Just one more…

I can’t resist sharing this  – The Human Condition as Understood by the British over at Sigmund, Carl and Alfred. Then scroll down to the announcements made by London Tube drivers.

They are real. I’ve heard at least 5 of them, and variations on about 2 others. My personal favourite went along the lines of “this is not a magically expanding carriage.  Please stop trying to get on. There will be another train in 1 minute.”

It’s a nice change from the monotony of ‘Please mind the gap between the train and the platform’, ‘The next station is ***’ or ‘Please make sure you keep all your personal belongings with you’.

New Catholic Church website

The Catholic Church in England and Wales has a new website – Catholic Church. This is what the old site looked like, found via the Internet Archive.

Thoughts:

• I’m surprised that it appeared with little fanfare. I only came across it through publicity for the Catholic Parlimentary Internship Scheme.  
• It looks more professional than the old site.
• It is a central reference point for Catholic information in England and Wales, including the Bishop’s Conference, different dioceses(?), basic ‘What does it mean to be a Catholic?’ information, news etc
• It’s not so easy to navigate and find information. I liked the drop-down menus on the old site- I found it really easy to navigate and find the information I was looking for.
• I liked the links
• The dark blue on the new site seems a little overwheming. I like the graphics.

My most played tunes

Oh, I’m not sure what has been started!

In her comment below, Julie reminded me of the usual meaning of list – a series of items written or in a meaningful group. I guess some of my posts so far have been lists. But now, all I can think about are writing lists – what are my top five of this, what’s my favourite of that?

So in addition to the striving and being interested in, I think this will have to be another element to posting – lists.

I finally started using iTunes a couple of months ago. I was a little hesitant, because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to restrain myself from buying and downloading every song that I like/can play/has meaning. I’m relieved to say that I haven’t been on a crazy downloading spree. I’ve found it really useful, mainly because much of the music I like is outside the usual pop/rock, available-at-hmv variety.

So, as a intro to my musical tastes, here are my top 5 most played tunes on my iTunes:

1. From the Inside Out (57 plays)
   Album: Mighty to Save, Artist: Hilsong
2. 1 (55 plays)
   Album: An End has a Start, Artist: The Editors
3. The Funeral (54 plays)
   Firefly Original Television Soundtrack, Artist: Greg Edmonson
4. All these things I’ve done (49 plays)
   Album: Hot Fuss, Artist: The Killers
5. Cold, Haily Rainy Night (42 plays)
   Album & Artist (I think): The Imagined Village.

What calvary isn’t…

Just came across some notes I made about the homilies I heard over the weekend. I think this might be a favourite quote of all time and I felt compelled to share.

Calvary isn’t a football stadium, where we get carried away and join in.

The Parish Priest.

Easter 2008

Today I stumbled across Cardinal Cormac’s Easter homily. I think this is the homily that he preached at the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. If so, then it was used in the lead story on the BBC about the Church being against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill almost all of Sunday.

Let’s see…

For fifty days, not just today, Christians would celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord. Day by day they would sing the Easter Alleluia, again and again.

Wow! Today, with many people back at work, the grey weather and everything carrying on as normal … it’s really hard to know that it’s Easter Tuesday. The joy of the resurrection doesn’t go away, but it is hard to know this. Celebrating for fifty days – I find that really difficult to imagine.

But the Cardinal goes on to quote St. Augustine:

Today, let us sing, not in order to rejoice in the quiet but in order to find consolation in distress.

So we celebrate Easter for fifty days, not just to celebrate, but to console ourselves. Yes, life is hard, but by reminding ourselves of the Resurrection and the cause of our hope, that we have a future in Christ, I guess that this helps us to cope with the return to the ups and downs of our daily routine.

As I’m writing this, I think it sounds great, but… Do we continue to celebrate? Do I continue to celebrate?
Maybe the question I need to ask myself is what am I personally going to do to celebrate the fifty days of Easter?

In the resurrection of Jesus things get moving. Just as the stone was rolled away, so our fears can be rolled away: our fears for the Church, our fears for ourselves and our families, our fears of our weaknesses, our fears for our lack of faith. Today all our fears are allayed by a Love which conquers death and darkness.

I think this is exciting – things get can get moving now, things can change though the Resurrection, through the Love that God has for us. As I was reading this passage though, the song that popped into my head was

“Jesus is my rock and he rolls my blues away”

Should I be worried?

I don’t see anything controversial in this sermon, no obvious references to the Bill. Was the footage I saw of the Cardinal preaching merely footage to make the report more interesting, rather than a reference to anything specific? Maybe.

The Cardinal concludes with:

Yes, Jesus is with us, and he has given us His Mother in the Church where we can all find a home and the meaning and truth we need to live. Therefore we can rejoice and be glad. Christ is risen. Jesus is Lord. Alleluia.

What I read (online)

Before I compile a blogroll, I thought I should take the time to think and write a little about what I read online.

• Charlotte Was Both
  Amy Whelborn’s Open Book was the first Catholic blog I discovered and continued to read on a regular basis. At the time I was writing my dissertation on Information in the Catholic Church and Open Book was full of information about the Vatican and the wider Church. She now writes at Charlotte was Both – a really interesting read.
• Happy Catholic
  This is the blog that I just keep coming back to and really enjoy reading. I like the ecceletic mix – jokes, prayers, reflections, cartoons… all sorts of odds and ends, similar to life. Julie has a great list of links, again to all sorts of blogs and sites. And it’s happy
• The Hermeneutic of Continuity
  Fr. Tim Finigan’s blog was one of the first English Catholic blogs I found. I had been reading American Catholic blogs for ages and wishing that someone in the UK would do the same. Then a friend told me about Fr. Tim’s blog, which I think he had just started. It’s where I go to find out what’s going on in the English Catholic Church.

What else do I read online?

I check the BBC’s News website daily. I often check the Guardian’s Comment Is Free site. I’m not able to watch the news or read newspapers that often, and I find that if I skim this site, I’m aware of the “issues” occupying some people. And about once a week, I come across a piece that really makes me think. I use Wikipedia as a starting point for finding out information (which is probably obvious, given how many links I’ve made to Wikipedia).

There are others, which I’ll add as I get around to it.

What I read (offline)

I said that I read a bit. Actually, I chose this template because it had books on it. I like books. This is a snapshot of what I like to read

My favourite author is Diana Wynne Jones – not something I write lightly. My favourite books include A Sudden Wild Magic, Witch Week, Hexwood and Fire & Hemlock. I love that her stories are both strange and ordinary at the same time. I re-read books all the time, but when I’ve re-reading a Diana Wynne Jones, I am still surprised by the ending.

One of the first books I read when I decided that I needed to learn what it means to be Christian was Thomas Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation. I borrowed it from the Library and read it on the Tube every day for three weeks. When I went to America, one of the first things I did was to find a bookshop so I could buy a copy of my own (this was before his books became more widely available in the UK and I discovered Amazon). I re-read the chapter on Integrity frequently.

I’ve recently been reading Anne McCaffery’s Tower and the Hive Series (a guilty pleasure), To Be or To Have? by Erich Fromm and The Chanters of Tremaris trilogy by Kate Constable.

My current to read list includes Spe Salvi – Encyclical letter on Christian Hope by Pope Benedict, The Fall of Pubic Man by Richard Sennett and Catholics by Brain Moore.

The Passion on the BBC

I really enjoyed watching The Passion on the BBC over the last week or so.

Well, enjoyed isn’t really the right word. I really appreciated the series. It wasn’t perfect, but it portrayed people as people. It had some great lines in it too. My favourite from tonight’s episode:

We didn’t join Jesus to be wise

I laughed. How true this is.

I also got excited today when I got home from Mass. Not only was the Sunday service on the BBC celebrated by Archbishop Kelly from Liverpool Cathedral, but it was followed by the Urbi et Orbi!

The BBC gets a lot of flack for being anti-Catholic. I don’t know how true this is, but I’m really grateful that these three things were broadcast on BBC1 today.

Listing?

When I was thinking about beginning a blog, I thought for ages about what I could call it. All the blogs I like to read have really cool names – simple and funny, or with lots of meaning behind them.

So I thought and thought. I looked up my favourite bible passages, some of my favourite books and quotations… nothing fit.

I changed my mind. I don’t need a cool title. I need a title to express something about me, and what I am.

I turned to my journal. I’ve been writing a journal pretty consistently for about 10 years now. I use my journal to working out what I’m thinking, to pray, to write down something I read or hear that strikes me.

I’ve realised in the last month or so that I am actually a writer. I don’t mean this is a pretentious way. I simply mean, that I wake up in the morning, and I choose to write. If I need to pray, more often than not, I’ll write. If something good happens, I’ll write. If I’m struggling with something, I’ll write. If, for some reason, I don’t write for a day or two I become incoherent and unbalanced.

So I turned to my journal, to when I wrote about this. At the time I was reading To be or to have? by Erich Fromm, and I was really excited about it. Particularly a word new to me – list:

To list – to be actively striving for, to be genuinely interested in

I became even more excited. This is what I do.

I like listing. I like to be around other who are listing people. I become energised, alive, excited. Many of the positive experiences and positive growth experiences that I experience and that I watch others experience are when we are listing.

I chose Listing as the title of this blog because this is what I do. I list. I strive. I am interested (when I’m not tired or sleeping).

Hello world!

I read a bit. I write about what I read and subsequently think in a journal.

I’d like to try the writing bit in a different forum.

This is it. Let me know what you think.

Happy Easter.