About 6 months ago I received a comment on one of my photos on Flickr asking for permission to include it in an academic textbook by the Bentley Institute Press entitled “Architectural Geometry“. The picture (see below) is of one of the spiral staircases at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. I agreed to its use and should shortly be receiving my complimentary copy of the publication – I’ll post photos when it arrives.
These days we are facing dramatic changes, the tools at our disposal becoming seemingly unlimited. However, the increase in possibilities did not go along with an increase in the depth of geometry education. In fact, the opposite is true. Thus, it is the most important task of this book to close the gap between the technical possibilities and an effective working knowledge of the new methods of geometric design.
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A fascinating animation of the geographic spread of religion (via ThinkChristian):
Yesterday I lad the Brigade Service at Church on the theme of “A Different Christmas”. We had a quiz based around the following Christmas statistics (source) and then reflected on them and what they say about how we ‘celebrate’ Christmas:
- £600 million – spent on decorations annually
- 2 million metres – of fairy lights put up each year
- 15 hours – average time spent Christmas shopping (presents only, not food)
- 8000 tonnes – of wrapping paper discarded (enough to wrap island of Guernsey)
- 46 million – toys thrown away each year
- £1.2 billion – value of unwanted gifts each year
- 64% of over 45s said – they felt Christmas had ‘lost its magic’
- 50% of teachers said – their school would be incorporating a non-Christian Christmas celebration
World Vision have produced a video, called “no child should have to endure this”, which highlights the problem with our approach to Christmas.
I mentioned that I’ve had two conversations since Christmas with young people whose excitement about presents was bursting out of them – and they weren’t typical gifts. One was bought an alternative gift by her mum which fed a donkey for a month, and the other had bought a gift for her mum which would provide dinner for 100 school children. We talked about the benefits of different ‘alternative’ gift catalogues such as Living Gifts from Tearfund, Great Gifts from World Vision, Unwrapped from Oxfam and Present Aid from Christian Aid, before moving on to consider the needs of those around us. We then spent about 10-15 minutes in small groups considering the question:
How can we live differently and meet the practical needs of our neighbours next Christmas?
Next we discussed the thoughts of the groups, making notes as we went. The Amicus members will be considering the feedback in September, and we’ll seek to encourage everyone in the Church to put the ideas into practice at the end of the year with the intention of enjoying a different Christmas. We’ll revisit the topic in our October Parade Service and kick things off.
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Stupid Name. Cool Vectors!
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an index of free Christian photos and Church graphics from Christian Photographers and Church Graphic Designers around the globe.
[Welcome to anyone visiting from MK Vineyard Church - please introduce yourself in the comments section below...]
This morning, along with my Minster, I had the pleasure of giving a presentation to the MK Vineyard Church about our new Youth Project for Central Bletchley & Fenny Stratford, and inviting them to become partners in the project. We were made very welcome, and we were delighted with the response. The Leadership Team will be considering the financial contribution they feel able to make, and we’ve had offers from five people to volunteer as Staff members and we’re looking forward to getting to know them.
The project will be run under the supervision of the Crosslinks Centre, in partnership with Spurgeon Baptist Church, MK Youth Service & MK Vineyard Church with anticipated support from Bletchley & Fenny Stratford Town Council. I’m involved in setting up the project as part of my Degree course in Youth & Community Work & Applied Theology at the Centre for Youth Ministry [Oxford], but the plan is to create an ongoing and completely sustainable Youth Project.
Here’s the presentation, which I hope makes some sense without my commentary and you can also listen to and download the audio of the talk courtesy of MK Vineyard:
If you have any questions about the project please let me know.
Major Andrew Olmsted of the US Army died in Iraq on January 3rd 2008. He wrote a moving final entry for his website and asked a friend to post it in the event of his death. You should read the whole entry, but here are a few quotes:
This is an entry I would have preferred not to have published, but there are limits to what we can control in life, and apparently I have passed one of those limits…
What I don’t want this to be is a chance for me, or anyone else, to be maudlin. I’m dead. That sucks, at least for me and my family and friends. But all the tears in the world aren’t going to bring me back, so I would prefer that people remember the good things about me rather than mourning my loss. (If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.)
Sometimes going to war is the right idea. I think we’ve drawn that line too far in the direction of war rather than peace, but I’m a soldier and I know that sometimes you have to fight if you’re to hold onto what you hold dear. But in making that decision, I believe we understate the costs of war; when we make the decision to fight, we make the decision to kill, and that means lives and families destroyed. Mine now falls into that category; the next time the question of war or peace comes up, if you knew me at least you can understand a bit more just what it is you’re deciding to do, and whether or not those costs are worth it.
