A year ago at the Baptist Assembly in Plymouth BMS' David Kerrigan received a spontaneous round of applause when he had the courage to name the elephant of human sexuality when he memorably asked 'what is good news for the gay couple' (or was it 'gay community'? Quotes vary).

This year it seems, from what other bloggers are saying that the elephant is now being talked about, along with a whole heap of other inclusion/exclusion issues such as gender, race, age, (dis)ability etc.

David K is again offering important input as this happens, noting that the language of 'inclusion' carries the corollary of 'exclusion' and wondering if 'welcome' is a better word.  More importantly, in my view, he notes that talking isn't enough, it needs action.  If in five years time these topics are still being talked about but nothing at grass roots has changed, then something is wrong.

Read what David has to say here.

... since my surgery.  Can't believe how quickly it has flown by.

According to my physio leaflet, after three months 'all restrictions are lifted' and I can use my 'affected arm' as I wish.

So I thought maybe...

• a part time job with a coal merchant carting round hundredweights of coal
• a beginners class in caber tossing
• an acrobatics class in case I'm ever presented with an empty abbey and several yards of inviting red carpet.

In reality, my arm has a great range of movement and is getting stronger, though still 'pulls' if I exert it and stiffens if it is cold or the ambient environs cool and damp.

Only 8 more nukings to go and I'll be done.  Hurrah!

I had this mad idea to preach a a series of three sermons on linked pairs of words viz:

Hope and Fear

Love and Hate

Faith and Doubt

The idea being that rather than seeing these as polar opposites, one bad the other good, they actually exist in some kind of tension.  Insterestingly I discovered today one of the Hebrew words usually translated 'hope' means 'twist' or 'cord' or 'tension' cue spooky music.

Anyway, I naively thought that somewhere in one of my numerous general theology books would be something on fear.  Nah.  Nothing.  Not a sausage.  Not even 'fear of the Lord'.

So, here's the request for help:

Can anyone point me at some constructive theological writing on any of

Fear

Hate

Doubt

It's probably too late for this week's service on hope and fear, though I have managed to find some stuff I can work with, but any or all ideas welcome. 

Also more spooky music as I found Stan Grenz expressing the 'same but different' ideas I'd used over Easter in a part of a book I'd never read before.  I love it when that happens.

Answers to the usual address!

Check this out for a wry smile.  HT BUGB e-news sweep.

Been and done it - my three votes on three different colour-coded voting slips posted into the appropriate ballot boxes.  From a simple 'yes/no' on the referendum to a roll of wallpaper for the Scottish regional representation, it reflected the diversity of democratic process.  Now we have to wait to see how the results pan out.

At least here I am reasonably confident that far right parties won't make an impact.  I had a quick look to see who was standing in my old local government ward of Dibley and discovered that the far right guy who got in last time is standing once more - this time as an independent as, it seems, the far right party he was part of wasn't far enough right enough for him.

After the local council election at which that candidate was elected I preached one of my few overtly political sermons as a response.  My one non-white, non-UK born, church member thanked me, because he was genuinely afraid of the potential consequences.

This week I've been thinking quite a lot about injustices and how difficult it is to address them, that sometimes it has to be one at a time, that sometimes former victims become perpetrators, that sometimes despite our best efforts we end up as hypocrites.  Baptists claim to believe in freedom of conscience, but we don't always think that through terribly carefully.  The far right people have the right to hold the views they do, and even to test public perception by standing for election; however, we have a responsibility both, where and when we can, to speak prophetically in response and to get out and vote for other candidates.

Whilst I was typing this, the postman delivered the postcard I'd completed a few weeks back at the closing gathering of the Glasgow Poverty Truth Commission on which I, like others, had been invited to write down one thing we would do as a result of what we'd heard.  I wrote this:

I will: continue to work for a just society where all are valued as of equal worth

Even as I wrote it, I knew these words were far easier to write than to enact.  Sometimes it seems like one step forward and two back.  Sometimes it seems addressing injustice A means living with injustice B.  Sometimes it seems there are so many injustices it's impossible to know where to begin.

I am reminded of words in a song sung by Cliff Richard back in the days when he was just about the only Christian singer I knew of:

It's a drop in the bucket, I can hear you say

But the bucket gets wetter, I know we'll fill it some day

And I think there is some truth there - what I, or anyone else, does may be just a 'drop in the bucket' but all the drops slowly and steadily increase the amount of water in the bucket, until one day there is enough to wash or drink or simply enjoy.  I guess the challenge is to avoid inadvertently kicking it over.

So, as ever on voting day, my aim is to get you to vote, and to do so bearing in mind the privileges and responsibilities of democracy, the challenges of challenging injustice and the value of every drip and drop.