Stuff Michael Meeks is doing

This is a joyful occasion, but we would remember those who are covered in great big scabs at this time. We bring before you all crushed persons, and we pray that they may indeed rejoice in their mangled state. Grant peace to gangrene sufferers everywhere, and those who, even now, are about to touch live wires and be burned to a crisp.

We hold up before you all roofers whose walkways are not secure; we pray for their limbs, old and new: and we especially recall as we begin this delicious meal, those frozen folk who are grovelling around in the dark, living on slugs. May they acquire a taste for those slugs, and crunch them with joy, even as we shall crunch our prawn starter in a few moments time.

May we be aware, as we consume this food, that others are being consumed, by giant anacondas and hunger-crazed members of the big cat family who are either too old or too feble to hunt and catch more appropriate prey.

As these festivities uplift out spirits, let us be one with those who, having been uplifted by sundry aeroplanes, are now forced to vacate them before they land. We thank thee for those who are equipped with parachutes, and we reach out in spirit to those who are not. May they discover that beneath them are the everlasting arms - or a pond.

And so now we pray for this evening, and we ask that food poisoning and sudden illness will be endured quietly so that the joy of these two young people will be undiminished, both now and at such tiume as death shall separate them - leaving one an inconsolable widow or widower, and the other a lifeless corpse in the cold ground. Amen.

• Ian de Massini conducting, and premiering several pieces and arrangements. A most amusing rendition of Gardner's Tomorrow shall be my dan-cing day with the syncopation stressed by basoon, featuring an impressive tamborine solo.
• Very touching rendition of John Tavener's setting of The Lamb (by William Blake) - a typically excellent mix of plainsong and harmony.
• Interesting introduction to Carl Rutti, seemingly a rather good (living) Swiss composer, his Alma Redemptoris Mater rather overshadowed by the comprehensibility of I wonder as I wander.
• Ian's LOGOS based on John 1:1-14 - good text, a clever and thoughtful setting.
• Mince pies and wine whilst comparing the merits of Monet's poplars (saved from being cut down while he was painting them apparently), juxtaposed with a Renoir and Picasso. ( Picasso does so challenge my pre-conceptions about quality ).
• Finished off with the highly polished choir singing a (de)rangemenent of Ding, dong, merrily on high in 5/4, highlighting common amateur choral mistakes - most amusing.

• The 'Gordon scriptures' would say God will provide a way out, so you don't have to be tempted, or a way to avoid the test altogether - but in fact, crucially God promises a way out - so that you can stand up to the temptation.
• The fad of 'Dumbing Down' has pretty pernicious effects on our intellects - but when you're encouraging a kid to play baseball, you don't start by throwing the fastest ball possible that he has no chance of hitting. Instead you underarm lob at the bat - so that the nervous 5yr old has almost no chance of missing. That way you get a baseball addict [hmm.].
• Similarly, God doesn't give tests that are beyond what we can bear; but dumbs down the test so we can stand up to it, and overcome. We need to see that many labour under trials that would be too heavy for us.
• The other way God provides is not by dumbing down the test, but by giving us strength.
• A little girl traumatised by a relations death, tearfully asking Daddy not to die, since she couldn't bear it - lovingly asked about going on the train, Daddy would buy the ticket but would only give it to her just before boarding. So God will provide strength at the time of need for his children.
• Several useful, practical tips on overcoming various temptations - the main thrust being recognising they are conquerable, and aggressive action to prune them back.

• So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (NIV).
• The struggles of life - wear us down; some endure some of the most horrific temptations and trials. It's all common or garden temptation, and God is faithful, nothing beyond your strength.
• Same word in Gk for test and temptation, depends on the perspective. The pre-supposition is that You will be tempted - Temptation is unavoidable, don't fool yourself.
• You would think this would be painfully obvious to anyone with an ounce of self reflection, that this would not be news to them. But no - in Corinth they had deluded themselves into thinking they had an immunity from hard-testing and difficult times.
• Paul's reality therapy - If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall. There are indeed wonderful benefits from the resurrection, many Corinthians had been powerfully delivered when they became Christians, set free from their sexual promiscuity and drugs - but the initial dramatic victories as a gift are no garentee that there will be no future struggles.
• Israel's easiest battle was the first - Jerico: just walk around the town, are all the battles like that ? - no, the next they're routed by a small force. The battle was given to make the point that the battle is the Lord's, there is lots of fighting ahead, lots of effort.
• If God's so faithful, why does he let us be tempted ? From heaven's perspective they are tests, Proverbs 17:3 The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests the heart The trials are to strengthen us and our confidence in him. The testing produces perseverance.
• Chapter starts with events at least a millenium before the Corinthians. Israel had an amazing baptism, incredible experiences, God repeatedly provided for them by mighty miracles, and lead them himself. Yet - that conferred no immunity from temptation: the Golden calf, sexual immorality at the Baal of Peor, grumbling etc. - we will be tested.
• Christ may have picked us up from the gutter, but we're in a war-zone. We have to take to heart the message:
• The power of negative thinking - under no illusions that this will make him a fortune, doesn't have the ring of Norman Vincent Peale - this is going to go nowhere. No-one wants to hear it, we dislike negativity. Hence the proliferation of positive lunacy.
• The bible doesn't hesitate to point to the power of negative thinking; to fortify us for the battle ahead. CS Lewis: If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you'll find it quite intolerable; think of it instead it as a place of training and correction, and it's not that bad. Imagine a set of people living in the same building: half think it's a hotel, half a prison. One half might regard it as intolerable, whereas the other decide it is really suprisingly comfortable. ... people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world become pessimists, the people who hold a pretty stern view become optimistic.
• The bad news is that we're going to be tempted, but we have the power of negative thinking. To be forewarned, is to be forearmed.
• We like to think our suffering is unparalleled, unique - but no, it's all garden variety, common to man. We don't want to hear that, since it robs us of self pity and the special excuses we're preparing for ourselves to give in. Of course, the packaging is often unique, but the temptation is always garden variety.
• Don't cut yourself off from Christian biography, talking to others, from the comfort of scripture - your situation is not different. We know a man who was tempted, in every way just as you are, but was without Sin.
• Don't be mislead by superficial differences in packaging, it's all the same, ultimately an infraction of Love God with your whole heart and mind and soul and strength, and your neighbour as yourself.
• At park-street we bank on the intimacy of small groups, every condition known to man faced by people in the church. Dead marriages revived, dead children with murderers never found, sexual temptation of all kinds; seek encouragement from people.
• Humans have the proclivity to wishful thinking; thinking that we're better than we are. William Burstein: There are two kinds of investors, those who don't know where the market is heading, and those who don't know that they don't know. Of course the latter make you the money.
• Great danger in self pity; Dr Henry Beecher - Pain management; served as medic in WW II, was astonished on the beaches to go from badly wounded soldier to soldier, people in acute pain, offering morphine to be told "save it for someone who is in greater pain". The stark contrast being that after the war, civilians with comperable injuries - were in excruciating pain. He came up with three thoughts:
  • Conditioning - soldiers prepared to endure pain, practicing for war, the power of negative thinking: Be self controlled and alert - your enemy the Devil walks around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
  • Confidence - soldiers had that civilians did not have; their pain was gain; in some way it contributed to the eventual liberation of Europe. As christians we have that too, sufferings are not meaningless if we die with him we'll also live with him. No suffering is meaningless.
  • Congruence - that the soldiers that endured unspeakable injuries, realised that their buddies were also loosing limbs, they wern't in this alone. No temptation has siezed you except what is common to man.. Resist him standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throught the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 1 Peter 5
• Armed with this fortitude, be encouraged that whatever battle we're facing, we're not facing it alone, God is our strength and refuge.

400 New Countries to Join EU by 2007

- Over 400 countries are soon to become members of the European Union it was announced ... the lucky winners of the Eurovision Country Contest ... Signor Romano Freebie, ... hailed this as "a new dawn for Europe, when all the countries of this great continent are finally united by their dream of being subsidised by each other".

• Amazed that they didn't see through the old Which would you rather have, scripture translated by scholars, or >hand gesticulation here< a prophet of God!. That it is Americans that come up with this sort of disingenuous, ethnocentric twaddle is amusing.
• The fact that there are precisely no coins from the culture of Moroni, is apparently to test our faith.
• Apparently Joesph Smith was a sinful prophet just like Moses - shame God didn't work mighty miracles through him to let people know.
• Most interestingly, Cox was coloured, and (shifty eyes) seemed to have no problem with the paradoxical banning / un-banning of coloured priests - another matter of faith, that there must have been a good reason.
• Strangely Cox also looked away while professing 'the burning feeling', poor chap, pacemaker needs cranking perhaps.
• Anyway, gave them some water, and somewhere to sit for a while, and perhaps something to think about. When I've finished the Koran, I need to read the book of Mormon; if only I had a decent plain textual version (Arberry?) instead of Yusuf Ali's polemical commentry. Indeed, Yusuf gets more of a say than the text.