http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/My name's Matthew, I'm 26 and I live in the north-west of England. I thought a blog would be a good way of recording those of my random thoughts I have which I don't want to disappear. The title was originally a test, but I think I'll stick with it as a pretentious statement of how the individual relates to society... en-EUhttp://backend.userland.com/rss092http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/1e/1804b2ab2694f01b1dbb137acfe7c6_160x200.jpg <p>Unless Christmas itself is a Sunday, the Sunday in the octave of Christmas is the Feast of the Holy Family. Even when Christmas is a Sunday, the Holy Family is considered of sufficient importance to be transferred to the preceding Friday.</p> <p>In 2006, I gave a talk on Catholicism in a 'what is...?' series organised by our local ecumenical partnership. In this talk, I specifically mentioned the Feast of the Holy Family as a disctinctively Catholic celebration which particularly appeals to me; I'm very attached to my family and Catholicism seems to be more explicit in its celebration of the family than other Christian denominations.</p> <p>It has become my habit in recent years to keep this feast at Our Lady Help of Christians, commonly known as Portico church. My father's side of the family came to town in the late 1950s and my Grandad has lived in the same house ever since, which means, amongst other things, that my family has clocked up nearly half a century of worship at Portico. This year, my Dad came with us as well, as if to underscore the occasion.</p> <p>Mass was said by a visiting priest, specifically a German missionary who had spent many years preaching the Good News around the world, including amongst the Maasai people of East Africa. In the sermon, it was remarked that some have questioned the wisdom of missionaries in today's world, especially when there seems to be so much to do 'at home'. However, the sermon included the expression 'the whole world is mission territory' and, on reflection, this has always been so and will remain so until the whole world is fully informed about the Lord Jesus Christ, who, we were reminded, died to save us all.</p> <p>One aspect of Mass at Portico which always slightly disappoints me is that one of the readings is omitted. What disappointed me even more is that we, the congregation, were denied the beautiful extract from Ecclesiasticus where a son is enjoindered to look after his ageing father. Of course, responsibility in a family works across all generations, as stressed in the Gospel which recounted the flight into Egypt.</p> <p>I'm not generally one to pass up an excuse for a good time, but New Year is an occasion I've never been able to get worked up about. Perhaps this is because of its secular character, although this is itself largely superficial as it was a Pope who decided that the year should start on 1 January and New Year's Eve is in many countries known as St Sylvester.</p> <p>The church on my list for today presented a number of points of logistical interest. The original plan had been to go to Our Lady Immaculate & St Joseph for Midnight Mass, this church being no further from my Grandad's than St Luke's. However, the parking's dreadful. Such being the case, I swapped its place with St Luke's in my rota, which involved a train-and-bus combo to get there from home.</p> <p>I left in plenty of time to achieve this public transport double-header, but the first train was horribly delayed. After an initial moment of panic, I decided to wait and thus shared my journey with some church friends. In the event, I was in my pew in plenty of time for 9:00am Mass.</p> <p>Certain aspects of the service struck me as a little unusual, especially as the priest at OLI&StJ has a reputation for doing things by the book. First was his inclusion of the Gloria, although it might have been the other priests who were mistaken to omit it. Second was having the Sign of Peace immediately before the offertory procession. This is a perfectly sensible place to have it, but last time I checked, the bishops of England and Wales had yet to approve this practice.</p> <p>Perhaps fittingly for 31 December, the reading (1 John again) talked about The End. Given the cyclical nature of the calendar, it was perhaps also fitting that the Gospel spoke about The Beginning. In his sermon, the priest mentioned that there was a time when the Prologue to John's Gospel was read at every Sunday Mass and that it underlines that we are all children of God. 31 December is a particularly appropriate time to reflect on the gifts our Father has given us.</p> <p>The Church has a long history of honouring Mary and there are two days particularly associated with this. One is 15 August, the other is 1 January.Today, Catholics keep 1 January as the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God; in the early centuries, the validity of this title was much disputed and ther have always been some Christians who reject it - but I'm not one of them.</p> <p>The original plan had been to round off my Mass odyssey by attending at Liverpool Catholic Cathedral, the the extent of e-mailing them for confirmation that the usual week-day Mass time of 12 noon would apply. I received no reply and only discovered on getting to the 'wigwam' at 11:30am that Mass on 1 January was at 10:00.</p> <p>I wasn't going to let my plans be thwarted without a fight. When I had worked in Liverpool a few years ago, I had occasionally attended Mass at the Blessed Sacrament Shrine, a few minutes on foot from Lime Street station. I just hoped it would have a noon Mass on New Year's Day.</p> <p>My hopes were not in vain. The existence of the Blessed Sacrament Shrine as a facility is one I'm very much in favour of and I really should visit it more often, especially as Mass there usually has a good 'feel' to it, this one being no exception. On a solemnity, Mass follows the same pattern as it does on a Sunday, with two readings, the Gloria and the Creed. The Gospel recounted the naming of Jesus (which would have taken place on the octave day of his birth, in accordance with Jewish custom) and there were juicy bits in both readings, including the bit of the Bible for which the oldest written evidence has been found (a blessing formula from Numbers) and a passage from Galatians including 'born of a woman...sons and heirs...freedom from sin'. There was no sermon, but plenty of lusty singing of Marian hymns to compensate.</p> <p>I left Mass in not unjustifiable high spirits. I indulged myself with my first fancy cappuccino of 2008 and then, as I believe is customary in Ethiopia on New Year's Day, had chicken for dinner before making my way home.</p> <p>Was it worth it? In every conceivable way, unquestionably.</p> <p>Current mood: contemplative. Currently listening to: 'Broadcasting House', on Radio 4</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2008/01/27/one_over_the_eight_part_the_third_and_la~3639043/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2008/01/27/one_over_the_eight_part_the_third_and_la~3639043/Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:33:55 +0100 <p>There was a bit of a walk to my next Mass - approximately half-an-hour to St Vincent de Paul. As a result of re-organisation in the Church in St Helens a few years back, my parish and St Vincent's are looked after by the same priest. The walk was good not only for the fresh air and exercise, but also to listen to my Christmas CD, 'The Very Best of Ethiopiques', and to speculate about the readings. St John the Evangelist is the feast on 27 December, so that gives lots of choice for both the reading and the Gospel.</p> <p>The first reading at Mass in the octave of Christmas is often taken from 1 John; this makes a fair deal of sense - not only on 27 December - as 1 John stresses the physical reality of Jesus's human, bodily existence. With a whole Gospel to choose from, the Church has plumped for the story of the Empty Tomb for the story of St John the Evangelist. It's not hard to see why: the Beloved Disciple, generally taken to be the source for at least the concluding part of the John's Gospel, features prominently.</p> <p>After the Gospel, we were treated to a homily. Upon finding the tomb empty, the first witnesses could have put it down to grave robbery or to some sort of hallucination - but they didn't. One of these first witnesses took his faith in the Resurrection to the extent of providing the source material for a written record. Tradition has it that St John was the only one of the apostles not to be martyred - and I've heard it said that the Lord spared him for a reason. During the homily, the priest made a moving comparison with his own father's passing.</p> <p>Tradition has it that three days after the Nativity, Herod ordered a massacre of baby boys to eliminate this potential rival for the kingship of the Jews. The Church commemorates this most monstrous monument to human injustice and abuse of power, a sobering reminder that Christmas has more sinister aspects than those recounted by Away in a Manger.</p> <p>I arrived rather early; my Christmas haircut took me rather less time than I had expected and St Theresa of the Child Jesus church is only a few minutes on foot from my barber's. Finding the church door open, I decided it would be warmer and more prayerful to wait inside rather than out. The priest accosted the stranger in his church and we had a very pleasant conversation. It turned out that the former headteacher at the school where I work is well-known to this priest.</p> <p>Mass was held in the church's Blessed Sacrament chapel. I like Masses in more intimate settings as a full small arena just has a better feel for me than a large sparsely-populated one. Rather than a sermon, the priest gave an extended introduction to Mass. He pointed out the the Feast of the Holy Innocents is one which remembers all children who die young, including those who die before birth. After all, we've all been children; as if to prove the priest's point, there was both a babe-in-arms and a primary-age child present.</p> <p>The Gospel, from St Matthew, was the only possible one for the day.</p> <p>29 December is a date which has acquired particular significance for me in recent years. This is because it's the day the Church remembers St Thomas a Becket, archbishop and martyr.</p> <p>The story of Thomas a Becket sounds almost too perfect from the Church's point of view and raises certain questions which I don't see an answer to from a monarchistic point of view - even those who see kingship as a being of divine institution cannot really argue that the divine aspect of monarchy trumps that of the Church. In a completely unrelated sense, the recent closure of a school dedicated to St Thomas Becket will continue to impact on the school where I work for some time.</p> <p>I seem not the be alone in my devotion to St Thomas of Canterbury. I'm fairly sure that a recent review of the table of liturgical days meant that Mass on 29 December is that of the relevant day in the octave of Christmas, rather than that of St Thomas a Becket. However, the priest at Holy Cross & St Helen came out in his red vestments and said the Gloria after the penitential rite, suggesting that for him, this was a Solemnity. I would feel safe in asserting also that the opening prayer referred to 'St Thomas the Great', which would make sense in the context. I like to think I wasn't the only one to notice.</p> <p>There was no sermon, but the Liturgy of the Word fitted the occasion well, including in the reading 'if we have died with Him, then we shall live with Him' and in the Gospel (from Matthew) 'whoever despises his life in this world will save it for the eternal life'.</p> <p>Current mood: contemplative. Currently listening to: 'Clare in the Community' - where would my Saturday mornings be without 'Listen Again'?!?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2008/01/19/one_over_the_eight_part_the_second~3599433/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2008/01/19/one_over_the_eight_part_the_second~3599433/Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:55:01 +0100 <p>As I frequently state, one of the things I like about the Christmas holidays is that I actually get them 'off', ie although I work in a school, I'm on a 52-week contract. In 2006, I took the opportunity to attend more non-obligation Masses than I usually do, particularly as a lot of good feasts occur in rapid succession during Christmastide. For 2007, I made it my goal to attend Mass on each day in the octave of Christmas. In a different church.</p> <p>Logically enough, my warm up didn't involve a Mass at all, nor any celebration of the Eucharist. For some years now, I've gone to the carol service at my local Anglican church, St Nicholas's, on the Sunday before Christmas with my parents, the one occasion in the year we all attend a service together. 2007 was particularly special as one of my sisters came as well.</p> <p>The service is modelled on the famous one from the chapel of King's College, Cambridge. I went to the service with a sense that things were slightly fraught at home and in a state of mild fatigue after a long term. This left me vulnerable to losing my composure on hearing some of the better lines, such as the supplication in the opening prayer - that we remember 'those who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love Him not, or who by sin have offended Him'. The last reading is the prologue to John's Gospel, which is followed by Hark the Herald Angels Sing. I was too cut up to sing the last two verses.</p> <p>On the one hand, the Solemnity of Our Lord's Nativity needs no introduction or explanation. However, some aspects of my attachment to it are more specific than others.</p> <p>My family is Polish on my father's side and the Polish tradition is to start celebrating Christmas with a vigil - or Wigilia. Broadly speaking, the family meet up on the evening of 24 December and eat lots of food - although nothing with meat, as Christmas Eve is a day of abstinence in Poland. Once the first lot of eating's been cleared, the party retires to the living room where carols and presents exchanged. Nor does it finish with Midnight Mass - the festivities traditionally continue for some time afterwards, with Christmas Day serving principally to sleep things off.</p> <p>As my Mum isn't Polish, we don't do a fully traditional Wigilia, but, in recent years, we've decided that we'd like to finish the evening by going to a Midnight Mass. I hadn't realised previously what I'd been missing out on; on reflection, it's the only day of the year when Mass is celebrated at midnight on it seems almost bad manners not to go, particularly as there's a traditional thirty-minute warm-up.</p> <p>This year - as last year - we went to St Luke the Evangelist in Whiston, about twenty minutes on foot from my Grandad's house. As well as accessibility, is has the added bonus of guaranteed familiar faces. Our school chaplain is a priest based at St Luke's, while I saw a pleasing number of our pupils and their parents.</p> <p>The Church has different readings for Christmas depending on when Mass is being celebrated. The Gospel for Midnight is taken from Luke 2, concluding with the words 'Glory to God in the highest'. It's perhaps a little unfortunate that this comes after the first Gloria since Christ the King, but this is a minor quibble.</p> <p>As we approached the sermon, I reflected that it must be tricky to find something new and original to say every year. The centrepoint on this occasion was an account of a Midnight Mass in 1944 where a number of PoWs were in attendance - with an armed escort. The church's organist was ill, but one of the prisoners stepped in to provide music for the service, stressing that Christmas underlines our common humanity. This was complemented with a story of a Good Samaritan on the New York Metro and with extracts from the Patriarch of Jerusalem's Christmas letter.</p> <p>Got in at 1:30am. A good start to Christmastide.</p> <p>Full of turkey and Christmas pudding, I got up bright and early on Boxing Day and made my way to Mass at my local parish church, St Anne and Blessed Dominic.</p> <p>I think it's a great shame that the first Christian martyr should have been almost forgotten in the UK, even though his feast is a public holiday. I first became aware of the occasion through Good King Wenceslas and I suppose the idea of a special day so close to Christmas has intrigued me ever since.</p> <p>In 2007, we were fortunate enough to have a permanent deacon ordained in our parish. John McLoughlin has been a good friend of ours for some years now and as St Stephen is the patron of deacons, I was pleased to see John at Mass with his wife on his special day.</p> <p>Having exchanged greetings with John, I was given an unexpected opportunty to appreciate the first reading; I was asked to do it. I was happy to oblige; I don't have any objection to reading in church, but I generally don't do it from one year to the next and it was a privilege to do so on such an auspicious day. The story from Acts is well-known, but I find particularly poignant the deliberate parallels between the dying Stephen and Christ on the Cross, as I do the reference to Saul/Paul at the end.The Gospel, referring as it did to betrayal and letting the Spirit of God speak in the heart, sat well with this.</p> <p>There was much material for a sermon and the priest didn't disappoint. A priest from Pakistan spent some time in our parish parish recently and we were reminded that Pakistan is one of the - thankfully few - places in today's world where Christians are persecuted simply for being Christians - up to and including death. However, the Christian calling of the Pakistani martyr may be much harder than that of the British Christian, but this doesn't make it higher, only different.</p> <p>St Stephen is also the patron of altar servers, but there aren't any in our parish at the moment. However, some good friends of mine were praised by name for having been altar servers and for their now serving the Church in other ways.</p> <p>Currently listening to: Radio 4's 'The Now Show' - another Listen-Again jobby. Current mood: contemplative.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2008/01/05/one_over_the_eight_part_the_first~3531095/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2008/01/05/one_over_the_eight_part_the_first~3531095/Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:15:08 +0100 <p>The week after I saw Saints have their er, 'mishap' at Old Trafford, the England rugby union team had a reverse in Paris. This gives me an excuse to blather on about all sorts of things.</p> <p>Although England lost the rugby union world cup final, a casual observer of the media might not have altogether noticed this. Newspapers, television and radio spoke at some length on the great virtue and admirability of the England players, even in defeat.</p> <p>The debate, sometimes explicitly, was couched as ruggerites vs socceristas. The latter are paid obscenely for petulantly conning the ref, the former having none of these failings. One of the many problems wtih this perceived moral superiority of the chaps from Twickers is that so little is made of these very problems.</p> <p>On an intellectual level, I'm fond of the idea that a great game should have great rules. Rugby union matches - at any level - seem to feature an awful lot of infringements. So many that I can't divest myself of the thought that either the rules are poor or the players are.</p> <p>The greater difficulty, though, is away from the pitch rather than on it. I've always felt slightly queasy at the routine deceit in the present and falsification of the past which seem endemic to rugby union the world over. Whether it's shamatuerism, player numbers in Sri Lanka or crowd figures at the Stoop, rugby union doesn't seem to be an honest game.</p> <p>It is, however, a game of ruling elites, to a degree that goes beyond incongruity. I acknowledge that I personally have a deep suspicion of ruling elites, but that's a subject for another blog entry. Rugby union has an uncanny knack of being the game of social prestige and political influence, often in somewhat unsavoury circumstances. Regimes closely associated with rugby union include not only apartheid South Africa and Vichy France, but also Ceaucescu's Romania and even Salazar's Portugal.</p> <p>In and of itself, this is more unfortunate than anything else. What I find harder to accept is the tendency of rugby union to (ab?)use its status to attack rugby league. The favourite tactic has historically been the outright ban, as was in place in the British armed forces until 1994. In France during the Second War, the ban - which extended to imposing the name 'jeu a treize' until the late 1980s - included transfer of assets from the French Rugby League to the French Rugby Union. The beneficiaries of this war crime continue unrepentant while its uncompensated victims continue to await justice. Moreover, bans can also act as a prelude to erasure from history - witness the 'Rugby' World Cup, contested in rugby union a mere twenty-three years after the first such competition in rugby league, yet known by a generic title.</p> <p>So, how do all these seamy bits manage to go largely unreported in the media? Might it be because the media are basically the mouthpiece of the ruling elite...?</p> <p>Currently listening to: last night's 'News Quiz' on Listen Again. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/11/03/triumph_and_disaster_part_the_second~3238746/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/11/03/triumph_and_disaster_part_the_second~3238746/Sat, 03 Nov 2007 11:55:28 +0100 <p>When I was younger, we'd go to the same hotel in Blackpool each year for our summer holidays. One of the corridor walls featured a framed copy of Rudyard Kipling's 'If', a poem bound to leave its mark on an impressionable youthful mind.</p> <p>Saints RL have tasted both of these 'impostors' in recent weeks. At the start of the 2007 season, we were entered for four trophies. A few weeks ago, I went to Old Trafford hoping to see us complete a clean sweep. In the event, we were comprehensively outplayed by Leeds, not for the first time this season.</p> <p>Funny thing was, I wasn't that fussed. When I was younger, I used to get awfully upset and nervous about sporting occasions, but I just don't any more. I suspect that there may be a flip-side to this: whether the two are linked or not, I certainly don't experience the highs of victory in the way I used to.</p> <p>Maybe this is an act of growing-up on my part, a realisation that it truly is 'only a game'. Where I get worried is that I seem to have lost my capacity for justifiable outrage at things which once made me feel physically sick and, so far as I can make out, still should - things like hate crimes, war and social injustice. At the back of my mind is a nagging fear that I'm some sort of cold-hearted, indifferent, uncaring monster.</p> <p>Perhaps this is another thing over which, by rights, I should be getting worked up. Except I'm not sure I can any more.</p> <p>Currently listening to: 'Universal Evolution', from Miroslav Vitous's 'Universal Syncopations II' album.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/10/28/triumph_and_disaster~3209348/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/10/28/triumph_and_disaster~3209348/Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:40:30 +0100 <p>Currently listening to: 'Nickels and Dimes', from Billy Cobham's 'Inner Conflicts' album.</p> <p>I posted this as a bulletin on MySpace while back and got a grand total of one response. It has now passed its ten-day expiry date. Unlike everyone else, I think it's worth preserving.</p> <p>This is one of those things where you're politely requested only to scroll onto the next section once you've done the preceding one...</p> <p>Section 1: Imagine you were to be digitally stored on a USB memory stick. Which of the following formats would you be saved in? – choose one and one only!</p> <p>.aac<br> .bmp<br> .doc<br> .exe<br> .gif<br> .jpeg<br> .mp3<br> .otd<br> .pdf<br> .pub<br> .xls<br> .zip</p> <p>Section 2: Read on to find out what the file extension you've chosen says about you as a person. Banish any thoughts that it's just completely made up by someone who should really have something better to do with their free time.</p> <p>.aac - you like doing things your own way and don't have a problem with expecting other people to fit in with you</p> <p>.bmp - you're open to other people's suggestions and do your best to act on them when they're helpful</p> <p>.doc - you're straightforward and adaptable and if other people think you're dull, it's their problem</p> <p>.exe - you prefer to take an active role in matters rather than sitting by passively<br> while others assume the initiative</p> <p>.gif - you have (probably unjustified) hang-ups about your appearance</p> <p>.jpeg - you like to be looked at and admired</p> <p>.mp3 - what you say is more important to you than how you look</p> <p>.otd - you know that you're as worthy as anyone else, but people seem not to pay you the attention you deserve</p> <p>.pdf - you have hidden depths which others generally don't appreciate</p> <p>.pub - you put a lot of effort into looking good and it's worth it despite the<br> compatibility issues which arise</p> <p>.xls - you like order and prefer objective functions to subjective expressions</p> <p>.zip - you bottle things up, but there's a lot inside you waiting to be let out<br> when someone else figures out how</p> <p>Section 3: Add your first name / nickname with chosen file extension to the list at the end of this bulletin.</p> <p>Section 4: Copy and paste it as 'The File Extension Zodiac'. If you can be bothered. Even though I didn't say please. Oddly enough, there are no dire consequences for your health, wealth or happiness, present or future, if you do nothing. Nor are there any such consequences for those close to you.</p> <p><strong> List of names </strong></p> <p>1: natalie.exe</p> <p>2: stankers.zip</p> <p>3. geoff-E-.mp3</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/09/16/title~2989885/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/09/16/title~2989885/Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:11:19 +0200 <p>I meant to write this last week, but showed my characteristic lack of efficiency. Interestingly, it's ended up tying in with the theme of this week's Gospel in the Catholic lectionary, which contains the famous line 'anyone who humbles himself will be exalted'.</p> <p>This week just gone (if last Sunday, 26 August, is taken as the first day of said week) has seen the Church remember two people without whom, however tangentially, I don't like to think where or what I'd be. Amongst other things, these were two phenomenally humble people.</p> <p>First up was Blessed Dominic Barberi CP, Apostle of Christian Unity and the only post-Reformation beatus recognised for work in England without being martyred. A man who dreamed of bringing the love of Christ crucified to the people of Industrial England. A man who showed this love in a life of humble devotion, deep spirituality and tender pastoring. A man who kept showing this love in the teeth of public derision and physical assault, without the slightest hint of pride or arrogance.</p> <p>Would Dominic mean so much to me if he weren't buried in my local church? Doubtless not - but church and Church have been there for me over the years in a way which the organs of of State and society quite simply haven't been. Going back to December 1995, in good times and bad I've felt that St Anne and Blessed Dominic is a place where I've belonged and where I've had an absolute right to be.</p> <p>It's purely an accident that I go to Blessed Dominic's church - but a very happy one. Not least because of his close association with the poster-boy of English intellectual Catholic late-comers, Venerable John Henry Newman.</p> <p>The second to be remembered was St Edmund Arrowsmith SJ, one of the canonised martyrs of England and Wales. As English Martyrs go, St Edmund Arrowsmith has a pretty low profile, even among contemporary Jesuits. It's true that he had little of the big-name glamour of a Parsons or a Campion - but this brings us back to humility. Is pastoring to the prominent and powerful a higher calling than any other sort of pastoring?</p> <p>As with Blessed Dominic, my devotion to St Edmund Arrowsmith is largely co-incidental. A few years ago, I showed some of the characteristics associated with cliche's 'rock bottom'. Specifically, I was out of work with one failed career and a number of other false starts behind me. Rightly or wrongly, I essentially felt as if secular society, of which the economy is a part, had written me off.</p> <p>This changed pretty much from the moment I walked through the door at St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School, initially as a one-week temp. For the first time ever, I was in a job where I felt accepted and valued and where I genuinely believed in my capacity to contribute something positive. Recently, I've started thinking that what I'd always wanted in my heart was to go to school for a living. Working as a receptionist is basically that - only the stuff I do is easier than what the kids do in lessons and I don't get homework.</p> <p>What really makes it for me, though, is the fact that my daily work brings me into contact with so many amazing people - teachers, office staff, visitors and, perhaps most amazing of all, children. These amazing people have said some deeply moving and touching things to me - they know who they are.</p> <p>Sancte Edmunde Arrowsmithe et Benedicte Dominice de Matre Die - orate pro omnibus.</p> <p>Current mood: contemplative<br> Currently listening to: 'Star Trekkin', by Firm</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/09/02/title~2911553/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/09/02/title~2911553/Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:09:49 +0200 <p>The title I wanted was 'there is none more arrogant than the one who seeks the perception of humility'.</p> <p>To prove x + 0 = x, one has to assume x x 0 = 0<br> To prove x x 0 = 0, one has to assume x + 0 = x</p> <p>Can you describe a colour you've never seen before?</p> <p>Oum natchinaetsia togda, kogda my soznaiom svoiou gloupost'.</p> <p>The point of existence</p> <p>is that</p> <p>there is no point.</p> <p>Consequently,</p> <p>the more futile a task seems,</p> <p>the more relevant it is to actual existence.</p> <p>The action is</p> <p>neutral,</p> <p>The intention is</p> <p>crucial.</p> <p>Contentment is impossible;</p> <p>realising this</p> <p>brings contentment.</p> <p>Satisfaction lies</p> <p>in accepting the unsatisfactory</p> <p>which by definition</p> <p>should not be accepted.</p> <p>If it makes sense</p> <p>it's not supposed to - you've misunderstood it.</p> <p>Buffoons simper</p> <p>I simper *</p> <p>Therefore, I am a buffoon</p> <p>* where simpering is the facial expression of the blissfully ignorant</p> <p>J'ai oublié la dernière phrase de l'Apologie de Raymond Sebonde (Montaigne), celle qui commence 'c'est à notre foi catholique...'. Quelle ironie!</p> <p>Omnia ad maiorem Dei gloriam.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/08/21/a_common_placelist~2846580/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/08/21/a_common_placelist~2846580/Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:53:30 +0200 <p>1. I've come to realise that my last kiss was...<br> … an indication of how loose my definition of ‘kiss’ has become.</p> <p>2. I am listening to…<br> … last week’s ‘File on Four’ about what a rip-off PFI projects are for the public purse.</p> <p>3. I talk...<br> … several languages reasonably well. Shame I don’t say anything worth listening to in any of them.</p> <p>4. I love...<br> … the Lord, my God, with all my heart, with all my mind and with all my soul. Well, I try to.</p> <p>5. My best friend(s) ...<br> … not sure if I have any best friends as such. </p> <p>6. My car...<br> … doesn’t exist. Environmentalist who’s too lazy to learn driving, you see.</p> <p>7. My love life....<br> … I’d rather not discuss it. Can a concept exist with no grounding in reality?</p> <p>8. I hate it when people tell me...<br> … I’ve messed up. ‘People make mistakes, mistakes annoy everyone – especially the people who make them’ (trite but true for me).</p> <p>9. I want to...<br> … stop wanting things I can’t have and wouldn’t do me any good even if I had them.</p> <p>10. Marriage is…<br> … a single term which means very different things for different people or institutions. Which is part of why, in my view, lots of people get unnecessarily hot under the collar about it.</p> <p>11. Somewhere, someone is thinking...<br> … if someone’s thinking somewhere, does that let the rest of us off the hook?</p> <p>12. I'm always...<br> … wasting my time.</p> <p>13. I have a secret crush on...<br> … probably better for all concerned if it stays secret!</p> <p>15. My mobile phone...<br> … has all sorts of features I don’t really use.</p> <p>16. When I wake up in the morning...<br> … I try to calculate if I’ve got time for my full wake-up routine.</p> <p>17. Before I go to bed I...<br> … say Compline more often than not.</p> <p>18. Right now I am thinking about...<br> … bl**dy PFI. I might well write a blog entry about how much it annoys me.</p> <p>19. Babies are…<br> … not really on my radar at the moment.</p> <p>20. I get on MySpace...<br> … when I’ve got a bit of time to kill.</p> <p>21. Today I...<br> … went for a walk as I wouldn’t have left the house otherwise (a problem with going to Mass on Saturday evenings).</p> <p>22. Tonight I will...<br> … probably go to bed too late and then be cranky all next week as a result.</p> <p>23. Tomorrow I will...<br> … hopefully catch up on the stuff at work I managed not to do last week.</p> <p>24. I really want to...<br> … how’s this different from question 9?!?</p> <p>25. Someone that will most likely repost this...<br> Flamin’ no-one. Are the assurances I get that people actually read my blog simply proof of the existence of cyber-censors?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/06/17/another_quiz_from_alex_lawro_myspace~2469741/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/06/17/another_quiz_from_alex_lawro_myspace~2469741/Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:07:16 +0200 <p>Currently listening to: 'A Sequence for the Ascension' - yes, even with the Church's new wider target, I've still managed to miss...</p> <p>Given the percentage of blogs I write while listening to Level 42 (just not the last couple), I thought I might as well write one about them. Diving right in, I came to the music of Level 42 by a somewhat circuitous route, specifically via references in an episode of the television comedy 'The Mighty Boosh'. While the details are too tedious and convoluted to recount, the references were to jazz funk as a genre, to slap bass as an instrument, to Level 42 as a group and to Mark King as a performer.</p> <p>I've always had a fascination with low-pitched instruments and when I found out that a specific musical genre had developed a specific way of playing a low-pitched instrument, my curiosity was aroused. When I found some Level 42 CDs in a local library, I felt almost obliged to check them out.</p> <p>Examining the CDs revealed a band whose most prominent work was perhaps a little before my time, the big clue being the number of songs which referred to an imminent nuclear war. What left me a bit puzzled was, slap bass aside, Level 42 didn't seem particularly different from the mainstream pop/rock electric instrument groups of my primary school years. Where did the jazz funk come in? There was, however, a simple solution.</p> <p>Library CDs aside, I'd had contact with Level 42 through a single track which had found its way onto a jazz funk compilation. This one track had been much more what I was expecting - instrumental only, with a recurring theme developed by different instruments in succession. The link between this Level 42 and the one from the library CDs was, predictably enough, commercial sell-out. Further research revealed that as the 1980s had progressed, the 'jazz' element in Level 42's music (the band quite early rebranding themselves as 'Britfunk') got less and less as the percentage of 'lighter' numbers per album increased. That said, even in Level 42's 'poppiest' moments, there's enough slap bass and solo sax to differentiate them from 'just another prog rock band'.</p> <p>Nor does the story finish there. I thought I'd missed the proverbial boat in terms of seeing Level 42 play live, but the my discovery of band coincided quite closely with the band's rediscovery of themselves, with a new album and accompanying tour in the autumn of 2006. I went to the gig in Liverpool and saw for myself that the fairly sizeable Philharmonic Hall was pretty much full.</p> <p>No, they didn't play any of the early stuff and there weren't any instrumental-only tracks. I probably wasn't the only one to be slightly disappointed at this, but I'd certainly go and see them again if opportunity arose. As a concluding thought, Level 42 were never that popular and the height of their modest achievements came in the mid-1980s. Before last autumn, they hadn't released an album since 1994. How many other bands can play to full houses for a tour so long after a small section of the public and even the band themselves seemed to have lost interest? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/05/28/level~2346900/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/05/28/level~2346900/Mon, 28 May 2007 10:19:16 +0200 <p>Listening to: 'A service for Ascension Day', again via 'Listen Again'.</p> <p>I do like the Ascension. In a very real sense, I feel it completes the work of the Resurrection; to modify the words of the Memorial Acclamation, by dying, Christ destroyed our death, by rising, He restored out life - and by going up to Heaven, he ascended (in His own words) 'to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God'. As of 2007, however, Catholics in England and Wales are celebrating the Ascension - on the say-so of the bishops - not on the sixth Thursday after Easter, but on the Sunday after that. </p> <p>On hearing this, my gut reaction was not to be happy about it. Off the top of my head, I can only think of three Special Days in the Church's calendar which have always been celebrated on Sunday. (The one's I'm thinking of are Pentecost, Trinity Sunday and Christ the King. I deliberately haven't included Easter as I usually associate that with the Vigil very late on Saturday night. There may, though, be others I've forgotten.) A part of me hasn't thought of these really as being all that Special as I perceive Special Days for the Church as being marked by attending Mass; I'd be in Mass anyway on a Sunday, so what makes Trinity Sunday fundamentally different from any other Sunday? - except for the extraordinarily awful sermon which the priest usually inflicts on himself and the congregation, but that's not what I had in mind.</p> <p>Moreover, I have a certain conceptual difficulty with the mechanics of moving the Ascension from the Thursday to the following Sunday. Right from the start, the Church has chosen when to observe its feasts, the best-known example being the Nativity, of whose precise date no-one is certain. However, there's a long-standing agreement of Scripture, Sacred Tradition and scholarship that the Ascension took place forty days after the Resurrection. Given this, it seems a little odd to decide to mark this event as a Church three days late.</p> <p>Of course, I know *why* the decision was taken: while I think Holy Days of Obligation are almost more special than Sundays, this puts me in a small minority of contemporary English Catholics as Obligation Masses are even worse attended than Sunday Masses. Transferring the Ascension to a Sunday will mean that more people will attend a Mass offered to commemorate it - but I'd be *very* surprised if people who aren't generally in the habit of going to church will think 'oooh, it's Ascension Sunday today; better make a special effort'.</p> <p>Perhaps what I think was needed was an educational/outreach programme to underline why the Ascension is such an important day to the Church, rather than cravenly moving it to a day where it will quite possibly go by and large unremarked.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/05/20/ascension_thursday~2301061/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/05/20/ascension_thursday~2301061/Sun, 20 May 2007 10:28:20 +0200 <p>A - Available<br> For most things!</p> <p>B - Best Friend<br> I’ve not really had a ‘best friend’ since primary school... I've had a lot of good friends, though.</p> <p>C - Crush<br> There are several ladies of my acquaintance whom I wouldn’t turn away were they to approach me in a certain manner, to go all coy and euphemistic. There are also some ladies I don’t even know well enough to class as acquaintances whose appearance is such as to give me butterflies, however shallow it makes me look to admit it. Should any of these count as ‘crushes’? The very fact that I ask the question suggests I’m not sure. (Note: I agree with the person I pinched this survey thingy from that ‘fancy piece’ would be a far better name for this concept).</p> <p>D - Dad's Name<br> He’s got a few… Most people know him by a form of Mike in one language or another.</p> <p>E - Easiest Person To Talk To<br> The fact that I’m having to think about this one so much suggests there’s probably no one obvious candidate! I’m known for doing quite well in ‘least likely to take a vow of silence’ polls; a good friend of mine, Jon, does even better. When the two of us get going, it takes quite a lot to stop us – but I’ve had some really good discussions and conversations with him over the years and I get the impression we know and understand each other well enough for it not just to be the proverbial verbal diarrhoea. </p> <p>F - Favourite Band<br> While I listen to my fair share of music, the only band to which I feel a particular emotional as well as musical attachment is Level 42</p> <p>G - Gummy Bears Or Worms?<br> Neither! If we’re talking confectionery, it would have to be something from the Uncle Joe’s stable.</p> <p>H - Hometown<br> St Helens, Lancs, UK.</p> <p>I - Instrument<br> The one I play best is the cello. In my weaker moments, I hear Mark King’s slap bass on Level 42 songs and think ‘if only…’</p> <p>J - Job<br> School receptionist</p> <p>K - Kids<br> Don’t pester me, distract me and generally make my job difficult half as much as the teachers do!</p> <p>L - Longest Car Ride<br> Probably Devon</p> <p>M - Milk Flavour<br> Plain…</p> <p>N - Number Of Siblings<br> Two younger sisters.</p> <p>O - One Wish<br> Am I allowed to ask for permanent world peace?</p> <p>P - Phobias<br> I used to have an awful one about talking on the telephone. Now that I’ve by and large overcome that, no obvious ones come to mind.</p> <p>Q - Favourite Quote<br> It would probably have to be from the Bible; sorry to be hackneyed. While I’m a shameless hussy when it comes to changing my mind over the favourite bit of the Bible, I keep coming back to chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. After Jesus has given his ‘I am the Bread of Life’ speech (including the line ‘truly I say to you: unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall not have life within you’), many of his followers desert him. Jesus turns to Peter and says ‘and you, will you now leave me?’ prompting the my-favourite-quote response of ‘to whom else shall we go? You have the message of eternal life’.</p> <p>R - Reason To Smile<br> Jesus loves me – even if, in the words of the T-shirt, ‘everyone else thinks I’m a ****’.</p> <p>S - Song You Last Heard<br> The theme tune to ‘The News Quiz’, heard via the BBC’s excellent ‘listen again facility’.</p> <p>T - Time You Woke Up<br> 0700 this morning, although I didn’t actually get up until about 0745 and have felt pretty lousy ever since. I should just learn to accept that on Saturdays, I shouldn’t plan on doing much with the early mornings, no matter how far I may think it the best part of the day.</p> <p>U - Unknown Fact About Me<br> I used to be a Man United fan. Generally don’t talk much about it these days, though…</p> <p>V - Vegetable<br> Carrot. By a long, long way!</p> <p>W - Worst Habit<br> Sticking my fingers up my nose.</p> <p>X - X Rays<br> Nope. While I am a little accident-prone, they’ve never been serious.</p> <p>Y - Your Favourite Food<br> Am I only allowed one? I’ll have to think about it…</p> <p>Z - Zodiac Sign<br> Scorpio. Not that I can get my head around the idea that the position of the stars at the moment of my birth should in any way interpret my behaviour or character.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/05/19/a_to_z_of_stankers~2298781/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/05/19/a_to_z_of_stankers~2298781/Sat, 19 May 2007 19:44:36 +0200 <p>Currently listening to: '88', from Level 42's 'The Early Tapes' album.</p> <p>I had a dream the other night. This isn't unusual. What's a little more out of the ordinary is I thought it might be worth jotting down for posterity.</p> <p>I was at an Easter Vigil service in Liverpool (unusually for an Easter Vigil, it was broad daylight - but it *was* a dream). As is customary for an Easter Vigil, the service started with a procession. </p> <p>The experience I have of processions is that people generally don't stay in regimented order, but form more of a semi-amorphous semi-chaos and by the time the procession reaches its appointed destination, some who started at the front have moved further back and vice-versa.</p> <p>This particular Easter Vigil involved several processions (as with the broad daylight thing, this isn't usual). When we were standing still rather than processing anywhere, I'd sometimes be at the front, sometimes at the back, sometimes in the middle. At one stopping point, I was quite near the front and saw a number of my old university friends there (for another note of unreality, they were all wearing yellow Archdiocese of Liverpool Lourdes Pilgrimage t-shirts. Despite the fact that none of them have probably even heard of said pilgrimage).</p> <p>When I saw my old university friends, I had one of my occasional moments of 'dream clarity', ie my conscious penetrated my sub-conscious and I realised it was actually a dream. My conscious decided that I'd had a glimpse of Purgatory: the purgatorial process was the walking about everywhere and the stops were to allow those who had been purified - those at the front of the procession - into Heaven.</p> <p>When this realisation came to me, I was quite near the front of the procession (although not, it must be said, as near as my university friends). I thought it would be a good time to wake up, but, perhaps unfortunately, I only woke up later when I'd slipped back from my privileged position near the front.</p> <p>I'm trying not to attach too much significance to this. I am aware that Dante and Newman's writings on Purgatory aren't in any immediate danger of having their pre-eminence threatened. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/05/06/neither_dante_nor_newman_need_be_overly_~2219559/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/05/06/neither_dante_nor_newman_need_be_overly_~2219559/Sun, 06 May 2007 12:24:39 +0200 <p>Currently listening to: 'Rasputin', by Boney M. Found an old CD during a post-Christmas clear-out...</p> <p>It, of course, goes without saying that I don't assume that everyone reading this will have celebrated a New Year recently. Vive la difference des calendriers!</p> <p>I thought it would be an idea if, in what is both my first blog for a couple of months and the first of what I think of as the year 2007, if I did a bit of a review of 2006. Specifically, I've chosen five memories of the year I'd like to keep and three discoveries I was pleased to make in the year (listed in no particular order)</p> <p>Memory 1 (February): Mighty Boosh Live Show, Liverpool</p> <p>It happens with decreasing frequency that my parents, my sisters and I go out the five of us together. One occasion we did in 2006, it was to see the above-named BritComic duo. I really like the Mighty Boosh, whether we're talking about their radio work, their telly programme or the live show and the trip to Liverpool was enjoyed by one and all</p> <p>Memory 2 (March): Mass at St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School, Whiston</p> <p>One quite prominent aspect of my post-university life has been what could charitably be described as wandering in a professional wilderness. In the November of 2005, I reached what might be called an oasis (might as well continue the wilderness metaphor) in the shape of doing reception/admin work at StEA. I thought I'd been forced to move on from this particular oasis in the February of 2006, but a few weeks later they were a few people short in the office, a phone call was made and...well, work it out!</p> <p>One of the things I've always particularly enjoyed about StEA is Mass on a Friday dinner-time. The first Friday after my return was also the first Friday after Year 10 work experience; the school chaplain made a point of saying that it was like being a full family again.</p> <p>Memory 3 (March): Lent Ecumenical Discussion, All Saints Anglican Church, Sutton</p> <p>On Wednesday evenings in the Lent of 2006, the churches in my corner of St Helens decided to stage a series of talks where each denomination would give a brief presentation of itself as a basis for a series of discussions. This was far too good an opportunity for St Anne's Faith Develpment Group to pass up, so we put our heads together and I put the results together into talk format.</p> <p>It was fortunate that I did as our priest was poorly the evening it was the 'turn' for Catholicism. I know it's arrogant to say so, but I couldn't really fail to feel good about being able to hold my own in a room full of ministers, of whom one held a doctorate in theology. Lest their be any doubt, however, this was a success for the Faith Development Group as a whole; as the number of Catholic priests continues to fall, the laity will have to take a more active role and I'm of the school that this is no bad thing.</p> <p>Memory 4 (October): Leon Pryce's try, Old Trafford Stadium, Manchester</p> <p>One of my colleagues at St Edmund Arrowsmith has been watching St Helens rugby league since the 1960s and has been privileged to see some brilliant players and teams in that time. This colleague is of the opinion that the team of 2006 is the best he's ever seen. In this year's championship Grand Final, Hull threw everything they had at us in the first half and it looked as if, despite this, it would be six apiece at half-time. This was before Pryce darted through the tiniest of gaps to send us in with a lead. After that, there was no coming back for Hull.</p> <p>Memory 5 (April): Slipper Chapel, Walsingham</p> <p>At Easter, I participate in Student Cross, a week-long cross-carrying walking pilgrimage to Walsingham. 2006 was my seventh time on said pilgrimage and I couldn't really dodge any longer the responsibility of leading the group of pilgrims which starts out from London.</p> <p>I'd been really worried about this for a variety of reasons and had spent many hours on phone and computer in the weeks leading up to the pilgrimage to make sure that everything would be in place. When we arrived in the Slipper Chapel safe and on time late in the afternoon of Good Friday, I allowed myself to relax about a job well done.</p> <p>Discovery 1: Jazz/jazz-funk</p> <p>For most of my life, music had been a peripheral interest for me and I'd been in the habit of listening to whatever anyone else in house had on. In 2006, I found, by chance more than anything, that I really, really liked jazz-funk pieces from the late 1970s and early 1980s. My fixation with Level 42 grew directly from this discovery.</p> <p>Discovery 2: Composition</p> <p>2006 saw me write my first piece of music. It received a public performance in September (all right, it was in my church, but still...). I hope there'll be more to come.</p> <p>Discovery 3: Blogging</p> <p>I'm not sure if any further comment's really necessary!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/01/03/a_happy_new_year_to_one_and_all~1509183/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2007/01/03/a_happy_new_year_to_one_and_all~1509183/Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:07:40 +0100 <p>Currently listening to: Mahler's Eighth. Just for a change. Still not got that sound card fixed, though, so it's on another player.</p> <p>I'm becoming increasingly brassed off with the New Statesman, the left-leaning weekly news-and-culture magazine to which I subscribe. Rather than do something sensible like write to them, though, I am, of course, venting my spleen here.</p> <p>In each of the last three weeks, NS writers have got on my wick with their comments on - quelle surprise - faith and religion. The religious believers who write for the magazine haven't seen fit to respond, so maybe I'm just being hot-headed and over-touchy. Perhaps I do have a youthful streak of misplaced exuberance after all.</p> <p>Chronologically, the first of these swipes was tucked away in a review of a book on the Enlightenment. Specifically, a comparison was made between religious believers and flat earthers.</p> <p>While I can't be bothered to work out which branch of science it belongs to, 'the earth is flat' is a scientific statement. The earth is an observable phenomenon and one of its observable features is that it's not flat. This can be observed through photos from space and through round-the-world sea and air travel.</p> <p>Whether or not 'I believe in God' is a scientific statement, the existence or otherwise of a deity cannot be observed in the same way as the flatness or otherwise of the earth. Indeed, it's long been my opinion that the existence or otherwise of a deity quite simply can't be proven or disproven in the way the verbs 'to prove' and 'to disprove' are conventionally understood. This particular book reviewer would seem to disagree with me, but I would disagree with his presentation of a subjective opinion as objective fact.</p> <p>Not only are religious believers and flat earthers basically the same, denominational schools are, according to this same reviewer, apparently centres for religious indoctrination which certainly have no place in the State sector. Quite how denominational schools get away with this when they are subject to the same inspection regimes as other schools wasn't made clear. Having worked myself in a number of denominational schools myself and having these past twelve months in particular been able to observe their running and their teaching of religious education especially closely, it's also a bit a of a puzzle for me how I've managed not to notice the routine large-scale brainwashing with goes on in these schools.</p> <p>My hackles were raised last week in the opinion pages, on that occasion from the angle of 'abortion is a fundamental human right (with appropriate feminist overtones)' category. I acknowledge that abortion is only tangentially a religious matter at best, but the original column made a specific link, so it's not just in my imagination.</p> <p>Before continuing, I should point out that what's always got to me about the abortion debate is the way both sides use extreme cases to illustrate their points. I suspect that this is partly because there's a chronic shortage of statistics regarded by all as reliable. Discussion of this sort of matter shouldn't hinge on which side has the better made-up figures.</p> <p>To illustrate this point, the columnist in question said that 'for every woman who regrets the decision to have an abortion, there are millions who feel nothing but relief'. Really? If there are 180 000 legal abortions in the UK each year (about the only figure most people agree on), then a woman regrets it once every six years. As abortion has been legal in the UK since 1968, that means, statistically speaking, there are only six such regretful women in the country. Either the stories which appear fairly regularly in conservative Sunday tabloids are all complete fabrications, or the 'millions to one' ratio is widely exaggerated.</p> <p>Rather than face up to the possibility that the foetus/unborn child may have rights, the columnist put inverted commas around the words 'unborn child' on the one occasion she used it in a way which clearly didn't indicate quotation. I'm not qualified to comment on the biological debate concerning when exactly life starts, but I have observed that eminent biologists espouse a variety of views, including abortion-is-murder-and-I-agree-with-it. To dismiss this aspect of the debate through derogatory punctuation struck me as weak argumentation.</p> <p>It was back to the book reviews for this week's dose, specifically a piece about Richard Dawkins's 'The God Delusion'. Everyone knows where they stand with Professor Dawkins and the reviewer didn't praise the book unreservedly. Despite giving a distinct impression that she was favourable to its stance and that criticism was more of content choice and presentation.</p> <p>The first sentence which jarred with me was that 'educated people aplenty cling to faith'. I can only speak from experience, but my experience is that an adult's faith, regardless of their level of education, is seldom, if ever, 'clingy'. I've been privileged to know some extraordinarily intelligent and learned people who positively embrace religious belief in full knowledge of what they're doing. These people include artists and scientists, those brought up religious and those not. To deny the presence of thinking, well-adjusted religious believers in today's Britain, as some seem to do, is just lazy.</p> <p>The second jarring bit was a reference to a 'false but sanguine belief in eternal life'. On reflection, I'm not sure how different this is from the improvable nature of belief in God, so I'll not repeat myself.</p> <p>While this has indeed been the third occasion in three weeks that I've been annoyed by something in the NS, I'm not, despite the title of this post, going to cancel my subscription. By and large, it's an excellent publication and while it's clear in its political stance, it makes no claims to be radically counter-cultural. It is not, therefore, likely to challenge the consensus that religious proselytising is to be abhorred but secularist propaganda actively encouraged. Moreover, it was a columnist in the NS who put into words my long-held belief that phenomena can be 'true' and/or 'real' without being clearly observable as such by the senses. To give just two examples, do justice and love 'exist'? This belief seems to underlie many of my ramblings above and it is a matter of no small regret to me that contemporary Western culture, unlike other cultures, doesn't seem particularly able to cope with multiple ways of knowing.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/10/28/sterr_rike_three~1272264/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/10/28/sterr_rike_three~1272264/Sat, 28 Oct 2006 22:14:14 +0200 <p>Listening to: Sound card still not working. Bah!</p> <p>One of the things about life in the UK which occasionally irritates me is that despite the fact that there are seven games with an equal right to the appelation of 'football', one code, association AKA soccer, seems to think that they have an exclusive claim to it. Part of why this irritates me is that descriptions of what might be called 'early football' in the UK (up to 1800 or so) invariably depict games played with a non-round ball which all the players were allowed to handle and where grabbing hold of a player carrying the ball was permitted. In other words, football played by Association rules is, I believe, the modern game which *least* resembles the 'original' game.</p> <p>As might have been guessed from the preceding paragraph, I'm not really a soccer man. My preferred code of football, rugby league, plays a summer season at professional level these days. Last week-end, the club season came to a climax - and what a climax it was for the people of St Helens, of whom I am one.</p> <p>The period 1988-1995 wasn't a particularly happy one for being a St Helens fan. While our team wasn't especially bad, it wasn't good enough to stop our traditional rivals, Wigan, winning pretty much everything pretty much every season. Since then, though, things have picked up round our way. Wigan were on the decline anyway, but in 1995 a salary cap was introduced to stop one team buying up all the best players.</p> <p>The existence of the salary cap makes the achievements of the St Helens team in the 2006 season all the more impressive. Basically, we've blown everyone off the field this season and went into the Championship Grand Final last week-end red-hot favourites to overcome our challengers Hull FC. They threw everything at us in the first half, but their best was nowhere near good enough and we ran out easy winners. The match drew a record crowd for a Grand Final of over 72,000 and it was a privilege to be there, especially as I'd also been able to be present for our Challenge Cup final victory at the end of August.</p> <p>One sad note is that the GF was Jamie Lyon's last game in a Saints shirt. Lyon joined us for the 2005 season after having walked out on his Aussie club half-way through the 2004 season. His signature raised not a few eyebrows on both sides of the world, but I and thousands of other Saints fans have fallen in love with him in a once-in-a-generation way. I choose my words carefully as the last player to come in and define the team in the way Jamie has was Mal Meninga in the 1984-85 season. He's had his better and worse games, of course, but to have been present at a sizeable chunk of the games where JL has run out with a three on his back and a red vee on his front is something I quietly think I'll be talking about in twenty years' time.</p> <p>Although it was a game we ended up losing, the 'eleven minutes of magic' are what will really stick in my mind. We were playing Leeds in the 2005 play-offs and hadn't really turned up, trailing by nineteen points to nil after sixty-nine minutes. Jamie then managed to squeeze over in the corner - in a way which basically nobody else can - and it was game on. To see the Leeds players soil themselves each time Lyon touched the ball and the Saints fans - myself included - coming to believe the unbelievable that we might turn it around is something I will never forget. All right, so we only pulled it back to nineteen - sixteen, but that's not the point.</p> <p>No Jamie Lyon and, until next year, no pro club games. However, there's still plenty to keep me occupied. The amateurs play a winter season and my local team have got off to a great start, maintaining the momentum from last season when they won promotion. I was also fortunate enough yesterday morning to see the television transmission of the Australia vs New Zealand game from Melbourne. The Great Britain and Ireland team are already in the Antipodes and, to be honest, I'll be pleasantly surprised if we avoid finishing bottom of the Tri-Nations table. Although neither the Kangaroos nor the Kiwis were at the top of their game, both of them have the players to exploit the tiniest little gaps. The Lions have a sorry history of presenting rather too many such gaps at international level. Still, we'll see.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/10/22/football~1248737/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/10/22/football~1248737/Sun, 22 Oct 2006 13:07:35 +0200 <p>Currently listening to: nothing. Have recently had to re-install Windows on my machine and now the sound device isn't working...</p> <p>After a period of absence from the blogosphere (a word which I cannot write without wincing), I'm pleased to report that the sermon given by m parish priest this morning has enthused me sufficiently to write about it. Today's Gospel reading was the story from Mark about the Rich Young Man and the translation used included the famous line 'it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God'...</p> <p>...except that it doesn't really. Without wishing to go into excessive detail, this is a dud translation. Not a less-than-ideal version, but an actual dud. The proper rendering is '...for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle...'. Fr Peter also mentioned that a slightly idosyncratic translation of today's opening prayer had actually inverted its meaning.</p> <p>This touched on a subject which has long been a hobby-horse of mine, namely that experts in theology think that translating religious texts is their business, rather than the business of experts in languages. This unfortunate trend is seen elsewhere: in legal translation, knowledge of law takes precedence over knowledge of language, in scientific translation, knowledge of science takes precedence over knowledge of language. I could go on, but I won't.</p> <p>I acknowledge my bias, but I see this as a marginalisation of knowledge of language to the extent that its importance is largely dismissed. I stand by my description of this trend as unfortunate: after all, is not every other academic discipline in some way dependent on language, so how can knowing about language be of no worth?</p> <p>Still, nothing spoils my mood after a sermon which keeps my attention like that one! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/10/15/a_rattling_good_sermon~1224667/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/10/15/a_rattling_good_sermon~1224667/Sun, 15 Oct 2006 18:50:23 +0200 <p>Listening to: 'Hell Town Story', from Level 42's new album 'Retroglide'</p> <p>Ever since I once said I'm not 'a male Bridget Jones', I've found it harder and harder to get this mental self-image out of my head. Hmmm.</p> <p>In some ways, I'm confident and outgoing. In other ways, I'm shy and introverted. I've certainly never got the hand of talking to girls/women/ladies I find attractive. Well, in real life, anyway. In the on-line world, I have no trouble saying more or less anything to more or less anyone, but when it comes to making (even mildly) flirtatious comments to attractive females, I soon remember why I don't do this in real life, i.e. I get no response. Whence my current mildly despondent mood.</p> <p>The essence of my predicament is this: the females to whom I am attracted aren't attracted to me. Such being the case...</p> <p>a) I find some way of making myself attractive to said women<br> b) I re-align my senses so I find other women attractive<br> c) I resign myself to the idea that the whole women-and-me thing isn't going to happen<br> d) I try not to think about it.</p> <p>Which is the best course of action?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/10/02/a_male_bridget_jones~1181412/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/10/02/a_male_bridget_jones~1181412/Mon, 02 Oct 2006 18:47:20 +0200 <p>Currently listening to: 'Raincheck', by the Mark Nightingale/Alan Barnes Sextet on the 'Britjazz' CD.</p> <p>The good news is that you're going to be spared my usual long 'I've done x, y and z' recently entries. The bad news is that I'm going to ramble about religion even more than usual.</p> <p>A comment on another blog recently referred to something as being 'fate'. This got me thinking: I don't believe in Fate, nor have I ever done. Yet I do believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God. Unfortunately, I do have recourse to sophism to get round this one.</p> <p>Some people believe in a very rigid form of Fate, whereby everything is completely scripted and there is no element of chance or free will. This is logically consistent, but leaves me a little intellectually unsatisfied. If Fate is personal (in a broadly similar way to the personal nature of God in Christianity and other religions), why would He/She/It go to the trouble of playing the equivalent of a giant one-player game of chess? Is it not a bit bizarre that I should have been fated to write this blog entry where I specifically reject Fate? If Fate is impersonal, how do those things which look like the outcomes of decisions (e.g. the success of Ms X at interview over Ms Y) get decided?</p> <p>Other people seem to believe in a looser form of Fate, where a given outcome is set in stone, but the exact way it comes about seems to be less defined (e.g. St Helens rugby league team usually win trophies in years ending in a 6, as opposed to it being already decided that they would beat Huddersfield in this year's final and Sean Long would be man of the match). This is more humane and leaves some scope for a purpose to life and the universe, but it seems to me impossible to separate outcomes into the fated and the non-fated or to draw a clear line between ends and means.</p> <p>As a Christian, I find most attractive the idea of divine self-limitation. God didn't have to include free will in the plan for Creation, but He did. Come to think of it, He didn't actually have to create the universe at all. Perhaps one of the true marks of omnipotence is when the One who is omnipotent chooses not to exercise it fully. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/09/24/good_news_and_bad_news~1155479/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/09/24/good_news_and_bad_news~1155479/Sun, 24 Sep 2006 12:29:14 +0200 <p>Currently listening to: Wigan vs Hull, live rugby league from the JJB Stadium. Pie Scum six-nil up.</p> <p>It's Friday evening and much has happened in my life since I last posted. Not altogether sure that any of it's interesting, though!</p> <p>The children have now completed their second week back at school. So far as my bit of the school - the reception desk - is concerned, it's a case of so far, so good. It's the first time I've been in for the start of the academic year and it's been an educating experience.</p> <p>The school has a larger-than-might-be expected proportion of young, attractive and unmarried female staff. I persist in making a minor fool of myself around them. I really shouldn't be so hormonally incontinent at my age and should buck my ideas up (= behaving like an idiot impresses no-one, particularly not those with no desire to be impressed by me) before I end up compromising the good working relations I enjoy with pretty much all the staff regardless of age, sex, marital status and attractiveness.</p> <p>It is perhaps the best time of the year to be a rugby league fan. The professional season is reaching its conclusion and St Helens look like hot favourites to finish up on top in the Championship play-off series. The amateur season is just under way and a trip to see my local team, Clock Face, makes for an interesting Saturday afternoon at zero cost, especially as I can cope with standing on a muddy field.</p> <p>I have a new-to-me cello. I'd had my other one for over fifteen years and if it had been full size, I'd have kept it. No wolf notes and the original set of strings which all stayed in tune like something out of a dream. New-to-me cello misbehaved from the start. I was supposed to be playing it at Mass last Saturday evening, but when after about quarter of an hour of struggle with the pegs I'd snapped two strings and the remaining two were not really in tune, it seemed more politic to dust down my vocal cords and beef up the singing section.</p> <p>Pie scum well in control. It looks like a lousy evening on the sporting front.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/09/15/it_s_been_a_while~1129871/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/09/15/it_s_been_a_while~1129871/Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:22:54 +0200 <p>Currently listening to: 'Cucumber Slumber', from disc one of Weather Report's 'Live and Unreleased' album.</p> <p>Last week-end, I was at the rugby league Challenge Cup final at Twickenham Stadium, London, between my team St Helens (or Saints) and the Huddersfield Giants. I travelled down on the Saturday (the day of the match) and came back on the Monday as the last Monday in August is a public holiday in England. Fear not, though, this isn't going to be one of my characteristic long-and-boring jobs.</p> <p>Firstly, Saints won and won convincingly after a slightly poor start. The stadium is big, although it somehow manages to be open to the elements despite being covered on three sides (soon to be all four), there are access issues and no tea was available in my bit of the ground.</p> <p>Secondly, this time I did manage to go to Mass in a church unfamiliar to me. With the parish priest being on holiday, they'd brought in a slightly elderly Guatemalan Jesuit to cover for him and his sermon was sufficiently good to make up for his hesitant English. It was something of a shame that more people didn't turn up.</p> <p>On Sunday, I went out to visit a friend of mine who lives in Essex, about an hour on the train eastwards out of London. I say 'friend'; this time last year, I had a faintly ridiculous crush on her. What made it ridiculous was the fact that she clearly hadn't even entertained the thought that I might have let my heart wander in that direction and this was so clear I never dared to tell her. As distance friendships go, the Ex-Crush Girl has been one of my more successful ones and it was great to see her again, but it is still a teeny bit difficult for me not to blush when we meet in person. Oh, in case anyone feared my embarrassment: she doesn't come on MySpace. As far as I know...</p> <p>On the Monday, I went back into London to meet up with another pen-friend of mine. We went round the British Museum together and I felt very cultured.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/09/02/taken_me_a_week_to_recover~1091233/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/09/02/taken_me_a_week_to_recover~1091233/Sat, 02 Sep 2006 16:30:05 +0200 <p>Yep, it's another 'awful pun' subject line. I'm off on another week-end jaunt as of Saturday morning. This is the day after tomorrow as I write, but I rather fear that tomorrow evening will be spent doing frantic last-minute packing, so I'm writing this now! All being well, I'll return on Monday evening with my favourite rugby league team in possession of the Challenge Cup and having caught up with some of my more geographically distant friends. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/24/we_re_off_to_see_the_winners~1066655/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/24/we_re_off_to_see_the_winners~1066655/Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:02:05 +0200 <p>...why? Because this blog failed to post no matter how hard I tried. Although it's a day stale, you can read it below. The original title was 'OLQaM, not OLQoM'.</p> <p>There seems to be some sort of tradition that people say what they’re listening to when they write blog entries. Such being the case, I recently learnt that t.A.T.u. had released a new album (only about three years after their first one) and that it was available in my local music shop. If anyone remembers t.A.T.u., they might be interested to learn that their second album is a more-of-the-same job following on from their first. When I can be bothered, I’ll order the Russian version off their website.</p> <p>This week-end just gone, I went camping in the northern English county of Cumbria, specifically to the northern part of the Lake District (who knows? I may have some international readers. I continue in the belief that I do have some readers). The camp-site was near the village of Pooley Bridge and I went with my friends from St Anne’s Music Group (we play at Saturday evening Mass on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month. I’m a cellist and chip in with the odd bit of singing). Four of us left at 0900 on Friday morning to join the two who had gone up a couple of days earlier.</p> <p>It was a really good week-end, despite the rain. After arriving on Friday, we went to England’s highest pub (highest in terms of its altitude above sea level. At about 450 metres, though, it can’t be said to be that high) and, having eaten, proceeded thence to the village of Ambleside before returning to the campsite in the evening. The evening sent two of the party on a wild goose chase after a television which would be showing the night’s rugby league action, said two being me and Danny-who-plays-the-clarinet.</p> <p>When we finally got ourselves up and going on the Saturday morning (note to self: for washing-up rota purposes, avoid the breakfast slot when scrambled egg is on the menu), Danny, Paul (guitar and vocals) and I went on a walk to Penrith, a distance of between 8.5km and 10km from the campsite depending on which set of road signs we believed. The distances were further blurred by our decision to take a footpath route over various fields when the opportunity presented itself. Although the rain (mercifully) held off while we were out in the open, there was sufficient dampness on the ground to make me curse my less-than-waterproof footwear. All this notwithstanding, it was good to get in some decent off-road walking and even better to enjoy the company of Paul and Danny for a few hours. We met up with the others in Penrith (said others having driven there) and then had a bite to eat before we started making our way back to the campsite (on foot, naturally), where the evening would be rounded off with food and conversation. I’m fortunate to have such good friends as my Music Group ones, even if our good-natured mocking of one another might make casual observers think we were, in fact, sworn enemies.</p> <p>Sunday saw us eat and take down the tents (sad to say, the rain started up again). As we’d been walking hither and thither on Saturday, this meant that I missed the opportunity of attending Mass at a new church, which is always a highlight for me on a week-end away. The three of us who had taken the automotive method of getting to and from Penrith had heard Mass at the local Catholic church and had by and large enjoyed the experience, even if they thought the choice of hymns could have been better. However, as we left fairly early on Sunday, we were well in time to make one of the variety of late afternoon/early evening Masses available locally and this we did. We’re still on the second part of John 6 (see earlier entries) and I rather thought that the priest could have made more of his sermon, but Mass is Mass and I’m thankful that this is independent of the quality of the preaching, the choice of music and the décor of the building… Speaking of this sort of thing, today is the feast of Our Lady Queen and Mother, not to be confused with Our Lady Queen of Martyrs (see title!).</p> <p>Track 11’s in Russian. Hurrah!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/23/yesterday_just_wasn_t_my_day~1063065/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/23/yesterday_just_wasn_t_my_day~1063065/Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:55:50 +0200 <p>Sorry for the appalling pun. I'm off camping in just over an hour and will be back on Sunday. If I seem to be ignoring friends' posts/comments, that's why. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/18/the_excitement_s_in_tents~1048527/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/18/the_excitement_s_in_tents~1048527/Fri, 18 Aug 2006 07:22:36 +0200 <p>In case anyone cares, while I type this I’m listening to a programme on Radio 4 about the song 'This Land is Your Land'.</p> <p>Working on an arrogant and perhaps misguided assumption that I have any readers at all, I apologise to any non-Catholic/anti-Catholic readers of this entry. You may wish to go and do something else.</p> <p>If anyone’s left reading this, you probably know already that we’ve had some pretty good feasts this past couple of days. Sunday was ‘just’ an ordinary Sunday of the year, but we’re fortunate enough to be having read to us the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel at the moment. Sunday’s Gospel concluded with the words ‘and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world’, of which the Slavonic version is given above (just with a couple of characters not displayed properly).</p> <p>The Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence (which isn’t limited to Catholics) is often criticised for being silly. Good point. However, some may wish to consider that all Christians are happy to believe that ‘the Word became flesh and lived among us’ (another nod towards St John the Evangelist). Is the belief that the host is Jesus fundamentally any sillier than the belief that Jesus was God? You might have guessed that I don’t think so.</p> <p>There are those who would hold that Jesus never actually said any of the words attributed to him in John 6 and that it would in any event be an improbable context for him to make his first mention of the Eucharist. I don’t think this is the point. There is abundant evidence to suggest that celebrating the Eucharist was part of Christianity from the very start; to hold that the Johannine Christian community where the Fourth Gospel was composed had no sense of a Real Presence rather begs the question of where the second part of John 6 came from.</p> <p>In any event, there are Christians scattered across the Middle East, Africa and Asia who have developed separately from the rest of the Church from the fifth century onwards. All of these groups (not most, *all*) have a Eucharistic theology which the Catholic Church is happy to accept as sound. The simple fact that a lot of people believe something doesn’t make it right, but to suggest that the Real Presence would be an alien concept to early Christians is to ignore the facts.</p> <p>On a not-really-religious note, I discovered on Saturday afternoon while fiddling with a hymn that a low F can clash harmonically with a high one. Don’t know why.</p> <p>14 August is the feast of St Maximilian Kolbe. World War II was an unhappy time for humanity and the Catholic Church is a made up of human beings. This is not to say that there are a lot of things the Church did during the War of which it is rightly ashamed, but rather to say that few positive things came out of the War. This is what makes individuals like St Maximilian Kolbe and others like him – of any religion or none – so special.</p> <p>To complete the triad, 15 August is the Solemnity of the Assumption. Like many aspects of the very beginnings of Christianity, what became of Mary is a mystery. Most of the characters in the Gospels only appear elsewhere in the New Testament via occasional cameos in Acts or the Epistles. This gave writers and thinkers from the second century onwards considerable scope for using their imaginations to describe the later lives of the Apostles – and how they died. Records of how Mary died and of her bodily relics being venerated are decidedly thin on the ground. Why not? Is it because her body was taken up into Heaven? Is this really any sillier than believing that Jesus rose on the third day? </p> <p>Assumpta est Maria in Caelum!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/16/a_1048_a_1093_a_1083_a_1123_a_1073_a_109~1045070/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/16/a_1048_a_1093_a_1083_a_1123_a_1073_a_109~1045070/Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:57:21 +0200 <p>Got a newsletter-y thing from my old university chaplaincy this morning. It was interesting to see how many names I recognised, but also to see how many were foreign to me. University seems a very long time ago for me and very much part of my past. Unfortunately, I'm better at putting things in my past than at sorting out my present and future. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/08/all_my_yesterdays~1022435/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/08/all_my_yesterdays~1022435/Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:51:49 +0200 <p>I had a misfortune with a blog a couple of months ago, said blog being accidentally deleted. This is another attempt and I hope to have a little more to say this time... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/07/hello_world~1020048/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://mattstank.blog.co.uk/2006/08/07/hello_world~1020048/Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:18:48 +0200