"You've got the wood on us."

I was tumbling helpless, into flames of scorching fire,
Doomed to lasting torment by the devil's vile sword,
But a hand reached out to save me from a fearful fate and dire,
The only hand that could do so. The hand of Christ the Lord

The funeral was held for a young Christian man who'd died in a vehicle accident. It was a shocking sad business, losing him like that at 33 years of age, and his parents had already had some grief and trials to cope with. But the family are Christians, and they have the hope Christians all have: physical death is a departure from this world, not the end of existence. IT's a temporary separation between the person whose body has died and those left behind, who miss them. The minister conducting the service was a vibrant believer, and it showed in what he said. There was grief at that event, but there was hope too. And a large number of people were there, whose aquaintance or friendship with the man came from different times or parts of his life. So not all the attendees were Christians. One was a former school teacher and debating coach who came to pay respects.
That man is a communist. I get on well with him, because after years of arguing our different view points we respect each other. But as a communist, he definitely does not believe Christian teaching. Still, being at that funeral and seeing the people there made a deep impression on him. Near the end of the service, when the hearse had left, he said to me quietly, "I think you've got the wood on us." For those not familiar with that expression, it means having the edge. He could see that Christianity could uplift people in a way that a political ideology could not. The Holy Spirit can do what plain human inspiration cannot. I'm not gloating over him. It is itself a witness. Even an unbeliever could see how much difference it made to people that they believed Jesus, and His words, and held to the hope they gain.
Without that hope there could have been nothing but despair and an increasing weariness with life.
If I didn't have Jesus I would have become too bitter and depressed to go on living. If that family did not have Christ they could end up wishing for death themselves to be out of their misery.
I should have said to my friend, "We've haven't got the edge, Jesus gives it to us." I didn't think quickly enough, but then if I was meant to say that the Holy Spirit would have given me those words. They might have sounded too neat, or something. What I know is, the Holy Spirit showed an unbeliever something that day. I pray he took it to heart.

Not the end.

Though when death comes, and we decay,
And our bones scattered be,
Though they may lie beneath the sky,
Or covered by the sea,
When back to Earth Lord Jesus comes,
The Holy One descend,
Then all who lived shall rise and see -
The grave is not the end!

That's not a masterpiece, but it came to me recently. It's worth reminding myself. John Donne put it in far better form when he wrote "Death be not proude". He tells death to give up its pretensions. It is not a condition which captures people. It is an event which they (we!) go through. The spirit leaves the body. And when that happens, even though physical remains may be scattered and lost, the spirit remains intact and alive. It is immortal. Sometime in the future the day will come when Jesus returns to Earth, and then....
Some years ago I heard a body builder who did some male modelling say: "If you've got something, why not show it off? We'll all be dust in two hundred years."
He reckons, does he? Some people might be better off if we were only unfeeling dust. Then there would be no consequences to face.
When the souls of all who ever lived rise from bodily death, we stand before God and it will be known: who believed God, believed Jesus, and was given the collossal blessing of pardoning for all wrong doing? And who thought it was all rubbish, and ignored Jesus' calling? Come to that, who am I to get up on a high horse about it? The answer: someone who was saved, even though I did not deserve it; and the least I can do is tell anyone else who will listen.
We won't be dust. The greatest part of our existence will start then, and it goes forever. The grave is NOT the end. It is the beginning. So we need to get it right. We need to know how we escape the hurt anger of God asking,'what did you do with the life I gave you?'
I can still cringe inwardly thinking of some of the stupid, mean, selfish or plain nasty things I've done in life, and ask God for forgiveness. It's probably a good thing, so I don't get complacent and forget that I need pardoning - big time. And it would even be vain to talk as if my sins were worse than lots of other peoples'. But waiting beyond this life is either non-ceasing joy or non-ceasing regret. The grave is only the departing point from this earth. When the women went to Jesus' tomb to find His body the angel said that He was not there, because He had risen. Now Jesus is a special and unique case; but He made the way for resurrection, and in a sense it is true to say at any persons' grave that they are not there. The earthly remains are still there, but the real them, the spirit, their real identity is not. It has passed on.
A Christian brother I met recently shared this. The letters BIBLE can stand for
Basic
Instructions
Before
Leaving
Earth.
For our own good we need to know certain things before we do so: who Jesus is, and why we need to know and follow Him.
That way the grave leads to entry to God's Kingdom, not to rejection from it.
The grave is not the end.
That is why Jesus came - to tell us.
That's why we celebrate Christmas. He came to save us.
Blessings.

Check your focus.

Someone was having a bit of a grumble about our church recently. They asked me if I felt there was enough leadership in it. Their view is that the church pastor is a leader and should lead.
I didn't have an arguement, just heard him out. But I've heard those comments before and it makes me wonder: do people sometimes get the focus a bit wrong, and look to the church, the human congregation and the pastor, for things that should come from the Holy Spirit?
Yes, a church pastor has a leadership role in their church, so do the elders. But it can be a mistake, I believe, if the pastor or any group within the church take too much on themselves in telling other people what to do. Some churches, especially those ones that might be called sects, have gained a bad reputation for being too heavy handed and controlling in their attitude to their congregations. They may be assuming an authority that only belongs to God. The human leaders of the church are there to teach and guide, but the ultimate Lordship is God's alone. And the most critical leadership for any Christian does not come from another mere human being. It comes from the Holy Spirit dwelling within you. The Spirit's guidance goes hand in hand with the Scriptures. If anyone claims they have been told 'in the spirit' to do or say something, and that something contradicts the teachings of the Bible, then it is a false leading. That is why we need both. But if human leaders gain or claim too much influence, too much power in running other peoples' lives then you get the Jim Jones mistake. It seems Jones acted and said things contrary to what the Bible actually teaches, and his followers did not see it because they looked to him for things that they should have found from the Written Word and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in prayer. Some more mainstream churches can lead their followers astray, also, when in an attempt to be 'modern' they compromise the Word.
The moral of the story is, do not mistake the mere human body of the church, its pastor or any one else for He who is not of this flesh and world. The leadership of a church should always be subject to that limit. Ultimately we do not rely on the human members of the church, although it is good to join in worship and seek the guidance of others where it can help. But too much emphasis on leadership in a church can lead people astray. I heard of one pastor who told some of his congregants that if they left the church they would break the bond with the Holy Spirit. He as good as said that they could only communicate with God through him. That man was, I think, going way over the top claiming that. And all humans are fallible and imperfect. No human should claim the mantle of God in holding too much power or authority over others. We need to remember that when we talk about church leadership. Its real leader is not the pastor, but the God who calls him and all of us too.

"Expelled": They just don't get it!

Watching "Expelled" I recall one of the non-believers saying that he and other rationalists don't want to 'abolish religion' as he put it. What he thinks will happen is that science will gradually cause the disappearance of religion. In his words, let people have their religion if it means getting together and having fun. But as time passes there will be more scientific discovery and religion will just fade away. He talked about 'a little bit more science, a little bit less religion, a little bit more science, a little bit less religion' until it simply doesn't have any followers anymore. That speaker, and others like him, just don't get it. They do not understand what faith and belief mean to people. Perhaps he perceives churches as social organizations or old-fashioned cultural things that have outlived their use. In fact if a person has a real faith, a really genuine belief in God, then all science does is reveal more of the genius of God. Or when science tries to prove the non-existence of God it gets caught out breaking its own rules, namely accepting what the evidence shows honestly instead of using it to suit itself. Some of the laws of science, like the Laws of Thermodyamics, are evidence against evolution. One of those laws says that things tend to go from a state of order to a state of disorder. That is the exact opposite of what evolutionary theory suggests, that things become more ordered and complex.
If science was going to stifle interest in faith it would have happened decades ago. It did not because even though scientific investigation can explain HOW things happen, that does not explain WHY things happened. Finding meaning in life is not just a matter of understanding what happens, it also requires us to see a point to it. From a purely rational viewpoint, an atheist viewpoint, humans exist like animals to propogate their own species. All that they do just serves to prolong their existence so that they will have more offspring. A belief in God gives you a reason to go on existing.
Discoveries made seem to give humans more power, so that they can start deluding themselves they've made God unnecessary, or become as powerful. So then people learn the hard way to respect His place. When antibiotics were discovered, some humans thought they had the power to scorn God's rules. They could control disease. Instead, antibiotic resistant strains began to appear. With discoveries enabling contraception, preventing pregnancy and STDs, some arrogant unbelievers thought they could disdain the rules God made. Then they found out the hard way that contraception can leave people sterile when they want to conceive, and STDs became antibiotic resistant. When science learned what was needed to build the Titanic, some FOOL wrote 'Even God can't sink this ship'. History records how clever that comment was. So humans think they can displace God by learning the things they do, and find they are just as helpless before Him as their ancestors thousands of years ago. They just managed to hide the fact with all their technological rinky-tinks. How humiliating!
The longer we go, the more we have to face the fact that there are things we cannot do, and ways in which only a superior intelligence has the answers. But there, one of the atheist speakers in "Expelled" ended up admitting that there must be some intelligent design in the beginning of life - and said it must be from another planet! That's the old von Danniken stuff, "Chariots of the Gods."
Some people will talk about men from Mars before they accept the place of God in this universe. But to those who believe, the reality of God is only shown more and more by human attempts to scorn Him. Religion will not disappear in the face of scientific discovery. The more science finds out and tells us, the less it will have answers to the question "Why are we here?"
Jesus Himself said, some people will hear but not understand, see but not believe, because their wicked hearts are hardened.
Jesus is eternal. So is the Holy Spirit, reaching out to us. Science can't equal that. Scientific discovery will all become redundant when Heaven and Earth pass away, but Jesus' words do not pass away.

That which endures

In Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" Romeo says of his friend Mercutio, "He jokes at scars that never felt a wound." In modern English, 'he makes light of things when he has never suffered anything like them.'
Well, the world's full of that. Just one example is people trashing Christians because they want to believe things that are 'too good to be true.' They want to believe that people who die in this life will be alive again, and perfectly safe, in the next. They want to believe that nothing good is really lost, only taken away from us for a while.
Right - you can trash me too for that. I really love to think that some day our family will see the child we lost, in Heaven. One day we will see people we miss because they have gone from this world; and in the next where they won't ever be taken away again. Who would NOT like to see that? And when people ridicule that hope they are denying that we ALL miss things that are lost. That's only human.
It is just as well that we CAN believe in that. Life would reduce you to despair otherwise. People who will not accept that hope must be good at denying their feelings about certain things, trying to pretend they handle grief and loss better than they do. And when things get bad, there can be a change of heart. After the Twin Towers horror, there was an increase in church attendance and things commitment to permanent relationships. When something can be lost, we realize we miss it and want to believe that there is something more than the fragile world. If you want to try and rely on the world for your hope and joy, you might as well trust in a papier-mache umbrella. Anytime at all it could crumble.
It's been a shocking few days! Several mass shootings, an earthquake in Italy...there's not point in going on. We get the point. I'm praying that Easter can still be a happy time for people. Whoever reads this, I honestly wish you peace and joy in Christ. We're being shown at a time like this that there really isn't any thing or one in this world you can totally and utterly rely on. It or they could be taken away, so easily.
I speak with respect for people's feelings. It's too easy to lecture here about things I don't appreciate the way other people do. But it must be faced up to. Some of the buildings, even a whole town, destroyed by the earthquake in Italy were examples of Renaissance architecture, valued parts of Europe's heritage. Losing them is not as cruel as losing the people who died, but to those who value the relics of the past then it's another blow. What has stood for so long and is valued, has been lost in a few moments. It would be cruel to speak lightly about it, and not recognize the distress here. But what does it show?
Nothing in this material world is forever. Thousands of people have been fascinated by things like the Coloseum, the Parthenon, the pyramids; and we're reminded that they can be gone in a few seconds. If you pinned your reason for living on them, then you're at risk! Trust me. I was not always a Christian, and it used to really hurt me when something I liked was lost, (even something no-one else could see any value in) or a person I was attached to either left the world altogether or moved so that they weren't around anymore.
I HAD to know there was more to believe in. Everything of this world passes away. Even if it's lasted hundreds of years and been known to generations, like the pyramids of Egypt, will be gone at some time. If that's all you see value in, then complete loss of hope is in sight.
Jesus said "Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." We can see all things of the Earth passing away while we watch. Did you ever feel as is you were marooned on a little island that was gradually being eroded by the water around it, and soon you would be left with nothing firm to stand on? I've had that feeling! Just ONE hope exists.
The things of the Spirit are not swept away. The Word of God is forever.
Several times in the last few years, I found myself facing something seriously stressful over Easter. One was a crisis at work, another involved a person being injured. It could have 'spoilt the holiday' but it had the effect of pushing me back closer to God.
Is this what's going on now?
It's pure horror reading about the shootings, which happen when people lose hope and blow up in desperation and rage; the earthquake, the things we cannot control fall on us. I've never been in an earthquake. I was uncomfortably close to a bushfire once, and that was bad enough.
I won't make light of other people's hurts. What has to be remembered is, nothing in this world endures and can be counted on completely.
God is forever, and if He chooses to protect you miraculously you could be caught in a bushfire and not even scorched. Remember Shadrach, Meshak and Abednego? You could be dropped in the sea and yet survive. You could go get caughtin a fearful gunfight and yet survive. Or if you do not, then you cease to live in THIS body and this world, and go to another one. We believe (or I should say KNOW) that Jesus died in the body. Proof existed of His body's death. But He reappeared, completely alive and able to tell the disciple Thomas to examine the wounds for himself.
This is that which endures, He who endures. Jesus is forever and He takes hold of His own and prevents their destruction, even as every physical thing is passing away.
God be with us all.

Small is beautiful?

People are concerned about a possible split in the Anglican Communion, all the Episcopal type churches that look to the Archbishop of Canterbury as leader. They make is sound like a complete disaster, but if it did come to that, it might not be altogether a bad thing.
Look at it this way. When Christianity first appeared, emerging among the Jews of ancient Palestine, the worshippers met in small house churches. They were usually outside the temple, and the synagogue. Jesus used a borrowed room for the Last Supper. The Christian Church as it then was, the body of believers, did not have a large formal infrastructure. There were no great processions of dignitaries, or massive majestic buildings. Jesus Himself said that the believers themselves are His house, the house of God, not some building.
I'm not suggesting that all Christian cathedrals, churches and minsters should be torn down. No way. They were built out of devotion to the Christian faith and to the glory of God. What I am suggesting is that there can be problems when the organized church becomes too centralized, and too structured under a hierarchy of human leaders. Human beings are only human, after all. No one of us should imagine that we can take the role of God in teaching or instructing others. Those called to teach need to teach purely from the Bible, not their own authority. Doing that can lead to the disaster seen in Jim Jones some years ago - and others besides.
If a large church split, and in its place there were small locally based house churches, then they might not have the influence that a large organization can have. But things would be more like they were in the days of the apostles, when post-Crucifiction Christianity was first coming into being.
One advantage of a large structured church is that it can share its resources, and do more with them (if the members are so inclined). It's easier to set up and run hospitals, schools, shelters for the homeless and welfare agencies like St Vincent de Paul, or the St John's Ambulance Brigade, with a large group of people who have money, labour and other things to contribute.
A disadvantage of a large church is, that bad ideas can be imposed on a large number of people. In the Middle Ages there was really only one Christian church, that which was centred on Rome. In those days the church taught that the world was flat and the Earth was the centre of the Solar System, with the Sun revolving round it. The Bible does NOT say those things. They come from the Ptolemaic science and cosmology of the ancient world, specifically Egypt. The scholars and thinkers of the time made the honest mistake of working those things out because that's how it seemed unless you had the advantage of modern equipment like a telescope and background knowledge which had not been learnt then. But the mistake the Medieval church made was to add those things to its body of Holy Writ - the things that the church taught as the Word Of God. In other words, they added things that are not in Bible to what they called the Word of God as revealed to humanity. They disobeyed the command the Bible makes not to add to what it says. They compromised the teaching that the Bible alone is God's Word. Thus a wrong, mistaken idea was imposed on the entire Christian world of the time.
The large churches of the world, such as the Anglican and Roman Catholic, have done some marvellous works. Try working out how many children have been educated, sick people cared for, homeless fed and sheltered and unsaved people evangelized by the societies they have set up and run. A small local congregation might not be able to do the same. So there is a good side to huge global churches. And there are some good things which could be shared when Christians communicate widely.
The argument is also used that small groups of Christians, isolated from others, can lapse into error without guidance. It's an overused thing in movies that a group of hillbillies out of touch with the world get carried away by mad satanic ideas. Things like "Children Of The Corn" use that in their plots. In might happen less in reality than it does in stories made up by people who want to discredit Christianity. And it can only occur if the people involved let it happen because they become proud or stubborn. A single Christian living alone can be kept from error if they read the Word of God honestly, and pray for the Holy Spirit to guide them. The do not need an archbishop or other dignitary to tell them what the Word says if God reveals it to them. Having said that, I know that Christians are encouraged to worship together and keep company to help care for and guide each other. But what is called 'strong' leadership, or authoritarian leadership, can have the effect of imposing bad teaching on huge numbers. As Jesus said, the leaven of the Pharisees can ruin a whole loaf.
It is in God's hands whether a large, influential church divides into smaller ones. I can't claim to know what's best. I can claim to know that it is NOT good to have unity by compromising the truth. If a church allows some of its members to carry on with practices that are not Christian, just to include them, then it is losing its integrity. If some Episcopal Church in the U.S. are disobeying the Bible by ordaining clergy who practice homosexual relationships, then it is futile to try and keep the Church together by allowing error or disobedience to God's Word.
The world is so huge that we can't have personal acquaintance with all the rest of its people. It's good for a Church in Alaska to have some fellowship with one in Scotland, or Australian Christians to have contact with African ones or anything you like. But Christianity existed before the whole world was known to the people of any one part of it. Some evidence exists that there was a Christian community in India since long before European missionaries went there. The Indian Christians received the Word without needing the big churches in Europe to get involved. Contact is good, but it is not essential. Human leadership has it's place but only under God. The Holy Spirit's guidance is the critical thing for believers.

The worst and the best.

I could not finish reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It just upset me too much. The fact that it's a work of fiction makes no difference. It deals with real life. The sheer cruelty and bloodiness of it was more than I could keep taking in. The same was true watching parts of "The Shawshank Redemption" when the sadistic warder was belting a helpless inmate with a night stick. I had to look away, in disgust and rage.It could be partly because there was a period of clinical depression in my life (under control now) but knowing that this sort of thing DID happen can make a person sick at heart.
The same goes for hearing about human trafficking - people abducted and used as sex slaves, until they either die from some disease or become self-destructive. The sheer evil of hurting and ruining someone else's life that way! It seems rather harsh that God destroyed all life on Earth once before, but at times like that it's possible to understand why! The wicked are swept away, and the suffering are put out of it, and perhaps their souls were saved anyway! Some people look at this state of things and say 'how could there be a god' to which my reply is 'how could PEOPLE do such things, and no wonder a caring God is infuriated by it! Because PEOPLE do it, God does not. And if rage at these things arises from a God-given sense of what is right and wrong, then to feel this way might be sharing in the sufferings of Christ. The Three Persons of God must be appalled at what humans sometimes sink to (and I'd better not forget that my wrong doings needed to be paid for at Calvary as well) and sometimes it calls for divine retribution.
So, from the worst to the best: having said all the above, it's a huge inspiration and comfort to hear the witness and thoughts of Christians. In the same world, the same country, even the same town, you can see the worst of vileness from humans, in such things as human trafficking and drug dealing. On the other you can see the light of God reflected in witnesses. It comes out in their actions, too. Some Christians have gone to places they might not have wanted to be at all, because there was a need that they could meet by being there. Some work in occupations chosen for the benefit of others, not for their own glory or gain. Whatever they do, many show by what they say that they care and would wish the human race suffered less. So I can lose all faith in mere human beings, myself included, even though I have friends and family I love and appreciate. Then I can regain all hope by remembering that humans are still made in the image of God, and when they will let the Holy Spirit enter their hearts and minds they can reflect what is good in the Universe, as well.
The contrast can make your head spin. From seeing how God decided to wash the whole planet clean, sparing only the people and creatures He called onto the Ark; to seeing how Jesus could face up to and suffer the crucifiction, to save us.
When peope want to make something good, they are echoing the creativity of God.It might be in something small in itself; but it is still the impulse to make something good, the opposite of destruction and cruelty. Everywhere you go on the internet, you find knitting and crochet enthusiasts; artists; film makers, and writers.
And stay-at-home mothers reflect the nurturing impulse of God. Fathers who care do that as well; but without getting into schmaltzy sentiment about it, I'm offering my respects to women who see their way to being there for young children in a full-on way like that. Having been an involved father, I know how demanding the care of a child can be. No-one need try to tell me parenting is easy; and mothers seem to carry a lot of it.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote that novel because she looked at a horror in the world and had to speak out against it. Some people run collections or do volunteer work because they want things to be better. Myself, I've done a little bit of a lot of things without being brilliant at any of them. I wrote the one novel I have in print so far, because something in the world roused me and I had to show how things could be better. I don't believe that "Outcasts Of Skagaray" will change history the way "Uncle Tom's Cabin" did. But the feeling is the same. When you see something cruel and wrong, and want to change it, then you show the divine spark that found its full expression in God the Messiah, or God the Son, Jesus Christ. We can't claim to be equal to Him, but we can take inspiration from knowing that when we want to put something good into the world, we are following His example. Sometimes, it seems to me, you can save yourself from despair by doing what little it seems that you can to change things.

Authors who put the case

Some books do not entertain so much as teach by confronting us with something. Two novels I can think of make for stark reflection, but they may have an important lesson. "Lord Of The Flies" is about a group of school age boys marooned on an island without any adult or cultural supervision or control. "Heart Of Darkness" is about Europeans involved in colonial trade in Africa, during the 1800s. In both scenarios, the people involved lapse into savage and barbaric behaviour. The boys on the island begin quarreling, they divide into two hostile groups and some of them become murderous in their treatment of others. They also invent a god for themselves and a 'beast', an enemy figure they are meant to be united against.
In 'Heart Of Darkness', the Europeans, supposedly a civilizing influence on the Africans, become savage and cruel themselves. The image of the 'whited sepulchre' is an obvious Biblical reference.
It would be a mistake for me to stand here in judgement and make comments as if I was one to talk. So whatever I say is about humans myself included, not my condemnation of others.
The self-preservation instinct is natural to any living thing. It's the only way they will survive sometimes, if we think to keep ourselves safe and get for ourselves the things we need. Problem is, the difference between self-preservation and selfishness is not always easy to decide on. You can look at these two books, or at a situation like the air-crash survivors in the Andes Mountains about whom "Survive" was written (they ate the flesh of their dead friends to avoid starving) and ask yourself, what would you do in the same situation? I would have to admit that I've been inclined to try and get away with things for my own benefit.
That's the problem. The saying goes, "if you don't look after yourself, no-one else will."
Could it be that this is where humans need to turn to something greater than themselves? There are situations and dilemmae they do not have ready or workable answers to, and only a greater power and intelligence can resolve this?
The Humanist view is that humans are naturally good and want to be their best possible selves. That does not explain why given the chance, one human will so often try exploiting another. It can be quite sobering sometimes to find out of someone that they did things you never thought they would. As the comical expression goes, "I didn't think you had it in you." But they did.
Study of the National Socialist era in Germany shows that some of the war criminals, who did the most appalling things, were affable 'normal' people at other times. Even Hitler himself was seen to be kind to children and to love his dog. I've seen a photo of some German army personel who were the staff at a concentration camp,
and who also had a camp orchestra. The picture shows them hamming it up for the camera and looking just like a crowd of good natured friends, ordinary people. Yet when at work, they were engaged in mass murder.
From a Christian perspective, we are told to love people but not to idealize them. History seems to show that human nature is not reliable in keeping itself from cruel or even murderous behaviour. Hence the Christian teaching that we need God to be with and within us. I may never find out what I might have been capable of if put in certain situations. I like to think that there have been times when I could have done something selfish or cruel and chose to do something better. But what seems important to say is, we ought not to fool ourselves that we're better than we are.

Wishful thinking.

An arts commentator said once that society has now become secular, arts are the new spirituality and art galleries are the new cathedrals, where people go to take in what this society has to teach. That could be a bit over the top, but it's an interesting comment. Another angle on society's outlook is this: once, the extended family and the church helped raise children. In fact it was said 'It takes a village to raise a child'. Now, education has replaced spiritual instruction. Instead of the church and extended family helping raise a child, the school and its staff have to do so. Many people have rejected or drifted away from the church. And there is less contact with extended family, for some; and less community involvement Parents keep their children closer. So schools have to do the job instead.
Not only that, but teachers should do so painlessly. They should raise their students to be perfect without causing them any discomfort.In New South Wales the Education Department gave out guidelines for student protection, which forbade a teacher to raise their voice or speak sharply to a kid. Teachers who did could have a complaint made and investigators came to the school to check them out. Right now there is controversy about it in the press. Teachers are saying that it is impossible to control a class without being able to speak sharply and rebuke bad behaviour where necessary. Where that gets really ugly is, they cannot properly stop some kids bullying others. The bully getting a telling off complains that they are the victim.
The result is, many teachers want to change jobs. I was terribly glad to get out of teaching (in the public system) myself. But there's more to it than that.
For the convenience of others, it is assumed that teachers have complete power to make kids do some things and stop them doing others. People who say that may not realize quite what they are implying.
If teachers actually could exert complete control over their students, make them do and not do exactly what they wanted, they would be quite dangerous people. A teacher could be a real life Pied Piper, who took total power over the children of the village and led them away with him, never to be seen again. It could be quite scary and dangerous.
Power tends to corrupt, the saying goes; and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. If all the self-serving commentators actually thought about it, they should realize that they really do not want ANYONE being able to control kids that way. A teacher, or anyone, who could exert that sort of absolute power over someone's mind is able to manipulate them.
Do they actually want that? Do they want anyone else controlling their children at all?
Would it be better if children, teenagers, young persons, learnt to control themselves? And should that start with the parents, before the young ones even get to school?
On this subject, you can also see how public education is based on a faulty premise, from a Christian perspective. Secular humanism teaches that people are all born basically 'good' and well intentioned. Only a bad environment makes them behave badly. This sounds nice because we want to see ourselves and others in a positive way. But Christianity teaches that human beings are born sinful and need to be taught to repent and accept the guidance of the Holy Spirit. God loves us but does NOT flatter us. He commands us to love one another, but NOT flatter one another.
So secular school authorities assume that if teachers are always set the right example and are 'nice' to kids they will always follow the example and be 'nice' back. IF ONLY. Were it was that simple then schools and families and the whole of society would have learnt to live in complete peace decades ago -make that centuries ago.
There will be no joy in schools until it is seen that correction may be needed. That does not mean bringing back the whip and being cruel. I hate cruelty just like everybody else except sick sadists. But it does mean a student behaving badly should be told so, and penalised if need be so they get the message. Teachers have to have a means of upholding their own control if they are going to do their job. And for their own good, before it's too late, parents need to accept that their children are NOT perfect; and the responsibility for guiding them rests with the family.
Even that is not enough if people try leaving God out of the equation. Human creatures can't do it on their own. History is full of pitiful examples of people who 'blew it' because they lacked the wisdom or goodness to avoid their own ruin. That is why Shakepeare's tragedies are still relevant. They show how it happens.

Kindred spirits

I've made a discovery, after several hours spent blogging, and searching 'blogspot' for sites and their owners. I feel quite different talking to a Christian than talking to a non-Christian. Now I do NOT want to have a critical or hostile view of non-Christians. In fact, I'm sure I don't. I know too many people, and get on cordially with too many people who are not Christians, to become one of those people who only wants to know people of like outlook to my own. But it tells me that the Holy Spirit is real. There is quite genuinely a thing of the spirit that makes for empathy between myself and really alive believers. I should admit that I feel humbled or even a bit embarrassed seeing the right up front, radiant way some Christians express their faith, and tell anyone listening where they are coming from. I should follow their example. The Scripture tells us, let our light shine and do not hide it under a bucket (bushell). We are meant to be light to the world. And I'm finding it easier and easier to tell anyone who sees or hears me, that's where I stand. If they are going to reject me for it, that saves time. If they did not at firs realize, and decide when they find out that they do not want to know a 'holy roller', or 'God-botherer', or 'religious hypocrite' or whatever they consider Christians to be then right, so be it. It will save the wasted time. But when I try to e-mail or comment on a blog, talking to a Christian is so much easier. It is not just a state of mind. I have after all come across church members with whom I did not get on. It would be arrogant to suggest that it must reflect on them if we don't have much to say to each other. But there is still a real bond there. It is reassuring to know.