Reignite

If we want to decolonise the world, we must decolonise our nations. If we want to decolonise the nations, we must decolonise our cities. If we want to decolonise the cities, we must decolonise our neighbourhoods. If we want to decolonise our neighbourhoods, we must decolonise our homes. If we want to decolonise our homes, we must decolonise our hearts. (With apologies to Lau Tzu's (apparent) words)

This time is devastating. In the last few months we've seen at least 40,000 people, and probably closer to 60,000 killed by a deadly virus in the UK. Sixty thousand grieving families. Lives torn from this earth. And those who are mourning are unable to receive a comforting hand on a shoulder, unable to have a hug in their grief. This is awful. But what is almost as awful is the ludicrously blasé, flippant attitude through all this that has come from government, media, and (by extension, it feels) society in general. Where is our grief? Where are out rituals of mourning? Where are our sackcloth and ashes? The Prime Minister should be appearing on TV every night beating his chest and saying, "This is terrible, I'm so so sorry." Instead throughout all of this we've had this "ra ra, cheer up, let's get the pubs open" bullshit from the beginning from this UK government. It's totally sickening. It's a total denial of an unfolding tragedy ...

Christianity started as a Jewish sect. Despite this, or in some ways because of this, there is a strongly anti-Jewish message very early on in Christian history. What started as a debate between different Jewish communities became something different as Christianity became Gentile, and then became an imperial religion with considerably power. How Christianity shaped European antisemitism is something that Christians needed to seriously address after the Holocaust, and to a certain extent have done, though not nearly enough. In looking at this many Christians have noted how the Gospel of John has particularly troublesome phrases. There's constant negative references to "the Jews". Even though Jesus and the disciples are Jewish, the phrase "the Jews" always refers to those against Jesus. As I say, this insight is in no way original to me. But I think I've come to the view that the problem is much much worse than most Christians want to admit, because t...

I don't have anything super original or profound to say about the murder of George Floyd and the eruption of Black Lives Matter protests in the States and in the UK, other than the fact that I support Black Lives Matter. That's OK I think. This doesn't need to be a time for white liberals to show off, just a time to show up. I'm trying to look out for resources and writings from black people to get better informed, especially from a British perspective. This is a time to listen. Cornel West is a pretty good place to start so I'll just leave this here. It's amazing.

In this time of lockdown, with doing online worship at Cardiff Unitarians Undodiaid Caerdydd, it's becoming much easier to record worship. So I've decided to start putting the audio of sermons/reflections out as podcasts.  It's fairly simple and lo-tech for now, I'm sure it will evolve and get a bit better quality in time. I may use the podcast feed for other things in the fullness of time.  If you're interested search for "seeking paradise" on iTunes or Spotify or you can download from here:  https://seekingparadise.podbean.com .