sparkle

Starting work aged 16 in the offices of the Derby Evening Telegraph, I was one of eight young hopefuls looking for a career in journalism. There was no such thing as work experience, or job seekers' allowances. We were told that if after six months we showed signs of understaning the way newspapers worked then four of us would be taken on as juniors, and four would be told to find something else to do with their lives. Four were discharged, before the six months were up, for incredible stupidity; one was to take down racing results from a phone service, but went to sleep. He was found with his head on the desk by frantc printers wondering where the result of the 300pm at Kempton Park had got to. The rest of us clung on in spite of furious sub-editors, and a news editor who wore his ulcer like a badge of office. My first reporting job was a meeting of Derby Groundsmen's Association, and I produced  100 words on the problem groundsmen were  having with moles under cricket pitches. The sports editor threw my 'copy' back at me, and said: 'mek it sparkle, lad!'  I gradually discovered ways in which even the most tedious subject could be made interesting. In 550 The academic Muretus fell on hard times financially and physically. He was taken to hospital, where surgeons said, thinking he was unable to understand:. 'There's nothing we can do with this nobody. Let's experimentt with his bones'. Muretus looked at them and said in perfect Latin: 'Don't call any person for whom Christ died a "nobody".' In faith even the dullest can sparkle

creeds

Millions of people go to church n Sundays to worship an oxymoron. No, that's not the name of the preacher! Ir's a god who is said to be two quite contrary things. The Apostles' Creed sys he is 'Almighty', while all the way through the New Testament we think of God as 'love'.  How can this be?  'Almighty' implies omnipotence - tortal power to intervene in all things. But many of the things that happen in real life are bad. Would not an all-powerful father intervene if it were seen that his family were suffering in earthquales, wars, famine? The God we speak of cannot be almightty AND love, because the two words mean contrary things and so constitute an oxymoron. Progressive Christians see the point of ceasing to refer to God as 'Almighty'. He not only fails to prevent bad things happening, he is absolutely vulnerable to them himself, viz in Jesus having to face the cross without any intervention. God is 'love' in that he somehow enables people to cope with the worst that life can throw at them.  We are all vulnerable to the perils and dangers of mortal life, but reliance on the ever-present Christ spirit we can face whatever comes with what the old hymn rightly calls 'blessed assurance'. So no more praying to 'almighty' God to change the weather or find us a car park space.

Prepare

Preparation is everyrthing. When Andy Flower was explaining the way England lost all three cricket tests against Pakistan he said the team had not been properly prepared. Flower is the team's coach, and peparation was his reponsibility, so in what way did they fall short>? When my wife heard him blame  poor preparation she was surprsed. These men had been playing cricket, she said, since they were first able to hold a bat and ball, and so had been playing the game for say 20 years, What better preparation could they have had? True enough: they were fit, young, well paid, and had reached a goal to which thousands of young men aspired. Did they suffer from a condition which holds back so many people in sport, business, and personal relationships, called confidence deficit?  Obviously financial reward, physicall fitness, youth, experience and even the personal support of a wife or partner is not enough to assure self-belief. Nor in the case of test cricketers or top footballers is the adulation of the masses. There can be no greater peparation  for any human endeavour than in the words of the man who wrote Philippians 4.13: 'I can do all things through him who gives me strength'. Who is he? Surely worth finding out.

deficit

Politicians are feeling about for a formula that may restore moral values and economic hope to the nation. We should not distinguish between these two ambitions: they are firmly linked, and depend together. Our leaders speak of the big society and now 'responsible capitalism', and nobody is sure what they mean. Jesus Christ does not speak in riddles; we all know what he means when he speaks about loving our neighbour and behaving responsibly. The University of Essex has produced a report which talks about a boom in dishonesty, and a nation heading for an 'integrity crisis'. As if we didn't know ! If there is to be hope for the nation it will not be through the pronouncements of politicians grimly tackling our immense 'trillion pound deficit'. There is a far greater deficit: of love, integrity, and faith. The transformation we all hope for will not begin in stately halls at Westminster or even Brussels. It will begin at ground level in the thousands of little cells of love which we call churches. To say 'Jesus is Lord' is not a bland religious motto: it is the most powerful political manifesto we can sign and promote.

Blessed

Sunday mornng: to an exquisite village church at Oakamoor, Staffordshire for simple Free Church worship. Home for superb lunch prepared by smiling wife. Sunday evening: to the parish church for compline. The lay reader arrives in the nick of time, and gallops through the prescribed order for evening prayer. It takes 20 minutes, and we are not led to think prayerfully about Christians in Nigeria, under heavy attack from a ferocious Islamic sect. Many dead. Feel guilty because I will now sit secure and safe for at least four hours doing nothing except drink tea, and be conducted round the nation on TV. First to the glorious British countryside in 'Countryfile', then to the Alexandra Palace to see breathtaking snooker. Then to Mancheter to see Man City play Tottenham. Then to the Emirates to see Man United against Arsenal. To travel to all these events in person would cost more than the annual TV licence (But hang on....  I do not have to pay it, being legally ancient). To access these events by buying tickets would be a cost beyond  all possibility. To get ringside seats and hear commentators explain what's going on - no chance. I just sit and drink tea. 'We have a better view here than we would have actually being there' I reflect. All this, plus not having to face Islamic Terrorists...... To prayer, and to bed, richly blest. What have we done to deserve all this?

Speed

Our political masters (that includes you, Ms Greening) appear to think that we can only embrace the future by investing untold sums of money in a primal need to hurtle about the face of the earth at ever faster speeds. It is a fallacy, The real need is to discover better ways of working together using all the far cheaper means of communication. With all the gizmos now available to us we do not need to leave home, never mind the office, to attend fruitless meetings.The Bible holds no brief for high speed anything. It wants us to slow down. 'Lie down in green pastures' (Ps 23), 'Be still' (ps 46) 'Let us walk in the light of the Lord' (Isaiah 2.5). The greatest characters of Old and New Testaments pottered about the ancient world on camel, horse, or on foot. Their chief concern was not high speed rails, but proper shoes. A name from Isaiah (8.1) indicates the scorn in which the urge to move faster was held by the prophet. 'The Lord said to me, take a large scroll and write this name on it: 'Maher-shalal-hash-baz'. It's the longest name given to anybody throughout scripture. It is an HS2 slogan, which should be written on every 250mph ticket, for it means; 'Quick to the plunder; swift to the spoil'.

literal

It is a troubling thought that four out of every ten people in America believe that the Bible's account of creation in the mythical book of Genesis is literally and historically true. Apparently five of the six  Republicans who are possible candidates for the November election are among those who deny evolution and think mankind was created in the last 10,000 years. What is troubling is that so many Americans in positions of authority - airline pilots, doctors, teachers among them - reject the most obvious findings of science. How can a nation of such massive influence and power live in denial of truth? Not long ago a professor of theology, John Schneider, was obliged to resign his post at a 'Christian' university in Michigan because he questioned the creationists' belief that all humans desceneded from a real Adam and Eve, and denied that the 'fall' of man was an historical event. Evangelical Christians rose up in wrath to demand that he and a colleague should be fired. and he resigned being 'pressured to leave'. America is producing some profound theological thinkers who embrace evolutionary science as the only possible reason for us being here. But they face strong opposition from fundamentalists who insist that Charles Darwin was misguided. The idea that some of the most influential and powerful people on the planet are so opposed to enlightenment science is literally beyond belief. That there is a large element of churchgoing Brits who hold the same blind convictions indicate just how much the church and the education system have yet to do to explain how faith and science can live together in constructive harmony.