I responded: Perhaps we could combine it with the other Parliamentary Debate Petition, “Bring back the death penalty,” – it also has almost the full compliment of votes! Then issue the Police with machine guns and get rid of teenagers and their dreadful music. Problem solved! Alternatively…

Whilst “justice must be done” – restitution – solving the problem is a lot more difficult. It is certainly an opportunity for the Churches to be what they are supposed to be – a loving community to these ill-educated and alienated children.

There was a Hackney Youth Worker on radio, and he was saying these kids don’t feel a part of society – they see Police as just there to frighten them into behaving. The schools are poor and demoralised, and pupils emerge from them with few job prospects. They become MacDonalds fodder. The rich businesses come into their communities take their money and time, yet put nothing back into the community *. Kids are mostly from single parent families, where the parent has to hold down three jobs just to make ends meet. Consequently these kids “are brought up by computer games.”, and feel completely unloved. I wonder if a Hackney Youth Worker has a finger on the pulse?

Makes you wonder where the “SICK” of our society resides. Will violence against children improve the situation? Are our leaders, spiritual and political, too frightened to speak the truth because it’s more than their job’s worth. It is a consequence of secularism, and according to scripture we might expect a lot worse.

* According to the Youth Worker, the original group was a hundred strong and briefed only to target these incomer businesses. Within an hour two hundred more had joined in and, lacking the briefing, local businesses began to be destroyed.

It was beautiful in detail. Perfectly cute velvet ears. Eyes shut, as if it might just be sleeping. Those neat, delicate, little paws cats have, with their retractable claws. Apart from the minor mistake, this cat probably had many more feline years of mischief and disdain left in it. But that was what was so awesome – no one would be able to reanimate this beautiful carcass; for that is what it was. No longer a cat. What had made it a cat, the supine spirit of life, was no longer resident. The processes of atrophy and disintegration were no doubt underway.

It is so difficult to communicate the distinction I was struck by. The difference between the living cat, and the carcass. I had in my hands a Reductionist’s Cat, perfectly formed in every respect (apart from the obvious damage Aspirin had caused it’s kidneys) – but there was no way this mannequin was ever going to move so delightfully and proudly as it recently had.

The cat life had gone elsewhere – and so much of what had made this mannequin a cat was missing. It wasn’t just some mysterious electricity, some “spark”. A whole entity had gone – more, actually, had gone than was left. To make a very crude, subjective estimate, the material residue of the cat would account for somewhere between ten to thirty percent of what constituted a complete cat. Where, I wondered, was the other, more significant, seventy percent of it? The real cat.

“Wow,” I thought, “so, that’s life!” That’s the part God breathes, and just into a cat, that makes it different from a lump of rotting meat.

View from above my house. Summer.

I’m just missing painting.  This was one of the last ones I did – in about 2000.  A view from above my house.  It’s quite big – about a metre and a half across.  I stopped painting to release time to devote to worship music commitments; and for now, that’s the way it has to stay.  <sigh>

komuso

I just came across this image, and searching further found out what it was about. There is something… breath-taking about it. (Quite apart from the fact they are flute players!) Here’s the excerpt from some else’s site explaining..

“During this era, marked by the disintegration of feudal Japan, the shakuhachi was favored by swelling numbers of uprooted samurai warriors (ronin) who joined the ranks of itinerant preachers known as komuso (”Priests of Emptiness and Nothingness”). The komuso wore large baskets (tengai) over their heads to symbolize their detachment from the world. Violent clan struggles which marked the late Sixteenth Century forced some of the komuso to organize themselves into a society for self-protection. Members of the Fukeshu sought to deceive the shogun — Japan’s supreme warlord — with forged documents giving them exclusive rights to play the shakuhachi and to solicit alms with it. In return for this privilege they agreed to spy on the activities of other ronin. Legend has it that these komuso, forbidden to carry their revered swords, redesigned the shakuhachi from the root of the bamboo making it longer and stouter for use as a club as well as an instrument for spiritual attainment.”

Credits
The photo found here: http://www.shakuhachi.com/
The textual excerpt from here: http://basementrug.com/543
The accurate history can be found at JSTOR – but I think that is restricted access? Komuso

Ex 33:1, says, “the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that I would give to their descendants.” – Not just to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

So in the diaspora did something change?

Again, scripture, mediated through St. Paul, says not: Rom 11:1 “Has God rejected His people? Of course not!”

Because?…
Ps 100: 5, “For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Or, as an old Sunday school song maintains about the nature of God, “Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same..”

Having given the land to the Israelites, did God take it back again? Yes, temporarily. Did non-Jew Christians, suddenly stop being Gentiles – having, through faith, received Abraham as their ancestor? Yes, but, Paul warns the wild olives about getting too complacent in that regard [Rom 11:17].

Romans 9, talks about two sorts of descendants of Abraham: Israel, and Children of God. Of the first, “It is through the line of Isaac’s descendants.” And, for the second, “it is the children born through God’s promise who a reckoned as Abraham’s descendants.” Further on in Romans 9, Paul says, only a remnant of the natural descendants (Israel) will be saved … the Lord’s sentence on the land will be summary and final. I don’t think that judgement has come through as yet.

I would be surprised if “the remnant” were not those Israelites who are also children of God, by confession of faith in God’s Messiah (Jesus of Nazareth). And I think, to cut to the chase, we don’t have a complete answer as yet. All we can say of the natural descendant Israelites for sure is, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, to exhibit my power in my dealings with you…”

So, “watch this space”, is what I think scripture is saying.

As an interesting footnote, God’s promise to Abraham’s descendants through Hagar, traditionally taken to be the Arab nations – way back in Genesis 16:11b, “You are to name him Ishmael, because the Lord has heard of your ill treatment. He will be like a wild ass; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him; and he will live at odds with all his kin.” Approx. 3000 years later I must exclaim, “How topical is that?!”

God is sovereign and the exhibition of God’s power continues to the glory of His Name!

I was particularly struck by the comments of one of the bereaved mothers questioning how anyone in their right mind could release the murderer of her daughter, and so many others.  She concluded, ironically, with a statement… I don’t know what the correct term for it is – a statement proving her assertion, though not in her favour,  “If that man is shown compassion then we have lost our moral compass.” – or, words to that effect.  God forbid that I should suffer such bereavement as that mother;  my heart truly goes out to her in her sorrow.  However, I was sad to consider that perhaps very few Westerners could/would pick up on this leximoron (shall we call it).   Compassion is moral correctness if anything is.  And, as my minister pointed out this morning, by definition, ‘mercy’ is shown to people who do not deserve it.   Justice is for the deserving.   So, perhaps, mercy does make a mockery of justice?  I don’t know.

Being a facetious idiot, I sent a message to our SmallAds list – a classified adverts mailing-list for members of our institution:
“Found in the Staff Car Park, one moral compass.“

Pretty soon I got a response, “It was probably lost by a member of the Management Team and they probably don’t want it back.”   Though not what I was referring to, I sent her a photo to prove that the compass was in good working order.

Whilst we continued to wait for the Scottish Justice Secretary’s decision,  Hilary Clinton came on news, next night, with a fierce warning to the effect, “Don’t you dare let that man go, or, or…“

It didn’t look good.  Even though we are supposedly a sovereign nation – sometimes the media has you wondering.  The English reporter was mistakenly calling it, “The Scottish Executive” – which is kinda the same as the Americans calling us English.  It is of course, “The Scottish Government”, ma’am.  Why, too, did America think it was right to dictate to Scotland how to run our government?  “Free-dum!!”  Although we once had oil, we’re not Arabs, you know! … but, I digress.

Ken’s decision was announced.  I offered up a prayer of thanksgiving to God that our country had not lost its moral compass.  The media glowed red with American chagrin; baying for the blood of poor, heroic, MacAskill;  and, off I went to church.

Today we began a series on, “The Beatitudes” : How apt:  Matthew 5: 7 – “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy“, said Jesus, pointing, “true North,” – in moral compass terms.  Our minister pointed out, if any were in need of mercy and compassion, then surely Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was amongst them?!  (And, I might add, at this time, Ken MacAskill.)

I don’t know how all this will turn out in the short term for Ken, after his brave and principled decision.  But, I commend him, and I am proud to be Scottish today, a wee country that seemingly has not lost its moral compass.  Thank you too, Mr. Salmond, for upholding the decision so decisively. “Tsk!”, once again to Gordon Brown.

I would love to email Ken and congratulate him, but it would probably go into the spam folder along with the screeds of hate mail that must be hitting the Scottish Govt. today.

But, Ken MacAskill, and all of Scotland, take comfort from the concluding beatitude Jesus uttered – Matthew 5: 11.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.“

… and dare I add – “because you must be doing something right!”

[Jesus said]  : “You study the scriptures diligently, supposing that in having them you have eternal life; their testimony points to me, yet you  refuse to come to me to receive that life.”

For devout scripture scholars zealously guarding their God-given religious traditions which had, more than once, preserved their proud national identity during occupation, I can understand how difficult it would be to accept the claims of a thirty year old man.  I can understand how, old and leathered by life and career, they failed to take account of the miracles of healing the thirty year old was performing.  After all, there were a plethora of Messianic claimants roaming through the Roman occupation. 

Yes, his “tricks” showed a remarkable talent, and he was obviously a charismatic speaker; but he overstepped his authority and uttered patently ludicrous things like, “I am God”.  How could he possibly be right - priests and rabbis do not speak like that?!  Nor, indeed, do they mix with such company as he did.  I imagine it would be fairly easy, to dismiss the words of this young upstart, rather than to weigh them with their hearts.

But, had they looked closer and considered:  Healing lifelong infirmities;  Feeding whole crowds with five loaves; raising the dead to life?  Not tricks, but statements.  Above all, His words – what He was teaching people to do – His revolution.  The courage to love above all – that was His “New Commandment”.  These they were condemning.

The Church of Scotland yesterday appointed a gay minister to Queen’s Cross Church, but with the caviat that there should be a two year discussion clarifying the Church’s stance.  This is wonderfully humble – as a Church, recognising, given today’s understanding of the continuum of sexuality, there’s more here than meets the eye.  And, the newshounds are going to have to wait, as we wait, for the Holy Spirit to direct us.  The number of abstensions too, told the same heartwarming message of humility on the personal level.  Nevertheless, the consensus fell in th interim towards loving inclusiveness. 

I am pleased because I think that there is a greater demand here than the legal words of scripture – captured in the revolutionary words  (above) of a thirty year old man.  ( He’s about 2009 yrs. now, but you know what I mean..)   When I look up from the scriptures, and weigh it with my heart, the legalists lose.   It is not because they are wrong, but because, like those Jesus was addressing, they might be missing a greater truth?