HISTORIC CITY SITES OPEN THEIR DOORS

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Historic city sites open their doors

A house haunted by a mischievous 10-year-old, a hotel which took 200 years to open and the oldest brick building in the city are opening their doors free.

Between September 6 and 9, heritage sites across the city which are usually closed to the public or charge for admission will be open for all to see.

At De Montfort Hall on September 6 and 8, the public will have the chance to go backstage.

Leicester's oldest surviving brick building, Great Meeting Unitarian Chapel, in East Bond Street, was built over 300 years ago. It will open on September 8 and 9.

On September 7 and 9, members of the public might catch a glimpse of a Georgian child ghost supposedly haunting the medieval Wygston's House.

At the restored Georgian City Rooms hotel [photo above], visitors can see the ballroom decorated with classic paintings.

The grade I-listed building was built in 1792. It was intended to be Leicester's first hotel but lack of money meant it had to be sold before completion.

After various uses, it finally became a hotel in 2006, after being restored by Naresh and Sharon Parmar and their son Kiran.

Kiran, 26, said: "People who come here fall in love with the hotel and its great Georgian character.

"It's not as well-known as other heritage sites in Leicester but it is slowly becoming more popular as more people realise it's here."

Leicester Council of Faiths has organised a peace visit tour where people will have the chance to visit different religious buildings.

Ajay Aggarwal, co-ordinator of the council, said: "The open days will be a great way of bringing people from different backgrounds together.

"I had never been in a synagogue until this year and it was such a wonderful experience I think everyone should try visiting somewhere new."

For opening times, see: leicester.gov.uk/ heritageopendays

Leicester Council of Faiths would normally hold the Peace Visit tour on the Sunday of the Heritage Open Days weekend. This year that Sunday (9 September) would coincide with Our Leicester Day in Leicester Market. Last year, our scheduled Peace Visit clashed with Our Leicester Day. As we were committed to Our Leicester Day and didn't know how many people would be attending that event (including the kind of people that we'd normally draw on to support the Peace Visit) we cancelled our tour of some of the city's places of worship. This year, we're holding the Peace Visit on the Saturday, which avoids the clash and allows us to do both.

THIS WEEK'S VISITORS (1.976)

Regular update on the number of pageviews received from different parts of the world in the week just ending.

1. United States 841
2. United Kingdom 641
3. France 164
4. Russia 105
5. India 97
6. Germany 49
7. Canada 29
8. China 26
9. Chile 12
10. Singapore 12

This week's total: 1,976 (last week: 1,668). These are aggregates of figures from the top ten countries only. Blogger's stats software doesn't show me numbers of pageviews below the tenth-ranking country.

The world map at the top of this post is the graphic that I see on the stats page. The darker the green, the more pageviews from that country. I can see different versions of that map for "now" (i.e. in the last two hours), "today", "this week", "this month" and "all time". They're updated each time I look at them.

POINTER FOR THOSE WHO QUESTION

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Pointer for those who question

Don Tallis, in his letter to Mailbox (August 15), stated that "essentials to life would of course exist without any divine assistance".

This is clearly false, as without God nothing could be created or exist at all.

However, he asks a pertinent question when he wonders why an "all-seeing and benevolent God allows tragic events such as natural disasters or the killing of innocent children".

It is a problem which is the most frequent cause of doubt for those who believe in God but probably regard him as indifferent.

It would be silly to pretend that anyone has a complete answer to this problem. But the Christian Church does have some pointers.

First, the human race is a fallen race and the effects will be felt until the end of time, both in the human person who is, despite his intrinsic goodness, inclined to sin.

Further, human beings have a large degree of free will in choosing good or evil.

Jesus Christ, by his suffering and death on the cross, atoned for the sins of mankind and repaired the rift with God.

Jesus said that anyone who "wants to be my disciple must take up his cross and follow me".

Suffering is intrinsically bad and is to be fought by normal means, yet acceptance of it can lead to great holiness.

It is part of the human condition until the last day; but it does not, and cannot, contradict the truth that God, out of love for the human race, sent his Son to suffer and die on the cross for our redemption.

Yes, God does work in mysterious ways. It is not just a platitude.

Mark W Jacques OP, Quorn

SPECIAL MEAL MARKS END OF RAMADAN

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury (some nine days after the event):

Special meal marks end of Ramadan

Members of different religions in the city gathered for a meal together.

Bishop of Leicester, the Right Reverend Tim Stevens, and assistant city mayor Manjula Sood were among the guests who joined Muslims marking the end of their day of fasting for Ramadan.

The event, at St Philip's Centre [St Philip's Church, in fact], in Evington, Leicester, on Wednesday, August 15, was organised by the Federation of Muslim Organisations in Leicester.

The meal, known as an Iftaar, was attended by guests representing Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and other faiths and non-faith communities.

The federation also organised regular meals for the homeless and hungry during Ramadan.

Federation spokesman Suleman Nagdi, said: "The blessed month of Ramadan is a time for sharing and giving.

"However, there are many Muslims and people of other faiths who are vulnerable and lonely and do not get to enjoy the togetherness of Iftaar. It is our hope that we are able to bring hope and happiness to those who desperately need it."

CREATIVE COFFEE LEICESTER

At Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre for the fortnightly meeting of Creative Coffee. I missed the last one, so it's reassuring to see a good turnout this morning. We appear to have developed a core support of a dozen or so (including, today, all the members of the steering committee) with around the same number of occasional or new attendees.

The presence of "Table Experts" has become well established. I spend a useful quarter of an hour speaking one-to-one with Kelly Fisher, Business Development Executive at Peninsula, who's here to give advice on employment law.

At noon, we have a brief meeting of the steering committee. We discuss updates on the new logo (which I think we finally approve today), the website (including old and surplus domain names, a trail of which have been left behind since the old days when CreativeCoffee Club met in the Graduate Bar at De Montfort University), the blog, use of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and business cards. There's a brief but interesting discussion of how to use information entered into Eventbrite when attendees sign up to create an accessible database - including ramifications related to Data Protections - and the difference between "Creative Professionals" who attend our meetings and everyone else. This last point highlights a creative tension that (in my experience and opinion) energises and fuels Creative Coffee: it has never been (and cannot be, if it wants to retain its distinctive spirit) a meeting place for professionals only. Most of the people who ask me about Creative Coffee don't fall into a technical definition of "creative professional" - nor do most of the people to whom I recommend it. To me, much of its attraction comes from how it provides a regular opportunity for creative people of all sorts to meet and mingle.

PILGRIMAGE FOR PRIEST TO BE MADE A SAINT

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Pilgrimage for priest to be made a saint

Hundreds of Catholics will be making a pilgrimage to an abbey to pray for a former priest to become Britain's first black saint.

Blessed Cyprian Tansi, who was born in Nigeria, was a monk at Mount St Bernard Abbey, near Coalville, for more than a decade.

He arrived in Leicestershire from Nigeria in 1950 to train for the priesthood and remained a monk at Mount St Bernard's for 14 years, until his death in 1964, aged 61.

Due to his devout life as a Cistercian monk, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, in March 1998, for his humility after a miraculous cure for a sick woman who prayed to him in Africa.

At the abbey on Saturday Catholics will be praying and asking God to make him a saint.

TALENT MAY NOT BE GOD GIVEN

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Talent may not be God given

In response to claims made by E Letts that "believers find God really helps" (Mailbox, August 18), I would like to rebuff those claims.

I am sure most people would have seen footage from the Olympic Games recently.

Sure enough, at the end of some of the events, we would have seen some of the winners "thank God" for their win.

But did anyone notice that God chose to neglect every other competitor in the same event?

Surely some of those believed that God would help them, too?

Why, E Letts, are you so sure that talented musicians, poets, painters, writers etc have somehow been given their talent from God?

Could it be that they are just extremely talented people?

Who are you to take their achievements away from them?

I would also ask you to consider how many "non-believers" surround you every day.

A non-believer may have built your home or present a radio show you listen to. Maybe they diagnosed your illnesses or designed your washing machine.

All of these things require talent and knowledge but they may not have had any belief that God would help them.

These people are good at what they do and you should not take that away from them.

Sean Coltman, Leicester

MULTICULTURALISM IS THE PAST NOT FUTURE

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Multiculturalism is the past not future

The Olympics has resulted in multiculturalism again being espoused in some parts of the media.

Multiculturalism is frequently confused with diversity but actually means "many cultures", something which this country had long before mass immigration.

Before then we had working class culture, middle class culture and upper class culture.

We had aspiring middle class culture – "keeping up with the Joneses" – middle class culture and faded genteel middle class culture.

We had grimly decent working class culture, "I have absolutely no intention of ever working" working class culture and "proud to be working class" culture.

We had huntin', shootin', fishin' upper class culture, disturbingly smooth and urbane upper class culture and dissolute, idle upper class culture.

We had an astonishing variety of fixed attitudes, received ideas and preconceived notions.

Practically everybody could define themselves in terms of which little box they occupied and which one you did.

The result was that we spent inordinate and regrettable amounts of time in mutual recrimination, internecine struggles and dialogues of the deaf while the country hurtled downwards faster than a lead balloon.

It was generally agreed that our diverse cultures were divisive, corrosive, a futile waste of time and energy and that we had to change.

Multiculturalism is not the future, it's the past.

Russ Ball, Leicester

NO DOUBTS ABOUT AN HISTORICAL JESUS

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

No doubts about an historical Jesus

It was in the 18th century that theologians in the European universities began analysing the four canonical gospels, partly in order to answer the question, "What did Jesus actually do and say?"

It led to redaction criticism; more simply, a study of the particular editorial intentions of the writers.

This in turn meant categorising the literature into various forms; for instance teachings, healing stories, parables, sayings and so on.

However, the most significant aspect was considered to be the kerygma – a Greek word referring to aspects that proclaimed Jesus as Lord.

In effect this was a sort of basic creed of the early church which is referring to Jesus both as messiah and risen Lord.

Since Mark's gospel was considered to be the first and generally thought to be written some 30 years after Jesus's death, then the period between the two events, known as the early church, had a particular fascination.

It was seen to be a dynamic period in which believers were baptised into the life, death and resurrection of their Lord and then partook of the eucharist, the celebration of the Last Supper.

In all, it was in this community of faith that the gospels were written, large parts coming down initially by way of an oral tradition.

As such it is maintained by scholars that what we have in the gospels is the Jesus of faith of the early community, making it almost impossible to separate this Jesus from the one of history.

However, more significantly regarding recent letters on this issue, I have never read of any serious criticism of the existence of a Jesus in Palestine at the time in question – the Jesus of history – who was teacher, preacher and said by some to be healer, who met death by way of crucifixion.

David Abbott, Stoke Golding

BELIEVERS FIND GOD REALLY HELPS

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Believers find God really helps

In reply to a letter by F O Hipwell (July 31) I would say that maybe the writer is anxious for someone to convince him or her that God is truly real, because he would be happy if they could.

People with faith and who do their best to do God's will find that God really does help them, because He knows just what they need.

I have found this in my own experiences, in little things, but which were vital to me at the time.

I also had an experience in September which concerned some keys that miraculously appeared in my hand.

So you can see that people with true faith in God are a people set apart.

I do not know about rational people but I do think logically and surely there must be more to life than materialism.

Spiritual feeling expressed by musicians, painters and poets, it seems to me, indicates an inner spirituality given by God.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit, (the third person of the blessed Trinity) are memory, understanding and will, we were taught at school, so these must include our own personal consciences.

You must admit there is a good and evil in the world and there is justice and punishment for wrongdoing. Why do people know this and not admit that the sins they commit deserve punishment, or do they consider themselves to be perfect?

God is just but also merciful and always ready to forgive.

To my way of thinking, everything that is made by man requires a brain behind it to design and manufacture the item.

The knowledge gained from our forefathers is used through the centuries and added to, so why would the beginning of the world not require an intelligent force?

The church teaches that God made us to His own image and likeness and man is getting so clever – just think of the space programme, how marvellous is God's creativity in man.

E Letts, Leicester