Well, no-one saw that coming!...
Super, we get a new massive casino in a part of town where the main recreational opportunities already involve spending money that many don't have - Gala and Mecca hang your heads.
A further headache for GA? A disatrous planning decision? A money-making, soul-sucking enterprise? An employment opportunity? A regeneration trigger?
Tellingly, the Casino Advisory Panel said that "the city [Manchester] has the greatest need in terms of multiple deprivation of all the proposals that were before us." And this was a *good* reason to award it?...
technorati tag: super casino, gambling, manchester
Reel Spirituality - this Sunday
Sunday 4 Feb - The Proposition (18)
Reel Spirituality - 1st Sunday of the month at Nexus
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt
If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm
Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +
The series on "Heroes and Villains" continues with...
4th March - House of Flying Daggers (15)
1st April - Leon (18)
6th May - 15 Minutes (18)
technorati tag: the proposition, reel spirituality
Reel Spirituality - 1st Sunday of the month at Nexus
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt
If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm
Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +
The series on "Heroes and Villains" continues with...
4th March - House of Flying Daggers (15)
1st April - Leon (18)
6th May - 15 Minutes (18)
technorati tag: the proposition, reel spirituality
New Greenbelt Early booking Deadline
Anyone planning on booking discounted tickets to this year's Greenbelt Festival should be aware of the following announcement from the organisers:
Please note that the first discount ticket deadline for purchasingGreenbelt
2007 tickets will be moved forward this year by one month from April 30th
to March 31st. Spread the word.
What song would you choose?
In the film 'Walk the Line' there is a scene where Johnny Cash is tryiing to get a record deal. After playing a limp gospel song the record company exec says to Johnny: 'If you were hit by a truck lying in a gutter dying – and you had to sing one song people would remember you by what would that song be?'
In the service last night we issued this challenge to people. They then wrote a song down, we randomly selcted one, downloaded it off i-tunesand played it...but the others that weren't selected were:
Jack Johnson - Banana Pancakes
The Kinks - Thank you for the days
U2 - With or without you
Paul Simon - A Church is Burning
Brian Houston - We don't need religion
Embrace - Glorious Day
U2 - One
Years I spent in Vanity and Pride
The Beatles - The End
Mark Cohn - True Companion
The Who - Baba O'reily
One day at a time sweet Jesus
Martyn Joseph - He's mine
Fleetwood Mac - Song Bird
How Great Thou Art
The Clash - Rock the Casbah
U2 - Beautiful Day
U2 - October
Joy Divison - Atmosphere
The Old Rugged Cross
Joan Osbourne - One of Us
In the service last night we issued this challenge to people. They then wrote a song down, we randomly selcted one, downloaded it off i-tunesand played it...but the others that weren't selected were:
Jack Johnson - Banana Pancakes
The Kinks - Thank you for the days
U2 - With or without you
Paul Simon - A Church is Burning
Brian Houston - We don't need religion
Embrace - Glorious Day
U2 - One
Years I spent in Vanity and Pride
The Beatles - The End
Mark Cohn - True Companion
The Who - Baba O'reily
One day at a time sweet Jesus
Martyn Joseph - He's mine
Fleetwood Mac - Song Bird
How Great Thou Art
The Clash - Rock the Casbah
U2 - Beautiful Day
U2 - October
Joy Divison - Atmosphere
The Old Rugged Cross
Joan Osbourne - One of Us
The Man in Black
A service exploring the life and music of Johnny Cash.
‘I am proud to say that I worked with Johnny cash, and when he came through the studio door for the first time it was like Moses himself had arrived. He is a character of truly Biblical proportions’. The Edge
Date: Sunday 28th January
Venue: Sacred Trinity, Salford.
Time: 8:00 pm
Optional Dress Code: Black.
‘I am proud to say that I worked with Johnny cash, and when he came through the studio door for the first time it was like Moses himself had arrived. He is a character of truly Biblical proportions’. The Edge
Date: Sunday 28th January
Venue: Sacred Trinity, Salford.
Time: 8:00 pm
Optional Dress Code: Black.
Carbon Judgment Day!
I've just had a look through this morning's Guardian article and worked out my carbon footprint according to their measures/ scale.
I'd be fascinated to know if anyone else has worked their out using this system and if so, and you're brave enough, what your total was.
technorati tag: carbon footprint
I'd be fascinated to know if anyone else has worked their out using this system and if so, and you're brave enough, what your total was.
technorati tag: carbon footprint
You've got to give it away...
After last week’s tease about St Paul coming to the earth plane and inhabiting a body in order to heal people, I couldn’t not watch last night’s show about Ray on Trust Me I’m A Healer.
To be honest, it was the “usual healing thing” – travelling the country, seeing up to 20 people per day at £30 a pop to do things that doctors can’t through claimed means and methods about which most people would be fairly sceptical…
But last night I saw something unexpected, a young woman that Paul couldn’t heal – Ray’s own daughter. She was hurting about the death of her mum and the “loss” of her dad to Paul’s ministry: she said several times that she missed her dad, hardly ever saw him, using words to the effect of “Paul’s at home but Dad rarely is”.
Her meeting with Paul (the first time she had done so – Ray admitted he hardly ever talks to his kids about his work) was the hardest part of the programme to watch. She was understandably upset and struggling to come to terms with what she saw – essentially her dad but with a different voice. But for me it was key that he couldn’t reach her, couldn’t heal her. In fact, it seemed like Paul was pushing her dad away from her, and her from him…
And it strikes me now that I know many “clergy kids” who also have that sort of relationship with their parent(s) – to everyone, the family is saintly, perfect, holy, but to those on the inside, it can be a very different and alienating experience to have to give your parent away…
Next week, apparently, it’s about the healing power of prayer… So more mumbo jumbo I couldn’t possibly believe in then! ;-)
technorati tag: trust me i'm a healer
To be honest, it was the “usual healing thing” – travelling the country, seeing up to 20 people per day at £30 a pop to do things that doctors can’t through claimed means and methods about which most people would be fairly sceptical…
But last night I saw something unexpected, a young woman that Paul couldn’t heal – Ray’s own daughter. She was hurting about the death of her mum and the “loss” of her dad to Paul’s ministry: she said several times that she missed her dad, hardly ever saw him, using words to the effect of “Paul’s at home but Dad rarely is”.
Her meeting with Paul (the first time she had done so – Ray admitted he hardly ever talks to his kids about his work) was the hardest part of the programme to watch. She was understandably upset and struggling to come to terms with what she saw – essentially her dad but with a different voice. But for me it was key that he couldn’t reach her, couldn’t heal her. In fact, it seemed like Paul was pushing her dad away from her, and her from him…
And it strikes me now that I know many “clergy kids” who also have that sort of relationship with their parent(s) – to everyone, the family is saintly, perfect, holy, but to those on the inside, it can be a very different and alienating experience to have to give your parent away…
Next week, apparently, it’s about the healing power of prayer… So more mumbo jumbo I couldn’t possibly believe in then! ;-)
technorati tag: trust me i'm a healer
Understatement
A not - untypical scene after last Thursday.
I work in Warrington and live in Manchester. All trains between the two were cancelled (as were most other trains in the country) and cycling the whole way home in 60mph winds wasn't appealing. Fortunately, a colleague offered me a lift, and between his driving and my navigating, we were able to find a passage through most of the congestion and he dropped me off (90 minutes later) on the edge of Salford, so that he could go home. Just as well really, as town centre was solid with traffic, and my bike turned out to be the best way of getting around.
Still, the National Winter Ales festival was quiet...
In the laptop of the gods
I often visit an internet forum called WATMM ('We Are The Music Makers'). Recently, I asked what kind of electronic music Jesus would make. Naturally, the answers varied, and some may well be NFSW, but you can read the post here.
The weirdest thing is in the replies someone posted the above picture, which freaked me out because we used that picture (minus the laptop) just a couple of days ago in a Sanctus session.
Apple moves in mysterious ways. Er... I mean, God. Oops.
Into Great Silence...
I read recently that one of the golden rules of creative writing was “don’t tell the reader, show them”, meaning that explanation is patronizing and ultimately detracts from the narrative. Philip Groning might well have had this line in his head when he filmed his three-hour documentary, Into Great Silence, about the monastery, La Grande Chartreuse, and its order of Carthusian monks.
I’m so glad he chose not to make an “explanatory” documentary – this was immersive cinema, which is exactly what it needed to be. I don’t think it could have been anything else. In that sense, it reminded me a little of Koyanisquatsi. Put simply, it was a series of beautiful moving-photographs, capturing the natural and built environments, the rhythmic daily life of the monks, and of course the silence…
Yes, I had little idea what the chants all meant; yes, the on-screen quotes jarred occasionally (especially when they’re in French and German, thus subtitled right at the bottom of the screen in English); yes, I spent the first 30 minutes feeling acutely aware of the rustle of every single person in the sold-out cinema. Even a little explanation (a smooth voiceover by Morgan Freeman a la The March of the Penguins?) would have killed it.
What’s more, you can’t exactly rush a film that took 16 years even to get permission to make and is essentially about a life of intense, focused, reflective contemplation measured out by seasons and in rhythm to a 900 year old daily pattern. To try and fit it into a neat 120 minutes would have felt wrong. Like slow food is to McDonalds, this is to your average Hollywood blockbuster. I am also struggling to think of the last time I was in the cinema with such a respectful audience. OK, I was the youngest by about twenty years, but a less cinematic bunch I couldn’t have imagined. I reckoned everyone else there either was or wanted to be a priest or a nun…
On reflection, it would have been difficult to make a film about the life of this monastery that wasn’t beautiful. My memories of it now are only of elementary essentials: shafts of light, flickering candles, simple food, snow, sunshine, reading and writing, chants, wooden spoons, long corridors, and of course that silence…
The daily reality of the monks’ lives was to me a mix of the unexpected and to-be-expected. The unexpected? Them sliding down a snow covered hill and whooping in delight, the plastic bottles, their electric razors, feeding the cats. The expected? The monks praying, praying, and then praying some more - in the flickering light of the chapel, in their simple wooden cells, at all times of the day and through every season. And that silence…
It’s not a lifestyle that I would want to live, but it’s an incredible and privileged glimpse into a life a world away from mine. The monks’ economy of action and focus of attention is something that I envy on one level – as if everything has become so simple and so condensed and so thoughtful that nothing else matters.
To start with I felt a bit voyeuristic watching them move slowly about the monastery, but my initial worries that there were no main characters to hang 167 minutes of “action” on were put aside as, even without words, the men came to life on the screen – the young one, the ancient and stooped gardener/ cook, the novice…
Towards the end, one old monk – who was blind and partially deaf – said a few simple sentences about his beliefs. One of those stuck with me: “The world has lost any sense of God. It is a pity…” And it was the one time that I wanted to speak out and break that silence…
I’m so glad he chose not to make an “explanatory” documentary – this was immersive cinema, which is exactly what it needed to be. I don’t think it could have been anything else. In that sense, it reminded me a little of Koyanisquatsi. Put simply, it was a series of beautiful moving-photographs, capturing the natural and built environments, the rhythmic daily life of the monks, and of course the silence…
Yes, I had little idea what the chants all meant; yes, the on-screen quotes jarred occasionally (especially when they’re in French and German, thus subtitled right at the bottom of the screen in English); yes, I spent the first 30 minutes feeling acutely aware of the rustle of every single person in the sold-out cinema. Even a little explanation (a smooth voiceover by Morgan Freeman a la The March of the Penguins?) would have killed it.
What’s more, you can’t exactly rush a film that took 16 years even to get permission to make and is essentially about a life of intense, focused, reflective contemplation measured out by seasons and in rhythm to a 900 year old daily pattern. To try and fit it into a neat 120 minutes would have felt wrong. Like slow food is to McDonalds, this is to your average Hollywood blockbuster. I am also struggling to think of the last time I was in the cinema with such a respectful audience. OK, I was the youngest by about twenty years, but a less cinematic bunch I couldn’t have imagined. I reckoned everyone else there either was or wanted to be a priest or a nun…
On reflection, it would have been difficult to make a film about the life of this monastery that wasn’t beautiful. My memories of it now are only of elementary essentials: shafts of light, flickering candles, simple food, snow, sunshine, reading and writing, chants, wooden spoons, long corridors, and of course that silence…
The daily reality of the monks’ lives was to me a mix of the unexpected and to-be-expected. The unexpected? Them sliding down a snow covered hill and whooping in delight, the plastic bottles, their electric razors, feeding the cats. The expected? The monks praying, praying, and then praying some more - in the flickering light of the chapel, in their simple wooden cells, at all times of the day and through every season. And that silence…
It’s not a lifestyle that I would want to live, but it’s an incredible and privileged glimpse into a life a world away from mine. The monks’ economy of action and focus of attention is something that I envy on one level – as if everything has become so simple and so condensed and so thoughtful that nothing else matters.
To start with I felt a bit voyeuristic watching them move slowly about the monastery, but my initial worries that there were no main characters to hang 167 minutes of “action” on were put aside as, even without words, the men came to life on the screen – the young one, the ancient and stooped gardener/ cook, the novice…
Towards the end, one old monk – who was blind and partially deaf – said a few simple sentences about his beliefs. One of those stuck with me: “The world has lost any sense of God. It is a pity…” And it was the one time that I wanted to speak out and break that silence…
technorati tag: into great silence
Faithless - God Is A DJ
At Sanctus on Tuesday night, Cris Acher showed us this seriously old-school music video. I had forgotten how much this track meant to me when it was released. It spoke right into my belly and into the belly of the culture around me. (I had written 'heart' there, but somehow 'belly' makes more sense.)
I think it is all the more relevant now for clubbers, churchers and clubbing churchers alike. It deserves a place on the Sanctus 1 blog. Enjoy.
Unto us a child is born...
At last, there are stories of hope and redemption and justice coming out of New Orleans – not enough, to be sure, but some.
Today, we can celebrate the birth of a son.
After Katrina hit the city, the waters had subsided slightly and the worst danger had passed, the director of an IVF clinic returned by boat with the army to try to save as many frozen embryos as he could. And then he started the painstaking process of tracking down the patients through the media and over the internet…
Rebekah and Glen Markham were one such couple. Nine months ago, the doctors implanted one of those rescued embryos, and now Rebekah and Glen (who already have one son by IVF) are celebrating the birth of their second son.
His name? Noah.
technorati tag: hurricane katrina, IVF
Today, we can celebrate the birth of a son.
After Katrina hit the city, the waters had subsided slightly and the worst danger had passed, the director of an IVF clinic returned by boat with the army to try to save as many frozen embryos as he could. And then he started the painstaking process of tracking down the patients through the media and over the internet…
Rebekah and Glen Markham were one such couple. Nine months ago, the doctors implanted one of those rescued embryos, and now Rebekah and Glen (who already have one son by IVF) are celebrating the birth of their second son.
His name? Noah.
technorati tag: hurricane katrina, IVF
Trust Me, I'm A Healer...
I’ve watched the first two episodes of the BBC2 series “Trust Me, I’m A Healer” over the last fortnight. It’s based on the premise that lots of people are going to healers when they used to rely on conventional medicines. Why is this and what phenomena are at work when this healing happens?
The format is that each week the filmmaker spends time with a different healer – last week a guy who believed in water spirits, fairies and the power of dragon eggs, this week a man who is a psychic surgeon (above). Each made (or their patients made on their behalf) fairly extraordinary claims – to have cured people of cancer, to have removed or reduced tumors, etc. The psychic healer this week only charged £25 for up to 30 minutes – relatively cheap in comparison to some of the stuff we’ve seen at MindBodySpirit fairs over the last few years. His wife in particular was really clear with people that miracles cannot be done on command, and there are no guarantees (particularly when someone is proposing to travel from Turkey to be cured of blindness). But he still apparently managed to see up to 100 people a day – £2500 isn’t bad for a day’s work. And one of his associates in Slovenia said that he was “the Christ consciousness in human form”…
In both programmes there were things going on that the filmmaker said he couldn’t explain, although each time he started off skeptically and continued to critically question the process, methods, etc throughout.
For me, one of the most telling things was that the people who went to them were literally at the end of their road – having been given no reason to hope by anyone else, least of all the medical profession. In that sense, many of them needed the hope that the healer seemed to give, and thus had no choice but to (want to) believe.
I’d encourage you to look out for next week’s show (BBC2, Monday, 10pm) – it’s about a man who says his body is frequently taken over by St Paul…
technorati tag: trust me i'm a healer
Blogging Brown
Back in the 18th century, I was one of a party of eight who suffered a midnight screening of the Da Vinci Code film. I made my feelings perfectly clear upon arriving home from the cinema.
I haven't read the book and don't intend to. But since new year, a brave writer called Tim Footman has been prising the book apart, chapter by chapter, word by word, cliche by cliche, in a effort to analyse why it's been so damn successful.
He has set up a blog especially for the purpose and you can start reading it here. It's refreshing to see someone with a different take on the book, and it's all the more impressive that he has been power-blogging at about a chapter a day.
I'm sure it won't be long before Ben Edson makes it into the best-seller lists. Maybe he should be taking notes...
I haven't read the book and don't intend to. But since new year, a brave writer called Tim Footman has been prising the book apart, chapter by chapter, word by word, cliche by cliche, in a effort to analyse why it's been so damn successful.
He has set up a blog especially for the purpose and you can start reading it here. It's refreshing to see someone with a different take on the book, and it's all the more impressive that he has been power-blogging at about a chapter a day.
I'm sure it won't be long before Ben Edson makes it into the best-seller lists. Maybe he should be taking notes...
The parable of the three samosas...
As part of last night’s excellent shared service, we got curry to eat from a small stall in the Arndale Market. Cris apparently went to pick it up and the guy gave him four free samosas as a thank you for buying quite a large order.
Ben apparently ate two of them. Cris ate one, and then gave one to me. And I gave mine away to a bunch of us at my end of the table.
And the moral of the story is...?
;-)
technorati tag: sanctus1
Ben apparently ate two of them. Cris ate one, and then gave one to me. And I gave mine away to a bunch of us at my end of the table.
And the moral of the story is...?
;-)
technorati tag: sanctus1
Not Another Place
Well, it looks like the Anthony Gormley figures, "Another Place", might be here to stay... I think the installation of the hundred figures on the beach is as good now as when they arrived in summer 2005, possibly even better, as they get weathered by the tide, wind and sand.
One of the most thoughtful, ever-changing, accessible and spiritual art events/ installations/ exhibitions I've ever seen.
Go visit (in case they don't grant the planning permission).
technorati tag: another place, anthony gormley
Carry on flying, says Blair - science will save the planet
Proof (as if anyone out there still needed it) that Mr Tony is a deluded, self-interested wnkr. If only there was an opposite phrase for this one-rule-for-me-one-for-everyone-else/ do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do school of thought?... C'mon people, help me out.
'Tony Blair today wades into the growing controversy over how individuals can help to tackle global warming by declaring that he has no intention of abandoning long-haul holiday flights to reduce his carbon footprint. Days after his environment minister branded Ryanair the "irresponsible face of capitalism" for opposing an EU carbon emissions scheme, the prime minister says it is impractical to expect people to make personal sacrifices by taking holidays closer to home.
"You know, I'm still waiting for the first politician who's actually running for office who's going to come out and say it - and they're not," Mr Blair says. "It's like telling people you shouldn't drive anywhere."
Emily Armistead, of Greenpeace, said: "Tony Blair is crossing his fingers and hoping someone will invent aeroplanes that don't cause climate change. But that's like holding out for cigarettes that don't cause cancer. Hoping for the best isn't a policy, it's a delusion." '
technorati tag: global warming, tony blair
'Tony Blair today wades into the growing controversy over how individuals can help to tackle global warming by declaring that he has no intention of abandoning long-haul holiday flights to reduce his carbon footprint. Days after his environment minister branded Ryanair the "irresponsible face of capitalism" for opposing an EU carbon emissions scheme, the prime minister says it is impractical to expect people to make personal sacrifices by taking holidays closer to home.
"You know, I'm still waiting for the first politician who's actually running for office who's going to come out and say it - and they're not," Mr Blair says. "It's like telling people you shouldn't drive anywhere."
Emily Armistead, of Greenpeace, said: "Tony Blair is crossing his fingers and hoping someone will invent aeroplanes that don't cause climate change. But that's like holding out for cigarettes that don't cause cancer. Hoping for the best isn't a policy, it's a delusion." '
technorati tag: global warming, tony blair
The 3 Minute Service
There will be no normal Tuesday or Wednesday groups this week. We are meeting in Nexus (Dale Street, next door to Flava, Manchester) for a joint Sanctus 1 service.
We will start with food, which is £3.50 and will be curry-themed. Then we'll more straight into the service when people are full.
Doors open at 6.30pm, food and service starts at 7.15pm. If you get there about 7pm, that means we won't be late starting... and believe me, blink and you'll miss something.
All are welcome!
Don't forget the Reel Spirituality film night later today (6.30pm Nexus) - do come, it's great fun!
Possible idea for Sanctus 2nds
I don't think we've ever got the evangelism thing right in Sanctus 1. We've never run an Alpha course, we've never had a "seeker friendly service" and, dear God, we've never staged a March For Jesus.
We ought to take our cue from Christians in California who, earlier this week, took to vandalism to spread the good news.
They sprayed things like 'Jesus died for sinners' and 'Jesus saves' on cars in a business park in Murrieta, which incidentally is Lindsay Davenport's former home town.
A local gallery owner wailed: "It really is weird. It doesn't seem like something normal that religious people would do."
Meanwhile, a Christian interior designer said of her vandals-in-Christ: "They're going to go to hell... but I'm not judging."
So then... I think Sacred Trinity needs a re-paint. Spray one for me, won't you?*
(See the original story here.)
*Please don't. I wouldn't want to get beaten up by this man.
Mancubist/ Nexus and Street Angels
Just a quick hi to anyone who's wandered over here from the Mancubist, after the Nexus Street Angels article. Have a look around, make yourself at home, say hello...
technorati tag: mancubist, street angels, nexus
technorati tag: mancubist, street angels, nexus
Reel Spirituality: this Sunday - "The Life Aquatic"
New Year’s resolutions - See more films? Do something new? Get 30% extra from your Sundays?
Then come along to Reel Spirituality!
This Sunday, the last in “The Outsider” series…
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)
1st Sunday of the month at Nexus
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt
If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm
Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +
The next series is “Heroes and Villains”
4th February - The Proposition (18)
4th March - House of Flying Daggers (15)
1st April - Leon (18)
6th May - 15 Minutes (18)
See you there? Hope so.
technorati tag: the life aquatic, technorati tag: reel spirituality
Then come along to Reel Spirituality!
This Sunday, the last in “The Outsider” series…
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)
1st Sunday of the month at Nexus
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt
If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm
Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +
The next series is “Heroes and Villains”
4th February - The Proposition (18)
4th March - House of Flying Daggers (15)
1st April - Leon (18)
6th May - 15 Minutes (18)
See you there? Hope so.
technorati tag: the life aquatic, technorati tag: reel spirituality
Is that a challenge?
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