I came across this by chance while preparing a talk for a youth club on why we do what we do in Anglican churches - I was tempted just to download and play it to the group but that would be cheating. However I did watch it and got some great ideas. Set aside an hour - you won't regret it - the speaker has a sense of humour - essential when talking about the things of God.
The Nuts and Bolts of Anglican Liturgy from St. Peter's Anglican Church on Vimeo.
UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that this parish is an ACNA parish in schism with ECUSA/TEC over the human sexuality issue - What a shame - most impressive presentation - an obviously genuine and committed priest lost to Anglicanism :(
Friday, 26 February 2010
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Paddy's Picks No.1
As a new departure and to keep the blog alive when I'm not feeling especially productive I am going to share on a regular basis some of my favourite sites/blogs/posts.
Here are a few to start:
Real Live Preacher - A post called 'You ain't Jesus preacher' - a lesson all of us who minister in whatever Church or community need to learn
Ron Rolheiser - A Roman Catholic theologian and regular columnist in religious newspapers and periodicals worldwide - always worth reading
Gareth Higgins - Looks at the intersection of film, the arts, politics and spirituality - Always has an interesting angle
Krista Tippett - Speaking of Faith - What it says on the tin - some superb interviews all supplied with audio and transcript - also available as a podcast
I hope you enjoy these resources - More to come..............
Family history and modern America - by Brian Walker
The author of the article below, Professor Brian Walker of Queens University Belfast, made contact with me following the discovery of Barack Obama's Irish roots. He has a particular interest in Irish/Scotch-Irish ancestry in the United States and his studies have encompassed the Irish heritage of Barack Obama. Well worth a read.
Reproduced with permission from: Familia: Ulster Genealogical Review, Number 25 (2009). Published by the Ulster Historical Foundation (www.ancestryireland.com)
President Barack Obama
Family history and modern America
Brian Mercer Walker
On 17 March 2009, President Barack Obama marked St Patrick’s
Day at the White House in Washington, DC. His guests from
Ireland included Taoiseach Brian Cowen, who not only presented him
with a bowl of shamrock but also referred to the President’s ancestor,
Fulmouth Kearney, who had come to America from Ireland in 1850.
The President gracefully accepted the shamrock and acknowledged his
ancestor. He remarked, however, that he had only learnt recently of his
Irish ancestry, and he joked that this information would have been very
helpful when he first entered politics in Chicago! In this article, atten-
tion will focus first on how President Obama’s link with Ireland was
revealed. Secondly, we will examine our current understanding of the
position in modern America of the numerous descendants of all those
emigrants who came from Ireland, particularly from Ulster, and use
information about his particular family background to cast some light
on this matter.
Reproduced with permission from: Familia: Ulster Genealogical Review, Number 25 (2009). Published by the Ulster Historical Foundation (www.ancestryireland.com)
President Barack Obama
Family history and modern America
Brian Mercer Walker
On 17 March 2009, President Barack Obama marked St Patrick’s
Day at the White House in Washington, DC. His guests from
Ireland included Taoiseach Brian Cowen, who not only presented him
with a bowl of shamrock but also referred to the President’s ancestor,
Fulmouth Kearney, who had come to America from Ireland in 1850.
The President gracefully accepted the shamrock and acknowledged his
ancestor. He remarked, however, that he had only learnt recently of his
Irish ancestry, and he joked that this information would have been very
helpful when he first entered politics in Chicago! In this article, atten-
tion will focus first on how President Obama’s link with Ireland was
revealed. Secondly, we will examine our current understanding of the
position in modern America of the numerous descendants of all those
emigrants who came from Ireland, particularly from Ulster, and use
information about his particular family background to cast some light
on this matter.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
The stool with no legs - A society in crisis
‘I want my old life back’
That phrase describes the way so many people feel today in the light of the perfect storm which has resulted in the crash of the global economy, the failure of politics and the implosion of institutional religion. What are often termed the three legs of the stool that is Society have all collapsed. It is sobering to note that another leg, one that was never acknowledged but taken for granted, the environment, is also in a very unstable condition and its further deterioration could signal an irreversible apocalypse.
Our immediate impulse is to work out how we can get the stool upright again, how we can get our old life back. Militant secularism would have us dispose of the religious leg as superfluous at best, and it seems that sorting out the environment has been postponed until we recover the economy.
And so we find ourselves hoping that somehow the other two legs once bandaged will provide sufficient support and stability for Society. This hope is not even a myth for a myth usually contains a truth. This hope is based on a lie!
The reality is of course that we cannot get our old life back! Everything has changed except perhaps our expectations. We are oblivious to the questions that are looming large and those questions surely must be:
What can we learn from what has happened? How has it changed our world? How should we change? If our response is simply ‘I want my old life back’ then we are doomed not simply to disappointment but to disaster.
In a world where the benign and invisible hand of the Market has been exposed as a lie, where once noble politics has lost its integrity, where religion protects the powerful at the expense of the weak and where global warming is threatening our very existence the old rules just won’t work anymore. The old life is gone for ever and we have to find a new way to live on this planet.
In Ireland we are witnessing a very vivid demonstration of this new reality. Our economic and political efforts in the wake of the global crisis have amounted to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and the results are to be seen in the ongoing turbulence and futile if not infantile in-fighting in political and economic spheres.
The crisis in the Roman Catholic Church is a particularly graphic example of what happens when an institution turns its focus inwards and prioritises its own preservation above its mission to the weak and vulnerable.
Though in different circumstances my own Church of Ireland which is no less an institution has demonstrated a not unrelated malaise in its investment policies – historically relying for a significant proportion of its income on alcohol and tobacco shares. The tobacco shares have been divested in recent years after protests on the floor of General Synod but we still invest heavily in alcohol related shares. I am not averse to a drink myself but I do wonder at the ethics of profiting from a substance that is the scourge of so many lives and which is a contributory and aggravating factor in domestic violence. Is the financial health of my church really worth sacrificing our principles? I am as guilty as any having voted to pass our central church accounts and investment policy year on year, but I wonder what integrity we can have while holding these investments?
The elements involved in the collapse of our society have much in common. They have all involved replacing value systems with expediency and selfish short-termism. They have turned inwards on themselves and denied the essentially relatedness of all elements of life. They have denied the law of cause and effect and made a virtue of deception.
As Jim Wallis points out in his recent book, ‘Rediscovering Values’, these failings are not new – What is new is the extent and globalisation of them. Wallis points out that almost a century ago Mahatma Gandhi drew up a list of ‘Seven Deadly Social Sins’ which he used to instruct his disciples. They are remarkably topical and prophetic:
1 Politics without Principle
2 Wealth Without Work
3 Pleasure Without Conscience
4 Knowledge without Character
5 Commerce without Morality
6 Science without Humanity
7 Worship without Sacrifice
To this list Ghandi’s grandson Arun added an eighth sin:
8 Rights without Responsibility
If we still want our old life back then the cost of that is outlined above.
If not then we have to rehabilitate politics, economics, religion and our environmental stewardship. By denying the mutual dependence of these elements of our society we alienated ourselves from each other and our world. The task we face is how to reintegrate these vital elements and create a sustainable and healthy society for all of Creation.
That phrase describes the way so many people feel today in the light of the perfect storm which has resulted in the crash of the global economy, the failure of politics and the implosion of institutional religion. What are often termed the three legs of the stool that is Society have all collapsed. It is sobering to note that another leg, one that was never acknowledged but taken for granted, the environment, is also in a very unstable condition and its further deterioration could signal an irreversible apocalypse.
Our immediate impulse is to work out how we can get the stool upright again, how we can get our old life back. Militant secularism would have us dispose of the religious leg as superfluous at best, and it seems that sorting out the environment has been postponed until we recover the economy.
And so we find ourselves hoping that somehow the other two legs once bandaged will provide sufficient support and stability for Society. This hope is not even a myth for a myth usually contains a truth. This hope is based on a lie!
The reality is of course that we cannot get our old life back! Everything has changed except perhaps our expectations. We are oblivious to the questions that are looming large and those questions surely must be:
What can we learn from what has happened? How has it changed our world? How should we change? If our response is simply ‘I want my old life back’ then we are doomed not simply to disappointment but to disaster.
In a world where the benign and invisible hand of the Market has been exposed as a lie, where once noble politics has lost its integrity, where religion protects the powerful at the expense of the weak and where global warming is threatening our very existence the old rules just won’t work anymore. The old life is gone for ever and we have to find a new way to live on this planet.
In Ireland we are witnessing a very vivid demonstration of this new reality. Our economic and political efforts in the wake of the global crisis have amounted to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and the results are to be seen in the ongoing turbulence and futile if not infantile in-fighting in political and economic spheres.
The crisis in the Roman Catholic Church is a particularly graphic example of what happens when an institution turns its focus inwards and prioritises its own preservation above its mission to the weak and vulnerable.
Though in different circumstances my own Church of Ireland which is no less an institution has demonstrated a not unrelated malaise in its investment policies – historically relying for a significant proportion of its income on alcohol and tobacco shares. The tobacco shares have been divested in recent years after protests on the floor of General Synod but we still invest heavily in alcohol related shares. I am not averse to a drink myself but I do wonder at the ethics of profiting from a substance that is the scourge of so many lives and which is a contributory and aggravating factor in domestic violence. Is the financial health of my church really worth sacrificing our principles? I am as guilty as any having voted to pass our central church accounts and investment policy year on year, but I wonder what integrity we can have while holding these investments?
The elements involved in the collapse of our society have much in common. They have all involved replacing value systems with expediency and selfish short-termism. They have turned inwards on themselves and denied the essentially relatedness of all elements of life. They have denied the law of cause and effect and made a virtue of deception.
As Jim Wallis points out in his recent book, ‘Rediscovering Values’, these failings are not new – What is new is the extent and globalisation of them. Wallis points out that almost a century ago Mahatma Gandhi drew up a list of ‘Seven Deadly Social Sins’ which he used to instruct his disciples. They are remarkably topical and prophetic:
1 Politics without Principle
2 Wealth Without Work
3 Pleasure Without Conscience
4 Knowledge without Character
5 Commerce without Morality
6 Science without Humanity
7 Worship without Sacrifice
To this list Ghandi’s grandson Arun added an eighth sin:
8 Rights without Responsibility
If we still want our old life back then the cost of that is outlined above.
If not then we have to rehabilitate politics, economics, religion and our environmental stewardship. By denying the mutual dependence of these elements of our society we alienated ourselves from each other and our world. The task we face is how to reintegrate these vital elements and create a sustainable and healthy society for all of Creation.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Friday, 19 February 2010
Sky News are idiots - Never heard of Ash Wednesday!
This defies belief - You must have to be especially stupid to work on Sky News!
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Dave Cameron is Irish - and to prove it....a song by The Corrigan Brothers
On December 5th 2005 Debrett’s Peerage released the research that confirmed that current Conservative leader David Cameron is William IV’s great, great, great, great, great grandson. He is related to the 19th-century monarch through Elizabeth FitzClarence, the King’s illegitimate daughter, one of at least ten children he had out of wedlock with Dorothy Jordan, an Irish actress from County Waterford, his long-term mistress, who is in fact Mr Cameron's IV’s great, great, great, great, great grandmonther. The family tree by Debrett’s Peerage, the genealogists, shows that the link between Mr Cameron, 39, and William IV makes him the fifth cousin twice-removed of the Queen.
So Dave Cameron is Irish, Univeral Music and Decca Artists, Ireland's Corrigan Brothers who had an international hit with "There's no one as Irish as Barack Obama" return with:
"There's no one as Irish as Dave Cameron"
www.corriganbrothers.com
Words and music by Corrigan Brothers,Ger,Brian and Donncha Corrigan and Pete Creighton)
Toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo
There’s no one as irish as Dave Cameron
Obama and Kennedy
and Eva Peron
There’s no one as Irish
as Dave Cameron
You don’t believe me
But what can you say
Cameron’s as irish
As Galway bay
His grannys great granny
From Waterford town
Dorothy Jordan
Actress of reknown
He’s as irish as New York
On saint Paddys day
The first green tory
To go all the way
He cycles his bike
To work every day
And he’s waiting for Browne
To cycle away
Toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo toor a lon
There’s no one as irish as Dave Cameron
From the mountains of Mourne
To the village of Cong
There’s no one as Irish
as Dave Cameron
his accent is plummy
he learned it at Eton
but inside our David
there’s an irish hear beatin’
he has no time for chancers
villans or rogues
and his favourite band’s
Shane Mcgowan and the Pogues
2010 Downing Street’s green
A paddy will go to
Visit the queen
Good oul queen lizzie
Will be charmed of her feet
An irish prime minister
In Downing Street
Obama and Kennedy
and Eva Peron
There’s no one as Irish
as Dave Cameron
Toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo
There’s no one as irish as Dave Cameron
Toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo
There’s no one as irish as Dave Cameron
www.corriganbrothers.com
So Dave Cameron is Irish, Univeral Music and Decca Artists, Ireland's Corrigan Brothers who had an international hit with "There's no one as Irish as Barack Obama" return with:
"There's no one as Irish as Dave Cameron"
www.corriganbrothers.com
Words and music by Corrigan Brothers,Ger,Brian and Donncha Corrigan and Pete Creighton)
Toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo
There’s no one as irish as Dave Cameron
Obama and Kennedy
and Eva Peron
There’s no one as Irish
as Dave Cameron
You don’t believe me
But what can you say
Cameron’s as irish
As Galway bay
His grannys great granny
From Waterford town
Dorothy Jordan
Actress of reknown
He’s as irish as New York
On saint Paddys day
The first green tory
To go all the way
He cycles his bike
To work every day
And he’s waiting for Browne
To cycle away
Toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo toor a lon
There’s no one as irish as Dave Cameron
From the mountains of Mourne
To the village of Cong
There’s no one as Irish
as Dave Cameron
his accent is plummy
he learned it at Eton
but inside our David
there’s an irish hear beatin’
he has no time for chancers
villans or rogues
and his favourite band’s
Shane Mcgowan and the Pogues
2010 Downing Street’s green
A paddy will go to
Visit the queen
Good oul queen lizzie
Will be charmed of her feet
An irish prime minister
In Downing Street
Obama and Kennedy
and Eva Peron
There’s no one as Irish
as Dave Cameron
Toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo
There’s no one as irish as Dave Cameron
Toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo toor a loo
There’s no one as irish as Dave Cameron
www.corriganbrothers.com
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