Adults

2.5 billion people in the world do not have somewhere safe, private or hygienic to go to the toilet.

Give 40p for every toilet you have in your house.

This one is nice and simple!  No semantic games to play, no deep thinking needed, just straight forward.  Two toilets, 80p.  Simples.  Of course one person does not need two toilets, but it does come in handy when I have visitors.  I'm certainly not going to waste energy feeling guilty about it!

My Pledge

Today - 80p

Total - £30.05, half a dozen prayers, some self-indulgent scribble and one e-petition signed

After the 'interesting' results I got from using Google to find out how to say 'goodbye' in other langauges, I am fearful of finding something dodgy if I search for Irish Gaelic!

On reflection it was quite appropriate to use Rubik Snakes in church on St Patrick's Day... and this little cartoon it quite fitting...

Today we concluded our short series looking at mission, with a reflection on / summary of David Bosch's 'mission in many modes' paradigm.  For the all age bit I used one of these:

I forgot to take a photo of the one I used, and gave away all of those I had bought to the children, so I nicked this image from the web.  Rubik 'snakes' can be twisted and turned into all sorts of interesting shapes, but the essence remains the same.  Not every conceivable shape can be made without breaking the snake, but the diversity of what is achievable is incredible, especially if you have the imagination of a child.

So I offer it as a metaphor, play with it and see what you make of it!

Friday was Red Nose Day, something of a British insitution these days, and a charity that has a its time raised a seemingly colossal amount of money for the causes it supports, both at home and overseas.  This years "Red Noses Night" was the first since I succumbed to the vice that is social media, and it was interesting (and enlightening) to see the comments being posted by friends of all sorts of religious and political persuasions.  Many commented that it just wasn't funny.  A lot (a count myself among them) were uncomfortable with the extensive use of sexualised language long before the watershed.  God may not be offended by the use of the word "shag" (duck? carpet pile?) but it was hardly appropriate for the under 12s watch the programme as early evening family entertainment.

I was uncomfortable with the portrayal of Peter Kaye's "wife" in purda, not entirely sure about the Simon Cowell marriage sketch, and thought that the Archbish sketch fell short of what the trailers had promised. As for Ricky Gervais... just plain disappointing.

I have yet to work out why someone shaving their hair off is "funny", and in common with many of my friends (though not all) who have been through chemotherapy could not have watched that bit had it actually been shown live (as advertised)... I physically cringed when Lenny Henry cut the first lock of hair.  That doesn't mean it should not have happened, but I do think there is something ghoulish about televising women having their heads shaved (or men having their legs waxed for that matter).  Funny it is not.

For me there were a few funny sketches... the Dibley explanation of the failure of the vote to allow women bishops (predictable as soon as you knew who was going to do the voting, but even so) and the horse-meat ready meals.  I also like the One Born Every Minute/Call the Midwife sketch, though the best bits had already been seen in the trailers.

I think that some interesting and useful conversations have been started among those prepared to move beyond either knee-jerk reactions either to bad language or to other people's reactions to bad language.  Tony Campolo has been quoted a few times (if you're more worried about the language than the issue something is wrong) but actually this isn't a binary thing, but very complex, and no easy answers or quick fixes.

There are lots of more entertaining, more thoughtful and more erudite responses floating about the ether, via blogs and other media such as...

Archdruid Eileen here

Tea & Cake here

Psephizo here

In some traditions, today is known as Passion Sunday, marking a distinctive shift in emphasis from the penitential recollection of the desert towards the atoning, redeeming events of the passion.  On this day we may focus on Jesus 'setting his face towards Jerusalem', consciously deciding/deducing that his destiny is now to go there and face the inevitable.  Or we may focus on him standing at some elevated location, able to look at the cityscape below, and weeping over it.

In other traditions Passion Sunday is the name reserved for next Sunday, the last one in Lent, a reminder that even amidst the jubilation of celebration the spectre of doom is abroad.  On the brightest morning, shadows still fall.

So, which hymn from BPW today then?  I have opted for one that is the greater part of a thousand years old, because to have survived for half the life of Christianity, it must have something important to say...

Alone now going forth, O Lord,
in sacrifice to die;
is all your sorrow naught to us
who pass unheeding by?

Our sins, not yours, you bear, dear Lord;
make us your sorrow feel,
till through our pity and our shame
love answers love's appeal.

This is earth's darkest hour, but you
can light and life restore;
then let all praise be given to you
who lives for evermore.

Grant us to suffer with you, Lord,
that, as we share this hour,
your cross may bring us to your joy
and resurrection power.

Peter Abelard (1079-1142), tr Francis Bland Tucker (1895-1984) alt. © Church Publishing Inc