Mustard Seed Shavings

The Noughties

2009-12-15T10:39:00.003Z

Edward Stourton's programme on Radio 4 this morning, the first in a series looking back at the last decade, was very interesting. Today he focused on the internet. Catch it on listen again or iplayer if you can.

One contributor offered the wonderful thought that many people, who had previously found it takes ages to get into journalism using the submission and rejection method, had now had their incompetence fast-tracked, through blogging. They blog; no-one cares. QED. Of course the opposite is true. Some new writers have emerged through this medium. Fewer though.

If you ever thought that writing every day was easy then start a blog. It is amazing how many people I have encountered online who have posted regularly for a few weeks or months and then disappeared.

It is also notable how many people who can't write particularly well, have valuable things to share. Their insights are better than their grammar but the blogosphere doesn't really mind. We want to learn from everyone.

Blogs. A great thing about the noughties.

Advent 3 Thought

2009-12-13T08:33:00.002Z

What is the best moment of all? The Bishop of Reading refers us to the excellent answer from Winnie the Pooh. Whilst eating honey is by far and away the best experience ever there is a moment just before the moment when you know the moment is going to happen. That moment is the best of all. The anticipation of the taste of honey. The moment you know the ball is going in the net. The moment you know the meal you made is going to taste great. The moment you know that the next chord you play will finish the tune. The promise of her shoes. That sort of thing.

Whilst every fibre of my being wants to wait, hope, rest and enjoy the moment of Advent, and I don't really mind the interruptions that are about planning Christmas, the thing that spoils the moment for me more than anything else is having to think about next year's programme. I don't want to do it now. I certainly won't want to be doing it between Christmas and New Year.

As a writer I often used to write Christmas resources at Easter. My sister, a designer and photographer, once had tons of industrial snow delivered to her cottage in July.

But today, really, I want to live in the advent moment of looking forward to that which has already happened and remembering the future. How Paula Gooder's sentence is following me round.

So I will walk around today with a year's social programme to delegate, a new set of children's leaders to recruit and an Easter event to plan. Or else they won't happen. I am not rushed but my head is busy. Have a happy Advent 3 Sunday.

Food Thought

2009-12-12T18:34:00.002Z

Whether you are religious or not, the Christmas meal is something pretty sacred. It is a time when we are looking to feed our better selves. The food we choose to eat needs to spread love, warmth, goodwill, forgiveness and optimism around a large table of people who, though bonded together by varying levels of shared genes and shared history, might not otherwise choose to sit down and eat together. It needs to weave a spell of magic that suspends any disbelief in the meaning of family, and indeed in the meaning of Christmas. And although normal, sceptical service is likely to resume with the Boxing Day hangover, something of the spirit of that meal should linger deep in the consciousness, helping to keep us sane and sanguine for the next twelve months.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
A River Cottage Year
Hodder and Stoughton 2003

Christmas Shopping for Women's Clothes

2009-12-11T16:34:00.005Z

I'm not one of them but there are a lot of them around. Men, that is, in women's clothing shops, looking very lost right now. Wrong place; wrong time. Like chickens at a fox wedding.

They don't want help - that would send them scuttling to the door - but they have no clue either. They have no idea if she is a 34d or a 36c, can't remember if she is 12 or 14 (then buy a 12, dummy) and have no idea about leg length or shoe size whatsoever. Men buying clothes for women is a complex business. It can't be done in a vacuum. You have to pay attention the whole year, notice what items are being touched and admired. A whole year? Why yes son. You have to go shopping with her.

You can give an honest answer to the question 'Does this look good?' You can. But only if you are prepared, when it doesn't, to invest the necessary hours in helping find the thing that does. By the way, the question, 'Does my bum look big in this?' It doesn't happen. Most women know that either:

a) Their bum looks big in everything.
b) It doesn't.

If they chance to ask you they think the answer should be b). If it isn't then go for, 'You can do better than that' as an answer. It's a comment on the clothes not the bum size.

So, lost men in clothes shops. Give your partner a voucher for however much you intend to spend and offer to spend the time with her helping select the garments. During this expedition you will buy lunch somewhere of her choice. And keep your promise before February.

Or go up to an assistant and tell her that your wife is the most beautiful, dark-haired, size 14 olive-skinned woman they could possibly imagine (if she is - you know you can change some of those words right?) and she needs to select an appropriate gift. You won't do this. Hunter gatherers don't take advice. But it would work. Especially if you put the assistant's name on the gift receipt.

Next year, accompany your partner on a shopping trip as the winter collections are rolled out. That will be early September. And pay attention.

Laugh, Now

2009-12-10T19:00:00.003Z

I got in trouble at college for being part of the gang who showed the film Life of Brian in the Common Room. You need to know that it was a theological college (vicar factory) and 1984 so it was, I guess, a bit edgy.

But my humour is edgy. I have to self-edit massively before blogging, tweeting and whatever ing you facebook. Honest, I do. You should see the stuff the delete key gets.

I just roared to hear Andy Zoltzman describe Jesus as a 'first century magician and raconteur'. Isn't enjoying the joke so much better than bombing his relatives?

Stewart Lee is harder work but I see what he's doing. As he said in a weekend interview, if Clarkson can call Gordon Brown a one-eyed Scottish idiot why isn't it funny when Lee hopes Clarkson's children go blind. Or wished Richard Hammond had died in agony in that car accident? It's funny. It's odd.

Do you have to have a humour chip? The ability to recognise that you can learn and laugh? Have serious fun?

I don't like Lower Sixth humour. If I did this blog would be called The Lonely Lentil or In Search of Custard or somomething, which is like something only typed wrong.

I'm writing this as the Christmas newsletter prepares to go to press. I speak as if it had a mind of its own which, to some extent, it does. It is an unstoppable force in a bland world and will be hitting the www soon (and the letter-boxes of the old and cautious) as soon as Mrs Mustard has told me what I absolutely have to ditch.

Be very ware.

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

2009-12-10T10:27:00.004Z

Can't tell your anaphora from your exergasia? Think that conduplicatio and ploce are only useful in bed? Blogger spell-checker couldn't help. Mustard Grammar is here to help.

Conduplicatio (con-do-plih-CAT-eeoh): Figure of repetition in which the key word or words in one phrase, clause, or sentence is/are repeated at or very near the beginning of successive sentences.

A ploce is a figure of speech in which a word is separated or repeated by way of emphasis.

Anaphora is a rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.

Exergasia is a form of parallelism where one idea is repeated and only the way it is stated is changed.

I tell you this whilst aware that the English language graduates amongst you probably knew it already. I didn't. All four words were in my daily newspaper this week. Worth the £1 I think.

In Defence of Steves

2009-12-10T08:27:00.005Z

I have mentioned before that all the work in the world is done by people called Dave, unless they are too busy in which case they have a mate called Steve who can cover it. This is Al Murray's comment to any audience member he speaks to called Dave or Steve. Beautiful British names, as he would put it.

But there is a problem. A hitch has been driven into town and abandoned at MSS's door.

You see David 'Call me Dave' Camera-on has, according to Downing Street as reported in the Guardian (left-wing, liberal bias warning) got two sorts of candidates for the forthcoming General Election. There are the ones we know about, '...privately educated and wealthy, the younger son of a marquis probably called Piers (if a man) or Petronella (on the rare occasions they are not); someone whose engagement with Europe runs no further than Courcheval (a ski resort apparently - ed) and who is happiest on a horse.

'The second is rougher, more brutal, and even richer: a non-dom self-made City millionaire little Englander - possibly called Steve - with unedifying views on the best way to deal with rapists. It sticks in the craw to imagine either Steve or Piers lecture on poverty.' (Julian Glover, The Guardian 7/12/09)

Glover goes on to explain, carefully, that this is a parody; what Downing Street would like people to believe. In fact the future MPs of the right are much changed from this stereotype. I care not. What I do care about is the suggestion that there is something essentially unpalatable about people called Steve. On behalf of Messrs Gerrard, Biko, Hawking, Jobs, Irwin, Gately, Seagall, Davis, Hendry and Fry I challenge. And that's the currently news-worthy, googleable Steves and Stephens, many of whom remain alive. What a complex, weird, wonderful and interesting bunch we are.

Let's leave it to the Steves.

Twurch

2009-12-09T16:52:00.001Z

I just joined the Twurch of England. See new sidebar tool. Click. Play. No idea how useful it will be yet, nor what my blogfeed URL is to get the link to work the other way. Can anyone help?

Life Rules

2009-12-09T16:28:00.004Z

Regular readers may recall that the above is a working title of a book I am writing for BRF. As the tweetfeed says I am looking for ideas.

If you are a Christian, did you read a book on Christianity for beginners when you started out? what did it say about lifestyle? What do you wish it had covered that it didn't?

If you are a christian and you have never read a book that dealt with questions of Christian lifestyle, what would you like such a book to cover if it existed?

Are you aware of the existence of good books which cover this material? Name them.

If you are not a Christian are there matters of Christian lifestyle which put you off? What are they and what puts you off about them?

Finally, what is Christian lifestyle? Can it be described generically or is it all down to the individual?

All advice will grateful received and suitably weighed.

Hello Tiger

2009-12-06T10:22:00.002Z

I am not especially interested in Tiger Woods' private life. What happened in the early hours of the morning the other week remains, as far as I am concerned, between him, the damaged car and the fire hydrant. Delighted however to learn that the damaged hydrant is not just a Hollywood construction to make road traffic accidents more exciting for the movie goer. Those things really exist and do get hit. Was there a plume? We should be told.

What I do find worthy of comment, not that unworthiness stops me commenting, is that Woods feels he is entitled to some simple privacy. Is he?

His name is synonymous with a large number of products, not all golf-related, and I believe the sheer ubiquity of his face on billboards puts him more up-for-investigation than most. Do we not have a right to check out if the man who says Gillette is the best a man can get uses an electric from time to time. And if the overall picture is that his squeaky-clean lifestyle is what makes him a good product promoter shouldn't we be able to cry foul if the lifestyle has some unpolished bits?

His family should be off-limits but therein lies a dilemma. The family man image does include others. He can still be a good family man if others in his family err. You don't judge a man's husbanding skills by the behaviour of his wife and kids. But if he strays from his family values it does undermine any claims to take money for product promotion on the basis of those values. Doesn't it?

I am not happy with media intrusion. I watch those X-Factor contestants wanting it more than anything else and then see last years winners and losers being hounded by, and I use the term loosely, journalists. I am not happy with the way celebrity is used to endorse products. But neither is a crime. And one is a symptom of the other.

So, on balance Mr Woods, an apology is not enough. Tell us what happened. Then we will be able to decide if we believe some of the other things you say.

Most Consecutive Words 2

2009-12-04T08:11:00.000Z

Two teachers were checking over English grammar homework. In particular they were testing when one should use 'had' and when 'had had' would be better. They found an example. Whilst Susan had had 'had,' Peter had had 'had had.' 'Had had' had had the teachers' approval.

Most Consecutive Words

2009-12-03T08:08:00.000Z

Was musing, following the management bingo game yesterday, and recalled a couple of examples from English lessons of sentences with the same word in a row as many times as possible but still making sense. Not counting lists, of course.

There was a guy putting up a sign for a fish and chips shop. The owner complained it was too tightly spaced. The signwriter hadn't left enough room between 'fish' and 'and' and 'and' and chips.

Another one tomorrow.

Big Blogger

2009-12-02T09:24:00.001Z

INTERIOR NIGHT

St is sitting at his desk with a bowl of porridge. He is breathing out frost and occasionally feeling the radiator next to him. A ghostly apparition appears

Morning St. You're up early. How's it going?

Hey BB. I'm OK.

No you're not.

You're right. I wanted to lay this out like a film script but blogger edit is pants for that.

That's not the problem.

No, I guess not. I searched for myself on the Diocesan web-site and I don't exist.

That's brilliant. A full-time job with pay where no-one knows you exist. Perfect.

Is it?

Of course. Don't tell anyone. Still. That's not the problem either.

It isn't?

(Beat)

You're not going to speak again are you?

(Beat)

OK, I get the hang of it. It's been a while. BB I've got over 50 things on my things to do list and I don't really care about any of them.

Nothing scary enough?

Quite.

You need to go away for a few days and read, get your head put back together, take a Sunday off and get ready to do all that Christmas guff you do so well.

Guff?

You know what I mean. By the way.

Yeah

You exist, but only in my head.

Aaaagh!!

St and MSS will be back after a bit of R and R in Derbyshire. Mrs Mustard remains available at home.

Management Bingo

2009-12-01T22:48:00.003Z

I criticised a colleague's written work today, specifically the first 104 words. What was wrong with the first 104 words? They were only two sentences. However I lost the bad communication game to Mrs Mustard who came up with this wonderful double set of winning lines today, from an announcement to her company staff:

strategic and transactional people initiatives

commercially focused people solutions

It is one of the highest scores she has ever achieved. If anyone has any idea what they mean the comments box is for strategic, response-focused interventions.

Advent

2009-11-29T17:00:00.002Z

As theologian Paula Gooder said at a pre-Advent reteat on Wednesday, Advent is the time when we get a glimpse of eternity. We look forward to something that has already happened and we remember the future. That alone has given me enough to chew on for the next four weeks and in honour MSS has gone a bit purple. Enjoy the wait.

Les choses est contre nous

2009-11-27T09:59:00.004Z

The thing I like about stuff going wrong is the sheer quality of imagination required by those things to go wrong in such novel, yet logical, ways. New readers, I refer you to the keys in the peg basket story which is in here somewhere but my search facility won't turn it up. Ah here it is.

So yesterday I arrived home from the office with two cheques and yet, later on, I only had one. I was certain I had put them both in the usual place I put pending cheques. Only one was there. I searched under the desk, down cracks at the back of the desk and in all the papers I had tidied off my desk in case I had filed it accidentally. I emailed the office to see if I had dropped it there. I checked in the car. No joy.

So, resigned to having to ask for a re-issue, I did what all sensible men would do in the same situation and went to the pub.

On returning my lost cheque was on my desk. It had been folded in four and unfolded again. Curious. But there it was.

Embracing Mrs T I asked where she had found my cheque. In the pile of paper for recycling I put on top of the bookcase each day, it turns out.

I went back to the cheque. How had I folded it and put it, and it alone, in a recycling pile? I turned it over in my hand and on the back, in my hand-writing, were two words:

STEPHEN
LIVER

Attenders at yesterday's Quiet Day will be a little ahead of the rest of you now but here's the back story.

Stephen, a guest at the Quiet Day, had been to the butchers before arriving and came to the door brandishing a bag of liver and asking to borrow fridge space. If you wish to go and reflect on the weirdest item anyone has ever brought to a quiet day please feel free to do so. See you in a few minutes.

Welcome back. So I used a fridge magnet and a piece of scrap paper to put a note on the fridge door. When Stephen left, liver in hand, I folded up the note and put it in the recycling pile. QED.

I regaled Mrs T with this story and the outcome of my substantial detective work and all she could say was that she knew me keeping cheques so close to my scrap paper pile would cause a problem some day. She knew. She hadn't ever said, but she knew.

Relationship advice number 267. A woman's job is not to say I told you so. A man's job is.

Practical advice number 456b. Don't keep uncashed cheques near the scrap paper pile.

I think I may be turning into Tim Dowling. Google him. It'll be worth it.

I will leave the writing on the back of the cheque and imagine the conversation at the bank.

Virtual Quiet Day 6

2009-11-26T15:30:00.001Z

And that's it. Cup of tea to finish and we go our separate ways. Next one will be Thursday 28th January. No Quiet Day in December. Leave your feedback in the comments box. Don't forget to turn the phone back on.

Virtual Quiet Day 5

2009-11-26T14:00:00.000Z

As we gather together again we share anything we feel we have heard or learned this morning. I left some books and commentaries around and often people do a bit of digging in the Bible text and then share. Others say what they reckon God has been saying to them.

Now read Exodus 4:18-31.

Notice the new name for Moses' staff (v20).

Notice that he still had to have faith to do what he had been told to do.

Notice vv24-26 and let us know what that is about if you have a clue.

Now quiet. Next post 3.30 p.m.

Virtual Quiet Day 4

2009-11-26T13:00:00.000Z

It's 1 o'clock and time for lunch, dum di dum di dum dum.

We're having home-made onion soup and chatting round a table.

Next post 14.00.

Virtual Quiet Day 3

2009-11-26T10:40:00.003Z

This passage has been called the greatest interview ever until Lois Lane got Superman. Moses the murderer interviews God who intervenes, calls and equips.

Having experienced this burning bush the dialogue between Moses and God is fascinating for us to eavesdrop upon. We like all the details sorted, so we can trust in our human power. God's plan is rather harder for us; he says 'Take this step and trust me.'

Moses asks five great questions in Exodus 3&4. They highlight human worries about calling and equipping, and God's response. Let's look at them and God's five great answers.

Question 1
Who am I (3:11)?

Before we can go to anyone and do anything we need our own identity sorted. Who am I?

Not a great answer really. You ask God who you are and you get the answer 'I will be with you.' But, in other words, God says to Moses that their identities are bound up together. We are the people who God is with.

If you want to get your identity right begin by plugging into the source of the power and let self fade.

Question 2
Who are you (3:13)?

Rather rude? Or an indication that Moses still hasn't quite grasped who it is he is talking to. Prophets, priests and kings throughout the Bible found meeting with God a face-in-the-dirt moment. Moses seems to lack that humility.

God's answer? I am who I have always been and will continue to be. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And with this the title of of God, YAHWEH, the Lord, is fixed; the title which caused Jesus to be nearly stoned for blasphemy when stating, '...before Abraham was, I am' (John 8:58).

Question 3
What if they don't listen?

The eternal question of the church leader and an easy answer. We read on. If they won't listen, you turn your stick into a snake. That'll shake 'em up.

To put this to contemporary terms; your words don't stand alone. They stand in the context of signs, wonders, miracles and the eternal acts of God (4:2-9). Those who work in God's power are doing the work of the church; the place where God is at work. If you are listening to God, and hearing him clearly, and people are not listening to you, then they are not listening to God. This is a high calling.

Question 4
What if I can't think of the words (4:10)?

It's all well and good feeling you speak in the Lord's power until it comes to the moment to actually trust him. Ask young men what they fear most in life. The results are very interesting. Not war, famine, plague or death. But after a very obvious first answer - those who were fathers feared anything happening to their children, the second answer is often 'public speaking.'

God says, 'I will help you speak (4:11,12). I invented words and can put them in your mouth.

Question 5
Why not send someone else (4:13)? Here am I, send them.

Then the Lord got a bit cross (quote v14).

Those who God calls he equips (4:14-17). If you have been called to a job you remain called until such time as he uncalls you.

Conclusion
The human Moses took the law into his own hands. The human Moses couldn't cope with God's demands. But the judgement of history on Moses, throughout the new testament, is that he was a great leader and man of God. From such an inauspicious start flowed mighty works.

We will now be quiet (after a brief discussion) until 1.00 p.m. Next post then.

Virtual Quiet Day 2

2009-11-26T10:30:00.001Z

Now we are sitting in a circle introducing ourselves and saying in a couple of sentences what we hope to get out of today. Use the comments box again if you wish to.

That done we will read Exodus 3:1 - 4:17. This is a coincidence because we used this on our Parish Weekend just gone.

Next post 10.40.

Virtual Quiet Day

2009-11-26T10:00:00.000Z

Hi, welcome. We're having tea, coffee and biscuits right now and saying hello to each other in the conservatory, enjoying the dry (it's wet outside). We are Sheila, Jen, Brian, Mike, Ruth, Alison, Stephen, Marcus and Sue. Others may have turned up and forgotten to book. Make yourself a drink and say hello using the comments box. Next post 10.30 a.m.

Surrender

2009-11-25T08:09:00.004Z

How willing are you to surrender all you are? To hand it over and say, 'This is not me any more.'

Exodus 3 tells us a story of Moses, encountering God at a burning bush. He is given the task of leading his people out of captivity in Egypt. He is not offered it. The God written about in the Old Testament doesn't say 'I'd like you to...' He says, 'I have chosen you to...' You remain called until such a time as you are uncalled. Unsurprisingly, Moses has many questions:

Who am I?
Who are you?
What shall I say?
What if they won't listen?
Why not send someone else?

Read the passage for the answers. This isn't a sermon, although the answer to the 'Who are you' question is particularly interesting. 'I am who I am' is a Hebrew construction. If someone says, 'Where did they go?' and you don't know, you might reply, 'They went where they went.' It means 'I cannot answer your question in your terms.' Hmm. Or maybe, on this occasion, megahmm.

So on our parish weekend together we were invited to lay down our identity, influence and income. For 24 hours the things we wrote on a staff of wood were laid, together on the floor.

Just as Moses' staff in the story was laid down and when picked up became a snake, then the staff of God, so we laid down a symbol of who we are. Surrendered.

A lot of my identity is to do with being on my feet in front of groups of people. So amongst other things, a little later than everyone else because I had a talk to do first, I laid down the fruits of 34 years public ministry and the ability to speak, some say quite well, in public. It was hard. It was hard because, as I explained to those who were there, it wasn't something I ever thought I'd do with my life, it wasn't something I had a natural aptitude for and it has been a struggle to get to the point of feeling that it is any use to others. It was a bit of an Abraham and Isaac moment. What Lord? Lay that down. Bugger.

I told people during my talk on being totally transformed that the end was going to be good. I didn't know quite how good. Because taking 34 years of sweat, tears, preparation and archiving and saying, 'That's it' when you think you have more to give is tough. It wasn't good in the sense that it was a well-rounded conclusion summarising the previous 40 minutes' points. It was good in that the drama of me, cracking up (I didn't know I was going to) said that this is what surrendering feels like.

We picked up our staffs again the next day to remind ourselves that we are all still servants of God. By a freak of diaries I don't have any sermons or talks to do for a couple of weeks. So although I have the staff back I don't know what I've got back yet. Bumpy ride ahead. December 13th may be an interesting day.

Parish Weekend - First Thoughts

2009-11-24T10:04:00.007Z

There is an old story which my Dad used to tell me about NAAFI meals. Military language warning.

Apparently during war-time the members had been complaining for months that the food tasted crap but the authorities refused to take them seriously. They insisited that the catering staff were the finest trained men in the forces and they could do miracles on a budget. Eventually someone was persuaded to carry out an inspection and a selection of the usual fayre was displayed for tasting.

The officer leaned over and smelled the food. 'Hmm. Smells like shit,' he said.

Then he took a spoon and tasted the food. 'Hmm, tastes like shit,' he said.

Then, after a brief pause he added, 'Beautifully cooked though.'

I have been trying to write a post that summarises the Holy Trinity and Trendlewood Parish Weekend away. There is a slight danger that trying to review a weekend away that has been spiritually challenging for me is like that. The raw ingredients of my life I took along were poor but something great was made with them. If you have been really challenged at a conference or event then the feedback form is like asking a defeated boxer to mark out of ten the quality of the blow that felled him.

So I will tell you what happened. Soon. I've already saved it in draft. But it's not quite right and it needs to be. The talks will be available on the church web site soon.

Parish Weekend

2009-11-22T18:24:00.005Z

Just back from an excellent Parish Weekend at Lee Abbey where we looked together at Moses in Exodus 3&4 and qualities needed to be a servant of God:

Fully surrendered
Totally transformed
Newly anointed

Thanks to everyone who made it such a memorable time. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments box.

Since we were near a cliff edge and one of the key themes of the weekend was 'throw down your staff' I'd like to record my gratitude to everyone for treating that as a metaphor.