Ian Rees's Blog, page 4
January 30, 2016
A truly wonderful life
It was sad to hear of the passing of Colin Vearncombe, the voice of Black, this week, two weeks after he was seriously injured in a car crash in Ireland. I loved his voice and especially (inevitably) the track that came to define him, “Wonderful Life”, with its poignant minor key melody. The accompanying video is pensive, with its sunshine-in-black-and-white theme and lyrics that proclaim how wonderful life is at the same time as calling out for a friend to share it with. It’s hard to decide...
January 7, 2016
Sufficient Courage
Memorial to Covenanter James RenwickIn “Fair Sunshine”, an account of the lives of Covenanter martyrs, we are told that, when James Guthrie was on his way to sign the document that defined the Scottish church in the 1600s, he met the hangman. “This moved him somewhat, and, feeling that it was prophetic, it made him walk up and down a little before he went forward.” The document in question was the 1638 National Covenant which re-established the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and asserted its...
December 24, 2015
Hear the angels sing
The Evening Standard reports that most “Brits would rather go Christmas shopping than celebrate the birth of Jesus.” Well, that’s not really anything new. “Glory to God in the High St!” was a joke I encountered more than 25 years ago, so it is not surprising that, in these days of Sunday opening, it is still the case. But the figures are nevertheless quite interesting: 60% like receiving gifts, but only 32% like buying them; 74% enjoy the family get-togethers (that’s one in the eye for the hu...
December 12, 2015
December 4, 2015
Looking in from the outside
A lonely old man in the Edeka ad. Is that what Christmas is all about?I must confess to enjoying the special extended Christmas adverts that appear at this time of year from the big companies. I’m not blind to the fact that they are trying to persuade me to part with my hard-earned cash, but I still enjoy them for their creativity. The Christmas advert advent took place during the final episode of Downton Abbey in November when John Lewis launched its campaign for the hearts of the nation wit...
November 25, 2015
Start the revolution with me
So should they have banned this video? Well, in some senses the video wasn’t actually banned. The advertising agency in question has rules in place about religious and political content and this is clearly religious, so perhaps no-one should have been surprised that the ad was turned down. There is, of course, an irony in applying rules like this. Religious and political material is turned away on the grounds that it might be deemed offensive, when the commercial stuff that is passed is overt...
November 12, 2015
The auto-correct function of prayer
A friend of mine in leadership in a small church was left speechless when a new member of the church made a request he had never heard before. It wasn’t for the format of the services to be changed, a demand for a new youth facilities or more money for the building fund. It was simply, “May I come and pray with you about church life?” There was no hidden agenda, no implied criticism of the existing programme, no secret Trojan horse. It was a simple request to get together to pray for what was...
October 16, 2015
Living with insecurity
View image | gettyimages.comA few years ago we returned from a short holiday to find that someone had cleaned out our bank account. We had both just been paid, so a fair sum had disappeared in two days thanks to various anonymous purchases of garden furniture and car parts in Oklahoma. It was a shock, to say the least, but the bank were very helpful. Perhaps mindful that they hadn’t flagged up to us the sudden rash of unexpectedly large payments on another continent (we had been in Jersey) th...
October 8, 2015
The word does the work
Lectern Bible in Wakefield CathedralAlthough the actual date of his death is not known with any certainty, William Tyndale’s execution in 1536 is commemorated on 6 October each year. He had spent the best part of 12 years translating the Bible into English and smuggling copies into England, because his translation was banned by the Roman Catholic authorities. He had also made an enemy of Henry VIII in 1530 when he had written against the divorce the king was seeking from his first wife, Cathe...
September 29, 2015
A sprinkling of superstition
There has been a lot of talk these past ten days or so about the “Francis Effect”, meaning the effect that Pope Francis has wherever he goes, which recently has been the US. Many people agree that Pope Francis’s visit there has been a huge publicity coup for the Catholic church. He has been welcomed by millions of people, while coverage in the media has been overwhelmingly positive. His warm and charismatic personality has won him many admirers – what’s not to like about a Pope who laughs hea...
