James's Weblog

What's wrong with the world and how do we fix it?

My friend Neil Robbie, vicar of Holy Trinity West Bromwich, has written an advent lament, called "Broken". He takes a long hard look at modern Britain, that is both informed and compassionate, and asks the question: "What has gone wrong?", but also "What is the way back?" and "How do we fix it?"

I thought his analysis of the issues was spot on, and that his poetry is profoundly moving. So, with Neil's permission, I reproduce it here:

Blog Category:

Current Affairs

Opportunity for limited-time Coffee Subscription

I've recommended to several of my friends that they try the subscription service over at Has Bean Coffee. It's called In My Mug, and you can order to receive a different coffee every time - either weekly, fortnightly or monthly, over either a month, quarter, half-year or full year. The coffees are very different from one another, and are all absolutely first class (even if you prefer some to others), as you'd expect from HasBean and Stephen Leighton.

Blog Category:

Coffee

For Drupal 8, use Drush 8

Last week, to appropriate fanfares, Drupal 8 reached Release Candidate stage. That means Drupal 8 tagged releases now have an upgrade path between them, and it also means (very nearly) complete API / hook stability - which means this is the cue for some serious testing and development of contrib themes and modules.

However I made one schoolboy error: I was still using Drush 7.

It's actually quite an understandable mistake - all you had to do was follow the development of Drupal Next, and Drush, but not quite follow it closely enough.

Blog Category:

Drupal Planet

Getting SuperStart for Firefox to load in blank tab

This post is unlikely to interest any of my regular readers, but I'll post it here for the benefit of those who search for the solution to this exact problem.

Blog Category:

Technology

Time to stop using AVG Anti-Virus

I've never used it, but I know a lot of people who do. For years, AVG have offered a free anti-virus product. You have to put up with the fact that it will put a signature on the end of your email messages, letting the recipient know that AVG Free scanned the email for viruses.

They offered a "Pro" version that you had to pay for. It has extra features that the free version does not. It doesn't add a note to your incoming and outgoing email. Anecdotally, it may get virus signature updates faster.

Blog Category:

Consumer Awareness

Technology

Being a Christian is all about ...?

Question: Who said this?

Christianity isn't a list of rules to follow or a strict theological code. It is primarily about a relationship with a God whose character means that he seeks a relationship with you. The Bible is full to the brim of accounts of God seeking a relationship with people who fail, and are then rescued from that failure by the God who loves them despite the fact that they hardly love him back.

Blog Category:

Current Affairs

New songs

Psalm 33:3 says this:

Sing to him a new song; play skilfully, and shout for joy.

Note the three ingredients here of how we are instructed to sing to God.

Blog Category:

Psalms

New birth

God doesn't just need to patch us up, he gives us new birth and makes us brand new creatures.

Mounce quotes Chrysostom's fifth homily whilst commenting on Titus 3:5. Titus 3:5 says this:

Blog Category:

Timothy Titus

Forgiveness

My friend Steve Jeffery posted a short post on his minister's blog.

So short, it's hard to know which bit to quote.

And yet so wonderful, so true, and so necessary to be chewed over, that I think I'll just quote all of it.

I hope Steve doesn't mind - especially if I link to the original post where I got it from

Blog Category:

Old Testament

Living

Come and have breakfast

John, in his Gospel, loves the motifs of light and dark. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. When Judas slipped out of the last supper to betray Jesus, it was night.

John's account of the empty tomb records Mary Magdalene going to the tomb "while it was still dark".

This worries a few people, but it need not.

The worry is that Mark records 3 women going to the tomb "just after sunrise". He seems to want to highlight the fact that it was day time, so they could see where they were going and what they were witnessing.

Blog Category:

John

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