Tyred out

I bought winter tyres in November. I also bought snow chains and a collapsible snow shovel, all of which fit neatly on top of my spare tyre in the boot. I kind of knew, when I bought them, that the deluge of snow and weeks' long icy weather would not hit us this year, because of course the very act of buying these things was, to be quite superstitious about the matter, to tempt fate to make my purchases unnecessary. (Well almost unnecessary - winter tyres work better than normal ones at temperatures below 7 C and we have had our fair share of low temperatures.)
I am undecided about the usefulness of superstition. Presumably at least some superstitions are built up from a basis of experience, like the wisdom of not walking under ladders! My main reason for being undecided is that it seems on the face of it to be an abandoning of faith in a God who is in control to a set of circumstances which, combined with luck, govern the future. However, we all believe that certain things do govern future events. If I step off a cliff, gravity will decide what happens thereafter. The laws of science just don't seem as irreligious as things like fate and superstition. But if these things, rather like proverbs, come to us from out the fount of human wisdom and experience, then maybe they are more reliable than some of us (me) might give them credit for being. Just because the basis for some of them has been lost in antiquity does not mean that there was not a rational, sensible beginning to them. Of course I wouldn't want to open the door to all superstition with these thoughts, as some superstitions seem now to be plain daft. The one about tempting fate might be a case in point...until we start thinking about it. Usually the reason we make the supposition that we are tempting fate is that we know that the circumstances we are trying to guard against, don't actually strike with the kind of frequency that our behaviour is anticipating, or, we know that the risk we are taking is being done in the face of good evidence that any success will be against the odds. So, behind the irrational seeming thought, there lies a bit more than a grain of truth. So, will I walk under a ladder should there be one in my path today, well, if I did I might be tempting fate....but there again, my experience suggests I'd get away with it, touch wood. 

World Order and stuff

In the search for the "God" particle, the Higgs boson, the net seems to be tightening, giving the scientists at Cern an ever shrinking field in which to look for results. There was an excellent program on progress so far on T.V. a few nights ago. Among the theories which the scientists are using, are theories of symmetry and super symmetry. Basically these theories predict that everything has an opposite number, so for matter, there is anti matter, and so on. Here's a summary definition of super symmmetry taken from superstringtheory.com: One of the predictions of string theory is that at higher energy scales we should start to see evidence of a symmetry that gives every particle that transmits a force (a boson) a partner particle that makes up matter ( a fermion), and vice versa.This symmetry between forces and matter is called supersymmetry. This I think means that force and matter are being suggested as possible dance partners in this need for symmetry.


Anyway, many of the scientists being interviewed in the program seemed to be saying that if perfect symmetry obtains, then in the end we get absoutely nothing, zilch, for everything cancels itself out. Matter and antimatter destroy each other on contact, and so on. So, for matter to have been able to come into existence, there must have been a flaw in the physics, some kind of imperfection in the process, in order for asymmetry to kick in. This idea that the universe needs a kind of built in imperfection is mind blowing. Leonard Cohen has perceptively sung "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." It is of course a given in Christianity. The brokenness of humanity is the prerequisite for the Incarnation and subsequent crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Without the brokenness you don't get the salvation. It feels like the more we learn about science, the more it conforms to Christian theology. So much for those who think that science and  faith are opposed to each other. Perhaps Science is the super symmetrical partner to religious faith.

Independence for Scotland?

Why is Scotland becoming so keen on independence, or at least on the Scottish National Party? I remember my father faithfully voting for the SNP election after election. In those days, Perth was a Tory stronghold, one of the few blue islands in an overwhelmingly red Scotland. In my headstrong pre voting teenage years I used to dismiss this as a completely wasted vote. Well, I think my dad gets the last laugh. But it's from our political past that we get a clue as to where the strong SNP support comes from. The solid working class support base for Labour has largely vanished. The old industrial landscape of pit, mill and factory are a thing of the past, and with their demise, so also the Labour vote. The sons and daughters and grandchildren of these Labour voters are not to be relied upon to continue the family political solidarity. Indeed, the phenomenon of large groups of people engaging in similar types of behaviour is rapidly fading. Year on year, viewing figures for the top Christmas programmes decline. Compare the Queen's Speech nowadays with viewing figures 30 years ago. The difference is in tens of millions. It's the same for Eastenders. Or look at football match attendance statistics, political party membership, or even numbers shopping in our High Streets on a  Saturday afternoon. I remember when on a Saturday, Perth High Street and Edinburgh's Princes Street and Glasgow's Argyle Street could be guaranteed to be a sea of moving bodies. So, it's not just the Church which is seeing falling attendances. We just don't do the same huge crowd turn outs any more. It's not that we're not shopping as much, or watching telly on Christmas Day, or watching football as much. We are - but we're just doing these things differently. There is more choice, more variety, more ways of doing the same thing - we can pick our time, our preferred media, our version. So in this way the political landscape has changed along with everything else. The SNP do not have as big a support base as old Labour used to have, but the emergence of other parties like the Lib Dems, has weakened and diversified the overall vote, and in Scotland at least, the SNP have a broader political appeal than the Lib Dems and the other 2. It's not so much about independence as who is perceived to be able to do the job best.
This comment has some bearing on Church attendance. People who shake their heads at the supposed spiritual decay of the populace need to think more carefully. We are no less spiritual that we have ever been, I believe. We are just being offered more choice in the ways in which we express our spirituality. This I think means that there still are great opportunities for the Church (of every shade and description), we just need to engage a little more realistically with ways which might attract today's seekers.