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.

Life Without Caffeine Crumbles A Bit

You can get caffeine molecule earrings apparently. What next? Don't answer that. Day two of Life Without Caffeine was yesterday and I felt really lousy all day. I had no energy for work and no concentration either. I also had a vaguely sore back on Thursday night, which by Friday night was an extremely sore back. This morning it was really sore, and my legs were sore too. In fact I thought I must have something else wrong with me. However I took a couple of Ibuprofen at lunch time and two cups of coffee (!) and I've been fine since (it's now early evening). I couldn't believe caffeine withdrawal could have been so intense.

Fortunately last night was fun in spite of this as we had four overnight visitors. We're so used to the kids having friends round for sleepovers at the weekend it was funny to be welcoming adult visitors. Cheese and wine and chat instead of popcorn and DVD/Wii! (Him Indoors and the four kids were assigned the tent in the garden which was still up from last weekend - we don't have any guest bedrooms). They were in town for a conference and needing a place to crash overnight. One of them was a minister who was in the year below me at secondary school many moons ago and in my year at university. He and his wife were married a matter of days after we were (we were at each others' weddings). They had their first child eight days before we had our first child and they had their second (of two) within a day of our third being born. The parallel lives thing has taken a sad but inevitable course. Our friend's father-in-law has recently died and my mother-in-law is terminally ill just now. Both cancer.

Today we introduced the puppy to our favourite venue for family walks. Her first walk and her first swim were accomplished in the one day (the latter unintentionally on her part). She had a lovely time. Here is the photographic evidence. She met lots of other dogs and got plenty of admiring attention. She got to carry a stick, briefly - she was a bit ambitious with the one she chose. It was a wee bit far for her at this stage so she also got carried for some of it. And now she's totally exhausted, fast asleep on top of a pile of laundry whilst her human "siblings" watch Doctor Who.

Life Without Caffeine

Today drugs were in the news here in Scotland. The Scottish Government was announcing its thoughts on the subject.

I'm on day one of Life Without Caffeine, a little experiment I'm performing on myself, so it was interesting to hear all this talk of addiction on the radio all day.

Yesterday, I found this on the internet. It's a cheery wee test to find out how much caffeine would kill you! (It takes a lot, by the way).

And today, I read a cheery list of the possible symptoms of caffeine withdrawal:
"Headache – (often described as being gradual in development and diffuse, and sometimes throbbing and severe)
Fatigue -- (e.g., fatigue, tiredness, lethargy, sluggishness)
Sleepiness/drowsiness -- (e.g., sleepy, drowsy, yawning)
Difficulty concentrating -- (e.g., muzzy)
Work difficulty -- (e.g., decreased motivation for tasks/work)
Irritability -- (e.g., irritable, cross, miserable, decreased well-being/contentedness)
Depression -- (e.g., depressed mood)
Anxiety -- (e.g., anxious, nervous)
Flu-like symptoms -- (e.g., nausea/vomiting, muscle aches/stiffness, hot and cold spells, heavy feelings in arms or legs)
Impairment in psychomotor, vigilance and cognitive performances"

And, yes, I've had a fair number of these symptoms today and so I am sending myself to bed early.

Incidentally this is well worth a visit - it's bizarre but yet I believe it could be addictive itself. Lift the mice into the armchair and see what happens. It's educational, honestly.

Home Not-Sweet Home

Do you remember the theme song of "Cheers"?Probably the best remembered line from that song is "You wanna go where everybody knows your name".

It's nice to belong somewhere. When I was a kid my dad was the local minister. On a Saturday morning I would be sent up the main street with a shopping trolley (why was I not embarrassed?) for what we in the west of Scotland call the "messages" (not messages, actually, but groceries). The last shop I went to was the bakers, where there would be ready waiting for me a brown cardboard box tied with string containing forty small rolls (they were called TV rolls for some reason) and I would sit it on top of my trolley. There were four of us in our house and we all got two each for our packed lunch Monday to Friday (4x2x5=40). Anyway, up and down the street as I did the shopping for my mum, I would be greeted by several people who knew me as the minister's daughter. I didn't realise how nice that was at the time. When, as a teenager, we moved to a different town I found I didn't much care for being unrecognised, overlooked and generally ignored when I went shopping! Poor me with my whatever-you-call-it complex.

Nowadays we are a much more mobile society. We don't work where we grew up, we don't spend all our lives in the same place any more. We travel to socialise. Many of us don't have that community thing so much now. Actually as a parish minister's wife I've now got it again, but lots of folk don't.

However, for those who have had the experience of living in a community "where everybody knows your name" as the song said, it can be difficult when you lose that. They say that's one of the reasons lottery winners aren't always as happy in their new life as they anticipated - they've moved away from their old neighbourhood.

Anyway, recently I've been thinking about this whole thing in relation not to myself but to prisoners.

A big issue for many ex-offenders who are genuinely keen to mend their ways and live honestly and legally and stay out of jail, is what to do about their old haunting ground and old associates. Prison has removed them from the situation but as they look forward to liberation they have to think about the implications of going back home.

Imagine many of your family are drinkers/drug users. Imagine many of your friends are drinkers/drug users. Imagine many of them are in regular trouble with the police. Imagine you have been in trouble yourself since you were a young teenager but now you are 25, 35, 45, whatever, and are really determined to go straight and behave yourself. You never want to go back to jail. You are due for release soon. Should you go home? You've missed your family and they're excited that you're coming home. Where else could you go anyway? But how to manage living back there whilst staying sober/clean and out of trouble...?

And then, deep down, there's this community thing tugging at you. In the Bad Old Days, you were known in your area. Everybody certainly knew your name, and your pals' names. "Respect", well fear anyway. No one would mess with you because of your reputation, so you felt safe. Going to a new area you wouldn't have that. No one would know your name. You'd be a nobody. And you wouldn't be used to the vulnerable feeling that would arise in you.

These are real issues. I've been having conversations with prisoners on that very topic recently. The authorities sometimes don't want a guy going back to an area because of the "old associates" temptation problem, and yet sometimes they don't want a guy going to a new area because of "lack of support". "I can't win", a prisoner told me. But most of the guys themselves struggle to know the right thing to do or else, more often, know that they have no choice because there are no options for a roof over their head anywhere else.

If you've read this far, and you're not asleep yet, there is a fascinating verbatim account of a discussion among prisoners in an English jail recorded here. The bit I'm referring to starts about two thirds of the way down the page, focusses on a guy called Rick, and you need to do the "click here" thing at the foot of the page to get the rest of it. It's all to do with whether he should go back to his old "manor" or not. It was maybe a stage-managed performance for the benefit of the journalist but I've certainly heard this kind of thing said.

Would-be Evil Overlords Should Read This.

No, I expect you to die, Mr Bond...

I've just finished reading a serious, and seriously interesting, book about evil people, which I'll blog about one of these days once I get my head round it a bit more. But meantime here's something much less serious, that made me laugh a lot.

Fields of Vision

I took these two photos today en route between prisons. The oilseed rape fields are at their best at the moment. It's not a universally popular crop. Some people argue it causes allergies and many people also feel that the bright blocks of colour spoil the landscape. I have plenty of sympathy with the former objection if it's true but I'm not so offended by these fields' bright appearance as the second group of objectors. But then since daffodils are my favourite flowers, perhaps I just like big yellow flowers (except triffids, if they were yellow - I can't recall).

The first time I ever saw a rapeseed field must have been twenty something years ago, from the window of a bus taking a Sunday School class from Lanarkshire to St Andrews' Craigtoun Park. I had at that time a delightful class of seven year old boys. Amidst all the cries from children all over the bus of, "Haw, miss, err's a yella field", I heard from a little boy called Alan, in my class, a whispered, "Oooohhhh... there's a magic garden!" I have never once passed a field of oilseed rape since without thinking, "Oooohhhh, a magic garden!" I hope I haven't just similarly afflicted you by telling you that story.

Tired Wee Puppy.

Carry On Camping.

We're safely home from an overnight camping trip. The journey wasn't too arduous as it was only from the back garden. I was inspired by Lynn (Help I Work With Children) and pitched the tent in the back garden yesterday. Lynn actually went somewhere though. Blue Eyed Boy is away for the weekend at Scripture Union camp, and Him Indoors lived up to his name and slept indoors. (To be fair he has two services to conduct this morning and anyway that meant there was room for me to have the Z-bed in my end of the tent!) But Firstborn, Penultimate and Youngest Children and I retired to the garden after Eurovision (Russia won. I was supporting (a) Terry Wogan and (b)Finland, not just because they, the Finns rather than El Tel, were good looking guys with their shirts off, but because their music was the nearest to my taste).

Holidays in the garden are definitely the way to go. No packing. No unpacking. The washing machine, cooker and dishwasher still to hand. A visit for a cuddle from the puppy in the morning. And much better for the carbon footprint thing. I think we'll do this again.

God's Panopticon

Reflecting on the panopticon thing (see yesterday's post) as I was going to sleep last night, and on the public's mixed reactions to CCTV as well, I think I realise why the thought of being watched doesn't worry me greatly. It's because I've been brought up in the Christian faith, and whilst sometimes I've doubted, of course, I've never really abandoned it even temporarily. So, basically, all my life, I've believed I'm being watched anyway - by God!

When I was a wee girl we used to sing a hymn (kind of old fashioned now - I've not heard it for years) that began "God is Always Near Me":

God is always near me,
Hearing what I say;
Knowing all my thoughts and deeds,
All my work and play.

God is always near me,
In the darkest night,
He can see me just the same
As by midday light.

God is always near me,
Though so young and small;
Not a look, or word, or thought,
But God knows it all.

To be perfectly honest, when I was a kid, I felt very uncomfortable whenever we sang that line, "Not a look, or word, or thought, but God knows it all". Yikes! (I thought). Oh dear! (I thought).

However once I got to grips with the fact that my faith teaches that God loves us IN SPITE of those looks, words, thoughts, or indeed actions that are bad, I came to find the idea of a heavenly CCTV, or panopticon, as I will now think of it, as very comforting. My favourite bit of the Bible is Psalm 139, which, oddly enough, is on exactly this theme.

Psalm 139 (The Message translation) A David Psalm

1-6 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
I'm an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I'm never out of your sight.
You know everything I'm going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you're there,
then up ahead and you're there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can't take it all in!

7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you're there!
If I go underground, you're there!
If I flew on morning's wings
to the far western horizon,
You'd find me in a minute—
you're already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I'm immersed in the light!"
It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.

13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day.

17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I'll never comprehend them!
I couldn't even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!

23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I'm about;
See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.

I Spy With My Little Eye

Did you ever learn a new word and think, "I must see if I can fit that into a conversation this week?" I learnt a new word today but thanks to blogging I can create my own post about it. My new word is "panopticon". Perhaps I'm the last to know it, but if not, you can now know it too!

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was a Utilitarian philosopher and theorist interested in British legal reform. He proposed the PANOPTICON as a model prison. The word means "all-seeing" and the idea was to create an architectural design for prisons and "mad-houses" that would work in terms of twenty-four-hour-a-day surveillance.

Cells would all be visible all the time from a central tower but the inmates of the cells would be unable to see whether the guards were looking in their direction or not. This uncertainty, Bentham reasoned, would encourage prisoners to behave themselves.

A French philosopher called Michel Foucault wrote about "panopticism" (another new word!) in 1975: "Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers".

Panopticon jails haven't really taken off worldwide. However, doesn't what Foucault wrote just make you think of all the furore about CCTV cameras, and speed cameras? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. It'll soon be Big Brother season on television again, too.

I know it upsets lots of people but I don't mind big brother watching me, within reason (I mean I don't want CCTV spying on me at the loo or anything and one of these days the speed cameras will get me I suppose). But in fact, mum and dad, I always wanted a big brother. In general I tend to the view that if you're law-abiding you have nothing to fear but I know that's not a trendy viewpoint. Recently Him Indoors and I were victims of crime when our bank account was emptied. I am quite glad that some "nosey" surveillance person at the bank noticed an odd expenditure and phoned us up to ask us about it. I'm also glad that the bank refunded us the money.

Incidentally "panopticon" - I dare you to try to use the word in conversation over the weekend - was a word I came across while doing some training today about "intel" (intelligence) at work.

When Actions Speak Louder Than Words

This is an old story. But I like it and it's my blog.

Once upon a time, a member of a certain church, who had been a very regular attender, stopped going. After a few weeks, the minister decided to visit him. It was cold outside and the minister found the man sitting at home in front of a roaring fire. No doubt the man knew exactly why the minister was there, but he invited him in and showed him to the big chair next to the fireplace, and waited for the questioning or the lecture, whichever it would be.

The minister made himself comfy but said nothing. In solemn silence, he stared at the flickering flames. A few minutes later, he took the tongs and picked up a small red-hot coal and laid it on the stone hearth. Then, he sat back in his chair, still saying nothing.

The host watched the whole thing with interest. As the lone coal's flame diminished, its colour changed from red to grey and soon it was cold and dead.

Still not a word had been spoken between the two men apart from the initial greeting. A wee while later, the minister took the tongs again, picked up the cold coal and held it back in the middle of the flames. At once it began to glow again, with light and warmth.

As the minister reached the door and was putting his coat on to leave, the man shook his hand and said, "Thank you for coming, and thanks especially for your fiery sermon. I'll be in church on Sunday".

Mark Twain

Some of the wise and/or funny sayings of Mark Twain:

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.

Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

When you cannot get a compliment any other way pay yourself one.

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

Missing Jail.

I'm missing jail now. I've been attending the CofS's annual bottom-numbing-business-meeting, the General Assembly, since Thursday last week and it finishes tomorrow.

Although it's been bottom-numbing, it's not been mind-numbing. The Church worldwide gets such a bad press so it's been an encouragement to me to hear of our Church's passion for marginalised and vulnerable people, such as, for example: the homeless; those in war-torn countries; the elderly; children and youth; the poor; and to hear all the various calls on Her Majesty's Government (and other governments) to... x,y and z, as well as all the social work that we do. All good stuff. But I'm missing "my" prisons now and I'm looking forward to getting back on Thursday. How weird is that?

Next week will see the end of my first year in the job, the job that (*whispers*) I didn't really want but (*shouts*) now really enjoy. Being at the General Assembly has meant I've been with several hundred other ministers. One advantage of this is seeing some folk I've not seen since I left university thirteen years ago - interesting to see who's aged most and least (!) - and catching up with their news. It's also nice not to be in a minority of one for a change. I work in a multidisciplinary situation with social workers, prison officers, addictions support services, education and health staff, and management, but in that lot I am the ONLY minister across the two jails. There is a part-time Roman Catholic priest, though, so I don't get lonely really.

It's fun (yes, really) to get together at the Assembly and talk our churchy jargon for a wee while, like a foreigner going home for a week and getting to talk their own language for a change! But I enjoy the "cross-cultural" challenge that chaplaincy brings and I'm looking forward to getting back to it. Clergy normally work for the church. Chaplains, though, have a secular employer - in our case the prison service. Clergy normally worry about whether they and their congregation are too inward looking. Chaplains don't have that worry. We're out there in the thick of it, and that's very fulfilling indeed.

I may be mad but I'm not alone. A fellow chaplain has also experienced "missing jail" recently.

(I just wish prisoners never missed it, and would all stay out once out!)

Out-law?

In 1921 the Church of Scotland passed some "Articles Declaratory", laying out our structure, how we govern ourselves and so on.

Article I, for example, says: "The Church of Scotland is part of the Holy Catholic or Universal Church; worshipping one God, Almighty, all-wise, and all-loving, in the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance, equal in power and glory; adoring the Father, infinite in Majesty, of whom are all things; confessing our Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son, made very man for our salvation; glorying in His Cross and Resurrection, and owning obedience to Him as the Head over all things to His Church; trusting in the promised renewal and guidance of the Holy Spirit; proclaiming the forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God through faith in Christ, and the gift of Eternal Life; and labouring for the advancement of the Kingdom of God throughout the world. The Church of Scotland adheres to the Scottish Reformation; receives the Word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as its supreme rule of faith and life; and avows the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic faith founded thereupon".

Today at the General Assembly it was decided that we could revisit one of our Articles Declaratory. How radical! The sentence, and it's really only a sentence, in question is this, from Article III: "As a national Church, representative of the Christian Faith of the Scottish people, it (the CofS) acknowledges its distinctive call and duty to bring the ordinances of religion to the people in every parish of Scotland through a territorial ministry".

The view the CofS has taken until today is that we should get a map of Scotland, divide it into little manageable bits and put a church in each bit (or parish). This is what has been done. For example, routinely if someone dies who has no church connection, it is the local "parish" CofS minister who will get the phone call. The undertakers often have a map of the parish boundaries in their office so they know whom to phone. Although there are plenty of other Christians in our country, in other denominations, there has been a "territorial" coverage of the country with CofS churches. The question is now going to be asked whether this is still our vision or not. If it IS our vision, we'll need to cough up the money and human resources needed to plug some gaps and fill some vacancies. If it's NOT our vision, we'll need to change our mindset and realise that God is well able to work through a variety of denominations and we can relax and not feel it's all down to us!

I've always thought the territorial ministry as per Article III was a wonderful vision to have, motivated by a desire to serve our beloved nation: urban, rural, highland, island, all of it. But I am now asking (with others) whether it's really wonderful after all, or is it perhaps pretty arrogant to think we should have the country sewn up like this? I'm interested to see what the result of this questioning will be, but I'm certainly all in favour of soul-searching and I'm willing to sign up to search my own - I don't want to be arrogant.

Him Indoors was one of the Special Commission which brought this proposal to the Assembly today. It was a very interesting debate, but I was amazed that there was hardly any real oppositon to us at least taking a look at Article III and asking questions about it.

Perhaps it's like one of these mementos you hoard in your house for years and dust down every year but then one day you look at it again but you realise that actually you've moved on and you don't want it any more, and out it goes... We'll see.

Yikes!

Hahahaha. Things that can go, and have gone, wrong in working with kids in church. I've submitted a true story of ours too.