The Fan

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Why is that people use fans to cool things downs (hand fans or mechanical propeller fans in the ceiling) when our oven has a fan that seems to heat things up. A wind in winter can make you feel colder due to its chill factor but the chicken must feel even hotter in the fan assisted oven. So air movement cools thing down but also heats things up. There must a turning point where it flips over from one to the other. The reason why I am thinking this is I am trying to sleep with a fan blowing air around me. It is meant to cool me down but at times I feel I am in fan assisted oven.

The White Man

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The White Man
One of the things that I hate about visiting a poor country (and let’s face it, that is most of the world) is being the white man. The assumption is that you are rich which is true (sometimes obscenely so in comparison) and that you are cleverer and wiser and more intelligent which it is manifestly not. This is such a big thing that it would put me off travelling all together It stands in the way of making true friends. But I am saved by one thing, and that is language. Once people find out that your knowledge of their language is patchy and ragged, the relationship shifts its footing. You become something a kin to a child needing to learn. Someone who needs to be taught new words and have conjugations and cases corrected. It is a swift change of roles and one more likely to form the basis of a good and lasting friendship. That more than anything else makes it worthwhile travelling.

San Domingo

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We flew separately to San Domingo. ( I am not sure why. Maybe it was the royalty thing – we were two important to share the same plane or maybe there wasn’t one big enough for the three of us -you take your pick) . I had forgotten (not deliberately) my regulation tee shirt and just hoped I would spot Pastor Poisson (I had seen him on video). The arrival hall was packed as it always is in these occasions with family and friends eagerly awaiting their loved ones retun and screeching and cheering with children running wildly as the exiles came through the door. One couple met half way down the ramp and embraced and quite lost themselves in the unbounded joy of the union. They seemed quite oblivious to the throngs watching till they were finally brought back to reality with the spontaneous applause they provoked. One group was met with a little band accordion, drum, shaker and clapping that surrounded them and followed them out of the building into the balmy night. But I couldn’t find the pastor. I asked two look likely suspects but neither were him. By a miracle, going back and forward through the crowd, I spotted a small piece of ripped-off paper in someone’s hand with the word “Crawford” on it and I smiled.

Return to Ayacucho

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Earlier this year I fulfilled a long cherished dream to visit Peru. It was an interest and fascination with the land and the people, the Costa, the Selva and the Sierra, the Incas, their startling independant civilisation and the massive stones knit together.  I felt for the Quechua in their struggles against their colonial masters and the indifference of the ruling class in Lima and I prayed for them during the dark days of the Shining path. But the reason for going was to keep a promise I made to our Peruvian son, Edwin. He lived with us 5 years ago and I always hoped to go, but it never seemed possible until this year. It was a trip ,I will never forget. We spent days in the dusty slopes of the pueblo jovenes in Southern Lima, a week in the jungle city of Tarapoto an idyllic few days in la chacra, a village deep in the Selva and an unforgettable trip to the Sierra to Cuzco, Macchu Pichu and Ayacucho .

It was a breathtaking experience, but I was totally unprepared for where this would lead. I had no idea what I would find. It was In a little hotel, up a narrow street in downtown Ayacucho, that I met Raquel Quicaña. Her family had suffered terribly during the civil war and I had read about her cousin Romulo Suane Quicaña a pastor and bible translator who was murdered along with four others by the Shining path as they were returning from a church dedication in 1989. Raquel was a nurse who ran a clinic inside the hotel and when we met, I felt I had known her all my life. It was as if she had been expecting me. She invited me to visit another clinic that she looked after which was 35 kilometres from the city and further up in the mountains.

The village of Quinua is famous as the site of the battle of Ayacucho when the patriots defeated the colonial army and Peru won her independence. Raquel had patients to see so with my companion we visited the battle site on a plateau overlooking the town with the city of Ayacucho far below and surrounded my the majestic Andes. It was a beautiful scene but the picturesque quality belied the desperate poverty of the people. The clinic a plain concrete building was desperate in its own way. Water was seeping between every wall and roof junction with green algae on the walls. There was no sealing of the buildings or protection from the elements. It was the middle of summer, but it felt quite cold and I shuddered to think what it would be like in winter. The medics described carrying out consultations wrapped in blankets with a hot water bottle at the feet and one on the lap. It was also desperately in need of accommodation for medics and patients on short stay. Some travel for days to get there. It is the only medical facility in the area and supported entirely by voluntary donations. When Raquel said “I hear that you are an architect… we have a problem with our building” I knew where this was going to lead and I knew I had to help.

So began a series of email discussions, plans and sketches, cost estimates and thinking through the feasibility of what could usefully be done. From the start there were challenges not least over effective communication, learning new construction terms and costings in Spanish. But there was also the deeper issue “what was I doing?” . In the controversy over short term mission, would this end up like so many ventures, doing more harm than good? Should I, Just because I could? Would it really help or was I simply feeling good about the idea of being needed? Was I coming in to do something locals could already do? Did they really need a white man to help? Were there no architects in Ayacucho ? It was important to ask all these questions. I had to face up to these challenges and examine my own motives. It would be easy to get carried away. It would be easy to spin the story and fulfil my own prophecy.


Sometimes, however, you first instinct is the right one. I knew in that moment on the rooftop among the puddles of water the debris of pipes and cables and makeshift solar panels, with the clouds receding over the Andes in the distance, I knew then, what I had to do and the later conversations with friends and family, the advice of experts and confidants and the support of so many people, simply confirmed it.

It seemed clear that I would need to make another visit, meet with folk involved, talk about the project, the practicalities of construction, the time scale, the costs and how it could be realised and what help we could usefully give. I needed to plan another trip across the Atlantic, south across the equator , down the coast from Lima and up into the Andes and that begins tomorrow.

The Bookend

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First of all you have to understand that the church has always been part of my life. Not just a part but one of the most significant parts of it. It is family. Blood is thicker than water but this bond is thicker. So going to church has always been my habit. Not that the church is a place, it is people, but people come together in a place and unless you are a king or celebrity, people don’t generally congregate around you. You have to go to them.  So the term “Going to church” is a valid one and a vital part of life for anyone who is a follower of Jesus. Like family, however, it is not always sweetness and light, its history has not always been something to be proud of, its people sometimes drive you crazy and at times you stretch their patience too. We blow up, fall out, walk out and separate but one thing remains a constant, we are part of God’s family and he won’t change that. It is not a right but a gift and if I was a preacher I could probably explain that much better.

Now the church, which I belong to, has two services on a Sunday: a morning and evening service. This is not for convenience but deliberately as part of tradition going back many years. Nowadays, however, the question keeps coming up: “Why two?”  “Why would you need to want to go twice?” “Surely once is enough”. But it is not a rule thing. It is not a commandment. You would be hard pressed to find something in the Bible that lays down that law. But it comes, I believe, from how we view the day itself.  For followers of Jesus, Sunday is the “Lord’s Day”. It belongs to him. It is not our day. In one sense every day is His day but Sunday is especially for him and that is where the evening service comes into its own. It is a bookend. The morning and evening services are bookends to the Lord’s Day.

This Sunday, after a full on weekend wholly exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally with the stress of logistics, the heat of the kitchen, the intercourse with so many people from so many parts of the world (a weekend away with Friends International), we arrived back in the evening just in time for our evening service. While the voice of common sense said, “relax, unwind, sit down, have a bath, go to bed, chill out”, instead we went to church and joined our church family in worship, praying, reading, sharing and listening to God’s voice. Entering the building late we were met with the sound of singing, of many voices old and young, high and deep, together and in harmony, coming from the heart, rising to the roof and beyond.  It would be very hard to begin to describe the all-embracing sense of wholeness, healing, invigoration, revitalisation and excitement that overwhelmed us as we joined the people in this special time, this bookend to the Lord’s Day.  And …I thought… there is nowhere else I would rather be.

Crawford Mackenzie

Blessed be the Name, the Name be Blessed

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IMG_3327

I watched a film on TV the other week and I regretted it long before it was finished. I enjoy watching films and it’s something I hadn’t done for a while. I felt in the mood but sad to say this was a total let-down. It was described as in the “West Wing mode” and starred Clooney et al but I hated it. It had a pretty thin storyline and I couldn’t find any character who was remotely likeable. It was all about ambition and cheating and cutting each other’s throats, but what wearied me was the tone of the whole thing. It was not violent and there was no gratuitous sex but the language throughout turned my stomach. It caused me to think again about why bad language, or what goes under the title of strong language, is a serious issue and perhaps symptomatic of our condition. The crux came late on when the president, on discovering he had been exposed, cursed under his breath “Jesus  f……..    Christ” I felt shiver run through me. It was the casual way that a blasphemy could be uttered with no thought of the one whose name was so casually covered in excrement and dumped in the gutter.  And I wondered why people swear and what they get out of it.

What we used to call foul or profane language, has been reclassified as  “strong” or “colourful” language and its use can be justified, if you feel strongly enough about something. It shows that you have some feeling and some passion about an issue. It is justified by the emotional relief it brings the user, as in “lalochezia”.  It gives you street cred and shows that you have the common touch. Even the Prime Minister slips some into a speech when he wants to make a point. But you just have to think about the categories of words that are used to see what this is really all about.  On the one hand they are words for sexual organs, sexual intercourse, for urinating and defecating, and they are used often with aggressive, sexist and racist overtones with more than a passing hint at rape and sexual violence. On the other, they are names for God for Jesus Christ for the Holy Spirit and sometimes combined with words from the gutter as in the film quote. Why?

Now I know some will immediately respond  “Oh come on, you are a wee bit sensitive here, these are just words… words.. words …you are making such a fuss… your reaction to them is totally out of proportion… you are so concerned with the obscenity of language  rather than the real obscenities that exist in the world”,   Others would go as far as to suggest that if you are concerned about “bad language” it is a sign that you are quite relaxed about all the other evils. But nothing could be further from the truth.  You wouldn’t employ that logic in any other context. Language when it is abusive, inciteful, or discriminatory is taken very seriously, even criminal in some instances. The names you might call people of a different race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, disability or anything that is different from you do matter and it reveals your attitude to them. It tells what is in your mind and that is one step away from doing. It is not a flippant thing. The words that come out of our mouths in a moment of untamed anger or frustration or passion can betray deep feelings inside us. It is deadly serious. It is not significant that the Psalm writer prays “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your  sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer” because if the thoughts and words are acceptable to God, then the actions that follow will be too.

So my appeal to all wordsmiths out there (including myself) is, before we launch out, before we pit into our speech, before we let it rip, think about the words and why we have chosen to use them. Think about why we would take the name of the Holy God, the creator of the world, the Saviour and Lord and the one that we will all stand before at the end, think about why we would stain his name with words from the gutter and drag it through the cesspit. Think about what we are saying.

Crawford Mackenzie

Managementarianism

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managementarianismI don’t know when it started or where it came from but the relentless onward march of Managementarianism is slowly and subtly strangling the life from almost all of our creative endeavours.  We have been aware, for some time now, of the deadening effect of this culture on health and education, where educators and clinicians are replaced with managers and where the end result is not health or education but efficiency and exam results. But we have been almost taken by surprise in the way that it has wormed its way into almost every aspect of our lives.  The pursuit of targets, quotas, waiting times, performance, results, outcomes, good and best practice, all with the laudable aim of improving and reforming so that they become better organised and more efficient, is increasing. The imposition of targets themselves often back fire.  Whenever I make an application for Planning Approval I know that the authority are duty bound to  give a decision within a fixed period of time and their performance, in this regard, is monitored. What happens is that the administrators appear to make it their priority to delay the registration process (before the clock starts ticking) as long as possible by scratching around for anything that might need clarification, no matter how miniscule or irrelevant, so that the process, in the end, takes longer. It has all been said before, of course, many times and better.

What has taken me quite by surprise is the way that this culture has wormed its way into surprising places.  My own profession, which at its best is concerned with one of the highest forms of art, is governed by a body that is only interested in a measured standard of practice. It takes annual fees from architects which are then used to pursue the same architects on the basis of complaints from “consumers” however spurious. Inevitably results and convictions are what is important, so the body focuses on the small and sole practioners rather than the big boys who are better able to defend themselves. The results of successful prosecutions are then gleefully posted in press releases in order to put the wind up the lone architect. All of this has a deadening and negative effect on the real work of designing buildings. When you are called up to face a tribunal only one is an architect. The chief executive is not an architect and we wonder how this has all happened.  So from the top down we are not concerned or motivated to produce architecture that inspires thrills and delights but to devote ourselves to ticking boxes and covering our backs and if there is time or energy left over, then and only then can we think about design.  It is all very very depressing.

The obsession with quantifiable results is fearsome and not only does it stifle creativity but it ditches ideals and principles. So we no longer speak of good but better, fairer rather than fair, more just rather than simply just. Crime and justice are managed so it is question of keeping the lid on things, reducing figures is what matters and seldom is there time to consider what actually might be the cause of it all.  Drugs policy is about reducing harm not about what the problem really is. A health and safety policy is successful if it can bring down accident figures. I heard a health and safety officer declare that his aim was to reduce fatalities on building sites by a significant degree. “There are still too many needless deaths” he said.  The aim to avoid any death wasn’t itself seen as an aim. Economic policy is about management, so that David Cameron advice, to us all, some time back,  “to pay off your credit card loans” – the good common sense advice that my granny would have taught me, was stifled before it was actually said. It was important that people pursued debt to keep the high streets turning over and the so the economy is managed.  The same influence is found in politics where party managers and spin doctors ditch idealism and visions in the drive towards a safe harmonious superficial unity, so that, in the end, the parties resemble each other.   It was something that saddened Tony Benn.

What is really astonishing is the way that this culture has wormed its way into the one institution, the one body which should not be following the rest but be a shining light in the darkness and confusion, which should be a haven for the oppressed, the lonely the hurt, which should be speaking courageously with a prophetic voice to the nations, the one body which should not be managed – the Church of Jesus Christ.  And yet that seems to be what is happening.  Congregations become consumers of religion and pastors service providers with job descriptions.  Stipends that historic term that beautifully defines the way a minister is to be supported becomes salaries and the church simply becomes just another modernist machine with stated aims and objectives, standards and values with just as much box ticking and watching the back as in any other field. How did this happen?

A medic friend suggested to me that it was like this: The benefits that were brought to society by Christianity who pioneered them, such as in health, education and welfare, in institutions which were subsequently handed over to the civil authority, lost their Christian base, their grounding reason for being and the only thing to fill that vacuum was a pursuit of a humanist atheistic mechanistic agenda with measureable goals. It is a scary analysis. It is scarier still if the church itself is in danger of being consumed by the same Managementarianism.

Crawford Mackenzie

Political Will

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tollcross

I have never been political. I have never joined a party, made a donation or been on a march. My political experience has been limited to a venture in a local action group agitating for an environmental improvement in a bleak district in the east end of Glasgow more than 40 years ago. I joined the group, took on a committee role, initiated public meetings, but after serial infighting, walkouts and continual constitutional crises, I realised that it wasn’t for me. So, politics has always been little more than a spectator sport and generally a pretty dull one at that. I never got around to cheering the home team or shouting at the opposition. It is not that I was, or am, indifferent to the issues it is just that I could never connect with the mechanism or saw that particular route as being a realistic way of effecting change or making a difference.  Deep down I always felt that real power and real influence lay somewhere else. The forces to change things were not with politicians.

It was not that I despised politicians. Rather, I  held them in high regard. My sympathies were more likely to be with the government in power at any given time, because I recognised they were effectively public servants and as such, deserved some measure of respect.  It was not a position I ever envied and the job seemed an almost impossible one. I hated when people so easily rubbished, castigated and abused these civil servants.  They could be called names and insulted like no other group. I remember the abuse heaped upon Harold Wilson and upon Ted Heath in their respective terms and I felt the abuse that Margaret Thatcher suffered was sometimes nothing short of shameful. In many cases, I felt the ire was directed against her especially because she was a woman.  The fact that people held parties, sung “the witches dead” and danced on her grave,  long after she had relinquished power and had any influence, showed how low it had all become. I was astonished, too, how quickly Tony Blair took on her mantle, and became the villain almost overnight. The people who cheered him in, cursed him out in a very short time. I am almost certain that, had Alex Salmond won independence for Scotland and stayed to be the country’s leader, it would not be long before he too would have suffered the same fate. Knocking the person in power is the easiest game in the book, and we keep playing it.

So it is inevitable that I am pretty sceptical about the new body politic, the new grass root engagement, the rainbow coalition, the enthusiasm for on-line activism and the involvement of the young.  I am sure it is a good thing, maybe good will come of it, I hope so, but I have this sneaky feeling that in the long run it won’t actually make much difference. I hope I am wrong. I also wonder how long this extraordinary energy and mobilisation will last when it comes to the hard graft of working things out in practice and the nitty gritty of concessions and compromises. You only have to take a look at the diverse and contradictory interests represented by the 45 to see the mountains of concession and compromises that will be needed, to get even the most basic of changes through. Even Bevin had to make deals with the BMA to bring the NHS to birth. He had to “stuff their mouths with gold” to bring them on board. All of that takes skill and patience, determination, persistence and hard work and I am not sure if the wave of optimism will carry it through. Again I hope I am wrong.

Now, I know that making any sceptical noise or expressing any doubt or for a moment challenging  the credibility of the cause will be seen as outright disloyalty if not heresy and treason but the thing is, time alone will tell.  Time will tell if, what we have witnessed is the birth of a new body politic, when nothing will be the same again and great changes will be made that will affect the lives of our all our citizens and be a catalyst for similar changes throughout the world or, whether, it will simply be a riotous explosion of optimism that will fizzle out just as quickly as it has begun.

Crawford Mackenzie

SADNESS, ANGER AND SHAME

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lost

The desperate plight of the people on the Sinjar mountains, as they await their fate, remind us again, if we ever need reminding, that we still have no idea what we can do to save and rescue the vulnerable peoples of the world who find themselves at the mercy of ruthless savages;  bloodthirsty bullies  who shamelessly and brutally pursue their defenceless victims , forcing them from their homes and off their land and brutally murdering their men women and children, in the most gruesome ways, in an insatiable genocidal fury.   We just don’t know what to do. We have no clear idea how to respond. We are caught without a coherent plan. Our hand to mouth efforts are limited to a few attempts to knock out some guns and drop some food parcels from the sky.  All we can do is impotently watch as the homes are blown to pieces, the children slaughtered and the families starve on the mountainside.  We have lost the will to intervene and the enemy knows it.  It makes me so sad, makes me so angry and so terribly ashamed.  If I met one of Yazidis now, and they looked me in the eye, what would I say? “I am sorry, but we didn’t want to get involved. It’s not our struggle. We have made so many messes before, we feel it’s better to stay home. we will send some tents..”  It is almost certain, if you can read anything into world affairs and understand anything of history, that when our parliament decided not to get involved in Syria, the signal was given. Every scheming warlord knew then that this was the time to advance. It wasn’t just that the western powers were looking the other way, but they had washed their hands and effectively thrown in the towel.

It all comes, I believe from a single fatal failure to understand the human condition and the reality of evil. It is based on the hopeless delusion that evil somehow will ultimately capitulate when faced with good.

But what can I, as one single person, do? I know what I would like to do. I would like to sign up tomorrow and get on a plane and be out there on the ground and do everything and anything I could to save these people. I would take up arms, if necessary, to do it. 20 years ago I wanted to do the same for the people in Sarajevo but they wouldn’t accept 45 year old recruits then and they won’t accept a 65yr old one now. That is pure fantasy. But, yes, I do know what I can do. I can make representations and petitions to the one who holds all the power and the ultimate ruler of the earth. I can cry to him for mercy for these people. I can call on him in Jesus name and I will do that, today and, with other Christians together, tomorrow.

Crawford Mackenzie

Unclear Nuclear

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nuclear

I have never been on an anti-nuclear march. I have never been on a protest march of any kind, for that matter, and expect I never will. Not that the issues don’t concern me. They do. But I have never felt, for me, joining a protest march or sit-in, was either a relevant or effective way of making a point and of influencing opinions and decisions. The issue of Nuclear Weapons, a big thing in many people’s mind with the possibility of an independent Scotland, presents a particularly vexing dilemma

You don’t need to have much imagination to grasp the unspeakable horror that would be unleashed in the event of a nuclear conflict. I have read the books and watched films. One of my closest friends comes from Nagasaki. I have a very vivid imagination and these images and records have been indelibly printed in my mind so that they won’t go away.  Because of the scale, the might, the inevitable indiscriminate nature of the beast, no cause could ever be important enough to justify their use. And if you have no intention of using them how can you ever justify having them?  That the other side have similar weapons is, for me, no argument either. I would accept facing a major nuclear assault on my own nation, my own people, my own family, with all the horror that that would entail and still refuse to respond in kind. But then, nothing is ever that simple. Or is it?

When you look at the issue dispassionately, (if you can) a curios but relevant fact comes into play. While millions of people (2-3 million) have been killed in wars since 1945 with bombs, missiles, rockets, shells, kalashnikovs and machetes not one single person has died as a result of a nuclear weapon being used in anger. This is an astonishing statistic and despite current East/West jumpiness and the possibility of a terrorist group laying hands on the goods there is nothing to suggest that these weapons are ever likely to be used. Many would even suggest that the presence of these weapons has, in fact, kept us from all-out war over this period.  If that is so, and it is a big if, then the argument shifts from morality to money. Maintaining a nuclear arsenal, or being covered by a nuclear umbrella, when there is never the intention of using either, does seem quite insane.  It can only be regarded as a foolish and obscene waste of money, time and expertise, resources that would much better be employed in more worthy causes.

But to the dismay, no doubt, of many of my friends and family, I am still not convinced that the campaign for nuclear disarmament is a necessary element in the pursuit of world peace. At the end of the day, a nuclear missile is an inanimate object and of itself has no moral character. It is certainly a weapon and the vilest kind. (Although I expect evil minds can and will produce even worse). The person behind the weapon is, on the other hand, a moral being, capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. In a way it doesn’t matter if they are pushing a button, or firing a shell, dropping a bomb or wielding a machete, the end result is the same. The difference is only in method and scale.

So the campaign that I want to be involved and committed to is for the changing of hearts and the resistance of evil. This is essentially a work of God and of His Holy Spirit but I believe that Jesus has called his followers to be part of and instruments of, that work. This, for me, is the most relevant and most effective way of engaging in this struggle.  The struggle: the campaign, the fight and the battle, which is not against people, or governments, or political parties or societies, or nations, but against the spiritual powers of darkness.

Crawford Mackenzie