Leadership

Our Leaders

We may or may not be fans of Tony Blair's politics but surely we should be disturbed & dismayed by the way he has been treated by his own party, press & public over the past few months.



Yes our leaders must be accountable.

Yes our leaders must be communicating clearly.

Yes our leaders are to be public servants, but they should also be afforded respect & gratitude, & dare I say it, honoured.

We in the faith community, whatever faith that may be, should surely be praying for our political leaders much more than vilifying them?

Yes we are free to question them, disagree with them, not vote for them again, but surely we can do this in a faith-filled & Christlike fashion?

Gods Ipod

How about a little detour from the serious (though valuable) discussions of life & faith?

If you had the chance to sneak a peak at Gods Ipod (without his omnipresence of course), what do you think would be on there?

What would be recently played?
What would be playlisted?
What Podcasts would he subscribe to?
Would anything ever sound new to him?
Could he stand Bono? (Would he get a word in edgeways?)

Serious, sarcastic or sublime, give Graceland your suggestions for the GodPod & we may try putting the compilation CD together!

Prayer of Sir Francis Drake

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth, We have allowed our vision Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Searching for God Knows what

Just finished what I think was a very important piece of work from Donald "Blue like Jazz" Miller. Asked about "Searching for God knows what", Miller writes,

Essentially, I had begun to wonder if had misunderstood the gospel of Jesus, thinking of it in propositional terms rather than relational dynamics. The latter seemed too poetic to be true, but the former had been killing my soul for years and was simply illogical.
If we hold that Jesus wanted us to "believe" certain ideas or "do" certain things in order to be a Christian, we are holding to heresy., I finished the last paragraph and felt a kind of sickness at the thought of whether or not I was telling the truth. But after further consideration, and after rewriting the book, I realized the formulaic version of Christianity was irrational, and for that matter, unbiblical.

Try it for yourself and let Graceland know what you think?

Modern times

Dylan praises Springsteen


In an interview covering his new Modern times album, Bob Dylan gives Bruce Springsteen some praise .

The USA Today newspaper published yesterday an interview with Bob Dylan. The artist talks about his new and excellent new album Modern Times, comments on the current state of pop music and has time to praise Bruce with these words:

"The performers who changed my life were individuals," he says. "They didn't conform to any sense of reality but their own. The last performer who stood up to be counted as an original is Bruce Springsteen, I think. Individuals move me, not mobs. People with originality, whether it's Hector, Achilles, Ted Turner or Jerry Lee Lewis or Hank Williams."

Images of worship?

"Images of worship" Each of us wil hold in our minds, hearts and computers some images of worship which speak to us. If you have any that you'd wish to share, post them here along with why they connect with you.