I admit I did the weekly shop during a wedding yesterday - and very quiet it was as a result. For this reason alone they could repeat the gig weekly, please. But then I heard I'd missed a bit of a sermon. So I took a look. And I liked this:
If you don't believe me, just stop and imagine. Think and imagine a world where love is the way.
Imagine our homes and families where love is the way. Imagine neighbourhoods and communities where love is the way.
Imagine governments and nations where love is the way. Imagine business and commerce where this love is the way.
Imagine this tired old world where love is the way. When love is the way - unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive.
When love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again.
When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook.
When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the earth will be a sanctuary.
When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more.
When love is the way, there's plenty good room - plenty good room - for all of God's children.
That's not radical. It's simply saying what Jesus seemed to be preaching. It's what Christianity should be. But isn't. As G K Chesterton said 'The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried'.
But I liked the fact that this was said at a royal wedding. And it reminded me of another great line sung by another great black man, Louis Armstrong, who sang:
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you
I often think that last sentiment's true. We need a dose of that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWzrABouyeE
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Government’s are not known to be in the business of providing love. Even care professionals come with a contract and monetary needs. Which is why government should set people free in order to let love flourish.
Governments are all about people
As are companies
And all other human organisations
Your claim makes no sense at all
John Legere says:
…. Which is why government should set people free in order to let love flourish.” [Man]
Funny. I didn’t have you down as hippy, John.
Must have been reading you wrong. 🙂
I wasn’t familiar with the Chesterton quote. I like that.
Inspiring words, indeed! On a slightly different theme, may I also recommend listening to Redemption Song and reading the words of Marcus Garvey:
“The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man ….”
Very true
The theme of my walk this afternoon with my son who is currently absorbing philosophy like a blotting paper does ink
If we have a DOES of this we may end up neefing a DOES of that and who knows ..a DOES of something else as well.
” To err is human….” etc.
Oh well….corrected now
Like you I had other things to do during the Windsor extravaganza. However, having read that Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon was the hit of the day I later viewed it on YouTube.
There was something MontyPythonesque about the event. A passionate African American preaching the power of love, referencing MLK and slavery, against the backdrop of a chapel steeped in and adorned with military symbolism, and a groom wearing regimental uniform 🙂
I can live with all the paradoxes
And there were many
That is life….
Rich,thats fantasy island,especially to the 1% of people in front of him,what would most there know of any of it?
PS: To further lift one’s spirits (if required), this version of ‘What a Wonderful World’ from the excellent charity ‘Playing for Change’ cannot fail – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddLd0QRf7Vg. As the bishop emphasised, to realise the full force of love it’s necessary to go beyond romantic love and love one’s neighbour. By using different words the Greeks made it easier to understand the full meaning (not that they practised what they preached). The world ‘does’ need a massive ‘dose’ of Agape.
You can’t argue with the words, you just have to judge them by their actions. My headmaster used to say, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” Just before he caned me but he always gave the impression that he got a thrill out of it. While austerity continues and the rich get richer I’ll reserve judgment on any utterances made from on high. The truth is that The elite and their followers consider most of humanity to be a sub-species. It’s the only way to rationalise what is currently happening in this world.
dose
Indeed
Yes, love is unconditional.
Respect though has to be earned according to our dictionaries.
A sermon which exemplifies how people get so easily duped by nice words from good orators. The Greeks had academies full of them. Words are Power.
Give them words. They’ll lap them up, keep smiling, and carry on.
Make them dream with a fairy tale, they’ll go to sleep while we trump them.
It’s not the bishop, he may believe what he says.
It’s not the couple in love vowing to love forever.
It’s the whole use they make of it, those in the wings.
Never forget those in the wings, the planners and the plotters of the Power and the Glory.
Look what they did in the Lords while people were daydreaming.
Again and again.
Stay awake, imagine by all means, we need to, but stay awake.
To keep the dream alive you must not sleep.
They never sleep.
No paranoia here, just history.
Sure
I am a pragmatist as well as a dreamer
It’s a useful combination
Being both helps you to survive the onslaughts of reality.
I’ll take a dose of that!
Mark 12:31 “And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
Easy to say, difficult, near impossible to do. For this old curmudgeon, anyway.
But Corbyn seems to have the knack of it …
Interesting indeed. The Royal Family are not allowed to make direct political statements. However, the people they engage to speak at events such as this one certainly are. This bishop’s words must have been pre-approved, so they shed an interesting light on what the younger scions of the family might be thinking, in terms of politics. They certainly don’t seem to be into immigrant bashing and I don’t think they approve of grinding people into poverty, or leaving the EU. In some ways, they are better representatives of ordinary folk than the people we have elected to be.
In the not-so-distant past, the UK had a flourishing NHS, public-owned utilities and services, a safety net for the elderly, the sick or disabled, and the unemployed AT THE SAME TIME as the UK kept a Royal Family in the style to which they are accustomed.
I am not a royalist by any means, but I think focusing ire and hatred of the way things are at the moment on the present Royal Family–and, in particular this wedding–is a mistake. The Royal Family didn’t create the mess we’re in at the moment, although they certainly do have privilege. But it’s privilege we seem to accept and want them to have. The Tories, however, DID make the mess, with the collusion of other parties looking to their own advantage as well. And we keep electing these folks to office. At least in the rUK. (Things are different in Scotland, at least at the moment …long may THAT continue and improve.)
Pogo was right.
How the hell did this radical preacher get a visa?
🙂
I read your blog Richard to try & glean an understanding of all things tax & business, a lot still goes over my head a little attaches itself to my two mathematical brain cells (Dyscalculic)
What a delight to read what I thought of that sermon too and to top it off Louis Armstrongs what a wonderful world. If Christianity followed those words we would live in a better world without a doubt. Less worshipping money would bring about a happier healthier world too. Although I’d settle for decency in charge rather than monied ideologies.
Christians might do better when staring at Christ nailed to a cross to think this is more of a predation symbol than a redemption one!
Hmmmm
What I find interesting is that so many say he died to save sinners
Actually I agree with Michael Hudson that he appeared to be asking for the forgiveness of debt
The Abrahamic religions all forbid usury, and all ignore the prohibition. It ceased long ago to mean lending at interest and was, by laxity redefined, as lending at ‘unreasonably high’ rates of interest. A bit of slippage there, I think.
It’s odd how some slippage has been tolerated and some appears wholly unacceptable……
And that those most inclined to ignore one are most inclined to notice the other…..
I was thinking more of the Romans occupying Galilee and harshly putting down any sign of dissension from the spin they would have put out their occupation was legitimate or in the interests of the Jews but of course usury in the form of currency exchange and debt creation can be predatory too. Indeed there are many forms of predation including tribalism which ironically seems to stem from deep-seated instinctual insecurity in regard to predation from non-human creatures.
In reply to Andry Crow:
Don’t confuse religions with religious practitioners. They differ widely, interpret wildly, hence the deviations and numerous slippages…
While I agree 100% with the sentiment of your comment, on the first anniversary of the Manchester atrocity, we read of the most probable cause of the Grenfell disaster, the non-testing of the cladding used.
If the terrorism can be described as murder, why is not the corporate greed and indifference that led to Grenfell?
For what little it may be worth, my love to the friends and families of the 94 victims of hate.
I think corporate manslaughter does extend that far