Storyteller’s World

I was curious to look back at my host server’s logs, to see which of my pages have been most visited this year. These figures don’t include the blog front page, or the various feeds and maintenance pages: just single pages or URLs which are getting visited from somewhere.

1. The first page of the online journal I began to write in January-February 2004, before I even started using Blogger or WordPress. No idea what it is about this that anyone is reading, or how they get there.
2. The Wind-Singer
   This is the single most visited page of my blog! And I don’t even think it’s that good a post. Maybe the book just has a lot of fans, and this page shows up in Google?
3. August 2004: Was this a particularly creative month for me? Or is it that ol’ Wind-Singer again?
4. The Seven Basic Plots: my little thoughts about a really helpful book.
5. St Pelagius: should be the patron saint of the British.
6. Rewriting Church History. A cheat of a title: should have been Rewriting The Church History
7. The Man Who Looked On His Face In A Mirror: A story that just came to me. I told it first, then wrote it down.
8. My First Moleskine. You get a lot of visitors when moleskinerie picks up something you wrote.
9. The Seal of the Blog: my code of practice for blogging
10. July 2004: another creative month?

Typically, not much of this is the writing I would like posterity to remember me for ….

Jakob Nielsen’s latest column is on Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox).

I expect there are loads of flaws on his list, that are all too obvious in Storyteller’s World. Feel free to point them out if you like, but do it gently if you can. I know blogging makes you vulnerable, but there’s still a “Tread softly, for you tread on me dreams” aspect to that vulnerability.

Perhaps I should have added to my Blogging Code of Practice something about Comments:

If you disagree with something someone has written on their blog, feel free to let them know in your comment. But do it gently - don’t roast them about it. You may still want them as a friend one day - like when they comment on your blog.

I forgot to mention the other groups going around Oxford yesterday: the Japanese teenagers, all in their school uniforms, even more regimented and dressed up than the new undergraduates in their sub fusc. Every time I saw another clutch of them, I kept thinking of Chiaki Kuriyama, playing Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill. This was pretty scary: I kept expecting them to whip out concealed Samurai swords and decapitate some passing shopper. As it happened, they produced nothing more terrifying than digital cameras, with which they proceeded to photograph each other standing in front of the Carfax Tower, the Roman Emperors in Broad Street, or Lloyd’s Bank.

Pictures of Oxford, winging all over the world.

Oxford on a balmy autumn day, the sun shining warm after a cool grey start. In Cornmarket the fun is in full flow, with rows of stalls offering their wares. First on the left, the Falun Gong people, campaigning for freedom from oppression for their friends in China - and, presumably, seeking new Falun Gongers. On the right, a group collecting for Islamic Relief, for the victims of the earthquake in Pakistan and Kashmir. A little further on, the stall offering free information leaflets on Islam: “Not in our name”, and “Islam does not support terrorism”. There’s a group from the Oxford Mission Church, singing banal lyrics to nondescript tunes, in an imitation mid-Atlantic accent. (Mother, why do these songs sound so awful?) There are young women ostensibly conducting a survey on people’s beliefs, but actually promoting an Introducing Christianity course at one of the local (very Evangelical) churches. I stop to answer her questions, more out of politeness, and the fact that I’m early for what I’m in town for, than anything else; and tell her about how I was converted. At least this is someone who’s not going to sell me anything, or ask me for money, like the “missionaries” of some of the eastern cults do.

The streets are full of processions of young - very young - freshers in their subfusc, walking to or from matriculation in Convocation House. Those lucky, lucky young people, just starting out on their Oxford University life. When I was there, I was terrified; they all look so self-assured, as if the whole world is at their feet.

And I go to the Oxford meeting of NaNoWriMo participants, at Borders. Only five of us there, among the throng of children, parents and grandparents queuing up to meet Jaqueline Wilson, or joining in the Knitting network. So it’s Dubaiyan, Steve, Karlie and, er, Hannah? It feels like nothing so much as going to a meeting of SpecFic, the Society for Speculative and Science Fiction, all those years ago, and meeting people who knew what a canticle for Leibowitz was, how many parsecs an X-wing fighter does to the gallon, or how many Vogons it takes to change a lightbulb. These people inhabit different worlds which randomly intersect my own, and talk many different dialects of the language of enthusiasm. It is stories, and Story, where we meet, where the different passions that stir us touch each other.

It’s a funny old world, my masters.

And here’s another reason, children, why you should Just Say No To Drugs. In 20 or 30 years’ time, you may want to become the leader of the Conservative Party, and if you have ever, I mean ever, experimented with drugs, “recreational” or otherwise, it could spell the end of those ambitions.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Cameron pressed on drugs question

It takes a lot to make me feel sorry for a Tory; but honestly, what downright hypocrisy! If we’re going to ban everyone who has ever once or twice (or maybe even more often) tried drugs, we’re going to severely limit the pool from which we draw our politicians. And what is the issue? On the radio this morning I heard someone say, The question is about whether he has ever broken the law.

Well, whatever next? Are we going to quiz every candidate for public office about whether they have ever broken the law? What about, if they have ever broken the speed limit? This seems to me far more serious than whether you tried drugs when you were a student: not just putting yourself at risk, but the lives of every other road user.

Yet strangely, this example of lawbreaking is totally accepted, nay, virtually obligatory for any Very Important Person. You might want to ask the parents of all the children killed by speeding motorists in built-up areas, what they think of these priorities.

Yes, I was really chuffed to discover that, if you type “Vicar” into Google Images search, you get fairly high up on the first page of results my image of the Vicar Superhero that I generated last December with Hero Machine. Since that was the old blog, it’s worth looking at it again:

It’s not a bad self-portrait, and idealised image of the kind of clergyperson I would try to be: the distinguished hairline and high-domed head, obviously packed full of brainy goodness; the thick lenses covering myopic eyes that disguise this mild-mannered alter ego - but once in his role as Vicar, he wields a power immeasurably greater than his own. The elegant lines of the costume represent the simple, capacious and versatile Benedictine-based spirituality of the Anglican clergy. The relaxed yet assertive stance expresses confidence in God, in the face of all the carping critics, fulminating fundamentalists, pusillanimous prognosticators, whingeing wet blankets and moaning muttonheads who attack the Church from within and without. The winged boots are for feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. The music that surrounds him wherever he goes is not, definitely not, my own singing, but the music of the spheres which also figures forth the beauty of worship offered together with angels and archangels. The sword, oh yes, the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, the image of that holy foolishness of preaching, or telling the Story; entrusting the message of joy and truth, and of the love that makes the galaxies go round, to the fragile medium of breath, ruach!

Come from the four winds, O Breath! Breathe through this mere human, and all who share this calling, and make us all superheroes in the service of the Three of the thunder-throne.

Well, I must be, mustn’t I?

Today I actually found myself reading one of those junk spam mails that Mail puts straight in my Junk mailbox. And instead of thinking, Why would anyone want that part of their anatomy enlarged by 10 cm? I thought, Who would buy anything, whatsoever, from anyone with such bizarre grammar and spelling?

It’s herbal solution what hasn’t side effect, but has 100% guaranteed results!

Don’t loose your chance and but know wihtout doubts, you will be impressed with results!

Clisk here [no, of course I won’t include the URL].

sic, as they say.

As the beginning of NaNoWriMo draws near, I guess I should come clean. In the interests of full disclosure. I’ve never taken part in NaNoWriMo before. But I have written two substantial works of fiction, possibly as much as 75,000 words apiece. It’s a few years ago now; 35 years to be exact. Back then I was spending a year in Germany as part of my degree course, nominally working as an English teaching assistant in the local school, but actually apprenticing myself to the Muse. I had in mind that I was going to be a writer - and didn’t yet know that most of the writing in my life was going to be in that peculiar and idiosyncratic folk-art form, the English Sermon.

So during that year, 1969-70, I wrote two novels.

Hemlock
This was a fantasy novel set in a fictional kingdom somewhere in Mitteleuropa. The eponymous (tada!) hero kills a rival in a duel, and the dead man’s mistress curses him, and proceeds to pursue him for many years to exact vengeance. She hounds Hemlock through various loves, wars, and other adventures, finally destroying everyone and everything that he has ever held dear. Only then does it emerge that she herself did not survive her grief over her lover’s death. It is her ghost (or is it Hemlock’s conscience, or imagination?) that has hounded him all these years and eventually driven him mad.

What a happy ending. But then, I was 20.

A Fractured Time
This was my semi-autobiographical early novel, which tells the story of a young man about to go abroad for a year as part of his university degree course, who spends the summer vacation doing various soulless or unusual jobs, has a series of picaresque adventures, falls in love, and reflects on the nature of the passing of time as he begins to leave his youth behind and contemplate adulthood. The “fractured time” of the title is because his wrist watch breaks and needs to be repaired (this takes 6 weeks: those were the days), during which time he feels strangely free from the shackles or constraints of time-bound modern living, ruled always by the demands of the clock. When he gets his mended watch back, he resigns himself to that voluntary bondage, along with the rest of the human race.

Then there was novel #3: The Time-Slayer
This concerns a sinister wizard-magician-clockmaker called Mordaunt, whose creations magically control as well as measure the lives of their owners. When his wife gives birth to a son, he has a life-clock made and ready to be set in motion for the child, as soon as the baby draws its first breath. À la Grandfather’s Clock, this will tick away the seconds and minutes and hours of his days, until his last breath. But to Mordaunt’s horror, his wife unexpectedly (OK, this is a fantasy, too) gives birth to twins; and there is no clock ready for this smaller, younger, second son. From that moment of peri-natal rebellion and bloody-mindedness, Tim Mordaunt sets himself against everything his father stands for; against that whole time-bondage which governs the world; and finds a way to freedom.

Essentially, this novel was going to be about a hero who breaks free from the constraints of industrialised, technological Western living, conquers the tyrant Time, and discovers the Meaning of Life. After I had written about 8 pages, I realised I didn’t know what the Meaning of Life was, and couldn’t even imagine a plausible outcome to the story. So the novel remained a fragment.

About four months later I began to read the New Testament. I was captivated by the Story, and found it questioning me: Is this true? (Whatever true might mean, then or now.) If I said No, I needed to reject the Christian faith to which I had previously claimed to belong. If, on the other hand, I said Yes, then I also needed to change my life and get serious about living in the Story, becoming a disciple of Jesus.

This might sound trite. But it’s true, nonetheless.

At the Flat, we’ve all been issued with Shropshire County Council’s new Big Idea: two wheelie bins for every household, however big or small. The green one is for all recyclable waste, the black one for non-recyclable.

This is a brilliant idea, but the implementation leaves something to be desired. Since these flats are mostly dwelt in by the elderly and infirm, and each of these bins is so large they could probably hold three bodies if you folded them right, and half the flats are on the top floor, so there is nowhere to keep these monsters except where you see them here - there’s no way our neighbours feel they can cope with this innovation. If we were there full-time no doubt we’d be the bin monitors and wheel them in and out every Tuesday (but alternate weeks, black bins one week and green the next - lots of scope there for confusion, and not just for the elderly either); but as it is, I think the Council need to rethink and have different size bins for those who need them.

A day at the Flat, to have some peace and quiet for preparation, away from the telephone. Preparing for the Oxford Brookes University Chaplaincy BibleFest next week, when, according to the programme, I’m leading a ’seminar’ on Biblical Storytelling. What’s possible in 45 minutes of lunch break, I’m not too sure; but it will be a good excuse to get up and model and commend telling the Bible Story.

So it’s been a case of revising and rehearsing my ‘core’ stories. No time just now to learn any new ones; but the old ones will do.

Something nasty happened at the Eucharist this morning. A member of the congregation refused to exchange the Peace with me.

This distracted me all through the Eucharistic Prayer. If two members of the congregation refuse to exchange the Peace with each other, I believe they should not receive Communion. But what if one person has offered, and another refused? What am I to do if this person comes to the altar rail? In fact she didn’t do so; perhaps she realised it would be impossible to do so; maybe (here is the infectiousness of paranoia) she had only come to church to create a bit of mayhem in me. In the mean time I felt uneasy enough about receiving the bread and wine myself.

Since she thinks I’m not fit to be a priest, and is in the process of complaining to “my superiors” about me - if not actually denouncing me to the tabloids - I don’t know that she would want to receive Communion from me, anyway.

How does anyone else deal with this kind of stuff?

When I started reading War and Peace, I wasn’t sure if I should be reading this new translation. In fact, I’ve gone for the Maude translation which claims that Tolstoy himself gave it his imprimatur.

It turns out that Adam Thirlwell isn’t entirely happy with Anthony Briggs’ new version.

Results just in from the Quiz I’ve Been Waiting For:

You are Charlie Brown!

Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Sigourney Weaver. 56 today. (Not 57 as it says in the Guardian - would I fancy an older woman this much?)

OK, maybe it doesn’t count as taking the plunge, quite yet. More like loitering on the poolside with my towel in my hand, and looking down to see how deep the deep end really is. But at least I’ve registered to take part in NaNoWriMo this year. Which gives me 3 weeks and a few days to sit here wondering whether it was such a good idea after all.

My colleague says I should go for it. I’m a very creative person, says she, and it will do me a lot of good to exercise my creativity a bit. Hmm. It will certainly take something to make November anything other than an ordeal. But the fact that my story idea, (working title: Dark Messiah) is pretty depressing, may undermine all that benefit.

Most of all, this feels like something I probably shouldn’t have admitted I was doing, until I got a bit nearer the 50,000 word target. Like, around 49,500.

500 words doesn’t sound like too much. And I only have to write a hundred lots of 500 words.

Like the old conundrum of How do you eat an elephant? A mouthful at a time.

I’ve just been to a meeting where, for the first time, I heard Rob Parsons speak. It was billed as ‘Listening in Leadership’, and claimed that it was designed to encourage and refresh people in Christian ministry. I’ve been impressed by the quality of some of Care for the Family’s publicity, and could really do with some of that encouragement now, so I thought I’d give it a try.

The meeting was at Wesley Memorial Church in Oxford. There were people there from Banbury, Swindon, Amersham and all points N, S, E and W; but hardly anyone from Oxford. True, most of the folk there were, what shall we say? of a more nonconformist or even pentecostal persuasion. There were, I think, three faces I recognised of Oxford clergy.

But Rob Parsons is certainly something else. He spoke for all his two talks without notes - though of course, because he has toured the country with this presentation, you’d expect him to have it off pat. But the power of his speaking is that he is, essentially, a storyteller. Almost shamelessly so: many of his stories are specifically designed to make their point by a strong emotional appeal. He even ended, for heaven’s sake, by telling Information Please, which is a real tear-jerker.

I was encouraged by his message. I was also reminded of the sheer raw power of storytelling. And though I have a very different ministry from Rob, in which I have one audience and have to have a new message and new illustrations every week, it reminds me how much that ministry is enhanced by using more stories, and by telling them without notes.

The extent of the spam comment menace is just a little indicated by this. Since I upgraded yesterday to WordPress 1.5.2 (which is supposed to be mainly a security upgrade), and Spam Karma 2, none of the recent spate of spam comments or trackbacks has crept under the radar. Spam Karma has stopped sending me digests every time it ‘digests’ another 10 spams. Instead it has sent a Simple Digest Report:

There have been 302 comment spams caught since the last digest report 1 day ago.

All of these, from a brief glance, are about mortgages, loan consolidation, etc. I kinda can’t help agreeing with Chris, who favours a fairly in-your-face approach to the evil bastards responsible for this blight on the Internet and the world of blogging.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble with inundations of spam comments and trackbacks, and hope I’ve cured it by upgrading to WordPress 1.5.2 and Spam Karma 2.

If anything looks broken, please let me know!

(I’m not usually quick to upgrade, and haven’t been now either - it’s usually the cue for them to introduce another new version.)

Yesterday morning I wandered round the back of church to look in on the workmen building the new vestry. You never know if you’re going to find anyone there, or if so, how many. But yesterday there were four men on site: one pushing a barrow, two building walls, and one walking about. After I had attracted the attention of the last of these, whom I naturally assumed to be the man in charge, on the principle that he seemed to be doing less work than any of the others (oh yes, I have made a close study of work!) and exchanged a few words, I was hailed by one of the wall-builders.

- Excuse me, says he, will you just settle something for me? Just tell him (indicating the other wall-builder): Are we all children of God, or not?

Out of context, it’s hard to know where this is coming from. Were we in the field of Election (B is one of the Chosen, but A is not)? Or of comparative religion (B’s religion is true, but A’s is heresy or worse)? Or of pastoral counselling (A urging B to cheer up old chap, there’s no cause for despair since you, like everyone else, are a child of God)? I generally try and avoid being drawn into hasty theological or anthropological discussions, but since there was a metal fence between us, and there seemed no escape, I ventured the answer that Yes, I did indeed believe that we are all children of God.

- There! he said triumphantly. You’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth. (He didn’t actually add.)

But his colleague grumbled: Yeah, that’s just one man’s belief, though.

This was obviously not going to go anywhere very productive, so I wandered away, wondering whether the holy ground they are working on has this contagious effect on their conversation. Do men at work on church buildings spend more, or less, time than the average bloke, in theological discussion or argument? And should I have hung around offering to take part in some Socratic dialogue on a Monday morning?

The fact is, it made me more than ever convinced of the uselessness of religious argument. Was anyone ever converted by intellectual argument? The odd thing is that, like the man I met in the street the other day, who enjoys reading my articles in the Marston Times but doesn’t come to church because he can’t intellectually accept all the raft of Christian beliefs which (he imagines) the whole congregation actually believe in hook line and sinker, many people outside the Christian faith believe it is is intellectual reasons that keep them out. Whereas I’m pretty sure it’s not the opposite of those intellectual reasons that keeps Christians in. It’s something quite different. Surely it is that God has taken hold of us.

So is that something that either happens to you or doesn’t? (Where we are back to sheer, naked Election or non-Election.) Or is it something offered to all, which we either choose or refuse?

Someone else was telling me the other day about a TV programme - I think it was about the Da Vinci Code Controversy - in which a dashing, Mr Darcy-like, priest was asked why he had chosen his profession. He answered: I didn’t choose it: it’s a vocation. God called me, and there is nothing else I can do.

We don’t need intellectual arguments to try and make people Christians. We need more people to tell a Story that says: I am a Christian because God has taken hold of me. I can no other.