Silent Reading

 

 

Here at the Knowledge College, the new term moves on apace. I now tutor a Yr. 11 form (aged 15/16) and one of our initiatives is Silent Reading twice a week for 15 minutes during the registration period.

I flagged this up last term.

"Yeah. Right. Silent Reading. As if!"

No, I'm serious. It's something that we're going to do.

"No Sir. Stop messing about."

I'm serious.

"Yeah right."

The Learning Resources Centre (library in plainspeak) has provided me with a very nice box. It contains eight books. There are twenty six students in my tutor group. What with me being psychic and all, I had the wit to cull my extensive selection of charity shop paperbacks and provide my own book box containing in excess of thirty books appropriate for this age group, mainly crime fiction (Peter Robinson), Da-Vinci Code style wannabe writers (David Gibbins) and the like.

I am aware that this disclosure reveals far more about my leisure reading habits than I am entirely comfortable with.

So, we had the first silent reading session this week.

Things did not go well.

The girls mainly brought their own books or magazines from home and were no problem. The boys, on the other hand, all seem to have a reading aversion/allergy.

Right, come and choose a book.

There is no movement as every boy feigns deafness.

Come and choose a book.

I ponder who will break first.

There is general - if very slow movement - towards the boxes which is reminiscent of a scene from a zombie film. The sounds are pretty accurate too.

"Mananananananana?" (Trans: "What do we have to do this for?")

It's good for your literacy skills.

"What are they?"

Look. This is me, resting my case.

"What?"

Read.

Everyone has returned to their seat and I take stock of the situation.

Would anyone be prepared to explain to me what the key concept behind the idea of silent reading is?

There is something which passes for silence for all of ... 5 ... 6 ... seconds.

Which part of silent is that? .... Josh, I can see you've chosen a book. The next stage is to open it .... other way up. Good boy. Aaron, why are you on the last page? ...  Oh, really? You're reading it backwards. Why? .... Of course. Because you can. Jordan, what are you reading?

Jordan holds up his pupil planner.

That's not what we had in mind when we said silent reading.

"I'm reading it in silence."

A) No you're not. B) Your planner isn't a reading book. C) Go and choose a real book.

"There aren't any that I like."

I look at the book boxes. They still contain about fifteen books.

I think you missed out a number of stages. Standing up, moving to the book boxes, browsing, selecting, returning to your seat and reading.

"Do I have to?"

No. You can be an exception.. (Joe, you are allowed to turn the pages.)

"Really?"

NO!!! PICK A BOOK!!!

I have turned into Joyce Grenfell.

Sunday Sermon: Jesus and the bread from Heaven and stumbling blocks to faith. (John 6)

John 6:56-69

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Today we continue with Jesus’ discourse on The Bread of Heaven and this passage is either the preacher’s dream or the preacher’s nightmare because there are so many themes that can be explored. There are two themes that particularly struck me which I’d like to share with you. The thing that hit me most forcefully about this Gospel passage was the theme of a crisis of faith. Given, too, that the crisis of faith comes as a direct result of religious teaching, I also think it’s a passage which is subtly calling on us all to be more willing to argue good theology and to challenge bad or lazy theological thinking.

We can all be theologians.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?

I don't know about you, but sometimes it's easier for me to identify with the crowds who misunderstand and question Jesus than with Jesus himself.

I think this is one of those times.

To understand what I mean we have to recall just what Jesus has been saying here and throughout the sixth chapter of John's Gospel: that Jesus, for instance, is the bread of life; that he provides the only food which truly nourishes; that he gives us his own self, his own flesh and blood, to sustain us on our journey; that we are actually to eat the flesh and drink the blood in order to abide in him. These are, indeed, hard words: hard to hear, hard to understand and for many, hard to believe. For many they are stumbling blocks to faith, as they were for some of Jesus’ followers in this passage.

Are we really all that different? I mean, which of us has not at one time or another wondered whether we have got it wrong about God? People of faith don’t find themselves immune to doubts.

Something of this sort appears to be happening in today’s Gospel. Earlier in this same chapter we read about how Jesus has fed five thousand people with five small loaves and two small fish. This had amazed the crowd so much that “they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’” Jesus responds with an extended discourse on bread from God and the assertion that he is himself the Bread of Life, using words that associate himself with the God who had revealed himself at Sinai as “I am who I am.” “I am the bread of life,” Jesus has already declared to them.

That’s some claim: “I am the bread of life.”

And many felt that he had crossed a line with those words. Some around him had already been grumbling because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ Their discontent was clear when they said, ‘Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven?’”

No wonder, then, that many of those following Jesus now desert him. And at this point we need to be careful how we characterise them, because it's always tempting to write off those who gave up on Jesus as people too stupid or lazy or unfaithful to believe. But John calls these people not simply "the crowds," as in earlier passages, but rather "disciples."

Disciples.

The people in today's reading who now desert Jesus are precisely those who had, in fact, believed in him: those who had followed him and had given up much to do so. But now, finally, after all their waiting and watching and wondering and worrying, they have grown tired, and they can no longer see clearly what it was about Jesus that attracted them to him in the first place, and so they leave. We are so attuned to these words we probably find it hard to understand how offensive Jesus had become to his hearers by this point, with the things he was claiming. “Does this offend you?” Jesus had asked.

“Yeah, actually it does.” Was their response and they turned their backs on him.

What just happened?

What a contrast: the crowd witness the feeding of the multitude but within a short space of time have given up on the man responsible because his teaching was too hard. For some, the religious implications of Jesus’ words were a step too far. What we see here is that the teaching of Jesus is itself, not the stepping-stone, but the stumbling-block to faith.

So think for a moment and reflect on your own spiritual journey.

Are you identifying with Jesus or the crowd right now?

The problem was that this wasn’t the Jesus they wanted: they’d backed the wrong horse. Their understanding of Kingship and his were incompatible. They wanted the warrior king, the political leader who would lead them to victory over the Romans and Jesus was offering them quite a different sort of kingdom: The Kingdom of God.

“Pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die!” Some of them no doubt thought. “We want action now.” What good were all these words when contrasted with the expectations of what they really wanted to from Jesus?

Jesus then turns to the Twelve, his inner circle, and asks them whether they, too, wanted to leave him. After all, if significant numbers of others were disillusioned with Jesus, surely those closest to him must be having the same sorts of doubts. They knew him better than any of those who had left. So what did they think?

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” So said their chief spokesman, Peter, in words so significant that they have been incorporated into the liturgy of the church.

Now, given that the Gospels make it fairly clear that there were many times when the Disciples failed to understand what Jesus was telling them, it’s probably fair to assume that they weren’t feeling much more enlightened than the others by what Jesus had said. Remember, we come to passages like this with the benefit of hindsight. We’ve heard the stories; we’ve internalised the meanings we’ve heard them that many times ….. but try to imagine hearing and trying to make sense for the first time of some fairly abstract and intractable ideas. You might even have got a handle on what Jesus was saying, but the implications … the implications. “Really? Have I got this right? Did he just say what I think he said?”

These disciples were also plagued by doubt and fear. They suffered at times from pride or a lack of courage, and they, too, eventually deserted Jesus at the very time he needed them the most. So if they aren't any better than the rest of Jesus' followers - then or now - what is it that sets them apart? The Disciples surely didn’t respond as they did because they understood the words that much better than those abandoning Jesus. But they knew one other thing that made all the difference in the world and that made them say that he had “the words of eternal life.” That difference was this: “We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Those leaving had neither come to know or believe this. For the Twelve, it was the one thing that made them stay, even though they carried on failing to grasp the meaning of much of what Jesus was saying. Perhaps for some of them it wasn’t until Peter articulated it that they were forced to confront this for themselves.

This man was introduced to the readers of this Gospel as “The Word made flesh.” “The Word was God and he was with God in the beginning.” In him, John asserted in those opening verses, resided life: the “life that was the light of men.” Perhaps the disciples couldn’t have spoken that eloquently when Peter spoke up for them all, but they stuck with Jesus because at some point they recognized the divine in him.

O.K. So we’ve looked at the Gospel story and analysed it.

So what?

It has to have a practical application or we’ve rather wasted our time. We have to turn a piece of religious history into something we can work with in our own lives or we’ve missed the point of being here.

Well, this, according to many Christians down the ages, is what makes what we are doing here this morning so important, so vital. Because each week, through the preaching of the Word and the sharing of the sacraments, we're offered again the words of eternal life which Peter and the others recognised. We're offered again, the chance to encounter Jesus and his living Word. Through preaching and through the sacraments, Jesus' real presence is revealed in our world, we receive the promise that Jesus is, indeed, the bread of life and we are pointed to the place amidst all the mess and ugliness of this world, that we can look to and know with confidence that we can find God there, in Jesus, offering us again the promise of forgiveness, acceptance, meaning, and life.

The 16th-century reformer Martin Luther argues this point. "God is present everywhere, but does not wish that you grope for him everywhere. Grope rather where the Word is, and there you will lay hold of God in the right way."

The trouble is that we have to keep reminding ourselves of this. We are so far removed in time from these events that, however much our imaginations might be grabbed and transported back through time during the readings and the sermon; however much our intellect and soul engage with the spiritual meaning of the words - the theology - coming here week by week can very often seem a tired routine. Perhaps we don't renounce or desert Jesus openly like the disciples in today’s passage, we just don't make the extra effort to get to church quite as regularly, or we reduce what we've been giving, are more reluctant to support church events, we give up on prayer, we find different priorities and other calls on our time until, in the end, we’re just like the disciples in today's reading: turning our backs and leaving.

Considering the difficult times, the times of doubt, the times of misunderstanding, the stale times in our pilgrimage of faith, other preachers at this point might remind us of all God’s blessings and encourage us to consider what God has done – and continues to do - for us. Well, true as that most certainly is, it never quite works for me. It seems a trite refuge when things don’t feel right in your spirit. I don’t necessarily want to count blessings. I’d rather struggle with the problem.

Those other disciples deserted Jesus because his teaching was a stumbling block to their faith. We hear this all the time. “I and the Father are one.” Jesus goes on to tell us later in John’s gospel. In my Religious Studies classroom I am repeatedly told “I can’t believe that Jesus is God. How could one man have created the universe?”

“Man? One man. Right… ” And thereby starts a discussion about transcendence.

And so, unlike the first group of disciples in today’s reading, we aren’t satisfied with our initial reaction to what we read and hear. We spend some time looking at the reasons people give, their stumbling blocks, for not believing in God. We examine them, we analyse them and then we look at alternative perspectives.

“Actually, not all Christians take that view because …..”

“But many Christians would disagree with that viewpoint. They would say  …..”

“Actually that isn’t what the Bible says.”

 “You’re taking something literally that wasn’t intended to be understood literally.”

Then there are the misunderstandings of what Jesus says that are the stumbling blocks:

“I can’t believe in God. Look at Jesus teaching on abortion and homosexuality.”

 These are real stumbling blocks for some people. That Jesus doesn’t actually have anything to say about either issue tends to come as a surprise. Does that come as a surprise to you?

People believe some very strange things about God; about Jesus, and what they believe is often a stumbling block to their faith. It is a shame that much of it is ill informed. If you aren’t sure about that, spend some time looking at the statements of American politicians and evangelists in the run up to their election. It has been said, rather unfairly perhaps, that the Church of England is the Conservative Party at prayer. In America, something which passes for Christianity is the Republican Party at prayer and it’s not a Christianity - in some of its expressions - that many of us would recognise. Often what it proclaims is a stumbling block to the faith.

In the same way that ignorance, misunderstanding and false expectations caused some of Jesus’ would-be followers to turn their backs on him in today’s Gospel, so it is today, but very often the stumbling block for Jesus’ would-be disciples now are not the words of Jesus but the words of other Christians.

It’s not the same because some other people have agendas and don’t necessarily speak with the mind or authority of Jesus.

“Does what I say offend you?” Jesus asked his followers. Perhaps some of Jesus’ latter day followers could do well to adopt that mantra for themselves.

So a practical application for dealing with stumbling blocks to faith?

Well, count your blessings of course, but if it’s of any help at all try to think more like Peter. Don’t be satisfied with an inadequate answer. Don’t assume that what you’ve understood is the meaning that was intended and leave it there. Dust off and examine your own position on things.

Are there alternative perspectives you’ve not considered? Perhaps it’s time you considered them.

Are you sure that what you think is the teaching of Jesus or the tradition of the church actually is the teaching of Jesus or the tradition of the church on any given topic?

What type of Christian is espousing that view you’re listening to? Are you generally in sympathy with such people?

Is what they’re saying related to issues of salvation? If not, in all conscience, can there not be more than one viewpoint?

Ask yourself the question: “Who would I rather have put words into the mouth of Jesus? The Gospel writers or, for instance, Paul Ryan, the current Vice Presidential candidate?

Perhaps in our spiritual lives we need a bit more of:

“Actually, not all Christians take that view because …..”

“But many Christians would disagree with that viewpoint. They would say  …..”

“Actually that isn’t what the Bible says.”

“You’re taking something literally that wasn’t intended to be understood literally.”

I know it sound trite, but a stumbling block to faith – even a mature faith – is only a stumbling block if once you’ve tripped on it you stay down.

Let’s not stay down.

Let’s struggle with it. Let’s argue with it. Let’s engage with it. Let’s talk about it.

Let’s do Theology.

We can all be Theologians.

Who has the words of eternal life?

  

  

Book Review: The Sword of the Templars by Paul Christopher

“Just a book review,” Ms. Raby said at the end of term. "It will encourage literacy if the kids see that we read for pleasure."

Just a book review?

“Didn’t your friend Nikki at work suggest you read some Tolstoy?” My wife ventured. I knew where this was going. “Only you can’t review the usual sort of dross you read.”

Why not?

“Because you only read books where the blurb includes the words: hidden archive, relic, lost artefact, Templars, archaeological dig, international plot, secret brotherhood, quest and hidden wealth.”

How well she knows me.

“Anyway, I thought you were going to read the collected works of James Joyce.”

You don’t tend to find them in Oxfam Books and when I did get a look at the first page of Ulysses, reading the complete works of James Joyce seemed marginally less appealing than reading the complete works of Barbara Cartland.

So, notwithstanding my wife’s cynicism, I bring you The Sword of the Templars by Paul Christopher, published by Penguin.

A dark mystery spanning the past ….

A covert war raging in the present ….

An ancient enemy, hell bent on hiding the truth that would rock the very foundations of the world …

Come on. What’s not to like?

Retired army ranger John “Doc” Holliday is the key protagonist. Recently working as lecturer of military history at West Point (now there’s a job I fancy), Doc is left his uncle’s estate which, as he explores it, turns out to include a hidden Templar sword wrapped in Hitler’s own personal battle standard.

I know, me too.

The action starts in America and moves swiftly to Canada, Britain, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, Israel, and the Azores. An awful lot of people get killed – by my reckoning about 130, although an awful lot of those were a secret brotherhood of Libyan fanatics and as none of them were given names, I don’t think they really count. Amongst the other fatalities are a double crossing Catholic Priest (boo, hiss) shot by a Mossad agent in down-town Jerusalem and a noble ex-monk (ahh!) who reveals the secret to Doc as he chokes his last on his own blood.

Doc and Peggy (did I mention Peggy, Doc’s niece? – she had a combination of good looks and flashing, energetic personality that  drew men to her like a magnet) and Raffi Wanounou, the Israeli archaeologist ( a starkly handsome man in his late forties) … do keep up … are chased from pillar to post trying to unravel the mystery of the knotted gold wire in the hilt of the sword, and, amazingly have enough cash-in-hand to undertake expensive, and sometimes dangerous undercover travel and pay for accommodation bills for hotel rooms they invariably end up fleeing from and leaving knee deep in gore.

Somewhere in all this it becomes clear that Axel Kellerman (tall, blond, athletic, sharp jawed and with an aristocratic nose, full mouthed lips and high cheekbones) son of WWII SS Gruppenfȕhrer General Lutz Kellerman (ask Miss Williams, she teaches History) and also a secret Neo-Nazi and certifiable mad-man, is their chief foe.

I’ve forgotten exactly why, but then a lot more people are killed so I was distracted.

Anyway, by the end of the book I’m not much the wiser but remain intrigued by how easy it is to cross a variety of international borders with little or no money and only American English and Hebrew to help you. I’m still a little unclear why it was necessary to be smuggled into Gadhafi’s Libya but there you go.

No hold on … that’s the sequel. To my horror, on finishing the book I discover I have to read on in The Templar Cross where Peggy is kidnapped by the Brotherhood of the Temple of Isis which leads Doc and Raffi into a quest into deepest Africa, taking in France and some other places along the way. A lot of people try to kill Doc but he seems wise to them as an ex-military man because none of the killers wear their West Point graduation rings on the correct hand.

That old trick? Really?

It is at this point that I discover that Doc only has one eye and wears an eye patch over the other – a piece of grit thrown up on a road in Afghanistan. I am left wondering why it took me until halfway through the second book to pick this up. There is a strong chance I've not been concentrating.

There’s something about WWII gold, extracted from the teeth of Tunisian Jews, having been lost in a desert plane crash and an interesting line in Czech assassins who use plastic hat-pins – because they don’t show up in airport metal detectors, obviously: do think for yourselves – to stab unsuspecting library archivists through the ear.

I shall make a point of watching out for that.

Anyway Tidyman has his throat cut on the Orient Express, which is a shame as he was a baddie-turned-goodie, although I don’t think his enigmatic Canadian/Egyptian past was sufficiently well explored, rendering him as something of a two-dimensional character and the gold remained hidden in the Pharaoh Imhotep’s tomb in Libya for Doc to retrieve later.

Did I mention that the mad neo-Nazi, Axel Kellerman, (tall, blond, athletic, sharp jawed and with an aristocratic nose, full mouthed lips and high cheekbones) son of WWII SS Gruppenfȕhrer General Lutz Kellerman, had died running into Doc’s Templar sword? No? I don’t suppose it would have helped much at this stage as it happened at the end of the first book.

Anyway Peggy marries Raffi once he recovered from having been badly beaten up by a bald psychopath Priest called Father Domato who is a member of the Vatican’s secret police.

No, me neither, but that’s O.K. because Doc later shoots him in a fishing shed outside Rome.

Strangely by the end of this book I have completely lost the plot - sometime after Paul Christopher I suspect, but all is not lost because it turns out that this is a trilogy.

How I laughed!

And, as luck would have it, The Templar Throne was to hand.

Peggy (now pregnant) and Raffi are largely left out of this book until, inevitably, they are kidnapped in the penultimate chapter (that girl should never go shopping) by an organisation called Rex Deus made up of American  descendants of the brothers and sisters of Jesus who, therefore, share the Royal Bloodline via the Merovingian kings. Their matriarch, Kate Sinclaire (a brittle, hatchet faced woman, prone to chain-smoking but always immaculately and expensively turned out) is the mother of Republican presidential hopeful Richard Pierce Sinclaire who she hopes to manipulate into the presidency by virtue of Rex Deus’s fabulous wealth, which is the Templar wealth reinvested after they were all unfortunately tortured to death or burnt at the stake in 14-something-or-other because of Pope Urban and some French king.

This leaves Doc with no travelling companion until he meets up with American nun – or is she? - Sister Meg (in her late 30s, grey-green eyes, red headed and prone to blushing) at Mont Saint-Michel. The action moves to Prague … not quite sure why … where there is an amusing interlude in the ancient Jewish cemetery as Doc and Meg shake off a tail in the shape of a fat, bald private detective. Did I say amusing? I lied.

They also escape from British Special Forces – or are they? - at Mount St. Michael by avoiding abseiling soldiers and hopping onto the passing boat of a young Irish fisherman – or is he? “Aw and well, it’s just a culchie from Cork City that I am and all.”

A couple of folk get shot on Holy Island and Doc and Meg escape by the skin of their teeth which is good, but a shame for the Vicar who had invited them for a meal of haggis and sausages: it’s just not polite to be a no-show without at least texting.

Somehow they end up in Canada where an awful lot of paramilitary guys get shot-up at the lakeside safe-house.

Forgot to mention that this is to do with a quest for the True Ark (a wooden box containing the Holy Grail, the Crown of Thorns, the Holy Shroud and the Ring of Christ) which Meg believes was smuggled to The New World by a surviving Templar called Saint Clair and the Blessed Juliana, niece to Princess Agnes of Bohemia (died 1282). This is where I really had to suspend my disbelief. After all, Jesus wearing a ring? As if.

Anyway, Meg turns out to be the daughter of Kate Sinclaire and only an ex-nun which I was quite pleased to discover as she tries more than once to seduce Doc. “It doesn’t have to be like this you know.” Very un-nunly!

I don’t suppose you spotted the subtle link between Saint Clair and Sinclaire did you? It took me a while to spot that one.

Anyway, just as Doc is about to be forced to authenticate the True Ark, which they had finally found, but only because Meg had planted it there already – cunning vixen that that she is – on a sandbank off the coast of Nova Scotia, the Israeli secret service arrive and rescue Doc having been tipped off by Vatican security. No, really. I wondered what Homeland Security would have to say about that what with this taking place on American soil but, hey, I’m no expert on international politics and I’m sure Paul Christopher did his research thoroughly.

You can imagine my joy when I discover that Kate Sinclaire has instructed that Operation Ironstone be instituted because, and yes, you’ve guessed it, there is a fourth book, due out July 2012, called The Templar Conspiracy where the Pope is assassinated in order for Rex Deus’s plans to reach fulfilment and save America from liberal socialism.

It’s not out in paperback yet, but it’s my Birthday early in October and I must now how it ends!

Sports Day at the Knowledge College

Here we are in the middle of July and summer has yet to come. All over the country sporting events have been cancelled because of the rain and members of the Italian Olympic squad have been bemoaning the lack of sunshine. Here at the Knowledge College we are made of sterner stuff: come on - some of the staff live in Hebden Bridge which has been under water for the last fortnight.

I arrive in the car park and am blinded by a strange light: it is the reflected glare from my colleague Adam's legs. They look like two pieces of spaghetti.

Have you got those legs insured Adam?

There is general aimless milling around while staff arrive and we locate our forms for registration on the track side. I am impressed: almost all of mine are here. My colleague Ben has a turn out of two.

I notice that some of this year's Yr 11 leavers have been drafted in as helpers. So there'll be no swearing in the staff area I note to Jim.

"Bollocks to that. Measure my concern in micro-giveashits."

"Can I run in socks Sir?" Sarah enquires after registration. "I can't run in shoes."

Did you miss an important developmental stage earlier in childhood?

Sarah is busy removing her shoes. "No they weigh me down."

Welcome the new Zola Budd.

"Who?"

Oh, you're so young.

As we await the formal start of procedings I note at least three sets of pupils on crutches.

All wearing full sports kit.

"You can take equal opportunities too far." Ben opines.

"Woop!" My colleague Amie is clearly over excited. "I only signed up to help to watch Wolfie eat all the leftover free packed lunches that the kids don't want." she confides.

Jags arrives in time to have missed his registration group. You're late. What happened?

"I went up to school first."

Liar. I did that and your car wasn't in the car park.

Jags grins sheepishly.

"I was sat in the staff room" Jim tells us. "And then someone asked me why I was there and not here. The trouble is I read my e-mails on a Friday and today's only Tuesday. Mind you, It's amazing what's resolved itself by the time you do read them. Don't you work like that with your pigeon hole?"

Termly. I confirm.

"Do you know I got away with not doing P.E. at school for two years by telling them I only had one lung? It was only when my Dad asked why there wasn't a P.E. report that I was found out."

"How long is this track Sir?"

Do you do GCSE PE?

"No. BTEC Sports Studies."

How long is a standard running track?

"How would I know?"

"Oy!" The dulcet tones of the mad scientist. "Don't forget you're going on the butty-run."

I look around. "No you, shit-for-brains."

Why me?

"Because you're a sap."

In the event Sam and Janet are sent on this errand. Sam and Janet ... hang on, let me think.... Sam and Janet...

Sam and Janet evening
You may see a stranger,
you may see a stranger
Across a crowded room.

O.K. Please yourselves.

The events begin and Kate and I move over to the High Jump area. I always supervise the High Jump what with me once having jumped 1.92. But that was in the last century!

The boys are on first and it all very businesslike and straightforward.  The girls follow and the entertainment begins.

"If I cry do I still have to do it?"

With the aid of a cattle prod, yes.

"It's too high."

Look. The clue's in the name. It's called the High Jump.

There is a distinct lack of style with a lot of drooping bottom sydrome. Some girls simply walk up and try to step over the bar. There is an awful lot of running around with flapping hands.

You run like a girl.

"I am a girl".

That's not the point.

"Oh, I've broken a nail."

Could you take this a little more seriously?

I notice out of the corner of my eye Jags and Jim undertaking the onerous responsibility of propping up the steeplechace hurdle. The High Jump completed, I wander over to join them and hear Jim claiming to be a technophobe.

"You can't be," Jags responds "You teach Technology."

"No. I teach kids to knock the crap out of metal."

Lunch time arrives and I watch one of the Yr 7s wander over to pick up his packed lunch.

"Tuna or cheese?" Wolfie asks, looking disappointed that there'll be less for him to eat.

"Chicken please." replies Tim.

"Touch my head Miss, I think I've got a temperature."

"No, I'm not going to do that. There are rules about that sort of thing and anyway you're a little bit wierd."

"I bought you a cake." I notice that Derinder is holding nothing in her hand. "I gave it to a kid who looked hungry."

Don't ever show them sympathy. It's almost as bad as turning your back on them.

Amie is rattling off statistics: "Well, Tony was sick and still came second in the javellin, Rob nearly broke his ankle and Sarah popped her hip. Not bad for a Sports Day morning. Still, Debbie managed to keep her beehive in place when she ran."

A girl's race of some sort is finishing. Wolfie is trying to drum up some atmosphere amongst the supporters who singularly fail to be dragged along in the slipstream of his enthusiasm. There is a failed attempt at a Mexican Wave which is pretty disappointing given that each row in the stand contains only about 50 seats.

A boy's race of some sort is finishing now. There is a boy I dislike intensely who has the ability to do well but has the mindset that says if he's not winning then he doesn't want to know.

He isn't winning.

He dawdles to the rear of the pack and finishes his race with a forward roll over the finishing line, looking very pleased with himself.

Nobody cares.

He is so self absorbed he doesn't notice, presumably thinking he has done something hilarious and witty.

There is an announcement that the relays are about to start. I notice my form in place, saunter over to them and give them a big smile.

I'm not saying I'll never speak to you again if you don't win but it's something I'd like you to bare in mind.

They win.

Eddie, our one wheelchair user, is disappointed that we've not managed to organise some sort of paralympic event. I commiserate but point out that as the only wheelchair user he was bound to be a bit of a shoe-in as winner.

"How about we organise the kids on crutches to compete against me Sir?"

Would that be challenging enough?

"Of course. If we did the Long-Jump."

"YOU'RE NOT GOING HOME UNTIL YOU'RE ALL SAT THERE QUIET!" Wolfie doesn't need a microphone.

Quiet? Shouldn't that be an adverb. You know Quietly  - L Y adverb.

"I know" says Derinder."It's really important that teachers speak English properly, Innit?"

Sponsored Walk Day

It's been an odd week.

We started with the biennial sponsored walk. The lowering grey skies do not bode well. Sammi arrives in registration, limping.

"I thought I'd walk today instead of getting the bus."

Who, in their right mind, walks to school in new trainers on the only day of the year when registration is followed by a compulsory ten mile walk?

The children are assembled, shivering - this is the British summer after all - to be given a range of stirring inspirational speeches by members of staff who, as soon as the kids depart into the drizzle, will slope off to the staffroom for a restorative coffee.

The kids look less than convinced.

As ever there is a wide array of completely unsuitable clothing on display: flip-flops, gladiator sandals and very short shorts (good luck with the bramble patches and stinging nettles) and, as we later discover, a youth dressed as a banana. (And why not?)

"Mr. Jones told me not to wear it."

But I see you are, nevertheless.

"It's really hot in here so I took my pants off before I set off."

Banana skin or bare skin? Tough call. Are the local community ready for a fourteen year old streaker? That might be too fruity. We assume not and send him on his way.

The weather improves and the sun even shines for minutes on end. I am on direction duty at a confusing junction of footpaths. This is ironic as I have no idea where I am, having driven here with Bill in Heather's car.

Early.

About an hour and a half early.

We sit in Heather's car and I start to sort out class lists for next year's Yr. 10 R.S. groups. I can see Bill and Heather are impressed, between their regular sloping off into the bushes for a smoke.

Why do you keep doing that?

"I  don't want the kids to know I smoke."

I consider the very personal miasma of aftershave and stale cigarette smoke Bill inhabits and wonder how many of his charges haven't already sussed him.

Apart from one diabetic girl who needed to be picked up by the roving minibus (following the eating of most of my packed lunch to raise her sugar levels) ours is an uneventful way station. Bored, Heather goes in search of a sandwich shop. As each new group of hormones hoves into view around the bend, I scan for familiar faces. My colleague Karl wanders by looking super-cool and offers me an insouciant finger.

Bill puts into words what I am thinking. "Should we send this lot the wrong way?" A lout of boys has meandered into view. It is all the usual suspects.

"Sir, sir. Give us a wave." they chorus. They have clearly had a lot of opportunities on the way round to trial this.

Bill and I ignore them.

There is booing.

I offer a very half-hearted wave.

There is cheering and they wander by hitting each other randomly.

Their passing brings a return to a pastoral idyl.

Heather returns with a very substantial lunch and we eat in reflective contentment.

"Who wants the chocolate brownie?"

Not me. I'm allergic to chocolate.

Bill and Heather look at me as if I have just announced that I have a terminal illness.

"Allergic to chocolate? I'm soooo sorry." Heather offers.

This turns out not to be strictly true. I have been taking Citoxamine and I developed a rash. I then did what all doctors hate us for: I hit the INTERNET and found a fascinating study from the University of Ulan Bator linking skin rashes with a combo of Citoxamine and chocolate.  I had had a large piece of chocolate cake the night before. It all fitted and, satisfied with my watertight self-diagnosis, I pronounced myself allergic to chocolate. (Three days later I would conduct a controlled experiment with another piece of chocolate cake to no reaction at all, but, by then I'd been treated to all the symathy due to a man destined for a hospice, so I kept quiet.)

It was quite an interesting rash as it happened. It started in the palms of my hands which I thought was incredibly fortuitous as I'd only been discussing stigmata with Yr 9 last week. I could be a visual aid and .... but the thought of all the potential press attention put me off, what with me being a retiring sort of chap.

Towards the back of the now dwindling crowd, members of my form appear. Sammi is being carried piggyback.

"Hi Sir. It's great this."

Bill looks at me.

Don't even think about it.

Teenagers and Angels. A reflection for Compline that should have been about miracles.

My Yr 9 students - aged 13/14 -  have been studying Miracles as a topic this term and it has been a struggle from the outset, if for no other reason than spelling. If I have to correct “miricals” one more time, even though they have copied it from the board, I may run screaming from the building. You see “miracles” on the board, look down to your book and write “miricals.” How does that happen? Repeatedly?

Of course, the first issue is that of definition: what are we talking about when we talk of miracles? Blank looks from the hormonal hoards. It takes some time, and with heavy guidance from me, to decide on “A dramatic and unusual event which goes against the laws of nature and is caused by God or one of his agents.” This is where it all starts to unravel as we are taken down an unexpected line of discussion in relation to what constitutes an agent of God. Predictably angels come in for some considerable forensic examination and I find myself explaining the mindset of the medieval artist.

O.K. I say, I’m a Medieval Pope. They look less than convinced.

Jordan, you’re Michelangelo. Jordan looks pleased.

Michael, Old Boy, I need a nice fresco on the ceiling of my new chapel. Nothing fancy, just a Biblical story. How about the Nativity?

Right you are Guv.

So Michelangelo goes away and gets out his Bible. What’s in the story that I need to include? Stable, check. Mary and Joseph, check. Infant, check. Cattle, check. Shepherds, check. Wise men, Check. Innkeeper, check. Angels, ch … Angels? Oooh, Angels.

What does an angel look like? I ask.

Surprisingly for a group of avowed Atheists they soon build up a picture: M & S floaty nighty, pigeon’s wings and a tinsel halo.

Musical Instrument of choice? I venture.

“Harp.” They chorus happily, entering into the spirit of the occasion.

(I ponder, briefly, how far we have moved in five minutes from my lesson plan on miracles – sorry: miricals.)

I draw said angel on the board. It takes about six pen strokes but they pronounce themselves happy with the result.

So I ask them, How did we get to this?

“Well, it’s in pictures.”

“And adverts. Sir, Sir, Have you seen that advert for cream cheese where …..?”

And so it goes on. Having established that this image of angels is firmly established in the international psyche I try to point out that medieval artists were faced with a no-win situation in attempting to representing something visually where there’s not much in the way of description to go on.

I explain, They needed to get over the idea of something spiritual rather than human otherwise we’d be looking at these paintings asking “Who’s that man in the background?” or “Why are those women falling out of the sky?” The angel as we know it is an artistic compromise.

“Are you saying they don’t look like that then?”

I’m saying they might not.

“What do they look like then?”

O.K. I take a deep breath.  What does “angel” mean?

There is no response.

I offer them a clue, It’s a Greek word. Why did I tell them that? This is bottom set Yr 9. What are the chances?

Still no ideas.

There’s no real reason why you should know. I was just wondering if anyone did. It means messenger – or more specifically, God’s messenger. What does God’s messenger look like? Perplexed looks. This is marginally encouraging as it indicates some level of mental activity above and beyond maintaining a heartbeat.

Do you remember when Mrs. Cooper sent a pupil down with a message last lesson?

“Are you saying Emily was an angel?”

I’m saying Emily was a messenger. What does a messenger look like?

“Could be anybody.”

Exactly.

“I don’t get it.”

I sigh. I do that a lot with Yr 9. Why does God’s messenger have to look picturesque?

“Coz it’s an angel.”

And angel means messenger, I persevere. Why couldn’t anyone be God’s messenger? Please don’t say “because we don’t have wings.”

“So, right? Are you saying Sir that anyone could be an angel because they’d be being God’s messenger? Would they know they were an angel?”

Maybe. Not necessarily. Some angels appear to be spiritual beings: I’m just saying that the images of medieval artists might not always be helpful, that’s all. What was an aid to faith in the middle ages seems to be quite the opposite today: "Who'd believe in one of those winged things?"

“Yeah. Too right Sir.”

I remember going to a primary school nativity where the Head had dressed the angels as postmen.

“I don’t get it.”

Postman – messenger – angel.

“Oh right. Now I get it.”

“So…” We all turn to look at Lauren who has been looking at one of my inspirational posters above the board. It is one little corner of some huge painting. I don’t know who the artist was, but the breadth and scope of the painting must make him to the art world what Cecil B. DeMille was to the world of film. The little segment, so easy to overlook, shows two cherubim - or possibly seraphim – chubby winged infants anyway,  looking rather bored, it has to be said, peering down over the edge of a cloud as if at the pupils in my room. Underneath their imagined conversation is printed: I bet they don’t revise for R.S. Losers. “Are they baby angels?” Lauren is pointing.

No. That’s another artistic attempt to describe the indescribable that’s stuck in our collective consciousness.

Amazingly, they seem satisfied with this.

I make a mental note to put together a little unit on religious art and ponder, on the basis of this lesson, whether I actually have the confidence or knowledge to put such a unit together and have a moment of blind panic at the possibility that someone should innocently ask about demons.

We move on from angels and go on to talk about Prophets and Saints and, of course, Jesus as agents of God. There is a glimmer of hope that we might, at last, move on to talk about miricals.

Any questions on anything we’ve looked at so far?  Yes Jordan?

“Sir, who’s Michelangelo?”

Update: It was well received.

Jeremiah and the Prophets for today's generation. Sunday Sermon for Evensong

Jeremiah 6.16-21

¹⁶ Thus says the Lord:
Stand at the crossroads, and look,
   and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way lies; and walk in it,
   and find rest for your souls.
But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ ¹⁷ Also I raised up sentinels for you:
   ‘Give heed to the sound of the trumpet!’
But they said, ‘We will not give heed.’ ¹⁸ Therefore hear, O nations,
   and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. ¹⁹ Hear, O earth; I am going to bring disaster on this people,
   the fruit of their schemes,
because they have not given heed to my words;
   and as for my teaching, they have rejected it. ²⁰ Of what use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba,
   or sweet cane from a distant land?
Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable,
   nor are your sacrifices pleasing to me. ²¹ Therefore thus says the Lord:
See, I am laying before this people
   stumbling-blocks against which they shall stumble;
parents and children together,
   neighbour and friend shall perish.

Jeremiah was one of the Old Testament Prophets. I don’t know about you but my knowledge of the Old Testament Prophets isn’t really as up to speed as I now realise it should be: I’m afraid the prophets rather exist in my mind as a broadly interchangeable amalgam of angry men who I’m always reminded of when I encounter the street preachers who lurk outside Harvey Nichols on a Saturday berating passers by with their one-theme theology of Hell and Damnation.

What do we know about the Prophets? We know that they spoke to their own generations and that theirs were generally words of rebuke: rebuke to a people who in different ways at different times had abandoned God’s ways, whether it was to do with issues of social justice in the way that the rich treated the poor, or with issues of apostasy in the way that the people forgot God and went their own ways. They weren’t much into prophecy in the way the name implies today – not foretelling the future, not in terms of detailed specifics so much as in their warnings of outcomes and consequences, along the lines of “If you carry on like this ……”

We also know that the Prophets were often ignored and despised in their own times and, again, I think of the street preachers outside Harvey Nicholls. I watch as people scurry past with their heads down, resolutely determined not to engage, and then, at a safe distance, their demeanour changes and their pace slows, their posture becomes upright  and the smile returns. They may even look back at those who made them feel uncomfortable and with a rueful smile raise their eyebrows at other passers by as if to say, “What a load of rubbish eh?” Of course there are those who are much bolder and who stand and heckle and jeer.

We’ll be long dead by the time history judges whether, like the Prophets of the Hebrew Scripture, these preachers have had anything worthwhile to say and so I’m not suggesting that we necessarily stop and listen to - or engage with - the street preachers but I am saying that in another time and another place men probably not so different from these felt called, as these folk do, to proclaim God’s judgement to their own people…… and received much the same reaction: indifference, amusement, a sense of superiority, aggression, the wish that they’d shut up and go away – after all, the last thing you want on a sunny day in the town centre is someone ranting on about God’s judgement … isn’t it?

How different are we from the people of Jeremiah’s day?

And what of Jeremiah himself?

The Book of Jeremiah tells us that he was called by God to prophesy Jerusalem’s destruction. In contrast to Isaiah, who eagerly accepted his prophetic call, and similar to Moses who was less than eager, Jeremiah resisted the call. However, the Lord insisted that Jeremiah go and speak as commanded, and he touched Jeremiah’s lips and put His words into Jeremiah’s mouth.

Jeremiah’s prophecies are permeated with a sense of disaster: Jerusalem would be destroyed at the hands of invaders because Israel had been unfaithful and had forsaken God by worshiping Baal. Israel had deviated so far from God that they had actually broken the covenant, causing God to withdraw His blessings. Jeremiah was guided by God to proclaim that the nation of Israel would be faced with famine, be plundered and taken captive by foreigners who would exile them to a foreign land.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, throughout his prophetic ministry Jeremiah experienced opposition, persecution and imprisonment. You can’t help but wonder how many people scurried past with their heads bowed determined not to listen or engage and feeling irritated that their routines had been interrupted by this merchant of doom.

So, lets have a look at Jeremiah’s words: Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.

Well, we have the benefit of hindsight: we know how all this worked out for Jeremiah’s generation: But they said, ‘We will not…”

So what has this to do with you and I? It often strikes me with the Hebrew Scriptures that we are so far removed historically and culturally from those events that it really is hard to identify with the people at all. After all, we don’t live in a society which has built altars to a false God upon which to burn our children as offerings … but I guess some of you are already ahead of me here because we constantly build altars of one kind or another and while we may ignore the street preachers there are plently of prophets out there. They may not come from a priestly clan like Jeremiah and they may not speak overtly as men and women of faith but  let’s not fool ourselves that there aren’t prophets clamouring for our attention - be they politicians, economists, environmentalists, social scientists …. or Archbishops.

In Jeremiah’s time it’s clear that God’s solutions were known and the people had turned their faces against them and its hard for us here – because there is only so much that each of us can do – to fully identify with Jeremiah’s message. Should we be applying his message to the whole of society … or to the Church – and its legitimate to do both. Where are we to start?

It strikes me that whenever we are confronted with a passage from the Prophets we really ought to be challenged to make a comparison between our own times and their issues, and those of these angry and disturbing men. What can we learn? Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.

I wonder about the people of Jeremiah’s generation as they are presented in this passage: are they refusing to accept Jeremiah’s world-view or are they refusing even to engage with the issues?

How like them are we when we are faced with the big issues of our own time? What are we putting our trust in for the future that might be bypassing God? Whose voices aren’t we listening to?

What debates can we enter into about the nature of these ancient paths where the good way lies? Who are we engaging with in these discussions? Are we having these discussions at all?

I’ve heard preachers tackle this sort of passage in the past and their conclusion has been quite simple: we must follow God’s ways, of course. Quite simple and quite simplistic. What are God’s ways in the comlex world of the second decade in this millenium? What are the ways of God two thousand years after the death of Christ and nearly three thousand years after Jeremiah? Are the ancient ways prescriptive rules or are they general principles? Are we bound by the moral, theological and cultural solutions of the late seventh century BC or are we empowered to look for more innovative solutions for our own generation guided by God’s Spirit?

Now, those are questions Jeremiah and the faithful of his age would not understand: the ways of God were indeed prescriptive as set out in the Books of the Law but we are not bound by those laws: We read in the book of Romans, “But now we are discharged from the law; dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (7.6) and Hebrews (8.13), “In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”

So we are freed from the guidance of the legalism of the code of Jeremiah’s day and freed for a “new comforter” in the guidance of the Holy Spirit today.

So how does that work? Let me give you an example: many of you will remember the 

excellent American T.V. series The West Wing, which charted the trials and tribulations of fictional president Josiah Bartlett and his staff. In one particular episode called Take this Sabbath Day, President Bartlett is struggling with a terrible political and moral dilemma. During the course of the episode the president, a cradle Catholic, is visited by his childhood parish priest and seeks his advice. One of The President’s senior staff is Jewish and is interrupted in the Synagogue in the middle of the Rabbi’s sermon, which can be heard in the White House over the mobile phone. A little later, a more junior staffer, coincidently a Quaker, is asked for her opinion. Each of the three, without knowing of the other two, offers the President their advice. It is the same advice. The President is reluctant to take it until his Chief of Staff points out to him The Lord sent you … “a priest, a rabbi, and a Quaker, Mr. President. What more do you want from him?”

In terms of guidance, I’ve often referred to that event in my prayers as “that West Wing moment”, confident that God knows what I mean. We don’t have Jeremiah with us today: that’s not to say that we can’t learn from him: after all he has given us the injunction: “Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” but we have other Prophets today – those who speak the word of God to our generation if we would but listen. Who are they? (And they may be different for each of us – sacred or secular.) I hear the voice of God today in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Reverend Giles Fraser, but that’s me. They may not speak to your hearts. So who does? When do you have your West Wing moments and who has the Lord sent to you?

My wife’s answer was quite simple: “anyone who challenges me and makes me feel guilty.” She went on to mention the columnist Polly Toynbee which put me in mind of the environmentalist George Monbiot. Other friends presented me with a wider variety of modern Jeremiahs:  Aung San Suu Kyi, Martin Luther King. One American friend suggested the conservationist Rachel Carson. I was also offered Middle East expert Chris Hedges and I spent a happy half hour on the INTERNET looking these people up and concluding that, yes, I could indeed see why they are perceived as modern prophets: in a secular age where people are less and less likely to listen to religious leaders, the word of God is alive and well – and strident! As John tells us, “The Spirit breathes where she will, and you hear her voice …” (John 3.8)

So, perhaps the message of Jeremiah for us today lies in our awareness that prophets aren’t limited to the pages of the Hebrew Scripture and that the word of God is being spoken to our generation too. If we are being challenged to “Stand at the crossroads, and look (for) where the good way lies; and walk in it …” In what senses have we as individuals, as a church, as a nation, departed from the right path and who is telling us that today?  Are we, with Jeremiah’s generation going to say “We will not…” or will we heed the voices of God’s modern Prophets?

Amen