OK, so I stole this picture from Sean who, seemingly, has better skills than I do for nicking it from the Assembly website (either that or he took an identical photo!).  I am to the viewer's right of the guy in the white shirt (one Nick, colleague and classmate) and my good friends and colleagues Diane and Jill are further to the right in the same row.  Just behind me is Stephen, another classmate.  Alas Andy is right at the back - and if you are counting the other classmate is missing (no real surprise there!).

I share Sean's views about the 'In Memoriam bit' - each year there are more names I know, although at least this year no classmates.  It is strange to imagine that one day my name will be up there - all struggles and successes gone, the sermons, prayers, visits, disagreements, and so on over.   It is a great privilege to be part of so much dedication and commitment to the service of the Gospel and to God's crazy commitment to entrust it people like me.

Oh, and for the record, whooping is not unseemly, so long as you are in PRISM at the time!!

I feel I need to preach a response to our local election results.  I can't find any resources to help though.  I wondered about using Romans 13:1 - 8 as a way to raise the question, given our current situation - what is assumed about the authority we obey?  One of my deacons, in response to me asking if they thought this was a topic I should address, said yes, and alluded to what happened in Nazi Germany.  I guess the stories of slavery and apartheid are not a million miles removed.  Anyone got any ideas please?

Remember - all it needs for evil to triumph is for decent people to do nothing.

At Baptist Assembly we were told about a new partnership with 'A Rocha' (a Christian environmental organisation) and of a guest speaker for next year, Dr Vinoth Ramachandra, who holds a PhD in nuclear engineering.  Whilst history dictates that I must pray for the soul of anyone who studied at Imperial College, London, I discover he has the same first degree as I do, albeit completed some 20 years earlier.  Intriguing to imagine someone this great sitting in the QMC Nuclear Engineering building in Bancroft Rd listening to Prof Leslie enthuse about neutron dynamics!

Whatever his take is on nuclear issues, and whether you or I or anyone else agrees, at least he knows what he is talking about.  Wonder if he still has a copy of Lamarsh sitting on his bookshelf too...?!

This is what I heard said on Sunday evening (i.e. it is a recollection, an interpretation, not a quotation): 'if you are in the place God wants you, you will be happy.'

What do you think?!

"The arc of history is long, but it bends towards freedom" - Attributed to Martin Luther King Jr (sometimes with 'justice' rather than 'freedom') and cited in one of the Bible studies I attended at Assembly.  Given my work on history, this made me think quite a lot.  Is the 'arc' the trajectory and the 'freedom' (or 'justice') the 'end' or 'telos'?  Is the 'bending' the natural shape of the 'arc', or is it something that occurs, perhaps as a result of grace or the 'lure of divine love'?  Is it that history tends towards freedom/justice, or that it it can be bent towards these?  In other words, is freedom inevitable if we wait long enough or must it be worked for?  Could freedom in fact be a subversion of the more self evident trajectory where the powerful and oppressor seem to triumph throughout recorded history?  Is it, in fact, that in Martin Luther King's expression there is an essentially theological understanding, an eschatalogical element, that one day, when all is made new, there will indeed be freedom and justice?  And is the 'now and not yet' of Christ's incoming Kingdom somehow what nudges us to seek freedom now?  And if all this is true, what does it say for the writing and reading of history within the Christian tradition?  All very complicated, and my brain is still too mushy to work it out yet.

So instead, off into some slightly flippant word games with the words 'arc' and 'ark.'

History as being like Noah's ark - the essentials to start a new life after the purging away of a corrupt life, literal or mythological.  I wonder what would be the 'clean animals' and 'unclean animals' we would select to save so that when we founded a new life we had the essentials we need?  What stories, what knowledge, discoveries, objects or technologies would we take into our ark? 

History as like Moses' ark of Covenant - a repository for things that need to be remembered - stone tablets, manna... an elaborately decorated box that has the precise purpose of linking us back to those who went before us, reminding us of their stories (good and not so good) and of God.

Arc as 'bow' - as rainbow - back to Noah!  History as a symbol, a sign, that points beyond itself.  Is that possible?  Is there maybe a covenantal element to history - 'when you see this you will remember...'?  The rainbow as a symbol of covenant is both a pointing back and a pointing forward - because you remember this so the memory should prompt you to do/be that...

If we can/should read/interpret the Bible in covenantal perspective (which seems good to me) might something similar be said of reading/writing/interpretting/applying the past?  Obviously questions of authority emerge but the parallels may be there.

I'm not sure that this makes any real sense, but it's roughly where my mind wandered yesterday.