A New Life

Thinking further on yesterday's post and applying my lenten discipline to "think on what is good" thought I would post the following video for you today. I posted it a few months ago via facebook, but it's worth another look. it reflects an altogether different experience of care than that criticised in the report referred to yesterday. I first came across it through one of the clip shows on TV but as soon as I saw it I knew where it had been produced, Clark Retirement Community in Grand Rapids, Michigan as I had the pleasure of preaching there on my birthday a few years ago while on exchange. My eldest son suggested that he might put me there when I retire, and you know, I wouldn't object to that arrangement, although I think it may be well out of my budget.

Hope you enjoyed that... But while you're there, just one more comment... This lip-dub was clearly produced with the intention of communicating something positive to those checking out potential retirement options... and it was also a bit of fun for the residents. Similar principles lay behind another massive viral phenomenon, the Friends School, Lisburn lip-dub, which I also posted to very mixed responses, including comments about it being cheesy (which it knowingly was) and an indictment of the current approach to education in the schools system here (which it really wasn't).

Videos such as these are not documentaries. They are a bit of fun. Anyone who chooses a retirement home or a school on the basis of one of these is in not in need of a retirement home or a school but a psychiatric unit... But then, anyone who picks a school on the basis of the nonsense that you witness at a school open day is equally deluded...

Enjoy the fun where you find it and find out the hard facts by other means... Thus speaks one of the greatest cynics around...
Cheers

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known."


I am a woman of no distinction
of little importance.
I am a women of no reputation
save that which is bad.

You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances,
Though you don’t really take the time to look at me,
Or even get to know me.

For to be known is to be loved,
And to be loved is to be known.
Otherwise what’s the point in doing
either one of them in the first place?

I WANT TO BE KNOWN.

I want someone to look at my face
And not just see two eyes, a nose,
a mouth and two ears;
But to see all that I am, and could be
all my hopes, loves and fears.

But that’s too much to hope for,
to wish for,
or pray for
So I don’t, not anymore.

Now I keep to myself
And by that I mean the pain
that ke…
Keep reading

Advent Candle Liturgy 5: Christmas

Image
The culmination of our advent candle liturgy at Dundonald Methodist for this year. It can be used at a Christmas eve service or on Christmas morning... We'll be using it tomorrow...
Hope, peace, joy, and love. Four weeks, four candles, four promises made by God, and all of them find fulfillment in the one we light this morning: the Christ candle. In Christ we find the hope of transformation, the peace that this world cannot give, the fulfillment of joy and the love that embraces us in all our diversity and fallibility.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world d…
Keep reading

An Epistle To Our Elected Leaders

Image
Dear DUP and Sinn Fein, 

My friend Stocki has already sent you, and our other political leaders, an open letter, and social media suggests that many agree with what he says (including myself), but I was already writing this when I saw his, and whilst it covers similar ground, and fewer may read this, I want to add my tuppence (especially since it takes a lot to get me writing these days!) And at the heart of it is this, I recognise that you both have a legitimate electoral mandate. The big question is what you do with it. Both of you have made great play of the fact that people voted for you on the basis of your statements before the election. Now I have no desire to get into the legitimacy of those positions. You campaigned on them and you each were elected on those platforms. Both of you grew your vote in a highly polarised election, and whilst the DUP lost a significant number of seats they are still the largest party. So you both have a mandate. And so far in the negotiations you …
Keep reading