Wilberforce on the Wasted Life

Check out this blog post, quoting from William Wilberforce's book, A Practical View of Christianity (1797), in which he addressed the defective nature of the Christianity many middle and upper class people in England professed. Wilberforce speaks of people filling up "the void of a listless and languid life" - and the blog author notes "that sounds as if it could have been written about today".

• What is an unwasted life? See the Don't Waste Your Life! website.
• I was reminded of the book Still Bored in a Culture of Entertainment: Learning to Live with Passion and Wonder by Richard Winter
• The Infusion blog series on Wilberforce can be found here.

Knit One, Save One

The Leicester Diocese website alerted me to an appeal from Save the Children UK for knitted hats for babies. They aim is to produce 10 million hats in 2008, which will be sent throughout the world to where they are needed to keep new born babies warm. There is a tag to fill in with each hat which will go to Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street to highlight the appalling death rate among new born babies in many parts of the world. Any baby hat pattern will do or you can get the ‘knit kit’ pattern.

Links round-up

After an unintended blogging break, here are a few links I thought worth noting:

MPs launch Faith in the Future report: a report from a cross-party group of MPs (including local MP Andy Reed) which finds that, despite unprecedented levels of financial security and good health, Britons are no happier today than fifty years ago. Report based on a two-year process of consultation with church leaders and policy experts.

Christian Bookshops — who needs them?: a blog post on the vital role that Christian bookshops have a to play in Christian mission.

Mobile phones more important than wallets: a survey has found that more than one-third of workers would choose their mobile phone over their wallet, keys, laptop or digital music player if they had to leave the house for 24 hours and could take only one item.

Green myths?: article which says that media, individuals and business often focus on the wrong issues rather than putting their efforts towards combating the main contributors to our carbon footprint. Lists environmental activities that "do little more than salve our conscience, making us feel we are doing something good, thus diverting attention from the real problem areas". Ouch!

National Liftshare Day (June 9th)

National liftshare Day aims to raise the profile of carsharing and encourage and enable more people give it a try. Leicestershare.com (the Leicestershare Car Share scheme) has been set up to make it as easy as possible for you to find a match for your journey. It is free to use and has been designed for both drivers and passengers.

Prayers to ease exam stress

Infusion numbers several teachers amongst its ranks, and the Church of England has published a selection of prayers offering reassurance to students and teachers in coping with the current examination period. See also this post on prayers and meditations that were written with education in mind.

The disappearing Doctor Who knitting patterns

I blogged on Dr Who Tardis and Dalek knitting patterns last month and today the Guardian - "Hands off the Doctor Who knitting circle" - has alerted me to the fact that a blogger (Mazzmatazz), who created knitting patterns for Doctor Who-related objects and published them under Creative Commons licenses, has been instructed to remove them from her website by the BBC.

On a mystery-related note, this Saturday's episode features the Agatha Christie storyline - don't forget to check out the book titles in the dialogue!

Something Understood: the potentially subversive nature of walking

On a Sunday morning and/or night I often drift in and out of sleeping and catch parts of Something Understood through the radio headphone under my pillow. The theme for last Sunday's episode was One Foot in Front, in which Mark Tully considered "the potentially subversive nature of walking. While walking may have immense therapeutic benefits, it is also about protest and pilgrimage." You can see the readings and music selected for this episode here or listen again until Sunday.

Job satisfaction

Blogging has taken a bit of a backseat recently, with the heatwave and starting a new job. In connection with the latter, this blog post on job satisfaction was timely and thought-provoking.

Web-enabled walking

Ahead of the Leicestershire Walking Festival in two months time (Saturday 5th July), this is the first in a series on Internet resources for walkers. First up are some free resources from Leicestershire County Council:

• Parish Walks Series: This popular series of leaflets provide written directions and a map; all routes are circular and range in distance from 1 - 9 miles. Leaflets can be downloaded direct from the website or requested by email.
• Walking Through Time - Staunton Harold: download map and route directions for three walks
• Walks to Nature - Charnwood: download map and route directions for the Outwoods

[Above right: logo from Leicestershire County Council's Parish Walks series]

Make mine Fairtrade

A lovely cup of tea just got even better. Cafédirect are offering tea lovers 50p off any pack of 80 tea bags from the Teadirect range. Just pick up a pack of Teadirect, Teadirect Decaffeinated, or new Teadirect Gold before 30 June 2008, then hurry back home to put the kettle on. So, if you keep meaning to switch to Fairtrade tea, now is the time to do so!

Blogging Birthday!

The Infusion blog was launched a year ago on Friday 4 May 2008, and this is post number 258. These are the topics that crop up most frequently:

• faith (50)
• environment (26)
• food (25)
• Christmas Countdown (24)
• Internet (23)
• tea (21)
• church (19)
• walks (19)
• Fairtrade (17)
• Lent (17)
• books (17)
• coffee (14)