Worth dieting for-

Never worth dying for, as Tim Marshall asks in "Worth dying for:- The power and Politics of Flags."  Dieting is the closest I would come to sacrifice for a flag.

But yes, in my primary years, I did collect flags.  I have a Taiwanese flag, and an Iranian flag, complete with a lion passant,  holding aloft a sabre.  I also requested a Leicestershire flag from Ruth a few birthdays ago (and am now the proud owner.).

I am a bit torn of course.  I'm not keen on 'nationalism' but I do like flags. 

What I enjoyed from Marshall's book.

The opening story describing the growing awareness in the middle of a sensitive, reconciliatory international football match between Serbia (hosts) and  Albania, that a drone was steadily lowering an Albanian flag down over the pitch.  The well mannered match was interrupted as a Serbian player plucked the offending flag from the sky, and moments later the match was abandoned in the mists of an almighty scuffle.

Neighbours often bring out the best and the worst.  It's interesting to notice that the flags of Albania and Montenegro look almost identical to the untutored eye.  The Albanians have a black double headed spread eagle, and the Montenegrins  have a golden double headed spread eagle.

Albania

Montenegro

The history of their flags is quite different, and the two countries know each other well, and have worked out how to relate, give the complex atmosphere.

The 'Stars and Stripes' has a very specific folding pattern. There is also a ritual burning ceremony involving different types of wood.   

The national anthem was written by Francis Scott Key, an American lawyer and poet, who was trying to negotiate the release of American prisoners during the 1814 conflict with the British.  This was the time the American declared war on the British.  While Key was on the desk of a British warship, he witnessed the massive bombardment by the British fleet of Fort McHenry.  As the dust settled, all eyes strained to see whether the fort was no more.  There, by dawn's early light, was the American flag, flying defiantly.  Apparently there is a bit of it still kept in the Smithsonian Museum.

Marshall notes the inherent inequalities in the British Union Jack.  He also discusses when the name Jack became in general usage for the land and sea flag.  (Originally a jack was a sea born flag.)
I has mussed before that there was a period between 1707, when under Queen Anne, the parliaments of England (with Wales) and Scotland were combined.  The union flag was created without the Irish component.  It was in 1801 that the Irish parliament was combined with Britain, so the union Jack dates back to this date.  When Ireland became independent in 1922, this might have again influenced the flag, given that Ulster has been a bit different since the year of Scottish and English immigration.

By the Czechs kept their flag when the Slovaks separated off.  People become attached to flags, much like names, when their origins are all confused.

The Austrian flag is said to be inspired by the removal of Duke Leopold V's belt revealed  a white strip over a blood splattered tunic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Austria  It became the national flag in 1918. 

The Danish are said to have the oldest flag, and Norway's flag dates back to 1821. 

The Iranians have a tulip on their flag, or Laleh.  The only national flag with a flower?  Well, there is Hong Kong, and what about Yorkshire?

Laleh, and 'God is Great'

The old 'royal' flag

Mexico's flag was a national flag was first produced in 1821, and is based on Aztec ideas.  Italy became a recognisable country in about 1851.  The Italian tricolor is based on the French tricolor, as is the Irish flag. 

Flag Families.
The Slaves have their favorite colours.  The Central America countries had an attempt at unity at one stage leaving them with very similar flags.
 The Arabs have 'arabic' colours that helps us know they are Arabic.
The many liberated African countries (and Jamaica) adopted Ethiopian colours to symbolise the true spirit of unadulterated Africa.  The Rastafarians have the old royal flag of Ethiopia, so it's not been lost. 

Rwanda upgrade their flag in 2001 as a response to the terrible gencide.  Many Nigerians think the founding fathers got it wrong (too boring).

The new Rwandan flag

The old flag

The South Africa flag was a stop gap, that has been embraced by the world. 

Wiphala is the flag of the original South Americans, and like the LGBT rainbow flag, is symbolic of peoples rather than a place. 

'Soft' Inheritance

Radio 4 Saturday Live - Discussion about what we inherit from our past - What about the 'soft' cultural inheritance? These are the things we don't even talk about.  Things that are picked up and used just because they come to mind and are useful. 

For example- Pastry cases-  In our family the technique is more like 'finger scissors.'

Close- but not 'finger scissors'

Middlemarch; almost Spring

Some quotes I have particularly enjoyed

Of Brother and sister- and flute playing

“I suppose you are not going to ride out today?”   Said Rosamond.  Lingering a little after her mamma was gone. 

“No why?”

“Papa says I may have the chestnut to ride now.”

“You can go tomorrow, if you like.  Only I am going to Stone Court, remember.”

“I want the ride so much, it is indifferent to me where we go.”  Rosamond really wished to go Stone Court, of all other places. 

“Oh, I say Rosy,” said Fred, as she was passing out of the room.  “If you are going to the piano, let me come and play some airs with you.”  

“Pray do not ask me this morning.”

“Why not this morning?”

“Really Fred, I wish you would leave off playing the flute.  A man looks very silly playing the flute.  And you play so out of tune.”

“When next any one makes love to you, Miss Rosamond, I will tell him how obliging you are.”

“Why should you expect me to oblige you by hearing you play the flute any more than I should expect you to oblige me by not playing it?”

“And why should you expect me to take you out riding?”

This question led to an adjustment, for Rosamond has set her mind on that particular ride.

So Fred was gratified with nearly an hour’s practice of ‘Ar hyd y nos’, ‘Ye banks and braes’, and other favourite airs from his ‘Instructor on the Flute’, a wheezy performance, into which he threw much ambition and an irrepressible hopefulness.

Of the male 'premiership' division versus the female 'championship'.

Why not? A man's mind- what there is of it - has always the advantage of being masculine - as the smallest birch-tree is of higher kind than the most soaring palm - and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality. Sir James might not have originated this estimate; but a kind Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition.

First impressions - and then after further examination.

Even with a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves making interpretations which turn out to be rather coarse; for whereas a weak lens you may seem to see a creature exhibiting an active voracity into which other smaller creatures actively play as if they were so many animated tax-pennies (magnetized coins), a stronger lens reveals to you certain tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these victims while the swallower waits passively at his receipt of custom. In this way, metaphorically speaking, a strong lens applied to Mrs Cadwallader's matchmaking will show a play of minute causes producing what may be called thought and speech vortices to bring her the sort of food she needed.

Lydgate gets a bit of a Shock
"I came because I could not live without trying to see you.  You are lonely; I love you; I want you to consent to be my wife: I will wait, but I want you to promise that you will marry me- no one else."

Laure looked at him in silence with a melancholy radiance from under her grand eyelids, until he was full of rapturous certainty, and knelt close to her knee.
"I will tell you something," she said, in her cooing way, keeping her arms folded.  "My foot really slipped."
"I know, I know," said Lydgate, deprecatingly.  "It was a fatal accident - a dreadful stroke of calamity that bound me to you the more."
Again Laure paused a little and then said, slowly, "I meant to do it."
Lydgate, strong man as he was, turned pale and trembled: moments seemed to pass before before he rose and stood at a distance from her.
"There was a secret, then," he said at last, even vehemently.  "he was brutal to you: you hated him."
"No! he wearied me; he was too fond: he would live in Paris, and not in my country; that was not agreeable to me."
"Great God" said Lydgate, in a groan of horror.  "And you planned to murder him?"
"I did not plan: it came to me in the play - I meant to do it."
Lydgate stood mute, and unconsciously pressed his hat on while he looked at her.  He saw this woman - the first to whom he had given his adoration - amid the throng of stupid criminals.
"You are a good young man, " she said.  "But I do not like husbands.  I will never have another."

Three Billboards

James and Rachel went to a preview of this film (Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri)  at the arts cinema in Cambridge.  They indicated with facial messages that it was worth seeing, thus giving away nothing.

Margaret, Liz and I went to the Phoenix.  "Ah - not here until next week."  With the help of mobile phones, found a screening at a cinema on the other side of town.

So without giving anything away- here are 'my thoughts'.

=>Our final interactions in relationships are important.  They seem to be intensified.  The mother is haunted by her final exchanges with her angry, impetuous, teenage daughter.

=>In this film the final words between the mother and daughter are tragic.  'Anger' floats in the house.  A violent relationship between the parents is eluded to.  Angry mother, angry children.

=>The root of this film is an exploration of the contradictory nature of violence.  'Violence begets violence' as the 'dumb' 19 year old girlfriend to the 'rebounding' father quotes (from a bookmark she once read).

=>The father was a wife beating police officer.  The priest is brought in to try to mollify the angry mother. She is quick and intelligent, and helps the priest understand that his behaviour is that of a bulling, hypocritical 'gang member'.

=>But have the police done everything they can?  Their racist, violent and homophobic reputation clouds this hope.

=>The three billboards are a memorial for a grieving mother, and eventually the community respects this.

The film's ending reminded me of a colleague in social services who on walking out of the Leicester County Court with a family who had not received justice, noticed them looking at each other and saying "it's over to us then."

Violence seems to be so much part of human and animal nature.  I think of the verses pointing to heaven where 'The lion and the lamb will lie down together'.  For the moment violence is are mysterious part of our equation of life.

Years ago I went with my DeMontfort thespians to see 'The Laramie Project' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laramie_Project. This was a play put constructed by Moises Kaufman from 100's of interview statements from the residents of Laramie, Wyoming, after the brutal murder of a young gay man from the town.  Every word of the play was a direct quote from these real residents.  The message of the play is 'we are all responsible'.  It went on to become one of the most performed plays in American history.

This film reminded me of this play.

Here is how I see the responsibility.

• Murder and rapist- responsible for his actions.
• Bystanders- people who observed the act.
• The people who sent the murder into war situations to be traumatised, and to witness the most hideous acts of human on human.
• The father who initiated acts of violence against his wife, thus weakening the bonds of security in his family.
• The Police Chief who needs to be trusted in his community.
• The system of checks and balances used to ensure that all public figures are held to account.
• The condoning of violence and discrimination in society that fosters anger and revenge.
• The weakness of support systems, including the Church, and complicity in reinforcing the 'Status Quo'.
• Luck, and good fortune, that has a bit part to play in life as a whole. (The unfolding of events.)

I think of my third law of social interaction-

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."  Where there is power, there is also misuse of power.  Our systems need to take this into account.  In the capitalist world the mechanism is 'competition'.  Current conservative principle attempt to apply this to our social world too.  I feel this is too unsophisticated.  We need to define a new system to ensure power is moderated and managed effectively.  It is known as the 'best, worst' system - democracy.

Three Non-negotiables of our Faith

I'm responding to my Pastors words on the 'non-negotiables of our faith'.

These are the only things necessary for shared doctrinal consensus.  These are:-
1) Jesus is the only way to a restored relationship with the Creator and life everlasting
2) The Bible is the inspired word of God - and an authority in matters of faith and doctrine.
3) A belief in the afterlife, where we choose to be with God or not (ie Heaven and Hell.)

Jesus
Different cultures refer to Jesus using different words. Jesu, Isa,
We have other names also such as Messiah, Messi, Lord, Christ, khudā 
The word 'God' is likely to have come to us from Germanic, or Norse religions.  Moses was taught in the Torah not  to give God a name.  God said "call me 'I am...."

For me Jesus is the nature of God that relates to us as humans.  Jesus was before the creation of time.  Jesus was there before anyone knew anything about the gospels.  Jesus is with the large sections of the world who have no real idea of who he is.  Jesus is for all the people who have inaccurate understandings and interpretations of him.  Jesus is the way to the Father, though some may not fully realise what he had to do to make 'a way out of no way'.

We are the fortunate few who have received the revelation.  Meeting with people who do not share a common language; listening to worship in other tongues; we know that we share something beyond words.  Conversely, sometimes we may enter a 'so called' church of God- and feel straightaway that we have no link with this place.  The language might seem right, but our faith is much deeper than language.  It's about loving Jesus.

The Bible.
I think of the bible as the collision of interstellar particles that create a planet.  The bits often do not seem to fit neatly together.  Some chunks we might might wish would conveniently fall off. Other bits are deeply embedded in our contemporary society, without many people realising.  Some verses make us frown and sigh, and worse...

I guess there are verses in every book in the bible that fill us with hope and inspiration.  Conversely, other verses produce bewilderment and out-right squeamish discomfort.  There are parts (yes, we remain loyal to the Torah) that we could now hold up as inciting crimes against humanity.  Some parts of the bible have been used for generations to justify terrible injustices such as slavery and other gross misuses of power.  How many people in history, caught in the act of 'sodomy' have been tried in court, and found guilty, and then thrown into the sea with a millstone round the neck? (As witnessed in 'The Miniaturist' by Jessie Burton).

There are many examples of biblical instruction that we have now conveniently reinterpreted to ensure that we do not end up breaking 'the law of the land'.  Much of the old testament law is very similar to Sharia law.  We hear Jesus saying that he is the fulfillment of the law, and what a relief that is. You have to read an awful lot of bible before you realise this.

Just a few objectional verses.  Gen 19:8 Lot offers his daughters to be raped to save his unknown guests.  Why not sons?  Deut 25:11-12 woman who fights to protect her husband and damages enemies genitals is to have her hand cut off. 2 Kings 2 Elisha is teased by children.  Bears comes along and kills them all, and this is OK? Genocides as commanded by God is recorded in Deut 20, Joshua, 1 Sam, Lev.  It's all very strange.  To our modern ears so much speaks of oppressive 'unchristian' and discriminatory approaches to life.  What about Lev 21 where only 'perfect male specimens can visit the 'Holy of Holys'.  Sounds fascist, (tempered by words in Lev. 19:14, which command protection to the vulnerable.)  I wonder what a modern synod of church leaders would make of the bible today if they, as in past synods, had the task of selecting what was in and what out?   https://www.biblica.com/resources/bible-faqs/how-were-the-books-of-the-bible-chosen/

My view is that we accept the bible as it is.  We start with the words of Jesus, and interpret everything else from this standpoint.  We are most interested in hear Gods voice for us today, and it probably best to just start with the Gospel of John (or Mark).

Heaven and Hell.
I like John Powell's point in his book 'A reason to live, a reason to die' when he say 'God never sends anyone to hell'.  God earnestly desires everyone one of His creation to be saved, like the one sheep from the ninety nine.  It is we ourselves who have gone astray.  All who desire their God, their creator, who seek after the meaning we are offered in life, will be saved by the grace of Jesus.  This goes for all people before the dawn of history, all people who have never heard the gospel,  all people.  The way I feel I might be able to understand this is to think about the nature of my longings for my own children. 

My role is to be open to God's spirit, though seeking to be and holy, thus avoiding the fog and din that obstructs, to hear what my part is, and to be able to see the working of the Creators will.

Tragic Libya

Hisham Matar, who largely grew up in Cairo, the US and the home counties, writes beautifully in his award winning book, 'The Return' about his tragic experience of having a father with too much character.  His father's life mirrored his grandfathers life, in that they both resisted tyranny.  For his grandfather, this was the Italian Fascists.  For Jaballa Hisham this was Gadaffi.

Hisham describes his interest in a damaged painting which is now in the National Gallery of the execution of the emperor Maximilian in 1864.  His own father is likely to have been murdered by the Gadaffi regime in about 1996.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Execution_of_Emperor_Maximilian

He notes that the history of Libya can fit into a slim pocket size book.  The vast majority of it written by oppressive occupying forces.  Are we surprised that oppressed nations find freedom so difficult to manage?  Like animals released into the wild after years in a zoo.

E Manet,  National Gallery London. All you can see of
Maximilian is his hand, griping that of his general.

Hope

Matar beautifully describes the long anguish of grasping onto hope.  Just as he begins to feel that he able to relax, and let go of the last few grains of hope, someone tells him that he has seen his father post- 1996 massacre.  I think of the grain as those used to grow a plates of wheat seen at the Nur Ruz festival.  Young green shoots, so vulnerable to scorching sun, or passing goats, as used to symbolise 'hope'. But how secure is our hope?

Matar goes on to say Certainty is better than Hope.  I am reminded of the verses at the end of Ecclesiastes that say "The Philosopher tried to find comforting words, but the words he wrote were honest." Good News Translation.

Attibuted to
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9699735