Progress

[Sassie'sDad]

Sorry everyone, not being the wallflower, just posted this when I received news that a close friend has died. It has knocked me off my feet! Now I have a Humanist funeral to attend - slap in the middle of half-term!

Actually, I think this was deliberately framed to be provocative. After all the Chapel is scheduled to be replaced in the second phase of re-development.

Mike touches on the fundamental importance. I recently visited the chapels of Rugby. As a humanist myself, I was acutely challenged to take a balanced view of their relevance in contemporary England. I was filled with duel emotions. On the one hand, awe inspired by Butterworth's architecture; on the other, intimidated by the High Gothic Anglicanism which sent memory reeling back to primary school days - where daily attendance (like Rugby) was a grim necessity, levened only by boyish impiety. I was moved most by the intimacy of the memorial chapel: most of all by the huge tome comprising all those Rugbians who lost their lives in the two World Wars!

Parents have just been asked specifically (in a detailed survey occasioned by a revamped website) to say if they agree with the ethos of a daily act of worship/spiritual meeting. Must confess my initial reaction was to feel it is a bit of a hangover from a former era (that of Frederic Temple*) but, on reflection, there is more to each of us than the worldly. And there is scope for expressing secular, even anti-faith sentiments in the Philosophy Society debates.

Finally, I come out firmly on the side of dealing with the here-and-now and seeking to advance our grasp of matters scientific. Educational elitism is not a dirty word in my book. I want to see Rugby help found a new State school: not give more Arnold Scholarships or Future Hope in Kolkata. The divide between Indy and State is less acute than in former times but the difference is still huge. It is fueling envy, mistrust and even hate!

I am reading "Empire" by J Paxman (High Priest of Cynicism) where he indirectly criticizes Rugby for giving the Empire-ists Anglicanism 'as a proof of their superiority' and emphasis on sport as 'codified to keep its young men fit and occupied and somehow to pas on to the colonized , ... some of the imperial values.'

[Waiting_For_Godot]

I find Anglican services mind-numbingly boring and I have to sit through too many as my son is a chorister, however I like the idea of boys in particular having to sit through a 30 minute service each day. In a rush world it's the only time they can chill out, reflect and come up with new ideas. Occasionally the priest may something that catches their attention but on the whole being "still" for a short time and clearing the mind is beneficial. If one is going to send their child to a top inde because of it's traditional values then one has to put up with all of them!

[Yummiemummie]

I am with you Waiting for Godot.

If only planning laws were so free in leafy Bucks. I'd love to pull down our house and start again!