brief update!

We have so far organised: church, reception venue, meal choices, guest list, suits, website, photographer, flowers and invites. We handmade all the invites (video blog below) and posted them about a month ago. In the last few days we’ve sorted our order of service, finalised the worship band and I’ve sorted out the bans being read here in South Cave.

All in all doesn’t feel like there’s much to do…bring on July

Here’s the video blog...more over at www.markandjoanna.co.uk

03/22/10

Day 34: Charity Shops!

On Friday I headed into Beverley to get a few bits…Beverley is about the same distance from me as Hull and much more relaxing to wander around and smaller. Whilst there I past a small bookshop called ‘Jacobs Well’ which is a charity bookshop with a small Christian bookshop attached to it.

Whilst the Christian section was a bit naff the rest of the shop was amazing…containing hundreds of books with a nice ‘booky’ aroma about the place I spent quite some time browsing and was especially impressed with the CD’s which seemed to consist of all the singles I owned as a child and their shelf upon shelf of Christian books.

I left the shop having spent £5 on a CD single of ‘You only get what you give’ (New Radicals), a beasty New Bible Commentary Revised and individual commentaries on Revelation (part 1), Revelation (part 2), a commentary on the letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, a commentary on the letters to James and Peter and a commentary on the letters to John and Jude…plus a book containing 44 John Wesley sermons….absolute bargain shop!

03/21/10

Day 33: Arty Me

I’m not a big fan of cultured stuff…sit me with a Shakespeare play or in front of the Mona Lisa and I’ll complain about the old fashioned language or say ‘right what’s next…’. When it comes to things arty I am not someone who appreciates fine art. However this does not mean I don’t like art…back in January Jo and myself went down to London and as part of our trip we visited the tate modern which I really liked.

My taste in art seems to be a little bit odd….for example I LOVE the artwork attached to Less Than Jake’s album ‘Anthem’ which is very pop-art in style and when I was in London I took a couple of moody photos (photo 1 | photo 2).

I quite like odd, empty, desolate or quirky pictures and so on Friday whilst down the bomb shelter (as you do) in South Cave I took this photo which I really like.

Now alongside this I’ve been mixing loads of my own songs and wanted artwork to go with them so that there’s a booklet when I upload the whole thing because I love album artwork and love being able to read the lyrics….so I’ve added the above photo to some lyrics and I really like the outcome!

03/20/10

Day 32: Got No Soul

Since starting lent I have not purchased a single thing from a supermarket however I have been in ASDA on one occasion!

Today I needed to go to the Apple Store in Meadowhall and had some time to kill at the same time. This is all well and good but Meadowhall is one of my least favourite places…it’s big, there’s no logical order and you can barely move.

The thing I’ve noticed about both Meadowhall and Supermarkets in comparison to using the butchers, farm shop etc is that there’s a distinct lack of soul. When I go into a supermarket to shop everything’s very plain and impersonal. There’s not really a sense of product expertise and I tend to find myself wanting to get out as soon as I possibly can…I run out of energy and patience very quickly in a supermarket.

Comparing this to using the local shops the experience is very different…I’ve seen the same staff in the butchers, farm shop, bakers etc…they all know about their products and it’s a fairly relaxing buying process.

I’d elaborate on this more but having got home at 3 last night and having been rudely awaken by the builders (not the dustmen) at 8 my eyes are literally closing…so I conclude supermarkets and huge shopping centres with duplicate shops have no soul.

(except you Apple store…you’re lovely!)