Bonfire of the Straw Men - Health and Safety

OK. I know I said that we weren't going to have another Light Festival. But that was before this monumental cock-up happened.

In the sort of mix-up that could only happen if you rip off a joke from Spinal Tap, someone has designed the Corn Dollies in feet instead of inches. With the result that we have standing around the Big Field, a vast quantity of Straw Men. (For reasons that are obvious - ie they stand around being not much use and have a habit of falling over - I won't be complaining about the gendered language).

So instead of the Blessing of the Yuletide Merchandise that we had planned, we will instead have the Slaughter of the Straw Men.

I know that in common parlance you put up a Straw Man simply to knock it down, but where's the fun in that? So after you've each upended yours can you please drag it to the Place of Burning? I know I said no more fire-related activities this side of Blingtide, but we're going to have to do something.

But clearly this kind of straw-related activity has all sorts of dangers. So can you please ensure you comply with each of the following points that arose from the Risk Assessment we held instead of this morning's Pouring Out of Beakers.

1) Can those with fungal or hay-fever type allergies please wear appropriate masks or whole-body Chemical suits? We don't want to risk any sneezes.

2) Remember that some Straw Men have more weight than you imagine. So have a trial-push before you go for the full-on tip.

3) Can you leave the slack-jawed Straw Men standing? I'm impressed by the workmenship, and if we use a lime-based mortar on the outside we may be able to use them as totems.

4) We're in the middle of a ploughed field for this one, so please don't use any MHE without permission. Pallet trucks and tote lifters would be totally impractical. If you need assistance in pushing or tipping your Straw Man please wave your hi-viz round your head in an anti-clockwise direction. If clockwise, we will know you're drowning, not waving.

5) There is a 50 metre radius circle marked round the bonfire with hi viz spray paint. Do not cross into the Fire Zone wearing hi viz, as you may become part of the attraction. Simply draw the attention of the marshalls (like you're not going to draw their attention when you rock up with a twelve-foot Straw Man) who will transport it to the Pile.

6) Do not attempt to inhabit or enliven your Straw Man by climbing into it and running round the field chasing people. Some Beaker People are quite superstitious, and may assume the Straw Man has been possessed. And you may end up on the Pile yourself.

7) I'm afraid the Straw Men dedicated to "If we evolved from monkeys then why are there still monkeys around?" and "Everyone in the Old Days believed the world was flat" were very flimsy indeed. We had a gust of wind earlier and they've blown all over the field. So can the people who were assigned to these Men instead take the unpoured out Beakers and join the Bonfire Squad? With all these Straw Men to deal with there's going to be a lot of hot air about. 

What a Messiaen

There's nothing quite like a nice piece of music from scratch. Handel's Messiah in an afternoon, with the performance in the evening - brilliant fun. Not always a performance of the highest quality, but still worth listening to and a joyous time. Or likewise Stainer's Crucifixion. I know Hnaef regards it as a bad example of the sort of music that came out of the "Common" scene, but still - a bit of light practice and any choir with moderate voices can make a go of it.

So I was enthusiastic when they approached me for today's "Berlioz from Scratch". But to be honest, the Requiem in a Day was a bit of a disaster. The brass bands in particular - very badly-timed. Maybe we'll go for a performance of some nice Taizé next time.

Chavstapo

Now, don't get me wrong: I've got nothing against common people. I may be posh, myself, and I realise that, as a posh (read, "normal") person, there were some slight imbalances in social justice towards me. But this has gone too far.

Having forcibly – and understandably – rectified the Versailles-type injustices and humiliations foisted on the posh community, the UK's victorious Chavstapo are now on a roll. Their common-people-rights stormtroopers take no prisoners as they annex our wider culture, and hotel owners, registrars, magistrates, doctors, counsellors, and foster parents … find themselves crushed under the chintz jackboot.

Thanks especially to the green light from a permissive Beaker hierarchy, the common Wehrmacht is on its long march through the institutions and has already occupied the Sudetenland social uplands of the Beaker Folk, the educational establishment, the politically-correct hi-viz brigade. Following a plethora of equalities legislation, common people are now protected and privileged by class orientation regulations and have achieved legal equality by way of universal suffrage. But it's only 1938 and Nazi expansionist ambitions are far from sated.

I think we can all agree that this is just wrong, and ought to be remedied.

Note: I have been "pretty careful" to distinguish between the leadership of common rights groups and "ordinary common people".

Salt and Tea Light

A terrible piece of alt.worship today, as it turned out.

I'd based it on a programme I saw on BBC News the other day, where a bunch of Dutch worshippers were making devotional symbols - question marks, acorns, spirals, that sort of thing - on the floor of a blacked-out theatre.

I thought we can do that. So we switched off the visible lights in the Moot House, put on the UV. Then we switched the UV back off quick and got everyone divested of all their hi vis - caused some terrible spots before the eyes.

Now one problem was caused by me. See, it turns out the Dutch people had been using rice grains. And i'd assumed it was salt. Poor Burton has some nasty grazes from where he fell through that hedge the other day, and he ended up screaming.

So we excluded everyone with visible cuts on their hands, handed out lab glasses and carried on. Aelfride made herself a lovely labyrinth with the salt, but got into a panic when she realised she'd not left a way out. We had to lift her out in the end.

Morgwn just wrote out the word "Futility" in foot-high letters across the floor. So we're laying on some extra councilling. While Charlii drew a wide circle round herself and said if anyone crossed the line she'd not be responsible for her actions. Poor Charlii, she's having trouble learning to be suitably "vulnerable" in my opinion.

Still, the salt was the easiest alt.worship accessory we've ever had to clear away. We just set off the sprinklers for ten minutes and it had all gone. Though wellies will be required for a more aqueous than normal Filling-up of Beakers.

Denatured Worship

And so we move on to this morning's enlightening something spiritual with an illustration nobody else understands.
I've been thinking about the use of the word "feminisation" with respect to worship - in particular with respect to Vicky Beeching's post here. And decided that feminisation is possibly not such a good word to describe things like singing the chorus "Jesus is my boyfriend", holding hands in circles and lighting scented candles. And that's not because these things aren't utterly repellent to most males, particularly of a working-class background - because they are. They're not that pleasant to many females either - maybe it's just that our more subtle brains can better sublimate the experience of holding hands with someone who's added sweaty hands to their whole "just done 10 hours working on the fish counter" demeanour, into an experience of one-ness with the Communion of Saints. And, through more experience and better emotional intelligence, have more nuanced ways of dealing with someone whose hand-holding is - let us say - more friendly than holy.   Whereas for men the alternatives are limited to (a) frozen fear (b) instant recourse to violence or (c) inappropriate and possibly guilty pleasure.
But I'm straying from the point. Let me take you to the world of protein structures. Proteins are amazing things, as anyone who's spent the small hours of the morning looking at the trimeric symmetry of an influenza H2 protein can tell you.
It seems to me that protein structures can tell us a lot about worship. Loosely, there are four ways in which amino acids stick together. First up is the strong covalent bond which is born when the protein is first founded in the protein-forge of the cell. The long peptide chains fold into local three-dimensional structures such as helices - then the whole structure folds into four dimensions* as it buries the hydrophobic elements into the centre of the protein structure. And then single protein macromolecules can bind together into sheets and other super-structures.
I hope you can see how this all relates to worship.
Denaturing a protein happens when some external but not uber-aggressive agent - such as heat - breaks up the secondary, tertiary and quaternary structures and returns the protein to - more or less - a single chain. The original peptide bonds - the strong, proper chemical bonds - are still intact, but all the lovely three-dimensional structures, held together by the delicate tracery of hydrogen-bonding and the blobby, indistinct Van der Waals forces, is lost. You can denature a protein in the privacy of your own kitchen, simply by poaching an egg - see how the optical character of the "white" changes as the protein denatures!
So my proposal, gentle ones, is that modernistic, ocarina-playing, gooey-gushy worship is not feminised. It is denatured. The heat of individualism, the unnatural solution of modernism and the random radiation of post-modernism has broken down its secondary and higher structures . The relationship with God - the peptide link, if you will, of our worship - is still in place. But the super-structure of history, traditional Biblical interpretation, credal statements, the structure of the early liturgies, familial and social relationships and appropriate wearing of lovely lacy vestments is all lost. In such situations, there are still secondary linkages but they are chaotic and ad-hoc. All the shape we used to have is gone, and we are left with "oo God, you are great". Which is true, but lacking in real structure and substance.
And though poaching an egg makes it more digestible, there's no way anymore that it's going to produce chicken.
*I made the "four dimensions" stuff up to try and make molecular biophysics as interesting as proper physics. Although actually, being more complex, it's far more interesting. After all, it's not rocket science.

Another Marie Curie Joke

Of course, Marie and Pierre Curie were involved in the development of X-ray technology. Bad news when Pierre staggered back from the pub swearing blind he'd been working late. She could see right through him.

Invisible Forces

Google's doodle today celebrates the great scientist Marie Curie.

She and Pierre, her colleague and husband, first got to know each other through a shared interest in the powers of magnetism. Which I suppose goes to prove that magnetic Poles attract.

Martyrdom of Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Whose biography can be read here.

A man who died opposing slavery in Illinois.

We'll sing some spirituals, and reflect that today there are more slaves than ever before.

Stop the Traffik

Football

Two teams of fourteen-year-old lads are playing in an obscure lower division of a local league. One of the teams lost by ten goals last week, but it's not stopped them turning out again.
Even at this young age, many are suffering from the sacrifices they've made. Some have known broken bones, others just the bruises and aches that go with the territory. All will have felt the frost in their feet and fingers from playing in a January blizzard, or the strains of an all-day tournament under a July sun.

At this age the onset of puberty has played havoc with the idea of an average height. Some are already hulking six-footers; others are more of the beanpole variety while yet others are a full or more shorter. Yet those with littler legs are often quicker off the mark, and aggression can make up for the lack of inches.
And team spirit can make up for a bit lack of ability. A team that goes one down can pick itself up and fight.

But the team  that blames the goalie, where the backs scream at the midfield, where the prima-donna complains at his lack of service - that's the team that is lost already. And the team where the all-star super-hero is also the captain - leading the line, taking the corners, the free kicks, dragging himself out of position to do it all - that's a recipe for exhaustion and injury and heartbreak. But a team is built around knowing that mates don't let each other down.

It's not just a Sunday game. They don't just turn out one day a week and perform. The team that does well on Sunday is the one where everyone turned out and worked hard mid-week, or Saturday morning when the kids that aren't so good were being heroes on Call of Duty. And the lads that excel were up the gym mid-week, or pounding the streets. And if you want the week-in, week-out joy of being the best you can be, you need to stay clear of the booze and fags that are already tempting at this age.
So it's costly. It's a battle. It hurts. You have to drag yourself out of bed on a weekend morning. But the challenge, the shared experience, the common hopes, the shared vision - they're what make it worthwhile.  And a team that thinks like that, is a successful team. Win, or lose.

Third Before Bling

OK, after the Xmas-light-related fiascos of previous years, this year we're going to put some contol into our liturgical calendar. We've had Samhain and All Saints and All Souls and St Bonfire's Night. So now we're going to have a few weeks of quiet, calm, autumnal reflection before the light-festival of Advent kicks in. Or, to put it another way, no bling before December.

Tea lights are, as ever, usable for all services (they make Tenebrae particularly pretty, in my opinion - we really must hold another one sometime). But in the meantime we're going to be looking for moody, dim lighting. Liturgical colours this Autumn will mostly be earthy browns, ecrus and taupes - with maybe just a splash of hi-viz orange or yellow, for contrast and safety.

Jesus and the Apocryphal Apocalypse

Just a quick thought. And I may be missing the point here. Apparently according to the Jesus Seminar, Jesus didn't actually tell the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. We can know this because it's about the End Times. And Jesus didn't talk about the End Times. And the reason we know this is because all the stories about the End Times in the Gospels, weren't told by Jesus. Because he didn't talk about the End Times.

I'm probably missing something here, but it strikes me that the Jesus Seminar may have been just a teensy-weensy waste of time. Which is clearly true, because I just said it.