musings in lymington

Radio Times re jazz musician Jamie Callum - he's dating Sophie Dahl, he's friends with Clint Eastwood, and he's about to do his own prom. does life get any better? I’m struck by the daftness of these kind of magazine headlines. It’s like, well actually I can think of a whole host of other ways life could be pretty good. But you might have to step outside your celebrity-idolising bubble to appreciate them. Not bitter or anything!

Was chatting to an old family friend yesterday about the Normans, history etc… William the conqueror wasn’t averse to mutilating enemies, and violent punishments, burnings etc were meted out as national law till a mere few centuries ago, sanctioned by religion. But down history the gospel has also had a transformative dynamic, eg as an engine in the abolition of slavery through the understanding that Christ came to set all free. Comprehensible if the gospel’s considered not as a set of rigid rules, but as a seed or seeds with latent transformative potential that works itself ou over time…

Spent five hours on Monday in London. I love the scale, the beauty and the multitudes. The heave of humanity. In a world with such diversity of view, goals, lives, how do you understand the application of a message with supposedly universal import like Christianity?

christian and cool??

Mark ronson & Business Intl ‘bang bang bang‘. I’m a sucker for a spot of style and syncopated rhythm. It makes me think, is it possible for christian faith to be expressed, incarnated, in ways that are cool?? Singing some church choruses of a Sunday is frankly the antithesis, but I’m quite sure it’s possible. What enables cool creativity? I guess you first need to ‘free your mind’, be open to many possibilities, like a painter’s palette. And to have a sense of poise and proportion, for what ‘works’, which I guess is part natural, part developed…

Q of the day: How can you justify spending money on luxuries like cinema when there are is gross poverty in the world?