The Order of St Michael

The Beaker Folk have always been fond of the old chorus "As the Deer Pants for the Water". It's gentle, it's meditative and it segues beautifully into "Streets of London".

But some disrespectful types have always referred to it, in a quite unfair reference to the retailer's pricing policy, as "The Marks & Spencer Song".

But imagine our surprise and joy when, googling for lyrics, we found a version,  "Just as the Deer Pants", written by Mark Spencer.

There are three possibilities here:
1. "Mark Spencer" is a comedy genius
2. This is proof of the existence of God
3. Both of the above.

Scientific Non-Sequitur of the Week

Dear BBC

Re: this paragraph in your otherwise quite interesting article on heat pumps.

"The selling point was simple - while other companies were using hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) - a potent greenhouse gas that is being banned by the EU - as the coolant, Star proposed using ammonia, which contains no carbon."

You see, you know what you have done there?  You've seen the word "carbon" and assumed that makes things greenhouse gases. Water vapour is a greenhouse gas yet is remarkably low in carbon. Next time you put science in a business story, why not ask a scientist?

A Lament on Going Out of the Cricket World Cup Again

Oh how the Aussies Laugh
And even the Irish snigger into their Guinness.
For once again we are cast low
Even unto scrapping for last place with Afghanistan.

Tell it not in Adeleide
Publish it not in Melbourne.

All day long the Aussies put on their sun block
And make their mouths wide to drink their taste-free yellow beer.
Fair dinkum! They shout. It is like unto the days of Shane
Or even the Don.

Consider the Lillee of the field.
He used to thrash us Poms as well.
If it were the Aussies, or the Windies in their prime -
When Whispering Death swept o'er the grass
And Joel Garner rained down thunder from on high -
Then we could have understood it.

But this is too hard for us.
We have been skittled by the quickies of Bangladesh.
Our pace men have been blunted
And our captain has thrown away his wicket like the Assyrians threw away their armour before the Babylonians.

And so we shall raise a lament
And let our tears flow like the Murray, Darling.
And we shall wail that we got rid of KP
And forget that he was an unreliable preening child.
And sack the coach
And the manager
And the selectors
And the ECB board.
We shall demand a reform, both of root and branch.
Especially Root.
And we shall build for the future.
And in four years
We shall do it all again.

Liturgy of "Just Having a Word"

Archdruid:

Sorry we're starting a bit late. I was in the Moot House vestry when Hnaef said to me, could he just have a word about the guttering. And then he spent five minutes talking about the moss in the north side gutter. And then as I was looking for my pointy hat, Dranewort came in and said could he just have a word about this July's fete. And although it could have waited till later, he was there and had my attention by then and what can you do? And then the tea light went out and there were no matches and while Charlii was looking for a lighter, Rodrick wandered through and started asking me about the doily rota. When Rodrick went out, Marston came up and said could I just pray for his uncle's elbow. There's not actually anything wrong with his uncle's elbow,  but Marston is hoping that if people keep praying for it then it will stay that way. Then Burton Dasset came in and said could I please just highlight everything on the notice sheet, as it's really important. And I said, "Is there anything in particular you're worried people won't read, what with it being printed on the notice sheet and projected on the overhead and uploaded on the Facebook page and pinned to the notice board and included in the back page of the Beaker magazine and tattooed on the foreheads of all the stewards. What are you worried we  might miss, Burton?" And he said, no nothing. He just wouldn't like anyone to miss out. And then Britnie came in and said could she borrow the goat to mow the lawn and I said obviously. And then Bridworth nipped in and asked if he could just have a word about putting up a notice advertising the Beetle Drive? And I pointed out it's on the notice sheet and the overhead and the Facebook page etc etc etc and he said yes, but it was a bit of a failure last year, what with it being a bit crap, and could I push it a bit? And then I came out and said a prayer with the Quire but they were faffing around with their outfits and I had to wait while Brignock found an Eb reed for a G# serpent. And now I've finally got here. So thanks for your patience. So let's go..... Go in peace, to make a difference in your world.

All:

Thank you and goodnight.

Dead White Men

All this running-down of "dead white men" confuses me. I mean I wouldn't want to disparage the work of other people in other arts. The arts are what turns a scientific world into real life. But producing all those poems, plays and works of art when you're dead is surely a real achievement?

Ed Miliband, you're drunk. Go Home.

Your plan to bring in a law to make people appear on televised debates is opportunist (and we use this word in its loosest possible context) drivel.

And we're sorry about your balloon. But no, we don't know who stole it.

Ed Miliband demands to know who stole his balloon

All Age Worship Descends into Pizzapocalypse

This evening's events are barely over before they have acquired the nickname "Pizzapocalypse". Today's all-age spontaneous worship perhaps was more - ahem - spontaneous than we expected.

We like to make the monthly Beaker Saturday Evening get-together, "Eileen and Hnaef's Saturday Takeaway" as all-age-friendly as possible. Which basically means we supply sweet tubs from the local Cash & Carry and hope the kids will leave us alone while we read Luther's Commentary on the Book of Romans, or "Fiona Phillips's Guide to 10 Really Nice Famous People I know", or "Sheepish Spirituality - Engaging with the World for Total Cowards" or whatever we're on this time.  But this month we unfortunately got the mixture of sweets a bit wrong, with a preponderance to the blue.

Dunno what it is with the blue sweets and the children's group. I don't believe they still contain dire and unwise colourants. But then, thinking about it, what is naturally blue? We'd be safer with orange sweets. At least we know it's the natural colour of something. David Dickinson for starters. Anyway.  Twenty "Little Pebbles" were let off the leash for the "quiet worship time". Which included a rendering in seven part harmony of a nose-flute arrangement of "Make me a Channel of Your Peace." And some fool said to the kids that it was OK to join in, using the assortment of instruments in "The Music Box".

Four ocarinas, a dozen tambourines, some vuvuzelas and several sets of maracas. You couldn't hear the nose flutes. Not even the bass. So Grimwald, very annoyed, ran over and did the one thing you really shouldn't do in a church service. He shouted at a child.

Now, you shouldn't shout at children in church for lots of reasons. Firstly because they are a better representation of the Kingdom than the rest of us. Secondly because it's you who are always automatically in the wrong when you use power against innocence. Thirdly because you look like a bully. Fourthly because you're just adding to the noise.

But mostly because little Kitti is a fierce young creature of seven summers. She has absorbed the lessons in women's equality and struggling for your rights that Daphne Hnaef has instilled in her. And her family comes from Bletchley. In short, she's not one to take any crap, as I believe the expression is.

And the final reason why Grimwald shouldn't have shouted at Kikki was, he still had his nose flute in place.

The actual damage to Grimwald's physiognomy was obscured at the time as half a dozen of the Little Pebbles discovered the stack of pizzas that Charllii was removing from the oven ready for our tea. Hyped up on blue colourant, and with the blood lust up after Kitti's defeat of Grimwald, there were pretty soon pizzas flying like Frisbees. The deep pan aren't so bad - at least they're fairly doughy. But the thin crust can give a nast welt in the skin, I can tell you. I've spent the last ten minutes dabbing iodine on Burton Dasset. He hadn't been cut, it just cheers me up to hear him screaming.

Anyway. Eventually the Moot House was knee deep in dough and tomato sauce, and smelling strongly of oregano. We had to switch on the sprinkler system to clear the place of rioting kids, and wash away the fragments of Mediterranean cuisine.

Hnaef's just texted back from the hospital.  Grimwald's ability to "see" the sounds around him as colours is starting to fade.They're hopeful that the flute will come out in one piece. But they're not sure it will ever be playable again. At any rate, nobody else will want to borrow it. And we've agreed that next time we have an All Age act of worship, we're going to put the children's work in another building. Or, ideally, on another planet.

The Clearing of the Temple - What the Papers Said

The Mail - Unemployed Immigrant Preacher Sparks Riot

The Mirror - "My friend Jesus, the Gentle Socialist" says Fiona Phillips

The Times - Currency crisis as Temple Shekel comes under attack

The Express - Killer Summer of Fire and Brimstone Forecast

The Sun - "Cut benefits of idle scroungers like my sister" says Martha of Bethany

Catholic Herald - "Last Supper should be in Latin" - Damian Thompson

The Telegraph - HSBC nothing to do with Shekel rate-fixing row

The Guardian - "Why I'm quitting as Temple Doorkeeper" - Giles Fraser

On the Threshing Floor of Araunah the Jebusite

"Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David." (2 Chron 3)

It all began when King David wanted to ensure he got the Temple off to a good start. And he remembered a piece of land that he'd bought. 

The land was the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite - not an Israellite, not a Jew. One of the people who'd lived in Jerusalem before the Hebrews moved in. And when I say moved in, i do of course mean "exceeded the government's annual immigration targets". Though the Jebusites were clever, and tricked themselves a treaty of safety. Didn't stop the Jews taking over that part of the promised land, or David deciding it was a good place for a capital. But still. Clearly Araunah still has property rights. And here is the important bit - David, who has a fairly flexible attitude to whose wife is whose, is better at respecting the Ten Commandments when it's a piece of land.

The threshing floor was where the plague stopped, when David had unexpectedly provoked God's wrath by holding a census. When David wanted to buy it to build his altar, Araunah offers him it for nothing - David was after all the conquering king. But importantly David offers a fair price, and gets the land.This was the point where David built an altar to God - and the plague stopped. It was also the place, centuries earlier, when it had been a wild place, where Abraham had built an altar, and gone to sacrifice Isaac, and at the last moment God had provided a ram. So it's a place where people are reconciled to God. And it's a place where things are exchanged at a fair price. And a place of threshing.

There are a few ways of threshing. The bigger-scale method, before industrialisation, was to get an ox to drag a board or sledge around over a great pile of harvested cereal crops. You spread the sheaves out, and drag the board across, and it breaks the hard grains out from the stalks and the chaff. Then you throw the chaff and the grain up and the chaff blows away, and the grain falls down and you gather it up. The smaller-scale method is to use a flail - basically, a strong handle with one or more wooden sticks attached - and you whip the crop to knock the grains out.

Is this what Jesus is doing when he clears the temple? He throws the tables over and he whips the tradespeople. He's in the precincts of the temple. On the threshing floor of Araunah. A place that was bought at a fair price. A place where deals should be fair and God's free gifts should be celebrated. But these money changers - they're distorting both of those. The temple authorities are licensing the livestock traders to sell at a profit, and the money changers are the people providing the smoke and mirrors that mean that the animals you buy, cost far more than they would at a normal market.

These pilgrims are from all over the Judean countryside and Galilee. Some have come across the Roman Empire as their once in a lifetime journey to the Holy Land - to Jerusalem - the place where God's Name dwells. And when they get there, they're being ripped off. It's a bit like going to a theme park - and you might have driven across half the country to get there, might have gone to France or flown to America. And you know the price of soft drinks - about 50p a can in a supermarket. But now you're inside the heavenly precincts of Itchy and Scratchy Land, and you discover that, on a volume for volume basis, it would be cheaper to buy the nectar of the gods than a fizzy drink. But you're in there now and the kids are thirsty. So what to do? You inwardly make supplication to the little fierce god of credit card bills, and you buy the drink.

And so for the pilgrims. They know they're being ripped off. The money changers and the merchants know they're ripping them off. But they're in the Temple now. And they suspect that maybe these sheep, these doves, maybe they are better quality - surely they must be, or why else would the priests allow them to be sold there? And they've been wanting some of thoseTemple shekels - even though they're not legal currency outside the Temple gates - as a souvenir. So they grit their teeth and they pay through the nose and they get their hideously over-priced pair of pigeons and they go in to get them sacrificed. It's not that there was anything wrong with people selling them the animals for sacrifice - if you're going to journey to Jerusalem from Rome or Corinth or even Lyons you're hardly gonna bring your sheep with you - it was the ripping off. That's what was wrong. 

And as all this is going on - the clanging and shouting, scared bleating and money chinking that makes up the sounds of the House of Prayer - the One arrives who, for a short time, is going to return that place to its original use. He throws the tables. When I was young I played the part of one of the characters in the Temple precincts when Jesus turned up. And young Eamonn was playing Jesus. And he used to throw the school tables across the stage which was our Temple. Over a one-week run of our Mystery Play-Lite, he broke three tables. It is a fearful thing to have a table thrown at you.

And then Jesus thrashes on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. He drives the chaff off from the grain. He chases the shysters out of the temple gates. He is the thresher that John the Baptist predicted - all the way back at the start of their ministry: "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Maybe he's enacting the words of Isaiah 27: "On that day the Lord will thresh from the channel of the Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you will be gathered one by one, O people of Israel." Just for a moment - just for that period of time - the Temple is a threshing floor again, and the people are threshed by God, and the place is clean, and a place which is founded on paying a fair price.

But before it was a temple, before it was a threshing floor, it had been a wild place. A place where a man, driven by terror of the place and his Aweful Lord, reached out his hand to sacrifice his son. It was the place where, to show his mercy, the Lord provided an alternative. On that occasion it was a sheep, a ram caught by the horns. In turning back the Temple to the threshing floor, Jesus has only set the clock back halfway.

The authorities are livid. Their shame has been exposed. Their scam has - if only for today - been overturned. People will remember the angry young preacher who made such a prophetic sign today. People will talk. Maybe they'll wonder if it's right, that pilgrims be ripped off like this. Is it what the Lord wants, that people should be ripped-off and cheated to buy peace with God? 

The priests and rulers are going to get their revenge.

But God knows that there is an alternative. God provided an alternative before. God can offer a free way into his presence, into the right place before him - but one bought at a terrible cost to Godself, not just a ram this time. God can pass judgement on a human world of cheating and thieving, of people having access to God's presence limited and mediated. As the Temple is cleared and the dust settles and the show is over, and the holy coins lay on the ground and people scurry off to hide or report the news, and the animals and birds lay or stand tethered in their panic, the Lamb of God stands in the middle of the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. He's threshed the Temple. Now to go all the way back - and all the way to the end - and make the one true sacrifice.

 

Conjugating Electoral Absence

I empty chair
You are a weak leader
He/She ducks and weaves

We discuss logistics at our convenience
You go head-to-head
They are disappointed by the broadcasters

Board of Spiritual Directors: Organisation Chart