Today, in Western Christianity is ascension day, when Christian commemorate the ascension of the risen Jesus back to heaven.

Here’s how the book of acts describes it,

After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them. They said, “Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven.”  Acts 1:9-11 CEB

Jesus ascended as a man, he took his humanity back to heaven, and is now seated at the right hand of God. — There is a man in heaven.

What this means is that when we pray, there is a humanity in the Godhead. God understands what it means to be human, with all its temptations and frustrations. — There is a man in heaven.

When we pray God understands, when we fail God understands, when we are happy or sad, joyful or frustrated God understands. — There is a man in heaven.

The writer of the book of Hebrews put it like this:

 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,[a] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Heb 4:14-16 NIVUK 

Today I would like to relate that to faith.

James, in his epistle, said “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:17 NKJV) Or as the NIV puts it, “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” If you say you have faith and it is not shown in action, then you are only deluding yourself.

The history of Christianity is full of examples of people whose faith showed itself in action. Lord Shaftesbury, an Evangelical, started children’s homes and campaigned for workers’ rights. The Oxford Movement, traditionalist Anglicans, establishes parishes in slum areas, working alongside people there. Albert Schweitzer, a liberal theologian, set up hospitals in Gabon.

On the other hand we can talk about faith. Theoretical theology is okay up to a point. But if all we do is talk, if our spirituality is nothing but reflective, is our faith really alive. It would be good to have our theology right, but look at the examples above, they would not agree theologically and yet God worked through them.

Today’s sermon in church made much the same point. Several youths in the town have been involved in Love Huddersfield, which lets young people in churches get involved in social action projects about the town. Giving young people a chance to live out their faith is better than a hundred sermons.

After all did Jesus not say it is by our fruit that we shall be known. Not by our theology.

How anti- sport can it get. After raising of three flags (Olympic, UK and Greece) there came the speeches. At length, and of a style that makes the average sermon seen exciting by comparison.

Men who didn’t look particularly athletic, and whose athletic  days, if they ever had any, are long behind them dominated the proceedings. It went on and on and on and….

This is not what sport is about at all, the excitement of competition was notable by its absence in these events leading up to the start. Why does it always come down to talk? Talk at the torch lighting to be followed by talk at the opening ceremony followed by talk in the TV studios. It may be about sport but it isn’t sport. Competition is what it is all about, when it is all finished it will be the performances by the competitors, the excitement of winning, the disappointment of being second. (Second being the first loser according to former Gold Medal winner Chris Boardman.)

It doesn’t matter where the talk is coming from, it isn’t sport. Speeches by politicians about the Olympics are not sport. Neither are speeches from the Olympic board of the organising committees. Neither is me blogging about it.

I can’t wait for the talk to be over and the games begin.

 

Last week I went shopping.

Today I collected the fruits of my labours was collected.

A Trek 7.3 FX D fitted with mudguards and a carrier and toe clips and straps.

But less about the snappy name of the bike (it is more of a Doris to me) why did I chose this one?

Firstly it had what a slightly disabled cyclist needs, gears,  lots of them. When 8o% of the cycling is done with one foot something different is needed, except it isn’t really different. Out of the box it ticks all my needs, lots of gears, upright riding position to cope with urban riding (observation is everything) and the price was right. With discounts the assembled bike came in at under £500 which is a lot of bike for the money.

I could have had the bike delivered, but didn’t, choosing to ride it home instead. The proof of the bike is in the riding.

The first mile or so was level, but negotiating roundabouts keeps you on your toes.

The long drag up the hill from Leeds city to Gildersome was something else. Back in the day this was what I was good at. Keeping power on whilst climbing hills (like riding into headwinds) was my kind of riding. But with only having one good foot my cycling power is cut by almost half. Hills are now climbed in low gears and are slow.

Downhill is always better. In a 40 MPH area I kept up with the traffic somehow.

After 4 hills I was safely home. Verdict — it’s a very good bike, though I’m suffering from newsaddleitis. I’d give Evans Cycles in Leeds the Nobel Prize. Or rather the no bell prize, the bell is the only thing missing.

On Christmas Day 1977, the Sex Pistols played their last UK concert at Ivanhoes, Huddersfield. For years the punk scene survived in this northern town, long after it had faded in the rest of the country. Though it has now been changed into Lidl Supermarket, the front wall of Ivanhoes still stands as an icon to the time of punk rock.

Which brings me to today.  The Green candidate for our ward in the council elections is John Lydon Phillips.

It seems right that Huddersfield should have a council contender named after Johnny Rotten.

This was yesterday’s headline. In the first quarter of 2012 Britain was back in recession. How does Prime Minister Cameron explain this? After all it is Labour’s recession, isn’t it?

After two years in power have things improved? No. Conservative-Liberal Democrat policy has failed to stop the recession double dipping. After two years it is time to look at what during the last election campaign the Conservatives were calling Labour’s recession, even at the time I was more than sceptical of that claim, because the recession was worldwide.

Was Labour responsible for the collapse of the Icelandic banking system?

Was Labour responsible for the economies of the PIGS within the Euro zone of the EC (Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Greece)?

Was it Labour’s policies that led to the United States government nationalising AIG?

If you believe the three statements above then you can believe that it was Labour’s recession. If not, how can anyone make that claim?

I’ll put another interpretation, the recession is the direct result of the policies of the free market. It is the policies of the right, not of the left of centre (just) policies of Labour that  have led to the recession. The largest economy in the world at that time, the USA, was in it’s second term under President GW Bush. Under Bush, American policy had moved to the right. As a consequence of this, this same government ended up nationalising financial institution. I bet that hurt.

So a worldwide recession  was caused by following policies of those right of centre on a worldwide basis. Cameron has tried to bring Britain out of recession by following policies of the right, understandably this hasn’t worked. The recession has double dipped.

What shall we do?

The two alternatives are:

1. Government spends less: Policy of the present Government in the UK.
2. Government spends more: Building of roads, public buildings, airports etc. The policy of US President Truman’s New Deal. People, particularly at the lower end of the economy have more money to spend, and the economy revives.

Actually the policies of all three main UK political parties is some of each of the above, they are only divided by how much.

So why have I called this blog kakocracy?

‘Kakocracy’: Governance by a clique representing the worst elements of society, in their interests and to the exclusion of all other interests, from the Greek, kakos, meaning foul, or filthy.

 Things are still very comfortable fot the rich, for people such as Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne, whilst people in lower income groups have to endure rising prices on static wages.

We have another 3 years of the Conservative-Liberal alliance, less if the Prime Minister sees fit. Then what?

History shows that when Labour’s policy shifts to the left the party becomes unelectable; as happened under party leader Michael Foot at the height of Prime Minister  Thatcher’s unpopularity. Labour,  under Ed Miliband, is shifting to the left.

It looks like we’re stuffed.

No, that does not mean that I am a cross dressing dominatrix — the leather basque wouldn’t suit me any way.

Nordoesit mean that I’m particularly cross, though I do get angry sometimes, or dominant, but then again I can dominate things by being over talkative.

All it means is that I’m not right-handed, or left handed, but favour the right hand for some tasks  and the left hand for others. Unlike a truly ambidextrous person I cannot do tasks equally well with both hands.

Cross dominance is not all that uncommon, and is shown in sports like cricket or baseball, where someone will bat right handed but bowl/pitch left handed.

(The one example of handedness I haven’t mentioned, is ambisinistrous,  or the inability to do anything with either hand. Or as we say in Yorkshire, cack-handed.)

…was the day some members of St Pixels met up at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

I arrived via that ruin that is Wakefield Kirkgate Station. It is locally pronounced Cur-gate, which just about sums it up.

On to the people and the park. These are some of the people:

There was sculpture too:

And the scenery of the park:

On the island, a heronry:

What impressed me most, though was  the shadows thrown as the sun came out:

The old one was a bit … well … bright. But in keeping with something that shows up well on a smartphone I’m trying some different ones.

If you  see the theme change over the next week or two don’t worry, it’s just me being irresolute, indecisive, on the fence or whatever other word for wishy-washy takes my fancy at the time.

I never settles on the previous theme anyway, but I had  a lot of old blogs from the St Pixels site I didn’t want to lose, and then I went straight into blogging through Lent. Now that’s over I can stop looking at content for a while and look at appearance.

But appearances can be deceptive, by the time you have commented on the new look my fickle mind may have moved on to another one.

What they have in common is that they provoke in me the Easter response: He is risen indeed. Hallelujah! 

Sermon one is from the last Easter sermon as Archbishop of Canterbury  by Dr Rowan Williams.

In that sermon Dr Williams says:

Easter makes a claim not just about a potentially illuminating set of human activities but about an event in history and its relation to the action of God. Very simply, in the words of this morning’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that ‘God raised Jesus to life.’

We are not told that Jesus ‘survived death’; we are not told that the story of the empty tomb is a beautiful imaginative creation that offers inspiration to all sorts of people; we are not told that the message of Jesus lives on. We are told that God did something – that is, that this bit of the human record, the things that Peter and John and Mary Magdalene witnessed on Easter morning, is a moment when, to borrow an image from the 20th century Catholic writer Ronald Knox, the wall turns into a window. In this moment we see through to the ultimate energy behind and within all things.

You can find the whole of Dr Williams’s sermon here. 

Sermon number two was preached at holy Trinity Huddersfield by Rev Calvert Prentis.

Calvert concentrated on the story of Mary Magdalene at Jesus’  tomb on the first Easter morning. Unlike Peter and John, who seem to be running around all over the place, Mary is still in her grief. She waits at the tomb. It is because she is still that Jesus is able to appear to her and give her the task of taking the news of the resurrection to the apostles. Are we still enough to hear Jesus say our name?

Sermon number three is from St Pixels, the internet church.  Full text here:

Julienne Jones says:

Now on this Easter Day 2000 years later Jesus is calling each one of us by name. We may not hear it, we may not believe it, we may not recognise Jesus as saviour and Lord! But he calls each and every one of us. Each of us is unique, and uniquely loved by God. He desires our love in return and longs for us to accept all that he offers us through the risen Christ. Jesus is here, now, disguised in the ordinary everyday things and we so often fail to recognise his presence. He is calling us back from all the 21st century grief, confusion and fear, and pointing us towards the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. All he asks is that we dare to believe Christ IS risen. How will we answer him?