chaplains in hospitals?

After a week in which having Christian symbols in an Australian hospital chapel have been banned it was interesting to read the following story from the UK

The first part of Channel 4's TV fly-on-the-wall series.... looked into the modern world of emergency medicine. This wasn't ER or Scrubs, this was ugly reality - wave upon wave of young people, drunk, regardless, violent and rude, brought in with various terrible injuries as a result of intoxication.

It was some of the most powerful documentary television I've seen: the young people were both victims and propagators of alcoholic mayhem; the doctors were dead-eyed, high-pay-grade streetsweepers.

We would be sensible to regard it as a modern morality play, especially in a week when the National Secular Society called for the NHS to stop funding hospital chaplains. The society estimates that £40 million a year is spent on giving religious groups a presence in hospitals. In many areas secularism has much to recommend it. In this instance they are wrong and mean-spirited. There has never been a greater need for a spiritual presence in hospitals.

For the full story check out Timesonline

Good Friday Quote

"Many men do not believe. Many men hate the Cross because it means a salvation not of their own choosing or making, but rather of God's grace and his mercy. Men hate the cross because it means a salvation which is unearned, undeserved, unmerited. Men would much prefer God to punish them than to forgive them because that would mean that God is dependent upon men and needed their obedience to be their God. Then God would be in fact no different from an idol of race, nation, family, or whatever, and a man would feel justified either by his obedience to the idol or by the punishment of his disobedience."

William Stringfellow.   "The Scandal of Palm Sunday," Free in Obedience [Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2006], p. 33(via)

Metaphors

I've been completing my ICA Life Coaching Course starting my six weeks of supervised coaching. This week, I've been struck by the importance of metaphors to paint a picture. So, I'm on a long term search... here's a start.. check out the following...

I was flying down a big hill on my bike the other day when I had a thought. I know, I should be 100% focused on the hill and I usually am. Trust me. I’m afraid of hills. The downside part anyway. I don’t go nearly fast enough to fear the uphill side.

But my buddy rocketpants had blogged about a bike clinic she’d done the day before and her words were coming back to me. Here, rather than re-state things I’ll let her share with you in her own words:

“I did pick up a handy tip on cornering though…LOOK where you want to go eventually. Look through the corner and your bike will go where you intend it to. I thought I was doing it, but at one point one instructor sorta yelled ‘Look ahead’ while it was my turn and I realized I wasn’t doing it and once I did look ahead the cornering got SO much easier.”

So I’m flying down this hill and thinking, “hey, I’m gonna try that look ahead thing.” And you know what? It worked! So well in fact that I then started musing on how looking ahead in life helps me go forward too.

You know, visualize what you want and it will happen. It’s pretty powerful stuff folks…give it a shot.

Anywho, back to my metaphor. I’ll share a few of my other thoughts too. Remember, I may have been slightly oxygen deprived due to my having just *climbed* the front side of the big hill.

*When you’re going fast be careful, but not too careful or you’ll never get anywhere.

*You may have to work on the climb up but the view is beautiful.

*When you’ve pushed yourself to the edge it’s a joy to find that something extra that you didn’t know you had in you.

*Even if you don’t know what’s around the corner keep going and have faith.

I’m going to go bike some more and see if I can figure out the meaning of life

(via)

some sayings

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated in an algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

6. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

7. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'

8. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger.. Then it hit me.

9. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

10. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

11. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

12. In democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.

13. Don't join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!

Thanks again phil baker