Miracles and Millions

I recently watched the movie “Millions” by Danny Boyle, and despite my initial reservations (James Nesbitt with a very dodgy northern accent being one of them), it drew me in and really made me think.

This is an outline of the plot: A few days before Britain is due to switch to the euro, a 7 year-old finds a bag of pounds and only has a few days to spend it or decide what to do with it. The film is really about the various characters’ attitudes to the money, and it explores different ethical dilemmas brought about by money- charity, faith, consumerism, prosperity gospel and friendship. IMDB describes its tagline as “can anyone be truly good?”

The boy can also see and talk to saints and one of the most prominent is St Peter. The part of the movie I found most fascinating was the exchange between them after the boy discovers the money had been robbed and discarded. It’s an interesting interpretation of the miracle of feeding the 5000.

I thought it was a miracle, but it is just robbed.

Damian. Listen.
One day I was with you know who, Jesus.
And he went up into the mountains
and thousands of people followed him.
The police said five thousand, five thousand.

Everybody knows this story.
Loaves and fishes.

See, I knew you'd say that.
That's what everybody says.

Anyway, this kid comes up to us, about your size,
His name was...
no I have forgotten. I still see him sometimes.
Anyway he comes up with these loaves and fishes. Sardines.
And Jesus blesses them and passes the plate round.
Now the first person he passes it to, passes it on.
He doesn't take anything.
He just passes it on.
Do you know why?
Because he had a piece of lamb hidden in his pocket.
And as he is passing the fish, he sneaks a bit of meat out
and pretends he's taken it off the plate.
Do you see what I'm saying?
And the next person- exactly the same story.
Every single bastard one of them has their own food.
And every one of them is keeping it quiet.
Looking after number one.
But as that plate went round with the sardines on
They all got their own food out and started to share.
And then that plate went all the way round and back to Jesus
and it'd still got the fish and the loaves on it.
I think Jesus was a bit taken aback.
He says, 'what happened? '
And I just said 'miracle'.
And at first I thought I'd fooled him.
But now I see it was a miracle, one of his best.

But this little kid
had stood up and...

Everybody there just got bigger.
Do you understand
what I'm talking about?

Not really.

I'm talking about you.

Now I'm really lost.

You're trying too hard.
That kid he wasn't planning on doing a miracle.
He wasn't planning anything, except lunch.
Something that looks like a miracle turns out to be dead simple.

Home

After 2 weeks of exams, and many others of seemingly endless studying….I have finally arrived home. It is good to be by the sea again.

I have noticed though, how hard it is to be still and rest, after spending the last while constantly engaged in studying, or feeling guilty that I wasn’t studying. I am now relearning the importance of being still and resting. This brought me to the verse in Psalm 23, “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,” – and how important it is that He brings us there to lie down and be quiet, not to chatter away at Him incessantly.

Meditation and quietness are key.

It is good to be home.

Caught out by a Camera

I bought one of these at the weekend from a charity shop. A Kodamatic instant camera. But when I went to a camera shop to buy film for it they told me it wasn’t made anymore. Kodak stopped making it in the 80s. I looked it up on wikipedia when I got back and the reason they don’t make it any more is that Polaroid brought a lawsuit out against Kodak, and won, meaning Kodak was no longer allowed to make instant cameras. I was pretty disappointed to be honest, but was unsure what to do next. I felt it wasn’t really right to take it back to the charity shop and demand my money back…what is the correct etiquette for charity shop returns? Can you do it?…would it make me a very unethical, uncharitable person, or should I use my consumer right to get a refund? Would that undermine the very purpose of charity shops?

Beautiful Day

Today in edinburgh…..beautiful

The grapevine of death?

I was reading the carton of my innocent smoothie when I came across this interesting fact – that grapevines strangle or suffocate all other plants around them. I wonder was Jesus aware of this when he spoke about being the vine and us his branches?

Adds a new aspect to the metaphor…?

Does God use the gifted?

I was contemplating what areas of service I would like to get involved in at church, trying to think what I would be best at or most gifted in, when this thought struck me.

As Christians, churches and societies we usually choose our leaders based on the potential they show, the obvious giftings they possess and their willingness to serve. Fairly similar, in fact, to Sir Alan Sugar’s audition process in “The Apprentice”. How different from God’s method of selecting leaders. He seems to choose those with little or no obvious gifting, who don’t show apparent leadership skills and who really don’t want to be used, even those stuck in the grip of sin. Think of Moses protesting, Jonah running, Gideon hiding, David fornicating, Rahab prostituting. Not the usual leadership candidates, especially in church! It seems He selects those with nothing to give, as they are the ones who will entirely depend on Him.

How different from our ideas of leaders. From what I see, God cares much less about “talented individuals” and “gifted leaders” than we would like to think. He seems to spend much more time with, and give his attention to the drunks, the whores, the fearful, the hurting, dirty and dying. Perhaps that’s where our focus should be?

The story behind the song

After reading this a few days ago i watched the video below, but I think neal didn’t realise that this song was supposed to be a duet. Sadly, the other singer died not long ago and Fred was left to sing alone. It’s interesting how different the reactions are to this video once you know the story behind it.