What do you do when you can't afford to go on holidays this year to the Canary Island? You worry about shit. Any shit will do!

If you're not being ploughed six feet under by the Common Cup in your local Scottish Episcopal Church you're being chewed to death by imported rodents!

I saw the story first on the Sky News page under the headline

"Diseased Chipmunks Could Invade UK"

There followed a picture of a relatively inoffensive looking chipmunk chowing down on a toothsome bit of peanut. Whatever disease it has clearly hasn't affected its appetite. The first line of the article proper offers a little more information:

Britain is set for an invasion by thousands of diseased chipmunks coming from France, experts have warned.

One's interest is piqued, of course, by all of this. Invasions of the British Isles are attempted rather rarely. One expects large quantities of masted ships sailing into the English Channel or barges assembled in the low countries or at least small fleets of long boats which can make it up many of the major rivers to threaten villagers. It's really all a matter of agency - how will these thousands of deadly chipmunks get to our shores?

These same experts (actually different experts from the earlier mention but they may take some of the same courses at Uni) offer the following prediction:

Nature experts fear tourists will pick up the animals and put them in their bags or car boots and bring them across the Channel to Britain.

Imagine the visual, if you will, of somebody chasing a chipmunk around the St Michel Fountain trying to stuff it in a handbag. Would somebody alert the policeman on the corner? What would he say, while shrugging his shoulders:

"Ah oui, Monsieur, ils sont fou, les Anglais!"

Once here, the newly liberated chipmunks will apparently set about adding Lyme Disease and Rabies to the Bird Flu and the Swine Flu we already need to worry about.

The Sun took up the story as well. Their headline was even more dire than Sky News:

Killer Chipmunks Threaten Brit Invasion

And they have something called a "Fact File" which gives you a map which outlines the vector of threat pointing directly at a British suburb near you.

At least they have a picture of a suitably scary looking chipmunk pretending to be Godzilla and letting us know that

"when I gets this pain I wants to do damage".

"Please" it's saying "could you pick me up off the sidewalk and let me loose in the car boot or in your wife's Gucci handbag the way thousands of your silly British compatriots are going to do because that's what you silly British do all the time.

Once it was in your handbag might it slip your mind that it was in there?

"A mint? You'd like a mint? I have one here in my bag....somewhere....let's see, purse, specs, evil infected rodent....oh bother, I forgot about that, it's dead and fusty now...no....sorry....no mints this time!"

I do intend to announce this Sunday that the extension of Eucharistic hospitality to "all the baptised" specifically excludes chipmunks.

Our brother-in-Christ Kenny Macaulay made some disparaging comments about the Orange March which was planned in his town on the north bank of the Clyde. The story can be followed HERE. His views on the subject were picked up (without his say-so) in the local newspaper and have occasioned quite a lot of negative feedback from a group of people not known for their affirmative listening skills.

Lawrence of Penicuik

The exhibiting of the obligatory camel-shot is a bit like a prostate exam. It's embarrassing and a nuisance but once it's over with it's not too bad. I'm thinking that my best effort to not look like a tourist didn't quite work out.

I'm reminded of Frank Greenhouse - Major Frank Greenhouse - who was nearly a hundred when I met him at St Philip's Church in Victoria where I was a curate in the mid eighties. Frank had been something dodgy in Mesopotamia during the First World War and was able to dress in local garb and fit in quite well while riding a camel or a donkey discreetly past the Turkish lines counting machine gun nests.

Not so here, I'm afraid.

Oops!

Some of my plans for the introduction of new liturgical practices at St James' and St Mungo's following our Start-up Sunday at the end of the summer are going to have to be postponed in light of mishaps which have occurred in Churches elsewhere.

Back to the drawing board!

(comment: I find it amazing how quick an elderly nun can be when she needs to be!)
Thank you Kenny!

Stuff you knew already

...but which I didn't. I was only 11 years old and we were in a tiny cabin in Banff National Park listening on a radio with poor reception. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The fact that one of the astronauts had brought the Sacrament to the moon with him was never part of the official blurb. The faith of heroes and public individuals shouldn't be ostentatious - but it should, nonetheless, come as no surprise.

Forty years ago, in the first moments of July 20, 1969, after Aldrin had piloted the Eagle lunar module into the dust of the moon with only seconds of fuel to spare, he asked NASA for a radio blackout. He suggested that people around the world take the opportunity to "contemplate for a moment the events of the last few hours, and to give thanks in his own individual way."

Then, during the radio silence, Aldrin opened a packet of bread and a vial of wine that had been blessed a few weeks earlier at his home church near Houston, Webster Presbyterian. Aldrin unfolded a paper on which he'd copied Jesus' words from John 15: "I am the vine, you are the branches ..."

"In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup," Aldrin wrote in a story published in 1970 in Guideposts magazine. "I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility."

Read the whole thing HERE

The Pool of Siloam (Silwan, Siloah - there are competing translations).

One of the highlights of the time spent in Jerusalem (and there were surprisingly few of them compared to the Galilee which was brilliant) was walking the half-kilometre length of Hezekiah's tunnel which had been hewn in the limestone to access the Spring of Gihon in time of siege. It issues forth into this small pool and thence into a lower one - one of which was the pool in which Jesus commanded the 'man born blind' to go and bathe himself. The first pool immediately past the outlet of the tunnel (pictured above) is the peaceful one - atmospheric and inspiring. The only partially excavated pool (opposite this one with the length of sewer pipe running above it) has the greater claim to authenticity - having steps up to it from what is clearly a Herodian city street and steps down into the water.

Nachal David is a small stream that flows out of probably the dryest and most weather-blasted landscape I have ever seen between Qumran and Massada beside the Dead Sea.

Old Tombs and New Tombs

at the foot of the Mount of Olives. You might want to click on this to see the picture mo' better.

Yes I have pictures!

Scads of pictures - pictures galore. I have no way of inserting my SD card into a computer here and dodgy internet access at best so you won't see any of them for a while. Then you'll see too many.

We've been to Megiddo and seen the plains of Armageddon. I'm pleased to report that in spite of everything which is transpiring in the Anglican Communion - it may well not be as apocalyptic as some are predicting. The Plains of Armageddon seemed rather tranquil. There was a tractor or two. That's it.

The Northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee has been the high point for me. Capernaum was tremendous as was the (probable) location of the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes and Jesus' appearance to the disciples when they were fishing with little luck. We went to Beth Saida today - bumped into a Glaswegian helping out with the 'dig' there. Floated down three kilometres of the upper Jordan River flowing into the Sea of Galilee. We felt well - all was good.

I finished the day up at the Mount of the Beatitudes - was struck by how small and local everything was. It was all there in front of me. Within a sweep of about 50 degrees of head-turn was Tiberias to the right - where the tyrant lived who had done-in John the Baptist and was probably gunning for Jesus. Right below was Tabgha - the loaves and fishes, the calling of the disciples near the Source of Capernaum where they'd likely have been cleaning their nets and the appearance of Jesus to his disciples after the Resurrection. To the right was the coast where so much of the opposition had occurred - Demoniacs, the Gadarene Swine and the Stormy Coast requiring calming. Fifty degrees of head turn and you have a good half of the Gospels. Remarkable! Unbelievable!

Next week is Jericho and Jerusalem.

The Valley of Ela - between Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv - where David faced off with Goliath. This picture is taken from within the perimeter fence surrounding the Moshav where my sister-in-law and brother-in-law live with their three children. There was an attack a few years back - children stuffed under beds and parents standing guard with drawn pistols. It's like that here - it's hard to explain. Hard to understand.

Our first day in Israel was delightfully cool. I gather that it will be hotter tomorrow. We spent the better part of the day climbing the man-made hill which was Herod's summer palace and a defensive position in both the First Jewish Revolt (66 ad +-) and the Bar-Kochba Rebellion (135+-).

The first thing one encounters before climbing the last bit to the summit of the man-made hill is the pile of missiles which were rolled down the hill at the Romans from the heights. Each one of these weighs between 700 lbs and a full ton and would have done a fair bit of damage to those who weren't able to get out of the way in the time. Examples of the missles tossed in the other direction with the aid of catapults are apparently much smaller. Defense has always been an easier job!

Health and Safety in the UK would have thought they'd died and gone to hell at the site of Herod's Summer Palace high atop this hill. There were so many things to regulate and none of them regulated! It was delightful - toppled stones, secret passages and all of them treacherous and difficult to navigate.

Thought for the Day
BBC Radio Scotland
June 19th, 2009

It’s ‘up for grabs’ whether we are 'on the road to recovery' or not. The Chancellor thinks we’re on the right path but news of Scottish job losses makes us wonder whether this rising tide will lift all boats – or not.

Clearly there is some debate.

One of the questions asked by individuals who have suffered a loss - the loss of a job, or a relationship or even the loss through death of a friend or a spouse is 'when will I get better? And the only really truthful answer is 'quite possibly never' if you mean ‘when can I turn the clock back to where it was before’.

It's not so much that we limp ahead - though sometimes that's the best we can do - but that we build new things which incorporate the losses we have suffered. Loss and death free us - or force us -to build new things. And the new thing frequently contains the masonry of what existed on the site before.

The principles upon which we have measured our success are now being questioned – not only because they did not prevent dis-ease and instability – but on the deeper level of whether they were right – or fair – or godly – or honest. What sort of work was valued and what was not? Who had a place at the table? Who did not? Who were the ‘movers and shakers’? Who got moved and shaken?

The New Testament incorporates the fact of loss and death into the story of transformation and new life. The one is a part of t’other. Jesus said that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it will never become a new plant. The old life cannot be brought seamlessly into the new.

There’s a hope out there that we don’t recover completely – and a suspicion that if we aren’t honest enough about how sick we have been then we will perhaps not receive the sort of treatment we need.

Not Enough Bollywood on this Blog

And not enough for train lovers, either
Thanks to Doug Painter for the link.

Good Audio Alert

Bishop Alan makes reference to a repeat broadcast of a Radio 4 programme called Hallelujah. It's available for the next six days HERE. I'm not sure BBC iPlayer is accessible outside of the UK and I can't immediately see a way of downloading it as a podcast (correct me if I'm wrong).

Even for a fan, I found it spent a little too long talking with and about Leonard Cohen but it ends with a marveous piece of music composed by Jocelyn Pook who is the programme's presenter as well.

The second bit - tho' not exactly seasonal (it's an Advent reflection) appears on the Clifton Diocese website (RC). It represents only one of the audio presentations which have won numerous awards - in this case the Sony Radio Award.

I was a participant in the Churches Media Conference down in Derbyshire just prior to our General Synod in Scotland and had occasion to attend one of the Fringe Workshops led by the podcasts creator, Mary Colwell. The audio is available HERE.

Francis Fukuyama won the 'Oops I wish I hadn't written that' Award for 1992. He wrote a book (based on a previous essay in a little known journal) called "The End of History and the Last Man" In it he'd declared that with the collapse of Communism the world had finished with politics derived from fundamental polarities and had settled on the inherent goodness of liberal democracy and liberal economic practice.

A good neo-conservative think-tank man, in other words.

One assumes he's had a little time on his hands over the last months.

He's done what men of a certain age do when their skills and abilities are judged to belong to another era which is to fall back on their hobbies - in his case building quite swish furniture with hand tools.

All of which has doubtless drawn him to a book called "Shop Class as Soulcraft" by Matthew Crawford, for which Fukuyama has written a quite laudable review in the New York Times' Sunday Book Review.

Sometimes the BBC composes headlines in rather a hurry:

Flu risk 'still low' after death

An audio interview with The Most Reverend David Chillingworth, newly elected Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, can be found on the SEC website HERE

For convenience (since you're already here) it is also included below.

Statement to members of General Synod

of the Scottish Episcopal Church
by the newly-elected Primus,
Rt Revd David Chillingworth,
Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane

Calling is an extraordinary and wonderful thing. To be literally handed a new ministry like this is a daunting experience. I could produce a thousand reasons why this is difficult, demanding, challenging … but that is not the question. The question is vocation and it has just been answered.

I want to thank the members of the College of Bishops. We are a College – we have been talking about how we can develop our collegiality and put it at the service of our church. At our Synod Dinner last night, we expressed our thanks to Idris and to Alison. I want in the context of our General Synod to say to you Idris how much we value what you have given to ministry, to the life of this church and to all of us. We pray that you and Alison may have a long and happy retirement.

I approach this new ministry with deep humility and no small apprehension. This church – my diocese and the wider church – has been extraordinarily generous in the trust which it has placed in me. This church is willing to take risks – and that is a sign of its spiritual vitality. I experience that trust as I share in ministry day by day with clergy and laity. I experience it in the support which I receive in prayer. I ask you to pray for me and for all of us as bishops. Our task as a College of Bishops is to offer leadership in a church which is committed to patterns of sharing. To be that kind of church is a gift we have received and a gift we can share. But such a church will only be built on foundations of clarity, honesty and truth in our relationships.

Those of you who have worked closely with me will know that I believe that our church is richly blessed in the quality and commitment of laity and clergy. You will know that I also believe that this is a precious moment of calling for the Scottish Episcopal Church.

You will have heard some of this in the discussion of the mission of our church yesterday. I believe two things about this time. First that we are being called to take our place in a new way among the family of churches in Scotland and in the wider community. I come from a minority church – the church of my family roots is the minority Church of Ireland community of southern Ireland. There are several generations of its clergy in my family background. I believe that minority churches do not need to be marginal and that small churches can bring special gifts to the whole. In particular, I believe that our strengths in spirituality and service, in dignified liturgy and inclusive openness are gifts and treasures for this moment. Our calling is to offer Jesus – to offer new ways of exploring faith – in a time when people search have questions but do not expect to find the answers in traditional churches.

But there is a second challenge which faces us at present. We are entering a time of difficult decision-making as we respond to the new financial circumstances which face us as they face the whole of our society. Adding new things is relatively easy. Deciding what really matters when resources don't stretch to cover everything is much more difficult. It tests decision-making and it tests relationships. That is the period which we are about to enter. Our prayer must be that this period will be for us a time of creative refining and pruning - from which will come more growth.

On a more personal level, the clergy and people of our diocese know what an integral part of my ministry Alison is - and I want you to know how much I appreciate the contribution which she makes and the support which she gives to me. Scotland has been good to us. Perthshire is a beautiful and extraordinary place and we are very happy here.

And so, members of Synod, I look forward to playing my part in the adventure in faith which we shall undertake together. May God bless us all as we work together in his service.

The Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church welcome their new Primus, David Chillingworth of St Andrew's Diocese.

Postnote: It was good to see our Bishops looking like bishops. A round of Canterbury Caps to complete the ensemble and we're in business!

Random Thought at General Synod

While listening to one of my enthusiastic brethren urge us all to be able to 'express the Gospel in a nutshell' I was assailed by the following unhelpful thought:

"Anybody who understands 'the gospel in a nutshell' has a tiny chewy gospel that some folks are allergic to"