Ascension Day

As is traditional, we all climbed up on the roof of St Bogwulf's Chapel to celebrate Ascension Day. It wasnt't the most successful of worship experiences, in my opinion. I'm afraid that, when my venerable ancestors built the chapel, their "New Testament faith" led them to neglect the Old Testament advice to put parapets around the roof. Still, the good news is that Burton's fall was cushioned by a conveniently placed bramble patch. The bad news is, we have no idea how we're gonna get him out.

Beating the Bounds, our other Ascension tradition, is of course the survival of the ancient Beaker Folk celebration of "Yewkip". We prowl the boundaries of the Community, armed with pointy sticks, and throw anyone we don't recognise into the brook. At the end of our circumperambulation, the leader has to say they're resigning, and then threatens the other Beaker Folk of the consequences if they are not immediately reappointed. In former days, the ceremony reflected the mystic role of the leader as the one whose connctedness to the World gave meaning to the Community itself - her existence in that role imputing meaning and vitality to the people under her charge. Hence the ancient declaration, "You're nothing without me!"

So now we settle down to that second hiatus in Jesus' presence - another liturgical space, less terrifying but just as profound as Easter Saturday. Jesus has gone - again - to reappear in another way - again - at Pentecost. The profound question of what the people of God do without God's presence, what the Church would be without the Spirit, can be answered by seeing the actions of the disciples in this waiting time. 

They realised they had a vacancy on their Church Committee, and elected Matthias. And so, in memory or this, we dedicate this time until White Sunday to Church admin, Moot elections and discussions about what wattage the bulb should be in the gents' toilets. At the Beaker Folk, we slot all this kind of stuff into this ten day period. After all, imagine what it would be like if this were the main focus of the Church all year round.

A Thanksgiving for Ascension

We give you thanks and praise because you sent your Son, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, into the mess and poverty of this beautiful yet scarred world, to be born, the son of a Jewish girl and step-son of a man who worked with his hands. He grew up with family and friends, and except for his total obedience to your will, he was just like us.

But his love for you, and for the poor and outcast, meant he was too good for the powers of this world. So he was rejected, beaten, and lifted on a cross to die.

But in your love and the power of the Spirit, you lifted him even higher. After diving to the depths of the dead, he was raised to life and then lifted into the heavens.

And now, at your right hand, carrying the scars of our sin and the weaknesses of our humanity, yet shining with the glory of heaven - he is our eternal witness in heaven. He pleads for us with his Father, and breathes out his Spirit to fill us with  love, hope, and an ache for heaven. A human being sits on the holiest throne, joined to us by flesh and blood. Calling us his sisters and brothers, he has made us members of the heavenly Kingdom, and calls us to be his family, and eat with him in his kingdom forever.

David Cameron - Everyone's Big Brother

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'," says David Cameron.

Yes. The bit where the State leaves you alone if you keep the law is kind of fundamental to freedom and democracy. If you want powers to stop people inciting violence - well I think they already exist. If you go past that, you're into ThoughtCrime.

Some governments like to get their tax rises in early in their administration. Looks like David Cameron wants to get the stupid in early.

Three Un-backed-up Assertions on Martyrdom

A secular blogger, Ananta Bijoy Das , has been hacked to death in Bangladesh.

He is as much as a martyr as Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist martyrs.

 And the people who killed him are as guilty of innocent blood as Cain, Stalin, a fair chunk of the members of the Inquisition, and Henry VIII.

To kill somebody because you don't agree them means that you think their ideas are stronger than your ideas. Because if they weren't, you'd have reasoned with them instead of killing them.

That's it, actually.

Kitten Church

What a relief, now that the Election is over, that we can forget about politics for a few years and get back to some serious religion!

It's a hard life for many people. Lots have to depend on food banks. And they're not all providing the social services it's claimed.  I gave our local one a cake last year. But when I called round yesterday to check my account, they said I'd not got any interest. I know rates are low, but surely I must've earned at least a doughnut by now.

Anyway. With the need, misery and general hardship in this Vale of Tears, I figured we needed something spiritual but uplifting. So the Festival of Kittens came about.

Obviously we projected images of hundreds of kittens on the Wonderwall of Worship. Obviously.

But it was during the singing of "If I were a Butterfly" that we really turned on the worship. We released two dozen kittens into the Moot House. All specially-btef delightful colours, with sparkles in their ears. Young Keith has spent six years genetically modifying to get a lime green kitten. Unfortunately, they're ferocious and all that when they grow up,  and we have to set them loose in Woburn. But they look lovely when they are young.

And then the angel kittens dropping from the ceiling!  It took Branwen ages to glue those wings on. So she had to miss the service as she was awaiting her tetanus jab. Nasty business. But worth it for the rest of us.

So we were singing "Build your Kitten Here", and everyone was throwing catnip balls around for the kittens to chase. And I realised that this is what religion is all about. Having nice thoughts in a kitten-filled environment. In many ways, if you want to enter the Kingdom, you've got to be like a kitten. Fluffy, inoffensive, simple-minded. And, underneath it all, a ferocious predator after the taste of blood.

Looking for Shy Tories?

"Young Conservatives In Fancy Dress". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikipedia 

Looking for Shy Tories in your area?

Hard to find, aren't they?

And yet the Shy Tory of your dreams may be just around the corner.

Talk to Shy Tories YOU want to know.

Please hang up now if you're under 18, not a Tory, or Hugo Rifkind.

Wear, it's Tat

Amazing scenes at the Vincenza Religious Ware (and./or Wear) festival.

I'm tempted to take Drayton Parslow over there, just to see if he'd be left hyperventilating in the foetal position on the floor. Everything the well-dressed priest could want. Including, I suspect, the blackest black priest's socks, beside which all other black socks are actually very, very, very dark blue.

I'm a little concerned by the concept of a "life-size" Mary. After all, we're told nowhere in the Bible how tall Our Lady was. On the basis that the low will be lifted up, she might have been a statuesque 6'4". Or she might have been diminutive even for a malnourished time. We are not told. So any "life-size" Our Lady is surely subject to some kind of legal challenge.

The LED, coin-operated candles are where my heart is at. Fire-safe (especially relevant at the rate we burn the Moot House down), environmentally friendly, and above all you don't get people dropping 5p in the box when the (strictly advisory) contribution is 50p. And if you set the timer for an hour, there's none of this people not being able to light a tea light because the stand's full. There will always be the chance to contribute. I mean say a prayer.

How Could the Outcome of the Election Have Been so Wrong?

An external enquiry has been ordered into the results of the General Election. Many on the "Progressive" wing, whatever that means, are determined to find out how the wrong outcome was obtained, despite the efforts of the media (Steve Coogan and Russell Brand) to influence it. Indeed, many believe that, in fact, the opinion polls were right and it was the election itself that was wrong.

"We know that the average margin of error of a poll is +/- 3 percent," said somebody who knows what the result should have been, "and therefore we can see that if Ukip and the Conservatives had won 3% less each, and Labour and the LibDems 3% more, we would now have Ed Miliband locked outside No 10 Downing Street trying to remember where he'd left the key, while Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper were wondering what to do with an 8 foot stone slab they've been given as a victory present."

"Gordon? It's Giles. Please can I take
this mind-control earpiece off now?"

Many are suggesting that getting the wrong result was due to so-called "Shy Tories", people who insisted on making their vote in secret booths rather than taking Selfies of themselves with their filled-in ballot paper with an X against "A B'Stard, Conservative".  While Giles Fraser is quite clear. The problem is democracy itself. Democracy is for liberal, over-educated vicars in South London. Not for nasty people, or people who think - against all Giles's clear-thinking reason - that the Conservatives might be good for themselves or the nation. How could they think that? Giles does not go so far as to specify that a public school education or a belief in the three-author theory of Isaiah should be a necessary prerequisite for voting. But you can tell that is the way to go.

 So it's clear. It's not that the opinion polls were wrong. The actual General Election had the wrong result. Polly Toynbee says so. Dame Shirley Williams was quite clear on "Question Time" that the electorate is not good enough for the Liberal Democrats. Giles Fraser is ashamed to be English. We've let the progressives down. We've let the people of Hampstead down. We've let Brian May, Prof Stephen Hawking and Steve Coogan  down. And we've let ourselves down. If we can't come up with the right answer, we don't deserve democracy.

Champagne All Round!

I see that, in the wake of the election result, this image is going round again.

It's an image that sums up all that is wrong, for some people, in the result. The haves and the have nots. The SNP supporter drinking Irn Bru for breakfast, the Chancellor having Moet delivered to his door ready for a proper victory party.

The Chancellor, the implication is, should be ashamed to be celebrating this way when "austerity" is his very own watchword. It's a powerful image.

Indeed, it's a very powerful image. So powerful that people have been using it on Social Media for years. You can tell it's not an image from 2015 by the Cybus Industries bluetooth earphone. So it's not from 2015.

It's not even from 2010.

It's from 2004.  When Gordon Brown was Chancellor.

Anyway, it's clearly not from a Tory party celebration. There's no way you'd catch Osborne and Cameron celebrating with anything as common as Moet.

Elections and Re-elections

So good news. After taking a time of reflection and relaxation, I realised that my perfect replacement as Archdruid is me. So having put in my nomination and been duly elected by the Electoral College, I'm looking forward to the next steps forward in the Beaker Movement.

The first Beaker Movement being to find some people to take that stone slab off Burton's foot. Because I resigned so soon after his accident, there was nobody to give any instructions on its removal. That's the trouble with followers. They ain't all that without leaders.

Speaking of elections, I notice that many people, now their preferred party have not won the election, are starting to talk about unfair electoral systems, and suggesting that, if only they had the sort of electoral system that would generate the results they wanted, things would have been better. This is the sort of forward-thinking that has been adopted by, among others, Zimbabwe, the Soviet Union and the former mayor of Tower Hamlets.

Well, I see their point. And I reckon that ultimately the fairest method is  true Proportional Representation system. On which basis I will point out that the most efficient way to get more than 50% in Thursday's election would be Tory + UKIP + DUP.

Obviously, this might not meet with universal approval from the other 49% of people. And of course they would mostly be "progressive", and therefore believe they had the right to be in charge. The Electoral Reform bods seem to have a cunning method whereby, whatever you do, you end up with a social democratic coalition. Well, it's an idea. I guess the only way to decide what to do, in the end, is vote on it. If only we could agree on the voting system.

Offering My Resignation

It was a freak accident this afternoon. Burton Dasset tripped over the 8 foot high stone slab that I had picked up cheap this lunchtime, and has been diagnosed with a broken big toe.

I do take full responsibility for my negligence in this affair, and offer my resignation forthwith as Archdruid of Husborne Crawley.

I will now withdraw into the Retreat Yurt for a period of reflection.