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	<title>St Matthew's Church</title>
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	<link>http://www.stmatts.co.uk</link>
	<description>St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex</description>
	<pubDate>Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:32:14 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title>Latest Bits - Sunday, 14th March 2010</title>
		<link>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/latest-bits/sunday-september-20th-2009/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/latest-bits/sunday-september-20th-2009/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:00:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Latest Bits]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stmatts.co.uk/?p=34</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[8:00 a.m. - Holy Communion (BCP)
10:30 a.m. - Morning Worship: Revd Mike Coe preaching on Isaiah, Chapter 1(&#8217;Prophets&#8217;)
6:30 p.m. - Evening Worship: Alan Freeman preaching on Mark 10: 13 - 31 (&#8217;The Kingdom - simple, yet hard&#8217;)
&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;
THIS WEEK AND BEYOND:
Monday 8th March, 8:00 p.m. - Youth/Childrens Leaders’ meeting.
Tuesday 9th March, 2:15 p.m. -  ‘The Friendlies’  Bible [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>8:00 a.m. - Holy Communion (BCP)</p>
<p>10:30 a.m. - Morning Worship: Revd Mike Coe preaching on Isaiah, Chapter 1(&#8217;Prophets&#8217;)</p>
<p>6:30 p.m. - Evening Worship: Alan Freeman preaching on Mark 10: 13 - 31 (&#8217;The Kingdom - simple, yet hard&#8217;)</p>
<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
<p><em><strong>THIS WEEK AND BEYOND:</strong></em></p>
<p><strong>Monday 8th March, 8:00 p.m. </strong>- Youth/Childrens Leaders’ meeting.</p>
<p><strong>Tuesday 9th March, 2:15 p.m.</strong> - <span> </span>‘The Friendlies’  Bible Society afternoon with speakers Helen and Michael Patten.   All church members are welcome to join in for tea and cakes and a bring and buy stall.  All proceeds from the afternoon will go to the Bible Society.</p>
<p><strong>Thursday 11th March, 10:45 a.m</strong>. - The funeral of Margaret Ainsworth in Church.</p>
<p><strong>Saturday 13th March, 10:00 a.m.</strong> - Ramblers to meet at the Church.  Destination to be decided nearer the day depending on the weather and the state of the ground.  Please let Eileen know if you will be joining us to enable lunch bookings to be made.</p>
<p><strong>Sunday 14th March, 2:00 - 5:00 p.m.</strong> - Car Treasure Hunt across Hastings and surrounding area.  Meet at Guestling Church.</p>
<p><strong>Monday 15th March, 7:45 p.m</strong>. - Learn2Lead</p>
<p><strong>Thursday 18th March, 7:30 p.m.</strong> - Music team rehearsal in Church.</p>
<p><strong>Monday 22nd March, 8:00 p.m.</strong> - Standing and Finance Committee meeting at the Rectory.</p>
<p><strong>Tuesday 23rd March, 7:30 p.m.</strong> - In-Touch Co-ordinators meeting in the Mill.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em>DATES FOR YOUR DIARY</em><strong><em>:</em></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Wednesday evening, 24 March - </strong><span lang="EN-GB"><strong>“Passion for Life” </strong>With guest speaker Roger Carswell in church.  More details to follow.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Monday 29 March, 7:45 p.m.</strong> - The Annual Parochial Church Meetings</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>30 April - 3 May: Bible by the Beach. </strong> Booking forms and information are available at the back of church.  If anyone wants to know more about the event please speak to Mike.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><br />
</strong></span></p>
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		<title>Lisa Coe writes the Rector&#8217;s Wife&#8217;s Blog</title>
		<link>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/rectorswifesblog/lisa-coe-writes-the-rectors-wifes-blog-4/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/rectorswifesblog/lisa-coe-writes-the-rectors-wifes-blog-4/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:01:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>website janitor</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[The Rector's Wife's Blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stmatts.co.uk/?p=392</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The White Stuff
If you think after all the acres of print I&#8217;m going to say something about the snow, well you&#8217;d be absolutely right.  Come on, we don&#8217;t get enough of it to be blasé, let the inner child rise to the surface as you hurl snowballs at hapless passers by or build wonky snowmen [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>The White Stuff</strong></p>
<p>If you think after all the acres of print I&#8217;m going to say something about the snow, well you&#8217;d be absolutely right.  Come on, we don&#8217;t get enough of it to be blasé, let the inner child rise to the surface as you hurl snowballs at hapless passers by or build wonky snowmen wearing West Ham hats.* Yes I know shopping has gone a bit Soviet what with a shortage of bread and milk.  But I look at it like this; here at Fort St. Matthews we still have half a tin of Roses chocolates and a box of Thorntons plus a few bottles of wine from Christmas, what&#8217;s the problem?  The unusual weather has thrown up some interesting sartorial problems,  mostly for teenage boys.  Me, I wear anything that keeps me warm no matter what it looks like.  My one &#8216;must have&#8217; was a fabulous fur hat I saw  Kirstie Allsopp wearing when she presented  &#8216;Kirstie&#8217;s  Homemade Christmas.&#8217;  I&#8217;m still slightly reeling from that programme actually as I wonder just who it was aimed at.  The creative stuff she produced looked luscious from Christmas crackers to truffles all starting from scratch.  Maybe that&#8217;s the bit that flummoxed me.  Who has time to do these things?  Pre-Christmas a time related frenzy grips most of us.  Not enough time to browse for ideal presents it can become the token gift or just wildly inappropriate (my mum was just baffled by the Gun&#8217;s and Roses T-shirt; maybe she&#8217;d have preferred the Prodigy?).  No time to bedeck or bedazzle in the Coe house, just a mad dash to get stuff sent in the mail.  And don&#8217;t even get me started on the &#8217;stand and deliver&#8217; policy that the post office is operating under these days.  Anyhoo, that hat Kirstie was wearing.  It was a gorgeous Cossack style fur hat and if Primark ever make a copy I will purchase it.</p>
<p>The teen tribes, as tough as a Geordie on a hen night refused point blank to wear anything as sissy as a coat.  They shivered in their school sweatshirts which is why schools decided to shut otherwise a flu epidemic would be inevitable.  Finally a truce was called between frantic parents and frozen moody kids.  It was okay to wear a jacket but the hat of choice was a &#8217;sock&#8217; hat.  Kind of funky but keeps reminding me of Mr. Smee from &#8216;Peter Pan.&#8217;  And guess who had to go and buy the hat.  I should have knitted it myself and created a whole new look.  Personally I&#8217;m sorry that leg warmers didn&#8217;t make a come back. I used to wear a pair in the 70&#8217;s.  The were really long and a sort of fair isle pattern in pink.  Seriously they were rocking, Bananarama meets  Fame.  Young people don&#8217;t know how to dress that&#8217;s the problem.</p>
<p>But come on.  Snow!!  Didn&#8217;t yer love it?  Think of the benefits, the unexpected day off to watch &#8216;Loose women&#8217;, the wonderful excuse not to go to work when quite frankly you have been ordered to stay at home by a BBC presenter.  And don&#8217;t you think it has bought out the nicer qualities in people?  I have a theory that one of the English characteristics is not to function very well in the heat.  Law and order break down, not to mention the deodorants that only work up till midday.  No, give us something Spartan to get our teeth into and we&#8217;ll clear paths, push cars and get shopping and other essential items for the housebound.</p>
<p>And I think we here in Hastings, when we finally got it, made the most of it.  There&#8217;s something to be said for sitting looking out the window at the gentle endless veil of falling snowflakes.  Have you seen a magnified snowflake? Simply put it&#8217;s water vapour in clouds condensed into ice but they are phenomenally beautiful and complex, built upon the shape of a hexagon.  Millions of them fall and they say no two are the same yet these objects of beauty are crunched underfoot and then simply melt away.  If you asked God why He designed something of such beauty that can&#8217;t be seen by the naked eye and just disappears I think He&#8217;d say He does it because He can.  How cool is that.</p>
<p>One more thing.  The next time you see an unblemished stretch of snow, dazzling and pristine just think about the verse from Isaiah.  The Lord says &#8216;Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow&#8230;&#8217;.  Even more amazing than a snowflake.</p>
<p>*obviously nothing to do with me.</p>
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		<link>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/rectorswifesblog/lisa-coe-writes-the-rectors-wifes-blog-3/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/rectorswifesblog/lisa-coe-writes-the-rectors-wifes-blog-3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:28:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>website janitor</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[The Rector's Wife's Blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stmatts.co.uk/?p=371</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Love at first bite.
You may not be aware of this but the world at present is falling into two categories; those who know and those who are about to find out.  I&#8217;ll just print the word &#8216;Twilight&#8217;.  What follows is mostly for those who think it&#8217;s the time between day and night.
A few years ago [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Love at first bite.</strong></p>
<p>You may not be aware of this but the world at present is falling into two categories; those who know and those who are about to find out.  I&#8217;ll just print the word &#8216;Twilight&#8217;.  What follows is mostly for those who think it&#8217;s the time between day and night.</p>
<p>A few years ago an American writer, Stephanie Meyers, produced a series of books about vampires.  Not just any old cape wearing, hair meeting in pointy oil slick &#8216;v&#8217; on forehead vampire.  These were a different calibre altogether, these were PMT&#8217;s : Pretty Moody Teenage vampires.   With issues.  Can you believe it?  As if acne and exams aren&#8217;t enough, dental and dietary problems take it to a whole new dimension.  The books were phenomenally successful.  But why stop a cash cow there?    Subsequently there has been &#8216;Twilight the Movie&#8217; and recently &#8216;New Moon&#8217; which went straight to the top of the box office.  TRW has it on good authority (well Grazia magazine) that the first film made $229 million.  That&#8217;s a lot of serious wonga. Vampires: who&#8217;d have thought.  However you don&#8217;t have to be Einstein to deconstruct some of its apparent mass appeal.  It&#8217;s  seriously a girl thing and we vote with our devotion but more importantly our money.</p>
<p>Any televisual adaptation of &#8216;Wuthering Heights&#8217; suffers because no matter who they choose to act the part he just never lives up to the Heathcliff of one&#8217;s imagination.  Maybe it&#8217;s something to do with the sublimely superior writing of Emily Bronte, but that hasn&#8217;t been the fate of the anti hero of the story, Edward Cullen.  He now has the very public face of the actor Robert Pattinson (for those who remember,  he played Cedric Diggory in &#8216;Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire&#8217;).  He&#8217;s grown up a bit since then and has a whole new adoring fan base of young women proving once and for all that women don&#8217;t go for the steroid abuse look on the whole.</p>
<p>Why, I hear you asking, why TRW are you  interested?  After all there is more than something of the night connected with this lot.   Actually TRW would never have come across Moody Teenage vampires were it not for one of my work friends who is young enough to be my daughter and is really into the whole Twilight mother-lode.  She&#8217;s read all the books and seen the movies.  Vampires seem to thrive in people&#8217;s imagination where other things that go bump in the night don&#8217;t.  No one remembers this and I think only TRW and daughter&#8217;s boyfriend of the time saw it but in the late 90&#8217;s there was an excellent programme called &#8216;Ultraviolet&#8217; about an agency that &#8216;disposed&#8217; of modern day vampires.  Very underrated, should re-run and nothing to do with Jack Davenport being in it!</p>
<p>TRW thinks Ms. Meyers has been quite extraordinarily clever with the crafting of her books, focusing the action around teenagers. Teenagers go through such intense phases and the vampires in question seem to be a metaphor about identity, about wanting to be like everyone else, about wanting to fit in but inside feeling very different, isolated or lonely.  Teenagers believe themselves to be magnificently misunderstood and therefore it takes another outsider to know what it feels like; even if they are the undead.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s the  &#8216;do or die&#8217; mentality.  Bella (heroine and human girlfriend of Edward which produces the tension at the heart of the matter) narrates her story saying after all of fifteen minutes she&#8217;s fallen in love with him &#8216;irrevocably.&#8217;  You long to clip her round the ear so she comes to her senses.  And let&#8217;s not forget you are dealing with  well,  immortality: no need to fear The Reaper.  TRW can barely remember actual details of teenage hood but can recall thinking that anyone in their twenties was ancient and the idea of growing old and infirm or actually dying really was unthinkable, literally.  If there&#8217;s ever a time one feels capable enough, energetic enough, positively fizzing with life enough to conquer the world or at least St. Leonards, it&#8217;s about eighteen.  After that reality sinks in along with your first wrinkle.</p>
<p>But Edward really will live forever as a seventeen year old, and a highly unsuitable one at that.  Just think how effective all those teenage health education ads would be if there was the slightest possibility they might end up on the menu.  It&#8217;s the ultimate hands off policy but still dangerously attractive.  Ah, it&#8217;s the old moth to a flame business isn&#8217;t it?  Forbidden fruit and all that.  It&#8217;s proving very hard for the heroine to get into context - after all, it&#8217;s irrevocable as far as she&#8217;s concerned.</p>
<p>Of course it might just be  about a skinny lad with a concave chest and pointy teeth, a pretty girl and an industry worth millions.  What do I know?</p>
<p>The movie (sky) was full of clunky dialogue and lots of earnest scowling.  But one line caught my interest.  Edward tries to put distance between them for her safety by telling her he is meant to look this good to draw her in.  Everything about him is designed to lull her into a false sense of security,  disguising his true nature and intent.  Great line.  It put TRW to thinking isn&#8217;t that what sin looks like?  The thing that separates us from God.   It&#8217;s designed to draw us in, we think we need to have it or can&#8217;t live without it, whatever it is. It looks great, or it looks harmless but it will hurt you in ways you can&#8217;t imagine.</p>
<p>Have you seen  the &#8216;Nosferatu&#8217; film? A silent black and white vampire film that truly disquiets.  Without doubt the Nosferatu character is hideous to look at: you&#8217;d run a mile if you saw that coming at you talons first.  Maybe we should think of that next time we&#8217;re about to give in to temptation.  It&#8217;s not  so good-looking on the inside, it&#8217;s just disguised to fool you.</p>
<p>Good night.  And don&#8217;t have nightmares!</p>
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		<link>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/rectorswifesblog/the-rectors-wifes-blog/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/rectorswifesblog/the-rectors-wifes-blog/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:49:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>website janitor</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[The Rector's Wife's Blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stmatts.co.uk/?p=343</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As seen on screen
TRW has already confessed to lowbrow proclivity so it will come as no surprise to you that she spent a good deal of last weekend watching television.  &#8216;Groundhog Day&#8217; (brilliant) and  a documentary on Fleetwood Mac.  Confess, you own a copy of &#8216;Rumours&#8217;.  Despite their volatile mix  they feel de-toxed enough/ broke [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>As seen on screen</strong></p>
<p>TRW has already confessed to lowbrow proclivity so it will come as no surprise to you that she spent a good deal of last weekend watching television.  &#8216;Groundhog Day&#8217; (brilliant) and  a documentary on Fleetwood Mac.  Confess, you own a copy of &#8216;Rumours&#8217;.  Despite their volatile mix  they feel de-toxed enough/ broke enough/ bored enough for a reunion tour.  Yes really!  The Supergroup who habitually let each other know what was going on in their private lives through the medium of platinum selling discs.  The only other people who can match them for sheer drama are the cast of EastEnders.  I was fascinated to see what Stevie Nicks looked like after all this time.  She was the fantasy girlfriend of the 70&#8217;s, the hip West Coast Princess of Whimsy.  Years before Kate Bush and her mimes and twirls and and crazy flights of fancy there was Stevie.   Well, ten years of class A drugs should  take its toll but she looked  eerily smooth of face and immobile of expression. What could possibly cause that do you think?   Disconcertingly, she looked like she had borrowed one of Dolly&#8217;s wigs.  I kept waiting to catch a glimpse of the gypsy that she was,  but instead she looked  as though she&#8217;s been channelled through &#8216;Dynasty.&#8217;  Baffling.</p>
<p>What a relief to see Lindsey Buckingham looking his age but in a good way.  Having apparently ridden a Tsunami of emotions most of his life, he&#8217;s finally free of his demons.  He married someone outside the group and now has three young children.  It seems to have calmed the wild striving of his younger years, the desperate search for something.  At fifty nine he finally seems to have discovered what it means to be happy.</p>
<p>I swear I&#8217;m never going to watch another wild life programme.  I&#8217;ve wept buckets over  &#8216;The Elephant Diaries&#8217; (orphaned baby elephants).  I cried over Gizmo the ring tailed lemur ( it makes it ten times worse when they name them!)   Ailing and with a broken leg, Gizmo trailed hopelessly after his group until all he could do was lay down  too exhausted to go on, waiting to die.  I&#8217;m feeling tearful just writing this.  And now &#8216;Bearwalker of the Northwoods&#8217;.  During five heart rending minutes a cub, obviously ill, unable to travel with her family, eventually curled up under a tree hollow and died in her sleep.  Lynn Rogers the biologist who practically lives with them tenderly picked her up to try and discover why she died.  Queue the waterworks.</p>
<p>Nature, according to Charles Darwin, is the ultimate fighting machine.  Shaped by evolution and requirement it&#8217;s prime motive is survival.  It&#8217;s a gunfighter, fingers twitching over its six shooters: if you&#8217;re weak it will stare you down the barrel of its gun and it will show no mercy. Darwin states, Divine Intervention is not necessary to this process, it&#8217;s self propelling.  So can I just untidy things by asking, if it&#8217;s all about survival of the best specimen, why do we care so much for the weak and ailing?  Shouldn&#8217;t we see their demise as &#8216;more for us&#8217;, the survivors?  But we don&#8217;t.   We don&#8217;t neglect infants born before their time though nature would dictate they are too weak to be useful and survive. When my dad was suffering with a heart condition, far from being  seen as  too elderly to bother with  he was treated with care and medication and his life was prolonged for some years because of it.</p>
<p>Haven&#8217;t you shouted at the  cold eye of the camera filming a dying animal to put the camera down and GO AND SAVE IT!  Where does the impulse to care come from?   To want to save the lives of people and animals sometimes at great personal cost; for me this is an anomaly of Darwin&#8217;s theory.  Nature is unsentimental, it just goes on at all costs.  Yet the orphaned elephants grieved for their lost parents in an identifiable way and even Magpies have rituals for their dead.  Why?  Isn&#8217;t that nature taking it&#8217;s course?</p>
<p>You have to ask yourself, in the midst of this Unstoppable Machine, where does compassion come from?  Why do we intervene?   Why are we outraged at injustice?  Where does our morality come from?<br />
The Bible tells us, that in the beginning God created everything.  We are made in the image of God which is where these characteristics originate.  Is it any wonder the children reflect the nature of the Father and that creation bears the imprint of Him who made all things?</p>
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		<link>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/rectorswifesblog/lisa-coe-write-the-rectors-wifes-blog/</link>
		<comments>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/rectorswifesblog/lisa-coe-write-the-rectors-wifes-blog/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:43:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>website janitor</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[The Rector's Wife's Blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.stmatts.co.uk/?p=329</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Animal Magic?
The Rector&#8217;s Wife makes no apology for the fact that she doesn&#8217;t raise the cultural bar very high.  She mused upon this irrefutable fact during a recent perusal of the family DVDs.  There was the WW2 epic, &#8216;Band of Brothers&#8217; that The Rector wanted one Christmas alongside &#8216;The Goodies&#8217; box set that TRW had [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Animal Magic?</strong></p>
<p>The Rector&#8217;s Wife makes no apology for the fact that she doesn&#8217;t raise the cultural bar very high.  She mused upon this irrefutable fact during a recent perusal of the family DVDs.  There was the WW2 epic, &#8216;Band of Brothers&#8217; that The Rector wanted one Christmas alongside &#8216;The Goodies&#8217; box set that TRW had asked for. FYI,  Kitten Kong is still one of the best pre-CGI effects ever!  TRW however is capable of  Deep Thought* when required and would like to share some with the St. Matt&#8217;s on-line community.</p>
<p>With absolutely nothing on  TV recently, (not even Cash in the Attic or Come Dine with Me), TRW came across a programme about Darwin presented by David Attenborough.  And oh boy, is David a fan or rather a FAN!  It&#8217;s Darwin&#8217;s bicentenary so we got the full treatment on how he came to write &#8216;The Origin of the Species by Natural Selection&#8217;,  the book that set out Darwin&#8217;s theories on evolution.  To say that this juggernaut of a book upset most of the religious folk of the western hemisphere is like saying the ordination of women caused a bit of a kerfuffle.  In fact he delayed publication for years as he knew it wouldn&#8217;t be well received.  But for many it heralded what they believed to be a new way of understanding the physical world past, present and future.  However, it caused deep theological and intellectual divisions that exist to this day.</p>
<p>Darwin was troubled by God in the way that you or I don&#8217;t know how to deal with the maddening &#8216;left over&#8217; bit in a tile puzzle.  He just didn&#8217;t know what to do with Him.  He detected no sense of the Creator in the natural world.  His theories led him to understand that we all evolved from simple single cell organisms, we all come from the same building blocks of life and become more complex as &#8216;nature&#8217; dictates.  Therefore man has no centrality in the scheme of things and is not the &#8216;crown&#8217; of God&#8217;s creation; apparently we are all just animals.  The Creation Story therefore was a myth that could be ignored.  He went as far as stating that it could all happen without divine intervention.  It just seems extraordinary to me that Darwin and David could go into paroxysms of delight over the natural world in all its dazzling wonder and still not see God&#8217;s hand in it!  Yet Darwin effectively erased God from the picture.  For him, and for others, a choice was made and that was to dismiss God from Life, the Universe and Everything.*</p>
<p>Personally I have no problem with evolution; the evidence weighs overwhelmingly in its favour.  Besides, I&#8217;ve never thought the Creation Story was really about  how and when we were literally made.  It&#8217;s much more about why our relationship with God went wrong.  Can you imagine the manual called &#8216;Creating the World and All That&#8217;s In It&#8217;?  Have you ever tried following an IKEA leaflet for a flat pack wardrobe?  We can barely understand the offside rule; anything more challenging might bust vital brain cells.  For me it&#8217;s enough to know that &#8216;In the beginning, God&#8230;.&#8217;  It&#8217;s all entirely His however He bought it into being.</p>
<p>*Hitch Hiker&#8217;s Guide to the Galaxy.  Douglas Adams</p>
<p>Next instalment includes:  Why nature isn&#8217;t like a box of Ferrero Rocher and more like a Spaghetti Western!</p>
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		<link>http://www.stmatts.co.uk/rectorswifesblog/lisa-coe-writes-the-rectors-wifes-blog-2/</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:20:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>website janitor</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[The Rector's Wife's Blog]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Final Curtain Call
What was it about that week?  In one week alone we lost some incredibly talented, gifted people from the entertainment world.  Somewhere a celestial timer went off which acts as an uncomfortable reminder to all of us that time is short: don&#8217;t waste a minute!  So a sad farewell to:
Frank Deasey.  I know [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Final Curtain Call</strong></p>
<p>What was it about that week?  In one week alone we lost some incredibly talented, gifted people from the entertainment world.  Somewhere a celestial timer went off which acts as an uncomfortable reminder to all of us that time is short: don&#8217;t waste a minute!  So a sad farewell to:</p>
<p>Frank Deasey.  I know you might be scratching your head over him but you are probably familiar with some of his work.  A gifted playwright, he penned the award winning finale for Prime Suspect amongst many other things.  Some of you will know him if you watched The Passion, first screened on channel four and last year on BBC.  Filmed in five half hour slots, it depicts Jesus&#8217; last week as he  sets his face towards Calvary.  Frank wrote it while having to deal with his first bout of cancer four and a half years ago.  He said &#8216;I poured myself into The Passion identifying with its themes of suffering and redemption&#8217;.  He died aged forty nine of liver cancer.</p>
<p>Though sadly he hadn&#8217;t been on our TV&#8217;s for a while,  who could forget Keith Floyd?  Bow tie, glass of wine in hand, one for the dish, half a dozen for the road.  He really seemed like an old fashioned roué with an eye for the girls, chatting up the French housewife whose kitchen he would be cooking in even though she looked like Dame Edna.  The programme would end with her clearly not quite hating the English as much as when it started.  He made cooking fun and really had a thing about fish which is always a challenge for most of us cooks if we&#8217;re being honest.  Will you ever be able to hear The Stranglers again without thinking of him?  He died aged sixty five.</p>
<p>Predator* one of my all time favourite films came out in 1987.  It&#8217;s a winning combination, Arnie and a camouflaged alien in a jungle!  Anyway the point is as a result I missed the advent of  Dirty Dancing, a movie that has spawned an industry so vast including a TV series, a stage production and a computer game, I wonder that governments don&#8217;t actually invite script writers to run the country.  Without doubt it was the making of Patrick Swayze as Johnny Castle the dance instructor.  Ghost nailed him as the funny, charming yet vulnerable leading man though he was nearly upstaged by Demi Moore&#8217;s funky haircut.  He died aged forty seven.</p>
<p>Lots of us I&#8217;m afraid are old enough to remember the songs, If I had a hammer, Where have all the flowers gone?  Leaving on a jet plane and the inimitable, rumour laden Puff the magic dragon. Peter Paul and Mary, two blokes with beards and a beautiful blonde, were launched as a super folk group in a coffee house in Greenwich Village in 1961.  Their songs and voices became intrinsically linked  with the anti war and civil rights movements of the sixties.  There were reunions and other songs and albums along the way but they were probably best know and loved for the enduring anthems of their early days.  The beautiful blonde, Mary Travers died aged seventy two.</p>
<p>Way before The Sweeney there was Z Cars.  It might seem a bit black and white and lacking in forensics and stab vests but back then it was radical.  Up till 1962 our perceived image of the British bobby was George Dixon;  kindly, fatherly, more inclined to clip you round the ear than aim a Taser gun at you.  Then along came Troy Kennedy Martin who wrote fast paced scripts with believable situations and proper regional accents, a first for the BBC and mighty successful it was.  He wrote The Italian job which will be remembered forever for putting Noel Coward and Benny Hill in a film together but more importantly for the immortal line, You were only meant to blow the ****** doors off!  Later came the BAFTA winning eco- thriller Edge of Darkness in1985 that explored the nuclear industry and secret intelligence, the kind of thing Dan Brown wishes he could write.  I implore you if you&#8217;ve never seen it, get the box set.  It still has the power to haunt after all these years later.   Troy Kennedy Martin died aged seventy seven.</p>
<p>Yet for all their impressive legacy I&#8217;m still reminded that ultimately, the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God stands forever.  All the clever words fall away eventually except the genius words of God, the legacy that matters most to us in this world and the next one.</p>
<p>*  The other one is Predator vs Aliens</p>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:29:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>website janitor</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[The Rector's Wife's Blog]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[New Wine and water, water everywhere
I haven&#8217;t thought about War of the Worlds for years (let&#8217;s draw a veil over that Tom Cruise version) but I was reminded of the text about envious eyes and plans being slowly and surely drawn during our week at New Wine. I know what you&#8217;re thinking, that wasn&#8217;t quite [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>New Wine and water, water everywhere</strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span>I haven&#8217;t thought about <em>War of the Worlds</em> for years (let&#8217;s draw a veil over that Tom Cruise version) but I was reminded of the text about envious eyes and plans being slowly and surely drawn during our week at New Wine.<span> </span>I know what you&#8217;re thinking, that wasn&#8217;t quite what you were expecting to hear seeing as we were at a Christian conference and envy not quite being the order of the day and all that.<span> </span>However at the time it was raining Old Testament style* and for us huddled under a micron of nylon,<span> </span>well the caravaners were looking a bit too dry and smug for my liking.<span> </span>I could have been mistaken,<span> </span>I may have been hallucinating<span> </span>as it had been raining for 16 solid hours but I could have sworn the laughing and joking and hot chocolate drinking were coming only from those with the foresight to bring a house on wheels.<span> </span>The rest of us seemed to be reliving the best of <em>Tiswas</em>.**</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">So, New Wine.<span> </span>It was a first for the three intrepid families from St. Matthew&#8217;s that pitched up (did you see what I did there, <em>pitched up</em>) at the Shepton Mallett site.<span> </span>It&#8217;s not actually a camp site but the grounds for the Royal Bath and West Show.<span> </span>As a result amenities are extremely basic: approx sixty loos between 12,000 (you do the maths) and half a dozen showers are available.<span> </span>But there is something liberating about living in such spartan conditions, it&#8217;s one of the things I love about holidays.<span> </span>I&#8217;ve left all my clutter behind, as a result even my thoughts seem more streamlined or at least that&#8217;s what I tell myself when my only decision is a Feast or a Cornetto.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Of the St. Matthew&#8217;s families that went, we were the ones unfamiliar with the way of the tent but with help and what came to be the obligatory downpour, the tent was erected and the kettle was on.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">We quickly got into a routine, the cooking was shared.<span> </span>It&#8217;s amazing what you can produce for ten people on two gas rings: having said that, we won&#8217;t be eating rice again for about a year!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">We<span> </span>all met for worship in the mornings then a choice of<span> </span>sessions and workshops held mid morning and after lunch,<span> </span>then we congregated for the evening meetings. It sounds terribly busy but it was all optional.<span> </span>There&#8217;s also a day off for going out and about in nearby Wells or further afield for the adventurous.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I did get to some of the sessions and they were thought provoking and funny and sometimes incredibly moving.<span> </span>Ironically I got rejected from the <em>Rejecting Rejection</em> session (oversubscribed) and felt like steaming straight into <em>Managing Anger</em> only I bumped into Mike and we went to the market place for coffee and our damp clothes to gently steam in the heat.<span> </span>It beats tumble drying.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What we enjoyed was the novelty of sitting together in the evenings, eating,<span> </span>talking and laughing and sharing the day; fellowship at its best.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I think I can speak on behalf of the others when I say I think we enjoyed singing our worship most of all.<span> </span>I can&#8217;t really do justice trying to describe what it feels like to sing with thousands of other Christians expressing our passion for Jesus and giving God the glory: well maybe I can, I think it felt like a tiny piece of heaven.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">* A lot.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">** You&#8217;ll either get this or you won&#8217;t.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For information about New Wine visit the website, bookings start in September 2009 for the 2010 summer conference.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For the lowdown on What you Mustn&#8217;t<span> </span>Forget at any Cost Whilst Camping email Rector&#8217;s Wife</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For soggy New Wine photo experience visit Emily Humphrey&#8217;s Face Book page!</p>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:00:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
		
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		<description><![CDATA[Where were you when they landed on the moon?
I can remember exactly what I was doing the day they were preparing to land on the moon.  My mum had to call the doctor out as I had a raging throat infection.  Hard to remember a time when doctors made house calls; they&#8217;ve gone forever  now [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Where were you when they landed on the moon?</strong></p>
<p>I can remember exactly what I was doing the day they were preparing to land on the moon.  My mum had to call the doctor out as I had a raging throat infection.  Hard to remember a time when doctors made house calls; they&#8217;ve gone forever  now in the manner of Green Shield stamps, Spangles and Simon Dee.</p>
<p>We had all been watching the extraordinary events unfolding before our eyes, would men really walk on the moon?  As the doorbell rang, my mum  snapped off the television lest the doctor think we were all time wasters and shirkers after all he was a professional.  Thankfully he took in the scene with a glance: my dad still in the &#8216;viewing&#8217; position, my brother and I with crestfallen faces, the cathode ray tube still hot enough to toast something.  Besides,  he clearly had no intention of missing it himself.  Diplomatically he said it was history in the making and we children (nice touch!) should be witnessing it.  My dad had the TV on in one movement, the moon landing happened and (more importantly!) I was given a course of antibiotics.</p>
<p>For a while the only impact it had on me was an enthusiasm for science fiction as opposed to fact.   2001: A Space Odyssey produced so much CO2 from the pontificating amongst my aficionado friends that Kyoto might have got in touch;  had it been around then.</p>
<p>Forty years on we are still contemplating the enormity of what happened (and I do believe it did despite the conspiracy theorists though I&#8217;ll admit Capricorn One is a highly entertaining film).  In an age where they had problems building reliable washing machines, a primitive craft took men to the moon and brought them back.  Not only primitive but downright flimsy as though it were collaborative effort between NASA and Blue Peter.</p>
<p>The men who went to the moon seemed to find it difficult to translate what they had experienced into cohesive expression.  It was the astronauts with Christian beliefs or at least with some real sense of God, knowing their own words to be  hopelessly inadequate who turned to the Bible for inspiration.    Apollo 8  in 1968 was the first manned mission to escape earth&#8217;s gravitational field.   As a result it was the first time anyone had a chance to view our world from the perspective of another planet.   The  astronauts timed the live broadcast to coincide with a full view of planet earth in all its luminous beauty hanging against the vast blackness of space.  Their response was to give God the glory, taking it in turns to read the creation story from Genesis.</p>
<p>Buzz Aldrin on his return journey from the moon contemplating the amazing sight of our small blue planet was reminded of the words from Psalm 8, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him&#8230;&#8230;&#8217;  I can only say Amen to that.</p>
<p>For more mind blowing information about God the &#8216;Star Breather&#8217;, I recommend How Great is our God, one of a series of DVDs by Louie Giglio, pastor/evangelist Passion Conferences.</p>
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		<title>Protected: The Purpose Driven Life</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:02:01 +0000</pubDate>
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