Numbering Your Days

 It's one of the joys and sorrows of a religious minister's life - and one of the most precious responsibilities. Taking a funeral. You highlight the good in someone's life - try and skip gently past a few bits - and commend them to our loving God.

But what actually takes up the most time? The preparation? The service itself? Or something else? I hope this pie chart will explain.

 

Empathy as Sin

A new survey claims that American evangelicals think that empathy can lead society away from God.

"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he met robbers. They beat him, stole his clothes, and left him for dead.

A priest was going down the same road, and when he saw the man he walked by on the other side.

Then a Levite also walked by on the other side.

Then an American evangelical came along. And arrested him in case he was an illegal. He locked him in the innkeeper's shed and carried on to Jerusalem."

New Post Announcements

I'm full of joy as I make the following announcements regarding the Druidic Mega-Moot members:

Hnaef to be Monsignor Hnaef, Lord of the Shamrock and Druid-about-Town

Daphne Hnaef to be  Monsignore Daphne, Chaplain to the Chaplain to the Archdruid

Young Keith to be Monsignor Keith, Creator of Odd Inventions (and son of the Archdruid)

Charlii to be Monsignore Charlii, Chaplain to the Archdruid,  and Arch-Assistant Archdruid

Burton Dasset is now Monsignor Burton, Idiot-at-Large

Marston Moretaine is now Monsignor Marston, Assistant Idiot-at-Large.

I am sure you will all join me in praying for their success in these new appointments.

Nativity of Kirsty MacColl (1959)

In a heavenly Soho Square, where the Caribbean waters lap against the steps of the Catholic church, and the benches are never empty, maybe that's where you'll see the pigeons flying on your birthday.

And that guy in the heavenly chip shop? Well... Maybe he is. 

But are the angels gonna dance in those shoes?

Doing up the House (of God)

"But by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash the priests had made no repairs to the house. Therefore King Jehoash summoned the priest Jehoiada with the other priests and said to them, ‘Why are you not repairing the house?" (2 Kings 12)

If you read this chapter from 2 Kings you can be a little confused, as was King Jehoash. Given the money's poured in to repair the Temple, why have the priests made no progress by the 23rd year of his reign?

But now  Professor Madeup, of the College of Biblical Speculation, has come up with a theory for the delay.

The priests were still waiting for feedback from the DAC. Historic Judah had come up with objections to the plan. And they just needed to hold one more fete to fill in the last chunk of the giant thermometer they'd put outside the Court of the Gentiles.