Let the good blogs roll!

 Probably not the most spiritually uplifting post title I could dream  up for the start of Holy Week, still,  I  just wanted to draw your attention to a new addition to my blogroll, courtesy of Archdruid Eileen, whose latest tealight I  couldn't resist. A Letter from Home, you sound like my kind of blogger. And after reading about the multifunctional purpose of your dining room, I don't feel half as  guilty about the state of ours (aka hubby's glory hole) as I did before. Or the study (cat's pad and craft corner). Creatives of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but: your reading glasses, pen, notes, address book, diary, church giving envelopes...oh dear, never mind.

Space is bad for your eyesight - New Scientist latest

Mr M's summary of the 17 March issue of NS:

·       Space is bad for your eyesight. Astronauts returning from long periods in space displayed some deformation in their optic nerves.

·       Low fat diet boosts sperm count.

·       Researchers on animal behaviour are using virtual worlds for testing. This allows them to carry out investigation in a more controlled and precise manner, focusing down to the role of specific neurons.

·       Primitive nerve clusters, predecessors to our brains, have been found in worms living 600m years ago.

·       Gene loading may be the next method of cheating at sport. Tests on mice have shown that those with a injected with a virus containing gene IGG-1 could swim 3 times further than control. Current testing methods would not detect this.

·       A study testing impact of alcohol on creative problem solving showed a small amount of vodka improved performance on a test linking words to an underlying concept.

·       A fibre optic cable is being laid from between Tokyo and London. It will cross the Arctic Ocean the first time this route has been followed. It should reduce latency between these cities by around 30%.

·       Most of the energy usage for free Android apps is used to power advertising. 

·       One or more of the following fundamental particles may be the next Higgs: Stringballs, Tetraquarks, Glueballs, Inflatons, Pomerons, Leptoquarks, Winos, Anyons, Galileons, Majorana particles, Wimpzillas. 

·       Religion has been shown to predate agriculture in terms of human evolution. This had led to speculation that religion was a key enabler in allowing the co-operative behaviour that agricultural societies need to succeed. Large groups require shared rules in order to remain stable but the larger the group the easier it is for people to cheat. (studies show that feelings of anonymity, even just wearing dark glasses, promote selfishness and cheating) . Coalescing around a shared belief, enforced by an all seeing entity, makes this cheating behaviour less likely.

Spring has Sprung in Sunny Salisbury

                                       

What better place to be on a beautiful day like today but the Cathedral  Close at Salisbury. I decided to do one of my spur of the moment trips to Sarum College library; a veritable Aladdin's Cave for the theological bibliophile, (I especially recommend the spirituality section).  I discovered Sarum  (photo top)  three years ago by one of those happy co-incidences: a leaflet I picked up in Sherbourne Abbey one day whilst  we were staying in the town  for The Tour of Wessex cycle race.  If you're interested, you can read about some of my other Salisbury sorties over on my old Greenpatches blog.

Please excuse the 'interesting' composition. Photography isn't a gifting of mine!

"This is the mystery of faith": Passiontide

 So Passiontide begins.  Rather than my own muddled meanderings on the meaning of Christ's Passion, I'm linking to last Sunday's sermon from what, for online purposes, I've previously  blogged about  as 'Newchurch. ' Here it is, a memorable  reflection on the metaphors we  use as we grapple with the meaning of the mystery that lies at the heart of our Christian faith: Why did Jesus go to these lengths? What was the point of his sufferings? What was the point of his death?

It's when I hear teaching like this that I realise again that Eeyore though I might be at times,  I'm so fortunate to have found a church  now where different viewpoints are accepted, questions are asked and we're  encouraged to expand our understanding of God beyond the human constructs we place on him. As it says in the closing paragraph: 

...as we travel on towards Holy Week and Easter, let’s pray for the grace to expand the horizons of our imaginations and not limit our understanding of God to the poverty and littleness of our human existence… there is so much more.

Amen to that!

The Sound of Silence - Postscript

After my musings on silent retreats, I forgot to point out that Question 11 on Archdruid Eileen's Contemporary Christianity Exam adds an important contribution to the topic under discussion.

Lent Practices: Confidence and Letting Go - Mothering Sunday reprise

  Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover.  When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom.  After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.  Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.  Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.  When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

    “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”^[ But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

  Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.  And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

 - Luke 2  New International Version (NIV)

So, the pic above is my reflective take today on the Mothering Sunday talk I wrote about last week.  The snap here was taken in a hurry and rather fuzzy: Basically, I decided to juxtapose Cecil Day-Lewis's Walking Away (pasted  into the heart), against the account of the boy Jesus in the temple.  Simplicity is all. The seed case and dandelion were a last-minute addition, gathered as I walked up to church. Not easy to find at short notice these last two; church is in a 'nice,' area and people keep their gardens and verges neat, tidy and relatively weed-free. (to the detriment of my spontaneous bursts of self-expression!)

I've been pondering a bit as to whether I'm bringing some of my own 'stuff,' into what's turning out to be a kind of  visual meditation and the appropriateness of so doing. Last week's - which I forgot to photograph -  certainly did. Then looking at it another way; who's to know what  each viewer (most people are too busy drinking their coffee to notice it in any case!) sees in it? That it's rooted in prayer, authentic and from the heart is surely A Good Thing, regardless of outcome... Hmm? That sounds suspiciously like another example of  'letting go,' and, oh dear, I really am not managing very well on that front, am I ?!

The Sound of Silence

As anybody who's familiar with my old Greenpatches blog will know, I'm no stranger to retreats. Silence and solitude have played a major part in my faith journey for a long time  now; it comes naturally to me and I sometimes need to remind myself that not everybody relates to God in the same way. The memories of that first  course over ten years ago when we were (gulp!) asked to spend 15 minutes in silent prayer seem very hazy  indeed.

I do love to hear about other people's experiences as they discover this marvellous gift for themselves though, so was delighted to stumble across Tim of  Nomad Podcast's reflections on a five -day retreat and his interview with Ruth Holgate of Loyola Hall Spirituality Centre. UK readers may remember her as one of the directors on The Big Silence documentary, filmed at St Beunos.

So, if  you're wondering what this practice of silence and retreat is all about and whether it's for you, you might find both of these resources help answer your questions.