What's on TV?

Fellfield is a house in the diocese of Carlisle which was bequeathed to the diocese of Liverpool. It's a great place to retreat away from it all. It's surrounded by fields. There's no phone line, and it has only a passing acquaintance with the Orange network. Until very recently there was no radio or TV either. But this year there is a new DAB radio. Never seen the point of these myself - new technology that's worse than the old. You can't get the Daily Service on it for one thing.

There is also a TV here now. Not sure that's a good thing. But I would have been annoyed to have missed that epic Grand Prix on Sunday.

Last night was depressing. I watched two programmes. First there was Emmerdale, which was mostly about the aftermath of an 'assisted suicide'; then there was Terry Pratchett doing a documentary to promote the idea that it's OK to kill yourself.

The Emmerdale vicar, Ashley, has been in post far longer than I have. Yet because he's a soap vicar, he often does stupid things that are the result of his scriptwriters' ignorance of vicars, the CofE, and/or Christianity in general. Last night he refused to take a funeral service for a chap that had been assisted in his suicide. Because it was wrong. Not sure if he meant the assister's wrong or the dead man's wrong. Neither of these are reasons for not doing a funeral. I've taken a number of services myself for people who have ended their own life. I wish they hadn't, and I pray they weren't helped on their way. But if there's a time when a bereaved family need to know the love of God and the hope that is always present in Christ, then that is it.

It looks like the BBC are on a mission at the moment that won't stop until we have a branch of Dignitas in the UK. The BBC do publicity like no-one else. They get to advertise their own programmes on their own programmes, and between their own programmes. (No-one noticed that their ban on advertising doesn't apply to them.) So the 'right' to decide when to die will be debated over and over. It's a big topic that I'll have to return to. But I've always felt there was something wrong in even knowing when someone will die. If you can narrow it down to the hour, it somehow takes away from the whole of life. Don't know why I think that, but I do. I've been with many people in their last few days, but it does seem that the medical staff can never narrow it down more accurately.
It's wrong for an individual or for a government to decide that a person will die at a certain time, on a certain day. There's something wrong with capital punishment too, but that's another issue.

Location:Fellfield