It's three years since The Sage Gateshead opened its doors. They've kept the promise that it is a venue for every kind of music making. I'm thrilled that a concert hall which many who know their stuff say has the best acoustic in the world, is in a venue where all kinds of amateur fun and games with song and instruments goes on. I love it that the concourse is also the walkway for all and sundry ambling Gateshead quays to cross the Millennium Bridge. Here's a super photo of both:

 

not posting much just now ... sorry to regulars here and I love you! And I'm cheating with this as it is lifted from the parish mag I write in ...

 

HEROD’S PART, OUR PART

 

I’m not finding it easy getting into King Herod’s head. But I need to. It’s for the Dramatic Readings for Advent which … don’t miss! Herod who heard from the Wise Men that a new king had been born; Herod who, Matthew tells us and as the old carol puts it: “All the little boys he killed at Bethlem in his fury”.

 

The slaughter of the innocents is a terrible tale but all the more terrible for the fact that in this world of ours it’s not altogether surprising. It had happened before and it has happened many times since under different guises. All the more terrible again for the fact that, in this inter-connected world, this Global Village, it is so very easy for us to be complicit in causing the misery which others suffer. Just one example: Still the European Union imports cocoa beans from parts of West and Central Africa where it is well known that child bonded labour on some estates is part of the pattern of production. Are you giving chocolate this Christmas? Have you looked at the fair trade options in the Co-op or through Traidcraft? Consumer choice is, we are told, beginning to bite on this set of injustices.

 

Now our complicity in a whole new dimension of slaughter of innocents is coming to light: the rate of our consumption of fossil fuels. As we bump up the carbon in the atmosphere, we set up future environmental catastrophes for the vulnerable and the yet-to-be-born. This one is almost too big to contemplate isn’t it. But we must. And then we must act. Switching off lights and re-cycling bottles is part of it. But only part of it. A godly response to what we now know is happening, involves us working out a whole new lifestyle. At the level of our households and communities, and at the level of national policy.

 

Will we get seriously green? Part of my Herod speech – the speech I am struggling with – is his hideous boast about acting decisively. Now that we have been woken up to the probability of future slaughter resulting from our present lifestyle, will be take decisive action?

 

Yours loving this wonderful world which God so loved that he came,

Tom Jamieson, Rector.

 

I'm engaged with the RE department at our local Comp quite a bit just now - another spin-off of our week of 24-7 - and on Friday I had Yr12 A Level RE with the brief: "Judeo-Christian influences on religious philosophy: God as Creator". the brief included exploration of Genesis 1 and other key bible texts, and then the task of comparing what we found there with the classical Greek understandings - from Aristotle and Plato.

 

It went really well, if student participation is a litmus test - every one of the class had a contribution to make more than once. We started actually with Psalm 104, as I feel that sets up up for a useful engagement with Genesis 1 and then 2&3.

 

The thing is, I came clean at the beginning of the class that the comparison we would do later on was in their hands entirely, as I had not done my homework about Arisotle and Plato! This proved to be a great educational method, and they really got buzzing with both the similarities and the contrasts between the Biblical view and the Greek Philosophical view, at every point explaining to me the point they were making. It was great.

 

And what really comes across is that the Biblical view of God as Creator is much more exciting, and much more hopeful.

 

Can't wait for my next RE A Level class!

Yesterday we had a major follow-up from our 24-7 prayer week and its impact on young people of the comprehensive school just round the corner from the Prayer Room venue. We had 32 young people, mostly years 9-11, come along in their lunch break for pizza picnic. It was a really lovely atmosphere and the way the four adults there could so easily connect with the small groups, just showed us how ready these guys are to engage with us and to take further what they experienced that week. Just as well that we had already planned a date for our next prayer room - a 24-1 16/17 November - cos they certainly expected at least that much!

 

I was really interested to hear from those of the young people who do not profess to have a faith, what it meant to them to be in the prayer room. God is doing things in this, and our role I feel is to take a bit of a back seat and occasionally offer our small part in the process of a journey which these young people have welcomed into their experience.

 

They told us more about how the week back in september had been for them. For example, the year 11 RE class that had visited on the Friday 10-11am, back to school for history at 11am and the teacher had abandoned any attempt at teaching as it was clear the students were still in heart and mind where they had been the hour before!

 

So this is good and I personally am so loving having some new friendships with local youth.

Wow. I'm too exhausted to write my own report here so please visit the 24-7prayer UK site [just click the link down on the left from here] and read the report Andrea Percy has put together from the various pieces we went in. Here are some photos. Click on the pic to enlarge.

Less that 48 hours and we begin our night and day watch of prayer in Ryton for a week. 12noon on Sunday until 12noon Sunday 23rd. The preparations over the last several days have been a wonderful time! A challenging time for me too as among other things it has involved taking five assemblies at the Comprehensive School in one week! We are doing a very public 24-7, with a coffee shop open 7am to 9pm, a workshop and library, various gatherings exploring what prayer is all about, all alongside the prayer watch in the Prayer Room. So far the most wonderful thing for me has been to witness the degree of commitment to and energy for this endeavour, on the part of a good number of our members. About that I am thrilled and grateful. The photo is not our prayer room, but Taize - an image among others I used at the school assemblies. I'll put up some piccies of our prayer room soon.

I did my back in on Monday gone and while it's eased a bit it's eased not a lot. What I've noticed is that this week there are even more things than usual that I have let slip or forgotten to tell people about or just not got round to.

 

Then I think, "There are people I know who live with pain all the time and do what they need to do, efficiently and cheerfully". I salute them. I've a lot to learn. 

Just taking a break from lots of lovely jobs in the garden, not least harvesting fruit and vegetables which is always a treat. The taste of fresh boiled beetroot ...

 

But Saturday and Sunday were full of weddings and baptisms as well as our usual worship services so it's nice to relax today! Having said that, there are perks to the trade ... Sunday's wedding had a number of guests who are involved in 'Wire in the Blood' - I watched it once and then decided this is a TV series not for me - including Robson Green. He's done some really good dramas based in the North East over the years, not least among them, Catherine Cookson's 'The Gambling Man' which was shot here in Ryton among other places. Yesterday I was invited to the evening do, and who should come over for a chat about the service but RG. We ended up having a real good exchange about film critics and about his recent appearance in the York Mystery Plays. I confess, in this celebrity-hyped culture I so readily criticise, it kind of made my day!

That's what I call my mum. She's 94. She has all her marbles, mentally. Physically, things are pretty grim: Along with a number of really trying complaints she has coped with for years, she has lost her mobility, and the focus of her sight. Two weeks ago she suffered a stroke which took her speech and capacity to swallow. Mercifully it did not take her dexterity so she is able to write and communicate that way. Swallowing, tentatively and with a number of accidents causing her to choke, is returning, just.

 

With all this, she still takes delight in other people's achievements and joys, expresses concern about other people's problems, oozes with pleasure at a treat such as the taste of cranberry and rasberry juice, and laughs at the funny side of just about everything.

 

She wanted me to pray with her, not least that God would kindly see to it that she doesn't have to put up with too much more diminishment in this world before she moves on to the next.

 

But the severe diminishment she lives with just now has revealed to me her amazing inner resourcefulness, patience, and cheer - to a degree which, shame upon me, I have not seen before.

 

So, here's to my Mama. 

We needed a crowd-puller for a fund-raising event at our church today, so the planning group decided it might be me abseiling down the church tower. Well it worked! There were just loads of people having loads of fun and lots of money for our restoration appeal. I had said to myself, 'Tom, just put yourself in the hands of this Les guy, he does this stuff all the time'.

 

Well it was a dream. I can't quite believe that there were no butterflies for me as I put first my legs and then the rest of me out of the louvre opening under the clock and into thin air. It was all down to confidence in Les my guide and instuctor. I was so glad that the camerawoman from the local rag was late, and begged me to do it all over again! 

Yesterday we did a 'Godly Play' for any members of our church who wanted to get a sense of what we are doing in the After School Clubs in our town. There were 22 of us including a few children and it was good to see how 'goldy play' works as an all-age experience, with everyone simply being themselves as distinct from adults pretending to be children - which they didn't so it was good.

 

Anyway, in the activity time a number of us had a go at writing some poetry or prose in response to the idea, from the story we had, of 'where is it that you go to remember the great gifts which God has given?' Several will appear in our Church Mag come September, but meanwhile here's mine - inspired in part by a letter from a dear friend of mine who has recently done a solitary pilgrimage to the Isle of Skye:

 

 

 

They are walking 1000 miles from Belfast to Downing Street via Edinburgh and Cardiff and today they came through Newcastle - all to keep the pressure on Government and to alert the general public to the need for much more action and change, now if not sooner, for the sake of the poor and for the sake of the planet and for the sake of our grandchildren.

 

Great music, terrific to hear from two of the walkers especially and young woman from Tajikistan who spoke of what climate change there is doing to the rural community where many are subsistance farmers, moving rallying-call from North East veteran campaigner David Golding ...

 

But where was everybody? St Thomas Church Haymarket was perhaps three quarters full. Six of us from Ryton that I know about which is ok, but this was for the region. Was it poor publicity by Christian Aid? I think they did there bit. Was it failure to pass on publicity by those on the Christian Aid mailing lists? perhaps. Was it a lack of confidence on the part of the public that a Christian agency is up to the task for such as this? I worry that this may be it.

I just read about the decision of some members of the Guildford Boiler Room - a community linked with the 24-7prayer movement - jumping in cars and offing to Gloucester. They got on to the emergency services and asked where they could help and were told the areas where the es were frankly overwhelmed. So these guys go over there and knock on doors and say 'What can we do for you?' They're asked, 'what are you charging' They say 'Nothing, we just want to help'. And they do - draining cellars, mopping out kitchens, - how about that then? 

We're all really feeling for the huge number of people whose lives have been disrupted by the current floods. BBC coverage has on the whole been very good but with some real gaffs which show up the level of ignorance about things which, in my book anyway, matter. Today's biggie was on The One Show:

 

They had a reporter and camera team down at the Thames Barrier to interview someone from the Environment Agency about why only the Thames had a flood barrier and why was the Severn left 'at risk'. In the course of the conversation it became clear that the interviewer thought that all that has happened in Gloucester and Tewksbury could have been averted with a 'Severn Barrier'. The EA spokesperson did her 'educate the interviewer' thing with a patience and respect which I no way could have mustered. Question is, how can a BBC magazine programme go that far with a story without someone on the team saying, 'hold it, isn't the Thames Barrier about rising sea levels?'

 

I'm a real fan of the beeb; perhaps mistakenly? I'm actually quite shocked.