The Blurb: March 2010

Good reasons to marry

Saturday 27 March 2010  11.47 am

Here's one, or at least one that the Conservatives want us to have, if their proposals to encourage marriage through the tax system are anything to go by.  The debate on this is far from clear-cut, and it's very interesting, but I haven't got time to write about it right now.  One of the really interesting things is whether it's more important to be "good individuals" or a "good nation" as a whole.  The answer is probably both.  More later...
 
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All those years I believed it

Saturday 20 March 2010  7.31 pm

I discovered recently that something I have always believed is actually not true.  There has never been a gate in Jerusalem known as the "Eye of the Needle" through which a camel can only crawl without baggage... no matter how many Western tourists ask to be shown it!

Puzzled?  Let me explain.  In Matthew 19:24, Jesus famously tells a rich man, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God".

"Oh dear," say the rich Christians, wondering how to get round this one.  Saturday Night Live, Season 22, Episode 3 offers one of the funniest schemes - truly inspired.  There are many others.  But it's basically quite difficult to get a lumbering desert beast through a hole barely large enough for one of its nostril hairs.  Trust me on this.

Did Jesus really mean us to make all this fuss?  Did he really mean what we call "heaven" when he referred to the "Kingdom of God" anyway?  Does he really have a thing against rich people?  Or is he possibly just using an extreme hyperbole to debunk the common belief at the time that riches were a sign of God's blessing?  Maybe he's just saying "look, it's impossible for anyone to find the kingdom of God themselves ... yes, even impossible for those rich people that you think must have it all together."

At least, that's what it says on the web pages I looked at (like eyeoftheneedle.net for example), and it seems to make sense to me.

One thing's for sure - I bet Jesus' listeners had no clue how much agonising and theorising this simple sentence would cause over two millennia later.
 
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Coping with the daffodil crisis

Sunday 14 March 2010  2.58 pm

Happy Mothering Sunday!  Or Mothers' Day, or Women's Day - the day basically for anyone who lacks a Y chromosome.  It's a lovely day for it, and mothers certainly deserve all the appreciation they get.  What an amazing, and often unsung, job they do!

Even if, due to the current national shortage of the traditional flower, they won't receive any daffodils.  Apparently the blooms are all coming up to four weeks late because of that cold February we had.

Makes me wonder whether the Welsh could even find one daffodil between them two weeks earlier for their national day on 1 March.  I'm sure they coped somehow.  By taking a leek or two instead, I expect.
 
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Lifting up my eyes

Saturday 6 March 2010  5.26 pm

We've been learning a new worship song at church recently, and I quite like it.  It's a Matt Redman, for those who care about such things, and along with some fairly standard worship song lyrics and a catchy tune that people can all sing along to, there is the following mid-section:

We lift up our eyes
Lift up our eyes
You're the giver of life

This appeals to me.  If I'm feeling sad, and the last thing I want to do is wave my hands above my head while singing, "We bow down on our knees", I can still lift my eyes to my God who cares.  If I'm uncomfortable in a new church or don't even know Jesus, I can still lift my eyes.  And if I'm full of the joys of spring and really in the mood for a holy boogie, lifting up my eyes won't clash with that either!

The eight repeats of this particular refrain also give me plenty of opportunity to reflect on what lifting my eyes might really mean for me as I walk around this world.  I might notice people more.  My troubles might be put into perspective and seem less overwhelming.  I might see as God sees and spot people's real issues through their defences.  I might observe so much more that would make me happy and full of praise.

And I might bump into fewer lamp-posts.
 
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