Pass it on: God & Heritage

Pass it on: God & Heritage from Rob Bee on Vimeo.

So we come to the last blog I’m writing for Cafe Sundae. And it’s a good topic to end on. I am thinking about heritage and I have one word to say to you – floorboards. What do floorboards have to do with heritage? I’ll tell you shortly.
I think if you mentioned Christian Heritage or the heritage of the Church to most people they’d think about the fantastic buildings we have as cathedrals, or the many paintings or pieces of music that have been produced throughout 2000 years of Church History. And why not? They are a testament to how people’s faith has inspired and motivated them. They are arguably amongst the greatest and most beautiful things Humankind has produced and are quite rightly revered and preserved for future generations to enjoy. But that’s not the heritage I want to talk about, I want to talk about floorboards. And tattoos.

Let’s start with tattoos and hopefully you’ll begin to see what I want to put on the table for your consideration.
I don’t actually want to think about tattoos; just one particular one, and it’s one you can find on my left arm. Between my elbow and shoulder I have a large tattoo of a cross and around it are the words “I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye.” The words are actually taken from Pink Floyd’s ‘comfortably numb’, but coupled with the cross it provides a statement about my faith. It speaks to me of a God who is present and involved in our world and our lives, a God who reveals Himself to us in bite-sized pieces. So we catch our glimpse of God (spell it with a little g if you want to consider this from an agnostic/atheist standpoint) and we can choose to take our facet and talk with other people about their glimpses, and as we widen our conversation we put pieces together like a jigsaw and develop a picture of who God is (or what god is) and build a faith. My tattoo speaks to me of the importance of looking for God and sharing what we find with others.

Ok then, let’s think about floorboards and what they say to me about our heritage. Cafe Sundae has been held at Timperley Methodist Church. In 2004 the Church was refurbished. The pews that were previously in the Church were removed and replaced with the rows of chairs that we move every month to make way for Cafe Sundae. Before the new carpet could be laid the entire floor had new boards laid over the top of the old ones because of the state of the floorboards. The procession of people week after week shuffling into and out of the pews every Sunday, coming together to meet as believers, had worn grooves into the floor making a surface too undulating to lay a carpet on. 60 years of people shuffling down the pews to take their seats, 3 or 4 generations of believers who have come together to share time and their experiences, to build a bigger picture of God than they could do alone. Imagine how grooved the floorboards are in older churches. This is the heritage I want to consider; these 2000 years of feet shuffling through pews, generation meeting generation to build their jigsaw; discussing their fleeting glimpses, sharing their picture of God, creating a living moving, evolving faith.
And here we are at the end of the chain, the last links. It’s our job to make sure that we don’t remain that way, that the procession of feet continues to wear the floorboards. The heritage we have is an oral tradition - it’s true we have the Bible to look to, but without our chain-making the Bible simply becomes Aesop’s Fables. This then is what Cafe Sundae has been about. We’ve tried to pass on what we have seen of God, we’ve tried to find out who we are in God’s world. We’ve tried to share our fleeting glimpses and piece together what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century.

And as we 4 step back and go onto other things, we throw down the gauntlet to you. If you have gained anything from being a member of a Christian Community have you got anything you can pass on? Are you happy to be the last link in the chain, and if not how are you going to make sure that you aren’t?

Minted: God & Cash

Minted: God & Cash from Rob Bee on Vimeo.

I'm sure a lot of you will have noticed how much difference it makes to a child when they learn to read. It's incredible to see the change it makes; suddenly the world opens up to them. They learn more than just a new skill, they gain a massive amount of independence, and with that they get confidence and a whole new world opens up to them as these lines, dots and squiggles reveal their secrets. Previously they'd managed ok, with help from people around them who can read, but now when they don't need that help all sorts of possibilities reveal themselves and life takes on whole new dimensions.


I think that trying to live without money would be like that. It would be possible, but very, very difficult. You would have to rely a lot on other people. All sorts of doors would be closed to you and you would be cut off from a large part of life as you now know it. Money is a very necessary part of life and that is undeniable; but money also has a dark side.

People can get too attached to the idea of money. Whether they have any or not money can become the holy grail for people at the expense of other things – people will take higher paid jobs they know they will hate purely for the extra money, people can become selfish and greedy and can do the most dreadful things to other people in pursuit of an extra pound. People often say that money is the root of all evil, that is a mis-quote. They should say that love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, but that's not as snappy.


I have to say that the whole financial system leaves me with a mixture of feelings. Firstly boredom. I don't have an interest in the financial markets and only engage in that world out of necessity – mortgage, insurance, bank account etc. I strongly dislike the international monetary systems that prevail in keeping the rich rich to the cost of the majority of the world, which is kept in poverty by the decisions of a few men who control trade.

In 1998 the Governor of the band of England at the time – Sir Eddie George - said in a radio interview the high levels of unemployment in the North East was a price worth paying for low inflation across the country. Well, Mr George, try telling that to the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their livelihoods, try telling that to the families who struggle to put food on the table. Try telling that to those who have lost their homes because they can't afford to pay their mortgages any more. I think his comment brings the crux of the problem to the fore. Money, surely, is supposed to serve man. Man isn't supposed to serve money, and yet here and in many other instances we are used as pawns of the financial markets. Real human lives are used to support and benefit an abstract concept, an unjust system, a folly.

It bugs me somewhat the gravitas that the financial news is reported with .At the moment the money markets are looking rather precarious and downturns in the economies of the west will have repercussions globally and will cost lives in the developing world. But the news is reported as if the events are unavoidable, like a natural disaster. Earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes are unavoidable catastrophes; financial market crashes are evidence that the system we have created doesn't work and we're not willing to fix it.
I don't understand how we can create and then continue to support a system in which everyone can lose. How come when there is stock markets crash millions of pounds/dollars/yen etc. can simply disappear? The money was there at the beginning of the day, where is it now?


Ok, I don't understand the financial markets, I don't like the way trade works and I want to see things done differently. What can I do about it? The political will to change the way things work simply doesn't exist, so there's very little I can practically do to change the big picture. But what I can do is be careful with my money. I have to use my money just like I'd like the financial institutions to use theirs. I have to do my best to make sure my money and spending doesn't adversely affect others. I need to think about the implications of my spending and avoid unethical spending. I need to use my consumer powers to demonstrate to the wider world where my priorities lie. With this issue more than to quote Mahatma Ghandi I need to, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

I don't believe it: God & God

I don't believe it: God & God from Rob Bee on Vimeo.

For those of you who haven't seen the Simpsons movie – WHERE'VE YOU BEEN! Very early on in the film Lisa meets a boy named Colin. He's Irish and the son of a musician ("He's not Bono.") and Lisa falls in love with him. When she gets home she excitedly tells Marge all about him whilst Marge is scrubbing pig footprints off the floor. "Oh wait. I didn't tell you the best part. He loves the environment. Oh wait. I still didn't tell you the best part – he's got an Irish brogue. No, no wait wait, I still didn't tell you the best part. HE"S NOT IMAGINARY!"

I've sat for ages thinking about how I can write a blog on God's existence and I've drawn a blank. It's impossible to either prove or disprove whether God exists or not as for every argument there is a counter argument. Look at any one of the many online forums about belief and you will find countless disagreements between atheists and believers who are all trying and failing to reason out their viewpoint, and it's the same old arguments going round and round and round. So all I can offer to this debate is my idea of who God is and hope that my experience makes you think.

I've never really doubted God's existence, but I am sometimes a reluctant believer. I do sometimes catch myself thinking how much easier life would be if I didn't believe in God; how much time I'd free up if I didn't have to do Church stuff or how little responsibility I'd have to take for my actions. When I was a teenager I had a revelation of God which caused me to stop ignoring my belief, but it had always been there. This was in a real way a 'conversion experience' and it turned me away from my agnostic apathy towards God and started me searching to find who and where he is.

When I was in my late teens and early 20s I used to attend a group for people my age and we'd discuss our Faith. We'd all come from the same Church background and when we began to discuss our ideas of who God is were pretty similar. But as time went on and we left school and got jobs our lives changed and our experience of God changed. Our ideas started differing with others when we discussed and we had some real disagreements. After each meeting those of us who were old enough went to the pub where we'd sometimes continue the debate or just chat. I realized over time that although our theologies now differed sometimes quite widely and we argued when we discussed it didn't affect our friendships and it didn't seem to affect the strength of our faiths. This got me to thinking about God and I concluded that God is bigger than our theological differences and can cope with them. So maybe it doesn't matter if I believe in – for example – creation or evolution. Maybe God isn't particularly interested in where we stand on divorce or predestination. He's simply interested in us.
And that's how I've approached my belief in God since then. I've tried to keep an open mind on what God is like and hear what other people have to say.


If you think about it, it makes sense that we believe different things about God. We all will have differing experiences of him. To my bosses at work I'm the reliable capable fountain of all knowledge; to my underling I'm the demanding line manager who keeps making him do his work again because it's not up to standard; to my parents I'm the Son they're very proud of but they still remember the times when I wet the bed, fell off my bike, threw temper tantrums in shops or hid under my bed after Dr Who because I was scared of Dalecs; to Helen I'm the useless husband who makes a mess, steals the duvet and can't do DIY for love or money. These people's opinions of me all differ because they come into contact with me in differing contexts, but I'm the same person. And as we all have our own personalities our own lives and our own needs the ways in which we come into contact with God is going to be different and we will all form different ideas about who he is; that doesn't make any of us right or wrong automatically, and everyone's experiences and opinions of God should be given a hearing. Just as someone may tell you something about me that you don't agree with ("Are you sure that was Rob? It doesn't sound like the Rob I know.") so we may disagree with someone else's opinion of God.

So who do I think God is? Here is the sum total of my belief, the essence of my search for God so far. All I've found can be summed up in this sentence. God is Love. I believe that God's Love is the creating power behind the universe, it's God's Love that binds the universe together, and provides all the resources we need to survive. It's God's love that keeps us searching for Him and he for us. It's the overriding factor to all of our lives. Many people's experiences of God are governed by strict rules and regulations governing how we act and who we are and come complete with a long list of 'thou shalt not's. But I believe that God filled the World with millions of possibilities for us to enjoy ourselves. I believe he wants us to live life as fully as we can, exploring the limits of our humanity and smile and laugh and enjoy ourselves as we do it. I believe God has a great sense of humour and wants us to use ours as we search for our place in the world and place in his Kingdom. God loves to see us happy and loves us to acknowledge Him in our happiness. God's Love is over all. This then is the acid test for any religion or believer: if they're not motivated by Love, they're not motivated by God.

Beautiful Mind – God and Difference

Beautiful Mind: God & difference from Rob Bee on Vimeo.

To paraphrase a café sundae meeting, one of the reasons I was asked to write a blog every month for the services is because I look at things differently to most people. I think the phrase used was that I "approach things from a different angle." It was seen as a positive thing that my cock-eyed view could make a valuable contribution to what café sundae is trying to achieve.

But being that little bit different hasn't always been a positive thing.

I didn't really get on that well at school. The formal education system didn't agree with me and I don't think many teachers knew how to get the best out of me. It didn't help that the subjects that were offered to me to study didn't particularly interest me. I went to school in Harrogate, which everyone tells me is a lovely town. But it is a small town and a conservative town and the range of subjects offered at the schools there didn't extend much beyond maths, English, sciences and languages. One of the other secondary schools in the town offered PE as a GCSE subject and I was amazed when I found that out – although why anyone would want a GCSE in running round a muddy field in the rain whilst being shouted at by a gorilla in a tracksuit was beyond me. I didn't stand out at anything at school, I was – and still am - crap at sports and although I am intelligent I was in a class full of people cleverer than me who worked really hard. I just cruised through school doing just enough work to get passes in my subjects in order to keep off the teachers' radars as much as possible. I never really fitted in and I never really found out why.

I did have a good set of friends, although again because I was just that little bit different I stood out just enough to be the butt of people's jokes from time to time. A big bone of contention was my tastes in music. I remember my friends' tastes were always a couple of years behind mine. When I was 12 I discovered heavy metal – the heavier the better. I loved bands like slayer, gravedigger and venom along with iron maiden, motorhead and all the rest. My friends were still listening to pop and chart music and on certain occasions made their feelings on my tastes well known to me! A couple of years later they discovered heavy metal and I lent them lots the music I had collected, but my tastes had moved on and I was listening to Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin & Jimi Hendrix. Although they were happy to borrow albums from me they were also happy to express their disapproval at what I was then listening to. Again a couple of years after that they discovered Pink Floyd and the cycle continued.

It was once I left school that I began to find the things I could do well. I got involved in the local Youth for Christ centre and started playing in bands with other people and discovered that it was something I could do – both the playing bit and the messing around with PA's and recording bit. I even started attending bible studies and I discovered I was good at thinking – something I'd never even contemplated doing throughout my formal education – and fairly soon realised my opinions were valued, sometimes even sought after.

I slowly found my niche as I discovered my strengths. I realised that the things that made me different at school and had caused me difficulties were the things that I now enjoyed and I was good at. My idiosyncrasies are a fundamental part of who I am and what I do. Forward fast to today and these things that set me apart have become skills few people possess which keep me busy – sometimes too busy – providing services for people. I have made a career and a life out of my peculiarities. I'm not under any illusions, there were people at school who thought I was an idiot loser and there are people now that think the same, but I've found that my quirks are in demand; and I'm happy with that!

Now as I look back at my time at school I have the gift of hindsight. Sometimes when I was at school I used to try to fit in more, now I'm glad that I didn't. If I had the opportunity to do it all again would I do it differently? If I were going to be a responsible youth leader I'd say if I did it again I'd work harder and try to get better grades. But in truth I wouldn't. I would hate to have to do it again because I hated it first time round, but I wouldn't do it differently. What I was then – with all its difficulties and awkwardness – has led to who I am now. Had I done things differently, had I compromised who I was in order to fit in more, had I tried to be popular I wouldn't be where I am now, I wouldn't have found these things I do that I enjoy and are in demand and I wouldn't be writing a blog every month for café Sundae.

Goal! God & Football

GOOOAAAL!! God & Football from Rob Bee on Vimeo.

I suck at football.

On every level.

I am generally appalling at playing sport as I used my asthma as an excuse to get out of as much of it as possible when I was at school, football is no exception – I’m a right-footed player with 2 left feet. But also I come from a non-sport-watching family and so the football seed was never planted and I can’t see anything in the game to muster that excitement for any one team now. If I were pressed I’d say I’m anyone-but-united, but that’s mainly because, living in Sale, the trams are a nightmare when they’re playing a home game.

So the world cup? It doesn’t really bother me that much. I’ll watch a few games, but I’ll miss a lot more. I never even go out of my way to make sure I see England games. I will enjoy the good atmosphere in the country while we’re in the competition, and the opportunity to go to the pub is always welcomed, but I refuse to become one of those people who are whipped up into a month long frenzy of patriotic fervour over something I couldn’t give 2 hoots about for the rest of the time. So I write my blog from the position of an impassive observer.

Having now alienated ¾ of my readership I will continue.

Let’s not watch football; let’s watch the people watching football. I’ve met some – they’re quite interesting.
I’ve always been quite impressed with the way commentators can reel off facts and figures about when the last time team A beat team B and how the centre back has worn his vest tucked into his lucky pants for the last however many matches his team has played at whatever ground and how many of those occasions his team has won. But then I remind myself that it's their job to 'know' things about the teams playing and they've been studying stats in books for weeks before the game. Much more impressive is your common or garden football fan being able to do the same thing mid-conversation in the pub. And lots of them can do it – they have enough information stored away about every seasons starting line-ups and goal differences to start a small library (one of those ones that gets driven round in a large van). Regardless of their formal education and academic record, facts about football seem to stick. Football is something that people get passionate about, and that passion can be used for great things.
There is a basketball court in the park at the back of our house. 9 times out of 10 when you look out at people using it, they’re playing football. Providing a play area where people can play football is a very simple way of alleviating the complaint that teenagers often make – that there’s nothing for them to do. I know people who organise youth teams in ‘problem’ areas and it gives those young people an aim and a focus, it doesn’t just lessen the boredom. Life in some of the more poverty stricken areas of our country can be very insular as lack of cash keeps the population immobile, but football can be a relatively cheap way of raising the heads of the young people in these places and giving them hope. Football is used to raise awareness of issues. There is an annual homeless world cup where the players are all homeless. Last year 48 nations took part; this year’s competition is being held in Rio de Janeiro in September. There was also a Gaza world cup held earlier this year to raise awareness of the humanitarian situation there.

But if football at the grass roots level can be a force for good, how is that reflected at the highest levels? Surely on the international stage football could change the world! I have to say that here is where it disappoints me. At the first level I don’t know anyone – except professional footballers – who think professional footballers deserve the money they get paid. The status that the premiership players are given for what they do is out of proportion. David Cameron recently read out a letter of support from the England Football team to the soldiers in Afghanistan – what juxtaposition! Compare a bunch of millionaires who have earned their money by kicking a piece of leather around a park against a group of people who are risking their lives on a daily basis and who earn a pittance in comparison.
What about the clubs, do they fare any better? Well no. It’s them that support the levels of wages the players earn. There’s been a lot of press this season about the levels of debt the clubs have. It seems in some cases that the club owners are using the clubs as personal sources of income and the fact that they are meant to also play football seems like a sideline. Money and business has become more important than the actual game in some cases. The price of attending games seems to be escalating and for structure of pricing for season tickets seems to me to be questionable. It all seems geared towards the business end of the game at the expense of the ordinary fan. Where the grass roots game gives to fans it seems to me that the top flight simply takes and takes from those who can often ill afford it. Higher still the FA and FIFA have various allegations of corruption against them and would also seem to be blinded by the dollar signs being waved in front of them.

So in conclusion, football at its grassroots level is a source of inspiration and strength for people, it can be used as an agent for change and it deserves its title of ‘the Beautiful Game’. But when money and power become involved it becomes corruptible and can lose its way. It can lose sight of what it’s meant to be about and hurt those it’s meant to help.

I fibbed. That wasn't quite the conclusion.

Football is often slammed by the religious communities for being a semi-religion; well I say, 'Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.' read my conclusion again and see if you don't think it could apply to organised religion too.

So in conclusion, football at its grassroots level is a source of inspiration and strength for people, it can be used as an agent for change and it deserves its title of ‘the Beautiful Game’. But when money and power become involved it becomes corruptible and can lose its way. It can lose sight of what it’s meant to be about and hurt those it’s meant to help.

Groundhog day: God & Time.

Groundhog Day: God & Time from Rob Bee on Vimeo.

2010 promises to be kind of a good year. I have 2 anniversaries to celebrate. In September Helen & I have our 10^th wedding anniversary and we have a few days holiday booked where we’re going to spoil ourselves and spend far too much money. But scary as it sounds being married to Helen for that long it’s the other anniversary that I find more daunting. In June this year it will be 20 years since I left school. That sounds like an awfully long time ago. I’ve written before about how I didn’t really get on that well at school and how much I disliked it, and we’ve said before at cafe sundae that it isn’t the end of the world if you fail exams as there are always other options, but school still remains a massively important part of life; it’s a formative time and your record and memory of school will follow you down the years. Fifteen years ago I remember being surprised at it being so long since I left school and it’s a feeling which still hasn’t gone away. I think that a part of it is that there’s a definite demarcation of time as you progress through the education system - year six, year seven, year eight and so on – but once you’re out of education that firm separation disappears and so one year can very easily blend into the next. Where progress through life was simply a question of being a year older and moving into the next class once these boundaries have been moved progress has to be earned by effort not default. If we’re not careful we can watch the years slip by expecting life to come to us until – to quote Pink Floyd – ‘one day you find ten years have got behind you, no-one told you when to run; you missed the starting gun.’

In this way time can get away from us, but we can’t get away from time. It ticks and it tocks, it ebbs slowly by, it slips through our fingers like sand as we try to hold it. It’s relentless and quiet and constant and going and invisible and irreversible and absolute and awesome and merciless. It rules the universe more than any other thing. The speed of light may be the universal constant, but it’s measured in time. Physicists may claim that time bends and distorts at the edges of the universe, but everything within it is subject to the ravages of time; everything ages, even the universe itself will end. Time is the canvas onto which the universe is painted.

If you decide to have a read of the bible and open it at page 1 – which I don’t recommend - you will see the words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In the beginning. The first thing God had to do to be able to create the universe was create time, a medium in which the universe could work. Except that the language I’ve just used is wrong – we can’t say ‘the first thing God did was create time’ because that denotes a chronological order and we can’t have a chronological order without time, so before time was created (which we also can’t say) there was only God except we can’t really say that either as ‘was’ is the past participle of the verb ‘to be’ and denotes a time past, which we can’t have if we have no time. The most we can say is “Outside time, God.” And leave the beginning of genesis as it is with time already called into being. And this makes a nonsense of those idiots who say, “If God created man, who created God?” because they’re stuck in the idea that everything has a beginning and an end and everything being subject to time which if God was around before time – oops I mean outside time – he obviously isn’t subject to its course and can very easily have no beginning and end.

Time has provided a muse for many people to produce work on, the previously quoted Pink Floyd being just one. Cher sang (and I use the word in the loosest possible sense), “If I could turn back time...I’d take back the words that hurt you and you’d stay.” Jim Croce sang, “If I could save time in a bottle The first thing that I'd like to do Is to save every day Till Eternity passes away Just to spend them with you” Time travel has been a staple of science fiction writing in particular. Films like Groundhog Day, sliding Doors and Donnie Darko all use an abnormal passing of time as a central prop for the films plot to revolve around. Shakespeare said, “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”

A fairly common theme to lots of these ideas is the desire to ‘turn back time’ and get a second chance to do something which has gone wrong. We all have things that we’d do differently if we got chance, but we know that we never can, time cannot be undone. Once something is done or words are said then the moment has passed and it can’t be re-claimed and re-done. Decisions we make or actions we take can have repercussions into the future and bad decisions particularly seem to come back and bite us in the bum. I can see times in my life where I’ve had to make a choice and those choices have lead me to where I am now, had I made a different choice I would be somewhere totally different, I don’t know where but not Manchester, doing something completely different for a living. The choices I’ve made at a point in time have had repercussions not just for me but for other people as well. Time being linear I can’t go back and see how my life would have been different if I’d made a different choice. All we can do is live with the choices we make and aspire to make good choices when the time comes. The journalist Sidney J Harris said “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

So what can we conclude from all this? That we only get one shot at life, that we need to take opportunities as they are presented to us, that we need to decide what we want out of life and drive towards it. Do we want to be remembered after we die? Then we need to start making that happen now. There are few people out of the billions who have lived whose names we know. Beethoven, Einstein, Aristotle, Hitler & St Paul are names that live on long after they died. We can’t all hope to make such a big impression, but we can, if we so desire, aim to influence those around us. I still remember the names of teachers and youth leaders I knew who I thought were inspirational, each of us can make a mark - if we want to. Do we want to devote our life to making such a difference or do we want to devote it simply to pleasure?

Let’s quote some clichés here; why? Because they contain truth.

Carpe diem – seize the day;

A stich in time saves nine.

live each day as if it were your last.

You will never find time for anything, if you want time you must make it.

Time & Tide wait for no man.

I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll leave you in peace.

Broke: God & Poverty

Broke: God & Poverty from Rob Bee on Vimeo.

So Jesus is hanging out with the disciples when a woman comes in and gives Jesus a very expensive gift. It’s kind of the equivalent of a huge bunch of flowers in that it’s not a practical gift and it won’t last long at all – it’s a token of affection rather than something he could use. The disciples go nuts and say to her, “That money could have gone to the poor and been used much better than spending it on silly gestures like this!” Rather than agreeing with them and joining in telling the woman off Jesus tells the disciples to calm down. “There will always be poor people,” says Jesus, “The poor will always be with us.”

So is that statement a kind of laissez faire writing off of those in need? Does Jesus validate doing nothing to alleviate poverty? If so what do organisations like Christian Aid and Tradecraft think they are trying to achieve by their attempts to make poverty history?

The first thing to say is that the word ‘poverty’ is quite nice to type. After you’ve done the ‘pov’ bit you can put the little finger of your left hand on the E key and just roll your fingers – there it is.

The second thing to think about it where poverty comes from.

A long time ago – just after people had decided to stop being hunter gatherers – people realised that they couldn’t supply everything they needed for themselves and so they would have to make swaps with other families to supply those bits of stuff they needed to survive. So Mr Bloggs the butcher would need to go to Mr Briggs the baker to get some bread for his sandwiches. This worked very well as Mr Briggs needed meat for his sarnies so they swapped agreed amounts of bread & meat and all families were happy. Or they were until it got dark and they needed to go and see Mr Evans the candlestick maker. They needed his candles so they could see around their caves, but he was a gluten intolerant vegetarian so he wouldn’t swap anything and so the Briggs’s and Bloggs’s stubbed their toes on the cave walls and ended up having to ask Mr Clark the leather worker if he could invent shoes in return for some cow hides and a birthday cake for his mother-in-law.

This uneven system of trade carried on until Mr Morris the miner discovered some particularly nice shiny pebbles that everyone wanted. They decorated their houses with them, turned them into brooches and earrings and some clever people even discovered that shiny pebbles conduct electricity and invented the internet. Even if people had no use for shiny pebbles themselves they used to keep them as they could swap them for things they needed much easier than their own goods. Their use as currency spread and more and more people collected them. Those that had a lot continued to wear them as ornaments while those who only had a few stashed them under the mattress to use to buy things with and as this behaviour continued the gap between the stashers and the wearers widened. They began to call each other names like ‘social climber’ and ‘oik’ until they no longer wanted to live next to each other and the wearers – being able to afford to do so - moved off in search of bigger caves. The wearers compared their finery to that of their new neighbours and wanted bigger and blingier so devised new ways of getting richer, while the stashers, becoming increasingly desperate for shiny pebbles, became a highly exploitable work force for the wearers and they continued to use their shiny pebbles exclusively as currency and crave a cave posh enough to have an outdoor toilet. And thus capitalism and the class system were borne.

So we can see from this that you need 2 things to create poverty. Firstly you need a lot of money - I’ll say that again – you need a lot of money to create poverty. You need an excess of money in the system for people to be able to hoard it. And secondly you need greed, greed enough for people to crave cash, to collect money and want more and more and more of it. If you want to you can add a third ingredient – ignorance. You could argue that the rich people are often ignorant of the effects their hoarding wealth has on the poor, but I’ll leave that one to you.

So as far as Jesus goes there are 2 issues to poverty, there’s the greed and there’s the whole ‘love your neighbour’ thing. The greed thing’s fairly easy to deal with – There’s nothing wrong with providing enough shiny pebbles to feed and clothe your dependents. There’s nothing wrong with saving for a rainy day, but when the amassing of shiny pebbles becomes an end in itself we need to start to ask questions. And when we don’t care where we get our pebbles from and how we get them then we’re really in trouble. We then start to impact on the whole ‘love your neighbour thing’. Jesus was really clear about this one. It’s not optional, in fact it’s the second most important thing we have to do. Love your neighbour like you love yourself. No matter how badly done to you may think you are on a global scale none of us are poor, we’re not stashers, we’re wearers. So imagine yourself craving that new pair of trainers or mp3 player or diamond encrusted underpants and think about who made them. Were they made in the developing world? That’s where the cheap labour is, that’s where we don’t see the exploitation. Now ‘love your neighbour’. Imagine that it is one of your nearest and dearest that is working in that factory or sweatshop in such appalling conditions – working 14 hour shifts with no breaks and earning only just enough to cover the rent on a shoebox in a gutter. Would you still buy it or would you spend a bit extra to ensure your loved one got decent working conditions and a living wage? Our reaction to the suffering and injustice suffered by the poor should be the same as it would be if we saw our nearest and dearest in their place.

So Jesus cares about poverty. He cares that people are exploited and viewed as tools to get a job done rather than valuable human beings. He cares that people put possessions and themselves above the welfare of others. He cares that people become so blinded by what they have they forget who they are. When he tells the disciples ‘The poor will always be with you,” he means, “You will always need to support them. You will always need to love your neighbour. You will always need to defend those who can’t defend themselves.’ This is the work done by the aid agencies. This is the work that God has for his Church, this is the work he has for you and me.

black Gold: God & Oil

Black Gold: God & Oil from Rob Bee on Vimeo.

I don’t want to write a blog this month; it’s too hard.

When we were researching an earlier café sundae topic we chanced upon some material about oil and decided it was a topic worth looking at so we put it in the diary. Then as we’ve been preparing for this café sundae we’ve realised the problem. With many topics we’ve tackled we’ve struggled to find enough material that we can use, but this month it’s been the opposite problem. The scale of the mountain we were asking to climb was above and beyond anything we’ve tackled before and it became apparent that we would have to be less ambitious in our aims if we were to do any justice to what we looked at. All we could hope to do was a quick ramble around the foothills, and leave the summit to another day.

I guess the problem stems from just how important oil is to the modern western way of life. Oil and its derivatives have been used for thousands of years, but it’s only in the last couple of hundred years that the industry has really taken off. Petrochemicals now get used to manufacture a massive range of products we use every day – from plastics and cosmetics to fertilizers and medicines, It provides the fuel that brings the world to our feet and take our feet into the world, it’s even in our bank accounts – Most banks invest heavily in the petrochemical industry as it’s a pretty safe bet to yield good returns. It’s become a massively important part of the world economy and also as important to us individually too.

Over the last decade the price of petrol hasn’t been too far from the top of the newssheets or indeed far from people’s conversations. The oil companies year after year make record profits and yet the price of petrol keeps going upwards – people sense an injustice and it has lead to popular protest. Oil has become so important to people that they expect private companies to virtually give it away, to give us petrol on the same kind of terms as we get our water. But why should they? Oil companies are private businesses and when they were founded they were allowed to sell their product as any other company could – it’s only because they have been so successful in their business and their product has become so important that we expect them to act differently for our benefit.

Far be it for me to defend the oil companies though. The magnitude of the issue we have tried to look at seems to be due to the oil companies knowing their power and importance and acting as if they are above the law. I can’t do justice to the issues in this short space, but let me outline a couple of areas for you: and I’m not going to name companies individually – partly as they all seem to be as bad as each other and partly because if you care about these issues and you want to know more details you can do your own research easily enough.

The first place that oil companies fail is with regard to the environment. Oil is dirty stuff and we’ve all seen the effects of oil tanker spills. We’ve seen news footage of the miles of devastated coastline, black tide ebbing and glooping on black beaches, birds and other wildlife unable to escape the clutches of a black slow death. We have to accept that some accidents will happen. But there are allegations that oil companies could do more to prevent such occurances and frustration at the slowness of their response in the clean up when spillages occur. But there is worse pollution. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that oil companies aren’t taking interest in the environmental impact of their drilling operations in more hidden corners of the world. Across Europe and America companies have to monitor any levels of toxins they produce and control their emissions. Across Africa and vast areas of Asia the oil companies don’t do this and their product produces many toxins which are allowed to pollute the local environments. Poisonous gasses are allowed to escape, oil allowed to pollute water supplies and the oil workers aren’t supplied with the basic safety gear that their western counterparts are required to wear. All this cuts the price of production, but at what cost?

Unfortunately the problem goes still further. Oil companies have been accused of suppressing opposition where it occurs. In the early 90s the people of the Niger Delta began a peaceful protest against the oil company working in the region. They wanted environmental and economic justice and basic human rights. Ken Saro-wiwa was one of their main spokespeople as well as being an author and television producer. In 1995 he was arrested and hurriedly tried and hanged along with 8 other leaders in the protest movement. The trials are widely regarded as having been rigged and the oil company working in the area has been heavily implicated in the events. They were sued by the families of the deceased and settled out of court to the tune of $15.5 million before any evidence could be heard.

This isn’t an isolated incident of corruption; let’s not forget the last American president. Mr George W and most of the top brass in his administration had come from the oil industry where they had held a number of top jobs. W’s first election win was extremely dubious and is hopefully as close as it is possible to get to election rigging in the world’s only superpower, and then they conspired to manufacture the war in Iraq under the pretence of pro-democracy and WMDs but which most people consider to be about oil.

So you see why I don’t want to write a blog this month – where do you start with that lot and what can you say about making things right? It’s difficult finding a positive as we have to use oil and there is no ethical oil company and therefore seemingly little we as consumers can do with our ethical pounds. All I can really suggest is that the oil companies don’t want these facts becoming common knowledge as it reflects very badly on them, so let’s spread the word and shame the companies into doing the right thing. Like the Old Testament prophets we can shout these stories from the rooftops and shine a spotlight into the shady areas of the world where these actions currently go on unseen.

Grrrr: God & Revenge

Grrr: God & Revenge from Rob Bee on Vimeo.

It was a cold dark night and it was raining hard. I found myself lost on the moors of Scotland. I spotted lights on the hill top and I made for them. After a hard walk I came upon a tavern and I entered. I shook the rain from my coat and went to warm my hands by the open fire. I glanced over to a table in the corner and there sat on old man with a look of worldly wisdom about him. I went to the bar to ask the Landlord for lodgings for the night and then I went to my room to change into dry clothes. When I was refreshed I descended the stairs and went back to the bar for a drink. “Is everything to your liking, Sir?” asked the barman. “Yes thanks.” I replied, “It’s a lovely room.” “You just wait until tomorrow morning, Sir. If the weather’s right it catches the sunrise beautifully.” “I hope to be asleep when the sun rises.” I quipped. I turned to find an empty table and as I did so a man stuck out his foot and sent me sprawling to the floor spilling my pint all down my dry clothes. I must admit that I took exception to the man and I told him so. I left him in no doubt that I would get even then I went to go back to my room to get changed again, but the old man in the corner stopped me as I passed and bade me sit. “Beware.” he said. “You tread a dangerous path.” I sneered, presuming he was talking about the object of my previous rage, but he looked me in the eye and said, “Beware the black rabbit of revenge, Son. Beware the black rabbit of revenge.” Thinking the old man was mad I stood to leave, but he grabbed my jacket sleeve. The look in his eye pleaded with me to stay and so I retook my seat and listened to what he had to say.

A low breeze blew around our ankles as the man spoke and his eyes darted left and right as if trying to find what caused it. His tones became more hushed and more urgent, “I beg you not to seek out the Black Rabbit of Revenge, your life will be forfeit. I was not always a shrivelled up old man sat in a corner, I hope that by telling you my story I can somehow redeem myself.

No doubt you will have heard the stories of the Black Dogs who prowl around the old moors of this country preying on those unfortunate enough to get lost by luring them over the edges of cliffs? Well there is a more unspeakable horror at lose in these parts, and that is the Black Rabbit of Revenge. He stalks those who feel the need for retaliation and makes their lives a living Hell, consuming their waking moments and their dreams until nothing is left but a bitter shell of impotent rage and a migraine. You look at me as though I’m mad Son, but I know of what I speak. I have seen him, I have met the Black Rabbit of Revenge and I was almost broken by him. I know how he works and how he’s beaten.” He drew deeply on his pint before he continued. “You will meet the Black Rabbit of Revenge as you contemplate your damp clothes. You’ll see a movement out of the corner of your eye and you’ll turn to see what it was and find yourself looking at the man who tripped you. The Rabbit won’t let you forget him. And when you leave the room and are no longer in his company the Rabbit will follow you. Every so often at the most unexpected moment you’ll feel a pull at your trouser leg, and you will look down to find the Black Rabbit of Revenge nibbling at your socks and you’ll think of that man. You’ll awake in the middle of the night to hear the Black Rabbit of Revenge running full pelt around your house and you’ll remember your stained shirt. You’ll find where he’s gnawed your furniture and you will know that he similarly gnaws at your soul. And should be foolish enough to listen to him and seek your revenge then he breaks his promise to leave you be, and he becomes your permanent companion. He sleeps on your pillow, eats from your plate, walks in your shadow and tunnels into every pore of your being. You can try to justify your actions and you can pretend that he’s gone, but you’ll know that the rabbit has burrowed into you and made his home. He dozes, eyes half shut, warm and safe inside your mind. Every time he stretches out his legs or yawns you feel him. You know that while you sleep he digs deeper into your soul whilst at the same time he pulls at the heels of your victim in the hope that he too may hear the call of the Black Rabbit of Revenge thus spreading this horror further and sewing seeds of chaos into the fabric of the universe.”

By this time it was obvious that the old man was deeply scarred and deathly serious. His grave note had got me worried. I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, “So how can I beat the Black Rabbit of Revenge before he gets a hold of me?” The old man nodded sagely. “The Black Rabbit is like any other rabbit. Now think, Lad. What don’t rabbits like?” I did my best to stretch my mind back to the rabbit wrangling GCSE that I’d done at school, but it was so long ago. Then something came to me, “Stamping! Rabbits don’t like stamping!” The old man smiled, “That they don’t,” he said. “Stamping is a danger signal but it doesn’t last long. Put on the Boots of Dormancy when the Rabbit shows his face and stamp hard. He’ll know you simply won’t take action soon and he’ll leave you for a short while. He will be back quickly though to remind you of how you have been wronged and he won’t let up until you either take your vengeance or take stronger action against him. Think hard. What could that action be?” I thought back to my school days and all the time I’d spent ignoring lessons; I’d never have thought then that my life would depend on such an unlikely subject as rabbit wrangling. I stood on metaphorical tiptoes to reach as far back in my memory as I could, and I found something. “Rabbits hate being squirted in the face with a water pistol.” I said. “Good,” said the old man. “That’s right. It’s a way of training them and correcting their behaviour. Use the Water Pistol of Forgetting against the Black Rabbit of Revenge and he’ll learn to leave you alone. Then you can begin to forget your vendetta against this man. But be warned, it isn’t a permanent solution. The rabbit can wait forever for your guard to be down and then he will come and remind you and the cycle will begin again.”

“There must be a permanent solution,” I said. “Or am I cursed till the end of time?”

“There is an answer,” the man said. “Think hard. What do rabbits fear above all else?”

“The eagle!” I had remembered!

“That’s right,” said the Old Man, “Rabbits fear the eagle most of all. An eagle can mean the end of a rabbit. And so you must pray hard that the Eagle of Forgiveness will come and catch your Black Rabbit of Revenge. It will catch and eat him and the rabbit will trouble you no more. Your curse will be lifted.”

I gave a sigh of relief and stood up once more to leave. The Old Man spoke again and prevented my exit, “But be warned. As hard as this knowledge is to attain it is even harder to put into practice. You must pray for the Eagle of forgiveness, but even if he comes he may not catch the Black Rabbit of revenge first time. It may take years, but it is the only solution. Now go and think of all we’ve discussed. I have told you the truth, now is your choice to make.”

I turned and walked out of the now empty bar and went to my room. As I unlocked the door I saw the glow of dawn lighting my room. We had talked all night. The barman was right, the room caught the sunrise beautifully.