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Secret Manna
Sermon for Evensong on the Third Sunday of Easter, 22nd April 2018
Exodus 16:4-15; Revelation 2:12-17
Salvation. What is it to be 'saved'? After the glorious Easter story of Jesus' resurrection, it seems logical to move on from celebrating his, Jesus', triumph over death to his promise that we too will be 'saved', to a life after death. In the Book of Revelation, we find a vision of what that might look like. I'm often rather dismissive about heaven being a place above the clouds where you meet a kindly old man with a white beard. But actually the beginning of the Book of Revelation is one source of that quaint image of the divine. This is how the book begins.
I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; ….
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. … one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt … with a golden girdle.
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; … out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength [Rev. 1:10-14]
But even if it comes from the Bible, that picture of heaven is just a best effort to imagine something beyond the scope of human knowledge. There are rational objections to the idea of heaven being above the clouds – not least the evidence of the early astronauts, who didn't bump into angels or anything like that. The Book of Revelation is, I'm sure, spiritually inspired, but I don't think we're meant to take it literally.
But it's a vision of heaven, of what life after death might be like, the seven churches in Asia meeting Jesus the Judge Eternal, who decides what he likes and dislikes about them.
The church in Pergamum almost gets a clean bill of health. They are steadfast. They stood up to persecution, and one them, Antipas, became a martyr for the Gospel. But
'I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel'.
This is a reference to an episode in the story of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, in the Book of Numbers, chapter 22.
'And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho.
And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.
And Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many: and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel.
And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time.
He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me:
Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land' …
The story of the Exodus from Egypt and the entry into the Promised Land is a great one. Parting the waters of the Red Sea; annihilating the Amorites. And a constant theme is that the Israelites must keep their covenant, their contract, with God, so that He will protect them, will save them.
If you remember the story, the Israelites didn't really appreciate where they were going. They 'murmured' among themselves. They hadn't got enough to eat. Why did they leave Egypt? And Moses put their complaints in prayer to God, and God sent vast numbers of quails for them to eat. I'm not sure how they were presented, these quails. I've always imagined them arriving ready cooked, sort of chicken-in-the-basket. And then God sent manna, the divine bread.
What was it that the Judge Eternal thought was reprehensible about Balak and Balaam? You'll remember that Balak, king of the Moabites, wanted Balaam to curse the Israelites, to curse Jacob, because he thought that there were too many of them, too many likely to come in as immigrants. '
'Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me:
Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me'.
The Moabites didn't want immigrants to come into their country.
'[B]ehold, they cover the face of the earth', they said. Keep them out. Vote for Brexit. Maybe support UKIP.
Well, remember what the Judge Eternal felt. He was quite happy with the people from the church at Pergamum, except to the extent that they followed the
' …doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel'.
You'll remember the story of Balaam's donkey, who pulled up in awkward places because she could see an angel, holding a double-edged sword, blocking her path. But it was all right for the Israelites, who were refugees, to come in, to be immigrants.
It makes a difference whose point of view you adopt. If you're with the Israelites, you are entering the Promised Land – and you don't want to mix with the people whom you'll find there.
The people like the Amalekites and the Moabites, the Palestinians, are being turfed out, displaced, by the Israeli settlers. They not unnaturally don't want the Israelites to come in and displace them.
How difficult it is to find the right answers here! Are immigrants, asylum seekers, a good thing? Are they going to overwhelm the indigenous population?
'Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field.'
As they discovered with their encounter with the Amalekites, the Israelites were following a fierce, tough God. The fierce God wanted them to exterminate the Amalekites in their quest for Lebensraum in the Promised Land. So much for controlled immigration. You remember: God blamed Israel, because Israel had spared a few people, a few Amalekites. God was angry not because they had gone on a killing spree, but because they hadn't; they hadn't exterminated the Amalekites. [1 Samuel 15]
Nowadays surely we find that story strange, and challenging. Surely God would be merciful? But no, He is portrayed as wanting to kill every last Palestinian, or rather, Amalekite. It doesn't look right. It doesn't look fair. But it was the Promised Land. And they were rewarded with celestial food, manna from heaven.
There's an echo of that in the Book of Revelation. The churches who prove faithful, and don't fall for the temptations of illicit sex and other bad behaviour, will get the 'secret manna'. That must be "I am the bread of life' in St John's Gospel, chapter 6. Jesus is the bread of life. 'Feed on Him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving'.
So what about immigrants? Are you on the side of the Israelites, or of the Moabites – or even the poor old Amalekites? Are you running away from slavery, in Egypt – or Syria – or are you upholding a policy of 'creating a hostile environment' for immigrants?
As the shocking cases of the 'EMPIRE WINDRUSH migrants' show, creating a 'hostile environment' for immigrants is practically impossible to do in the way apparently intended here, to deter people who are not deemed to be 'worthy' immigrants. Unless you set up barriers which challenge all who seek to come in, it will be a lottery whether you catch the ones you want to. But if you set up that hostile barrier, you will obstruct many people who are perfectly legitimate. It also seems that the only class of people who have been consistently mistreated by the 'hostile environment' policy are black people.
There haven't been any dreadful miscarriages of justice involving white people who came over from Australia, or Canada, or South Africa 50 years ago, and never bothered to keep hundreds of documents just in case, 50 or even 70 years after they arrived, got jobs, paid taxes, and raised children here, somebody challenged them to prove they were entitled to be here. There don't seem to be any of those cases against white people.
The big irony here is that even today, the story of the Promised Land is still controversial. The Palestinians who lost their homes after the Balfour Declaration, and who have been pushed out even more by the foundation of the 'settlements' in modern Israel, can be excused for being negative about immigration. But people who stand up for them against the Zionists find themselves labelled as antisemitic.
What would Jesus do? Where is the salvation here? I think that to be 'saved' here doesn't just mean getting up there with the Son of Man with his white robe and snowy beard. It surely means also being 'saved' from being deported to a country you've never seen; it surely means also finding a better balance between today's Moabites in Palestine, worried about being overwhelmed by Zionist immigrants, and the people on the run from civil war in Syria, who so desperately need places of refuge.
Manna from heaven? Well, food for thought anyway.
Tags Brexit, EMPIRE WINDRUSH, hostile climate, immigration, Israeli settlements, Israelites, Jesus, Moses, Promised Land, racism, refugees, UKIP, white commonwealth, zionism
Apocalyptic Growth Strategy
Sermon for Mattins on the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity, 16th November 2015, at St Mary the Virgin, Stoke D'Abernon
Daniel 10:19-21, Revelation 4
At the end of St Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says to His disciples, 'Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.'
People are always telling us that we're doing rather a bad job of making disciples of all the world. Because in the UK at least, the churches are declining in numbers. According to statistics that I was reading, the Church of England is losing 1% of its members each year at present.
But Canon Giles Fraser in an article yesterday ['Loose Canon', The Guardian, 15th November 2014, http://gu.com/p/43bvq%5D pointed out that about a million people go to a Church of England church every week. That compares pretty well with quite a lot of other important organisations.
Compared with the total membership of the Conservative Party, which is 134,000, with the Labour Party, 190,000, and the LibDems at 44,000, as Giles Fraser says, if you add all the political parties together and even throw in UKIP, you still don't have half the number of people who go to church. He adds, 'More people go to church on a Sunday than go to Premier League stadiums on a Saturday.'
I bore that all in mind as I went to the St Andrew's PCC 'away-day' yesterday. This was set to consider a Church of England statistical study called 'From Anecdote to Evidence', [The Church Commissioners for England, 2014, http://www.churchgrowthresearch.org.uk ] which had identified all the various things which made for growing churches rather than declining ones.
Incidentally, you'll be very pleased to know that as far as I can see, St Mary's does have ingredients identified in the study for being a successful church. There's a emphasis on having young people and children (we've just had a great family service with nearly half those attending being kids or young parents); on having a clear mission and purpose; and on having strong leadership. I think that St Mary's does meet the criteria identified.
I was intrigued because this week, now at Mattins and tonight at Evensong, there are lessons from the Book of Revelation which offer a counterpoint to the Church statistical study.
This morning there's the vision of heaven – 'a voice which said to me, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.' This was a vision of a throne in heaven, and a figure on the throne surrounded by 24 elders – a vision of God.
And this evening, going backwards, the lesson is from the beginning of the Book of Revelation, introducing John's vision, John's 'apocalypse', as it's called. Αποκάλυψις, 'Apocalyse', is the Greek word for 'revelation' – lifting the veil, revealing what is hidden underneath.
I don't think that the Book of Revelation is meant to be taken literally, but it does contain a lot of powerful metaphorical images, covering a world which is way beyond our comprehension. We can't know what, in Revelation, is in any sense 'true', but I think we can agree that there's no reason why it shouldn't be as good a description as any other, more prosaic, description of a heavenly world there might be.
Revelation Chapters 2 and 3 – your homework before lunch today – contain the passage which I think is directly relevant to the question what makes a good, effective church. John reports that Christ appeared to him and instructed him to write letters to seven early churches. In each letter Christ, though John, identifies particular characteristics which marks out that church, and which distinguishes it in good and bad ways. It is a sort of early Ofsted report.
So the church at Ephesus is noted for its love; the church at Smyrna for being long-suffering; at Pergamum for not denying their faith; at Thyatira, there is love, faithfulness, good service and fortitude; at Philadelphia, he writes, 'Your strength, I know, is small, yet you have observed my commands and have not disowned my name.'
He lists their faults as well. He writes to the church at Sardis, 'though you have a name for being alive, you are dead. Wake up, and put some strength into what is left,..'; and to the church at Laodicea he writes, 'I know all your ways; you are neither hot nor cold. How I wish that you were either hot or cold!'
Those early churches, which had been started by St Paul or by others of the Apostles, were being assessed by Jesus Christ, through the mystic seer John, for various aspects of their faith. Were they keeping fast to the true faith, or were they in error?
There's not much about falling numbers – except perhaps the call to wake up at Sardis. There's not much organisation theory: what the proportion of young people in the congregation is, whether they are open to new ideas and new types of worship, whether they give new people responsibility for church activities. None of those techniques seem to have worried the earliest churches.
In the church research document 'From Anecdote to Evidence', the work is prefaced by St Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 3:6, 'I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow'. God made it grow. I can't help feeling that, certainly in the early history of the church, whether the church prospered or not had nothing much to do with the management skills of the early ministers.
The biggest break that the early church had, of course, was in the fourth century, when on the eve of the battle of the Milvian Bridge, the Roman emperor Constantine had a vision of Christ telling him to paint the sign of the cross on his soldiers' shields, and he would win the battle: and they did, and they won the victory. It doesn't sound a very Christian story; but there it is.
As a result, Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. All of a sudden, Christianity stopped being more or less a secret sect of small cell churches subject to persecution, and became the Catholic Church, the church throughout the world.
Huge growth; but nothing to do with management skills or growth strategies. If we look at where the church is growing in the world today – and Christianity is the fastest-growing religion of them all, today – in Africa, in South America, in China, in Russia – there is still huge growth: and I wonder what it is that is bringing that growth, at the same time as the Church of England is gently and gradually declining.
I think that a clue may be in today's lessons. You may say that the pictures of heaven and the pictures of the Almighty which are in the Book of Revelation are too far-fetched to be anything other than picturesque stories. 'Immediately I was in the spirit, and behold a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.'
And in the first chapter of Revelation, 'I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lamp-stands, and in the midst of the lamp-stands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; ..'
'Look, he is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him … "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty'.
Now we may well not believe that God is a man with a big white beard in heaven, (which is above the clouds). We may well decide that that is just a picturesque metaphor: but I think we do still find great significance in 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending'.
The point about an 'apocalypse', a revelation, an unveiling of ultimate truth, is that we are confronted by God. Perhaps the reason that our church here at home is not growing as fast as in the other places in the world is precisely because people's eyes are closed to God: they are not seeing the revelation; they don't see what its immediate importance could be.
Many people, I think, would agree that there is a God, in the sense that there is somebody or something which made the world, a creator. But a lot of people, I think, today, don't give it much more thought than that. Perhaps people no longer really worry about the story of Jesus Christ. They rule out the possibility of His resurrection from the dead.
People in England are conveniently blind to the way in which, in many other places in the world, the Good News of Jesus, the story of His life, death and resurrection, still has legs, still has huge power, because it is an indication that the God which Revelation portrays, the God, the Lamb on the throne of heaven, (however picturesque these images are) still has power, has significance, today.
These revelations are revelations that God does care for us. The fact of Jesus, the fact of His time with us, is in itself a revelation, it is an uncovering of the deepest truth.
Perhaps these days you need to be 'strangely warmed', like John Wesley, or to be 'born again' at a Billy Graham meeting. Perhaps not: but once you have 'got it', once you have realised what the revelation of Jesus Christ is, then your life will be changed, and there will be no danger that you will drift away from the church.
Let us pray that we will all be given that revelation: that in the church, those of us who are tasked with preaching and evangelism – as John in Revelation puts it, those of us who are 'in the Spirit' – surrounded by the Holy Spirit – let us pray that we will be able to bring a vision of heaven, a vision of the Son of Man, the Son of Man who was at the same time the Son of God, into our lives, so that we can no longer just take Him or leave Him.
Tags 1 Corinthians 3, africa, apocalypse, Apollos, china, church growth, Church of England, Conservative Party, constantine, early churches, ephesus, from anecdote to evidence, Giles Fraser, αποκαλυψις, jesus christ, john of patmos, labour party, laodicea, libdem party, loose canon, milvian bridge, pergamum, philadelphia, premier league, revelation, Russia, sardis, south america, truth, UKIP
Farewells: who did the Washing-Up?
Sermon for Evensong on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, 1st June 2014
2 Sam 23:1-5, Eph.1:15-23
First we heard the last words of King David, and then St Paul's prayer for the Christians at Ephesus. The context is the Ascension, which the church celebrated on Thursday. Leave-taking. The end of the party. I wonder who did the washing-up. When the disciples – and certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus as well as his brothers, when they were all together after Jesus had left them and a cloud had taken Him out of their sight, when it was over, when the 'farewell tour', Jesus Christ Superstar, had come to the end of its run: what do you think they all did?
They went back to the upstairs room and said prayers. And maybe they got busy doing the washing up. Because they must have been feeling very flat. We know that when Jesus had been crucified, if we think of the story of the disciples on the way to Emmaus, they were very sad then, when they thought that Jesus had been taken away from them.
So I think we can reasonably expect that they were also feeling very flat and very sad when Jesus had been taken away from them the second time, when He had ascended into heaven. Whitsuntide, Pentecost, had not yet come, although Jesus had assured them, 'You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth' (Acts 1:8). But that hadn't happened yet.
It must have been very difficult, after all the momentous things that had happened. After the roller-coaster ride of following Jesus, suddenly He wasn't there any more. In the church, we have commemorated that roller-coaster ride, through the Easter season, though the time of Jesus' passion, and suffering, Good Friday; and then the glorious Resurrection on Easter Sunday; and then His risen appearances, the road to Emmaus, doubting Thomas: all the wonderful stories of the risen Christ.
It is a revelation to us, a sure and certain hope that we have, because of God's presence with us, His gift of His only Son and His Resurrection from the dead. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Paul prays that God will give them 'a spirit of wisdom and revelation as they come to know Him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance among the saints.'(Eph.1:17)
If you are a Christian, if you go to church, this is a wonderful time of year: the Easter season. It is a time of hope and joy. But in the world outside, there is a sense of challenge. Not everyone is a Christian. Not everyone is aware of, let alone believes in, the wonderful story of Jesus. The Boko Haram people who have kidnapped 200 children, 200 girls, in Nigeria, are actively opposed to the Christian message. They want forcibly to convert people to Islam – forgetting perhaps that the god of Islam is very like the God of Israel and the God of the Christians – and certainly forgetting that God is a god of love.
Also in the world outside, we had an election. Some of you may have heard of my huge success in the Cobham Fairmile Ward election. It was a massive success, honestly: despite representing the Labour Party, I managed to poll in double figures! St Mary's has much more successful politicians – congratulations to James Vickers!
After the elections, the press and the BBC are talking about the phenomenon of UKIP and what they stand for. It seems that a major part of UKIP's message is that they are opposed to large-scale immigration and they are opposed to our membership of the EU, perhaps because they see the EU as being a major cause of the immigration which they don't like.
And then there's the controversy which has grown up concerning the new book by the French economist Thomas Piketty, called 'Capital in the 21st Century', which is all about the widening gap between the rich and the poor worldwide. Prof Piketty offers, at the end of his 573-page tome, some suggested alternatives to the economic policies which are being pursued in all the leading economies. But a Financial Times journalist, Chris Giles, has argued that Prof Piketty's figures are wrong. If you put more than one economist in a room, they will inevitably disagree! I see that Ed Miliband confessed that he'd only just started reading Thomas Piketty. I have got to page 51.
It does all seem quite a long way away from the world of Easter, from the Resurrection and the Ascension: from the hopeful question from the disciples to Jesus just before He was taken from them, 'Lord, is this the time when you are to establish again the sovereignty of Israel?' (Acts 1:6 – NEB), a long way from all that, to the rather gloomy fact that only a minority of people cared enough about the way they are governed, even to cast a vote.
There does seem to be a big gap at the moment, between our church lives and the world outside. It's all very well St Paul saying in his Letter to the Galatians that 'the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness and self-control'. (Gal. 5:22f), but how is that relevant to UKIP and to the world of macroeconomic theory?
What we are not hearing, in all this ferment of debate, is a Christian voice. What about immigrants? A politician says he couldn't hear any English spoken in his carriage on the Tube. An election flyer says that there is some impossible number of East Europeans just waiting to come to the UK, take our jobs and claim all our benefits. Someone else points out, against this, that the NHS would collapse without doctors and nurses from abroad. Another expert points out that immigrants contribute more in taxes than they receive in benefits, and that fees from foreign students are vital to the survival of our universities.
But – and perhaps I haven't been reading the right paper or listening to the right station on the wireless – I don't recall anyone bringing the Bible into it, which they could have done. In the Old Testament, it's a fundamental point of the Jewish Law that you must look after strangers, aliens, foreigners – in Deut. 10:19, Moses says that God 'loves the alien who lives among you, giving him food and clothing. You too must love the alien, for you once lived as aliens in Egypt.' In Jesus' staggering picture of the Last Judgment in Matt. 25, He says that the righteous shall 'enter and possess the kingdom' because '… when I was hungry, you gave me food; when thirsty, you gave me drink; when I was a stranger you took me into your home …' When the righteous didn't get it, and queried when they had done this, Jesus said, 'I tell you this: anything you did for one of my brothers here, however humble, you did for me.'
Jesus didn't blame people for being poor. He didn't think there was anything wrong with being a refugee. His ancestors, the Jewish people, had all been refugees. He didn't talk about benefit cheats and scroungers. He didn't talk about corporate tax avoidance – although he did say, 'Render … unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's'. Maybe that is a good message for Starbucks, Vodafone and Google.
What about the widening gap between rich and poor, which Thomas Piketty has written about? Are the only things, which can be said, 'It's the market', and 'There is no alternative?' If the government gives a tax cut to the highest earners, (which one commentator said was enough for them to go out and buy a Porsche with), at the same time as over 1 million people have had to go to a food bank to avoid starvation – and by the way, that includes 307 people in Cobham and Stoke D'Abernon who have used the Foodbank since we opened five months ago – if there is that seeming bias towards the rich, what is the Christian way to look at it?
Perhaps the answer is in the Magnificat, the song of Mary, the mother of God:
He hath put down the mighty from their seat:
And hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things:
And the rich he hath sent empty away. [Luke 1:46-55]
You might also remember what Jesus said about camels and the eye of a needle. [Matt.19:24]
But Jesus has been taken away from us. He has disappeared behind a cloud. Disappeared behind a cloud, a cloud of modern stuff. But, you might say, things were much more simple in Jesus' day. There weren't any benefit cheats. There weren't any Romanians using the EU as a way to come and steal our jobs. You just can't compare how it was then with the situation these days.
I think we should think carefully about it. I know that, in this week in the church's year, you might argue that Jesus has ascended, and the Holy Spirit is coming – Jesus told his disciples to expect it, in Acts chapter 1 – but it doesn't arrive till next Sunday. If it looks as though our world is rather godless, that fits with Jesus having left us, with the Ascension time.
But in this world, in our day to day lives, of course the Holy Spirit is here. The Lord is here. His Spirit is with us. So why does it look as though we are we ignoring Him? Is it OK not to want strangers? Is it OK that the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer?
As Christians, what do we think? Have I chosen my Bible references too selectively? Or is it more a question that the world today is more complicated than it was in Jesus' time, and that some of Jesus' sayings are out of date these days?
Or have we Christians really got something very distinctive to say, which doesn't necessarily fit in with conventional wisdom? I'd be interested to hear what your thoughts are.
Tags acts, ascension, BBC, boko haram, caesar, Christians, cobham fairmile, Deuteronomy, doscles, Doubting Thomas, Easter, Emmaus, ephesus, Evensong, farewells, galatians, good friday, google, Holy Spirit, immigrants, islam, Israel, james vickers, jesus christ, Jewish Law, king david, labour party, luke, Magnificat, mary, Moses, nhs, Nigeria, pentecost, piketty, porsche, Resurrection, revelation, saints, St Paul, starbucks, Stoke D'Abernon, sunday, superstar, tax avoidance, UKIP, universities, vodafone, whitsuntide, women
What it is to be a King
Sermon for Evensong at St Mary's on the Sunday before Advent, 24th November 2013
1 Samuel 8:1-20, John 18:33-37 – What it is to be a King
'He will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.' Confectionaries – from our first lesson, from the First Book of Samuel. I love the idea of one's daughters being makers of confectionery, sweeties; Yum Yum.
But we're not talking about the Mikado, but rather, about kings. This is the Sunday next before Advent, when we also celebrate Christ the King, so our hymns are all about crowns and kingship, and the second lesson has Pontius Pilate asking Jesus whether He is a king.
The relevance of this is in the very interesting conversation which Samuel the old prophet has with the elders of Israel, about the best form of government. At that stage in their early history, the tribes of Israel did not have an overall leader, a king. They just had their tribal elders, and they had judges. The judges did what judges do today. 'Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life, and he went from year to year in circuit, to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and judged Israel in all those places'. [1 Samuel 7:15f]
When Samuel got old, he appointed his two sons as judges under him. This is a forerunner of what we understand as the rule of law. Moses had received the law: the prophets and the judges who came after him interpreted the law and prayed directly to the Lord.
So in this discussion between the elders of Israel and Samuel, all sorts of things come up, which are still directly relevant and very topical today. You will remember the interview that the comedian Russell Brand had with Jeremy Paxman recently, when he said that he didn't think there was any point in voting. There's a lot of disillusionment with politics today.
It's interesting to look at the list of things which Samuel brings up for discussion in this context. 'You are old, and your sons do not follow in your way'. The sons were corrupt: they 'turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgement.' So the elders said, 'We don't want the judges any more to create policy for us: we need a king.' I think they were proposing something like what Bismarck arranged in Germany and what Garibaldi arranged in Italy – and perhaps what the Romans did in relation to the city states of the Greeks.
Whereas in the time of Moses, the nation of Israel was made up of the 12 tribes, and there was no overall leadership, now Samuel is being asked to appoint a king, who will oversee all of them together, so that collectively they can be stronger.
Notice that there's no discussion of democracy. Democracy came pretty late. It's usually said that it started in classical Athens around 500BC, whereas this discussion with Samuel took place before 1,000BC. Interestingly, the ancient authors were not particularly enthusiastic about democracy. They thought it had tendencies to be populist, rabble-rousing rather than a wise way of governing.
So here the difference was between having a king, a monarchy, an absolute monarchy, and continuing in their small tribal units. The Lord told Samuel that the Israelites had rejected Him, the Lord; even though He had saved them from the Egyptians, they had turned aside and worshipped other gods.
Just as these ancient Israelites didn't know about democracy, we don't really know about theocracy; theocracy, which is, being governed by God. In the ancient world, nobody would do anything serious without consulting an oracle, or in the Jewish tradition, without consulting a prophet, to find out what the will of God was: whether in fact the proposed course of action was what God wanted.
The Lord accepted that the people of Israel were not going to continue to come to the tabernacle and worship in the old-fashioned way. The people of Israel were rejecting the idea of trying to discern the will of God as their main method of government. They simply wanted a king.
Today we in the west try to keep a separation between matters of religion and matters of politics or government, although the line does get blurred. In France they are very keen on saying that they have a secular state – but the state pays for the upkeep of the churches. In this country, of course, the Church of England is the 'established' church, the state church, and the Queen is the head of the church, so church and state are very much bound together.
God tells Samuel to warn the elders of Israel about all the things that could go wrong if they had a king over them. This is where 'making your daughters to be confectionaries' comes in. More seriously, he will 'appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties … He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and olive orchards, and give them to his courtiers. He will take one tenth of your grain, and of your vineyards, and give it to his officers and his courtiers.' The King would lord it over the people.
Now we have Russell Brand and Jeremy Paxman agreeing with each other to turn their backs on politics. I wonder if there could be the same sort of conversation if we had a prophet today, or if Jesus himself came among us and saw how we were getting on. Would the rulers of the world today, and in particular our rulers, be guilty of any of the things that Samuel was warning about? Or does democracy tend to rule out the worst excesses of an absolute monarch? Did King John at Runnymede get it right in Magna Carta, with the separation of the powers?
With the movement to have independence in Scotland and the popularity of UKIP, wanting to pull us out of the European Union, are we yearning for an era where we were like the tribes of Israel, small, standing by themselves with no overall king?
Remember that what was wrong with the Israelites at that point was that they had forgotten that they did have a King in heaven, that God was their King, and that they were supposed to worship the one true God alone. They had forgotten that, and they were worshipping all sorts of other gods who were not real.
So then we come to Pontius Pilate's famous dialogue with Jesus.
'So you are a king?' 'Art thou a king then?
'Thou sayest that I am a king'. You say that I am a king.
Jesus points out that if He were the sort of king that Pontius Pilate had in mind, then his followers would be fighting for Him, to stop Him from being handed over to the Jews. Instead of which, of course, His followers had melted away: none more so than St Peter.
I wonder if Prince Charles is thinking about all this. Or Prince William, indeed. What is it to be a king today? Perhaps it's sensible for anyone who is going to be in government, in any way, to think about all the reflections which these passages produce.
The government has a balance of power with the rule of law, the judges. It's important that judges should not be corrupt. It's important that the rulers shouldn't oppress the people – take their sons and put them in the Army, forcing them to fight wars. Will the government take your daughters to be confectionaries?
What is the right tax rate? One tenth of your grain and in your vineyards to go to the civil service. The best products that you make, the Rolls-Royces, the Jaguars, pressed into government service. 'In that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.'
Do we think that Russell Brand was being somewhat prophetic, and that perhaps the original conversation between God and Samuel is the one to listen to – that the best way of government is a government that listens to God and forsakes all other gods?
As Jesus said, 'For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.' Let's hope that our leaders will listen too.
Tags Athens, Church of England, confectionaries, Democracy, European Union, France, Israel, Jesus, judges, King, Moses, rule of law, Samuel, tax, UKIP


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Загитов () — татарская фамилия.

Известные носители
 Загитов, Газий (Газетдин) Казыханович (1921—1953) — водрузивший Красное Знамя над зданием рейхстага в Берлине.
 Загитов, Ильназ Насихович (род. 1976) — российский хоккеист.
 Загитов, Раус Хабирович (род. 1948) — советский и российский актёр.

 Загитова, Алина Ильназовна (род. 2002) — российская фигуристка.

См. также

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CONFERENCE: 'READY FOR ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING 2018!'
Previous eventNext event
Wednesday 10 October 2018 13:30
What: Conference 'Ready for Additive Manufacturing 2018'
When: October 10th 13.30h till 18.30h.
Location: Campus building Spiegel, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 NB, Enschede.
Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a game-changing technology that is rapidly moving from its early applications in prototyping to become increasingly integrated into mainstream production processes. It is attracting great attention in a wide range of industries including aerospace, medical, energy, electrical goods, automotive, and many more. AM is particularly useful in enabling tool-less production for products that require small batches, complex geometries, custom-fit designs, digital spare parts and other niche features.
However, this is a technology that is evolving fast. How are we to keep track of the latest developments and determine what is the right technology to use and how to implement into our existing manufacturing systems?
"Ready for Additive Manufacturing 2018" has invited prominent experts and industry representatives to talk about new trends and challenges in this fascinating field.
13.30 Opening of the exhibition floor.
14.00 Words of welcome by dr. Biba Visnjicki.
Keynotespeakers
14.10 Ian Gibson, Scientific Director FPC @UT, The Netherlands.
14.50 Güngör Kara, Chief Digital Officer, EOS, Germany.
15.30 Break at the exhibition floor.
16.00 Kristian Arntz, Managing Director ACAM, Germany.
16.30 Renko Overmeen, Director Programs Aeronamic, The Netherlands.
17.00 Tobias Stengel, Sales Executive,MBFZ Toolcraft, Germany.
17.30 Panel discussion with Industry- future of Additive Manufacturing
and speed of integration into the manufacturing processes.
(Moderated by Chris Willemsen, Oost NL)
18.15 Closing and wrap up by dr. Biba Visnjicki.
18.30 Networking drink.
prof. Ian Gibson, Scientific director FPC@UT, the Netherlands
Ian Gibson is Professor of Design Engineering and Scientific Director for the Fraunhofer Project Center at the University of Twente, The Netherlands. He has previously held positions in the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia. He still holds a visiting professorial position at Deakin University and is working to establish a strong connection between Deakin and the University of Twente . He is probably best known for helping establish the Rapid Prototyping Journal and co-authoring the book "Additive Manufacturing" by Springer. He has been working in the field of AM for more than 20 years and one of his primary interests is medical modelling
Abstract presentation
The Eastern Netherlands region is a predominantly rural area that has largely escaped the hype around Additive Manufacturing. At the centre of this region is University of Technology Twente, which has partnered with Fraunhofer to provide support for local industry in this and related technologies. The Fraunhofer Project Centre (FPC) at UT Twente has already realised that there is a demand for this knowledge in the region and an awareness that local industry needs to understand how to accelerate its capabilities to meet the demands of Industry 4.0 and beyond. This presentation will explain how the FPC was formed and how it is helping in this process.
Güngör Kara, Chief Digital Officer at EOS, Germany
Güngör Kara is a highly skilled expert in the field of industrial 3D Printing, innovation and operational excellence. In his role as Director of Global Application and Consulting he heads the global activities of the application and consulting department at EOS, the worldwide technology and quality leader for powder-based, industrial 3D Printing.
He has deep insights into current developments of Additive Manufacturing in multi-national enterprises and innovative start-ups and supports them to the degree they need it.
Mr. Kara has started his career at Philipp Morris as a Project Engineer and moved to Management and Operations Consulting where he had add more than 17 years of professional experience as an executive consultant – mostly at A.T. Kearney – in the field of operational excellence, innovation and business development.
Title: "The double disruptive forces of industrial 3D-printing"
Abstract: "Industrial 3D-Printing has graduated from the niches of prototyping to industrial small serial production. The limitations of conventional manufacturing are so deeply ingrained in our thinking, they have virtually taken on the role of principle laws and leveraging AM design principles in product innovation requires a mind shift – a radically new way of even imagining solutions. Digital Manufacturing is opening access to transparent digital twins of part production, manufacturing processes and the life-time monitoring of 3D-printed parts.
The outcome and lessons learned of an optimized production chain with the AM Technology and the radical combination, and a real-life example of two different industries which have summarized their demand into one production facility will be shown during the presentation. Mr. Kara will highlight how micro-trends will lead to macro-trends and how innovative AM parts and high Digital factories will create double disruptive forces. We believe the next years will determine the industrial Champions of the decades to come and that AM transformation is all about transforming people into the Digital Manufacturing era."
Dr. Kristian Arntz, Managing Director ACAM, Germany
Kristian Arntz studied mechanical engineering and materials technology at the Technical University RWTH Aachen majoring in production technology. In his PhD thesis he developed a process model for "Multi axis hard milling of tempered high speed steel". He worked as scientist in the Process Technology Department at the Fraunhofer IPT from 2003 to 2009, concentrating on HSC-, micro- and hard milling technology for tool and die making. In 2005 he became head of the business unit "tool and die making" offering research and consulting for companies in that area which today is one of the most recognized institutions for mold and die making research in Europe. Since April 2009, Mr. Arntz has been chief engineer of the department "laser machining" at the Fraunhofer IPT which develops and qualifies efficient manufacturing processes to use laser beam technologies in industrial value chains.
He is Technical Director and Associate of the WBA Aachener Werkzeugbau Akademie, founded in 2010. This company offers consulting, services and education for tool and die making.
Since 2015 Dr. Arntz is Managing Director of the ACAM Aachen Center for Additive Manufacturing GmbH. ACAM offers Research and Development, Services and further education all around Additive Manufacturing in an industrial partner network.
Advanced Manufacturing with 3D printing - Process chains of tomorrow
The industry is experiencing a strong shift towards industrial processes, standards and the application of latest technologies in the past years. It is now important to perform the next step towards the digitalization of all processes and the availability of data resources along the process chain. Additive Manufacturing on the other hand as well becomes an industrial technology. What started as a rapid prototyping technology then became a media and hobby manufacturers hype finally approaches the factories of the world. While processes, material availability and productivity are getting adult, a crucial lack remains unsolved: realizing integrated IT infrastructures in order to bring together conventional and additive manufacturing – this is especially valid when applying Additive Manufacturing for industrial applications. The presentation will showcase actual developments and applications of AM, "Industrie 4.0" and integrated process chains following the idea of "Connected, Adaptive Production".
Renko Overmeen, Director Programs Aeronamic, the Netherlands
Renko Overmeen studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Twente, majoring Applied Mechanics. Mr. Overmeen started his career at Fokker Space, working on the design and vibration analysis of solar arrays for spacecraft. He continued his career at Urenco Aerospace and Enrichment technology in several technical and management roles before joining Aeronamic in 2011 in the function of Director Programs. In this role, Mr. Overmeen is responsible for the execution and management of the commercial aviation contracts with Honeywell comprising OEM production and Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) as well as optimization of current business. Innovation, Lean Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management are key elements to drive improvements. Based on market developments and customer activity, Aeronamic in its role as a Tier 2 supplier recognizes the need to develop AM capabilities for new business opportunities. In 2017, Mr. Overmeen was assigned to raise a Pilot Plant and lead the AM Project "3D2SKY" partnering with the Fraunhofer Project Center.
The aerospace industry is an early adopter of Additive Manufacturing (AM) and began to explore applications soon after the technology was commercialized. Just recently, Aeronamic's customers started to define their strategy organizing their supply chain around additive manufacturing. Solutions ranging from in house production up to fully outsourced production are being considered.
Positioned as a Tier 2 supplier and being highly vertically integrated, Aeronamic recognized the need to develop Additive Manufacturing production capabilities for its value chain.
In 2017, partnering with Fraunhofer Project Center @ UT, the project 3D2SKY was kicked off aiming at certifiable AM production comprising a pilot plant. The presentation provides an overview of achievements so far and challenges ahead supplemented with actual cases. In addition to metallurgical investigation and in order to be cost effective, the requirements of rigorous and consistent production quality control trigger the need for applying novel tools such as simulation and in process monitoring.
Tobias Stengel, Sales Executive MBFZ Toolcraft, Germany
Tobias Stengel completed a dual course of study with a stay in Scotland and absolved a technical trainee program.
Mr. Stengel is responsible for the sales department for in total 7 business units at MBFZ Toolcraft GmbH. The know-how is focused on the whole additive manufacturing metal process chain: From the design until finished and qualified component.
His AM-expertise, paired with experience from different industries leads to new ideas & innovation potential.
Toolcraft started his additive manufacturing roadmap in 2011 with the first machine. 7 years later a brand new AM-center is running with 10 machines, own lab & process qualification is completed after aerospace standard of Nadcap.
The time of rapid prototyping has gone. Now additive manufacturing must prove that it is an integral part of modern production technologies. Not only special requirements in production, such as environmental protection, health and safety at work, must be taken into account. Above all, more productive and reliable systems as well as an extensive range of materials are required. The difference between a component and a high-end component lies in the entire process chain, from design and manufacturing to finishing including quality measurement.
The presentation will give an overview of Toolcraft´s Roadmap, chances & challenges and will show some practical case studies.
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Middle East Logistics and Base Support Contract
A contract with Serco Australia Pty Ltd has been signed to provide logistic and base support to Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel deployed at Al Minhad Air Base (AMAB) in theUnited Arab Emirates.
Serco Australia was selected for the Middle East Logistics and Base Support (MELABS) contract on the basis that it offered best value for money for the delivery of seventeen services including catering, utilities management, waste disposal, facilities, equipment and grounds maintenance, and asset hire.
The MELABS contract will deliver more efficient logistic support services by replacing a number of existing contracts and standing offers with a single prime contractor. It also offers increased flexibility in the employment of ADF personnel at AMAB.
The two year contract provides a more cost effective solution due to increased security of tenure for the contractor and the ability to amortise costs over a longer term, while providing more flexibility in response to the changing scale and scope of operations in the Middle East.


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Fender Bassman 800 head for electric bass. 800w @ 4 Ohms, tube preamp, solid state power amp, Overdrive channel (footswitch included).


Make your own bar of chocolate - from start to delicious finish!
Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate... Who doesn't love chocolate??? This half day tour of chocolate making starts from the cacao tree and ends with a Mayan chocolate bar in your hands. In the community of Maya Center you will visit a cacao farm where the farmer gives you a complete history of his organic cacao farm.
During this hands on experience you get to touch and taste organic cacao beans from the tree. You will learn how to make your own chocolate on traditional grinding stones just like the ancient Maya did.
Includes tour of chocolate farm, harvesting, roasting and making of chocolate.
Explore these images taken on our Che'il Chocolate Making Adventure - click any image to expand.


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Q: Why after update, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS terminal stopped pinging websites with ip6 address? When we ping any website with ip4 address format it is working and when the website bears an ip6 address ping is returning the IP address not resolved the error.
Earlier it was producing host not resolved errors for yahoo.com and google.com. Now when we try to reproduce the error, it is not at all pinging yahoo.com, remaining stationary after the first ping however, it has started pinging google.com. It seems the work is in progress.

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Salt Lake Acting Company
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Displaying items by tag: will snider
SWIMMING POOL by Will Snider
Monday, October 14 @ 7pm
Director: Robin Wilks-Dunn
Actors: Sean Carter, Barb Ganddy, Tamara Johnson-Howell, Dan Larrinaga, Tito Livas*, Morgan Lund*, Nicki Nixon, Lane Richins*, Natalie Keezer
Stage Manager: Katelyn Limber*
Summer, 1998. Once popular, Arrowhead Community Pool has seen membership decline for years. Retired pool president Dorothy Wilson blames video games and air-conditioning. But when new pool president Freddie Rosedale abolishes Dorothy's longstanding alcohol ban and installs a frozen margarita machine, the place comes back to life, and a battle begins. SWIMMING POOL is a dark ensemble comedy about American excess and restraint on the cusp of the 21st Century.
SLAC thanks the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation for their generous support of this vital program.
Published in New Play Sounding Series
New Play Sounding Series Continues Record-Breaking 25th Year with SWIMMING POOL by Will Snider
Salt Lake Acting Company Presents Free Reading of New Play from DEATH OF A DRIVER Playwright
Featured in the one-night-only reading are Sean Carter, Barb Gandy, Tamara Johnson-Howell, Dan Larrinaga, Tito Livas*, Morgan Lund*, Kimiko Miyashima*, Nicki Nixon, and Lane Richins*. Robin Wilks-Dunn (I'LL EAT YOU LAST, GOOD PEOPLE) serves as director, Natalie Keezer will read stage directions, and Katelyn Limber* is stage manager.
Founded in 1994, Salt Lake Acting Company's New Play Sounding Series (NPSS) continues its record-breaking 25th year with Will Snider's SWIMMING POOL. The NPSS is the longest-running play reading series in Utah. Past works that have been workshopped in the NPSS to later receive full productions at SLAC (and elsewhere) include SILENT DANCER and HARBUR GATE by Kathleen Cahill, MERCURY by Steve Yockey, STAG'S LEAP by Sharon Olds, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS by Mike Daisey, A SLIGHT DISCOMFORT by Jeff Metcalf, and THE RECEPTIONIST by Adam Bock. Elaine Jarvik's FOUR WOMEN TALKING ABOUT THE MAN UNDER THE SHEET, featured during last season's NPSS, will receive its world premiere at SLAC in 2020.
SLAC's 2019 NPSS reading of FOUR WOMEN TALKING ABOUT THE MAN UNDER THE SHEET by Elaine Jarvik
SWIMMING POOL is free and open to the public. Reservations are required and can be made via SLAC's website or by calling 801.363.7522.
*Member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
SLAC acknowledges the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation for their generous support of the New Play Sounding Series.
Published in Blog & News
"Doing Good": Production Photos from DEATH OF A DRIVER
SLAC's 49th season recently kicked off with Will Snider's political thriller, DEATH OF A DRIVER. The production was workshopped in SLAC's 2018 Playwrights' Lab and returns for a full production after its Off-Broadway world premiere this past spring.
Reprising their roles from the lab production are Cassandra Stokes-Wylie* (Sarah) and Patrick J. Ssenjovu* (Kennedy/Man). Stokes-Wylie appeared most recently in SLAC's Chapel Theatre during last season's A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE GYNECOLOGIC ONCOLOGY UNIT AT MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING CANCER CENTER OF NEW YORK CITY and Ssenjovu makes his official SLAC debut after appearing in DEATH OF A DRIVER'S world premiere at Urban Stages.
Patrick J. Ssenjovu in DEATH OF A DRIVER at Salt Lake Acting Company. (McKenna Frandsen Photography)
Patrick J. Ssenjovu in DEATH OF A DRIVER at Salt Lake Acting Company. (McKenna Frandsen Photography) Patrick J. Ssenjovu in DEATH OF A DRIVER at Salt Lake Acting Company. (McKenna Frandsen Photography)
Patrick J. Ssenjovu and Cassandra Stokes-Wylie in DEATH OF A DRIVER at Salt Lake Acting Company. (McKenna Frandsen Photography) Patrick J. Ssenjovu and Cassandra Stokes-Wylie in DEATH OF A DRIVER at Salt Lake Acting Company. (McKenna Frandsen Photography)
Cassandra Stokes-Wylie in DEATH OF A DRIVER at Salt Lake Acting Company. (McKenna Frandsen Photography) Cassandra Stokes-Wylie in DEATH OF A DRIVER at Salt Lake Acting Company. (McKenna Frandsen Photography)
Cassandra Stokes-Wylie and Patrick J. Ssenjovu in DEATH OF A DRIVER at Salt Lake Acting Company. (McKenna Frandsen Photography) Cassandra Stokes-Wylie and Patrick J. Ssenjovu in DEATH OF A DRIVER at Salt Lake Acting Company. (McKenna Frandsen Photography)
https://saltlakeactingcompany.org/new-play-development/new-play-sounding-series/itemlist/tag/will%20snider#sigProId0eeb467f47
"Death of a Driver spans nearly twenty years through storytelling that moves with an electric connection and velocity. We're drawn into the bond of trust and friendship at the play's heart, as it's influenced by the political forces surrounding the two characters," said the production's director Alexandra Harbold. "It is thrilling to have Cassie and Patrick reuniting in Death of a Driver, and I am so thankful that we have the opportunity to build on the foundational work they created in the 2018 Playwrights' Lab."
Joining Harbold on the creative team are Shawn Fisher** (set design), Kerstin Hallows (costume design), William Peterson (light design), Jason Jensen (sound design) and William Richardson* (stage manager)
DEATH OF A DRIVER runs now through October 20. Tickets can be obtained online, in person at the SLAC box office, or by calling 801.363.7522.
**The set designer of DEATH OF A DRIVER is represented by United Scenic Artists Local USA 829 of the IATSE.
Playwright Will Snider on the Utah Premiere of DEATH OF A DRIVER
Note: The following remarks by DEATH OF A DRIVER Playwright Will Snider originally appeared in the production's playbill under the title "In the Room with Will Snider"
Salt Lake Acting Company and DEATH OF A DRIVER
By 2017, DEATH OF A DRIVER was dead. I wrote the first draft three years earlier and sent it to theaters hoping it would get a production. It didn't. So I moved on. I wrote other things and filed this one away. Every six months I would reread the script and find myself missing the story of Kennedy and Sarah, wanting to see it on stage, but I didn't think it would happen.
Then, just before Christmas 2017, I got an email from [former Associate Artistic Director] Shannon Musgrave inviting me to Utah. SLAC was hosting writers to work on plays without the pressure of a final presentation. They called it the Playwrights' Lab. We were given a week in a room with a team of collaborators to do whatever we thought the play needed. I was lucky to have Patrick and Cassie, the two actors you will see tonight, and Andra, their director. We worked through the script scene-by-scene and staged it in several configurations. All the while I got feedback from Cynthia Fleming, David Kranes, and other Lab artists and made adjustments to the final scenes. By the end of the week, the play was back to life - it went on to have a world premiere starring Patrick in New York earlier this year. And now it's come home to Utah, to the place responsible for its rebirth. Thank you to Cynthia and everyone else at SLAC for all you do for writers like me. Without the Lab, this play would never have been produced.
The Origins of the Play
"No one has a right to work in a place where their family doesn't deal directly with the consequences of the work they do."
I paraphrase words delivered by one of my college professors, Mahmood Mamdani, an anthropologist critical of foreign aid in his home country of Uganda. I listened to him, loved his writing and lectures, and immediately upon graduation violated his dictum. For three years I worked for an agricultural nonprofit in Kenya and Ethiopia that offered microloans of seed and fertilizer to small-scale farmers. We conducted rigorous harvest measurements to determine impact. We ran longitudinal household surveys to determine our effect on health and education.I believed then, and still do, that a good deal of development work is flawed and ineffective, but I felt our methods were different, we were different, I was different. Was I?
Alexandra Harbold, Kareem Fahmy, and Will Snider at the 2018 Playwrights' Lab
My language back then was the language of management consultants, of tech entrepreneurs, of MBA programs, and the use of this language resulted from, and reinforced, a reflexive anti-government stance, a feeling that solutions to socioeconomic problems were found far from polling stations, often in places that looked more like boardrooms. To me, electoral politics was a sideshow, a competition between elites, the result of which mattered little to the subsistence farmers I hoped to help. Anthropologist James Ferguson takes exception this. In his book The Anti-Politics Machine he criticizes development work for serving state needs above local needs, for being anti-political in the ways it ignores, and therefore supports, the political establishment. The more materially transformational foreign-led work is, the more it "helps," the more it sustains the political status quo, which, in many places with significant foreign aid, is often ineffective if not outright oppressive. A bad government takes credit for good work.
Patrick J. Ssenjovu and Cassandra Stokes-Wylie rehearse during the 2018 Playwrights' Lab
But another part of me finds this argument too easy, a case for inertia, for ignoring pressing problems because they should be solved by local politics and therefore not solving them. Bad governments also have the ability to co-opt this anti-development discourse to defend their own legitimacy. And there is no way to close borders completely – the asymmetric exchange of resources, ideas, languages, and people cannot simply end, even if some wish it could. And so how do we go about transnational work ethically? Is there a way? DEATH OF A DRIVER is much more than the dramatization of my own cognitive dissonance around my early professional life, but I name it as one of the animating anxieties in the writing. It's one way to watch the play – there are many others. This is the story of two people, of what we like to call the "personal," and the way that this "personal" is transformed and constrained by national, cultural, economic, and gender difference. And I hope it's not boring.
will snider
© 2009-2018 Salt Lake Acting Company • 168 West 500 North Salt Lake City, UT 84103-1762 • 801-363-7522
Site by Third Sun Productions


Considered East Africa's biggest slum, it's also a place with extraordinary tales. One such is an artist who's dedicated his life to help kids from the slum get a better start in life than he did.
Suvarna News 24X7 www.suvarnanews.tv - 2012 - Episode 16 Kolaku-Belaku - Reality Shows and Talent Hunts for SLUM People- Suvarna NewsSuvarna News, a leading News Channel of Karnataka, launches an innovative concept driven reality show. Kolaku Belaku, is a show that is designed to identify and showcase talent from 597 areas of under-privileged society in Bangalore. Starting from 19th May, the 1 hour show goes on air twice a week during the weekends at 8pm. Kolaku Belaku literally means Lamps from Little Huts.
http://www.suvarnanews.tv/videos/kolaku-belaku - www.suvarnanews.tv - 2012 - Episode 5 Kolaku-Belaku - Reality Shows and Talent Hunts for SLUM People- Suvarna NewsSuvarna News, a leading News Channel of Karnataka, launches an innovative concept driven reality show. Kolaku Belaku, is a show that is designed to identify and showcase talent from 597 areas of under-privileged society in Bangalore. Starting from 19th May, the 1 hour show goes on air twice a week during the weekends at 8pm. Kolaku Belaku literally means Lamps from Little Huts.
http://www.suvarnanews.tv/videos/kolaku-belaku - www.suvarnanews.tv - 2012 - Episode 7 Kolaku-Belaku - Reality Shows and Talent Hunts for SLUM People- Suvarna NewsSuvarna News, a leading News Channel of Karnataka, launches an innovative concept driven reality show. Kolaku Belaku, is a show that is designed to identify and showcase talent from 597 areas of under-privileged society in Bangalore. Starting from 19th May, the 1 hour show goes on air twice a week during the weekends at 8pm. Kolaku Belaku literally means Lamps from Little Huts.
Slum kids in India. Slum Village.
"Derailed" is the 16th episode from the dramedy series Ugly Betty, which aired on February 15, 2007. It was written by Cameron Litvack and directed by Jim Hayman.
As the day begins, Betty wakes up from a series of nightmares (involving Claire Meade, who sits next to her with a martini and tells her she will kill her, followed by Henry, who shows Betty his 'girlfriend' then tells her that Claire will kill her). At MODE, Daniel and Alexis arrive at work still on speaking terms, but Wilhelmina isn't happy about this union as she watches the Meades bond.
Daniel walks by and gives Betty two tickets to a party hosted by Stella McCartney. Betty tells him about Claire's confession of killing Fey Sommers. Daniel insists that Claire becomes a little deranged when she drinks a lot, but after Betty goes into the details about the murder, Daniel immediately takes this info to Bradford at prison. However Bradford tells Daniel that Claire is simply a confused drunk and instead wants his son to focus on other things. Bradford orders him to hire lawyer Grace Chin, a plain girl whom Daniel happened to stand up when they went to the university together (leaving her to spend the rest of her "date night" playing Wolfenstein 3D on the PC in her dorm). Ironically, Grace's college photo looks a lot like a certain personal assistant, who was not amused over his 'description' after he tells her about what Grace looked like.


In the early nineties Sundio Group began with the Dutch brand Gogo Tours. By judicially responding to the new possibilities being offered by the internet the launch of Sunweb soon followed. In recent years the organization has experienced explosive growth in Europe due to its stable organic growth and various acquisitions made in the travel industry.
The driving source behind Sundio Group's success as one of the leading travel groups in Europe is its dedicated team of over 450 employees and more than 350 reps on various holiday destinations. The fundamental goal of our team is to deliver the best possible holiday experience across all sun, self-drive and winter sport holiday packages. We offer a variety of careers across Europe and over 13 Sundio owned brands.


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Birding Notes
Two Soaring Sharp-shinned Hawks
The last day of February was cloudy and warm all day, uncomfortably warm and humid by late in the afternoon, with a strong southwest wind blowing low grim clouds steadily across the sky.
Two Black Vultures soared high, and a Turkey Vulture lower, and as I was watching them fly in the wind, two small hawks came into view – Sharp-shinned Hawks. At first they both were fairly low, and they took several minutes to circle and climb until they were quite high.
They were perfect Sharp-shinned Hawks, neat and compact in shape, with long narrow tail, distinctly square at the tip; the head relatively small, the wings broad and short and slightly arcing forward. The flight of both hawks was classic – several light, quick flaps followed by a glide, then flapping and gliding again. Sharp-shinned Hawks are a joy to watch. Their flight is clean and crisp and sleek – giving an impression of intensity and focus. As they rose higher, they soared more and flapped less, and when gliding, the wings and tail were held so still, so perfect – they almost looked like toy gliders.
Much later in the day, as the last light of February faded away, spring peepers sang from down around the creek in a cloudy, windy, warm twilight.
The Song of a White-breasted Nuthatch – and a Honeybee on a Dandelion
A little further up the road, a good many birds were scattered out in another yard – more Robins, Chipping Sparrows, Bluebirds, Yellow-rumped Warblers, a couple of Starlings – and one very fine male Rusty Blackbird with yellow eyes and picture-perfect black plumage with a rippled shadow of rusty-brown across the shoulders and back.
A Northern Flicker called kleer! from the woods. A Pine Warbler trilled its song. Two Brown-headed Nuthatches chattered squeakily in some pines. A flock of Cedar Waxwings flew over, scattering their high, thin calls like rain. Several Yellow-rumped Warblers flew from limb to limb in the trees, calling check as they flew. One handsome male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker worked quietly on the trunk of a pecan tree.
Clouds had moved in and begun to cover most of the sky as I came to the summit of a hill, with wooded yards on both sides and a power cut beyond the back yards on one side of the road. A fluctuating nasal call came from the edge of the woods not far away, a long, repeated ahn-ahn-ahn-ahn-ahn-ahn. I knew it was a White-breasted Nuthatch, but it wasn't until I looked it up later that I realized it wasn't a call really, but the song of a White-breasted Nuthatch.
Along the roadside, bluets, purple henbit and yellow dandelions were all in bloom, and in one lush dandelion flower, a honeybee combed through the petals. Because honeybees face such serious threats, their populations shrinking and in peril, I've begun to feel it as a small sign of hope whenever I see one, and it's strange – something that used to be so common, but we can no longer take for granted.
The Glory of a Red-shouldered Hawk
Late in the morning on another warm, balmy spring-like day, the front yard had fallen quiet and was almost empty when I headed out for a walk. I could hear only the peter-peter song of a Tufted Titmouse, the cawing of distant Crows, and an Eastern Phoebe singing from across the street. As I walked up the driveway and down the road under an open, soft-blue sky, swept with rumpled sheets of high white clouds, a Cardinal, a Bluebird and a House Finch sang; a Red-bellied Woodpecker called its spring-time quurrrr; and a scattered gathering of Robins, Dark-eyed Juncos and Red-winged Blackbirds fed in the grass of one large yard.
But all in all, the day seemed rather quiet, and my thoughts had begun to drift off to other things as I walked through a wooded section with trees on both sides of the road, when suddenly I heard – and felt – a close, explosive kee-yer! kee-yer! A Red-shouldered Hawk burst into view right above me, at no more than treetop level – breathtakingly colorful and clear. The sky behind it was blue with sunlight shining through the plumage so that almost every feather seemed to be visible, and all the markings were vividly clear – the ruddy red breast and well-defined reddish upper parts of the wings, the checkered black and white in the outer wings, and the black and white barring of the fanned-out tail. It circled quite low a couple of times, and I think I almost held my breath the whole time. It sailed away toward the north, staying just above the treetops. I could see it in the distance and still heard its calls as I walked on.
To see such a spectacular hawk so dramatically is to be reminded of the amazing beauty and wildness that still lives here around us, not somewhere distant and pristine, but right here, in these second-growth woods around our homes and towns. A Red-shouldered Hawk is a woodland hawk, dependent on the continued existence of large enough forested areas in which it can nest and hunt. Similar to the more familiar Red-tailed Hawk, but more colorful and less often seen, a Red-shouldered Hawk may soar on outspread wings in open skies and is one of the most vocal of hawks, especially at this time of the year, when pairs are mating and nesting – or weave swiftly and quietly through the trunks of trees in a woodland. It usually hunts from a perch in a tree in the woods, well camouflaged despite its size.
Possible Brewer's Blackbird
In a large yard of pecan trees and grass, a blackbird shimmering with iridescent blue and green, and with a striking yellow eye, was feeding with a mixed gathering of Red-winged Blackbirds, Starlings, Robins, Chipping Sparrows, Eastern Bluebirds and House Finches. I think it was a male Brewer's Blackbird, though I'm not completely sure. In field guides, at least, Brewer's and Rusty Blackbirds look very similar in size and shape, and the males are both all-black – though the Brewer's is supposed to be more iridescent, while the Rusty is a duller black, usually with a ripple of rusty color in its winter plumage.
It seemed to me this blackbird looked different in the way it stood and moved, slightly different in shape or character, in addition to the iridescence. But wishful thinking can be persuasive, I know, and since it's much less common for us to find Brewer's here, that might color my impressions. Brewer's Blackbirds are more common in the west though they can be found here, while Rusty Blackbirds winter in the eastern U.S. Brewer's Blackbirds are said to prefer open fields, pastures or suburban areas, while Rusties prefer wooded swamps. Here we have a little of both, plus an old pecan grove.
A large flock of blackbirds has continued to visit our neighborhood almost every day this winter, and I often stop to watch them. Lately Red-winged Blackbirds have been the most prominent members of the flock, but there are usually at least a few Rusty Blackbirds, as well as Common Grackles and some Starlings and Brown-headed Cowbirds. Even when most of the flock is not around, there often will be just a few stray birds like this, feeding with other species.
Two or three weeks ago I watched a blackbird flock spread out across the grass and trees in several yards, and among them found male and female Rusty Blackbirds – and some birds that puzzled me at the time, but now I think it's very likely they were female Brewer's Blackbirds. They appeared to be plain, grayish-brown birds with dark eyes, not pale, and not so attractively colored and patterned as a female Rusty is. At the time, I just thought maybe the light was bad and I couldn't see them well enough.
Watching and studying a blackbird flock is a good reminder never to assume. At first glance, they all just look like blackbirds. But a closer look begins to show the several different forms the idea of "blackbird" can take – the big, glossy, noisy Common Grackles; the smaller, more slender, elegant Rusty Blackbirds, with subtle patterns of rust in the male and rust, brown, taupe, buff and gray in the female; and Red-winged Blackbirds, easily known by the red and yellow patches on the wings, and by their marshy con-ka-reeee songs; dowdy, stocky Brown-headed Cowbirds; speckled, yellow-billed Starlings – and, maybe, the iridescent blues and greens and fierce yellow eye of a Brewer's Blackbird male, or the plain, unstreaked grayish-brown of the females.
A Pair of White-breasted Nuthatches
The low, soft, nasal calls caught my attention at first – a constant, quiet exchange of notes. They weren't hard to find – two very small, quick gray and white birds creeping over the branches of a bare-limbed pecan tree. White-breasted Nuthatches.
It was late in the afternoon and I'd just stepped out onto the front porch to go for a walk. The calls were not the brazen awnk-awnk chatter that usually announces that a White-breasted Nuthatch is around, but much more intimate, steady communication between the pair – staying in touch – as they foraged for food in the bark of the tree, working separately but never too far apart.
Although White-breasted Nuthatches have become more common here in the past couple of years, I still don't see them very often, so it was fun to get this chance to watch them for several minutes. They stayed and stayed in the same tree, moving very quickly and lightly over the larger limbs, going round and round a branch, probing with long, thin, slightly upturned bills, now and then stopping to probe more deeply and flick up bark, or to raise a head and look up in the classic nuthatch pose. Sometimes they spiraled upward as they moved, sometimes down, sometimes straight around the branch.
Because it was a sunny afternoon with clear, filtered light, and because the tree was very close to where I stood, I had an unusually good view of the two small, pert birds – the blue-gray back, neat black crown, snow-white face and breast, and even the rusty smudges of color under the very short tail. The very long bill turns up slightly in a rather comical way, as if it had been bent. They were still there when I finally stepped off the porch and headed up the driveway, under a big, soft-blue sky with high cirrus clouds and balmy air, an afternoon that looked and felt like spring.
We've had lots of those days lately – and it would be easier to enjoy them if not for the fact that we've had so little winter weather this year it seems as if we've had no winter at all. Bluets, henbit and dandelions are all in bloom along the roadsides, the tiny bluets especially pretty, scattered in profusion over the drab, ground-hugging weeds. Japanese magnolias, daffodils and even some forsythia, redbuds and a wild plum here and there are in bloom, though the flowering trees and bushes look hesitant and sparse, as if not quite sure whether to come out – and yet, it's so warm and the sky is so blue.
The early warmth also has many birds singing, and on this day the sun – which had come out late in the day, after a cloudy start – seemed to have encouraged a lot of activity. Before I even left the porch, while standing and watching the nuthatches, I saw or heard at least 20 different species of birds.
Two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers visited another pecan tree in the yard, one chasing the first one away. A Yellow-rumped Warbler perched on one of the feeders, and Chickadees and Titmice went back and forth from feeders to trees. A flock of about two dozen Cedar Waxwings burst up from a tree and flew away – the first of many Cedar Waxwings I later saw all through the neighborhood, two, three, four hundred in all, maybe, though I didn't try to count carefully.
A Dark-eyed Junco and several Mourning Doves searched the ground under the feeders, a Northern Cardinal and a Carolina Wren sang, Crows cawed in the distance and Blue Jays cried. A Red-bellied Woodpecker called its spring-time quuurrr, a Downy Woodpecker called pink! and one Northern Flicker called kleer! from the woods across the street. Two Turkey Vultures floated over the treetops, a Mockingbird swooped low across the yard and into a holly bush, a couple of Eastern Bluebirds sang, and a Brown-headed Nuthatch or two began to get closer, traveling through the pines and calling squeaky-dee.
Several American Robins were scattered out across the grass and in the trees in our yards and neighbors yards – and all through the neighborhood. Like the Cedar Waxwings, they seemed to be everywhere.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
The clear morning light also brought a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker into unusually vivid view. It mewed loudly from an old pecan tree in a yard, where it was inspecting sapsucker holes that ringed the trunk. It was a brilliantly-colored male, with crimson throat and crown bordered in black, a black and white striped face, black and white barred back, and a broad white stripe down the wing. It worked its way up the trunk, checking out the holes, pausing several times to lift its head and look around, its colors and patterns highlighted against the soft blue sky.
Though I've seen dozens, maybe hundreds of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers over the years, an encounter like this never fails to amaze me, that such an elegant bird can live here among us, passing most days for the most part quietly and peacefully unnoticed among the drab gray bare-limbed trees of winter. Despite its often laughed-at name, the sheer beauty of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker on a sunny morning offers one good, pure, simple reason why a birdwatcher watches birds – even birds you've seen countless times before.
A Morning for Hawks
An Eastern Phoebe, Pine Warbler and Northern Cardinal sang as I walked down the road this morning, under a soaring pale blue sky with high white cirrus clouds and criss-crossed with spreading jet trails. The air was chilly, brisk, but not cold, the sun high and bright. In the east, the last big white clouds from yesterday's long, dark rain were drifting away, crowded together like a herd. It was a morning that looked and felt and sounded like spring.
Eastern Bluebirds – sunbirds, with their colors reflecting the sky and the light – sang their blurry chorry-chorry from the tops of tall trees. Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Carolina Wrens and House Finches sang. Woodpeckers rattled and drummed, Brown-headed Nuthatches chattered excited squeaky-dees; Chipping Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers sprayed up into flight from the roadsides.
But above all the activity of small songbirds and woodpeckers, the morning belonged to hawks – at least four Red-shouldered Hawks and three Red-tailed Hawks, at different times and places – soared and circled and cried, so glorious to watch that it was hard to look away from the sky.
The first was a Red-shouldered Hawk that flew directly overhead, flapping its wings several times, the undersides of the wings flashing pale in the sunlight, its ruddy breast glowing. I watched it flying alone – as far as I could see – for several minutes before it was joined by a second Red-shouldered Hawk and soon after that by a third.
The three soared and circled fairly low, then slowly began to make their way higher. The black-and-white striped wings now more visible, with pale crescents near the wing-tips; the banded tails and ruddy breasts all showing in unusual detail in the clear light. They circled and cried kee-yer and climbed higher. Toward the north, from somewhere in some tall pines around the edges of the woods, I heard a fourth Red-shouldered Hawk making choppy, agitated cherra-cherra-cherrra calls. A few minutes later, after the three soaring together had drifted out of sight, the fourth one flew up roughly out of the pines, still calling in what sounded like agitation. It seems likely the four hawks may have been two pairs contesting the boundaries of their territories. It's a happy thought that we might have two nesting pairs somewhere nearby.
The first Red-tailed Hawk appeared as a small spot quite high, in another, less wooded area of the neighborhood, big, broad wings placidly stretched out wide. Less animated than the vibrant Red-shouldered Hawks, but more regal, maybe, it glided steadily up in wide circles, its dull red-orange tail tilting as it turned and caught the light of the sun. Then it drifted back down lower and passed right over me, showing the pale under side and the dark-brown hooded head.
Another Red-tailed Hawk – or maybe the same one – sat on top of a utility pole near the highway, just outside our subdivision.
Then later, as I was headed back home, two Red-tailed Hawks were circling together fairly low, and a third soared directly above but much higher, barely visible. I watched this one until it disappeared from view, just melting into the blue. The other two below gradually rose higher in big wide circles, not flapping at all, just riding on broad outspread wings, until they appeared only as small, small winged shapes that drifted off very high, toward the west.
An Elusive Hermit Thrush
Late on a chilly, gray, drizzly morning lots of small birds crept around in a large, soggy grass yard, searching for food. They might have gone unnoticed, moving mostly low to the ground, like wind-rustled brown grass or dry leaves. But a closer look revealed several different kinds and colors among them, the brown-streaked back and bright red-brown cap of Chipping Sparrows; smooth, rounded, slate-gray Dark-eyed Juncos with small pink bills; drab gray-streaked Yellow-rumped Warblers; the startling blue flash of an Eastern Bluebird's wings; warm yellow Pine Warblers; rouge-red and brown-streaked House Finches; and even a gray-toned Eastern Phoebe. Pine Warblers trilled their songs from nearby trees. Northern Cardinals sang. Carolina Wrens, Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice chattered and sang. A flock of blackbirds that sounded like mostly Red-winged Blackbirds, further up the road, made a constant background clamor of chucking calls and the Red-wings' rusty, ringing ker-EEEEEE. Several American Robins were widely scattered out in treetops and neighboring yards.
One Robin and one smaller, paler bird were walking around in weedy grass along the edges of the roadside, at the foot of a driveway, and inspecting puddles of rainwater in the road. The smaller bird was a Hermit Thrush – recognizable even from a distance because of its light brown color and erect posture, the way it stands with its head up and bill slightly raised. I stopped to watch because I haven't often seen a Hermit Thrush this winter.
Beside the sturdy, confident dark gray-black and brick-red Robin, the smaller Hermit Thrush looked almost insubstantial and frail, and its coloring intensified this appearance – compared with the bold, solid colors of the Robin, the Hermit Thrush's subtle brown tones looked almost ghostly in the gray, misty light, the quiet appearance living up to its name. Its back was olive-brown, the tail dull cinnamon, the eye looked round and watchful, the head held erect with the bill turned up. Dark spots clustered high on the chest and throat.
For a while, the Robin kept chasing the Thrush away from whatever it considered its space, but the Hermit Thrush just scurried a little further away each time, not going far, and continued to peck in the grass and puddles, then raised its head and looked around. When I finally got too close, it flew up into the low branches of a small tree draped in withered vines and stayed there, flicking its wings, and raising and slowly lowering its tail.
Robins are easy to see. There are lots of them, and they're out in the open, in treetops, in the grass, flying over, vocal and social – fine birds with appealing personality and a beautiful song. But a Hermit Thrush is much less common and not so sociable or vocal. Mostly solitary in the winter here, they often stay hidden in bushes and shrubs or unobtrusively feeding with other species of birds on the ground. Unlike Robins or Blackbirds, they don't congregate in large flocks, though they do often forage in the same areas with feeding flocks of mixed species – though I've also often watched a Hermit Thrush in the winter – around our yard and in other places, too – that seems to follow pretty much its own individual and solitary pattern each day.
While a Hermit Thrush usually doesn't sing in the winter, it makes a low but rich, expressive chup call, typically heard from a shrubby area or low in the branches of a tree where one has taken refuge. It's an easy call to recognize once learned, and it's nice to know they're around, even when not seen.
You are currently browsing the Birding Notes blog archives for February, 2012.
Sigrid Sanders on - Cooper's Hawk Pair
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Harrogate Theatre shortly after opening
Harrogate Theatre Celebrates 111 Years
13 January 2011 23 May 2018
General News/Theatre
Harrogate Theatre celebrated yet another birthday today after opening its doors as Harrogate Grand Opera House exactly 111 years ago.
On the 13th January 1900 a charity gala celebration was held in aid of the Boer War Fund. The following week a production of Dick Whittington and his Cat began, which coincidentally is also this year's pantomime at the theatre, finishing on Saturday.
Harrogate Theatre main auditorium
After celebrating its 110th anniversary last year, this year's birthday celebrations at the theatre were a little more low key. The audiences watching the panto performance gave a wonderful rendition of "Happy Birthday to the Theatre" but sources tell us that there was not a birthday cake in sight.
The Theatre has just announced its new season which shows the theatre continues to attract a diverse range of exciting companies and performers to the region, giving audiences access to an un-paralleled array of live entertainment.
Tim Stedman who plays Idle Jack in this year's panto covered in custard pie: photo credit Karl André
From family favourites to Fringe First Award winning shows, and compelling drama to world class comedy, there truly is something for everyone.
Check out the Harrogate Theatre website at www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk for more details or call the Harrogate Theatre Box Office on 01423 502116 to request a programme.