Please do not disturb.

This is so good!

From the blog of mad priest, he's good too.http://revjph.blogspot.com/

Worthwhile blogs.

Here's a blog worth looking at, the blog is good, the are comments are just as good!!


http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2011/07/did-news-of-world-conspire-in-treason.html

Enjoy.

Village Gossip

The Italian Leprechaun owed me for a favour I did for him, I choose as repayment breakfast at the Village Gossip. Village Gossip is a tea garden/restaurant, serving teas/coffee, breakfast and light lunches, right on the main road in Estcourt. It's also the oldest settler cottage, circa 1850, in Estcourt and a National Monument.


Click on photos to enlarge.

 View of the cottage from the tea garden.

View of the front veranda.

Tables set out on the veranda. The black board on the wall has the day's menu.

National Monuments plague on the wall. This means that this building may not be altered in anyway, or additions made.

Part of the garden seen from the cottage veranda.

We choose to have breakfast inside rather than in the garden or on the veranda, at 10 Celsius it was a bit chilly. The interior of the cottage is a bit of a museum with all sorts of displays. Breakfast was ham, eggs, sausage and toast, good dose of cholesterol with which to start the day. Home made marmalade with the toast.

Detail of the fireplace. Note the yellow wood floors, an indigenous timber that would cost you an arm and a leg if you tried to purchase some today.

This Nescafe add was especially made by the Nestle coffee factory in Estcourt for display in the cottage.

Quite a few people have that blood type. Mine is tea, but I did have a big pot of filter coffee for breakfast.

Display of hand made dolls, someone in Estcourt makes them. The photo on the top left of the display cabinet is of the Anglican church in Estcourt, also built in 1850.

Close up of one of the dolls. The realism of these dolls is quite uncanny.

Persecution

It was cold this morning, really cold, even the tough guys were wearing coats and scarves to church. In front of me though sat an Indian teenager dressed in shirt sleeves, no coat or anything. The rest of his family were all covered up to their ears. I had to ask him, "aren't you cold?". No he wasn't cold and he seemed quite comfortable. I was frozen and my hands and feet were like ice, still are like ice. Some people just don't seem to feel the cold, my brother wears shorts winter and summer, when he wears long pants then you know it's cold.


The cold is not what I wanted to talk about, but I had to mention it and get it off my chest. 


There are less than fifty countries in the World where any form of religious freedom exists. These freedoms  are being restricted more and more, with Christianity bearing the brunt of these restictions. Even in the so called, or maybe what used to be Christian West, these freedoms are being restricted. In these countries though, you can still go to church, convert to another religion without penalties or persecution and believe as your conscience leads you. In Islamic countries religious freedom does not exist.


In our church bulletin this morning was a piece about a Christian pastor in Iran who has been sentenced to death for apostasy.


Pastor Yousef, who is a pastor in the Full Gospel Church of Iran, was arrested on the 12 October, 2009 and charged with apostasy. On the 21 & 22 September, 2010 he was found guilty and sentenced to death. He appealed to the supreme court ,which rejected his appeal and confirmed the death sentence on 22 June 2011. Pastor Yousef has a wife and two children.


Pastor Yousef's execution has been delayed to give him time to "repent" of his Christian faith.


Pray for Pastor Yousef. Link to Middle East Concern for more on this.
http://www.meconcern.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&news_id=97308&cause_id=1489

Forgotten Heroes

Yesterday I took a trip to Clouston Garden of Remembrance, about 30km north of Estcourt, and 5km from the small town of Colenso on the Tugela river. British troops who fell during the Battle of Colenso 15th December, 1899, were reburied here in the early 1960's. Originally the troops were buried where they fell, singly or in groups. Virtually every town and village in South Africa has British troops buried nearby or in the old cemetary. Now forgotten, not many people know about them except Anglo/Boer War history buffs.

On the 15th of December 1899, British forces, numbering about, 18,000 men, under General Buller's command attacked about 4,500 Boer troops ensconced in the hills north of the Tugela river. This was an attempt to relieve the beseiged British garrison in Ladysmith. By the end of the day British casualties were, 145 dead, 762 wounded, and 220 missing or prisoners. Boer casualties were minimal.

The Anglo/Boer war led to three years of intense and unnecessary suffering. Concentration camps cost the lives of 26,000 Boer women and children, about 20, 000 black South Africans also died in concentration camps, official British figures are about 14,500. British casualties were, 28,000 dead, about 20,000 of whom died of disease. About 450,000 British and Empire, (Australia, New Zealand and Canada)  troops were deployed in South Africa. Boer casualties were about 4000 killed. Boer forces never had more than 40,000 troops in the field at any one time, in the last half of the war this number dropped to about 20,000.

Link to piece on concentration camps
   .http://www.google.co.za/search?q=anglo+boer+war+concentration+camps&hl=en&biw=1024&bih=679&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=2PEVTqiMDaPgmAXG_7Ug&ved=0CEEQsAQ

Entrance to Clouston. The garden of remembrance is maintained by the National Monuments Commission.

They died together, they're buried together.

Another nameless grave.

Pvt. Ford of the 14th Hussars at least had his name recorded, the two on either side of him are nameless.

Graves in the shade of an African thorn tree. If things had been different their graves would have been under an English oak, somewhere in England.

This marker, "Known only unto God," between the two graves above

Peaceful setting.

Most British troopers just have the markers above to mark their graves, no name.

Above two comrades of the Natal Carbineers Regiment. Both drowned in the Tugela river, one trying to save the other. The Anglo/Boer War has also been described as a civil war, the name on the right hand tombstone is Boshoff, a well known Boer name, fighting on the British side.

Lt. Freddy Roberts, VC. Son of General Roberts, wounded while trying to save the guns at Colenso. It took three days for him to die of an abdominal wound. General Roberts received news of his sons death as he was boarding ship for South Africa, to take over command of the British forces.

This markers tells it's own story.

Gunners badge.

Natal Carbineers Monument.

Lonely grave in the African veld of Capt. M. L. Hughes, R.A.M.C. Aged 30.

The waste of war. Marker at the foot of Captain Hughes' grave.

Photo above shows the ground the British forces had to cross before reaching the Tugela river at the foot of the hills on the north bank. Boer forces had a clear view of their every move. December being the rainy season the river was in flood, with only a few places where it could be crossed.

Partial view over the Garden of Remembrance. Wandering about I found the atmosphere very peaceful and quite. All the anger and hatred had been spent and dissipated over the last 100 years.

This link below has a complete article on this battle.
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_colenso.html

The Wikipedia link below gives a broad overview of the Anglo/Boer War,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War

Happiness hypothesis (Afluenza)

Afluenza. A term coined to denote the social ills caused by too much prosperity. Strange that intellectuals find it strange that "things", and lots of money don't bring happiness with it as a natural consequence. Rich is better than being poor, right? 


Basically the conclusion of the piece is that people with religious affiliations are more contented with life, seem to live longer, and keep all their marbles longer.


I copied this piece from the following link.
http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/uploads/docs/2009_12/1259854421_Graham_2009_article.pdf
Religion and the Pursuit of Happiness
So far we have focused on the importance of ‘valuing values’ in relation to happiness and well-being, and the need to incorporate into economic reckonings of prosperity a ‘thick’ account of human flourishing that acknowledges emotional, familial and spiritual factors, and is capable of understanding how religious values might contribute to well-being. What the literature on well being acknowledges time after time is the significance of a philosophy of life, although this is not identical with organized religion—even though Layard at one point does indeed declare that ‘people who believe in God are happier’.15 The Centre for Spirituality,  Theology and Health at Duke University in the United States publishes digests of research in this area, and reports on a series of clinical studies which suggest, amongst other things: improved rates of  recovery for cancer patients who report involvement in faith communities; enhanced longevity amongst those who attend synagogue; slower rates of cognitive decline in those experiencing the onset of dementia and marginal impact on aspects of coping strategies in relation to recovery from serious illness for 14)
 Joseph Stiglitz, ‘h e Ethical Economist’, Foreign Affairs (November-December 2005), <http://
www.foreignaff airs.org/20051101farevieessay84612/joseph-e-stiglitz/the-ethical-economist.
html> [accessed 15 June 2008].15)  Layard, Happiness, p. 72.12  E. Graham / International Journal of Public Theology 3 (2009) 5–23 religious people.16   The evidence is varied, but rich, although clearly such research raises important questions of method and interpretation. For example, is the incidence of better mental health amongst religious people due to divine influence or human solidarity; do different religious traditions deliver different degrees of well-being; what about religious traditions that stress individual practices, such as meditation, in comparison with more corporate ones; what is the relationship between ‘religion’ and  spirituality’, that is between organizational, formal dimensions of observance and a more subtle appreciation of existential or transcendent dimensions to life. In terms of explaining the correlation between religion and well-being, however, the consensus seems to be that there is powerful ‘added value’ in religion.17  It appears to be down to a combination of factors, amongst which social support and membership of a faith-community is pre-eminent, but which extends to other forms of religious practice, such as prayer, reading  one’s sacred Scriptures, a sense of meaning, an existential belief system and a well-articulated moral code. Whilst other (secular) activities might provide some of these elements, commentators such as Richard Eckersley, argue that religion ‘packages’ these components effectively and accessibly. 18 More specifi cally, John Swinton postulates various tangible mechanisms by which religious affiliation might contribute to greater mental and emotional well-being including: regulation of lifestyle and behaviour, such as restriction  of intake of alcohol; provision of resources, such as social support and networks; promotion of positive self-esteem; acquisition of specific life-skills and coping resources, such as a framework of understanding illness, stress or loss; generation of positive emotions, cultivation of disposition towards forgiveness, hope and transformation. 19 Eckersley states: ‘All in all, well-being comes from being connected and engaged, from being suspended in a web of relationships and interests. h is gives meaning to people’s lives’.20
16)
 ‘Latest Religion and Health Research Outside Duke (2000–2007)’, <http://www.dukespirituality
andhealth.org/resources/pdfs/Research%20-%20latest%20outside%20Duke.pdf> [accessed 8 July
2008].
17)
 Ibid.
18)
 Richard M. Eckersley, ‘Culture, Spirituality, Religion and Health: Looking at the Big Picture’, Medical Journal of Australia, 186:10 (suppl.), 54–6.
19)
 John Swinton, ‘Researching Spirituality and Mental Health’, in M. E. Coyte, P. Gilbert and
V. Nicholls, eds,  Spirituality, Values and Mental Health  (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers,
2007), pp. 292–305.
20)
 Eckersley, 54. E. Graham / International Journal of Public Theology 3 (2009) 5–23  13
These claims veer towards the territory of religion as a form of ‘social capital’. The danger of all of this, however, is to fall into a narrowly functionalist account, in which religion ‘delivers’ certain social goods to wider society. This is certainly one of the ways in which the ‘social capital’ thesis can be adopted,
but it seems to me that there are broader, critical and normative factors that need to be considered: perhaps more a theological critique or reflection on the nature of human well-being.

Happiness hypothesis

Here is a link to something very interesting. In spite of increased economic and material prosperity in the West, there has been an increase in social problems, crime, depression, etc., and a decrease in personal contentment.

http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/uploads/docs/2009_12/1259854421_Graham_2009_article.pdf

This paper, which is quite long, discusses this problem, and the role religion plays in man's sense of well-being.