General Chit Chat

[thebish]

Someone pooed in the pool at work today. So glad i was teaching from the side at the time, and not in the water.

seems like a pretty simple way to dodge work for the afternoon - you dirty girl!!!

[Gooner Girl]

Someone pooed in the pool at work today. So glad i was teaching from the side at the time, and not in the water.

seems like a pretty simple way to dodge work for the afternoon - you dirty girl!!!

Oi! And I still had to work...

[thebish]

Someone pooed in the pool at work today. So glad i was teaching from the side at the time, and not in the water.

seems like a pretty simple way to dodge work for the afternoon - you dirty girl!!!

Oi! And I still had to work...

yeah - but you had time off for a fag and a can of Stella in the changing rooms...

[clapton is god]

Someone pooed in the pool at work today. So glad i was teaching from the side at the time, and not in the water.

seems like a pretty simple way to dodge work for the afternoon - you dirty girl!!!

Oi! And I still had to work...

Are you sure you weren't just going through the motions?

[CrazyHorse]

[Prufrock]

LOOOL

[thebish]

changing the tone slightly...

this last weekend was the 350th anniversary of the "Great Ejection" of 1662 - when about 1/5th of the vicars of the Church of England were thrown out of the church for refusing to assent to the Act of Uniformity - followed by some very draconian restrictions and punishments and the "Five Mile Act".

many of them still met in secret and found many ingenious ways to circumvent the law (my favourites being the Dissenters of Olney who met at the three-counties meeting point and simply jumped over the border when the law came... and the short minister who always preached on a trapdoor surrounded by 8 tall people so he could never be identified by eye-witness..)

anyway..

locally - one of my churches can trace its history all the way back to 1662 (The congregational church - my tradition - was born out of the "Dissenters" or the "non-conformists")

the local Dissenting minister was William Yeo who was thrown out of Wolborough parish church. he met secretly with his new congregation of dissenters in a collapsed limestone cave in the middle of the woods outside Newton Abbot - since known as the "Puritan's Pit".

we held a service there last saturday. my church owns William Yeo's original bible - which is more than 350yrs old - we have lent it to the local museum in perpetuity for safekeeping... I borrowed it back and was able to take it "home" to the pit and hold it as i preached - 350 years after he had done...

(i had to wear museum-issue white cotton gloves)

I have to say it was a very humbling moment...


Yeo Bible by revnev, on Flickr

[bobo the clown]

The white gloves will be because you have a friend who poo's in swimming pools I guess ?!


Whatever your beliefs to hold history in your hands is always momentous and places little-old-you in the whole magnitude of events. It does sort of bring you back to basics a little.

[thebish]

your hands is always momentous and places little-old-you in the whole magnitude of events. It does sort of bring you back to basics a little.

indeed - precisely that...

I had told them I wouldn't take it if it was raining... it wasn't raining when I set off - but it was when we got there!! fortunately the spot was well chosen with a huge canopy of beech-trees - and I got the town crier to come and hold an umbrella over the bible as I preached!

(I was sure I was going to drop it in a puddle - then have to dry it off on the radiator at home and present a totally ruined and crinkled bible back to the museum!!)

[TANGODANCER]

Can you post a link to your church's actual beliefs? I'd like to read about it. It will be in an open-minded and non-critical way as I'd like to know the points of debate that started it all.

[thebish]

Can you post a link to your church's actual beliefs? I'd like to read about it. It will be in an open-minded and non-critical way as I'd like to know the points of debate that started it all.

you mean what the argument was in 1662? (things have changed considerably since then!!)

[Bruce Rioja]

Our Kid's Karate-ing for the UK this avvy. He's just been disqualified for breaking an Italian's nose. Ooops!

[thebish]

Our Kid's Karate-ing for the UK this avvy. He's just been disqualified for breaking an Italian's nose. Ooops!

oops indeed!

[Harry Genshaw]

Our Kid's Karate-ing for the UK this avvy. He's just been disqualified for breaking an Italian's nose. Ooops!

Is that the brother you did the 5k run with Bruce? I would not like to be behind a right hander from him! Good luck to him

[Bruce Rioja]

Our Kid's Karate-ing for the UK this avvy. He's just been disqualified for breaking an Italian's nose. Ooops!

Is that the brother you did the 5k run with Bruce? I would not like to be behind a right hander from him! Good luck to him

No, that was the younger Our Kid, Harry. The Karate-er's the older Our Kid. He's absolutely gutted. Not because he's been disqualified, but because he's hurt someone.

[TANGODANCER]

Can you post a link to your church's actual beliefs? I'd like to read about it. It will be in an open-minded and non-critical way as I'd like to know the points of debate that started it all.

you mean what the argument was in 1662? (things have changed considerably since then!!)

Yes, that as the originl reason for the furore (I could read it up, but I'd like a view). Basically, how do your beliefs conflict with the C of E, the Bible etc.

[thebish]

Yes, that as the originl reason for the furore (I could read it up, but I'd like a view). Basically, how do your beliefs conflict with the C of E, the Bible etc.

ok - later on I will attempt a basic view on 1662..

as for your other question - without wanting to appear evasive - it really is VERY difficult to outline how my views differ from something as monolithic and broad as the CofE - because theological differences are now not so much between denominations, but each denomination has a very broad spectrum of belief...

so - there are people in the CofE who I would be indistinguishable from in terms of belief - and people who i would consider to be complete nut-jobs!

the things that distinguish denominations are largely to do with churchmanship and how denominations organise themselves and how they deal with issues of power and leadership - none of which is really fundamentally (perhaps tangentially) to do with "beliefs" as such...

I am happy to tell you what I believe - but it wouldn't be very easy to say whether or not it "differed" from the CofE...

does that make sense??

[TANGODANCER]

Yes, I can see the view. I just noticed the Gospel of St Mark on your pic and wondered in what way one branch of religion saw it as against others. Some religions, as you well know, have many different views about the same basics.

[thebish]

Yes, I can see the view. I just noticed the Gospel of St Mark on your pic and wondered in what way one branch of religion saw it as against others. Some religions, as you well know, have many different views about the same basics.

I think you'll find it's Luke!

there is no easily contrastable view of the bible that distinguishes one denomination from another... the CofE has extreme literalists in it and extreme liberals - right from your creationist nut-jobs to your airy-fairy Don Cupitt types... - all within the same denomination...

it isn't an attitude to the bible that distinguishes denominations... not clearly, anyway...

[TANGODANCER]

I think you'll find it's Luke!

I obviously didn't Luke closely enough.