Why should the Devil have all the best technology?

St Martin-in-the-Fields will host a Churches Together in Westminster Reformation 500 event on Christian Education as part of our Bread for the World Service on Wednesday 13 September, 6.30pm. The Service will be organised with St Anne’s Lutheran Church London and Revd Eliza Zikmane. It will focus on Martin Luther’s legacy to Christian Education through the Small Catechism by asking the question, Why should the Devil have all the best technology?

Bread for the World is a great way to find focus during a busy week. With music led by the Choral Scholars of St Martin’s, we share the Eucharist in church followed by a simple soup supper in 6 St Martin’s Place with the opportunity to reflect on and explore the bible together in small groups.

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Martin Luther - O Lord, Look Down from Heaven, Behold.

Update: Sophia Hub Redbridge

Ros Southern writes:

'Reminder - our EGM tomorrow Saturday to elect new board and entrepreneurs club on community trading in Redbridge

Here's the info - hoping the change of time from 8.30 am to 10.15am has got through to everyone!

This coming week:

Tuesday 4th 6.30-8.30pm - Entrepreneurs' club with Amal Simothy, Ilford Accountant on facing the uncomfortable to make your start-up grow! Info here.

Wednesday 5th - Ilford Tech meet up for techie start-ups and businesses. info here

Friday 7th - Free, open source IT tools workshop. Enterprise Desk 1-3. Info here on this monthly workshop
Other information

Our plan to create a directory of Redbridge social enterprises info here

The City Business Library programme for Oct-December is here.
future dates for your diary

Start up Britain bus tour is coming to Ilford Thurs 13 Oct info here
Really hope to see many of you tomorrow morning at our Redbridge Institute base :)

Best wishes,

Ros Southern
Coordinator, Sophia Hubs Redbridge / 07707 460309'

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Lou Reed - Teach The Gifted Children.

Evilution

"Civilisation has greatly benefited from man's infinite capacity for research and invention: a capacity that is frequently harnessed for the destruction of others, the full horror of which can manifest itself at any time."

So writes Roy Ray, the artist behind the ongoing Evilution project, a project which is Ray's personal response as an artist to this evil phenomenon and its innocent victims in relation to the times in which he has lived, the people he has met and the events he has witnessed.

For this purpose, he is using constructions, collages, photographs and video together with writings which include those drawn from numerous childhood memories. The first phase of the project focusses on examples for which a single name is synonymous with the mass destruction of innocent lives by the corrupt use of science and technology.

Five panels from this first phase of the project, each measuring 5ft x 2ft, have been on display at Coventry Cathedral throughout 2010 and are "memorials to the millions of innocent men, women and children who became victims of conflict by the corrupt use of science and technology: many because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or from the wrong country or wrong race." The panels have been exhibited as a group with the title 'Where their footsteps left no trace' and each panel represents a place, the name of which is synonymous with this evil phenomena:

"Every single one of those people meant something to someone and should not be forgotten ... The lowest part of each panel has the common denominator of ash and rubble common to each of these places of Evilution and symbolising the destruction of people and places."

The next phase of the project will deal with the Western Front during the 1914-18 War which destroyed a generation of young men who were the victims of innocence. Regular updates of the Evilution website will deal with future phases and other aspects of the Project, one which is likely to occupy Ray for the forseeable future.

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T Bone Burnett - Earlier Baghdad (The Bounce).

Spiritual Life: Blessing laptops & mobiles

This is my Spiritual Life column for today's 'Ilford Recorder':

"A VICAR has launched a bizarre bid to attract city workers to his church — by offering to BLESS their mobile phones and laptops." That was how 'The Sun' responded to a service in the City of London where laptops and mobile phones were blessed as part of a service for workers in the financial district of London. David Parrott, the Vicar concerned, said that he hoped his blessing had made worship "lively and relevant to the people who work nearby in the financial district". Mobile phones and laptops, he suggested, are our daily working tools and therefore are forms of technology that we should bless.

What David did generated lots of press coverage but only seems bizarre if you think there are no connections between work and faith. In a speech given in 2009, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said "Many Christians are living out their lives as the church dispersed in the world of business and commerce every day. They ... have the daily challenge of living by a set of values that the world thinks are mad. Their counter-cultural work and calling needs to be recognised, affirmed and supported." The counter-cultural perspective of which he spoke is "the vision of justice and righteousness that comes from a creative and generous God."

He added: "All of life is religious and there is a desperate need to reconnect the sacred and the secular. There is no more urgent time than now to break down the compartmentalised thinking that separates trust in God from the world of work. There needn't be a separation between what goes on in church and in our prayers – and what goes on in the office or in the boardroom or on the shop floor."

That is what David Parrott was doing by blessing laptops and mobile phone as daily work tools. Interestingly there is research which has suggested that as many as three-quarters of workers may be interested in ‘learning to live the spiritual side of their values.’ So what David has done may not be so bizarre after all. It may even be that, were the mad values of Christianity (that vision of justice and righteousness, of which the Archbishop spoke) to be adopted and lived out in the world of work, we might see a restructuring of the economy based on a broader understanding of wealth than simply monetary gain and economic growth alone.

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Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone.