CHAPLAIN’S LETTER
May I wish all our readers a very happy and blessed New Year. As the years slip by, time seems to speed up. It seems hard to believe that we are already nearly a decade into a new millennium. Which is all the more reason to regard every year that we are given as extremely precious and valuable. 2010 won’t come by again!
In practice however even every new day is precious. In the first place today is the only thing in life we can be sure of. This is charmingly set out in the little rhyme
“Yesterday is history
Tomorrow is a mystery
but Today is a gift,
which is why it is called the present!”
Christians in New Testament times were acutely conscious of the shortness of time. In an age of persecution, they never knew, from one Sunday to the next, whether they would see their fellow Christians again next week. Moreover they believed that the Day of the Lord was immanent and that God would soon come to bring the world as they knew it to an end. Over the centuries this sense of urgency about the Second Coming has abated, but it is still part of what we believe, because it is based on our Lord’s promise. So if you read the letters which St Paul and other Christians wrote to their congregations, their advice is brief and meant to be applied by the day. Here is what St Paul writes to the church in Rome.
“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honouring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all! Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good
Romans 12.9-18,21 ©New Living Bible
If we put that kind of advice into practice on a day to day basis throughout the New Year, our lives and the lives of those around us will be utterly transformed and we shall bring glory to God. So have a really good day today, and 2010 will be different too, and may God bless you and through you may he bless us all.
Fr John
GOD'S MISSION AND OURS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
The concluding part.
Practical reflections
I’d like to suggest briefly what some of the practical implications are of all of this. Some I have already implied quite strongly, but just let’s just spell them out a little bit further.
The very first point from Matthew 10 is the implication that good mission needs informed local research, by which I mean real willingness to understand the particular situation in its fullness. And a good mission organization is always one that is equipped for, and engaged in, doing that testing of the waters, that looking and listening in different contexts.
One of the impressive things about the history of this Society has been that its antennae have always been very acute. It’s looked for new opportunity and tested, explored and settled. Certainly what I was saying about resource and initiative has some sobering implications about flexible patterns of funding. One of the things that is very difficult (not only in the life of the Church of England but other churches too) is that resource is not quite where we need it at this particular moment. A good and healthy mission organization has the capacity to move resources around with a degree of imagination and freedom.
When a few years ago we launched the Fresh Expressions initiative in the Church of England, one of the guiding principles of that initiative was that the funding should be flexible, that the structures should be light, that we would commit ourselves to finding where the need was and let the funding follow it. Five years and two million pounds on, we’ve discovered that doing this through channels other than the official Church of England, was the right thing to do, so that we kept a degree of ability to go (as it were) without too many spare tunics or odd pairs of sandals! We needed to be travelling light, discovering that process. We’re now moving into Phase 2 of the Fresh Expressions cycle and I think that God has blessed the Church richly in the last four or five years through Phase 1, and I look to great things in the future. It does seem to me that the work of Fresh Expressions and the ICS are very close together and need more convergence and synergy in the years ahead.
We need a long-term view. Mission always requires an almost superhuman level of patience. When I look at the history of Christian mission, I find that the stories that move me most are not always the ones of rapid and widespread success, but the stories of those who, through a whole generation of apparent frustration have stayed with the particular situation, confident that God really is opening a door even if you can’t yet see it. There are many such stories. There are sad stories too, of successes that have proved short-lived where the enemies of the gospel have more or less extinguished what seemed to be great early promise.
The long view is the most important, but because we live in a culture that is not at all in love with long views and likes short-term solutions whether in religion or politics, the Christian committed to patience is a very counter-cultural person and
all the more important because of it. But even in local and prosaic settings, how very tempting it is to say that we want our results now, before the end of the year. We have to justify what we’re doing in the shortest of short terms and that is a curse for churches, universities, charities, community regeneration projects, all sort of things in our society. And we need deep breaths and long views again.
And the last practical implication – which may not immediately seem so relevant to mission but which I believe is deeply relevant – is a solid, three-dimensional liturgical life. That is, we need to find ourselves in a Church that has a deep rhythm of teaching and symbolizing of our faith. I don’t mean elaborate ceremonial and I don’t mean complicated externals. I mean a nourishing diet of sacramental worship with baptism and the Lord’s Supper at the heart of it, taking us again and again through the Christian year in ways that make the rhythm of the life of Christ second nature to us. Because that’s how the new creation is fleshed out in the life of the Church. And that’s what we’re asking people ultimately to become part of. It certainly doesn’t mean that when you’re engaged in mission or evangelism, the first thing you do with people is present them with the annual lectionary! But I do mean that in the long term, what we hope will happen in mission is that people come into that flow of Christ’s love that the Christian year and Christian worship represents. Each year Christians go through the story of waiting and expectation and fulfilment of Christmas, of baptism, temptation, passion and resurrection, ascension, the giving of the Spirit, and the great climax, the celebration of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that we experience on Trinity Sunday. And that annual rhythm, that taking time and going through the story, is so important in anchoring us to something other than what we happen to be thinking or feeling on any one day. None of what I’ve said is going to have its full effect on us unless we are aware of the need for our worship and community life as Christians to have that depth and solidity, that three-dimensional quality to it
In conclusion, God’s mission and ours in the century to come is exactly what it’s always been. There’s absolutely nothing new to say here because it’s already been said in scripture. God’s mission first. We are here because God has moved towards us, into our midst, and drawn us into his own movement of love, drawn us back to him through Christ praying in him by the power of the Spirit. That’s God’s mission and all that we ever do is to reflect its movement, and be carried along in the slipstream of God’s movement into the world, gathering the world back to himself. God’s mission and ours: because God gives us the responsibility of witnessing to his own journey into the depths of the world and back to heaven, of telling that story and making that life available. We start where he has started and witness to the fact that he is there already however early we get up. We witness in gratitude and we seek the transformation and we struggle to let our policies reflect the radical challenge that comes with all that. But perhaps the simplest and most central thing in all this, is the expression which Jesus uses in Matthew 10.8, and which surely has to be the rationale for all we do in mission and in every other area of our discipleship, ‘Freely you have received; freely give’.
© Rowan Williams 2009
CALLING ALL INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS!
The CU and NSU, two Christian student associations here in Utrecht are going to try and do an alpha course together, probably starting about 1st of February. Usually these courses involve 10 consecutive evenings, but since this may be too much of a commitment, they are considering splitting it up into 2x5 evenings, so that those who are further interested after 5 evenings can continue with the second session. The hope is that they will also be able to bring international and Dutch students together through the course. It will be held at the NSU building on Boothstraat, but the groups will be separated by preference into either English or Dutch.
If any of our international students here at Holy Trinity would be interested in either leading one of the English speaking international groups or attending the course, the organizers would be very happy to hear from you.
This is still in the planning phase, so there is still a lot that needs to be worked out, but if you are interested, or have any questions please contact either:
Annemarie Janse at annemarie.janse@hetnet.nl
or Ian Parnham at imparnham@hotmail.com
THOSE NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS
Some New Year Resolutions can be bad for you. Mind, the mental health charity, has warned that New Year resolutions based on our insecurities - such as being overweight, feeling unhappy, or not living up to our family’s expectations – can be doomed to failure. We can end up feeling worse than when we started.
Instead, here are three New Year Resolutions which will do you good: First, get more active. Even gentle exercise releases endorphins, which will lift your mood. Second, visit somewhere green: being in the countryside also promotes well-being. Third, join a group with the aim of giving, not receiving. It seems that helping out in your community or church can help you as much as it does them.
INCENTIVE TO SUCCEED
An old gentleman was on the operating table awaiting surgery. He had insisted that his son, a renowned surgeon, perform the operation. As he was about to get the anaesthesic, he asked to speak to his son, to encourage him. 'Don't be nervous, do your best and just remember, if it doesn't go well, and something happens to me, your mother is going to come and live with you and your wife.
A POETIC QUOTATION FOR 2010
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY 2010.
On the eve of the Week of Prayer the congregations in Utrecht-Oost will gather for an ecumenical vesper. On Saturday 16 January we meet in the chapel of the St Aloysiuskerk (Adriaan van Ostadelaan 4) at 18-00. A small working group made up of members of Wilhelminakerk, St Aloysiuskerk and Holy Trinity Church prepared a vesper, based on the theme from the World Council of Churches: You are witnesses of these things. [Luke 24 : 48] (jij bent mijn getuige).
The theme for 2010 was chosen in Scotland, where churches were also preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the 1910 World Mission Conference on the theme "Witnessing to Christ today", which marked the beginnings of the modern ecumenical movement.
Members of the working party will take part in the service and they are delighted that Fr John de Wit has agreed to preach.
If you have the time to come on Saturday 16 January 2010 at 6 pm then please join us. However, if you are not able to come, then please pray for this Vesper and Christ's Church of which you are part of.
WHEELIE-BIN FOR TANZANIA
As some of you know, I collected an enormous quantity of clothes for the Tibetan refugee children in India and had the greatest trouble to send it there.
Finally, a month ago. there came a god send, an anonymous well-wisher, who very quickly arranged the whole transport by boat to India, so that the children will receive the clothes before the icy winter cold. Of course I asked this angel what I could do to make him happy in return. He told me his heart's desire.
He supports a home for handicapped children in Tanzania. It is the St Dymphna school in Arusha and the project is an initiative of the Lutheran Orphanage in Rotterdam. Handicapped children tend to end up between a rock and a hard place and get forgotten.
He got the idea of sending them clothes and shoes. Then the people who run that home can use what they need for themselves and for the children and the rest can be sold to raise money for the school. In Africa the market value for used clothes is high and from the profits of this sale they can buy materials that the school needs and possibly extend its capacity, so that, in years to come, when the children are adults, they can keep on their feet. In this way, the people have the opportunity to earn money themselves, because we give them the tools to do it, in this case shoes and clothes.
The idea is to put a number of red wheelie-bins in churches and institutions in Holland. These will be emptied regularly and one is going to be placed in our own Holy Trinity.
We will put a box in the hall of the Parsonage and every Sunday the contents will go to the wheelie-bin in the garden.
We hope that you can contribute to this good cause! Thank you in advance!
Maya
BREAD OF LIFE - A PRAYER
Merciful God,
hear the cries of your people.
Hungry for bread
and starved of justice;
craving sustenance,
they dream of fullness and days of plenty.
Jesus, bread of life,
fill all who hunger with the taste
of freedom from oppressions
and the succulent aroma of hope.
Help us as we strive for justice and
try to balance the scales so long tipped in our favour.
God of hope,
nourish and inspire us.
Feed us and work through us,
so that all people can delight
in the richness of your banquet
and share in the bounty you intended for all.
Amen
25 JANUARY - THE CONVERSION OF ST PAUL
January is a month of the beginning of great things! As well as the naming of the Son of God, we celebrate the conversion of the greatest ever apostle of the Christian faith. Many books have been written on Paul, and here is the briefest of introductions:
He was a Jew, born as ‘Saul’ at Tarsus, and brought up by the rabbi Gamaliel as a Pharisee. A devout, fanatical Jew, Saul persecuted the Christians, and watched with satisfaction the first Christian martyrdom, the stoning of Stephen. Then on his way to Damascus Saul had a vision of Christ that stopped him, literally, in his tracks. He realised that this Jesus whom he was persecuting was in fact the Messiah for whom he had longed.
Saul changed overnight. He took a new name, Paul, and became an evangelist for the cause of Christ. He became a leader in the early Church, and his special calling was as an apostle to the Gentiles. He wrote many epistles to the young churches he founded - and thus, inadvertently, wrote a great part of the New Testament.
Life as the greatest apostle was hardly full of perks: he was stoned, beaten, mobbed, homeless, hated, imprisoned, and finally martyred. Tradition has it that he was beheaded in Rome during the persecution of Nero in AD 64, and buried where the basilica of St Paul ‘outside the walls’ now stands. His mighty faith in Christ has kindled similar belief in many millions of people down the centuries.
ALL THAT PACKAGING
Unwrapping presents is fun! I’m sure this Christmas we’ve all enjoyed being given a gift wrapped in fancy paper and been full of curiosity as to what lay within. Perhaps you are someone who rips the paper off immediately to see what is inside or perhaps, like me, you carefully remove the tape and slowly peel back the paper, building anticipation as you go. At Sinterklaas you may even have received a gift cleverly disguised as something completely different by ingenious packaging.
These occasions are all well and good (though you can often re-use the fancy paper by ironing the creases away) - but for weekly groceries, for instance, do we really need layer upon layer of shrink wrap, plastic trays and plastic bags? I certainly don’t get any pleasure out of spending ages removing plastic covers from foodstuffs in order to make them last longer in the fridge by reducing condensation. What happened to the old fashioned buying of loose vegetables and carrying them home in a paper bag? UK supermarkets are even worse than those in this country for overuse of packaging. Some companies are beginning to produce biodegradable packaging so, when choosing between similar products, be aware and pick the ‘green’ ones. Let’s save packaging for where it is really needed, and use paper instead of plastic wherever possible and recycle that paper afterwards.
Remember, before you recycle envelopes from all your Christmas cards, to remove the stamps, by tearing roughly around the stamp, and give your collection to Pam for eventual resale to philatelists. (All stamps except UK ones with only the Queen’s head can be reused in this way.) Christmas cards, once they are finished with, can be recycled but they can also be cut up and utilised by people keen on craftwork to make into new cards and gift labels.
When shopping carry your own cloth bag and refuse plastic bags from the shop. Join with the Green Awareness group in limiting your overuse of packaging!
Sheila, for the Green Awareness Group
THE WINDOWS COMMITTEE IN 2010
After the blow of losing Thom van Hessen who served as chairman of the Windows Committee, the committee will be continuing the work he started. Simon Manning is the new chairman and was fully informed by Thom before he passed away.
As you may remember, we applied to Utrecht corporation for subsidy for the windows. There’s good news and bad news from them. The good news is that they have granted Holy Trinity subsidy for 2009-2011. The bad news is that it isn’t as much as we had hoped for. We were expecting to receive 50% of the costs, as that was the information originally received from talks with them. Unfortunately, there were so many applications that they have decided to give everyone about 26% of the expected costs for building works. So instead of the projected €88,395 Holy Trinity will receive only €46,849. Even though this isn’t as much as we had hoped
for, it is enough to proceed with the windows in the chancel. The Windows Committee feels that this is possible as all work on the west window has been paid for and there is enough money to start restoration, thanks to several grants and the generous donations from church members, added to which the windows in the chancel are in such a state, that they are in danger of falling out if they aren’t seen to soon. Repairs on those windows should be able to start in 2010. So the committee will propose this at the following church council meeting.
The disappointment surrounding the city’s decision has led at least one member of the Committee to question the wisdom of continuing with the project in the absence of adequate subsidy. It would send the wrong signal and might well encourage complacency on the corporation’s part.
However, the Committee is fully aware that to lose momentum at this stage of the game might well put the whole project in jeopardy and that is why they will recommend that we proceed with the windows in the chancel. The nave windows, on the other hand, may well have to wait. Fortunately they seem to be in better condition and the situation is less urgent. Nonetheless, they still need to be restored and the project needs to be completed so that we can pass on this important artistic heritage, intact, to the next generation.
The Windows Committee will continue its efforts to find sponsors so that these windows can also be restored.
Sandra
GOD’S PHARMACY
For those of you with access to the Internet, and these days, that’s most of you I should think, you might like to look at God’s Pharmacy, a PowerPoint slide presentation which was recommended by Hans Baas. The address is http://www.slideshare.net/CMP/gods-pharmacy-2434380
GREAT WRITING
There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer. When asked to define "great," he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream in disbelief, cry in despair, howl in pain, and vent their anger in ways they've never dreamed of!" He now works for Microsoft, writing error messages.
PRAYER CHAIN
If you have any requests for the prayer chain, or if you feel called to take part in this ministry, please contact Anne Miechielsen
MIRACLE 10
Guests coming to the Iona Community for a retreat at the Abbey are given the opportunity of putting an evening service together on the Thursdays. These services are always very creative and special. During one of the winter quiet weeks this year a group of guests constructed a service focusing on the miracle of being on Iona and of being part of a community. During this particular service several of them shared the experiences of their stay. Between each reflection a song was sung: “(God) Take oh take me as I am; summon up what I shall be; set a seal upon my heart and live in me”.
Here are three of the many experiences:
A strong call from God came in the first few days of my being here. Two separate days of the week found me crying uncontrollably in my room, feeling irredeemably flawed; I wasn’t loving my neighbour, I didn’t know how to begin loving God; poetry, and everything else creative I was trying came out wrong. Nothing I did, or was, was good enough. Then came the gifts of God: comfort, hope, truth. They came through my husband: “Yes, you’re imperfect. We’re fallen creatures. That’s all been taken care of.” And where was the hope in that? That I didn’t have to, I don’t have to, I will not have to produce or accomplish in order to be okay, to be loved by God. Anything of any worth comes only from God. I have only to ask for the daily bread, to do what I have to do, what I ought to do, what I like to do. I’ve been freed not to be a superman, but a child under God’s sun, growing day by day.
Going to church is quite a new experience for me. Different kinds of services are new as well. Services open me up, and tears are coming out. I hesitated to write down my “brokenness” on a piece of paper and put it in the box for the Healing Service. I did do it after a while, and went to put it in the box in church. I didn’t know exactly where the doors were, but when I was near them one of them swayed open a little bit, as if it said: “Welcome, come in”.
I came to this place, at this time, to meet with God and find his help in my turmoil. Last January, God called me to “hold on” and stand firm when I wanted to run away. I came seeking God’s strength and grace so that I could remain standing. Here amongst you, God’s people, holy and dearly loved … once strangers but now precious friends, I have found a safe place, a sacred place. A place where I have laughed, cried, prayed and called out for help again and again. In this place at this time God has not disappointed me. In Hebrews 10 verse 24, I read: “Let us consider how to spur one another to love and good works”. Here in our community of friends we have done just that. Thank you God. Thank you dear friends for being Christ to me and allowing me the privilege of being Christ to you. We go from this place to share God’s love and spur others on to love and good works.
Madeleine
Editor: With New Year in mind...here is a challenge!
NEW YEAR'S HONOURS
We are all familiar with the Queen's New Year honours list, which celebrates peoples’ significant contributions in life. But what would God's New Year honours list look like? Who are the people he chooses to honour?
Psalm 1 gives us an answer to these questions. The person who is blessed by God is compared to a tree: ‘he is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers’ (3). They are strong and well-nourished, able to cope with drought and storms, while being fruitful.
Will this be a true of us during 2010? By contrast, we can be more like bonsai trees, whose growth has been stunted. They are starved of nutrients to ensure that they are perfectly formed, but miniature in size. So often the church today resembles a bonsai nursery rather than a forest of mighty trees! Like the bonsai, we are starved of nutrition. Instead, consider the alternative: ‘his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night’ (2).
Here is the challenge for us during this coming year: to push our roots deeply down into his Word, meditating on it day and night. As we read and reflect on God’s word we are constantly reminding ourselves of God’s promises, character and acts.
The psalm promises us that as we do this the Bible will become a real delight, rather than an experience of learning multiplication tables! As we learn to do it, it will delight us more and more, because it is the voice of a friend speaking to us. Obviously the devil doesn't want us to experience this! He wants to keep our growth as stunted as possible. So we need to build ways (e.g. use some sort of Bible reading notes) of keeping our roots in the Bible. Don’t forget that a recent survey found that one-third of people will have given up their New Year resolutions by the end of January, and only one in five will keep them to the end of the year.
There will be times when our Bible reading doesn't seem to delight us, when it feels like a real slog! At such times turn back to Psalm 1 and remind yourself what the goal is: to grow into maturity, deeply rooted, drought resistant and fruitful. We will never get there unless our roots are deep in God's word.
REAL COMFORT ON A PLATE
Here’s a question every mum has asked herself at sometime or other: what is the most comforting food to feed your child when they are feeling a bit desolate? Chicken soup or chocolate cake? Cottage pie or ice cream?
Now the neuropsychologists have become curious as well, and so scientists at the University of Sussex calculated a formula to measure foods on a ‘Comfort Indeed’ scale. After exhaustive research they came up with two top results: baked beans on toast or macaroni cheese. Presumably they work on adults, too.
TEOCAWKI DAY
By the time you read this most of the festivities will be over and we will all be soberly starting out on a new year. The Sint with his non PC little black helper will have long since sailed back to Spain along with any naughty children. The temporary pine forests that sprung up outside every garden centre in the land will have vanished again as will the Kerstshow inside. (Have you ever noticed that it doesn't matter which garden centre you go into, they all have exactly the same produce on sale? I strongly suspect that somewhere in Europe there is a huge garden centre wholesale supplier and everything comes from there.) All the fireworks, which could not be bought before the 27th of Dec but somehow have been let off since the beginning of December, will have been finally used up. A few foolish young males will have fewer fingers than they once had and the Christmas decorations will be safely back in storage for the next eleven months.
Yes, it is a new year; actually it will also be a new decade. The second decade of the new century, or for those of us who like to look at the big picture, the second decade of the new millennium. Can you believe that ten years have passed since we were to be found, worried sick about the millennium bug, or Y2K as it was more affectionately known? Now to tell the truth these TEOCAWKI predictions do tend to amuse me. This happens on two counts, the first being: how come someone knows it is about to happen? I mean, all real natural disasters, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the like sneak up on us arriving with minimum notice, but for some unfathomable reason the end of the entire planet can be predicted with pinpoint accuracy. The second count is the method of calculating the date of the disaster. Most times this is done from some obscure verse in the Bible or some mystic number found in some ancient document which, when divided by another mystic number, added to itself and then divided by the square root of pi equals the Number of the Beast and tells us that the End will come on the fifth of February at two thirty in the afternoon, or some such nonsense.
Since I was born back in 1942 there have been no less than one hundred and fifty seven predictions, or roughly one every five months. Having been gifted with a logical mind I tend to notice little similarities that link things together and, do you know, there is one fact that positively links all these predictions: they were all one hundred percent wrong!
The Y2K bug was, for me at least, a bit different in that, being a computer expert, I knew that it was a load of rubbish from the outset. There were for me, no mystic numbers that would cause all the computers in the world to crash simultaneously. There was a bug in most operating systems that could cause problems due to the way the date was held on some files, but this was fully understood several years before the end of the millennium, the industry was working on the problem and had it in hand. What was also different about the Y2K bug for me was: this time I actually knew one couple who firmly believed that it was going to happen! The wife spent most of 1999 bottling fruit and
vegetables and preserving other foodstuffs, while the husband reinforced the cellar and bought guns to keep the starving neighbours at bay after the disaster struck. While this may be seen by many as a compliment to his wife's cooking abilities, I fear it didn't say much for his Christian spirit. (About here I should point out he was a pastor in some sort of strange American Christian denomination.)
In any event talking to them about it was a fairly pointless exercise. The knowing smile came on to their faces and they became very condescending as they explained, in simple terms, as I obviously didn't understand, that I would starve to death early in 2000, after all the computers stopped working and the shelves in the supermarket were bare. I must admit that it was very hard not to gloat on January the first, when everything went on as normal. Well, that was true for most of us; there were those who had to spend months eating bottled fruit, vegetables and other preserved food. But still, they did end up with a well built cellar, even if their neighbours didn't seem to be quite as friendly as before.
At least they didn't do the usual TEOCAWKI thing and head for the top of the nearest mountain. Now coming from Scotland where mountains are a bit thicker on the ground than they are here, I've had some experience climbing them. True, it is a most exhilarating feeling to stand on the top of a mountain and survey the world beneath you. Suddenly you realise just how insignificant man really is in the scheme of things. However it is to be said that this was usually done on a nice clear summer's day, which is not the kind of meteorological conditions that you'd sort of expect if the world was just about to end. In fact the top of a mountain is about the last place I'd like to be. Why, you wouldn't even have a good view.
Anyway the next big TEOCAWKI day is scheduled for the 21st of December 2012. This is the winter solstice or mid winter. Of course this happens every year so what makes 2012 special? In theory our slightly wobbling solar system will then be lined up with the galactic core. What this has to do with anything no one has bothered to explain. I mean it must have happened many times in the Earth's long history and it didn't cause the planet's total destruction then. It is also the end of the Mayan calendar, but I should hasten to point out that the Mayans did not predict the world ending just because that was as far ahead as they had worked out their calendar.
No, December 2012 is just about the correct distance into the future to get people slightly worried and make them more likely to buy a book on the subject. It also allows enough time for the author of said book to pocket the cash and be living it up in some Caribbean island paradise come TEOCAWKI day. About here you will notice that it sounds a far more sensible place to observe the End, should it come, than the top of a mountain.
In any event, I wish you all a Happy New Year.
For those of you who are still scratching you heads and wondering what TEOCAWKI stands for - The End Of Civilisation As We Know It
Jamie
Services at Holy Trinity Church, Utrecht
Previous Newsletters
Jan '10 | Feb '09 | Mar '09 | Apr '09 | May '09 | Jun '09 | Jul '09 | Aug '09 | Sep '09 | Oct '09 | Nov '09 | Dec '09