My thoughts are not your thoughts

As the heavens are higher than the earth, 

so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, 

and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, 

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty, 

but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Isa 55 from NIV. No apologies for critically- and contextually-suspect but theologically appropriate reading.
Landscape with kind permission of Northamptonshire.

Maundy musings

In response to the rather worried-sounding phone call I received from Hnaef, who was cooking a barbecue when he read my earlier posting  - it was nothing to do with him. I may have the delusions of grandeur to have that kind of Messiah complex, but not the delusions of humility that would have to go with it to do it properly. And I'm sorry about the damage he suffered when he dropped that lamb chop. But at least that will teach him not to barbecue in his swimming costume again.

It takes a certain kind of person to carry out that sort of betrayal. Not Hnaef, who is loyal, trustworthy, reliable, unambitious. If you were wondering about the sort of person that might betray you, you might be looking out for a wild-eyed idealist who thinks that concepts and causes are more important than people. These are the sorts of people that sacrifice friends, family and often their own lives to further the ends of a cause that seems more important than anything. It is possibly no surprise that they tend to be young men.

Or if you looked at Biblical precedent, the sort of person who would let you down might be the one in charge of the purse. An over-interest in matters financial might cause you to objectify people according to what benefit they can bring rather than their innate worth.  Although Burton is dull and unimaginative, this does not apply to all those who deal in financial matters. Maybe Judas thought he was speculating to accumulate - a little push now to bring the Kingdom in more quickly - a theo-martial leveraged buyout, if you will.

Of course, if you were a potential Labour party leader wondering who might be betray you, you'd be looking out for the person who looked most like you, and who you used to kick around when he was younger and smaller than you were. So maybe envy comes into it as well.

The Biblical authors weren't so inclined to philosophise on the matter, of course. Luke puts it down to Satan - the accuser. So does John.  Though it looks like John had it in for Judas in general. But if the Devil made Judas do it, then was it really his fault? Did he have free will in this? Could the Devil have entered any of the disciples, had one of the others agreed to co-operate? Is it a big step from Peter's desertion to Judas's betrayal - or just the change from passive denial to active collaboration?

I wouldn't say he did it for the money.  Annas and Caiaphas may have thought that was all that mattered to him - but when the deed was done the money didn't matter. Maybe, in the end, Judas didn't matter much either. Just a cog. Without the betrayal the authorities would still have got Jesus another way. The Cross would still have loomed, the nails would still have bitten, the Devil would still have had what he thought was his day - and he would still have woken up a loser on Sunday morning.

Betrayal: Psalm 55

 If an enemy were insulting me, 
   I could endure it; 
if a foe were rising against me, 
   I could hide. 
¹³ But it is you, a man like myself, 
   my companion, my close friend, 
¹⁴ with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship 
   at the house of God, 
as we walked about 
   among the worshippers.

From the New International Version

Will the last person to read the Independent please recycle it?

The Independent is an institution in decline, with fewer readers than ever.

As the tabloids look forward to the Royal Wedding and the fun they will have over the next few years with "is-she/isn't-she" stories, and even the Telegraph ponders weighty questions such as changing the rules of succession and whether Dave Cameron should wear tails, it may seem the wrong time to be discussing the future of the Independent.

Founded  by Andreas Whittam Smith to enable his divorce from the Telegraph, and in direct defiance of Rupert Murdoch, it has always steered a careful via media between the liberalness of the Guardian and being in any way interesting.

But as the hardline liberal group increasingly flirts with the idea of joining the Guardinariate, while the middle classes become obsessed with the health scares of the Express and Mail, increasingly the Independent has nowhere to go. It has experimented with so-called "fresh expressions of journalism", such as its "compact" or "comic" size, but the figures speak for themselves. From a circulation of 400,000 in the 1980s, it fell below 200,000 at the Millennium. Despite blips when readership has improved, the circulation in 2010 was 183,000 - down 10% on the year. The number of stipendiary journalists has been cut over the years, as the paper has tried to adjust to this decline. And as long as it clings on to old-fashioned doctrines such as "Liberal Democracy", it is hard to see how it can move forward.

Will anyone miss the Independent when it closes?

Shouldn't think so.

Proscribing Processions

I've been having some thoughts about the procession at the start of Acts of Worship.

You see, when we line up and process in with the botsalifers and the acolytes at the front, then the wavers of peacock feathers and then the gladiators, the Ring-Bearer, a zither-player, the junior druids then Hnaef and finally myself - it kind of makes me look important. Which obviously is nice, but is that where the focus should be?

So we have experimented with the idea that Hnaef and I should be at the front. Gives a nice impression - the idea that, as Archdruid and her Executive Assistant, we should be leading from the front. Taking awkward decisions, meeting trouble and danger on your behalf, being the first to approach obstacles... well, you can see why we decided against that. No-brainer.

So then we played around with the "just bimble in and sit down" approach.  But when you did that, nobody every knew whether we'd really started, or whether we'd pick up the tea light, paper clip or sermon notes that we'd come to fetch and go back out again.

So I think we've really cracked it this time. We've put all the equipment in place, and relocated the Druidry Room to a mezzanine in the roof space of the Moot Hall. We're going to be lowered gently down straight onto our thrones while strapped into theatrical flying harnesses. That should combine simplicity, decorum and humility in equal measure. And it's going to be great fun, as well.

Easter Debunked

Over at Always Hope, Charlie Peer does a little debunking of the annual "Council bans Easter" story.  Which is always a seasonal twist on the "Council/Charity/Christian bans Christmas" stories. Although there was less on the "School bans Halloween" story.

And as I mentioned yesterday, we have had our annual "Easter isn't quite right" story from an under-qualified author, which again has its parallel in the "There was no Christmas donkey".

Well, to save you the trouble of trawling the Web looking for spurious debunking stories and dodgy claims made after daft research, here's a whole bunch of untrue stories about Easter. I can guarantee that these stories are completely false, and based on either bad research or none whatsoever. Now you can relax and enjoy Easter knowing it's been thoroughly debunked.

• Caiaphas was elected High Priest under the Alternative Vote system. If they had used First-past-the-post it would have been Joseph of Arimathea.

• Based on his red hair, Judas was probably Welsh.

• Pontius Pilate invented the Pilates system to help him relax after a hard day's haranguing hoi polloi

• Several of Jesus' disciples had a fig allergy, hence his opposition to the trees

• Due to the stupidity of human beings, the press will never run out of stories of people being cruel to animals at religious festivals.

• Contrary to popular belief there were only 12 disciples and no kangaroos at the Last Supper.

• Croydon Council has banned Easter eggs from all council meetings.

• The Hot Cross Bun originated as a food to be eaten from January to April.

• The Easter Bunny was originally the Easter Badger, based on Brockworth the Saxon god of blogging. But had to be changed to the Easter Rat due to tuberculosis fears. Unfortunately the Black Death put paid to that tradition, so they changed it to a rabbit. Then myxomatosis came along, and they gave up trying.

• You can date Easter by identifying the year when a total eclipse of the sun occurred at the same time as Passover¹ ,causing the darkness that fell over the earth.

• The word "Easter" comes from the same Anglo-Saxon root as the word "Easel". In East Anglia they used to dedicate all artistic equipment to the goddess Eostre. 

And don't forget - if 23 April falls in Holy Week, the Church moves St George's Day not Easter Day. One day the newspapers will notice, and denounce the Church as being unpatriotic, in thinking that the Resurrection of Our Lord is more important than being English. It could be this year and, if it is, you read it here first.

---

¹This is very bad science, religion and history.

Giving up for Lent - Day 42

Beaker Person	Giving up	Current state
Burton Dassett	Train Spotting	Groyne protecting
Young Keith	Smoking	Taken up the pipe - surely that's cheating?
Archdruid Eileen	Port	Forgotten that life was ever worth living.
Hnaef	Knitting	Laying carpet
Daphne Hnaef	Hnaef	Instructing Hnaef
Marston Moretaine	Fruit & Quiz Machines	Taken up Suduko
Mansfield Woodhouse	Watching Television	In the aquarium
Drayton Parslow	Nothing	Tanned and fit, yet strangely subdued.

Drayton Reflects

There are two gates at Butlin's in Skegness. The main gate is open all day and night. The little gate that opens onto the promenade shuts at 5. Which means that if, like Burton on Sunday, you go for a bike ride up the promenade to the Admiral Benbow, you get locked out and have to come round the camp to the front gate. Which makes me recollect.

When I was a child, I would walk with my parents to chapel. In the summer, when the ground was dry, my father and I would take the long way back across the meadow, while mother went home to start cooking Sunday lunch, and we would come in to the garden through the back gate. We lived in a long lane, and the rest of the meadow was fenced off, so this was the only way through. But sometimes, because I was growing up and headstrong and yet still not old enough to control my emotions, I would get into a mood with my father and go off and hide in the bushes and refuse to come home. You know how children are.

Of course, I would never stay there. As soon as I thought he had walked off ahead, I would creep along behind him, peeking through the undergrowth and trying to make sure he could not see me. And he would always try to act like he was not looking back - but I always knew he would. And then when he got to the back gate and went in, I would always have that lurking horror that he might lock the gate, and I would be consigned to retrace my steps, and take the two-mile walk back through the meadow - which could be quite scary to an eight-year-old - and up the lane round to the front of the house, and find when I got in, scared and tearful, that dinner would be cold.

And do you know, every time it happened, the gate was locked.

Home at last

It has been a long and wearisome journey home.

Burton was unable to push his folding cycle back to Skegness Station on account of his "groyne strain". And there are some areas where even the most dedicated of fundamentalist pastors refuse to lay on hands. So at Burton's insistence I cycled back to the station which giving him what I have always thought of as a "saddler", although he refers to it as a "backie". Although it was not all joy in the morning for Burton either. In order to get us both on the cycle I had to gaffer-tape the suitcases to his jacket. However sadly for Burton I was unable to unfasten him from the case, and he had a terrible time getting through train doors on the way home. And then the taxi driver informed me there was no way he could get "that prat in the suitcases" into his vehicular conveyance, and I had to cycle Burton and myself home. Surely the way is scary that leads from Ridgmont Station to Husborne Crawley - and fast are the cars that belt along it.

But surely I am home and delighted to see a wife who meets all the specifications in Proverbs 31.  Who demanded to know what I had been doing out with my "ungodly friends" and set me to work re-plastering the spare bedroom. It is a joy to be home!

Lead Codices and Wednesday Last Suppers

And so, conveniently timed for Easter, a metallurgist with a book to plug tells us that the Last Supper was on a Wednesday.

According to Prof Colin Humphreys, the day of the week of the Last Supper is "the thorniest problem in the Gospels". I would have said not. The Virginal Conception, the accounts and motives of Judas and the discrepancies between the accounts of the Resurrection are all thornier in my opinion, and all more likely to provide fruitful theological reflection. A little matter of dating is the least of my worries. And dragging in an obsolete lunar calendar seems about as unnecessary as arguing that the issue can be resolved by a simple matter of time-travelling. How very metallurgical to get so obsessive about something so minor.

The more usual resolution to the problem, if you're interested, is to say that for theological reasons John deliberately moves the date of the Crucifixion so that Jesus dies at the same time as the Passover Lambs. It fits in with the prevalent view of John as later, more reflective, more explicitly theological (because all the Gospels are the results of, among other things, deep theological reflection). However, as they say on the BBC, other excellent views are available. Some people date John quite early and regard him as more "historical" in the modern sense. And even to fret about such a thing as accurate dating is a product of a modern mind-set. For what it's worth, if you like both total consistency and simplicity, maybe they just had the Passover meal a day early at John Mark's house because Jesus knew he would be otherwise engaged the next day. Now you've just got to deal with the time at which the Crucifixion took place - 9 or 12.

Although there is an alternative, alternative view. It's worth pointing out that Marillion dated the Last Supper to Good Friday. An idea which, in my opinion, is totally Fugazi.

To be fair to Prof Humphreys, I've not read his book. So I'm on as much dodgy ground here as the people who criticized Love Wins last month. But, fairly or not, I'm drawing a straight line through last year's "Super-Sized last Supper" and 2008's "Judas and Pilate are innocent".

Far be it from me, with my degree in Quantum Chemistry and background in bar codes and health 'n' safety, to tell the Good Prof what to do. But if he's videogenic enough perhaps he could do a series with Professor Francesca? Or he could put  his metallurgic knowledge to some really good use and explain how those old codices, which according to the Daily Mail could be the sealed scrolls of Revelation¹, managed to go rusty, instead of the colour of lead or copper oxide. I'm just a Chemist and I'm sure they've aged the wrong colour.

So while I'm suggesting the solution to Biblical controversies this morning, I'd like to make my suggestion about the Jordanian codices. Based on the image at Wikipedia - I reckon they're the first generation of Nintendo DS. The one where the graphics weren't so good.

¹ Did they really write that?

Pulling mussels from the shell

I'm afraid, although I've had a smashing time, that the week at Spring Harvest finished badly.
Nothing to do with Spring Harvest, or Butlins. It was my own fault. I walked into Skegness to sample the Thatcher's Cheddar Valley at the Wetherspoons (6/10 - rather too acidic, possibly not the turnover this fine cider deserves). Still, good enough to try a couple of pints.

On the way back I thought I would jog along the beach. But I pulled a muscle when I tripped, trying to jump over a wooden breakwater on the beach.
Nothing too serious. Just a groyne strain.