Christian Community Christmas

Priests brawl in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity:  Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics in a turf war at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity.


Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the church in preparation for Orthodox Christmas, on 7 January.

Palestinian police armed with batons and shields broke up the clashes.

Groups of priests have clashed before in the church, built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.

"It was a trivial problem that... occurs every year," Bethlehem police Lt-Col Khaled al-Tamimi told Reuters.

"No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God," he said...

Full BBC story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16347418.

Superficiality

The Pope said we need to "see through the superficial glitter". Er...knowing the power of imagery, hasn't the Catholic Church used a fair bit of 'glitter' itself? See picture. They know how to sell themselves. Many other religions have done likewise - so lets cut through the superficial and look for the substance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16328245



Grow some fruit trees in your garden...give a tree as a Christmas present...

A few yrs ago I planted dwarf apple, cherry and fig trees in our back garden, to accompany the plum tree (a gift from my father in law) I planted nearly 20 yrs ago. The plum always produces loads of fruit and this yr we've had good amounts from the others too - for very little effort! Very happy to pass on this message I've received from Clare Hawtins of GROFUN:

Buy a Fruit Tree! Growing an apple, pear, plum or cherry tree is easy, requires very little work, little space and yields delicious home-grown fruit year after year. Why not treat yourself or someone else to a life long Christmas present?

Eastside Roots are taking orders now for deliveries in late January 2010. Trees are £15 and all profits go to Eastside Roots Community Garden Centre and support its ongoing work. Closing date for orders is 18/01/2010

Visit the website for easy and secure online ordering.
http://www.eastsideroots.org.uk/fruittreeorder09

_______________

Eastside Roots is on a mission… to encourage everyone in Bristol to grow a fruit tree in their garden, allotment, school or community space. They aim to improve access to fresh fruit, reduce food miles, increase biodiversity and turn Bristol into a ‘virtual orchard.’

Earlier this year saw the launch of this campaign with several hundred fruit trees being distributed to local residents who have joined the scheme. Eastside Roots continue this initiative in the hope that hundreds more trees will be planted across the city and more people can enjoy the benefits of growing their own.

Copenhagen Climate Summit and Cumbria...

Excellent guide to and commentary on the soon to be held Copenhagen Climate Summit here produced by Greenpeace. It shows that the current draft treaty has no agreement on the key issues: the level and timings of carbon emissions cuts; financing of measures to adapt to climate change, transfer clean technologies around the globe, help poorer countries cut emissions and protect their forests. It also shows that there is as yet no agreement on how best to protect forests, whose destruction causes between a fifth and a quarter of all climate change.

In short, all the hard issues and real problems are currently being ducked!! See this very useful Greenpeace guide to where various world leaders (so called!) are letting us down, here - this is a snippett of what it says about our PM Gordon Brown:

...He’s failed to embrace renewable energy and quit coal putting him at odds with his own advisors on climate change. And because of wrangling over finance with the rest of the EU, the UK hasn’t been able to offer more than words to developing nations.

Gordon - have you truly seen the flooding in Cumbria and the other very serious flooding events in recent yrs or have you merely looked at them? This from the BBC website:

Five million people in England and Wales are now at risk from flooding every year,

Two million homes have been built in the natural floodplain of rivers or the coast and are vulnerable to flooding,

Scientists predict that climate change may lead to more frequent flooding in the future,

Property, land and assets to the value of £214 billion are at risk of flooding in England and Wales,

Since 1998, 28 people have died as a direct result of flooding, including children. Thousands have suffered shock, trauma and devastating damage to their homes and possessions,

Many families have still not moved back into their homes following the 2000 floods,

Six inches of fast flowing water will knock you off your feet; four inches of water will ruin your carpet, and two feet of water will float your car.

See details of the Foresight Future Flooding report, by Sir David King and 60 top scientists, here.

Christmas with a lower impact

Even in this time of recession its likely that during Christmas billions of pounds will be spent on food, drink and presents in the UK. Waste levels rise by 20% at this time and include food, energy, wrapping paper, cards and of course Christmas trees. We can enjoy ourselves without abandoning green concerns however with a little prioritisation and organisation. The following wont transform us into a sustainable society of course but whilst campaigning for the required leadership, policies, institutions and decision-making processes continues, they are positive steps I think are worth taking now on cards, decorations, trees, wrapping presents, chocolate and turkey...!!

Billions of Christmas cards are sent every year, many not made of recycled card and many thrown out rather than recycled. You could send an e-card instead or watch out for cards made from recycled material or make your own cards from previous ones! Bristol is well set up for recycling card, so its easy for us to use this system.

Old colour newspapers and magazines can be used to make decorations like paper chains. Paint, glitter, card from boxes or old Christmas cards, glue and a bit of wool or string can be used to make tree decorations. These activities will keep kids happy and occupied doing a creative task that really involves them in Christmas. Far better this than buying sparkly decorations made in a far away sweat shop by child labour then flown thousands of miles across the globe.

Millions of Christmas trees are bought, often to be thrown out, each year. There is enough tree waste to fill the Albert Hall more than three times! The best thing you can do if you have a tree is buy one with roots - it can be planted out and used year on year. If you choose a tree without roots make sure you use the local schemes for turning used ones into mulch for parks and gardens.

You may not think of all that sticky-tape securing wrapping paper as plastic but it is. It wont rot and is single-use. String and wool are both more biodegradable and reusable and so are much the better option for securing wrapping paper. String/wool does not mess up the paper it secures and leaves it in a state where it, with a little care, can be retained and reused – close to ten thousand tonnes of paper is used to wrap UK presents every year. If you have paper that cant be reused put it out for recycling in your black box!

Hundreds of millions is spent on chocolate for Christmas. If you buy fair trade chocolate you will be supporting cocoa farmers, their families and communities much more. They get a fair price for their cocoa beans. Rights, pay and working conditions are much better under fair trade.

Ten million or more turkeys are eaten during the festive season in the UK. Millions of these birds are reared intensively in huge windowless buildings containing crowds of thousands. Selectively bred and anti-biotic treated for maximum growth these birds cannot express natural behaviours and cannot mate without human intervention. I’m just not hungry for this kind of food at all and its ecological footprint is very high. If you don’t want to avoid turkey at Christmas altogether its worth paying more for one reared to much higher animal welfare standards.


More information/ideas: http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=2024

Jeremy Clarkson talks yet more tripe!! Not really news is it.

That lovely man (!) Jeremy Clarkson features in my local paper's 'Quotes of the day' today as saying:

Please have a wonderful Christmas. Drink too much. Eat too much. Dont feel guilty about the presents you give or those that you receive. Care not about your carbon footprint or the impact of your naked consumerism. Be happy. And remember, you are having a much better time than Gordon Brown because he has no friends and you've lots.

The man is, in short, talking tripe (though I would admit he can often be entertaining, and the quote gives a useful summary of issues we should give a lot of thought to!). No wonder the Wikipedia entry on him has a quote saying that he is 'Not a man given to considered opinion.' !! Many of the posts on this blog point out the contradiction inherent in the above quote - our consumer society, well illustrated by what happens at Christmas, is certainly not making people happier, it is in fact making us more prone to depression, anxiety and addictions. We should be pursuing our needs rather than our wants if we are to secure our own wellbeing and that of the world. Clarkson should read clinical psychologist Oliver James' book Affluenza.

Who designed the designer? People made God not God people...

I found this piece in the local paper quite interesting. It seems (shock, horror!) that much about Christmas is made up and of often disputed origin. For me religion itself is likewise. Yes, there is certainly a challenge to explain life. It looks like it was ‘designed’, thus implying the existence of a designer (God). But who or what designed the designer?

The occurrence of life on Earth is highly improbable but the existence of a designer (God) very much more so. Even so, people like US President George W Bush favour the teaching of ‘intelligent design’ as a scientific theory competing with evolutionary theories. As with climate science Bush and his administration again cant tell what is and what is not accepted science, despite what the scientific community tell him.

Evolution by natural selection (championed very vigorously by people like Richard Dawkins) is a pretty good explanation of how complex life with the appearance of design developed stepwise from basic building blocks. Human explanation of the rest of the universe continues to develop and we are further improving our understanding of evolution.

People created God not God people. So, why have religion (it does seem to be everywhere) ? Looking at the world it does not seem to be doing a very good job of consoling people! Or of getting them to live good lives!

It wont win me votes but...I dont like Christmas!!

This may not win me many votes if/when I stand in an election again but I have to admit that I dont like Christmas !! Perhaps I have just a touch of Oliver Cromwell in me.

For a start it seems to begin earlier every year, with adverts galore and reminders of how many days we all have left to overspend in the shops! Any 'specialness' in the brief period that even I might find is immediately devalued.

It does not help of course that not only am I not a Christian but being a very firm sceptic I dont have any substantial belief that there is any kind of god(s) at all, including pagan ones, (the existence of he/she/it is extremely unlikely). Anyhow, its clear that a case can be made that much about the way we currently celebrate Christmas is nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity !!

Food and alcohol consumption go through the roof. Energy useage for lighting likewise. Excessive spending on goods of many sorts from all over the world too. Far from being happier people's behaviour often deteriorates. Christmas just does not seem to be about loving and giving but is all about more, more, more.