You know you want to protect the German language

Tony Patterson has written a fun but interesting piece in the Independent on attempts to protect German language in the constitution.

The campaign to defend Die deutsche Sprache has not been launched by some obscure group of language professors, but from one of the main centres of German political power: the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her ruling conservative Christian Democrats are poised to copy France and enshrine the nation's language in the constitution.

I particularly liked this paragraph which calls Denglish a poisonous porridge:

the move is also an attempt to guard against what many see as an insidious and virtually unstoppable corruption of German by "Denglish", the increasingly widespread incorporation of English words and phrases. Denglish has infuriated the German academic world. The writer, Matthias Schreiber, recently described the phenomenon in Der Spiegel magazine as, "A poisonous porridge of magma which is burying a whole cultural landscape beneath it".

Support the ACT appeal for Zimbabwe

Today I attended a small reception by the Zimbabwe Geneva advocacy group. Both Marlon Zakeyo of WSCF and Michael Hyden from ACT International spoke movingly of campaigning and practical efforts to protect people in Zimbabwe from starvation and disease. We collected money for the ACT Zimbabwe appeal and will continue to do that tomorrow at our evening Advent service. ACT works particularly with Lutheran World Service and Christian Care in Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile the Rev. Ishmael Noko of the Lutheran World Federation has sent a letter speaking of anguish and outrage at Zimbabweans’ suffering to church leaders in southern Africa. ENI has also reported this:

The general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, the Rev. Ishmael Noko, has in a letter to Lutheran church leaders in southern Africa expressed anguish and outrage over the increasingly worsening crisis in Zimbabwe.
On Robert Mugabe's current leadership role in the country, Noko noted that while many Zimbabweans paid the ultimate price during the struggle for freedom from colonial rule, the "independent government that they fought for has turned liberation into repression, and finally into calamity".
Noko appealed to heads of LWF member churches in the Southern African Development Community area to push the region's governments "to take the further steps necessary to bring an end to the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe, which is also the suffering of the whole region", the Geneva-based LWF said in a 16 December statement.

Never without my department

I few months ago I wrote about how the French government wanted to remove the number of the department from French number plates, something that had led to a cross party alliance to oppose the idea. Well, in the end the government backtracked and a departmental number will still have to
be on the plates. On 12 December the interior minister unveiled the new style of plates. So citizens movements have won out again and we can still play the game of guessing which number is from where on long distance trips in France.

problems with a Bible translation in India

ENI is reporting the following story about problems with a Bible translation in eastern India. Here's the full story:

A dispute over the translation of a Hebrew word meaning "green" or "leafy" tree in the Old Testament of the Bible has led to vociferous protests by local people in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand.
The controversy concerns a passage in the Book of Deuteronomy (12:2), which states, in the English translation of the New Revised Standard Version, "You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods, on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree."
Problems emerged when local activists spotted that in the translation into the Kurukh dialect, the tree was referred to as a "Sarna" tree, a species that local rural people, referred to as tribals, hold in great reverence.
Tribal activists had burned an effigy of Roman Catholic Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, a former president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India who in 2003 became the first tribal person from India to be elevated as a cardinal.
"It was never intended to hurt the local sentiments and we have acted immediately as soon as it was brought to our attention," said Soma Bhatkar, who represents the Bible Society in India in Jharkhand and Bihar. In early December she had convened a meeting of secular scholars on the subject and collected more than 600 copies of the translation available in bookshops. These will be corrected with non-controversial phrases such as "green trees", she noted.
"The Bible should not be a cause of hurt to any one," B. K. Pramnik, the general secretary of the Bible society told Ecumenical News International from his headquarters in Bangalore. "So, we have promptly withdrawn the available copies of the translation that were printed 10 years ago."
Acknowledging the translators made an "unintentional mistake", Pramnik said the society had also appealed to local congregations to bring the Bibles for correction to its regional office in Ranchi as more than 2000 copies were printed when the translation was released.

Don't you just love the global capitalist perspective

I'm sure you will be delighted to know that both Societe Generale and Credit Agricole said they had ''negligible'' exposure of below 10 million euros each in relation to the Madoff scandal.
Words fail me.
I'll try to work out whether I can afford to pay for my morning coffee tomorrow.
Meanwhile in Zimbabwe people are dying of cholera you may have heard about it.

Do nothing Christmas

I'm enjoying reading Stephen Cottrell's Do nothing Christmas and perhaps I should also treat myself in the New Year to Do Nothing to Change Your Life. Apparently in 2007, Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Reading, handed out egg-timers to commuters at his local train station to highlight the value of time spent in stillness.
I really appreciate his clear and simple prose and the carefully researched quotes. Writing with this kind of conciseness takes real discipline.

Each day’s reflections, which serve as prompts for quiet periods of rest and contemplation, conclude with practical suggestions for further thought, prayer or action – ranging from reviewing your charitable giving, to creating homemade gifts, seeking out vulnerable people who might be alone this Christmas, or bringing back family mealtimes. The accompanying website is here: http://www.whywearewaiting.com/

This ‘Advent calendar with a difference’ offering readers “another way of celebrating Christmas, where its joys and promises can help put life back together again” rather than risk it imploding with “all the conflicting demands and expectations” that the season can bring.

Far from a killjoy’s manifesto, the book’s brief, down-to-earth daily reflections take their cue from the trimmings and trappings of contemporary Christmas – from buying the turkey to the office Christmas party. Each ingredient of the modern Christmas is given a twist, encouraging readers to consider their preparations for Christmas in ‘slow motion’: to create time amid the Advent rush to rediscover the real joys of the festival by taking time to look afresh at how to prepare, and wait patiently, for the celebration of Christ’s birth.

Take the Christian Aid Copenhagen Pledge

Click here to take Christian Aid's Copenhagen pledge on CO2 emissions.

Free internet access at the travelodge on Vernon Square London

Sometimes I get cross about having to pay money for old rope.
At the travel lodge hotel I stayed at in London this week I had a choice of buying 24 hours wifi access for £10 or £20 for a week. As I was staying for two nights I took the week but my voucher is still valid until Thursday evening. So here's the voucher code TLZQREPVIF. My small contribution to the downfall of global capitalism - probably I'll discover this is illegal.
Perhaps there is a website out there which lists free vouchers like this - when I have a moment I'll try and find out.

Hans Ruedi Weber and my understanding of mission

I gave a 10 minute presentation on my understanding of mission this week. My basic idea was that mission is about vision, conviction and two-way story telling.

I decided not to do a power point presentation but to use props instead - I'm still not sure that this was quite the right thing to do, but I wanted to make the point that we already have all the tools and technology for mission - and those tools are the people of God reading God's word, interpreting and acting on it together. When Hans Ruedi Weber explains a particular method in his book Experiments with Bible Study - which requires people to remember together images of the church in the new testament and then make a sketch of each them - he says that of course you can do this with an overhead projector, paper and markers but also says that he also used it in Indonesia where the mains tools to hand were sand and sticks and this worked just as well. The great thing about the method is that it uses the Bible people have within them and that this is triggered by the remembered Bible others have - it's the coming together of these versions that can create our picture of the whole - it's also clear that this is not about having a mission but about "being" mission.
Anyway my three props for my presentation were a pair of glasses, a pair of sandals and a stone.
The glasses were about mission needing vision, about seeing things afresh, about how perspectives change depending on your viewpoint. But I think vision is also about advocacy about trying to change the way people see things, as well as perhaps seeing things from their point of view.
The sandals were about the process and pilgrimmage aspects to mission. Sandals may seem a bit hackneyed but I chose them for the images of setting out, of walking to follow Christ who walked - there's something quite important about speed there, going forwards but at a speed where others can still keep up with you. The sandals also speak about trying to walk in other people's shoes, about how uncomfortable that can be, about how shoes rub our feet. Sometimes we want everything to be comfortable, yet perhaps we are more in mission when we are up against the rub.
The rock was about content and conviction, about the reason for mission, about the gospel, the good news, the word. But that content is complex - it's about Christ as both cornerstone and stumbling block; it's also about the people being called and encouraged to see that they are living stones.

I'm still not really sure that this presentation worked - particularly not in this reduced blog format - but I want an evolving and becoming understanding of mission not a beautifully framed and perfect definition.
Then of course after I've given my presentation I got sent this international poll in a computer-generated translation from the Danish. Between the mis-translations the poll seems to suggest that a majority of people in the survey do not support the idea of people trying to convert others to their religious beliefs.
Perhaps in the end all that we can do in our post-modern world is throw down stories and experiences next to one another. Parables are what Jesus told, perhaps we just have to dare to walk with folk and do the same.

Unable to resist temptation

Wandering around a bookshop yesterday I was unable to not buy the book that had this quote on the back page
"Do you see that, Alex? "asked Dominick. I could see the long black pole of the Letna metronome jutting into the sky.
"There used to be a statue of Stalin there. But they blew it up, and now we have the metronome that almost never works."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"I like to call it progress."

It's from A Cure for Solitude by David Whiteman. Now I just need to read the rest of it

A poet protects and transforms a railway station

Wandering around the new St Pancras is fun and this evening I've particularly enjoyed looking at the wonderful engraved calligraphy of some of John Betjeman's verse that is set in slate circles on the upper concourse. The wonderful statue of Betjeman by Martin Jennings is also surrounded by calligraphic engraving. It makes for a lovely poetic pilgrimage around the station.
Betjeman had been the driving force behind efforts to save the station when it was threatened by development plans during the 1960's and the sculpture stands as a tribute to the man who made their redevelopment of the station possible. Yet more about poetry and transformation ...

Today's the day Switzerland joins Schengen

This is the day that Switzerland joins Schengen. This goes some way to explaining a change from green to blue in what our local border guards wear. This detail had been worrying Dr B for some time.
Anyway here is the story from google news even with a nice map if you click here.

One of the quirks of the Schengen agreement is that for the first time in 84 years the Swiss will have to start patrolling their border with Liechtenstein. The tiny principality, wedged between Switzerland and Austria and with a population of only 35,000, is expected to join the borderless zone at the end of 2009.Until then, the 26-mile (41-kilometer) border will be monitored around the clock by closed-circuit television and mobile patrols, an effort that border guard chief Damian Curschellas says is unlikely to net many criminals or illegal immigrants. Because Liechtenstein has no airport, the only way to get there without passing through a Schengen country first would be to parachute out of a plane, said Curschellas good points. The biggest change will be for some non-European nationals living in Switzerland who previously needed a visa to travel to Schengen countries, a requirement that will now be dropped."If you're Bolivian with permanent residency in Switzerland, for example, you can now goto France for up to three months without applying for a visa," said Michel Bachar, spokesman for Geneva's border guard corps.

However there are also bad points for people visiting Switzerland from outside the EU as this report from Trinidad and Tabago makes clear:

Citizens of this country will soon be required to be in possession of visas to visit countries of the Swiss Confederation. The new Swiss visa requirement will take effect tomorrow as a result of Switzerland's association with the Schengen area-which are regions in Europe without systematic border controls. Switzerland will therefore be obligated to adapt its visa requirements to those of the common visa policy for Schengen member states as of December 6.As a consequence, all Trinidad and Tobago nationals and passport holders will require a Schengen visa to enter Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein

The ethics and politics of translation

There is something so satisfying about travelling by train, particularly through three countries and two capital cities. As usual in Paris I went to the wrong platform of the ligne D of the RER but I still made it to the Gare du Nord very easily to catch the Eurostar to London. The most stressful part of the journey was definitely the car journey to try and catch a bus or a tram. We forgot that when the snow falls Geneva becomes gridlock city. Five minutes later and I would have missed the train.

On the train I began reading Henri Meschonnic's Ethique et politique du traduire.
Just the title and the first page have triggered so many thoughts that I didn't get much further than musing, but I'm already looking forwards to the return journey on Saturday - just the chapter headings give you an idea - The meaning of the language not the meaning of the words, Why we need a bit of Bible in philosophy, Grammar - to the east of Eden, Religious texts in translation - God or Allah? and my favourite: "Embibler la voix" enbibling the voice ...
I realised that when translating the title into English something interesting happens that illustrates some of the points he's trying to make in the book - "The ethics and politics of translation" in English makes singular nouns into plurals and also turns the verb traduire into a noun. To me at least it immediately sounds more pragmatic and less philosophical than the French. This is a follow up book to an earlier one called La poétique du traduire - the poetics of translation.
On page 2 Meschonnic says:
"La poétique est aussi une éthique, puisqu'un poème est un acte éthique car il transforme le sujet, celui qui écrit et celui qui lit."
I love the idea of a poem being an ethical and transformative act and I read this just after having read this in an article by Alain Houziaux about Christian Bobin and his poetic prose:
"Le succès de Christain Bobin pose une vraie question aux Eglises: est-ce que, pour un large public, la poésie spirituelle n'assure pas aujourd'hui une fonction que les Eglises et les religions ne savent plus ou ne veulent plus assumer: celle de la consolation?"
As I read that I thought of Rowan Williams, theologian, church leader but also poet. I also remembered interpreting for Alan Falconer, former director of Faith and Order, and beingintrigued by his idea that perhaps what we needed to do to achieve deeper Christian unity was to read and write more poetry ...

Maggi Dawn on the role of the minister

Maggi Dawn has posted a heartfelt piece about the difficulty of ministry and it rang very true for me today.
There is something insidious and terrible about ministry, regardless of whether or not you do it as a paid occupation. There is this thing that happens, once you get the reputation for being good at it. People all over start to depend uopn you for far more than you're able to give, and you can (if you're not careful and don't surround yourself with people who will tell you loud and clear that you're losing the thread) start to believe that what they need is you. Sometimes I even wonder if this is what killed Jesus in the end. At least I think it's what makes sense of his habit of walking away, disappearing up mountains or down to the sea.

Maggi ends her post with a poem by Mary Oliver and in the comments Erin says "Eugene Peterson writes that the two temptations of clergy are to be managers or messiahs."

At the end of another busy day as I muse on what it is I really want from life I give thanks for powerful, honest voices out there who are talking about how difficult it is to minister. It is probably just as well that I didn't yet blog while I was on the ERF's ministries commission. When I think about about the extraordinary people and yet often very painful local situations I visited in those nine years. I also think about the difficult task of managing people in any situation. The word "alchemy" comes to mind - somehow the most unlikely combinations of people work; sometimes people and situations who look made for each other turn sour quickly. The clergy move on - they have no choice but to do that if a parish no longer welcomes them. They live out in the impermanence of their own lives our Christian inability to live together. It sometimes takes local churches a very long time to learn from such experiences. Bonhoeffer still has much to teach us in the church and in society abaout "living together", or perhaps it is rather that we all have much to listen and learn about on that front.

judging with justice ...

There's an excellent meditation on EAA's Advent calendar by Myra Blyth here.
Reflecting on Psalm 72 she says:
"In contrast to blind justice, biblical justice is open-eyed with hands outstretched to those oppressed and in need ... God's justice ... is not about maintaining order and balance in the interests of the powerful, but of righting wrongs and transforming relationships in the interests of the oppressed."

Don't pension off human rights

Today is the 60th anniversary of the declaration of human rights. There will be celebrations in Geneva, I shall be lighting an Amnesty International candle, the World YMCA and YWCA focused their week of prayer on human rights earlier this year. Much international campaigning - from the right to water, to the impact of climate change, to women's rights, to religious freedom - focuses on a human rights approach.
So on this anniversary day it's not time to pension off human rights but rather to get states, governments and individuals to respect the human rights of their fellow women and men the world over.

For women from women

A friend sent me this last week - and it made me smile as did her remark that although it made her think of me and herself, she still thought it was a bit kitsch. Anyway it was still a good thing to do and even made cynical old me smile, albeit ruefully!

Dear God
The lady reading this is beautiful, classy and strong, and I love her.
Help her live her life to the fullest.
Please promote her and cause her to excel above her expectations.
Help her shine in the darkest places where it is impossible to love.
Protect her at all times, lift her up when she needs you the most, and let her know when she walks with you, she will always be safe.

Advent vocation on theology blogs

There tends to always be an interesting discussion going on in the comments on Ben Myers' Faith and Theology blog. There have been some interesting posts about Stringfellow recently (that's the theologian not the nightclub). I was particularly interested in this post on circus and theology, partly because of the management idea of the "three ringed circus" as an image of an organisation where things are going well.
However this post quoting William Stringfellow on career versus vocation caught my attention in recent days and I've felt challenged by it as I mull over my own life. In the comments following that post Kim Fabricius put up the following quotes on vocation by Rowan Williams:

"So in the most basic sense of all, God's call is the call to be: the vocation of creatures is to exist. And, secondly, the vocation of creatures is to exist as themselves, to be bearers of their name, answerable to the word which gives each its distinctive identity....
"So with the human world; God does not create human cyphers, a pool of cheap labour to whom jobs can be assigned at will. Each human being called into existence by him exists as a distinct part of a great net. To be is to be where you are, who you are, and what you are .... "... vocation doesn't happen, once and for all ... It happens from birth to death; and what we usually call vocation is only a name for the moment of crisis within the unbroken processs. "... Vocation is, you could say, what's left when all the games have stopped."

From the "Vocation (1)" in Rowan Williams, Open to Judgement (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1994), pp.173ff.

Meanwhile if Dr B is still feeling like Father Christmas he might like to consider ordering me Kim Fabricius' Propositions on Christian Theology: A Pilgrim Walks the Plank. I know it's not quite Walter Benjamin but it looks rather good.