This morning I was doing an e-search of the 'Good News Bible' to find verses that contained 'child' or 'children'.  Imagine my horror when I landed on Proverbs 22:15 and it was rendered thus:

Children just naturally do silly, careless things, but a good spanking will teach them how to behave. (GNB)

This isn't just bad translation, its very scary interpretation.  So, I was distracted into a time of web-trawling, using Bible Gateway to check other translations, trying to find out just what the 'rod of disicpline' might have been or meant and finding some highly disturbing far right American Christian websites along the way - one even telling you what size of 'switch' you needed for a baby under a year old. Very scary indeed.

Most Bible translations opt for something such as

Young people are prone to foolishness and fads; the cure comes through tough-minded discipline. (The Message)

or

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from them. (NIV)

Several online commentators see the 'rod of discipline' as figurative, one comparing it to the 'long arm of the law.'  Those who see it as literal, and even those who see it as allied to corporal punishment, see its referent as 'grown up children' and note that since we don't stone our wilfully children to death (Deuteronomy 21) why would we spank them?

'Firm discipline' and 'tough love' are one thing, violence against children is another and we do well to beware any bad translations that tell us to 'spank' when the intent is otherwise.

Then there's Proverbs 23:13-14 too often cited as 'a good spanking never killed anyone'... if the rod in this context can't kill then it clearly isn't a 'good spanking' that is being alluded to.  The GNB sacrily renders this verse as

Don't hesitate to disicpline children.  A good spanking won't kill them.

Well actually yes it might, and alas plenty of news reports show it does.  Better is the CEV which says

Don't fail to correct your children. You won't kill them by being firm, and it may even save their lives. (CEV)

Anyway, enough of the Bad-News Good-News Bible - I have to find some useful passages for next week.

(NB this post corrected due to earlier error)

This afternoon when using a theme search in Hymn Quest I stumbled across this hymn about approaching old age (and even death I suspect) which I thought was rather lovely (even if it is no use for my upcoming service on the child in the church!)...

When I was a child I walked in the sunlight,
Drank the wind,
Listened to moss in a wall,
And I thought I knew it all.
Now I walk in the dark,
Nothing high, nothing low.
There's no colour of sound
As with steps in the snow.
I walk in the darkness
Through an unpinioned night,
To the time when I'll be a child
With strength to bear the light.

When I was a child I walked in the sunlight,
Stroked the bird-song,
Leaned my full weight on shadows
And for me they were so strong.
Now I walk in the dark,
Nothing deep, nothing wide.
I unslip all the years
That scold and deride.
I need no shadows
For support in this night
Through which I go to my birth
And strength to bear the light.

Estelle White (born 1925) © 1969 Stainer & Bell Ltd and McCrimmon Publishing Company Ltd
Irregular

Maybe at a future date I'll do a service on older people and the church...?

This morning I had to go to the sorting office to collect a parcel, something which now involves longer waiting in the queue than getting there and back as it is almost next door to my new home.  As I stood in the queue I read the various notices including one relating to the collection of mail from private mail boxes.  I can't recall it verbatim, despite reading it twice in disbelief,  but the gist of it was thus:

Mail from private mail boxes will be available for collection at 9:00 a.m.

Customers may collect mail before that time but only mail that is available can be collected.

Mail not available until 9:00 a.m. will not be available for collection before that time.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

All very logical but do people really think that something not available before 9 a.m. will be available before 9 a.m.?

I can't somehow imagine a shop saying 'this store opens at 9 a.m. customers arriving before 9 a.m. will find this store is not open until 9 a.m., we are sorry for any inconvencience this may cause' but the logic is pretty much the same.

Of course, at the Gathering Place we would have to say this:

Morning worship starts at 11 a.m.

People may arrive before that time and will be assured of a warm welcome

People may arrive after that time and will be assured of a warm welcome

Indeed, come along on a Sunday morning and you will be welcomed

We hope you will enjoy worshipping with us and your arrival time won't inconvenience us at all

(Most folk arrive by 11 but it's not unknown for them to wander in any time, and it's fine, we just get on with it)

It is an absolutely glorious day in Glasgow.  Cold, but lovely.  For me, it is a day when it feels good to be alive but of course it is not so for everyone...

Craig posts here about the potential deportation of a minor from Glasgow.  The smallness of the world and the interconnectedness of Baptist and Iona Community life means many readers know at least some of the people involved.  For Craig, for Rima and her family, the weather man may say fine today but it's raining in their hearts.

Likewise for Clare and Tim in Manchester, watching the demolition of the little chapel where they have faithfully exercised ministry for ten and twenty years respectively makes even the brightness of this day a little more chill, a little more bleak.

In moments like this I find myself reminded of the little phrase tucked into Paul's 'body' metaphor for the church that says 'when one part suffers, the whole suffers' (too lazy to look it up, hence the paraphrase.)  It does not diminish my joy in the sunshine or my delight in the full moon that hangs in the sky at night but it does mean that I am touched by the pain of their suffering.

On Sunday one of the passages I used was Ecclesiastes 3 - a time for everything.  Too readily we slip into a kind of dualism (or I do) of seeing the pairs as alternatives, one experiences either one or the other.  Actually part of the mystery is that birth and death, building and uprooting, gathering and scattering are intertwined and often roughly-speaking coincident.  Rather than 'either/or' this is 'both/and'.

Among my favourite prayers is the Jewish ghetto prayer that says (roughly)

I believe in the sun though it does not shine;

I believe in love though I don't feel it;

I believe in God though God be silent.

Today, when the sun is bright, and my heart is glad, and I have even seen glimpses of divine activity in apparently inconsequential decisions, so too I know that for others the shadows are chill, the heart breaks and heaven seems a resounding void... Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers.

A search in Hymn Quest showed a real dearth of stuff for Fairtrade.  Some very worthy unpoetic stuff but nothing that I would want to sing.  Looking back over past years I've mostly used creation type stuff or justice type stuff, or a mixture of the two.  This year I've picked some things from Common Ground (but not saying which to keep an element of surprise for local readers) and have re-worked a banal ditty I wrote about eight years ago (scary) to follow the 'All Together' part of the service (I sneakily changed it from 'children's talk' when no one was looking).  It constitutes doggerel but is sung to the tune of 'when I needed a neighbour' so hopefully most people over about 35 will know the tune... see what you think.  (Only polite comments allowed!)

Fairtrade Questions

When you’re buying bananas do you care, do you care,

When you’re buying bananas do you care?

Where they’re from,

What the price is,

Or what’s paid to the farmers,

Is it fair?

When you’re drinking your coffee do you care, do you care,

When you’re drinking your coffee do you care?

Where it’s from,

What the blend is,

Or what’s paid to the growers,

Is it fair?

When you’re munching your chocolate do you care, do you care,

When you’re munching you’re chocolate do you care?

Where it’s from,

What the brand is,

Or what’s paid to the workers,

Is it fair?

When you’re buying a tee-shirt do you care, do you care,

When you’re buying a tee-shirt do you care?

Where it’s from,

What’s the fashion,

Or what’s paid to the weavers,

Is it fair?

When you choose Fairtrade products then it’s fair, then it’s fair,

When you choose Fairtrade products then it’s fair!

And the price,

And the choices,

That bring hope for the future

Show you care.

Catriona Gorton 2010