I discovered a leaflet advertising chaplaincy the other day. It read something like this.
“University can offer some of the best and worst experiences of a lifetime. Homesickness, family problems, difficulties in forming relationships – These can be twice as difficult when we face them alone.
Sometimes life seems impossible”
Dear Lord! Save Me!
University could be the best thing that ever happened to you. But forget about that for a moment, because here at chaplaincy we want you to focus on all the ways that life is going to go tits up while you study!
Are you really depressed?
Thinking of doing yourself in?
Why not do that at Chaplaincy?
Hey how about this for a slogan;
“Chaplaincy: Don’t go without having a cup of tea first!”
It makes you wonder doesn’t it? What exactly is a chaplain for? Is chaplaincy just the last resort of the desperate?????? Because that is how I think Chaplaincy has seen itself in the past and it is also how it has been seen by the students. Since I started this job last October I have had an awful lot of time on my hands, which I have happily filled with all sorts of random crap.
But now its time to ask the question… should I actually be doing something in return for my salary?
Given that we live in a non-religious society. Given that young people are less religious than old people. Given that the University is just full of young people. Given we have several religious societies run by students and several churches just off campus…
WHAT THE HELL IS A CHAPLAIN FOR????
Answers on a post card.
Chaplain Church of England Christianity
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
Liberty Bell
I just had a call from a producer from Liberty Bell Television ring me up and ask me loads of questions about Jerry Springer the opera and the Da Vinci Code.
Someone must read this blog!
Blimy!
Da Vinci Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer the Opera Blog
Television
Someone must read this blog!
Blimy!
Da Vinci Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer the Opera Blog
Television
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Be Who you want to be
Be who you want to be.
I’ve always wanted a nick name. Well I had one, my ex girlfriend used to call me ‘snake’… but that was just irony.
You are not really supposed to give yourself a nickname – a nickname is something other people spot about you.
Often cruel.
Then along comes the internet. Now you can be who you want to be. See yourself as Mace Windu? Get yourself into a chat room my son.
Just have a look at some of the profile available for example on yahoo. Fit Hunk 1977? Clearly a seven stone weakling. Miss No knickers? Clearly a 40 year old man.
See that’s the internet for you. Not so much a case of be who you want to be. But be who you’re not. Outside of cyberspace we have some givens.
Well I’ve decided to re-brand myself but I’m going to do it…wait for it… in the real world!!!!
My other ex…(oh yes there have been two of them) sent me a tape of Coldplay’s Yellow and said it reminded her of me. She also sent me a crystal with a note saying “I bought you a rainbow”.
OK, OK, I chucked her…I know I’m a bastard!
Anyway… yellow it is. I’m going to tell everyone to call me Yellow. From now on. Life is going to be like a chat room.
I’m going to keep a diary to see what happens.
Monday
Sent e-mail to everyone in my address book telling them to call me Yellow.
Tuesday
No response yet.
Wednesday
Got an e-mail back today from someone telling me never to write to him again.
He wasn’t a close friend.
Thursday
So far I’ve had to remind two people who have called me Simon that my name is now Yellow.
Friday
Very quiet in the office today.
Clearly it’s early days.
I’ve always wanted a nick name. Well I had one, my ex girlfriend used to call me ‘snake’… but that was just irony.
You are not really supposed to give yourself a nickname – a nickname is something other people spot about you.
Often cruel.
Then along comes the internet. Now you can be who you want to be. See yourself as Mace Windu? Get yourself into a chat room my son.
Just have a look at some of the profile available for example on yahoo. Fit Hunk 1977? Clearly a seven stone weakling. Miss No knickers? Clearly a 40 year old man.
See that’s the internet for you. Not so much a case of be who you want to be. But be who you’re not. Outside of cyberspace we have some givens.
Well I’ve decided to re-brand myself but I’m going to do it…wait for it… in the real world!!!!
My other ex…(oh yes there have been two of them) sent me a tape of Coldplay’s Yellow and said it reminded her of me. She also sent me a crystal with a note saying “I bought you a rainbow”.
OK, OK, I chucked her…I know I’m a bastard!
Anyway… yellow it is. I’m going to tell everyone to call me Yellow. From now on. Life is going to be like a chat room.
I’m going to keep a diary to see what happens.
Monday
Sent e-mail to everyone in my address book telling them to call me Yellow.
Tuesday
No response yet.
Wednesday
Got an e-mail back today from someone telling me never to write to him again.
He wasn’t a close friend.
Thursday
So far I’ve had to remind two people who have called me Simon that my name is now Yellow.
Friday
Very quiet in the office today.
Clearly it’s early days.
Monday, May 22, 2006
The Da Vinci Crap
I am going to commit acts of violence if I hear one more ‘Christian’ response to the Da Vinci Code.
I really am.
Don’t be coming near me when it happens.
What is it about us that makes us so keen for attention that we have to leap on ever band wagon going? There’s a crap movie out and it features the word ‘Jesus’ --quick someone write a book!!!!
It’s a kind of bunny-ears-and-thong-look-at-me desperation that’s not normally seen outside of the Big Brother house.
I heard a senior clergyman describe Dan Brown’s book as one in which Jesus was central the other day.
NO.
Not even close.
Murder, intrigue, paintings all of these things are central to it. Jesus is not. He’s just a MacGuffin, a plot device that moves the story onwards. They have to do something. So they search for the Holy Grail.
And the so called big secret of the book is that Jesus was allegedly married and that the Church has suppressed the feminine divine.
Has Dan Brown been into a Catholic Church recently? He seems to have forgotten that St Mary was not a bloke. As to Jesus being married… Actually I don’t give a toss. What if he was? Marriage isn’t a sin. Jesus could have got married. St Peter the first pope was married and it doesn’t bother anyone in the Church.
The reason I think Jesus was not married he just wasn’t. A little thing called history confirms that. If he’d have been married it would have been recorded. Like Mrs St Peter.
What really gets me is that despite the fact that the Da Vinci Code accuses us of being blood thirsty villains conspiring to pervert history, the Church is fine with advertising this film which is, let’s be honest, complete horseshit. Whereas Jerry Springer the Opera was, in terms of how it portrayed the Church, relatively orthodox. Yet here is the key difference, unlike Jerry, there will be no Christians placarding outside a cinema in order to get Dan Brown’s crap off the screen. Instead they’ll be outside in the rain, advertising their Da Vinci code Bible Studies. By encouraging their followers to engage with the film there are probably going to sell tickets.
Why is Jerry so bad when Da Vinci is so good?
Is it because no one swears in Da Vinci???? You can say what you like about us just don't use the F word.
Another stunning moral decision from the Christian right.
Or maybe we just want some of that Tom Hanks Hollywood glory.
Seriously guys this film is crap. Stop advertising it. Stop engaging with it.
Just shut up about the Da Vinci code.
Bollocks… I’m such a hypocrite.
Da Vinci
I really am.
Don’t be coming near me when it happens.
What is it about us that makes us so keen for attention that we have to leap on ever band wagon going? There’s a crap movie out and it features the word ‘Jesus’ --quick someone write a book!!!!
It’s a kind of bunny-ears-and-thong-look-at-me desperation that’s not normally seen outside of the Big Brother house.
I heard a senior clergyman describe Dan Brown’s book as one in which Jesus was central the other day.
NO.
Not even close.
Murder, intrigue, paintings all of these things are central to it. Jesus is not. He’s just a MacGuffin, a plot device that moves the story onwards. They have to do something. So they search for the Holy Grail.
And the so called big secret of the book is that Jesus was allegedly married and that the Church has suppressed the feminine divine.
Has Dan Brown been into a Catholic Church recently? He seems to have forgotten that St Mary was not a bloke. As to Jesus being married… Actually I don’t give a toss. What if he was? Marriage isn’t a sin. Jesus could have got married. St Peter the first pope was married and it doesn’t bother anyone in the Church.
The reason I think Jesus was not married he just wasn’t. A little thing called history confirms that. If he’d have been married it would have been recorded. Like Mrs St Peter.
What really gets me is that despite the fact that the Da Vinci Code accuses us of being blood thirsty villains conspiring to pervert history, the Church is fine with advertising this film which is, let’s be honest, complete horseshit. Whereas Jerry Springer the Opera was, in terms of how it portrayed the Church, relatively orthodox. Yet here is the key difference, unlike Jerry, there will be no Christians placarding outside a cinema in order to get Dan Brown’s crap off the screen. Instead they’ll be outside in the rain, advertising their Da Vinci code Bible Studies. By encouraging their followers to engage with the film there are probably going to sell tickets.
Why is Jerry so bad when Da Vinci is so good?
Is it because no one swears in Da Vinci???? You can say what you like about us just don't use the F word.
Another stunning moral decision from the Christian right.
Or maybe we just want some of that Tom Hanks Hollywood glory.
Seriously guys this film is crap. Stop advertising it. Stop engaging with it.
Just shut up about the Da Vinci code.
Bollocks… I’m such a hypocrite.
Da Vinci
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Blogging
I’ll tell you why not. Because no one ever reads blogs that’s why not.
No one’s reading this now. People don’t read blogs. It’s this techno-bloody-wonderful-logical wonder, isn’t it? Anyone can publish anything they want. We’re all given a voice now. We can all be listened to by the entire sodding planet.
Only Mr I-think-blogs-are-better-than-sex you’ve missed something haven’t you? You didn’t need technology you could do that already. You just need to write your thoughts down on something…say…a sheet of paper, for instance…then photocopy it 100 times and give it out on the street to passers by. They’ll read it, or my name’s sloppy git face. Why will they read it? Because it’s the only A4 sheet of someone’s random musings they have been handed that day.
Which is the problem with blogging. Everyone’s doing it, therefore it is rubbish. I mean look at this blog. It’s just a Anglican Vicar going off on one about blogging.
That’s shit.
If I had anything decent to say I’d be out on a street corner with 100 photocopied sheets. Obviously.
My life is boring. So is yours. Why put that in a blog?
See, blogs have a content problem. I looked round for a few other blogs and found some awful vicar blogs. They all seemed full of “I saw a leaf as I was walking round the parish…and Jesus is a bit like that”.
Bollocks.
Oh look! A cobweb and Jesus is a bit like that. A big bus! Jesus is a bit like that! A paper towel! Jesus is a bit like that! A small pile of nondescript rubbish! Jesus…NO! NO! NO!
The point is, if you’re a Christian Jesus isn’t like anything. He’s like Jesus. That’s what unique means. Yet another pointless statement inflicted on a long suffering world… by a blog.
Which is why no one is paying attention.
The student who suggested I set this up thought it would do me good. Get my thoughts out there. Sort of therapy. But that doesn’t work, does it?
It’s not therapy if no one is listening. If you go for counselling they don’t shut you in a room by yourself for 45 minutes do they? No they listen to you.
That, ladies and gentlemen is the key difference between the relationship of a counsellor and a client, and the relationship of the entire universe and a blogger.
Blogging is crap. Stop it.
No one’s reading this now. People don’t read blogs. It’s this techno-bloody-wonderful-logical wonder, isn’t it? Anyone can publish anything they want. We’re all given a voice now. We can all be listened to by the entire sodding planet.
Only Mr I-think-blogs-are-better-than-sex you’ve missed something haven’t you? You didn’t need technology you could do that already. You just need to write your thoughts down on something…say…a sheet of paper, for instance…then photocopy it 100 times and give it out on the street to passers by. They’ll read it, or my name’s sloppy git face. Why will they read it? Because it’s the only A4 sheet of someone’s random musings they have been handed that day.
Which is the problem with blogging. Everyone’s doing it, therefore it is rubbish. I mean look at this blog. It’s just a Anglican Vicar going off on one about blogging.
That’s shit.
If I had anything decent to say I’d be out on a street corner with 100 photocopied sheets. Obviously.
My life is boring. So is yours. Why put that in a blog?
See, blogs have a content problem. I looked round for a few other blogs and found some awful vicar blogs. They all seemed full of “I saw a leaf as I was walking round the parish…and Jesus is a bit like that”.
Bollocks.
Oh look! A cobweb and Jesus is a bit like that. A big bus! Jesus is a bit like that! A paper towel! Jesus is a bit like that! A small pile of nondescript rubbish! Jesus…NO! NO! NO!
The point is, if you’re a Christian Jesus isn’t like anything. He’s like Jesus. That’s what unique means. Yet another pointless statement inflicted on a long suffering world… by a blog.
Which is why no one is paying attention.
The student who suggested I set this up thought it would do me good. Get my thoughts out there. Sort of therapy. But that doesn’t work, does it?
It’s not therapy if no one is listening. If you go for counselling they don’t shut you in a room by yourself for 45 minutes do they? No they listen to you.
That, ladies and gentlemen is the key difference between the relationship of a counsellor and a client, and the relationship of the entire universe and a blogger.
Blogging is crap. Stop it.
Friday, May 05, 2006
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