What has Prince Charles suddenly done to deserve becoming the Antichrist?

Seriously, can anyone explain? All of a sudden, this weekend I've had 11 hits to this page from people googling "prince charles antichrist" or similar. And I'd thought it had all been resolved that Barack Obama was definitely the man...

Grace and Beloved's Church Search Week 15: Catholic Mass

Whenever I'm in a Catholic church, it always strikes me to wonder quite what the Church of England and Rome have had to argue about*; the liturgies and their underlying theology being so startlingly similar to one another**. My suspicion is that, given that the Anglican communion service has used English since 1549 whereas the Catholic mass has used the vernacular only since 1964, there has been over four hundred years of people not realising this.

The mass we went to proceeded something like this.

CONGREGATION: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.

PRIEST: This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.

CONGREGATION: Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.

PRIEST: Right, so let me to inject in here for a minute. This is a Catholic mass, in which we as Catholics celebrate the giving of Christ's body for us as the Catholic church. All Catholics are welcome to receive and we ask that all non-Catholics here do not come to receive unless they have made their Holy Communion as Catholics and that if they aren't Catholics that they indicate clearly that they aren't Catholics to allow me to know that they're not Catholics...

That's a first, far from Catholicism as I've ever yet experienced it. I mean, I understand the Catholic position of the papally-suceeded Church of Rome being the only True Church. And I understand that certain Catholic bishops can give priests quite a bollocking for offering the elements to non-Catholics. And I'd be open to the possibility that there may have been someone for some reasons keeping an eye on this particular priest in such a way as made him feel he needed to labour the pont as he did.

But why, why is Holy Communion [the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper] only for those the Church or church has pre-vetted as Christians? And why is the church or Church often so uptight about ensuring it is?

I mean, who was it that transformed religion, faith and society by making a point of repeatedly eating with those deemed unclean, unworthy and undesirable? How might he feel about us restricting access to his Body and Blood?

*that is, of course, aside from questions of Henry VIII's wives, the Battle of the Boyne and Bloody Sunday...
**well, apart from the Pope...

Is 'lived allegory' a workable definition of prophecy?

Steve Lancaster said... Oh, you have to watch allegory! Or before long you find you've written Dante's Inferno ;).

What you've written here is more than allegory, because it has been lived. (Question: is 'lived allegory' a workable definition of prophecy?

Is 'lived allegory' a workable definition of prophecy? This is the question which has preoccupied me all week. I was hoping to get a response post written, but I still can't make up my mind.

Does anyone else have any ideas, thoughts, perspectives, views to contribute? Or would Steve like to explain further...?

Grace and Beloved's ChurchSearch Week 14: Grace gets lost and makes an unexpected discovery

I was looking for a path. Potentially all very allegorical. I'd heard several rumours of an unmapped footpath through some woodland, which would, if it were where it were claimed to be, enable me to avoid a particularly scary roundabout whilst cycling to New Job. The trouble with that being that, whereas several rumours claimed the path to be there, none could agree its precise location. So I set off into the broad afternoon daylight to try and find it. And I got lost.

I found myself on a bright, leafy, newly-developed estate. I kept cycling through, hoping eventually to run into a main road or at least a road sign pointing to somewhere I recognised. What I finally recognised was the church. An immensely forlorn and dilapidated hut-like little building, right at the centre of the estate. I stood there, blinking, trying to account for this inexplicable sense of remembering. And then I realised. It was, I realised, a church I'd been to few times, years back when it had been temporarily hired for a few evangelistic-type meeting.

Back then, it had been a grim, dire, adjectly miserable-looking estate. The grotty little church had been very much in keeping with its overall character. Now, though, it seemed as though the entire estate, with the exception of the church, had been flattened, re-designed and rebuilt into somewhere fresher and more livable-feeling. The church, though, had remained entirely as it had been prior to the redevelopment. It stood as a centrepiece to the estate, a reminder of what a grim place the area had been.

Why, when the estate and its housing blocks, shopping precinct, pubs and verges were all redeveloped, why was the church left untouched? At first I wondered whether the church was simply a decommissioned, abandoned shell of a building, but then I saw a sign advertising its service times, toddler groups, luncheon clubs and youth activites for the estate. It's still (and its website also confirms this) very much a living, active congregation.

Perhaps the church reveals what the rest of the development doesn't, which is that new frontages and flower beds can be deceptive and that maybe many of the underlying social problems of the estate have not been solved by its redevelopment. Nevertheless, as the final building to retain vestiges of a crumbling, miserable-looking past, the church seems to carry such a backwardly-focused, hope-devoid image of its message. Very, very sad, I think. If I had a few hundred thousand pounds to donate, I'd love to build the church and the community an attractive, cosy, welcoming-looking new building for the centre of the estate...

Grace and Beloved's ChurchSearch Week 13: Somewhere else About Which Cannot be Blogged

So let's just call it SEAWCBB for now. I feel as though I'm treadng on ice thinner than eggshells in even mentioning that I daren't blog about them. It's not that there's anything controversial, dodgy or risky about SEAWCBB, and no suggestion they'd take particular offense if they knew that I was blogging about them. It's simply that

a) they're so distinctive a faith group that I cannot yet work out a way to blog about them without revealing their precise identity and location and thus my own

and

b) a significant cohort of their congregation apparently work for New Employer, and I'd currently like to keep my working life disentangled from my religious dramas, especially as New Employer admits to almost not have shortlisted me for my post on account of their fear that I'd Bible bash them

and

c) I'm probably being paranoid about it all, I'm aware

But God was there and they were friendly so I think we'll be back to SEAWCBB. Watch this space and be intrigued. We're returning tomorrow to Exceptionally Friendly Church. Looking forward to that, too...

And what happened to Michael Guglielmucci?

I was going to try and update on him, too. But then I realised that MadPriest got there first and there's a good discussion going. Like MadPriest, all of Guglielmucci's protestations that he's a helpless victim of his own mentalness has seriously eroded my sympathy...

What happened to Todd Bentley?

Despite my reprehensible lack of blogging over the past week, I've still sustained upwards of fifteen visitors each day who have found me by googling to try and find out what happened to Todd Bentley. I'm still wondering, too. And it may well be no bad thing that there's barely any news. Todd has had his public vilification and I'd rather he now spent some time with God and his family to reflect on the mess he's made of it all. There's just this piece, for which Todd's wife Shonnah seemingly declined to be interviewed yet denies knowledge of where her husband even is. Horrible. How does she explain that to the kids? If it's true that Todd's just sodded off, is he ever planning to come back to sort out custody or access arrangements?

Despite all this, there have been some interesting commentaries around the blogosphere.

Lakeland Closure. A bit late perhaps has some very calm and thoughtful points to make. And Rupert's Lakeland and Toronto Part 1 and Part 2 does a subtle not-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater job.

I'm still worrying, though, about his kids...

first impressions

A cluster of early 80s municipally-architectured low-rise buildings hidden in a crop of giant bushes in an expansive, waterlogged field half-way to the beach. Unusually peaceful, almost rural, even. Friendly people, too. They've set me up all registered on the postgrad course which accompanies or even characterises it all and suddenly I'm a student again. I've never studied in the middle of a field before. All my previous academic efforts have been in town centre or inner-city surroundings. I wonder whether all this green space will filter into my thinking. I wonder whether there's ever been any research done to determine how population or building density affects academic output. And now, rather than simply wondering, I could get onto Athens and look it up.

Thank you to everyone who sent their good wishes for today.

what makes an australian bottle tree weep?

I don't know. I wonder, did the person who entered "what+makes+an+australian+bottle+tree+weep+?" into google and then found my blog, did he or she get an answer?

Oh no not another post on Sarah Palin's daughter

I’d thought that, whilst I was away, the relentless furore surrounding Sarah Palin’s daughter might have abated. It hasn’t. Both Bristol’s pregnancy and her supposedly impending wedding to her boyfriend Levi Johnson are still being exploited to make every conceivable (no pun intended) political, social and religious point about sex education, abstinence-based or otherwise, about teenage pregnancy, about shotgun marriage, about working mothers, about everything conceivably (oops) related to the Family Values agenda. What seems to be missing are the questions of context, of what it means to be 17, unmarried and pregnant as the daughter of the governor of a cold, distant, right-wing US state. What it means, as the daughter of an Alaskan governor, to be 17 and unmarried or 17 and pregnant or unmarried and pregnant is question enough. I can only speak from British experience in observing that, in many educated, middle-class areas, the whole thing would be totally inconceivable, in some minority communities most girls are married the minute they turn 16 anyway and in many marginalised inner-city communities, the idea of marriage is entirely beyond conception at age 27 or 37 let alone 17. So whatever one believes Uncle Sam or indeed God himself to believe, context is everything.

Essentially, though, there are really only two people who know the circumstances of the conception of Junior Johnson-Palin. There are therefore only two can speak honestly about the extent to which the baby and the marriage were planned or wanted (though Levi’s MySpace ‘I don’t want kids’ assertion is a bit of a giveaway) and only two families who know how the Palins and the Johnsons responded to the news.

And aside from questions of context and the relevance of it all to any form of political or moral campaign... I mean, please, Bristol’s 17. 17. Think back to when you and/or your sister or daughter was 17. Would you and/or she have been able to handle the world’s media in your/her face? Could the world’s media therefore please leave Bristol Palin alone?

Grace returns from her travels

I’m back. Back to a letter inviting me to start New Job. Back to a letter inviting me to start New Job on Monday. This coming Monday. Like, in less than 48 hours. Eeek. Deep breath. The bike ride there is terrifying and I don’t know what to wear and I can’t remember which of the panel that interviewed me is the person I’m meant to report to and I can’t remember what it was I said in the interview which caused them to give me the job and I haven’t got time for a haircut beforehand and I’m petrified I will fall out with my supervisor in the first ten minutes and I’ve heard the coffee is dreadful. Deep breath. I can’t believe that it has been 12 weeks since I left Place of Former employment and 8 weeks since I was offered New Job. Most of how I have spent these last 12 weeks has entirely unbloggable but utterly exhausting, exhilarating, limit-stretching and probably impossible had I either been at Place of Former Employment or looking for another job. So given what a blessing it’s all been, maybe I was right in somehow thinking that Him Up There really did want me to leave Place of Former Employment. Deep breath. It’s exciting. And for the final 48 hours of my 12 week holiday, I’m sitting in my mum’s garden scanning all her baby photos into my laptop. Life is good, surely...

Normal service will shortly be resumed...

... but in the meantime, I'm off to an undisclosed European capital with family. And praying for all those left behind in Britain and the USA in the rain and midst of election coverage.

I'll be back!

Call upon the Lord or The Cat who thinks he's God

The scene is set at home. BELOVED is out for the evening and a crowd of 70-odd teenagers have descended for a night of merrymaking and revelry. GRACE has retreated to the bedroom with her proverbial cup of cocoa and the laptop. The cat, AMOS, is wandering bemused and disorientated outside. GRACE creeps downstairs to call AMOS in.

GRACE: Amos! Aaaaaaaaaa-mos!

TEENAGER 1: What?

TEENAGER 2: It's her cat. He's called Amos. You know, as in from the Bible...

TEENAGER 3: Let's help her out!

TEENAGERS 1-70: Amos! Aaaaaaaaaa-mos! Come here! Good boy!

AMOS does not respond.

TEENAGER 3: I know. Let's all call Jesus and see what happens!

TEENAGERS 1-70: Jesus! Jeeeeeeeesus! JEEEEEEE-SUSSSSSSSSSSS!

AMOS comes running through the door and bounds in amongst the partygoers. TEENAGERS 1-70 applaud. TEENAGER 3 offers AMOS a swig from his pint glass of red wine, which AMOS takes by his front paws and drinks...

hello again

Apologies for the unscheduled blog outage.

I've been utterly diverted and detained by myphotobook.co.uk and using it to put our wedding photos into albums. Extremely compulsive and consuming. Not something one should undertake with a lengthy list of more pressing things to do. Never before, though, have I been in a position of having nothing more pressing than the wedding photos.

Tomorrow, I'm filling out my tax return for 2006/7, fixing my bike lights, seeking to purchase Beloved a few new shirts and myself a reflective jacket, tackling a pile of handwash-onlies, trying to unravel with LloydsTSB the mystery of the pin number they sent me which doesn't work and attempting my domestic goddess act on removing the cat sick stains from the upstairs landing. This means, of course, that I'll be back online pronto. Of course.