Like a prayer…

I was surprised to find myself listening to Madonna’s Material girl and Like a Prayer on the tram into work this morning.  More surprising was that I was doing so as part of my Open University course. The first term has been looking at Reputations across a range of art disciplines and asking questions like -

• Why are some people widely remembered and others not?
• Exactly what makes a person famous, or infamous?
• How does someone acquire a reputation?
• What is the relationship between a person’s reputation and what we can discover about their life from historical record?

I am really enjoying the course. Its a whistlestop tour through various art disciplines and topics. We have covered Antony and Cleopatra; a Christopher Marlowe play, Dr Faustus; the science and faith of Michael Faraday; the art of Cezanne and the reputation of Stalin. Goodness, in only 6 weeks!

At the risk of turning into a advertisment for the OU I am overwhelmed by the support and educational materials that I have been able to access. Face to face tutorials with other students who have willingly given up their saturday mornings to come along and value studying together; telephone tutorials, guided visits to art galleries with respected art historians; books, CDs, DVDs, DVD ROMs, online resources….

Coming up is an introduction to poetry and and examination of the Dalai Lama…

As I pull into Sheffield city centre, reading the chapter on Divas, Maria Callas is singing and I am being asked how I would describe the vocal melody in the aria “Una voce poco fa” from the opera The Barber of Seville. There’s a smile on my face. Studying shouldn’t be this fun, should it?

The future of British Quakerism

Craig has written a fascinating and challenging essay, The future of British Quakerism, which you can find at the Sheffield Quakers blog . Written in three parts, the latter gives an interesting proposal of how Quakers may respond to climate change as we enter the era of “energy descent”.

The future of British Quakerism Part 1
The future of British Quakerism Part 2
The future of British Quakerism Part 3

Stuff

Copenhagen climate talks: No deal, we’re out of time, Obama warns

“Barack Obama acknowledged today that time had run out to secure a legally binding climate deal at the Copenhagen summit in December and threw his support behind plans to delay a formal pact until next year at the earliest. During a hastily convened meeting in Singapore, the US president supported a Danish plan to salvage something from next month’s meeting by aiming to make it a first-stage series of commitments rather than an all-encompassing protocol. Postponing many contentious decisions on emissions targets, financing and technology transfer until the second-stage, leaders will instead try to reach a political agreement in Copenhagen that sends a strong message of intent.”

I read the headline in today’s paper and my heart had that sinking feeling. I have attended several public lectures held at the Anglican Cathedral in the past month raising awareness about issues related to climate change. In October Alison Cooke gave a talk based on material from David Mackay’s splendid book “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air” which you can read in its entirety here.

 

“One of the main sinks of energy in the “developed” world is the creation of stuff. In its natural life cycle, stuff passes through three stages. First, a new-born stuff is displayed in shiny packaging on a shelf in a shop. At this stage, stuff is called “goods.” As soon as the stuff is taken home and sheds its packaging, it undergoes a transformation from “goods” to its second form, “clutter.” The clutter lives with its owner for a period of months or years. During this period, the clutter is largely ignored by its owner, who is off at the shops buying more goods. Eventually, by a miracle of modern alchemy, the clutter is transformed into its final form, rubbish. To the untrained eye, it can be difficult to distinguish this “rubbish” from the highly desirable “good” that it used to be. Nonetheless, at this stage the discerning owner pays the dustman to transport the stuff away”.

Read more here.

Last week I went to see Lord Anthony Gidden’s give a lecture entitled Climate Change, Energy and Politics of the Future. I took some notes and will post something about it later this week.

Tariki

A recent trip to Leeds enabled me to pick up a copy of Tricycle. This periodical appears to have made a real effort to include articles about Shin Buddhism in the last few years, with Clark Strand and Jeff Wilson being sympathetic to Pure Land Buddhism. There’s a nice interview in the current issue with Rev Al Bloom by Jeff Wilson. I like his response to a question about Other Power-

“People misunderstand when they think tariki or Other Power, is a power that somehow comes in from the outside. The Shin point of view is that the Other Power/self power dichotomy is a delusion. Actually, all of existence is Other Power.

Whatever we do is possible through Other Power. If I run a race, I am only able to do it, to put my effort into it, because the world is constructed in such a way that it supports me and makes my running possible. If, for example, there was no gravity, I wouldn’t be able to run. If there was no Other Power, in the sense of there being an interdependent reality within which I undertake my efforts, I wouldn’t be able to do anything.

Other Power is really interdependence, and interdependence is really the totality of the relationships we have with everything that we deal with. Other Power isn’t an external power. Its not an isolated power located some place that zaps us from the outside. It’s power through others. We can’t deal with our life unless we have other people involved with us. Other Power involves power with others, which lead us to act out of a sense of reciprocal relationship with them. I am benefitted by Other Power and I benefit others, and so on. It is from the web of relationships that is our reality”.

Tricycle Autumn 2009 p 118

Update: I see Tricycle have put up a web page linking to Shin Buddhist articles and resources including the above interview. Do take a look here.

Buddha

I intend to start posting more regularly next week.

Bristol docks

Lindisfarne

Don’t jump

Rother Valley

Sunflower II