Puts it better than I ever could...

From ‘In Memoriam’ Tennyson

CVI

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Pentecost, the promised Holy Spirit arrives...and is still with us.

Whatever happened to service?

Visited a number of music shops in Birmingham today...what sad places they have become...even in a half-term week all were virtually empty, no badly played riffs, no stuttering chord sequences. And the staff...with one exception (please stand up City Music), no one asked if I required any assistance, seeming more interested in staring at computer screens or engaging in conversation with each other...don't they want to sell anything? Or am I too old to be of interest? Is the internet killing live music?...Probably not, but it's having a good go at the retailers.

He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!

The display board in the Foyer at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Wolverhampton, Easter Sunday 2009.

New beginnings...or same old same old?

The world's financial structures are crumbling through a combination of greed and corruption; an appeal for funds by the Disasters Emergency Committee on behalf of hungry and homeless Palestinians in Gaza is banned by the BBC on the grounds that it 'does not want to compromise its commitment to impartiality'; the FA Cup 4th Round matches are drawing to a close and the hopes of the underdogs, having been raised are receiving terminal blows (apart from Swansea, who were not all that 'underdogish'). Sometimes faith, in all it's forms comes under severe attack. How is it that those who have overseen the collapse of banks are rewarded with bonuses while those who have lost out through the incompetence of the same bankers, find themselves baling out the banks by virtue of their being taxpayers? Why do children in Gaza (and Israel...though to a lesser extent) live and die in fear? How is it that I can ignore the reality that the maintenance of my (relative) wealth tightens the grip of the fingers of poverty around the necks of millions? As I 'mature' into my second half-century my lack of faith in unredeemed human nature continues to grow, mind you, redeemed human nature often appears little better. That is sad.