Happy Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful dad. I don't remember our first meeting, but I know he does. That's the unfair thing. He remembers all my childhood foolishness but I don't remember his. Fortunately he has an older brother who is a useful source of information! Anyway, I know I was a moody blighter as a teenager (hard to believe, I know, given my current delightfulness) and he put up with it all. For this and many many other reasons, three loud cheers for my dad! (And for my mum, as I didn't think of doing this on Mother's Day!) I see daily the fruit of dreadful childhoods in the lives of some (though not all) prisoners and it makes me appreciate so much more my own, whom I love.
Having one nice dad is pretty good, but I've also been blessed with a nice father-in-law too, who, from the very beginning has treated myself, and his other three daughters-in-law, like his own daughters. Wull the Bull (bull pronounced to rhyme with Wull), as Him Indoors disrespectfully calls him, fails constantly to hide a big soft interior with a tough exterior. And when he thinks, he puts his head to one side, which is very endearing. He is bravely coping with his wife's terminal illness just now, and if you're the praying kind, spare one for them please. "Happy" Father's Day might not be do-able for him, so I won't be so trite.
Our kids are being blessed too with a good dad, so I'm a grateful woman today. I'll count my blessings and name them one by one because I know it would be wrong to take all this for granted. Him Indoors caught this fish last year off Oban pier. I know it's not Catch of the Century but he was pleased, the soul. In our "courting" days, I never once saw him catch anything, except for a tree above his head. I laughed so loud and so long it was nearly curtains for the relationship, I think.
This father's day, I'm also thinking about a special guy, and his equally special wife, who're good friends of ours, and who're now only a few days away from meeting the wee one they are about to adopt. Happy Father's day to you. Ruth was talking on her blog about what makes her cry. Adoption moves me to tears. We have other good friends who've adopted twice and I found it so emotional to watch. I know it's partly because of what I believe about the Christian faith. John 1:12 says, "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he (Jesus) gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God". (John 1:12).
The logical follow on from that is to think of my OTHER father, my heavenly Father, God, to whom I have the strongest urge, twee and corny though it may seem to some of you, to include Him in my Father's Day wishes, and to thank Him again for His eternal patience with my many shortcomings.

Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry.

Here is a fun link to a website claiming to be the world's largest collection of tongue twisters, containing 2755 entries in 108 languages.

There are 406 English ones, many of which I've never heard before, and (only) four Scottish ones.

The Scottish ones are, of course:

It's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht.
It's a lovely moonlight night to-night. (I remember, with my friend, teaching that one to a waiter in Turkey. I wonder if he can still say it.)

Lang may your lum reek!
Long may your chimney smoke!

Mony a mickle maks a muckle.
Many a penny makes a pound., a kind of injunction to patience.

My mum taught us a politer version of the following! It had "gey" (which rhymes with the "i" in "right") instead of "damn":

Here's tae us!
Wha's like us?
Damn few,
an they're a' deid.
Here's to us! Who's like us? Damn few and they are all dead.

My dad taught us another:

Says he tae me, "Is that you?"
Says I, "Who?"
Says he, "You."
Says I, "Me?."
Says he, "Aye."
Says I, "Naw."
Says he, "Aw! Well, it's awfy like you".

The speed he said it at amazed my brother and myself. Dads are heroes to their kids for this sort of thing, of course.

A Body of Evidence

The late professor C.E.M. Joad, renowned as an atheist, wrote this:

"Man is nothing but:
Fat enough for seven bars of soap,
Iron enough for one medium-sized nail,
Sugar enough for seven cups of tea,
Lime enough to whitewash one chicken coop,
Phosphorus enough for one dose of salts,
Potash enough to explode one toy crane,
Sulphur enough to rid one dog of fleas".

Many thousands of years ago, when I first left school, I studied medicine at university. I only lasted two years, but ever since then I have kept a couple of quotes from my medical textbooks which say that before we even get to bring in religion, there is a lot more to it than what Joad said.

1) from "Textbook of Biochemistry and Physiology", a statement by Michael Forster, modified by R.C.Garry:
"We may speak of an organism as a complex structure, but we must strive to realise that what we mean by that is a complex whirl, an intricate dance, of which what we call biophysical activity, biochemical reactions, histological structure and gross confrigurations are, so to speak, the figures".

2) from Albert L. Lehninger, in "Principles of Biochemistry":
"There are some 10 to the power 13 cells in the adult human body, each consisting of a set of biomolecules in a specific proportion, each with a characteristic ultrastructure. Cells are grouped into tissues, tissues into organs, and organs into organ systems, their biochemical activities marvellously coordinated into an organism that not only is and does but also thinks and creates".

Some people find science to be evidence against God. I love science, and the more I learn the more I see it as evidence FOR God. What I suspect is that we have our faith, or our atheism, and then we look to science to back it up. To me, it seems obvious that DNA is so like a kind of amazing computer program that it points to a designer. I fully understand that atheists get irritated with my logic, but that's how it seems to me. We are amazing and our amazingness seems to me (though I appreciate that it doesn't to you, if you are an atheist) evidence of intelligent design. And of course, the Bible has this in Psalm 139 (my favourite psalm as I may have mentioned before):
"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be."

Interestingly, that renowned atheist Professor Joad, who I mentioned at the outset, who possibly wasn't quite fully a professor, just as the winner of The Apprentice wasn't fully a graduate - I don't watch it but there's been interesting debates on the radio today about whether it's okay to lie on your C.V.. Even more interesting to me, Joad became a Christian at the end of his life, presumably concluding there was more to himself than he had first thought.

It's a dirty job but someone's got to do it.

Apparently if you ask female children nowadays what they want to be when they grow up, they mostly want to be "famous", though they aren't clear for what. In my day the commonest answer would probably have been "a nurse". However, oddball that I am, the first thing I remember declaring that I would like to be was "a bin lady". Not a bin WOMAN. A bin LADY. I have class.

I was reminded of this today when I came across this quote from Adrian Plass: “My function as a writer and a speaker really is as a rubbish clearer. I try to sweep away a little bit of the rubbish that's accumulated ... so that people might look a little further down the road and see what new thing God might have waiting for them.” I think that's part of the job of a prison chaplain too, as I listen to prisoners. Lots of listening, interspersed with challenges to their thinking, in an attempt to be a rubbish clearer. So in a way I got to be a bin lady after all!

I spent a long time this afternoon with a prisoner whose life has been like the council tip, quite honestly. He is now well-motivated to change, and yet he's a creature of habit with eight or nine sentences under his belt (he's only in his early twenties). He has professed faith as a Christian, at a previous jail, and I'm trying to nurture that in him. If you're the praying kind, please pray for him, that all the rubbish will be swept out of his life.

What my readers will be wearing this season.

Wow! Get Out of Jail Free "lounge pants" are available online here. They stole my catchphrase. Oh, no, oops, twas the other way round. In Scotland we would call such a garment "long johns" and old men would wear cream coloured ones under their trousers in winter. On the other hand, when I reach 95 years old and am finally released from childcare responsibilities and pay off whatever debt four children at college may one day run up for us, I do plan to learn to "go" a motorbike, so I reckon these would be ideal for under my leathers. I'll be warmer than jail toast.

Tree time.

On another blog yesterday, someone called Anna commented: "I love how you can't pin point God. I like looking at trees and saying “Thats a cool tree” and if I seriously can't get my head round the amazingness of a tree, well God's a bit out of the question really." I know just what she means and I agree. I thought about that this morning, having got up unusually (unusually for me) early and gone a nice longish walk before work. Trees are cool. I appreciate there have been a few pictures with trees in recent days on this blog. Two things to say in my defence: there are a lot of trees about, and Scottish summer doesn't last long enough for this to be a year round problem. It'll soon be time to hibernate again.

Above: Look away now, Anna. It's a mass grave.Above:I cross this bridge every day on my way to work.

Above: I drive along this road every day on my way to work.
Below: I can see my house from here. At least I think I could if I had a telescope.

Above and below: I got so carried away with the photography bug today I took photos from the car window on the way home from work as well.

Not (yet) Got the Teeshirt.

The other day in response to my teeshirt post, where I mentioned I had spied a website selling prison chaplain's teeshirts, Tom from On the Brink of Eternity (a blog I like a lot) asked for the link. Here is the link but also here are some of the selection.
.
As a lot of our prison officers have motorbikes and as I still have my dream, I may just go for the sweatshirt, for the fun of it.

I also found another website with teeshirts for caravanners. (The Droid family are caravanners). You really can find anything on the internet. I quite liked the one below but there was also a man's one with a picture of a caravan, which said, "I've pulled". I thought that was very funny, but won't be ordering it.

Some Summer Sums.

Some sums for you:
Puppy + sunshine + 4 kids + beach = loads of fun.
Wet puppy + a surprise jump by said puppy onto tummy of sunbathing lady = yikes! and "So sorry!"
Wet puppy + a surprise jump by said puppy onto tummy of sunbathing lady who turns out to like wet puppies = smiles from her and relief from me!





Incidentally, it may surprise you to know (it still surprises me) that I once flew a helicopter above this very beach. (I got a lesson for a special birthday and, yes, it had dual controls). I had to follow the course of the river, and it's a very bendy river indeed so that wasn't easy.

Been there. Got the teeshirt.

Yesterday Him Indoors and Firstborn had a day out to Frenzy 08. They can say they've been there and bought the teeshirt.

Speaking of buying teeshirts I've found a website which sells teeshirts and baseball caps for chaplains! Woohoo! I'm thinking of getting the sweatshirt with "chaplain" and a silhouette picture of a Harley Davidson on it. It could be my new image round the jail, as I don't have a uniform and my dog collar has rusted in the wardrobe through lack of use.

Puppy Power!

Dear World,
As all the humans are in bed, I'm doing a spot of late-night blogging. There's a fascinating post over on "From The Inside". It just made me wonder, could I tempt any more of you out there to a cutie-pie like me?
Love,
Flora.
P.S. My mistress thought the later post that immediately followed the one I've directed you to was just brilliant.

She's from a Good Family...

Family is an amazing thing. I’ve met my Canadian cousin only a couple of times in my life, and not since the year Charles and Diana got engaged, whenever that was. But recently we have "met up" through Facebook and can chat away over the internet as if we’d never been apart.

Family is not the same as the group of random people that you rub alongside in your daily life. What makes family connection so real is the shared heritage. It is such a very special thing.

It’s the family who are called to the hospital bedside at the end, after all, not the boss, or the milkman, or the nodding acquaintance from the bus, or even the best friend. It’s the family. And, on a happier note, unless there are problems in your family, most of us enjoy a family gathering. (I even enjoy other peoples' family gatherings which is maybe a little weird). The hilarity can be great, because of the shared heritage. Funny stories get re-told for the umpteenth time and teens and young adults have to endure teasing about embarrassing things they did when they were wee and how all the cousins were once put in the bath together, etc..

Of course, not everybody’s family is perfect. Well, nobody’s family is perfect. But many families have major issues and problems and the family analogy may be a difficult one for some of us here to get our head round this morning, if our own experience of family isn’t good. A lot of the prisoners who tell me their stories have really terrible family situations. Complicated and messy and bitter and broken and sinful and criminal and generally dysfunctional. Think Jeremy Kyle. Think it, but don’t watch it, for goodness sake.

But I believe that all of us, no matter how screwed up our own family is, and how much hurt we have suffered, are created with an innate understanding of what a good family would be, and not only that, with a desire to be part of such a family.

The opportunity to belong to the Church (with a capital C) is an opportunity to have one of the deepest of our heart-cries met. The need to belong to a good family. Of course, just as our own biological families have an odd assortment of characters in them – odd aunts and eccentric uncles and the black sheep and the family sage and the family clown and so on, so also the church is made up of a random assortment of people.

My own local church family is made up of a huge age range of people, male and female, working class and middle class (if you can still say that), able bodied and disabled, ill and well, happy and sad, highly educated and barely educated, different nationalities. All sorts. And that randomness, I reckon, is what makes it so cool to be a part of. It’s so interesting.

I believe that God’s kingdom on earth, the true church (discounting the fake church, which also exists, but I haven’t got time to talk about it - but the true and the fake are all mixed up together, like wheat and weeds in a field…)is a powerful demonstration of the fact that God made all kinds of different people, ON PURPOSE, because He saw that as good, and that He loves all of them, and that under Him as Father, we are FAMILY, as random in our make-up as your family and mine, but we are still FAMILY. Dysfunctional, yes, but still FAMILY, and now that I've paused to think about it I think that's fab.

Dead Rats.

I have an old daily devotional book called "Climbing the Heights" dating from 1956 which I think belonged to my dad's aunt. The compiler was called Al Bryant but my favourite quote from it is from Herbert Lockyer and comes from the entry for March 10th and I've reflected on it often over the years. Apologies to any rats reading this. You'd be best to look away now.

"A British pilot had not flown very far before he noticed a peculiar noise. Looking down, he saw a rat gnawing away at a vital part of his plane. He could not stop to kill the rodent. What could he do? Up into the rarified air he zoomed, and the rat rolled over, dead. Does this not illustrate the power of prayer? When the rat of hell tempts us, prayer takes us up into the rare air of heaven, where everything not of God quickly dies".
Herbert Lockyer.

Walkies!

I love summer nights. Well, I'll rephrase that. I love summer evenings. As soon as I say "summer nights" I immediately hear in my head the words sung in that horrible jangly way they're sung at the end of the song in Grease (I'm of that age).



A representative sample of my kids and I took the puppy for her second ever proper walk this evening. The gorse was in full bloom.


We also saw some hedgehogs that had been carved from a tree trunk since our last visit. We also saw lots of joggers but I didn't like to photograph them in case I was reported to the police. And some brownies. Even more so there.



The bracken was looking extremely healthy too and had what I think of as "the smell of green". We saw a few trees too of course, seeing as we were in a wood.

And in other news, I am now on day three of being A Woman Who Does Not Need Caffeine. Yesterday and the day before I had none. This morning I forgot and made myself a coffee with regular instant. However I feel Mr Nighttime is just being mean posting his delicious post about the black nectar to tempt me mercilessly and, I feel, needlessly.

To Jail or not to Jail. That is the Question.

Yesterday the Scottish Justice Minister was commenting on the current high numbers of prisoners in our jails. You can read more here. Last year eighty percent of those sentenced received sentences of less than six months, the inference obviously being that their offences were minor. The Justice Minister and his party colleagues want to see the number of those sentenced to prison for less serious offences reduced. I am sure this is for ideological reasons but of course a useful spin-off would be that it would greatly ease the pressure on our overcrowded jails.

One problem for those who are sentenced to very short prison terms is that they are not usually able to benefit much from the resources within the prison service particularly in terms of education, vocational training, anger management and cognitive skills courses and so on. Thus, many feel, there is little benefit in sending them to jail and the reoffending rates are pretty high. On the other hand, at least while they are in jail, the public are getting a rest from them.

From reading many a police blog I appreciate that already for some time a lot of policemen/women have by and large been frustrated that so FEW of those convicted by a court get a custodial sentence, and, worse, for them, that so MANY "get off on a technicality". It clearly takes considerable effort for the police to get a case from the moment of apprehending the suspect to being ready for the prosecutors, so I can imagine that it is disappointing for them to have it come unstuck before a conviction can be secured. I expect then, that this announcement won't be music to their ears.

As I'm a humble nobody in the grand scheme of things, and don't move in the echelons of the Scottish Parliament, I really don't know all the factors they have to take into consideration and I'm not intending this post to be offering them advice!

On the other hand, because I'm on the ground, I think in terms of individuals and their stories. Also, I used to work in a night shelter/day centre for single homeless men ("down-and-outs") and for some of them their life involved umpteen short sentences. They accepted this as part of life and indeed knew that it was in the course of their month in jail without alcohol that their health would improve sufficiently to keep them alive during the next spell on the streets with the Superlager. It would be hard to manage these unhealthy individuals on a community penalty where realistically their ability to work at anything would be very limited.

That's just one type of prisoner. There are lots and lots of types, with different needs. I certainly don't want to see the numbers in prison go up just for the sake of it. (If it was up to me none of us would commit crime at all and we wouldn't need prisons, but it's not up to me). But, given that prison can literally be a God-send for many guys (I've lost count now of the number of prisoners, usually from a background of drug addiction, who've said to me, "I'd be dead by now if I hadn't got the jail"), I wouldn't like to see offenders refused the opportunity, and opportunity is exactly what it can be, to go to jail to access help and to break the cycle of bad-influence associates, addiction, gangs, whatever.

And yet, it has to be said, and Nightjack says it well, that for other groups of prisoners, prison is just too familiar and easy an environment and is no deterrent at all.

What's my conclusion? Er, well, er, it's complicated. That's my conclusion.

A Summer Meme

Ruth tagged me with this meme for summer. Since it has been raining/overcast all day this is probably not the day to do it, but here goes. My answers to the set of questions are:
1. What first tells you that summer is here?
Well, it's not the merchandise in the shops. Christmas stuff appears about September and Easter eggs appear virtually as soon as Christmas is over, so they're no guide. I suppose it's the clocks changing, light nights, the blossom being gone from the trees but the leaves being in full strength, and the change in school activities (this is the term of school sports, trips, reports, summer dresses for the girls).
2. Name five of your distinctively summer habits or customs.
Have I got five? Summer can be a fleeting experience in Scotland! There isn't necessarily time for five habits or customs to develop.
I do, love:
- to be outdoors and tend to feel if I personally am not outside on a sunny day, then the sun is going to waste (a pathologically arrogant point of view, obviously).
- picnics and barbeques.
- our summer caravan holidays. Caravanning's one of those things you either get or you don't get. I get it and I love it. I grew up with it and now we have a touring caravan. For summer we favour a site on the west coast of Scotland. The last time we were there, two other families and a couple we know came along and one night all of us, and five other people we know who live in the area had a wonderful barbeque on the beach. I can't explain how much I enjoyed that, especially the randomness of the group that were assembled (their only common thread being that they knew us).
- a cold glass of cider in the hot sun.
- not needing a jacket. Leaving the house is quicker and easier with four kids in the summer, and the laundry's easier when it's shorts and teeshirts.
3.) What is your favorite smell of summer?
Well, it's not sun-tan lotion. I don't like the smell of it much. I do like the smell of cut grass, and a barbeque can smell pretty good, or then again sometimes it's too smokey. I've noticed at barbeques that no matter how many people there are and how spread out over a garden they are, the smoke ALWAYS makes a beeline for me, no matter where I stand. I first noticed this at Girl Guide camp fires.
4.) What is your favorite taste of summer?
When I was a kid, it was a huge treat in summer to get an Ice Cream Soda (ice cream and American Cream Soda in a tall glass). It was the only time my mum ever used those glasses and I can still picture the pattern on them.
Now, I suppose it's a close run thing between strawberries and cream (oh, my mouth's now watering) and the long tall glass of cold cider in the sunshine.
5. What is your favourite summer memory?
I don't really have one favourite. I've had lots of lovely summers. I'm very very blessed, when I remember to notice.
6. Extreme heat or extreme cold? Which would you choose and why?
Being cold makes me feel depressed. Being too hot saps my energy. On balance I'd think I'd rather be depressed than have no energy.
7. What books do you plan to read for the season?
Noddy recommended a book, or series indeed, and I vaguely intend to see if I can read them. I bought a book today about a Scottish criminal, a true story, so I ought to read that. Usually on holiday I read mindless chick lit novels which I usually find on the second hand bookshelf at the caravan site, where I deposit the ones I previously read. I also have a book called "Teenagers" by Rob Parsons which I probably ought to read fairly urgently for domestic wisdom. And I have started a book by Eugene Peterson which I must finish first.
8. How does the summer affect your faith? Is it a hindrance or an ally?
When I was a kid, I found my faith got weaker over the summer when I didn't have the benefit of the youth activities that ran during term time. Now I think it's the opposite. In the summer, there's more time to still myself and think. The wonders of creation look their best which inspires me to a worshipful attitude. And the light, the physical light of the long day, compared to Scottish winter greyness, lifts my spirits enormously.

I'm not tagging anyone with this, at least no one in particular. If anyone fancies doing it, then I hereby tag you now.

Laziness and Lies.

A more modern translation of the passage this great cartoon is inspired by, namely Proverbs Chapter Six, Verses 6-19, says:
"Lazy people should learn a lesson from the way ants live. They have no leader, chief, or ruler, but they store up their food during the summer, getting ready for winter. How long is the lazy man going to lie in bed? When is he ever going to get up? "I'll just take a short nap," he says; "I'll fold my hands and rest a while." But while he sleeps, poverty will attack him like an armed robber.
Worthless, wicked people go around telling lies. They wink and make gestures to deceive you, all the while planning evil in their perverted minds, stirring up trouble everywhere. because of this, disaster will strike them without warning, ansd they will be fatally wounded.
There are seven things that the Lord hates and cannot tolerate:
A proud look,
a lying tongue,
hands that kill innocent people,
a mind that thinks up wicked plans,
feet that hurry off to do evil,
a witness who tells one lie after another,
and a man who stirs up trouble among friends."

That Hideous Man (he's not really hideous - I've met him) commented yesterday that he'd like more ranting so there was a rant not of my own writing but one of King Solomon's. It's a great rant. And I enjoyed reading and copying it after ten hours in jail today, which certainly adds a certain je ne sais quoi to my understanding of it.

Recently I finished reading "People of The Lie: Hope for Healing Human Evil" by the late Scott Peck an American Christian psychiatrist. It's a really fascinating book, quite chilling and disturbing really, but I found it unputdownable. Scott Peck's not one of those who sees demonic spirits all over the place, attempting to cast the nicotine demon out of smokers and so on. He's scientific and, to a healthy degree, skeptical. His insight as a psychiatrist is fascinating. Sometimes I disagreed with bits of what he said, but don't pretend to be qualified to judge.

What interested me most were two things:

First of all, I suppose when I began reading a book about evil people I expected the examples to be people like Adolf Hitler or The Yorkshire Ripper. However, the examples he uses are, by and large, all people who haven't even broken the law. They are sometimes very successful people. But the evil manifests itself, perhaps, in their emotional neglect of, and emotional cruelty to, their children, or their spouse, for example. Evil people, in Peck's opinion, won't seek help because they are living a lie which they themselves believe, in which they are wholly good and innocent. He sees evil as an illness, which is an idea I've never come across before and find a bit strange still, even after reading the book, but I agree with his idea that mental wellness, in many cases, and especially in the case of evil, is about seeking truth and reality, by rejecting lies.

Secondly, he writes a particularly fascinating chapter about group evil. He goes into the answers to a question we have always probably asked, namely, how it can be that groups can corporately do such appallingly evil things without one or two or three of the people interrupting the action and stopping them in their tracks. His case study is based on the story of Mylai, which was a village in which American soldiers carried out a terrible atrocity during the Vietnam War. It was covered up not just by the army but really, Peck says, in the end by the American people. Given that the book was written twenty years ago, and given what we know now, it is chlling to read “Twenty years from now, when Vietnam has been largely forgotten, how easy it will be, with volunteers, to once again become involved in little foreign adventures. Such adventures will keep our military on its toes, provide it with real-life war games to test its prowess, and need not hurt or involve the average American citizen at all until it is too late.” (Apologies to my American readers. I'm not getting at you in this post! That would be the pot calling the kettle black somewhat.)

Lost Without You.

Another series of Lost ended tonight. I'm lost without it.

Thank God for Church.

I got permission to take five prisoners out to church today. Not just random ones, but guys who have faithfully attended the services in the jail and in whom I had "confidence". I hadn't been to the church we went to before but had been recommended it and I'm glad we were. It was a really good service (thank you, Rev. Karen!), and the prisoners were so appreciative of being able to attend.

Non-Christians look away now. The rant which follows is for Christians.

I've been feeling the urge recently to put my fingers in my ears to stop listening to some of the spoiled me-me-me whining of the cynics who moan about the church. I don't mean non-Christians, whose moaning is only natural since they think we are misguided/deluded. I'm talking about Christians here. Yes, of course the church is imperfect. It's an institution made up of human beings so "doh"! Amongst the members of the police, the teaching profession, the staff in a hospital or a factory, the members of the rugby club or the bowling club, whatever, it will also be possible to spot flawed people and imperfections. Why would the church be any different? It's comprised of people from the police, the teaching profession, hospital staff, etc etc.. Human beings.

I get tired of listening to the incessant superior cynical whining of those who are disillusioned with the church because it doesn't meet all their needs. In our own case we have over two hundred people coming to our church on a Sunday. How could we, unless able to operate in parallel universes, possibly tailor church to the individual tastes of all 200? We do our best to hit the mark of course as widely as we can, but surely the art of being a good church member lies partly in recognising above all that it's not all about ME.

I go to church not always because I'm in the mood to go. Moods aren't reliable. I don't have a bath or clean my teeth just when I'm in the mood. I have made up my mind to do these things on a regular basis (more often than I attend church, btw).

I get angry with fake church charlatans as seen on some of the God channels. Put them in jail. That's fraud.

But as far as the genuine church is concerned? I think it's fine to come up with positive criticism in church to get things improved or updated. I think it's good to look at ourselves as prophetically as possible. But from the inside. You don't need to stop going, to opt out, to do that. If the church you're currently going to is dire (and I'm not denying the existence of dire churches) find the best one you can and stoop humbly to fit through the door if it's not just you to a "t".

The bottom line, I think, is that whether it comes naturally or not, we have to make ourselves love the church, because Jesus loves the church. The Bible calls the church his bride. When we slag it off, he says, "Oi, shut up, that's my wife".

This rant isn't entirely caused by caffeine deprivation. I've been feeling this frustration for a while, but it did hit home powerfully this morning as I observed just how grateful these prisoners were to be able to attend church. It made me realise just how much we ungrateful westerners are able to take what is a priceless privlege for granted.