Woman, know thy place!

While the world deals with war, famine, and flood, the Church of England asserted its grasp on relevance by announcing that it will remove several powers to woman bishops.  The rationale behind the decision was to keep the embittered organization alive through its current internal conflicts. That’s a relief — if they attempted to persuade that this was an argument based on historical terms they would find themselves on rocky ground.  There is scant evidence to corroborate their position, and plenty to refute it.

belief that liberates?

There is no doubt that our beliefs are important.

We base all of our decisions on beliefs. Our beliefs influence what we buy, where we live, who we marry, and so on. Obviously, we want our beliefs to correspond to reality and give us a cohesive world view, and the same goes for our religious beliefs. In fact if our religious faith is to have any impact on our lives, it is because we genuinely do believe certain things about it.

Determining exactly what to believe, however, is not the ultimate goal of religion.

Key sticks to his guns

A while back I posted a blog about the repeal of Section 59 – the law change in New Zealand that removed the legal defence of ‘reasonable force’ in child abuse cases. Preliminary results are now back from a controversial Citizen-Initiated Referendum that asked the question:

Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?

Over 85% of those who voted ticked ‘no’.

Unfortunately the question was so badly worded that I believe it was a pointless exercise, and it will almost certainly have no impact on the laws in New Zealand. Both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition in NZ stated that they had no intention of voting in the referendum, with the Prime Minister, John Key, even calling the question “ridiculous.”

Why?

When we don’t understand

Case in point:

I am found lost in a slumber when Sheldon and Kayla move to squeeze past as I shuffle to make room for them in my seat. The assumption: they are both going to the office for some ’small business’ – a Tanzanian euphemism for number ones.

Coffee, chocolate and bacon

There a things I miss. Things like coffee, chocolate and bacon. Things a man never really needs, but I do quite like.

And on my return, what does it look like to engage with the option of these things – and others, like ice cream, chips and quick curries – when my friends elsewhere, like Max and Maggie and Mama Helen, do not have such the luxury? Can I justify the three dollars, six dollars, twelve dollars? I surely have enough words and withdrawals for a good argument.

Seeking solid ground

I can’t remember the last time I slept in a double bed. It’s a great feeling, perfecting the star fish and exploring every square inch of the mattress. The silence of Eze, France is an ocean away from the tunes of taxi horns and street chatter in Harlem, New York. And that ocean is on my front door step.

Today I dipped my feet in that ocean off a pearl-coloured boulder in the beautiful Calanques of Marseille. A friend and I shared a baguette as we fought for reality, searching for it wedged in between crystal-clear fiords and towering cliff faces.

“Are we really here?” we echoed to each other. The sound waves bounced back and forth, and the tides of perception rolled in.

Bare feet and barely present, we tried our best to give our senses their fill.

“The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.”

Why Brits hate modern architecture

25 years ago, during a speech to the RIBA, Prince Charles shocked his audience by launching an attack on modern architecture,  calling a proposed modern extension to the National Gallery  ”a carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.” The scheme was dropped, and since then Charles has maintained a role as a notorious critic of modern architecture. Recently, Charles wrote to the developers of a major residential project on the former Chelsea Barracks site, in an attempt to undermine a current design by one of the UK’s foremost architects, Richard Rogers. In the letter, Charles suggested that the traditionalist Quinlan Terry be given the project instead.

Suffering

I’m writing through the haze of jet-lag after eight hours worth of flights.

I left New York at 6:30pm. It just hit midday in Frankfurt. And I’ve had two hours sleep in economy.

International traveling is weird. As you fly, time is suspended. Swirling around you, but never gaining a footing. Then you arrive in what seems like an alternate universe, experiencing the affects of the journey but oddly detached from their cause. Is this what a black hole feels like?

The butterfly effect

In 1961, the scientist Edward Lorenz was using a computer model to predict the weather, when he took a shortcut and entered the decimal .506 instead of .506127.

A tiny difference… but the result was a completely different weather scenario.

From this experience Lorenz developed the scientific idea known as ‘the butterfly effect.’ This refers to the way in which small variations in the initial conditions of a system can produce large variations in its long term behavior.  System such as the weather appear chaotic simply because we cannot account for all the tiny factors that contribute to it.

The name ‘butterfly effect” comes from the idea that something as insignificant as the flap of a butterfly’s wings could potentially unleash a chain of events in the atmosphere that ultimately leads to the creation of a tornado.

When I heard about this it immediately resonated with a thought that I have had for some time: that even our small actions start resonate down through history. Small actions now may have huge consequences later on, and small actions thousands of years ago probably now affect us all.

Why you haven’t heard from me

Currently I’m on a quarter-filled bus back to the land of opportunity, New York, after spending three days of crappy weather in Washington D.C. Coldplay’s Prospekt’s March EP serenades me through the gaunt, leafless trees as a pack of peanut M&M’s keeps me company by my seat. I admit, I thought for a moment about one friend’s decision to eat only Fair Trade chocolate, but ignored the conviction. Ignorance is a bliss that melts in your hand, not in your mouth.