Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning on Breakfast with Emma Britton:

I enjoyed spending some time with my two sons over Christmas. They rarely fail to make me laugh. Don't tell them. We keep our relationship strictly sarcastic. Occasional guests at our Christmas table find our conversation complex. It's rudeness without throwing things and never gets out of hand.

At one point a rather cringe-worthy conversation developed in which Mrs Tilley and I found ourselves having our parenting skills critiqued.

Turns out that, when watching our boys play football, we were embarrassing parents. The summary of our ability to encourage was that we stood on the touchline and shouted, perhaps too loudly, 'Play better'.

Getting advice about your parenting twenty five years too late isn't that helpful, although I pass it on for the benefit of those of you who still have relationships to fix.

Our view of God can be pretty similar. He stands on the sidelines looking at our lives and we occasionally hear him shout:

Do better.

Be cleverer.

Act wiser.

Many of the items in the news today are not things we can do anything about. The weather. Celestial displays. A motorway closure to move a large aeroplane.

But maybe we can react better, cleverer and wiser.

We have finished our annual rehearsal of the great Christmas stories of the Christian tradition. But one theme is worth taking on with us into the new year. How will you react when news is unusual or unexpected?

The year to come will present unique opportunities to strain our patience. If you don't feel up to responding to the challenge, the truth is that God is down to it. And of course BBC Radio Bristol is here to hold your hand on the journey. No pressure Emma. No pressure.

Adult or Child?

Do centuries end with 99 or 00? This is one of those number questions where the facts and the feelings clash. Of course it felt like the new century began at 2000 (when the big number switch 1999-2000 took place). But in fact (not feeling) there was no year zero and so each century lasts 100 years and actually finishes with 00.

Also, our country defines an adult as someone aged 18, but others don't. So the statement is only true based on our culture and values.

So, trying to anticipate all pedantry, the following statement is either going to be true on 31/12/17 or 31/12/18 or not.

And I am grateful to @bethbethbeth_ for telling us what her Dad told her. And to the ubiquitous @richardosman for making it more widely known. This is the thing:

'...on New Year's Eve, every single adult in the world will have been born in the 20th century and every child will have been born in the 21st century and that's the only day that's true for...'

Isn't that a beaut?

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning, a re-adapted version of a poem I wrote a few years ago.

In Japan they have a ceremony called, in translation, 'Death to the Old Year'. Before starting over they remember the bad things now behind them. So I figured I'd do a 'review and learn' on 2015:

At the end of the year
Before 2016's here
How'd you do with your Old Year’s resolutions?
Did you manage for a day?
Did you chuck them all away?
Did you keep them and they’re now an institution?

Did you promise to get fit?
Was it smoking that you quit?
Did you make someone happy with a call?
Are you driving slightly slower?
Your cholesterol is lower?
Did you keep on running once you hit the wall?

Are you now patient? Are you kind?
Do you have an open mind?
Did you tidy up your bedroom once a week?
Did you try to act your age?
Steered well clear of trolley rage?
Planned to make sure you would truth and justice seek.

Were you proud to write more letters?
Saw your elders as your betters?
Passed a mirror without checking on your looks?
Did you walk rather than drive?
Tried to be home before five?
Be determined that you finished far more books?

Made your fashion budget smaller?
Welcomed in the casual caller?
Left the toilet in a state fit for the Queen?
Washed the dishes, bathed the cat?
Tried to cut down on your fat?
Watched the City ... or a more successful team?

Did you find a good solution?
Did you start a revolution?
Made a single, simple statement of intent.
Read the Bible? Prayed your prayers?
Onto Jesus cast your cares?
You didn't? Well I'm sure it's what you meant.

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning:

Can you peel a satsuma in one hand without breaking the peel? Try it. It's not easy.

But, rather than doing without one hand, can you manage without fruit? A great brain-training exercise is to peel fruit in your imagination without breaking the peel. Not easy. You need to stop your head thinking about things going wrong.

Before tomorrow night many of us will make new year's resolutions. You got one planned? Something you can imagine doing, or does it break down as soon as you think about it?

A while back, when I was training for the ministry, a colleague told me a secret. He said there was a positive way to use a resolution. Rather than trying to stop something such as smoking or putting on weight he introduced me to the idea of two year resolutions. Devote two years to acquiring a new skill.

I tested. I am right handed. I spent a couple of years deliberately favouring my wrong, left hand. I am not exactly ambidextrous now, but I can pour drinks with either hand, which is useful when hosting parties.

And it did take two years. After one year I wasn't finished.

Jesus-following is a radical discipleship. A big resolution. It figures out the cost first. Then goes for it. It takes a lifetime, not a year or two.

He spoke about the cost of being his follower. Give up everything and put me first. Prioritise me over all other things. He spoke of building a tower being a project not worth doing until you work out if you can finish - or the half-completed structure will stand there reminding everyone of your failure.

All the best with whatever you resolve.

January 3rd Faith

I have to ease myself into it. Like getting into a too-hot bath it has to be done gingerly. Subtle difference is that, once entered, a bath is by-and-large pleasant.

It's not the work I worry about. I can do tasks after Christmas. I can get stuff done.

It's the faith. Where did it go?

There are several mornings a year when I wake up not believing in God and have to do that Descartian locking myself in a metaphorical cupboard thing until I can face the possibility of spiritual questions. Not quite cogito yet. You?

Let me show my working. It may bother you but it gets me going.

Suppose there is no God. It's easy if you try. Then put on a dog-collar. Ha. Weird isn't it? Why are you wearing a symbol of spiritual support to others if you don't think there is a God? Take it off for a bit.

Now look around you. You have a job with very few responsibilities and a nice house and a salary that works as long as you are sensible or have a partner who works. All you have to do to keep those things is to make a few glib and platitudinous statements once a week and pitch up when expected at various occasions. Far more than you could possibly imagine can be delegated. Could you manage that? You may be a con-artist but you are quite a good one.

OK. So that's a starting point. You can come out of the cupboard now. You are a hypocrite but aren't we all? You know you have felt like this before and getting on with things will move you on, or at least has in the past.

Your next step is to decide if any of the things you are going to be talking about can be said to be true in any sense. The world kinda needs a meta-narrative and the Christian one is a good one. Triumph of good over evil; live pessimistically but hold on to a grand hope etc. If there is a God he would be like a good father; if he cared for us he would enter our world, his glory veiled possibly. So that was Christmas.

Just a few days ago I was singing that we might let:

Our happy voices rend the jocund air asunder

Tried it at Trendlewood Church New Year's morning. Never seen a bunch of people less likely to rend the air, jocund or otherwise.

Maybe others feel like me too. Or just went to better parties where they weren't the driver.

But that is where I have reached currently. There may be no God but I will carry on acting as if there is for a bit until he catches up with me again, or I with him. If he is there he won't be hiding.

I'll add some new bricks to this wall over the next few days. I thought it might encourage you to know that you are not the only one who feels, from time to time, that everything has been in vain, but your pension is probably not tied to it quite so tightly.

Happy new year.

Non-Event

Going to a non-event tonight. A non-event isn't an event. It isn't really a party. It isn't anything. Unless. Unless. Unless everyone wants it to be.

You want to play cards. Great. Find somene else who does and play cards with them. Don't persuade anyone to play cards against their will.

The same goes for loud music, dancing, computer games, other games, TV watching. These things can only happen in the company of people who want them to happen. You can't turn the TV on in a room if one other person doesn't want it.

It's a sort of lowest common denominator party. Been to it for the last ten years or so and always had fun, food and fine wine.

Pity it's Sunday tomorrow.