Fat Chews Day

It sounds much better in French, doesn't it: Mardi Gras and Carnival- literally "fat Tuesday" and "without meat".

It's supposed to be the prelude to Lent, forty days where the finer things of life including fat-filled fare are sacrificed for a period of deep contemplation before the joy of Easter. Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday, as it's known in Britain, was once the occasion when all the forbidden foods of the Lent season, including eggs and fats, were used up conveniently in a frying pan, before the fasting began.

Sadly today, it's largely become just another scoff-up, with little thought for what follows. I'm not denying the enjoyment of a tasty pancake, especially when it's filled with maple syrup or lemon juice, but wouldn't it be good if a few more folk stopped to ask "what's it all about?" not just about what we put in our bellies, but what comes out of our hearts. But that's a subject for chewing over another day.

Who is my neighbour

No question mark in my posting title: it's a statement. It could be what the Dalek said to his fellow warring wheely bins when asked who owned the strange blue "Police" box about the size of an average human male which had just pitched up next to him.

It is not good for man to be alone; even 900-year old time travellers need their companions on the journey. So why does neighbourliness in 21st century Britain so often appear to be regarded as a quaint phenomenon destined for the dustbin?

It should be the most natural thing in the world to want to know those who breathe the same air as us under the same sky during this all too brief sojourn we call life. Neighbours should indeed be there for one another, both in their troubles and their joys. Something in the human condition cries out for it and we are naturally social creatures.

It's a bizarre paradox then that in 21st century Britain, too many people get to know their neighbours in fiction rather than in person. EastEnders, getting the key to the Queen Vic at 21 this week, challenges Emmerdale and Corrie as the TV ratings hits week after week. And once student life has introduced you to the Neighbours of Ramsay Street, it's very hard to leave- as I've found getting back into the Aussie favourite after seven months working away from Erinsborough.

Why TV soaps should be such a hit is in some ways a mystery to me. You get the most unlikely hatches, matches and despatches and some of the most disreputable characters around prove to be the biggest hit. But maybe the scriptwriters are tuned into a truth which the writers of the Bible knew twenty centuries ago, before even the(fictional) Dr Who was a lad.

People love a good story and they love to meet intriguing characters within the story. We little understand ourselves, yet by another paradox we perhaps wipe a little of the mist from our vanity mirrors every time we get to know somebody else or help them in some practical way. Jesus used this to great effect not so much in paradox as parable, and perhaps one of the best known is that of the "good Samaritan", otherwise known as the "good neighbour".
I've had fun this week helping out a neighbour who's lived across the street for over thirty years. First I got asked to sort out a problem with her phones, while on Thursday I was challenged with some Latin proof-reading of a Christian message delivered before I was born. In return, my brother and I got a very tasty curry, and I found my mouth had more of a fireproof lining than I'd thought!

Thought of reward should never be our motivation for doing some kindly act and indeed it will never get you into heaven, even in a tardis. Love your neighbour, as you love yourself.

Frozen Fish Fingers

How does anyone end up with the name "Clarence Birdseye?" It's a mystery, but the aforementioned gentleman most certainly existed and I'm one of many millions who grew up with the frozen fare he made his name from.

These days, I don't buy fish fingers very often, especially while I'm currently trying to cut down on my calorie intake to shed some of my ample girth. Like too many people in the affluent West though,I'm often thinking of food, which is understandable given that there is such a tempting array of it in super-sized hypermarkets run by the giants of the grocery world in modern Britain.

While there's nothing wrong with variety, particularly when it introduces us to the cuisine of other cultures, much of the problem of the 21st Century World is we have too much choice. We've opened a Pandora's chest freezer which does both our bodies and our spirits no good at all.

Television's love affair with the cookery show is abundant testimony to both the good and the bad in matters culinary. The BBC's latest variation on a theme, which ended its first run last night in between the latest calorie-burning thrills from the frozen rinks and runs of Olympic Italy, is "Two Hairy Bikers". This bizarre pairing, no doubt inspired by the Two Fat Ladies stable of programme making, has actually proved to be a bitter-sweet show, and I'm not talking chocolate or Seville oranges here.

The unlikely duo of two-wheeled Geordie petrolheads have been focussing this fortnight on Romania, a country with a sad past which is still struggling to shake off the evil legacy of Ceaucescu. To the credit of the two hirsute presenters, in between concocting mouth-watering delights they visited a museum about that nation's evil tyrant who met his fate while in a turning- aside West millions feasted on Christmas Day 1989.

The bikers' visit to the museum was an emotional experience not normally associated with indulgent food programmes. One of them understandably vented his anger at how the complicit West yielded to the temptation to eat at the table of this madman, while his actions ended or shattered the lives of millions, not least helpless children, the sight of whose pitiful existence still produces more tears than an onion.

Food fattens, but power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thank God then, that the one who saves our souls from our own awfulness did not yield to the temptation to eat, or even drink, for forty scorching days and frozen nights in the wilderness, which we now commemorate as the Christian season of Lent.

As observance of Lent 2006 rapidly approaches and Britons look forward to the delights of Pancake Day on "Fat Tuesday", I'm glad that the sign of the fish can lead even my frozen fingers this chilly night - our central heating's broken down- to prayer to the one who never yielded to the temptation to sin. He alone was nice but never naughty. Instead, he gave up his life to the hands of an evil regime and an angry, ignorant mob- even forgiving them as he did so. Thanks be to God that as he thawed from the stone-cold tomb, the lives of those who choose to believe in his unique life and name can be preserved for evermore. That's a mystery which should be on every menu.

Good morning, and here is the news...

While work continues on the re-launch of Anyway, I've just started a new blog dedicated to one of my main interests and a hobby since boyhood. You'll find it at www.radiofar-far.blogspot.com.

Meanwhile, if you read this in time and are within reach of a TV capable of picking up BBC ONE from the UK, do watch or video my fellow scribe, Brian Draper, who's appearing today on The Heaven and Earth Show , the national broadcaster's main Sunday morning show on issues of faith and ethics.

It promises to be an interesting and stimulating show today, also featuring Jim Wallis, renowned US preacher and commentator on the issues that really matter. He's been much in the news too this week, while he's been over in the UK to launch the British edition of his book God's Politics, a best-seller in the US for over a year.
Meanwhile, after doing what really matters to me on a Sunday morning, I'm off to join my fellow radio anoraks in Reading. Keep reading and listening- and 'Turn Your Radio On' (Ray Stevens, where are you now?) for the good news that's really worth hearing!

Me

It never really quite caught on as the ideal product name: "Windows Me." It was the software so adaptable to the needs of individuals in the 21st century that Microsoft wanted everybody to pronounce it as a word rhyming with "twee", rather than initials standing for "Millennium Edition". But I've yet to find anyone who calls the program version I'm using by its proper name, and thanks to Silicon Valley's unquenchable thirst for the next new thing, it's a name that will soon be forgotten anyway with a replacement for its successor Windows XP supposedly due for launch sometime soon. Perhaps Bill Gates got it wrong and people were chronically fatigued at seeing a post-viral software package which always makes me think of a rather unpleasant medical syndrome called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

Launches and re-launches. The marketing and ad man's stock in trade. If brevity is the soul of wit, there's often little evidence of wit in the torrents of words gushing "new"" every year from the men and women who invest giga-loads of cash in trying to convince us of the virtues and value of their product, whatever it may be.

Even the humble potato crisp is not immune to the attentions of the marketers. Britain's leading brand has just been foil-wrapped in stylish noughties garb with a new logo and unashamedly chanting the lower fat mantra. Gary Lineker's paymasters no doubt decided to change their image before some nanny in the Food Standards Agency tries to ban us from eating these savoury delights altogether.

Everybody likes a makeover once in a while. It helps to re-vitalise our sometimes drab lives and give new value to the best qualities of old favourites. And it can work as well for the person as for the product, the idea as much as the tangible. But it needs to be done with care and caution, lest we throw out the baby with the bathwater.

This blogspot is, I feel, due for a re-launch. The dis-interested advice of trusted friends has made me realise that my words are not always working for their readers or for me as well as I had intended. Anyway has become far more than I ever imagined it would for me when I first wrote some comments on the Athens Olympics eighteen months ago, and it's been a pleasure to post.
But, just as munching rather too many potato crisps in the past has caused me to pile on the pounds to the extent I've now re-launched my diet, I'd like my first web presence to have less verbal calories and to put more cerebral nutrition into what I do write.

You, dear reader, can be part of my focus group and, no, I am not asking you to pile into a Ford family car to do so. Just hit the "comments" button instead or, if you know me, send an e. Henry Ford may have been a genius in some respects, but he made a big mistake when he tried to limit his buyers to just one colour, black.

Life is neither black, nor white, and its expression can and should come in many colours too. I'm currently on a mission to "sell" my own best points as I seek a new occupational direction, possibly a vocation even, and trimming down the portly forty-something figure is just one aspect of it. But the wisest marketer knows that some things never change and word of mouth can be far more powerful than words of flannel. Google has become the world's most influential company by little else.
The most important launch and re-launch in history happened with little ceremony and unpromising beginnings in a small country in the Middle East at the beginning of the first millennium. Unknown celebrities from afar took two years to reach the launch but knew it was the most important journey they'd ever make. 33 years later the young man they'd come to see was re-branded a blasphemous criminal and given the most excrutiating, humiliating punishment possible at the time. Despite the love and attentions of his backers of three years, his future seemed as hopeless as a well-regarded slimming product did when their name started to sound like a fatal illness. He died.

But the maker of this product knew what he was doing from the beginning. Had he relied on his focus group to fulfil his marketing plan, he would have given up the ghost long ago, just like his own son did when he hung on a cross on the first Good Friday.
Unlikely as it seemed, the death of the old was crucial to the birth of the new. And only this man could then -and still does- point the way to life which makes no false claims, but can be lived to the full with no artificial additives. Its a high-risk strategy, but for millions of believers around the world it's the answer to life, the universe and everything. You'll never find a finer "brand" than the name of Jesus and indeed, if you believe what it says on the "packet" called the Holy Bible, then one day every knee shall bow in his presence. Any way you say it, JC is the name for me.

Lovers of the World Unite

Lovers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your inhibitions. This could well be the rallying cry of Clinton and Hallmark, Thorntons and Interflora or even Marks and Spencer for the next frantic four days. With Christmas but a distant memory, retailers need a boost to their coffers, especially when the feasting of Easter has to wait until late April this year.
Right on cue, along comes Valentine’s Day and the opportunity to pledge undying love to Mr or Miss Right, with only a little help from the cash card companies. “Hang the expense” seems to be the thinking behind the giving for those that want to pledge their passion – and yet tradition dictates it should all be done anonymously. Not very practical though if you fancy spending a hundred thousand on a night of sweet nothings between yourselves at the Oxo tower, as went on offer this week to London lovers.
This year though, however much is spent, sweethearts and passion-seekers will need to remember their number in a little red book, albeit a well-disguised one. Unforgettable Valentine’s Day has been chosen by the money industry to get normally reticent Britons to wear not just a heart on their sleeve but a PIN. On that date, at least nominally, signatures become a thing of the past as four little numbers hidden in a tiny piece of metal secure the price of love. Woe betide any man or woman who forgets their digits!
It’s just as well then that the numbers that matter to God are things like the number of hairs on our head, every one of which is counted. He could never consign our secret details to the back of a diary or some other anonymous place, and actually he already knows every one, such is the unique identity of his love. In fact, his love was demonstrated in flowers of mourning turned to dancing, in nails rather than PINs. Or, as Charitie L Brooks, an aptly-named Irish hymn writer, put it in the nineteenth century
A great high priest whose name is love
My name is graven on his hands
My name is written on his heart
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my saviour and my God
That kind of love will never be forgotten by numberless Christians, whatever the date.

More than a LICC and a promise

Occasionally, I dedicate these blog postings to individuals; today, my scribings are dedicated indeed to the dedicated, my hard-working, creative and ever-enthusiastic erstwhile colleagues at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

LICC as it is known for short, understandably, or pronounced "lick" by those who have abbreviationophobia has been my employer for the past seven months. Although there have been liberal clues to their identity in these postings, I've hesitated to name them publicly before now. Firstly, because it can be a risky business to talk about your employer on such a publicly-accessible medium as the world wide web, as one employee of a well-known British bookstore chain found to his cost. Secondly, it's a matter of courtesy perhaps to remain tight-fingered on such details.

However, I feel a positive plug for Licc is well overdue through this channel, which is why you'll find out more about them by going to www.licc.org.uk. Licc was the inspired vision of Dr John Stott, CBE (the "gong" came in the 2006 New Year Honours), back in 1982. At an age when many men in secular employment would be thinking of settling down their cardigan and slippers, John Stott's second career was just beginning. Today, in his mid eighties, he remains the life president of the Institute, which is housed in a fine eighteenth century listed chapel in an incongruous setting off London's Oxford Street.

St Peter's chapel itself is an amazing building to work in, with it's classic vaulted ceiling, modelled on several other London churches of the period by James Gibb, a pupil of the inimitable Sir Christopher Wren. Gibbs' church may lack the grandeur of Wren's masterpiece of St Paul's, obviously, but what it lacks in scale it more than makes up for with its sense of peace and spiritual permeability. Used today by a couple of church congregations since ceasing to be a chapel of ease to nearby All Soul's, its main occupancy is to the small but ever-resourceful and busy team of LICC that make up the part-time faculty and full-time administration of its world-famous ministry.

John Stott's is a name renowned throughout the world for his classic evangelical ministry, and he has a string of books to his name expounding on subjects ranging from the skills and arts of preaching to the exposition of many of the bible's 66 books. He is especially renowned for his introductions to Christianity, which remain in print and popular with new and established believers alike.

Dr Stott himself remains a much-admired figure in the institute's history, but the infirmities of age and orders from a doctor to take it easy mean that his preaching these days is somewhat limited. However, his legacy of creative Christian communication lives on in the legacy of his successors, several of whom feature regularly on national radio and TV as Christian commentators. Brian Draper, who merits a mention of his own elsewhere in these blogspots, is but one of them, while Mark Greene, the institute's current executive director, is much in demand for his creative, insightful teaching (he is a former principal of the London School of Theology, formerly London Bible College) honed through his many years working in advertising both sides of the pond.

In recent years, the focus of LICC has been on the important concept of "Whole-life discipleship", the idea that you cannot compartmentalise the Christian life into the sacred and the secular but, actually, every moment of every day matters to God and a follower of Jesus is actually a Full Time Christian Worker. Not that this need be an onerous responsibility; it can be remarkably liberating, fun and fruitful, but can be a challenge to live out at times, particularly in the workplace. This is well catered for by another of LICC's current emphases.

This is the sort of background against which yours truly has been privileged to work since the summer of 2005. Sadly, the time has come to move on, but I go with many happy memories of the many events and people I have met in my brief but very rewarding time with LICC. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that the colleagues with whom I have worked have been among the most loving I've ever encountered. As followers of Jesus, if their faith means anything, how could it be otherwise? Oh, not perfect of course- far from it, and just like me.
The London Institute's ideas and insight, their commitment and enthusiasm are the exact opposite of one dictionary's definition of that rather strange feline-inspired phrase " a lick and a promise".: A superficial effort made without care or enthusiasm. Rather, the whole team give their contribution to carry out John Stott's original and highly quotable idea of what Christians should be doing which he termed "double listening" - listening to the Word of God, AND to the world. With its attention to the complex issues of 21st Century culture, coupled with the historic mission of Christianity which aims to reach a nation for Christ, long may their mission prosper.
If you're a seeker or a follower, why not follow the link and learn more about LICC today, from its regular Monday evening public events dealing with everything from CS Lewis to a destiny beyond death, to bi-weekly words of inspiration and insight from its team of knowledgeable and highly readable writers, to its latest venture, the Imagine project, which has the bold challenge to Imagine how we can reach the UK. With prayer, and with pounds and even more with power- from God, it can be done. That's not just a hope, it's a promise. And organisations like the London Institute will do their utmost never to stop working at winning, until the salvation of a nation is licked.

Seven Days without X Makes One Weak

Now that's caught your attention, hasn't it! Quiet at the back there! What can the rambling Savage be going on about today; surely he's not about to launch into sordid territory here?

Quite right- not my style at all, though latest statistics do seem to show that married men and those who enjoy their marriage to the full live longer and are happier than unmarried men. Oh dear, time I start feeling like Marvin the paranoid Android again, maybe? Pass the Prozac, brother? Certainly not. Maybe Miss Right is still out there for me, but finding her is not the most important task in my life.

So what's X the unknown tonight then? Seven days without singing maybe? Mmm, listening to the dirge which passes for entertainment from some of our TV wannabees or even accomplished singers- sacred or secular- makes that questionable. But actually, research does show that singing is good for you, and who am I to disagree. I've inherited my late Mum's love of a good warble and it's one of the things that keeps Sunday special for me to sing a belting hymn, chorus or too. Indeed, church music can be full of surprises. Tonight, I was surprisingly delighted to hear- and later to sing- that classic Amazing Grace, to the tune of the Animals' old hit House of the Rising Sun. Clearly someone learning a lesson from William Booth here: why should the Devil have all the best tunes. It works amazingly well!

Seven days without beer or wine prompting lassitude, maybe? No, I can't agree with that either, though I enjoy my little tipples in moderation. My brother recently joined the Tesco wine club: both of us enjoy our Sunday sampling of the fruit of the vine but we must be careful not to become wine snobs.

Seven days without laughter? Could that be it? Well, there's not much to laugh about in the news at the moment, really. Tragedy in the Red Sea, where hundreds of poor souls drowned in a ferry accident; continuing tension in the Middle East and disturbing Muslim outrage at the publication of cartoons depicing the prophet. Even satire is dangerous territory, it seems, though Britain's masters of this genre must be as relieved as we believers that the bill which could have outlawed poking fun at religion or even preaching the gospel in some contexts, was defeated earlier this week. Ironically, the bill was lost for want of the vote of a certain Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.

Certainly, Christians who take their faith seriously can laugh at its excesses and themselves as heartily as the satirists, without ever compromising the heart of it, a liberating, tender relationship with God. That is a precious freedom which needs to be preserved at all costs.

Seven days without Big Brother maybe? Well, thank goodness, the annual farce which is Celebrity Big Brother is over for another twelve months, but it won't be long before another dose of throwing them to the lions, or should that be the lens, returns in some other guise. Anyone in the public eye is fair game these days, it seems.

Perhaps, then, seven days without blogging makes one weak? At least, that could be the conclusion from research this week which purports to show the benefits of sharing your thoughts, opinions and frustrations on the net for one and all. The computer monitor has become the new confessional. I can't deny I much enjoy writing these postings on a regular basis, but I think one look at the dates they've been published show that I don't rely on them for my spiritual well-being and to get all my frustrations off my chest. That's not to say those frustrations are not there, mind, particularly this week when I face big uncertainty again over where I'll be earning my living and, I hope, fulfilling at least part of my vocation from now on. But that's still in God's hands at the moment.

Which brings us back to the opening question and what must be my final answer- even if it doesn't bring the questionable riches bestowed on three Europeans this weekend as the Euro Millions multi-rolledover jackpot was finally won. Seven days without PRAYER makes one weak; I can't claim it as an original pun, but it's as true as ever. Prayer is the lifeblood of the believer and, actually, many would argue that it's a natural human instinct to pray- though the method of doing it and to whom it's will of course vary. It's been compared to breathing, actually- and without breathing, we wouldn't just be weak, we'd be dead- and very rapidly. So not just seven days, but seven hours, without prayer can make one weak. That's one reason I have so enjoyed the daily prayer meetings at my current employer- and why I should so miss them if I have to leave my employment there later this week.


I try now to include deep prayer as part of my routine in some form every day- and it doesn't have to be formulaic, oft-repeated or liturgical for it to be efficacious. True prayer is sharing your heart with God, the Father of the universe and the most important person in any life. Anyone that seeks to grow spiritually should spend more time in prayer, difficult though it is with our modern lifestyle. If you seek to be no longer weak, spare a prayer and you'll find your strength renewed. Who needs press-ups when you can pray up!