The story that I’ve chosen is all about a Crooked House in Birmingham. Seems it was subjected to an arson attack and demolished illegally. People are campaigning to have it rebuilt. It seemed slightly interesting because I was expecting it to look a little bit like the house in the “There Was a Crooked Man” nursery rhyme:
There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all liv'd together in a little crooked house.
However, if you check it out, it looks very much like an ordinary pub, but it seemingly sunk a little bit over the years. How does it connect to my life? Well, I did ask myself, why would people bother bringing it back? If they rebuilt it, would it really be the same? Well, perhaps it would be. I mentioned in earlier posts that every day, I visit a different country on YouTube and Google Earth. On Sunday it was Austria. Someone mentioned that St Stephen’s Cathedral
in Vienna was significantly damaged during World War II. Instead of building an entirely new cathedral, as they did in Coventry England, they put it back the way it was. In fact, similar things happened throughout Europe.
Another thing that comes to mind is my hometown of Cork. I was watching a video last night of Cork in 1902. Now, I don’t go back that far 😀, but while I watched it, I recognized a part of Anglesea Street that definitely existed well into the 1980s.
Now, sadly, it’s been replaced by modern offices. But I do cherish the Cork buildings that remain. It’s peculiar that I can watch a 1902 video and feel more at home that I do in the modern world 😀.
My grandfather used to like watching the Good Old Days, which is set in the early 20th Century. It reminded him of his youth. And I suppose, the 70s and early 80s counts as my youth.
So, I like to watch old episodes of Top of the Pops. We didn’t get Top of the Pops in Ireland until 1978, but I’d listen to all the pop songs on Radio Luxembourg 208, and you can get old episodes of that too. It was so hard to tune in. I sometimes tuned into Trans World Radio Monte Carlo, which was a Christian station.
That’s where I heard my first gospel sermons. Speaking of gospel, church is another thing that has changed substantially. Evangelical churches, until the more traditional denominations are inclined to more readily embraced change in music styles. In some big cities, you might get more traditional evangelical churches. A good example is the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. I used to like their theological outlook when I lived in London back in 1983, but I actually attended a charismatic church; Bermondsey Christian Fellowship, which has now become City Hope. And I’m very nostalgic about the songs that we used to sing there. The only time I ever remember pushing for change was my first few years as an evangelical Christian, back in the early 80s. Ever since then, I want everything to stay the same, or even roll back a little. But I can’t justify that from the New Testament. I can’t see any commands or guidance that you need to stick with a certain genre of music or dress style or architecture. I am very pleased to see churches growing, whatever their culture is. So let’s end with an old hymn, from the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and a new hymn that was recorded during the Covid pandemic.
However much our world changes, Jesus does not:
Heb 13:8
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hibernia Gospel 
Dear Hibernia
You have some special qualities, and you influence me greatly.
Your writing has helped me to survive difficult moments of loneliness.
Thank you very much for liking my post, ‘Fraud’. 🙏
LikeLike
Dear Hibernia
It’s always a moment of reckoning when I read your post. This post is a fine example.
Thanks for liking my post Life’s 🙏❤️
LikeLiked by 1 person