An Offer To Tourists

Now here at WhyNotSmile, we are not Big Fans of corporate greed, bankers getting large bonuses, and capitalism in general (although we admit to having very little understanding of any of them; since our understanding is roughly as much as our influence, this is not a problem). The latest way to demonstrate this angst, is, apparently, to go and camp outside churches, because apparently sometimes stocks and shares are traded in the vicinity, and also because they don't let you camp in actual banks, and also the vicar might make you tea or something.

So, because of this, St Paul's Cathedral has had to close (although there is some debate as to whether it had to close, or just chose to close). Now, I think this is a little unfair, since the people of St Paul's have by all accounts been Quite Nice to the protestors (who have apprently also been Quite Nice) and are not generally Big Fans of corporate greed themselves. On the other hand, they are claiming to be losing £16000 - £20000 per day.

This makes me wonder a little. They charge £14.50 admission at St Paul's. That strikes me as quite a lot, although I imagine they have quite big heating bills and so on so it's probably just about covering the costs of running the place. I don't know.

However, WhyNotSmile has decided to make you all a special offer, if you are a tourist who wanted to visit St Paul's but now cannot. If you come to my church, you can see round for only a tenner, PLUS we will make you tea (I say 'we', I mean whoever's about, which may not be anyone - if it's the caretaker, you should probably slip him a fiver, cos it's not really part of his job to show random tourists around. Also, I haven't actually told anyone in the church about this, so they might look a bit surprised when you arrive).

I think we can offer at least as much as St Paul's, particularly if you have a reasonable imagination. I checked their website to see what they have. Attractions include:

• "Climb the dome" to the "Whispering Gallery". At the back of the church, up the stairs, there's a wee room where we store boxes of random stuff, some books, and an old keyboard. Climb the stairs, go into the wee room, and then discover that if you stand at one side of the room and whisper, people at the other side can hear you (please note: this only really works if you stand against the long wall so you're only whispering across the width of the room).
• "A touchscreen multimedia tour". As long as you bring your iPad so you can browse the photos on the website while you walk around.
• "Explore the crypt". Yeah, ok, we don't have a crypt. We have a bouncy castle though.
• "Travel back in time in an immersive video experience". Viewings of "Ben Hur" on the screen at the front every 2 hours.
• "Treat yourself to afternoon tea". If no one's around, there's a kettle in the kitchen; it takes a while to boil, and you may have to jiggle it a bit, but what do you think this is? Also, I'd bring your own tea bags because all the ones we have are under lock and key in case someone from one of the other organisations nicks them. There's a Co-op across the road though.

Now, admittedly, we don't have a gift shop, but WyseByse across the road is good value and has a wide range of items for all ages.

Also, we're quite nice*.

And we do not have £16,000 per day; indeed, an extra £16,000 per year would be a significant increase in our income. And also, we do all manner of things in the community which are sometimes helpful for the sorts of people who are not bankers or corporate giants and who therefore could make quite good use of part of the £16,000 in ways which would not at all fund the corporate machine.

Advance booking is advised; guide dogs only.

*mostly. Some of us also offer opportunities for you to practice forgiveness.

Anticipation

So. Junior Apprentice is back.  Only this year we seem to be calling it "Young Apprentice".  Trust me, I just saved you a LOT of googling, with that last fact there.  Now, I can't promise that I'll be able to bring you a weekly review, because, frankly, I'm so busy right now it's STUPID (on the plus side, I may actually earn enough this year to pay tax - my life is just a series of victories, n'est ce pas?), but there's no harm in taking a quick look at the candidates.  Not all of them, because I want to go to bed.  But the ones we'll be wanting to punch by this time next week.

Namely.

Harry Hitchens:

"I aim high. I don’t aim low ever, what are you ever going to gain from that? I aim high and I get there because of that determination, because I’m pretty ruthless in how I get there."

What do I gain from aiming low?  A quiet life, Harry, that's what.  And achieved ambitions.  And a haunting sense of unfulfilment, of course.

Moving on.

Harry Maxwell.  Apart from the obvious CHAOS which will ensue from having 2 people with the same name (remember that Christopher Farrell and Chris-quite-cute-but-boring-voice from a couple of series ago, and how we never knew which was which?  Yeah.  That.), this Harry is a polo and water sports enthusiast, and has already started 3 successful businesses.  I'll need a lie down just watching this guy.

Hayley Forrester wears wellies and "passionately disagrees with people claiming benefits when they could be working". Sometimes simultaneously. Also, she sells eggs. That's what that girl Emma did last year, innit?

Lizzie Magee is a rounders champion.  I was not aware that was a thing.

Zara Brownless "used to be a baby model and won a sock design competition when she was seven years old". She says:

Dreamers dream; people who achieve wake up, get out there and start doing stuff to make their dreams happen.

You know what that quote needs?  Ponies.

On Liking Cake

One of my favourite parts of teaching Sunday School is the bit where we ask them what they want to pray for this week.  The suggestions generally range from 'my granda is sick' through 'I have a test tomorrow' to 'I like cake'.

This always gets me wondering: at what point in life does it become unacceptable to announce in a prayer meeting that you like cake?  For I can guarantee that if I did this at the church prayer meeting, I'd get 'looks'.  What is the point at which we think we have to be all grown up and serious?  And also, why?

It's almost as if we think it actually matters to God how we pray.  As if we think we can, in any way, approach the Creator of the universe as anything other than ridiculous creatures who should, by rights, be flicked away to stop us cluttering the place up with our crappiness.  As if we think He'll only hear us if we say it all proper, instead of just coming and enjoying being overawed by the fact that we're there at all.

I think God likes it when we come and tell Him that we like cake, or that we don't like cake, or that we saw a cloud shaped like a chicken today.  I think He maybe likes that better than when we pretend that we are proper serious creatures who can only bring 'worthy' things and when we are a little bit proud that we have managed to learn about another worthy thing.  I don't think He minds us praying about serious things either, of course, but mostly I think He just likes when we pray about things that delight us, and things that matter to us, and things that are in our hearts and on our minds, whether those are serious or not.

I wonder if God has more fun being at the church picnic where people are chatting and having fun and talking about how their week was and what's happening in the week ahead and whether they should plant the spring bulbs yet or wait till after the first frost and probably not being very spiritual at all, than He does at the Bible studies where we're so focussed on finding out more information about Him that we forget how crazy it is that we can know anything about Him at all, so instead of just laughing and appreciating what we have we get all earnest and furrow our brows and look up things in Greek dictionaries.

Sometimes when I watch people in churches squabbling about stuff, I'm amazed by how much both sides seem to think the stuff in question matters.  I mean, sometimes it does, and sometimes difficult issues need to be debated.  But, when people fall out over the time of the prayer meeting or the colour of the carpet or the length of the hymns or the content of the hymns or the age of the hymns or anything to do with the freaking hymns for Pete's sake, I picture them as small children squabbling over who drew the nicest picture for mummy, when neither of them is exactly Monet and in any case mummy's just happy they drew her pictures at all, and that they were on paper and not on the wall, and also that it kept them quiet for an hour so she could put the dinner on and mop the kitchen floor, and I think I've lost the thread of this analogy now.

But the point is that when we think there's a 'right way' and a 'wrong way' of doing things, we start to deny how great God is and how not great we are, and we start to make it all about who is the most 'correct', as if any of us is capable of coming close to the goodness of God, and then we get all arrogant and that is Not A Good Thing.

Now THAT is foresight

So, apparently, ancient Chinese Feng Shui says that in a year in which October has 5 Mondays, Saturdays and Sundays, if I post this information to my Facebook wall, I will become rich.

Those ancient Chinese knew the future.

An Open Letter To The Tesco Self-scan Machine

Dear Tesco Self-scan Machine,

people who know me will tell you that I am a person of modest ambitions, who does not expect a lot from life, so it may surprise you to learn that I am writing to you to suggest that you raise your expectations.  Specifically, you seem to have a very narrow mind with regards to things that might be expected to appear in your bagging area.  Bags, for instance, are something that you should probably start to expect.  The clue, you see, is in the name: bagging area.  In order to bag things, one must sometimes put bags in the bagging area; and while I appreciate that in general you can be confused when non-bought items appear in there, I think that saying my Bag for Life is 'unexpected' is a little extreme. 'Undesirable' might be a better way to express yourself.

Furthermore, I am concerned that you run the risk of being "the machine that cried wolf" when you get all over-excited by the presence of a plastic bag.  If you do all your screaming at that, what options are left when I lob a horse in there?  Eh?  Or a cello?  I just think you need to make sure you leave yourself a bit of leeway, because you don't know what a day will bring forth.

That is all.

With best regards,
WhyNotSmile