Mike's musings

Apathy, journeying and TV

(backposting) I ended up preaching about apathy, and on 1 John 4:8: "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.". I'd heard a couple of Conservative politicians on the Week in Westminster. Here's what one of them had to say:

• The role of government is to blame and to shame and to apply stigma. those who do commit those crimes and their families are made to feel very bad so that fewer of those crimes are committed in the future.
• We cannot control the causes of crime. The causes of crime are too generalised and complex: we can only tackle crime itself.

This made me really angry: we _can_ control the causes of crime and as the Body of Christ, we have a metaphor for how to engage with others, and in the sentence from 1 John, we have a requirement to love, and, I argued, to influence people. Personal apathy (think Pilate) and national apathy (think Germany and the Holocaust, or Cameron's attempt to engage on "hoodies") are difficult for us to deal with, but we can influence at the community level, so there are things you can do. The sermon seemed to go down well - I have another one, at Tilbury-juxta-Clare, next Sunday.

We went out and bought a new TV, then in the afternoon, after Jo had eaten her supper, I set off to take her to my parents. I don't start my new job until Wednesday, so why not? It's an opportunity to see Florence, Jo's new cousin, and for us to see the family.

The journey was a million times better than I thought it would be. Over four hours, and Jo slept for a couple of them, but when she woke up, she was really fine: she understood that we were going to see her Granny and Grandad, and was excited. I was able to tell her that Mummy's at home or at work, and she understands that. She is now happy to talk and be talked to, and so the drive was fine.

Got there around 2200 everyone had a lovely time with Jo: she went down around 2340...