Saturday 28 June 2008

Vestry Prayer ordinary 13

Gracious heavenly father whose promises are yea and amen, we gather today to bring our worship and praise, and it is right that we should do this because you are our ever loving God. You are the God of many promises and you said that where two or three were gathered in your name you would be in the midst. As we come together today we claim that promise knowing that in doing so you will be in out midst today. We ask you to bless our brother/sister N.... as they share your word with us later on, may it be that like the disciples and followers of old we will hear only you speaking to us as they minister to us.
Pour out your blessing on us Lord as we ask in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sunday 22 June 2008

Vestry prayer ordinary 12, proper7

Sorry this is really late but again it has been one of those weeks where you wonder which of the many jobs on hand you should tackle next. I have also had a little difficulty with blogger this week - tried to post something in the week and it would not work.

Here is this weeks vestry prayer - hope it is in time for any who use them and that they are useful to some folk.

Loving Lord by whom all things that were created live and breath we bring our praise and adoration to you today, thankful for your love to each one of us, and conscious that our mission today remains to go into all the world with your love and your word.
As we come together today in worship we pray that through the words of our brother/sister you would feed your lambs, that you would lead us by the still calm waters and restore our souls. We ask your blessing on the time of worship and claim the promise that where two or three or gathered you would be in the midst. May this be our experience today and may we go from here rejoicing because we have met with the living, loving God.
We ask these things in and through the name of Jesus. Amen

Tuesday 17 June 2008

This is fun!!

Couldn't resist it here is Praise my soul the king of heaven in wordle - lots of Bible stuff in the gallery.

John's gospel in wordle

I have seen a number of these so thought I should give it a try and went for the first eight chapters of John's gospel.

Click on the image to see a bigger version. Thanks to Richard at Connexions for pointing me towards this - I can see it being very useful, and there is loads of stuff in the gallery over on Wordle.

Monday 16 June 2008

I don't believe it!!

In the words of good old Victor Meldrew 'I don't believe it!' or rather I didn't believe it!
For around six years I have bought my petrol at the same petrol station because it is usually one of the lowest prices around where I live. I drove past on Friday and their 4 star was priced at 115.9 - on Saturday when I drove past it was 120.9 - a whole 5 pence per litre overnight. Needless to say I will be looking for an alternative supplier and suspect there will be a number of others who do the same - there is another petrol station about half a mile away where it has just gone up to 115.9 so looks like that will be where I will go next time.
The ironic thing is that the petrol station that has upped the price has run out of petrol while the cheaper one still has both petrol and diesel.

Where have all the bloggers gone (2)

My previous post received a response from John Cooper whose blog I used to check quite regularly and then he seemed to stop blogging for a time and had consequently disappeared off my radar. I have just checked him out following his comment and he is blogging almost daily and there is some good stuff there so give him a try if like me you are missing the usual crowd such as '42', 'Turbulent Cleric' 'Methodist Preacher', and others.
I am not sure if this will come up as a link but you can always type it into the address bar and I will add it to my list of people whose blogs I read.
http://johncooper.blogspot.com/

Sunday 15 June 2008

Where have all the bloggers gone?

To paraphrase the Kingston Trio among others, 'Where have all the bloggers gone?' It seems a little bit like they have all disappeared with blogging being very light at the moment. I was worried today that even Richard Hall over at Connexions not having posted a hymn for the day earlier today and then I realised he went to see Bruce Springsteen last night so may have had a late night/early morning. I am glad to see he has now posted a hymn and await his comments on the concert, especially as he reminded us he was going yesterday.
It has been that bad this week I have taken to clicking on the next blog option to find something to read - some very strange stuff out there - but then I suppose there is on the Methodist and other Christian blogs as well.
I hope normal service resumes fairly soon or I might have to take up gardening or cooking to use my new found knowledge

Saturday 14 June 2008

Vestry prayer ordinary 11, proper 6

Alleluia to you O risen Lord, the God who forgave our sin in the name of your Son Jesus. We come into your presence and pray O Lord that you would meet with us as you met with the Israelites at Mount Sinai.
As we meet today we seek your blessing on our time of worship, and pray a blessing on our brother/sister N.... as they bring your word to us.
Enable them to speak to us and enable us listen in the power of your Holy Spirit. We bring our prayer in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

Wednesday 11 June 2008

Bigger Brother

I must offer my apologies for not attributing the post last night to myself and the confusion and heart felt hurt it has caused for FP. I never wished to associate a man of his learned stature with such a trivial concern as Big Brother. It did however raise an even more interesting point, FP in the Big Brother house, what a thought! I feel a petition coming on......

Son of the Prophet

Tuesday 10 June 2008

Big Brother!!!!

Ok, lets get the obvious things out of the way. I know most people who are likely to read this will probably have caught about 5 minutes of Big Brother in the entirety of their lives and dismissed it as total twaddle. In many respects I would be inclined to agree but I have to say that the first couple of series were actually quite interesting to me.

I was originally attracted by the microcosm of society that Big Brother creates and found the ways people worked at relationships with people who they normally wouldn't have given the time of day to quite interesting. It was interesting to watch how people basically rallied round to boost each other in the common goal of making "living" together a more bearable experience. Friendships were forged and if not, tolerances and coping strategies were formed in order for people to get along. I think some people even might have learnt a thing or two about themselves or others while they were in there.

So, Fast forward 7 or 8 years from the original series to tonight. I must admit I have only caught a couple of the episodes of this series so far and tonight was probably the first one I had actually given my full attention to instead of reading and watching at the same time as I often do. I was left angry and very very disappointed by watching this episode.

I'll give you a brief overview of the episode to put things in "perspective". Try not to laugh.

One of the house mates had attempted to cook oven chips. She had burnt them. Another house mate, who is very very vocal took exception to this, and made her exception well known at the table. One of the other house mates is a chef. A conversation followed the meal, in the presence of the house mate who burnt the chips, about how rubbish the meal was and how people should not try to do things they are not capable of. The vocal house mate basically said you're rubbish, don't bother, let the chef do all the cooking. Another house mate jumped to the defence of the "burnt chips" house mate and said that "vocal" house mate was being out of order. She was basically told to shut up and not get involved in a conversation that didn't concern her. Another house mate came to the original "rescuers" rescue. She ended up being called "simple" by "vocal" house mate. End result, a big fat argument about burnt oven chips that was orchestrated and fuelled to the point of Bullying (a personal opinion) by "vocal" house mate.

Now its not like me to take offence at people but quite frankly I feel I have no choice. The "vocal" house mate was totally and completely out of order. She was aggressive, hypocritical, rude and derogatory. She called people simple, told them to remember "she told them", that the other house mates would "never be ready" (She did not say what they would not be ready for but reading between the lines of her argument I think she was insinuating that they would never be ready to argue with her) and likened at least two of her fellow house mates to a person who would have male genitals attached to their foreheads. She ridiculed others for "telling" her things as she would never "be Told" but then proceeded to put her opinion forward as fact. Two of the other girls in the house were obviously totally shocked by the outburst and are simply not accustomed to the sort of tirade they received.

If I go back to my original point and we assume that the house is in many ways a microcosm of society I feel very sorry for the country in which we live. All I have seen on the show so far is back biting, arguing and a total lack of respect for anyone's views that differ from the protagonists at that particular time. There is no acceptance, compromise or even sensible discourse. It is a sham that highlights how self centred and egotistical people are becoming and how any difference whether cultural, racial, religious, social, economical etc etc can be used as a weapon to unleash a tirade of expletives and abuse.

If anyone needs a sign that our country is crying out for a mighty revival then watch Big Brother.

It will leave you in a touch of an emotional quandary:

Should you feel sorry for the people on the show who are so miserable that they have to live their lives in this way in order for them to feel good about themselves and dominant over others

or

happy that we don't have to partake in such pithy concerns as we know we have the real "BIG GOD" watching us all the time.

I''m going to apply for the next show. I'd love to stand strong in my faith in the face of such adversity and complete ignorance and actually put forward a coherent argument to what is basically idiocy, bullying and hypocrisy. Somehow though, I don't think I'd pull in the ratings.

Saturday 7 June 2008

Vestry Prayer Ordinary 10, Proper 5

Sorry this is a little late - been one of those weeks.


Merciful God, who brings forth life from death, we bring our adoration and praise to you today. We are reminded of the woman who having been ill for many years touched the hem of your garment and was made whole. We pray that like her,as we gather this morning/evening we too will be able to touch the hem of your garment.
Be with N.... and bless them as they lead our time of worship and break open the scriptures to us.
We ask all these things in the name that is above every name, at which, every knee shall bow.
Amen

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Recycle, Recycle, Recycle!

I was reading something yesterday about supermarkets preparing to do away with their free carriers and part of me says great - If only I could remember to take the shopping bags with me when I go shopping - and it got me thinking about recycling.
I do think this is an important thing that we should really all be doing our best to do without the need for the government to fit spy cameras in our bins and make households appoint a 'responsible person' to look after the household waste (and I presume stand guard over the bin 24/7 to make sure nobody else puts their rubbish in your bin).
The thing that gets me is the apparent lack of commitment at times by the local authorities to the actual collection of recyclable items. In our area we have recycling bins but can only put newspapers, glass and cans into the bin - they have to be put in in a particular way or the jobsworths on the round will not take the box away. The other week I put my box out with some papers, some bottles and some cans in and it didn't get taken. The next day at work I met a man who works on the local authority section that deals with this so I asked him why my box might not have been taken - his response was to ask if I had packed it properly. I explained the set up in the box as best I could remember and he told that the problem was with how I had filled it. He suggested I look at the councils website where there are instructions on how to pack your box correctly - my mistake was I had not stood the cans up in the box!On a previous occasion I had put my box out and put the cans in a carrier on the top of the box - didn't get taken again and when I asked the chap about this he said everything has to be in the box loose so the operatives can see if there is anything that might injure them - I did say wasn't there a risk in emptying the box when items were loose and he said no because they can clearly see what is there - by now I am losing the will to live let alone recycle.
He then went on to tell me we will be having new bins soon where everything will just go into the one bin and will be sorted back at the depot - seems counter productive to me but hey what do I know.
I just hope the new bins will be able to take plastic bottles and card as we alwasy seem to have a lot of these each month to dispose of and I am sure that both are recyclable.
Anyway time I was getting ready for work and thanks to the Bishop of Stafford for starting me off.

Sunday 1 June 2008

Son of the prophet

Son of the prophet has not posted for a while and in case any of you were wondering what had happened to him I just thought I should let you know that he has started a new job about three weeks ago so has not had quite so much time on his hands.There has also been a problem with the lap top which he uses because the power adaptor had packed up - we do have a new one so who knows he may post again soon.
I suppose it might be said he did enough in the posts he made to last for a while especially when you look around and see that some blogs haven't had a new post for months.

New blogger!

I have just visited a new blog thanks to doorman priest who pointed me in the right direction. There is an interesting post about prayer and the struggles that we sometimes have in respect of praying.
Have a look at http://gettingtherein my own time.blogspot.com