Not sure if I’m getting the hang of this violin. Today’s lesson was consolidating everything I’ve been taught, and hopefully learnt, so far. Starting with basic bowing on open strings, with various up bow and down bow combinations. Next up was the basic one octave D major scale, both ascending and descending. Finally playing some of the pieces in the book, more as a practice in playing the notes rather than reading music as, to be honest, reading one line of music with only a treble clef and two sharps is dead easy. Although, the concept of semi-tones on the violin takes on a greater significance than on the piano, as it is much easier to get it wrong on the violin! All in all though, after a month’s worth of lessons, I know more and am able to do more than when I started, which must be a good thing.

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mk 10:45

In the last weeks before his crucifixion, Jesus repeatedly tells his disciples what will happen and why.

He tells them that he did not come to liberate people from the Imperial Roman occupiers. He did not come to be an earthly king to replace Caesar. Nor did he come primarily to tell people how to live, or to set a good example.

Rather, he will die in the place of his people, that he will take on the the punishment due for their sins thereby setting them truly free. He tells them he is giving up his life, voluntarily, of his own accord. Elsewhere, he says that no one has forced him to do it. He does this because of his great love, he is willing to do it. He tells them is paying the ransom for his people. All of us, by sinning, have built up a huge debt, a ransom, before God, which we are unable to pay off. Only God himself, the person of Jesus Christ, is able to pay that debt.

Do we understand the mission of Jesus Christ?

This evening I went to a talk given by Paul Garner of Biblical Creation Ministries on the subject of evolution vs creation, from a scientific viewpoint.Ask the average layman in the street the above question, and the answer is almost always a certain ‘yes’. Most people don’t have the foggiest idea about it, yet alone have any comprehension it might be wrong. Many people think this is a religion vs science issue, or faith vs reason, when it is nothing of the sort. Subjecting the theory of evolution to scientific reason can show it to be deficient. The talk this evening covered a few areas of science where evolution is inadequate.

Straightforward arguments such as gaps in the fossil record, where, if evolution were true, you wouldn’t expect to find these gaps, raise doubts. After all if all life is a result of gradual changes, you would expect to find the links between one species to another.

The concept of evolution gradual improvements by small mutations appears to be flawed, as mutations observed today in the copying of genetic code result in loss of operation. This can be seen most markedly in genetic diseases such as spina bifida.

Additionally, many complex creatures we see around us defy the idea of gradual improvement. If they only had particular functions in full operation, they would not be able to function as a whole.

On the flip side of mutations is natural selection, but this doesn’t demonstrate evolution in any way. For the fittest (or most well suited) to survive, it must already exist. The only thing that will happen is that those not so well suited will eventually dwindle in numbers and possibly die out. In other words, everything that has survived, existed in the first place, and due to variations dying out, the gene pool is reduced.

Finally, there is the question of how did life start in the beginning, which has not been fully answered in evolution. Scientific experiments have only managed to produced amino acids – the building blocks of life – not life itself, and even then only with specific conditions. Looking at these specific conditions, they are only assumed to be representative of the earth before life.

These arguments are amongst many and I realise I could go on for ages, but these arguments are significant and show significant problems with evolutionary theory. I also realise I am a qualified mathematician and not a qualified biologist/geologist, whereas Paul Garner is. If you get an opportunaity to listen to Paul Garner, or to read his works, he is more likely to be explain it better than me.

Given the evidence which life leaves behind, it is hard to conclude it evolved. It is possible to argue that the evidence is more in line with the theory that everything was created and designed by God, than to argue it evolved through a sequence of chance events. Even some ardent evolutionsists refer to life as being well designed, or having the appearance of design.

Is it not therefore possible that there is a designer and that life was designed?

What is certain, is that we cannot believe the theory of evolution to be certainly true.

Instead of writing about my antics today, I thought I’d have a look around my blog roll and comment on what’s been happening – if anything, I’ve noticed some haven’t changed in the past fortnight, so I’ll ignore those.

From the top:
Reading Alison’s day to day happenings is almost akin to trying to pin down the wind. She is always doing something, and her record of it is like a fast rushing wind. Saying that, at least she managed to take time out see Hotel Rwanda with us. An intelligent thinking young lady.

Luke has been singing the praises of PHP over C#. Although to be honest, I’m not convinced C# is any good anyway, so not much convincing needed here. Maybe I’m just too sceptical of Microsoft and their whole .net plan?

Catez has managed to cover the Terri Schiavo case in the States, as well as run a Christianity and Science showcase and make a substantial critique of the Living Church of God within the past few days! The showcase has produced some good articles by fellow bloggers, demonstrating that science and Christianity are both reasonable, yet both have an element of faith. I remember reading an article on the Worldwide Church of God and its reconciliation with orthodoxy, but never realised the Living Church of God, which is currently in the news, was a cultic offshoot. Above all, Terri Schiavo’s life hangs on the decisions of others, when it shouldn’t be up for debate at all. There are very few legitimate cases for killing someone, and this isn’t one of them.

Being a Calvinist, I find the blogging of this Lutheran interesting, and in many areas very similar to what I understand of the bible. Being a former Anglican, he also has an interesting insight into the current tussle between non-biblical and biblical factions of Anglicanism. It does seem odd to me that the North American Anglicans, who number just under 3 million can cause such a rift within a group of over 50 million, the majority of whom are biblical. However, I’m not an Anglican, so what would I know?

Dave writes on how we might engage the pluralistic society we live in with the Gospel of Christ. Not that we would shrink away into a Christian ghetto, but that by the power of God we might change our society for God.

It’s encouraging to see young minds developing, sharing their thoughts with the world. All too often, we can just rely on the media to supply us with information without thinking about it, so it’s good to start thinking at an early age.

Gervase (unusual name!) is a geek through and through and proud of it. As such, I find his musings on Mozilla/Firefox, time and motion studies and all manner of geek things to be most interesting.

Dean treads the fine line of constructive criticism of church web sites. Personally, I find his criticism very useful and have implemented some of his suggestions at the HWEC web site. However, he seems to be getting some flak for his advice. Ah well, can’t please everyone all of the time.

David (there are a lot of ‘Dave’s about!) blogs on all manner of things. I find his posts on the internet (especially blogging) in the hands of a Christian interesting and helpful. He certainly seems to have his finger on the pulse and many Christians who use the internet would be well advised to read this blog and find out how they may use it effectively for the glory of God.

Finally J Richards is a Christian who blogs about almost anything which he considers worth blogging. As such, he is a good yardstick to which I can compare my own blogging habits. Sometimes I find it hard to know when I’m being really dull and boring, so by seeing what I find interesting to read on other blogs, I might have some insight into what other people find interesting in my blog – if anything. 🙂

So there you go, a short run-down of my blog roll.

In Luke 5:1-11, we see Jesus interacting with Simon (also known as Peter).

Jesus is telling people the word of God, but because of the vast crowd, he has to get into the boat of Peter and go off shore so that he might be heard by everyone. Once he had finished telling the people the word of God, he approached Peter and asked him something unusual. What Peter was asked to do was in itself nothing unusual, as he was a fisherman, so putting out his net was usual. What was unusual was that this carpenter from Nazareth had told this professional fisherman to let down his nets. Peter pointed out he had caught nothing all night, after all, they were more likely to catch something during the night when it was quiet than during the day. Yet, Peter respects his Master, so does what he says.

From Peter’s reaction to the events that follow, it would seem that whilst Peter respected Jesus, he had little idea of who he was. On seeing the huge haul of fish, Peter realised this carpenter is more than what he appears to be. All of a sudden, Peter realises this carpenter has great insight, and the power to control nature. Whereas he refers to Jesus as Master prior to the event, he now refers to him as Lord. This acknowledgement of deity is taken further as Peter becomes aware of his sinfulness in the presence of God’s holiness.

In his love, Jesus does not condemn them, but comforts them and tells them they will catch men. At this, the new found faith of Peter, and some of his fellow fishermen, in Jesus the God-man, causes them to drop everything and follow Jesus.

Have we discovered who Jesus is? Have we discovered how sinful we are? Will we do his will?

If you haven’t seen Hotel Rwanda, you must. Nothing I say can do this film justice. Set during the Rwandan civil war in the mid 1990’s, it tells the true story of a hotel manager in the capital city Kigali. It is an amazing film, yet a tragic retelling of the ability of human nature. It demonstrates the horrific acts which human nature is capable of, at all levels, as well as the incredible acts of kindness and heroism. I was struck by the humility of one of these heroes, Paul Rusesabagina, and his strength of faith. His ability to thank God for every day that he was given, despite the constant struggle to maintain the lives of those he loved dearly and those under his care, as well as witnessing the atrocities happening all around him. In the West, it can be so easy to forget about the world around us, even to think that such atrocities could never happen here. Even though the genocide in Rwanda happened only 11 years ago, we forget so easily. How easily we forget the horrors perpetrated in Europe only 60 years ago. I am glad I saw this film, yet deeply saddened by it. However, I trust we will never forget what has happened, and that we will learn from even our darkest moments. May I thank God for every day he has given me.

Another Tuesday, another violin lesson. Things seem to be progressing though, even though this was my third lesson. I can now bow all four strings with some competence, in both up and down bow movements. I’m also able to play B, E, C#, F#, G and D, which means I am now able to play a D major scale, albeit one octave. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do the exercises in the book which required one to draw a line of treble clefs, minims, crotchets and quavers. I might’ve gone slightly potty otherwise. Only downside to all of this is that my left shoulder is now killing me from being held in a rather unnatural position for an hour, which appears to be affecting my typing speed. Saying that, it’s a lot less painful then the football game yesterday where I managed to get a ball to my head twice, with quite considerable force applied. I did manage to score a few goals though, which is some consolation I guess.

You Are 80% Left Brained, 20% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you’re left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you’re right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

Persuasive? Not sure about that. The rest of it sounds accurate though. 🙂

Is it possible to know the big picture? Can we know the plans of God?

The bible, through the philosopher in Ecclesiastes, tells us that God has the whole picture. God himself is the artist, and has set out everything in place, from births and deaths to when to laugh and when to cry. Contrary to the post-modern thinking of this age, which says there is no meta-narrative, or story upon which our lives are interweaved.

As human beings we don’t know what God has set out. We become frustrated in not knowing the big picture, because of our separation from God. This same frustration bears out that their is a story upon which our lives are a part. With hindsight, we can see how God has worked in the past, performing his purposes.

Yet, we are not called to understand the big picture, but to trust God who has the big picture to show us our place in the big picture. As human beings we can become very much preoccupied with trying to know why things happen, whereas very often we should spend our time determining what our reaction should be and to do it.

The philosopher points out that we find satisfaction in doing God’s will, by doing good. Yet, as fallen human beings, in our our strength we cannot do that, and need to trust in Christ for our salvation from sin, that his Spirit will enable us to do good. We may even get a glimpse of the bigger picture.

Hmmm, another exhausting Saturday! Started off quite early this morning down at the church building as a small team of us set about painting walls, fixing carpet, repairing hymnbooks, digging up weeds, sweeping up leaves and a whole host of other practical tasks which were required to keep the building in a good and useful state.
Wandered down to the snooker hall with David in the afternoon to play a few frames of snooker, eventually finishing 5-4 frames in my favour. I think my opponent is improving, either that or I’m getting worse, or even both!

In the evening most of the usual suspects went down to the Uxbridge Road Tabernacle in Shepherd’s Bush to listen to a talk entitled “Are we what we watch?” We ended up in a KFC afterwards, to discuss what we had heard amongst other things.

The whole of the talk was grounded on these verses from the bible:

“Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22

The talk focussed mainly on television – hence the title – as in today’s western culture, it it the most pervasive source of ideas and entertainment. Also, by its very nature, as well as its dominance, it is also a very powerful medium.

Throughout the bible, we are told to “test everything”, to think about everything we do, everything we see, hear, touch, smell and taste. Of these, what we see and hear are the primary sources of ideas and information, which is part of what makes television so powerful. Many forms of communication require our brains to be thinking, from talking and listening to other people, reading books, and conversely their ‘modern equivalents’ of instant messaging and blogging. With these forms, we can stop and think about things as we communicate. The very word of God is presented to us as a person in Jesus Christ, and in written form in the bible. Yet, with television, it is possible to receive information without thinking, as the medium itself is one way, and doesn’t stop to allow you to think before moving on. It also very powerfully uses images as well as sound, and as we know, an image doesn’t always tell the whole story, yet can appear to be the whole story and be very convincing. It is interesting of note that God didn’t give us an image, but words.

This is not to say that television is therefore evil. For in all forms of communication, we should think about what we will expose ourselves to, as well as think about what we have exposed ourselves to. There are good things which appear on television, things which can teach us good things. Yet, by its very nature it can be easily abused, extolling an anti-Christian worldview, where image is everything, where self is all important and where God and true reality are ignored and even opposed. These anti-Christian viewpoints can very quickly affect our thinking, as they have entered through our eyes and ears without allowing us to think them through.

We should also be careful that books, newspapers, music, the internet, as well as television, do not become an addiction by which we cannot live. Are we switching on the television mindlessly to fill our lives with meaning, whilst at the same time neglecting to do something useful?

Therefore, if we are Christians, we should think about everything we do and consider whether it is permissible, beneficial and ultimately glorifying to God.

It’s always interesting talking with the youngsters who attend the youth club at HWEC on a Friday night. It’s an insight into what the world is teaching our young people, some of which can be subtle yet insidious.

On one end of the spectrum, there are those who find it hard to believe we are saved from our sin by the grace of God, through faith in Christ alone. To them, being right with God is being good, praying and going to church. Whilst there is nothing wrong with those activities, in fact they are very good activities to carry out, they cannot put us right with God. Every Friday, it seems that we’re repeating the same discussion – albeit with different young people. Just when you think a young person finally understands what the bible says about salvation, a new one comes along and you have to start from the beginning again.

At the other end of the spectrum are those who believe Jesus is all loving, without judging. Of course, the bible says that whilst God loves all people, he is also holy and cannot bear the presence of sin. They find it hard to believe that Jesus Christ, who was sent to be the saviour of all who trust in him, will eventually return one day to judge everyone and send sinners to hell if they are unwilling to let go of their sin.

Yet, it’s not that hard to believe these young people have trouble grasping the truth of the bible, as I had these misconceptions once. By the grace of God, the Spirit opened my eyes to the truth, and the truth has set me free. I just pray these young people will see the truth, and know the truth.

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”
At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. Matthew 5:18-22

Well, yesterday evening ended a bit later than anticipated! I had my second violin lesson after a three week hiatus. Not sure I’d remembered much since my last lesson. Saying that, last lesson demonstrated the violin hadn’t been used in years, so the large inter-lesson gap gave me enough time to have it rebridged, restrung (with Dominant strings), get a new chin rest and a new shoulder rest. After all that, the violin is now playable and I spent an hour playing all four strings, with both up bow and down bow in various permutations. Slowly getting the hang of it, although by the end of the lesson, my left shoulder and arm were aching somewhat! However, I have some exercises to practice over the week now.
After that, I got home, cooked up a couple of quarterpounders and bacon with a couple of buns and put Breakfast at Tiffany’s on the DVD player. A classic film which is well worth watching. Audrey Hepburn’s presence on screen would be reason enough to see it, but the story and characterisation are superb. Not a film for children, but deals with issues adults come across, in an interesting and realistic way – it takes some of the characters a few attempts to learn from their mistakes, if they learnt at all.
I finished the evening tinkering around with Cascading Style Sheets on the HWEC web site. I’ve finally got round to implementing a colourful menu bar without resorting to producing graphics.
Maybe this evening will be a little more relaxing…

Earlier today, I was peering through The Daily Telegraph online, when I came across an encouraging article. In the past, I have expressed dismay at the actions of the UN in its attempts to bring order and safety to various parts of the world. Many times, to persuade unjust, corrupt governments and leaders of a country to listen to it, the UN has imposed sanctions.

This usually had the effect of depriving the general population of a country of basic commodities, rather than convincing those in authority. Whilst these sanctions were in force, there was a lot of debate about the next step, whilst at the same time the population were still suffering, either from the action/inaction of their leaders, or from the sanctions imposed upon them. When troops were finally sent in, they were placed under so many restrictions that, in many cases, they could only watch as atrocities happened around them. Far too often, unjust authorities could continue with their actions with UN troops on their soil.

Now I understand that all possible peaceful attempts must be exhausted before military force is used, but it seems that in the past all possible peaceful attempts had been exhausted and then nothing happened. A look back at the UN’s role in Rwanda and Somalia are not not glowing report cards. I also understand it is very difficult to make decisions of this magnitude, and should not be done lightly, so it’s possible that in their shoes, I might well procrastinate as well. Let us also understand that the troops under the UN’s command are human beings, but that they are also professional soldiers. They have chosen to become soldiers, with the consequences that entails.

With all this in mind, I must applaud those in control of the UN forces in Congo. For too long, the UN forces have sat there while people around them are terrorised, raped and murdered, amongst other atrocities. The current conflict in Congo has claimed an estimated 3 million lives, and has affected many many more in a brutal civil war, which has received very little coverage in the mainstream media. Last Tuesday though, the UN took preemptive action and carried out an offensive against those who were carrying out atrocities. Documents were seized and people were arrested, with the necessary force required to achieve the objective.

With this, maybe those who have defied the UN for so long will sit up and take notice? Only time will tell if this is the beginning of a new, stronger, UN, or whether this will backfire. What we can ascertain is that the course of action taken is now different from what happened in Rwanda and Somalia. Hopefully the outcome will be as well.