this weekend was just, well, normal i guess.  it all started with a beer, and a belgium beer at that.  then, shortly after, another one.  friends, good beer, conversation, gossip and laughter.  saturday was mostly spent in work until the evening where i completely rearranged my new room.  sunday has been lovely - chores, shopping and popping down to see my grandparents.  topped off with a long overdue visit to a church where we all sat on the floor and read stories to each other.

so as i say normal; capitalisation will return to normal next time…

A more relevant topic is hard to come by - timed to coincide with the Lambeth conference to which over 250 bishops refuse to attend because of this very issue.  By not attending of course, they allow the liberal side they disagree with so strongly to have a disproportionate voice - but I digress.  For me, the opportunity to see a film on the subject is a great one.  Not, one might surmise, because it has a personal bearing on my life but rather because it engages with one of my main frustrations with the church.  That of letting interpretation of scripture get in the way of sympathising, empathising and loving other human beings.

Let me tell you about this documentary.  I guess it was around two hours long and like all good films focused on stories.  Stories of families growing up in conservative churches where they were taught that homosexuality was somewhere between being an abomination and a passport to hell.  That’s all good; until one of your children announces that they are that so called abomination.  Some parents reject their children, some continue to love the part of their child that is free of sin and others embrace their child and go so far beyond the call of parental duty that they end up arrested.  In each case the parents are living life with one world view and when that view is fundamentally challenged they react in different ways - some by radically altering their world view with their new reality.  Gene Robinson is one of the children and woven through the film is a biography of his childhood, coming of age, therapy, marriage, break-up and his new relationships with his partner and the church.

Classic themes run through the film such as ‘homosexuality is simply a choice’, ‘it’s wrong because scripture says so’ and other typical responses.  Many of these are tackled through a variety of interviews and cartoons.  Towards the end we are introduced to one of the organisations protesting for acceptance within the church, and particularly to eradicate the teaching that we are shown is responsible for much guilt, fear and suicides.

Granted, the documentary is heavily polarised toward the liberal view.  However, it’s a film that is intelligent, well researched, very well edited and I considered it to tell it’s side of the argument well without resorting to any polemic.  Regardless of where you stand on these issues, it becomes very clear that one thing is certain beyond all doubt: homophobia is a sin that is being commited world wide and is something that we should be determined to eliminate.

Highlights of the question and answer session included:

• Gene’s comment that whilst the rest of the world continue to argue about the issue, New Hampshire are ‘getting on with the gospel’
• In response to a question regarding adoptions in same sex parent families Gene quoted some research whose only detectable result in studies was to show that such children had much greater levels of tolerance
• In response to a man talking about his loss of faith in the church due to persecution: “remember that God and the church are not the same thing” -> “the church sometimes gets it wrong; God doesn’t”
• Gene’s comment about how can a so called state church get exemptions from civil standards
• Defining optimism and hope as what we are capable of doing and what we have in God.  Gene’s preference is to talk about hope rather than optimism.
• Sir Ian saying “you’ve practically converted me to Christianity” before his incredible recital

I’m not sure where you can go to see the film, but if and when you get the opportunity I recommend that you listen to the side of the argument it deals with.  I’d also like to point you at Giles Fraser’s column over at the Guardian, describing the last few days that he has spent with Gene Robinson.

Well done Rafael Nadal.

Two years ago I went on holiday with a group of people to Greece, sailing through the Ionian islands.  You can see the photos I took here.  Having had one of the best holidays ever I was sad to miss the groups voyage to the Croatian coast last year and it made me all the more enthusiastic about going to Turkey.

There is something about sailing that makes it an ultimately relaxing holiday.  I can’t put my finger on whether it was the scenery, the cooling wind blowing across my sun scorched skin or maybe the frequent dips in the bath temperature sea.  The ports, bays, beaches and caves could play a part along with the turtles and dolphins playing in the bow waves of the boats.  Or maybe, just maybe, it was the amazing people, the real life conversations, working together effortlessly to make the holiday hassle free, playing mafia until 2 in the morning and then lying on deck together chatting and watching shooting stars until 3.

I’m very sad to be back.  Not because I don’t enjoy work but because I really really love the people that I’ve just been immersed in the for the past seven days.

Photos soon.

Towards the end the point was made that the science and religion divide is in fact a false dichotomy.  In my opinion this is generated by an over-exposure in the press to extreme fundamentalists from both ends of the spectrum with a lack of coverage given to the very viable middle ground.

If you are at all interested in this debate then have a listen - it’s a great introduction and plenty of food for thought.  

Here’s a question for debate: Where is the moral maze podcast?

On other fronts I’ve been doing ‘productivity’ in work most days, visiting potential flats, following up leads and even going to (a new) church for the first time in ages.

A quick book review must be inserted here - since I keep meaning to do a round-up and it will not happen for a while.  So… A Short History of Christianity by Stephen Tomkins.  Given how long, convoluted and damn-right silly the church and Christianity has been, this book is remarkably short and concise.  Following in the footsteps of the Bryson book from which the title has been adapted it is similarly careful in the events that are picked out and also sarcastic, witty and very observant.  This was a book on Christianity that makes no assumptions and is, by all accounts, objective in it’s telling of the story.  It covers approximately eight years on each page which takes us through the early church, the repeated adoptions by Rome, the Renaissance and Reformation, various revivals and the decline of the western church.  I’ve learnt much about history in general and both the good and bad parts of the faith that I naturally profess.

Very interesting and my last fortnights commute would have been the worse without it.

so, onto bigger things.  this evening I suggested monopoly as the game to play and for the first time in years it wasn’t rejected as a stupid idea by family members who associate the game with losing repeatedly.  being more mature I plumped for the oranges, the set of properties that statistically provide the best returns on investment.  I also got the reds, but never quite got around to developing them.  I continue to insist that I was unlucky and my sister was lucky - and to an extent it was true.  I went bankrupt fairly soon after I put my third houses on my orange properties.

about an hour into the game we were talking about how different it would be if you could apply to the bank for a credit card and use it to buy houses.  later on community chest cards may just force you into consolidating your debt into huge crippling debts for bank fees of £200.  Monopoly: Credit Crunch Edition?  You heard it here first.

one of the main reasons i’m in india is to receive a shipment of computers from the uk so that i can commission them before i leave.  they flew out on sunday night to join me, in theory, on tuesday night.  it’s now thursday night and we won’t see them until at least tomorrow.

on the way into the country customs issue each shipment with a unique number.  in fact it is a dusty computer that carries out this task - a task that it has happily carried out for many years.  when this system was written, by the india government’s internal it team they decided that this unique number would be six digits long, in the form of 100325 for example.  sometime early this week, before our shipment arrived, the dusty computer spluttered out the rather magical number 9,99,999.  shortly afterwards, following a few more coughs the computer gave up squeezing 10,00,000 into six digits and bluntly refused to allocate a number for my computers.  think of it like a year 2000 problem.

i’ve told this to two groups of people - those in i.t. and those who are not.  the former group know the punchline before i tell it, and the latter usually don’t…

anyway - they administered some cough syrup and it’s all better now, except that the computers brief period with the nurses has caused it to forget the exact location of my 600kg crate of computers in a vast warehouse.  so here we are on thursday night with very little we can do except cheer on the people who are gently tugging, pulling, moving and cutting at the red tape surrounding indian customs.

maybe tomorrow…