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Just Food response from LibDem MP hopeful Kevin Lang

James writes: The following is an email response from Kevin Lang, prospective candidate for the Lib Dems for MP of Edinburgh North and Leith.  I asked about his and his party’s response to issues about food production and provision, especially within the UK, building on our Lent groups focus on Just Food.

I was only able to email Kevin because only his party had leafletted my flat! PLEASE do address your concerns on this issue to the other parties if you find their contact details, and add their responses here for the church to make informed decisions come election time.

Dear James,

Many thanks for your email.  I certainly appreciate you taking the time to contact me.

As you can imagine, with my family shop’s history, these are issues I have some considerable interest in and you make a number of very important points in relation to food production in this country, particularly on the farmer pay and the issue of supermarket power.

Fundamentally, I believe Britain’s farmers and small shops are facing a serious crisis and that people are often exploited by supermarkets’ ever increasing market power.

It is something that my party has taken very seriously.  That is why the Liberal Democrats would introduce a legally binding Supermarket Code of practice along with an Independent Food Market Regulator to ensure a fair price for food. This would ensure that supermarkets will no longer be able to exploit their market power to bully small shops, farmers and other small businesses. Supermarkets’ ever increasing power has contributed to high prices for consumers locally where a supermarket can have monopoly, and too many rural shops and farmers are being squeezed out of business with fewer jobs and less choice.

Liberal Democrats have always advocated the co-operative development of supply chains founded on a set of fair and transparent principles. I believe the food market is unfair and needs legally enforced rules to govern the relationships between supermarkets, suppliers and consumers.

A Supermarket Regulator would act as a Food Trade Inspector that would have proactive power to break the stranglehold over Britain’s food market held by the supermarket “trolleygarchy” and actively investigate abuses of market power. We will also create a legally binding supermarket code of practice to ensure tougher, more effective rules for the whole food chain. This would guarantee that supermarkets do not exploit suppliers, farmers or consumers. A stronger code, backed by a robust regulator and proactive enforcement mechanism, would give suppliers the confidence to innovate and invest in the future and to provide a greater choice with better and fairer priced products.

The Government say that they support a voluntarily code of practice and an ombudsman to enforce compliance. Yet I believe they have failed to stand up to the supermarkets over the last 13 years and present proposals for an ombudsman, whilst being a step in the right direction, are weak, lack any teeth and are ultimately too little too late.

As you can see, it is something I do take a great interest on and is something I would be keen to take up if I am fortunate enough to be elected the new Member of Parliament for Edinburgh North & Leith.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact me.

Kevin

Bible on Channel 4

Take a look at the following - great stuff.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-bible-a-history/episode-guide/series-1

James

Remember that thou art dust

Wednesday this week marked the beginning of Lent with our Ash Wednesday service.

About 30 people turned up for this moving, mainly wordless, beginning to the Lenten journey.

The core of this moment is a prayerful walking of a labyrinth, marked out in masking tape on the varnished boards of the church floor.

At the centre of the labyrinth, each walker is invited to ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return’ - as the sign of the cross is smeared on his or her forehead with the black ash.

This service defies definition. For some of us, perhaps, who prefer to deal in overt meanings, this can be frustrating. What if I walk the labyrinth and discover… nothing?

Yet, at the same time, it is this silent immersion in such a powerful symbol which makes the experience so poignant for many.

At the centre of the labyrinth, of course, there are words. Words which remind us, curiously, of our mortality. It is an odd greeting, in a way: “You’re going to die. Get used to it,” the words seem to say.

Is this really what we want - need - to hear at the start of Lent?

This is one of those occasions where the liturgy preserves a kind of obscure wisdom. I would never have chosen those words to say at the core of this service. But somehow it works.

We live in a death-denying culture; a culture which does not want to remember that each person, every civilization, will eventually crumble back into the earth from whence he, she, it came.

I found Ash Wednesday sobering, but strangely reassuring. Death, provided it comes not too soon, not too sudden, has a kind of rightness to it. Our lives carry a trajectory. We do not own our lives outright, just the leasehold. By being mindful of the end, I feel I can live better in the present. My walk with Christ to the Cross and beyond can proceed more realistically, cast in more modest proportions.

The Ash Wednesday liturgy says it about right: You’re going to die. Get used to it.

Duncan

Reformation on BBC

Intersting stuff for anyone who wants a bit of the wider background to the Scottish Reformation which we comemorate this year as 450 yrs old:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p270g/A_History_of_Christianity_Reformation_The_Individual_Before_God/

Time and Space

There seemed to be an undercurrent of the wonder of God’s immense creation of Time and Space, which was reflected in the Eucharistic Prayer (sorry, I lost my internal monologue at that point…!)

Have a look at this - amazing!! http://www.amnh.org/news/2009/12/the-known-universe/

The scientific quest for knowledge about nature and creation is infinite; and it’s mirrored in our spiritual quest for the eternal God. Let everything that has breath say, Hallelujiah.

james x

Overcoming in Christ

Quite a few people said they would like to have a few notes from the sermon I preached on Sunday put up on here to refer to, so here they are!

I began by saying we should be the Christmas People as much as the Easter People, because of the following quote from Meister Eckhart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart):

Here in time we make holiday because the eternal birthwhich the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity is now born in time, in human nature. St Augustine says his birth is always happening. But if it happen not in me what does it profit me? What matters is that it shall happen in me… In this gloom which is not his own the heavenly Father’s Son is not born alone: thou too art born there a child of the same heavely Father.

(p.32 Spirituality in Season Ross Thompson http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Spirituality+in+Season+Ross+Thompson&x=15&y=19)

There are opposites to notice of joy verses gloom; John 10.10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. No wonder “the thief” comes to steal and destroy your joy, it’s one of the most effective things to steal to make you an ineffectual Christian! Neh 8.10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

I then offered 4 really practical ways that we overcome “The Gloom” (for which, read Depression, Stress, being heavy or down, Despair etc) and be a strong, faith-and-joy-filled Christian:

1. Celebrate the Successes - notice how far you’ve come, rather than stressing about how far you have to go. Note progress! This undercuts the tendency to “catastrophise”, and revolutionises your point of view.

2. Decide not to let Despair take over - Rom 1.17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” And NOT by feelings! Psalm 42.5+11, 43.5 - THREE TIMES the Psalmist says Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God , so it’s something you have to keep working at!

3. Confess/Recite the Word of God outloud - the Joy vs Gloom opposition is mirrored in the way we use our words rejoicing&thanksgiving vs complaining. We always “eat our words” - they come out of our mouths, go into our ears and drop into our souls. Phil 4.4-7 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And 4.11a-13 I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

You need to fill yourself with the promises of God. A good bit for this is Eph 1.3-14 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. And John 1.6 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. (Phew - a reference to the actual lectionary reading!)

It’s also revolutionary to be reassured of your identity in Christ. Look at http://www.ficm.org/whoiam.htm for an example list (NB - I don’t know who these guys are, so don’t take it as an endorsement of this ministry!)

This section is summed up by Romans 12.2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

4. Remember the Battle is the Lord’s - We do our part by addressing possible roots of our “gloom”, like dwelling on terrible things in our past, or suppressing them, rest/sleep, nutrition, medication and “talking therapies”, guilt (real or imagined). But we have to leave it all at the foot of the cross. Regularly! 1 John 4.4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. You’ld better go over or you’ll go under. Whatever doesn’t make you bitter makes you better!

Basically, that’s it! There are those who wake up and bless the dawn. I am not one of them. I hate them. I’ve been through medication and therapy and would go again if necessary. In the meantime, I overcome in Christ.

No matter what you’ve been through, or are going through; no matter how you feel, you too can have a Happy New Year!

Preparing the Way - Advent 09

Hi , thought I would add some pics of us preparing the way for Advent !! There was a good buzz to the day and lots of wonderful things created by all ages. We had a good morning in art and soul too making the animals from the Fischy song ‘Weird and Wonderful’[ on the Down to Earth Album ]. Hope you agree the church looks fabulou and you are reflecting with Advent tastes, sounds, feel, scents and things seen within and without !

Autumn Colours

When Margaret prayed about the beautiful autumn we’re having I remembered this picture I took outside my work this week. Thought you might like it…

James x

Adventfest launched!

This Sunday Adventfest will be launched! This is a wee arts festival run by St James folk for ourselves and for the wider community.  It aims to put on some quality performances, as way of offering hospitality to those in our neighbourhood and our social networks.

This year we have scooped Mr McFall’s Chamber for our finale performance - a real treat in store - and along the way we have some more familiar performers who are no less accomplished in their own field.

There are 8 events in all over the weekend (27-29 Nov 2009) - something for every age and taste.

The website is now up and running, where you can see the full line up, and buy your tickets online. St James is a small venue, so book early to avoid disappointment!

See it all at www.adventfest.com

Duncan

Vestry Away Day

Here are a couple of photos from the Vestry away day.   Notice our new honorary member of vestry - Iona! We had a beautiful sunny day up near Callander for our Vestry away day.  We spent much of  the morning reflecting on and celebrating all that is already happening at St James that is good and life giving.   Then following a hearty lunch, we all went for a long muddy walk through the woods and round by the loch, pondering and digesting along the way about our discussions from the morning.  The afternoon finished with a time of discernment and decision making, as we set about making plans for new developments to take forward at St James in the near future. Catherine.