Over the Moon!

Thursday was Felicity's day, though I was most certainly over the moon as well!

Felicity found herself chauffeuring Lech Walensa around the site on the back of a golf buggy! It was Polish national day on the Jamboree site and the Polish contingent were hosting special events throughout the day. Their special visitor was none other than their former President. How wonderful to meet up with one of the key figures in those heady days of the 1980's when such major changes were happening throughout Eastern Europe, not least in Poland!

Lots of people were taking photos, of course ... so Felicity will figure large on many of them! But she could hardly whip the camera out and take her own!! So if anyonereading this has a photo of Lech Walensa riding round the site in a buggy email it to us!! And let us know via a comment!

The day finished in the company of Kevin Brewer, Gloucestershire's press officer, who has joined the Media centre for the next few days. We were having dessert and a coffee in the Hungarian pavilion with Hungarian dancing going on beside our table. A wonderful way to finish the evening. So, Kevin, if you do read this ... let me know if you have a photo of Lech Walensa in Felicity's company, or should I say a photo of Felicity in Lech Walensa's company!!!

My day got off to an interesting start over Breakfast talking to another of the Swiss Contingent. Our conversation once again turned to the 'yellow pages' in our Jamboree leaders handbook. They are the pages that contain the children's safe from harm guidelines of the Scout Association. They have caused quite some controversy, not least from many of our European leaders. They recognise much of the advice as the common sense and good practice they follow in their own work with children. But some elements of our guidelines surprise them. At the heart of many cultures here on the Jamboree site is a hug of welcome. Hugging in a 'proper' kind of way to show affection is very much a part of many cultures. And yet, we have draconian instructions forbidding the use of touch in an adult's relationship with a child, and absolutely forbidding a hug.

As the conversation developed I wondered whether someone would do a study of children growing up in the British society that has imposed these regulations. Maybe twenty years on from their introduction some interesting things might emerge. Will British children be 'better' than their European counterparts? By the time they reach adolescence will they be less vulnerable to abuse? Will they be more 'well-adjusted'? Will indicators of 'well-being' for adolescence show that they are much better off in Britain. Statistics already available suggest not.

The most vulnerable of chidlren are those who have very difficult home backgrounds. Maybe they are subject to violence in situations where there are few if any hugs. When they go to school and are upset the adults in charge of them are forbidden by law to give them any hugs. By the time they reach adolescence they will not have experienced a hug from an adult. They will not, therefore, know how to give a hug to an adult. Anhd they will have missed the kind of emotional closeness a hug can express that is taken for granted in so many other cultures.

Interesting food for thought ... and all over breakfast!

I went then to help out on the Astronomy tent in the Elements Zone. After spending the morning showing my pictures of the moon and of the solar flares I had taken the previous day as clouds prevented any really interesting observations, I walked over to the moon tent. What a wonderful experience.

Anita, who had studied space sciences at Leicester University, home to the national Space Centre which sadly I had to confess I had not visited, had brought with her some remarkable specimens of meteorites gathered from all over the world. Only the previous day I had been talking to a new friend from Mexico about the massive meteorite that landed in the ocean off the Mexican coast supposedly wiping out the Dinosaurs. Now I found myself holding a meteorite that had landed their much more recently.

I wait with bated breath for the Persieds Meteor shower leading up to 12th August - it promises to be extra special this year as it will be a New Moon.

Not only did she have Meteorites, but she also had some moon rock and moon dust. It was absolutely wonderful to look closely and hold for a moment some fragments of room rock, albeit encased in a plastic container. Even more wonderful to look at moon dust through a microscope with a polarising filter. Turn the filter and the wonderful colours of the crystals changed as in a Kaleidoscope. One of the most beautiful things I had seen. Gathered from the Apollo 15,16, 17 sites, they were quite varied. Looking through another microscope the dust was made up of simple brown and black fragments.

Walking back across the field to the Astronomy tent I enjoyed lunch with Anita. The converstaion turned to matters religious. Is it possible for an atheist to belong to scouting? she asked. No, I replied. At the heart of Scouting is a promise that includes doing one's duty to God. That's why other youth movements had been formed in response to the Scouting Association. I couldn't think of the name at the time, but I was thinking of the WoodCraft folk, who in Cheltenham attract parents who want their chidlren to attend an atheistic youth organisation.

The conversation turned to questions of science and religion. How is it possible for all the religions to be at such variance with each other that they resort to hatred and war? My response was to say how I felt there was so much of value in, for me, the Christian faith that I wanted to be within that faith, sharing my belief in God, but working towards an emphasis within the Christian faith on reconciliaiton, peace and love that seems to me to at the heart of all that Jesus Christ stands for.

I drew on John Polkinghorne's account of the reasonableness of holding a faith in God for a scientist.

THe universe can be described in the language of mathematics. There are 'just six equations' that explain the universe, as in Martin Rees's book.

The human mind is the mind that has discovered and then constructed the language of mathematics.

It is as if the human mind bears the imprint of the Creator of the universe, or as Genesis puts it humankind is made in the image of God.

No wonder that the human mind is capable of understanding the universe.

It is not an argument for the existence of God, but it is an account of how it is reasonable to believe in God.

We explored the way in which Science and religion address different questions.

Anita suggested it was difficult to believe in God, when at the heart of the scientific method is the readiness to change one's views if one is proved wrong. New discoveries cause what Kuhn would describe as a paradigm shift to happen.

IN response I drew on Hans Kung's use of Kuhn's philosophical approach suggesting that a person of faith has to recognise that in the understanding of God there are paradigm shifts too.

The reality described by science remains the same. Discoveries result in the same reality being seen in different ways. The splitting of the atom and Einstein's theory of relativity did not change the reality of the univers, it resulted in a different way of undersatnding the universe.

So too in religion. The reality that is God remains the same. Events happen, however that result in a paradigm shift of understanding. One such event for us within the Christian fiath, is the coming of Jesus Christ. God remains the same reality. The coming of Jesus results in a paradigm shift of our understanding of God.

Our conversation could have gone on. But my duties called.

So it was I made my way back to the Ocean hub for another afternoon and evening as a Listening Ear.

My work done it was up to the Plaza for a first course in the Greek Restaurant, an ice cream from Gloucester's very own Walls, and a crepe in a Hungarian restaurant.

And so to bed!

Quite some day!

Every blessing,

Richard