Amazing local singer song writer ! Ben Parcell - "Stay in Touch" By the Sea Music

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Amazing local singer song writer Ben Parcell's new music vid check it out!

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My dissertation Wordie, Can you guess the theme?

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My dissertation wordie, can you guess the theme?

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Time management and parenting.....

"Parents in the UK want to be good parents, but aren't sure how," the research suggests. "They feel they don't have the time, and often try to compensate for this by buying their children gadgets and clothes."

Last night we discussed the recent findings by Unicef stating that children in the UK are the unhappiest in Europe because parents today don’t have the time to spend with their kids so compensate by buying gifts and giving in to materialism to make up for not being there...

Here are the discussion questions we talked about...
1. We all lead busy pressured lives, what are the biggest priorities in your life?
2. Did your parents have enough time for you? Is this a modern problem?
3. Why do you think God is called Father? What does this say about him to you?
4. On the 7th day God rested, do we make time in our lives to rest? Do you work from a place of rest or rest from a place of work?

As a father of 3 young children i can see where this report is coming from.  Both Bex and I work full time and so the time that we do have to spend with the kids is usually time we need to unwind and de-stress from work and sometimes that is hard to do when the kids are demanding.  I guess as well that if you have the resources to be able to spend on your kids it is an easy option to show affection.  Not that it is right but i can understand why this might be the case.

But i think the issue is not necessarily about bad parenting more more about the fact that our society is now geared up to the fact that parents are not left with much choice..... The economics that we live by today mean that in most cases both parents have to go out to work in order for the family to survive.  Which in turn brings more pressure on the family unit and then leads to an unhappy balance within the family unit.

As we talked last night we discussed the concept as God being a Father, for most of us this was a positive way of thinking about God, one or two said that they had never really thought about the fact, where as others it was a great way to understand God.

As men our fathers play a huge role in who we are, (good or bad) Personally my father was never around, but i have been very blessed to have a man who brought me up as his own and of whom i am proud to call dad.  In many ways my understanding of God as my father is someone who is totally dependable and who always has time for me no matter what i have done....! Which in this day and age seem to be qualities that can be hard to find.....

What are your thoughts about hectic lifestyles, parenting and knowing God as a father?

Ben

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Untitled

Last night our discussion centred around the 10 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in America which have become known as 9/11.  Our questions aimed to raise issues such as why should we remember? And should remembrance have ties to faith and religion?

Here is the list of questions we started with...
1. Where were you when you heard the story break? Is there any point in remembering 9/11?
2. Are remembrance services worthwhile / a good thing ? Should they be conducted as a “religious”  ceremony?
3. How long should we go on remembering? Shouldn’t we just forgive and forget / move on.
4. Has the retaliative violence left the world a safer or more unstable place? What can we learn about this for our own lives?
5. Can acts like this be forgiven?

After talking about these questions we got on to the statistics about the loss of life in Afghanistan and Iraq since (Iraq war: 118,000 dead Afghanistan war : 37,455 dead
plus 38,000 Taliban dead or captured.)

Personally  I cannot help feeling that the retaliation of the USA has caused more harm than good.  I believe in the short term that what they have done has made America safer, but in the long term it has unstabilised many nations for many, many years to come.

So is it ever right to retaliate with violence?  I don’t think so, but that is not to say that something should not be done. I believe that there are times when action must be taken, but that action can be one that bring peace and reconciliation.  That action also means that the person who has been wronged needs to have imagination and creativity in sometimes very hostile situations.

I have been reading about the work of a guy named Shane Claiborne (@ShaneClaiborne) he set up a conference called ‘Jesus, bombs and Ice Cream’ you can read more about it here.

The idea came from a guy who was working in  a hospital in Iraq during the allied bombing campaign ‘shock and awe’.  As the casualties where being brought in one doctor cried out loud, “When did our world loose it’s imagination!” 

Imagination costs.... It is something that we all have, that we all need, and to which we all must pursue if we are ever going to see peace.... and when i say peace i mean in our own lives and relationships as well as international connections.

Grace and Peace

Ben

12.9.11

 

 

 

 

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9/11 - 10 years on and what have we achieved?....

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