Hillsong

 Last night I caught up on watching a documentary on Hillsong church.  My colleague Marcus had mentioned watching it.  It followed the development of the brand, the mega church, the power and influence of the main pastor and his all white, mostly all male leaders through many nations.

It was very difficult to watch, in that I am middle aged, a follower of Jesus, and I was never, ever cool, one of the in crowd - I always felt an outsider at school.  When I was a teenager, I was part of a church that edged towards this level of control, power encounters with God, a family who led and still lead the church.  It didn't do much for my young faith except lead to one incredibly unwise decision that I wasn't equipped to make.

Occasional forays into a scaled down version of Hillsong would be the women's conferences held by my friend's church in Cheltenham racecourse.  With lights, big screens, smoke machine, powerful speakers, prayer ministry, and the gimmicky and expensive goodie bags and merchandising.  I felt uncomfortable, awkward, manipulated, yet I found it a memorable experience because my good friend loved it so much. It was time spent with her where she found God at work. That meant a lot to me.  

So I can see the appeal.

The young pastor, tattoed, with "fedora, leathers, skinnies and boots" the hillsong brand "starter kit" was incredibly passionate about living all out for Jesus.  It is so hard to question that, it is an attractive thing.  But the film did make me think - this is all about image, all about numbers, "insta" and selfies - particularly the selfies and filming at the holy sites in Jerusalem were awkward - other christians were lost in devotion, these cool young guys were like tourists with little understanding of their faith but so much enthusiasm. 

Despite all the abuse - a history of sexual abuse not reported, abuse of power, control, money irregularities, I felt conflicted.

Here is a church which gets young people committed to Christ, to reading the bible, to bringing their friends to church.  It provides a home and family for the lost and lonely, the city kids, the damaged.

It is smart, it is definitely somewhere you would not be ashamed of attending.  It has amazing music, quality drama, plaform speakers whose rhetoric is easy to digest.

And yet, and this is a criticism levelled at me, it seemed so far from the Jesus in the gospels. I know I hide my faith too often, I know it is isn't centre stage sometimes and these extrovert guys just want the world to know they love Jesus - what is not to like about that?

Like the young pastor, I pray I will have Jesus' integrity, his honour, his love and ability to sacrifice.  I just wonder if that is what my colleagues see, worked out day by day.

On middle aged reading

 This morning I met up with a friend for tea and cake.  We shared a lemon muffin chosen on the basis of eeny-meeny-miney-mo, or however it is actually spelt.  Sharp, sweet, light and very good but how you eat an entire one on your own I am not sure.

My friend loves books - we used to be in the same bookgroup.  She likes the kind of books where nothing happens but there is lots of meaningful dialogue and deep and intensely thought provoking ideas floating around.  I like thrillers, murder mysteries, nature books, history and straightforward biographies.  It is a good thing we are different, as it allows our ideas to cross-pollinate.

Currently I am reading Monty Don "My garden world" which is when my friends tells me I am becoming very middle aged.  She has a huge crush on Monty Don - I once tried to find her a calendar featuring him, but obviously I wasn't too successful. Firemen, footballers, nature scenes but not BBC2 style garden show presenters.  I tell her that I am a one woman weed destruction machine, having spent several hours clearing what friends jokingly call "Armegeddon" - a patch of nettles, thistles, grasses and the odd gnome and dog toy that ramps joyfully at the back of their equally generously built house.

I like the book.  He has a gentle countryman's style, and it is written as if it were a series of seasonal blogs, describing the flora and fauna in his extensive garden and Welsh hill farm. It feels soothing after a day of staring at screens.  Some of the plants I know, most I don't so it is slowly educating me.

As for the fauna - I loved reading that Pine Martens are more common these days. I remember my delight in seeing a stoat on the footpaths around Lee Abbey and the thought of seeing this beautiful little predator with it's neat creamy chest, compact ears and chocolatey back makes me very jealous indeed!

I enjoy his writing on birds the most.  Woodpeckers, sparrow hawks, cuckoos, garden birds.  Lots to enjoy.  It has been a busy few weeks.  I realised, today, sitting in the garden with a glass of rioja and a decent sausage casserole, that I hadn't had a spare Saturday for a while. Even going round Morrisons felt like normality.

Edward's demise

 There is a folk legend that King Edward 2 was murdered, unpleasantly, with a red hot poker inserted somewhere you don't even want to think of having such a thing.  Gruesome tales have a way of making a visit to a castle very exciting.  Maybe for small children but also for me.  Berkeley Castle is privately owned and I am sure that pre Covid it was a lot more fun to visit.  But restrictions meant that a lot of the attractions seemed to be closed.  The castle didn't seem to make much of the legend either - advising me, soberly, that he was probably smothered with a pillow.  Oh dear.

My temper hadn't been improved by being unceremoniously dumped on a small road by my Sat Nav, announcing "you have arrived at your destination"  Which I clearly hadn't. The castle is very straightforward to find if you use the road atlas!

 But it was a beautiful day, windy and bright, with a lovely view and plenty of wire sculptures to give a sense of atmosphere.  I really like sculpture.  The texture and that you can walk all round it. That you can imagine it being a living being.  Once I reached the kitchens I felt a little more amicable towards the castle.  Clearly the table and sinks were built for persons of short stature - as serving folk would surely have been in days when they probably weren't so well fed.  Being the granddaughter of a cook in service, I noted the fixtures were fine for a five foot lady but if you were much taller, you would have developed a very sore back from bending all day at the sink.

The cellar has a collection of vast casks and barrels and I think that this family would not have been short of a few well earned drinks!  On the whole it was a good place to visit, but I missed the very National Trust-y signs, guides and information