Remember me?

This whole blogging thing – it might take off.

Anyway, just thought I’d post this, as it made me laff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/moaksey/2223060360/

Easter

Possibly for the first time ever, I feel about Easter Sunday like I do Christmas Day – very excited, and not wanting it rush by and me miss it.

Why?

I don’t know, really. I don’t think it’s about getting chocolate eggs (you’ll be relieved to know). For some reason, the idea of resurrection means a lot to me at the moment; there’s definitely parts of my life where resurrection is needed: what Paul talks about when he speaks of the power that raised Jesus being at work in us (Stephen’s translation!) in Ephesians. I don’t really know what I’m expecting to happen – perhaps nothing will. I just feel, like I said just now, like I really want Easter day to come and for it to be very special – life-changing, in fact!

The Passion – part 1 and controversy

So, what to make of part 1 of “The Passion”? Actually, I enjoyed it. It was told well: Jesus’ relationship with the disciples (them wanting to follow but not really 100% sure what he’s on about) seemed to mirror the picture in the Gospels (especially Mark) and Jesus’ humorous introduction of James and John was good. James Nesbitt made a good Pilate. And it was good to have the 3 points of view as well, especially the political machinations of the religious authorities as they tried to make sense of Jesus and how to deal with Him.
The programme was very ambiguous in its portrayal of Jesus: at the start, Caiaphas was seen sanctioning the use of the Temple Tax to help the family of a murdered man; a short while later, Jesus argues that it is unfair that a child should have to pay to enter. Also, the crowds around him didn’t seem that huge, especially in the scenes where he’s teaching in the temple. Perhaps I’ve had a wrong impression of those scenes, but part of me couldn’t help wondering “What’s all the fuss about? Aside from turning over the tables, he’s not creating that much of a stir”.
But apart from that, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next episode. It tells the story well and, actually, makes you think about what happened. Which can only be a good thing.

Oh, the controversy bit: basically, it looks like the Sunday Telegraph’s been taking a few liberties with people’s views of The Passion in order to kick up a bit of a stink about it (reverting to anti-BBC mode, then). While I’m all for positive views of Jesus being given (which may not come as much of a shock), that isn’t necessarily the BBC’s mission. And in any case, the Bible doesn’t say the position Jesus was in, so how do we know they got it wrong and how doe sit mislead people? Is our salvation dependent on the exact position Jesus was in when he was crucified? Somehow, I don’t think so…

The Passion on BBC1

Well, there’s been a lot of (mainly positive) noise about this – a new telling of the Passion Week story. Best of all, it’s on prime time BBC1!! And, from the trailers, it looks quite interesting: full of life and chaos (which I bet Jerusalem was), hopefully adding something different to the telling of the story. The idea of telling it from three different viewpoints looks interesting: we (quite naturally) tend to see it purely from Jesus’ viewpoint and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that – but it would be interesting to see how the people behind this think the religious authorities and Pilate saw what was going on.

If I was writing this a bit later in the day I might be able to comment more coherently, but as you can tell, I’m looking forward to it. Just wish the digital video recorder I got for my birthday was working…

I forgot two other things I am as well…

1. 29 (so perilously close to 30!)
2. Tired.

Hello, it’s me!!

… back after a goodly length of time!

Anyways, what’s been happening? Well, I am now a number of things:

1. A part-time civil servant, because…
2. A trainee Baptist minister at Northern Baptist College;
3. A Dad, to Amy who is now, er, 16 months old and walking around like crazy, mainly into things she shouldn’t.
4. Tired, after she’s given us two rotten nights’ sleep on the trot…

So that’s me, now!

Anyway, the next Queen song is “Spread your wings”, which I might actually get round to doing sometime soon. Or maybe I’ll do something completely different.

Those wacky Spaniards…

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Stressed Spaniards smash up hotel

Quite possibly the best thing ever, ever, ever.

September 11

A bit weird today… it’s the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and… well… nothing, really. No silence at work, no memorials (as far as I’m aware) in Sheffield – just a normal day, kind of.

Of course, for thousands, possibly more, of people, this can’t ever be “a normal day” – and whatever you think of the politics surely you have to have sympathy for those who mourn for those they lost in general, and especially today.

I wonder if the general low-key approach, in the UK at least, it’s because of a fear that seems to be coming across some people of glorifying terrorism. There’s an interesting debate on the BBC website here about whether making such a fuss and showing the images over and over is glorifying the event and those who perpetrated it. Simon Jenkins wrote an article in The Guardian last week arguing much the same thing.

I guess it’s important to remember what happened and there can be a horrible fascination about those pictures but… show it too often and you almost (almost) seem to be in awe of what they did.

Of course, the real way to not learn any lessons from 9/11 is to set up a massive assault on our human rights – but of course that would never happen, would it…

Comments

I’ve tried to change them to use Blogger’s very own system – so this is a trial run to see if it’s worked or not…

So if you’ve put comments on previously and they now no longer show up, I am really sorry – it’s not deliberate, honest!!

To clarify…

The link to the website for the blog I mentioned in the last post is on the right, between the “World of Stuart” and “I believe in the BBC” links. For some reason, Blogger objected to putting the link into the post itself Hope this helps clarify things!

Also, apologies to whoever posted a comment asking where the link was for not posting a reply direct – for someone reason, my computer objected to that, too…