Liturgy for a "Technical Error" Hitting the BBC Website

Archdruid: A "technical error" has struck the BBC website.

Techie: A "technical error?"

Archdruid: 'swhat it says...

All: But what kind of technical error?

Archdruid: Dunno.

Techie: A bandwidth issue?

Archdruid: Dunno.

Techie: DNS problem?

Archdruid: Dunno.

Techie: Catastrophic disk failure exposing a lack of disaster recovery, failover and Business Continuity Planning?

Archdruid: Dunno.

Techie: Routine issue when everyone technically qualified was off on holiday?

Archdruid: Dunno.

Drayton Parslow: Divine judgement on Giles Fraser's latest "Thought for the Day?"

Archdruid: Dunno.

Techie: Flooding due to Storm Frank?

Archdruid: Dunno.

Techie: An infestation of badgers?

Archdruid: Dunno.

All: BADGERS? Aaaaagh!

Lamentation for the lack of a BBC website

All: Behold for the BBC website is down. Our lives will be dull and meaningless henceforth.
Where now will we get our news? In vain we go to the Guardian, but Polly Tonbee is there. The Telegraph leans too far to the right. The Mail has a sidebar of shame whereof one may find pictures of the members of the tribe of Kar-Dash-Ian. The Express has weather panics and new evidence regarding Lady Di. And who reads the Indy? The End Times must even now be upon us - for is it not the last day of 2015? We will now go blinking into the daylight, wondering the question that could easily be on the BBC website if it were not down.

Archdruid: Has the BBC website outage been caused by Martians?

Turning Down the OBE

Once again I have had to turn down the OBE for services to religion.

I should stress that this rejection is strictly on moral grounds. If the following small demands are accepted I will be happy to accept next time:

• Elimination of the use of pit ponies
• Thomas Hardy finally to get the Poet Laureate he so richly deserves
• An end to the Vietnam war
• Repeal of the Test Acts
• Jeremy Corbyn to be allowed to join the Privy Council
• Disestablishment of the Baptist Union
• More tea lights on the Daily Service on Radio 4
• Recognition that the First Order is a terrorist organisation
• Test Cricket to be on BBC
• Richard Dawkins to be made a Canon of St Paul's Cathedral

I think these are all pretty reasonable. Come on, Your Majesty - sort this out and we can make this happen!

On a Wing and a Prayer

Liturgical news. And it seems a priest in the Philippines has been suspended after riding around his church on a so-called hoverboard, singing a Christmas song to the congregation on Christmas Eve. I reckon he was lucky to get away with a suspension, as the danger of it igniting mid-blessing was apparently fairly high. And there's nothing quite says "Christmas" like a priest exploding as he glides down the nave. Beats an illuminated reindeer.

We've offered him a post as cantor at the Beaker Folk. It may take him a while to get used to the switch from a hoverboard to Heelys®, and Jim Reeves songs are a bit old hat for us, but I think he'll realise he'll be a lot safer. However, we have a lot of competition. The Church of England Liturgical Commission is after him, as well, for their new publication, "Bandwagons and Seasons". The Methodists are reckoning that exploding, mobile worship is surely the Fresh Expression that will finally make a difference.  And it's only a matter of time till Pope Francis - fresh from having a hurricane named after him - realises this priest is The Spirit of Vatican II and gives him his own diocese. That's if he doesn't make it on Manila's Got Talent.

A Wesleyan, Maryan Hymn

Behold the servant of the Lord!
I wait Thy guiding eye to feel,
To hear and keep Thy every word,
To prove and do Thy perfect will,
Joyful from my own works to cease,
Glad to fulfil all righteousness.

Me if Thy grace vouchsafe to use,
Meanest of all Thy creatures me,
The deed, the time, the manner choose;
Let all my fruit be found of Thee;
Let all my works in Thee be wrought,
By Thee to full perfection brought!


Charles Wesley, 1749

Audience / Congregation / Worship

A couple of posts on the subject of worship, and congregational involvement therein.

"Your Excellent Worship Isn't" from John Branyan complaining about bands playing too much, too well, for the congregation.

And Counter-Cultural Father reflects on the view reflected in specific hymnals as to whether hymns should be easy for congregations to sing or artisically better even if they're a bit higher. I especially appreciate Ben Trovato's comment:

"Trotman seems to me, here, to be exemplifying that exultation of participation (in a particular sense) over quality that I frequently lament."

But what neither really does is tell us the answer to the important question - what does God really want? So it's lucky I'm here, I reckon.

We at the Beaker Folk go through phases. When we decided that excellence in worship was important, we took a few key steps. First up, we noticed that the Beaker Congregation were tending to bring the quality down - turning up late, trying out their own harmonies, bringing their own instruments, failing to hit high Gs - we dealt with the issue by banning them from the Moot House, and streaming worship events to their rooms by cable.

Unfortunately  we in the Worship Executive could now hear the Quire without their contribution being mudditimry the congregation. Recognising that the Beaker Quire were the new weakest link, we replaced them with worship CDs.

This now meant that Beaker Worship consisted of Hnaef and I exchanging liturgical responses, interspersed by Matt German. On the bright side, the Peace was taking less time to exchange. But on the other hand, without the voices of the other Beaker Folk, I was becoming increasingly aware that Hnaef's tones are really pretty posh. And when you're just two druids streaming your worship to a congregation that you've banned because they're low quality, the last thing you want to do is appear elitist.

So there was nothing for it. Hnaef has to go. Which meant so did the responsive liturgy. Beaker Worship became basically me wandering around the Moot House, lighting tea lights, to a backing of the Rend Collective.

At which somebody read a bit of 1 Corinthians 14:

"When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up."

And we agreed we needed to change. We went with Paul's advice for everyone to bring their own worship contribution.

Maybe we shouldn't have taken that to mean "each one" every time. Sometimes the services lasted six or seven hours, and we would have to have dinner sent in to keep us all going.

So we have now adopted the following rules:

1. Worship is to be the combined effort of the people of God. In theory we should use dodgy translations of the word "liturgy" to underpin this. But in practice we include some silence, some responsive prayer, and no song is allowed to go above an E, or have a bridge that nobody is expecting.
2. The Quire is encouraged to be good enough to lead, but not so good that anyone is ever tempted to introduce a solo during a congregational song.
3. Percussion instruments are handed out for the last hymn only, with the advice that "we have a lively song to finish".
4. Nobody who is convinced the Spirit will give them inspiration during the service is allowed to preach - or to play the organ without first learning the instrument.
5. Anybody who says " of course, the group is better at "Hillsong"" will have an ocarina thrown at them.
6. This is the only valid use of an ocarina.
7. Except if the worship leader says "and now just the ladies, this verse".
8. Song sheets are better than data projectors if there is a power cut. If it's dark, you can light more tea lights.
9. The organ was a modern instrument once 
10. Sometimes worship can be just listening or silence. 
11. If all inspiration fails, use pebbles.
12. Or tea lights. They're good as well.
13. The first aim of a human is to love and worship God forever. If our aim is for our quality to be good enough for God, we'll be practising forever instead. God has millions of angels singing the Hallelujah Chorus at any one point. Yet that does not mean that a 3-year-old on a kazoo will not be heard. Indeed, that kazoo will be the lead instrument.

Feast of Holy Innocents - Power Under Pressure

Christmas is all about children, right?

We're not told how many babies were killed as a result of Herod's instructions to kill the Holy Innocents. Probably not a genocide - Bethlehem was too small a place, and the age and gender of the victims were carefully specified.

The odd thing is that Herod is almost a postscript in our post-modern view of this reading. We home in on other details - why did God not warn the parents of the other kids to flee? Or - given the angel tipped the wink to him - why did Joseph not tell the neighbours? Was he so scared he just up and fled? Did he shout to them all to run? Did some not leave because, unlike Joseph and Mary, they were not already strangers in a strange town? Did the locals not trust this man with a Galilean accent, who hung out with shepherds and foreigners and whose child had an odd back-story?

We who have had theological training, of course, have read books. And those books have told us that none of this is true. No Virgin Birth, no Bethlehem manger, no journey to Egypt, no massacre of the Innocents - just a quiet upbringing in Nazareth.

Well I don't believe everything I believe in books. And certainly not those kinds of books. If Matthew is telling us that Jesus is the new Moses - fleeing a slaughter of Jewish babies at the hands of a tyrant, running to and then back from Egypt - then I'm going to listen to Matthew. Because maybe what it really means is that what Moses did was the shadow that Jesus cast, when Moses spoke to God face to face.

This is a story of human power, and the lengths men - nearly always men - will go to, to get it. Herod, the puppet king. He's sold out to the Romans and he's got his throne, but he's terrified. He's so scared of being deposed that he has killed his sons, one of his many wives, and his mother in-law. To keep his friends he raises money for Rome, and starts rebuilding the Temple for the Jews - that rebuilding that only lasted for a few decades. He is surrounded on all sides by enemies - some real, some imaginary, some that have been made his enemies by his imagining.

This scared minion hears a rumour from passing astrologers that there's a new rival around. He's just down the road, in the place David came from, and it's said he's decended from David himself. Herod on the other hand - he's half Edomite. There's no question where this would go if it were a question of kingly legitimacy.

Power under pressure always strikes out. Like Pharaoh before him - like so many Caesars and bullies to come - Herod decides that, if anyone is going to pay, it had better be the weak. And so he strikes.

Justin Welby has referred to ISIL as the Herod of our times. And I can understand that. Especially after Al Baghdadi's latest tape. Assuming the mass-murdering rapist is genuinely still alive, I wonder whether they only issue audio recordings these days because he's being held together with sticky tape.  Power under pressure. A random call to arms. Maybe, like Herod, he can feel the threats around him - the fear that if the Americans or Russians don't get him, and he doesn't get caught by the Kurds, that even the people around him can't be trusted. Maybe he's already being held somewhere quiet, by the bloke who's really in charge, being told what to say.

Power under pressure strikes out, and the innocent suffer. The weak always do. The Holy Innocents die now. But when Herod dies - having killed so many he loved, as well as those he doesn't - will he feel the sacrifice is worth it? His life is long by the standards of a Roman Empire puppet king - but will he look at the ruins of his family and wonder why he chose power?

That evil empire, the Romans, and Herod's cronies, the Priests will get the Christ-child in the end. They have to - unjust power hates innocence. And like Herod, the Priests are under threat from One who can rightly claim their titles. And the One who could be trusted with power will give it up, and takes his Cross. But in taking his life they will only confirm his claim. And the eye of faith sees that those Innocents - the first to die for their identification with Christ - will receive a reward when all things are made right.

But that's in the Apocalyptic Now, where angels and martyrs bow down to the Lamb that was slain. In this valley of death, the Powerful will still strike when under pressure, and we will still hear:

"A voice in Ramah. A sound of bitter sobbing. It is the crying of Rachel, weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted."

The Sun on the Snow

Oddest thing. Hnaef went into the communal loos on the ground floor this evening, after a couple of hours at the White Horse, to find a Sun journalist with his head down the loo.

I mean, obviously that's the normal place to find Sun journalists. Heads in the gutter and not looking up at the stars. But on this occasion the journo concerned was apparently testing out our porcelain for traces of coke and other funny stuff - as they have allegedly found in other places of worship around the country.

I just don't know what we're doing to modern day journos. I mean, you get Zoe Williams writing drivel in the Guardian on a regular basis. We accept that. But even Katie Hopkins doesn't have to spend her spare hours with her head down a toilet,investigating other people's use of unusual substances. As a young journalist, on your first new job, swabbing around communal loo bowls has got to be a bit of a low point.

So let's consider. In the first place, churches around the country are available to all. Anyone can use them. Churches, in line with Our Lord's injunction to drag people off the street, can be used by most any people. If there's signs of drug use in the loos - especially around St Bride's Fleet St - it's not necessarily the clergy responsible. Some of the regular visitors through the week are quite likely to be using drugs - and the church lets them in regardless. We accept people of all faiths and nuns, after all.

And then - the Sun as a source of moral probity? The paper that made up vicious untruths about dying football fans? The paper that hacked people's phones to get juicy stories?  Whoever is taking drugs - in whatever church around the country that may be - at least they didn't accuse innocent people of picking the pockets of dying kids at a football game. And I know which I think is worse. You could argue that, compared to the Sun's past, hanging around churches with drug testing kits is a massive step upwards.

Anyway, it was good we caught the Sun reporter. After flushing his head down the loo a dozen times, we are pretty sure his mind is considerably cleaner than when he started.

And then we used his kit to check the loo. As we suspected.

One of the Beaker Folk is clearly using patchouli.

Saint John the Evangelist

He never leaves me,
though all others have gone.
He was there in the beginning
by the sea, on the mountain
in those two gardens.
He was there.

For though I am alone,
lost by this faithless sea;
all my friends have gone - my brother,
Peter, Andrew, His Mother
from those glorious days
all have gone.

Yet still he comes
on a Sabbath when bread is broken
when his Spirit again roars in
across ages and all space
to this far island
still he comes.

And I see my Lord
slain Lamb; eternal Word.
In spotless robes, as my life ends
and I wait for him to come
in glory - or for me leave.
He is here.

Happy Christmas

A baby comes into the world. He brings strangers and wanderers to see him. Nearby a king fears. And yet throughout the universe, every star sings his praise. Every atom depends on him.

His mother, tired but full of joy. Joseph, still confused but happy they're through it. Outside it's dark. And though the dark will grow and cling to him - though he has plunged into it - it does not understand him. And will never overcome him.

Happy Christmas to Beaker Folk wherever you are. And the Light of the World light your way today.

Humbug all Round

The Guardian has quite a nice little piece about the way people of all faiths and nuns celebrate Xmas. They all seem like a nice bunch. All enjoying the day in a decent way, respecting everybody else.

And then there's Tony Green from Ipswich.... 

“It’s not just the religious mumbo-jumbo I dislike but also all the associated bullshit and worship of materialism. So I do my best to make Christmas day as much like any other day as is possible."

Apart from being even smugger than usual?

"Fortunately I’m a single man living alone"

No kidding, Tony. Can't imagine how that happened. There are people who can't help their singleness. People who wish they weren't single and alone. And then there's one bloke whom we can all imagine single and alone and think it's fortunate for all of us.

"so at least I don’t have the pressure to conform that others might suffer. And after many years I’ve trained my friends"

Friends? really?

"....to realise that however well-meaning their invitations are, I really don’t want to share in the compulsory but fake bonhomie of their celebrations. Obviously my normal night out at the pub isn’t possible and most radio on the day is unadulterated drivel (the totally awful rubbish people will put up with just because a record is a ‘Christmas record’ never ceases to amaze me) so I can’t have a completely normal day. But I do my best."

ie other people's smug meters only go up to 10.  But Tony's goes up to 11.....

“If the weather’s ok I’ll probably go out for a bike ride (nice quiet roads, but watch out for the ‘it’s only a large glass of sherry’ brigade)."

Who are these people who roam quiet roads armed only with large glasses of sherry, accosting cyclists?

"I’ll dip into the radio selectively for the few normal programmes worth listening to, including a few news programmes in the hope that they actually have some real news rather than the predictable ‘Queen said X’, ‘Pope said Y’ stuff." 

Nah, there's no news at Christmas. Everybody apart from you is enjoying themselves. Pagan, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Jew - we're all having a nice time. Apart from you. You're the only sad beggar in the country. Hope someone bought you a new anorak?

"I’ll listen to some timeshifted programmes from previous days and do a bit of work on my computer and finish off the evening with a few bottles of Belgian beer before retiring to bed relieved that the most boring day of the year is past again."

Oh, come on Tony. You have the potential, single-handed, to make every day the most boring day of the year. And "a bit of work on my computer" is going on Facebook and wondering which of your four friends has posted anything today. Even other atheists are avoiding you.

“The funny thing is, the vehemence with which so many people are keen to try and insult me for failing to conform (so predictable with the unimaginative ‘bah humbug’) that I can’t help being reminded of the way closet gays are often the worst homophobes - could it be that a lot of people would secretly like to rein back on the festivities but daren’t admit it because they’re scared of what other people will say? And seeing someone who can ignore it all just reminds them of their own moral cowardice?”

You keep telling yourself that, Tony. You keep telling yourself that. Because the alternative is, let's face it, too awful to face, isn't it?

The Oxen (again)

100 years ago today, this were published.

Happy Christmas Thomas Hardy, wherever you are.

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
   "Now they are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
   By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
   They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
   To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
   In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
   "Come; see the oxen kneel,

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
   Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
   Hoping it might be so.