WWII and eating jackets

Can I come up with weirder titles for my blog posts? Perhaps.

I think I've mentioned this before, but there are so many theories floating around about what exactly happened in England to land it in this current state of spiritual vapidness (is that a word? It sounds good anyways...). In other words, everyone wants to know what (or whom) we should point our fingers at. I've been overwhelmed in the past at the amount of theories, but one recently has struck me and I haven't been able to get it out of my head.

Ever since I arrived in England, I've been surprised at how many scars are still left behind by World War II. Damage to old buildings are still apparent, every town has at least one memorial, and they're STILL finding un-exploded bombs in some areas of England! I knew that WWII was a big deal in England, not because I learned about it in school (my history classes never went past WWI), but rather because I remember being sad for the broken family in one of my favorite Hailey Mills films (the WWI period piece, "Back Home" - just one of many Hailey Mills classics! Seriously..."Pollyanna" changed my life). So what does a world war have to do with the demise of an entire country's spirituality? Well, parts of the answer are too obvious for me to even type. Another aspect that I found somewhat less obvious (or maybe I'm just slow) is lost leadership. When WWII broke out on English soil, the church leaders wanted to set a good example, and as such, became many of the first to the front lines. Can you imagine an entire generation of church leaders wiped out by a MASSIVE war? I refuse to point fingers of blame in one direction, but I can't imagine it would be easy for any single church (much less an entire country worth of churches) to bounce back from that. I guess not all scars of war are as visible as a monument. Come to think of it, I wonder if people would notice if I built a monument in remembrance of the church.

This theory has now got me thinking a lot lately about the importance of leadership. I'm finding myself in an interesting stage of life where I'm watching many of the friends I graduated from Bible college with now becoming the new generation of church leadership. How bizarre is that! It just boggles my mind. I recently visited the Hillsong Church in London (what an experience!) and heard a sermon there on leadership. The precher compared it to a baton race, and that each generation is responsible for not only taking on the baton of leadership and running faithfully, but also for learning how best to perform the baton exchange when it's the next runner's turn. It's so true that races are won or lost in the exchange zone! It's such a quick process, but it makes all the difference how the baton is handed from runner to runner. I've started to pray even more fervently for my friends taking up roles of leadership, as well as for the current leadership that can train my friends and build them into incredible men and women ready to bear the baton for a season.

On a lighter note, I've been listening to BBC Radio 1 while writing this, and a news bulletin just came on saying that a woman recently had twins and tried to have them named "Fish" and "Chips," and was actually denied that naming right. Maybe I should be praying for these kids as well...haha! At least she didn't want them to be called "Bangers" and "Mash."

Speaking of food, I've had a request for me to write a bit about my English food experience! I absolutely LOVE English food. Most of the classic English dishes are very homey, comfort-ish foods, which I love. Plus I've always been a huge fan of cheese, and it turns out that each region of England has at least one type of its own cheese...heaven! So far, I love Derby (pronounced "Darby") and Red Leicester (pronounced "Lester") cheeses. Traditional English breakfasts are a fave (eggs, beans, mushrooms, tomato, sausage...), also pancakes (more like what we think of as crepes), Scotch Eggs (boiled egg wrapped in sausage and breading, then fried), Damson Jam (it's a type of plum), carrot & corriander soup, sandwiches with cucumber, anything with Nutella, Sunday roasts with Yorkshire pudding (!!!) and of course the classics like meat pies, fish 'n chips, kebabs...gosh, this is making me hungry. I'd have to say that the two types of food that I eat the most in England is Indian food (somehow England thinks it originated Indian food...but who cares, it's good! Rogan Josh is my choice of curry) and Jacket Potatoes. Jacket Potatoes are basically baked potatoes with whatever topping (the most popular being beans, tuna, sweetcorn, curry, pickle, pineapple...yeah, weird I know). I love visiting our local JPM ("Jacket Potato Man") to order a jacket with cheese, tuna, and sweetcorn. Classic English cuisine.

As for things like scones, crumpets and tea...what we think of as "proper English tea rooms" are getting harder to find (they're slowly being replaced by Starbucks and the like), therefore proper scones and crumpets are hard to find! I do love when we find a proper tea place (usually in smaller, cutesy towns like the Cotswolds) and we get to stop for an afternoon cream tea (scones with jam and hand-whipped cream....oooooh yeah). And as for tea, I'm becoming ever more English as I've slowly changed from drinking something that more resembled tea-flavored candy into now a proper cup of "white tea," meaning tea with just milk. Yay me!

I hope you all are having a lovely July! I'm currently dog sitting, so I get to enjoy the English summer weather even more than usual :) But for now, I'm going to go grab myself some lunch and then off for some more adventures in Nottingham.

Cheers!